The "problem" with the current Thargoid attack gameplay
- Thread starter NeilF
- Start date
Why it is so that you always use word 'we', when you are speaking just for yourself?
I rescue people from burning stations. Guess what, I feel threat. I feel station creaking, interior being hot as hell and I need two heat sinks before I get to and from platform. Blasts throw my ship around. It is nerve wrecking not to run into someone leaving or coming into station.
So if it is not threat for you, if you want to feel real threat, I don't know, go outside during night?
Or people just realize it is just a game and not second life and move on. And realize that so called player created content is same old boring content too.
Yep. Do you have a point to make about it?
Mine was that considering there is ZERO News/Info about this latest round of attacks anywhere in the game other than on the forums, it seemed daft to me to move the two most active ones out of the most popular section and over to a section where only a minuscule number of players will see it. Not to mention the fact that anyone subscribed to a section called "ALIENS" is more than likely going to know about it anyway.
Sorry this point was totally lost on you.
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SSDD (urban dictionary) - they're trying to put furniture in what is still a shell of a house, instead of foundation, walls, floor, roof, whatever (never built a house), they've done; foundation, floor and are trying to put a picture where the fireplace is going to be. Can't add extra gameplay if the mechanics aren't there.
Never designed a game either but I do know any endeavour needs a stable base to build up from (Monty Python building a castle on a swamp).
Never designed a game either but I do know any endeavour needs a stable base to build up from (Monty Python building a castle on a swamp).
Contrary to what we continually see in ED, there are ways to economize on development time/content in creative ways as to not make it look so blatantly obvious that you are reusing the same assets over and over again.
Heck! They can't even randomize the Thargoid Green Goo patterns on stations and capital ships to not be obvious copy and pastes of the pattern all around the one you are looking at!
Its a real head scratcher to say the least. I could not see myself or anyone I know who is involved in the creative arts being okay with calling something like that acceptable. Yet these guys do that kind of stuff constantly.
Really? Please do tell how you have designed such systems in actual commercial games
Because they aren't green goo patterns, they are actual burns on surface of station and 3D model accompanies that. Share to show techniques of 3D model changes and damage states on the fly, without creating tons of handcrafted assets? I am all ears.
I think you just talking here and zero understanding how it is done.
"We must evacuate damaged stations," I hear some CMDRs telling us. "We must repair damaged stations," I hear some CMDRs telling us. The problem is, what's unfolding risks feeling like a set of switches being flicked each Thursday morning, so IMHO it's not surprising many CMDRs simply risk responding with, Why?
Let's consider for a second where we are supposedly in the ED universe. Thargoids are now attacking stations. So what should we be doing logically?:-
Instead, what we currently have is:-
- Possibly sending out scouting parties trying to spot the enemy. Seeing if they're building up in numbers etc etc. ie: Tactical information where they might be heading to next?
- If possible, try and hit them first before they can reach a station? ie: A first strike to stop an attack or reduce their numbers?
- Supply stations at threat to potentially build up defense related assets, to help them defend against any Thargoids arriving there?
- Defend stations, so if Thargoids do turn up, there's forces there or at least nearby to help reduce the damage done?
- And during evacuations/repairs, maybe defense could still be an issue, at least early on there would be the threat of Thargoid ships still potentially turning up again?
- Thursday morning server tick - Station(s) damaged.
- "Safe" evacuation gameplay.
- "Safe" repair gameplay.
So all we see is a distant shadow of what's supposedly taking place in these terrible attacks...
And we're suppose to feel engaged how? We're suppose to feel motivated why? We're suppose to buy into this threat because?
Anyway, this is my take at least on the current position... Looking at it at the moment, personally I don't feel much motivation to get involved because, (a) there's not much gameplay involved that attracts me (this is a game not a job), and (b) I don't feel I/we can make any/much of a difference.
ps: And a minor comment along these lines - Maybe if a station is damaged by a Thargoid attack, any CMDRs who left their ships onboard should face a rebuy screen next logon
In the original game, once a player became 'elite', there was an opportunity to 'jump', to another galaxy/universe, maybe even one where the Thargs live, more research into Tharg wakes, so we can follow them is required, then I will be a happy chappy
I will not be repairing stations or doing anything else that is yet more "carry A to B becoz one paragraph back story".
It's boring. Is this game ever going to evolve? At least leave a few goids around trying to chop us up to make it challenging.
It's boring. Is this game ever going to evolve? At least leave a few goids around trying to chop us up to make it challenging.
Thx for replying. This should help tell you that the Galnet feature isn't working as intended. Hopefully Beyond will help address this.
OP: Well stated. The Thargoid gameplay is, well, interesting I guess. It's certainly not engaging. Not sure if we are seeing a limitation of the game, the Cobra engine or what. But 2.4 has been a letdown.
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Hi there,
If I may; how should Beyond address this in your opinion?
I'd personally honestly like to know, because I keep seeing people declaring that nothing in game ever says anything about story (To perhaps draw a slight straw man, "Hey FDev, if I weren't on Reddit or watching Obsidian Ant's awesome series of videos, I would never know this had happened") but it's often detailed in GalNet (I will concede sometimes not until shortly after the event, but normally not long).
This obviously points to an issue whereby vast numbers of people aren't reading GalNet for whatever reason (which perhaps will be improved by already planned Beyond features such as GalNet Audio).
