Where Elite Went Wrong, or: How NOT to craft a Sandbox Experience

[John Xenir]

I wouldn't change it, I don't think it's crap(...)

Fantastic. And I would because I think it is.

(...) I think it's funny seeing kids get all impatient because they can't get what they want immediately.
(...)

I'm sorry I misjudged you for being one of the more mature disputants of this community.

(...)
Remember you're not meant to be out specifically farming these things. That was never the intention.(...)

Says who, when and where?

(...) You're meant to find loot as you play: flying somewhere "ooh look a USS, oh it's a thing - hey exciting I can do a mod now" - instead y'all are determined to turn it into one big grindfest to get to Level 100 and 10,000XP with the fairy sword THEN play - it's madness.

How am I supposed to randomly find Datamined Wake Exceptions when my major activity is out-of-bubble exploration and deep space mining?
Can I stumble upon said wake exceptions while drilling with my laser in an asteroid field?
If the game requires specific ship components to be installed in order to find said wake exceptions, how does that confirm your theory that you should randomly stumble upon it? Cause from where I stand, it actually contradicts it.
How is different data/materials spread across USS/planetary surfaces - which is quite a spread - contribute to stumbling upon them when your usual activity doesn't include said locations?
How is that confirming you shouldn't grind for these materials/data when they're specific to the one and only instance they spawn in?
How is their one-and-only-place-to-be-found mechanic NOT contradict the grind you speak of?

 

[SentineI]

For fans of his oeuvre I can heartily recommend:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/350536-Intentional-Inconvenience-is-Killing-Fun
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...s-Design-Intent-Why-the-design-Creates-Tedium
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/400698-Still-as-Inconvenient-as-Possible-to-Play
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...ns-Three-Years-in-Still-a-Terrible-Experience
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/350543-Why-Does-Elite-Intentionally-Waste-Our-Time

Wow, the OP seems to be responsible for most of the recent "Elite is rubbish