I have had very little to do with GalNet myself, past hooking up API calls which separated the Local and Global news bulletins into their respective UI screens way back in 1.3 and can offer no etas or guarantees of any of what you ask for actually being implemented, but I'd be interested to know.
Thanks,
Dom
I think GalNet itself is fine. People are just not very found with taking their time to read. Some will use GalNet Audio for sure, because it allows to listen to it like radio. And that's a good thing.
Others however needs more direct approach - environmental signaling.
Let's take Thargoids attacks - make NPCs chat about events. 'OMG you heard that? They got Obsidian Orbital this time! Who's gonna save us?'. You got the gist. And that's how everything should be treated like.
We need hints, gossips, ideas...they need to be just casually threw in. Like ideas how to gain profit, where to look for resources, for goods, etc. There have been excellent NPC scripts, like ships amassing for attack at the edge of system, etc. Having interesting texts to say.
GalNet is fine. It is just one source of information. Game needs more informal ones, which you see during your travels.
Long story short - when refactor/redesign NPC dialog texts next time, hook this up with event/hint system/information bits commanders would enjoy to get.
edit: also GalNet would benefit from interface redesign, grouping breaking stories in one segment and regular business news (aka PP, aka station status) on another, so they don't fight for attention and prorities.
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Yeah, I can agree with this description, it's pretty accurate. And I also feel similarly to NeilF too somewhat. However, I kinda agree with Eagleboy too in that I've actually been enjoying 2.4 for the most part. Sure it's not perfect and yeah it's not as good as I'd wished for, and I wish they'd do the following:
- Fix the T10's immense landing issues on planet surfaces.
- Include mining more in 2.4 stuff, add mined metals to the station repair lists and such.
- Get exploration more involved in the 2.4 narrative.
- Implement a smaller weaker Thargoid ship type for the solo and combat challenged players to fight with.
That said though, I've had a lot of fun ferrying refugees out of burning stations, and I've loved salvaging stuff out of the fires, and yeah I like carrying supplies to rebuild to the wounded stations and how we can track the progress. I can't kill a single Thargoid because the content is just tuned far too out of my league, but I've liked the non combat stuff in 2.4. So I've kinda liked 2.4 despite it's shortcomings and misses, even though I do also agree with the naysayers in here too.
My favorite part of 2.4 though is how it got us closer to the Q1 update and some planet loving, so maybe I'm just happy to be on the stepping stone to something I very dearly want, lol.
Hopefully, GalNet would come up with a headline that you have to opt out of ...... "Stations X .... Y .... Z are under attack ! We need commanders to assist with evacuation immediately ...."
We've already had a spectacular video like that, but it needs to come up front and center as a "We interrupt Commanders' activities with this Breaking News ..... The following stations are reported under attack" and ... hopefully in the near future ....
"We need Commanders to counter the attack taking place at this moment at ....... "
But I fear this may all come too late for what is planned with the Thargoids [downcast]
Thx for the quick reply - must be late there since I'm in the US!
How should Beyond address this? Good question. As the developer I hope you and your team can come up with a good solution. What I can tell you as a customer is that the Galnet mechanism of informing players on what's happening in the game doesn't work. Time and time again I've had to learn about things in forums or from other sources outside the game. But the same is true for trading or other gameplay elements. So the entire "how do players know about stuff" thing should be looked at and improved.
Edit: IMO Galnet audio won't fix the problem. Another solution is required.
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Considering Thargoids are here to stay I wouldn't be so pessimistic about that though.
Hey Dom, as a long time player (bought ED a week before release back in 2014) I can tell you what the problem probably is... for the longest time, galnet consisted of reams of BGS stats and articles that may have been written by hand, but read like they were generated algorithmically like on other games - basically filler fluff that's there just for flavor. So more experienced players now ignore it and don't tell newer players about it, and so people these days either don't know about it or don't care about it. I think it would be a good use of resources to tell people about galnet, maybe mention it a few times during livestreams, or make it more prominent in-game (eg if galnet audio gets cut, at least have a lesser feature where if you haven't read the latest news, the ship's voice says "incoming galnet transmission").
If the inbox flashed a notification when a breaking news story was posted on Galnet, people would immediately become aware of it. If it were something interesting (eg. Obsidian Orbital under attack) it could even be used to direct flash mobs of players to events eg. to shore up the defence or whatever.
And if the fate of the station rested on how many players responded and whether they actually beat the goids (or not) it would be awesome.
That's the kind of engagement Elite lacks at the moment.
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Galnet, schmalnet...
You got it spot on there CMDR.
The thing is, even if FD keeps on saying the galaxy is alive and breathing,
it really isn't. The galaxy is so 1980s, even the NPCs don't read galnet.
You got it spot on there CMDR.
The thing is, even if FD keeps on saying the galaxy is alive and breathing,
it really isn't. The galaxy is so 1980s, even the NPCs don't read galnet.
I'd personally love to see the GalNet UI improved to become more categorized rather than just a long list of article headers. Add a filter too making it much easier to sort and find the articles you are looking for. Currently there is a lot of fluff and oddball stuff that you need to sift through and sometimes it makes it confusing and easy to miss important news. Also having something like a "breaking news" section for galactic emergency stuff, like say aliens attacking stations, would be very helpful.
Think of it more like a newspaper and less like an RSS feed.
Sadly, while GalNet audio sounds like an awesome thing, it isn't targeting the actual problem with GalNet in my opinion.
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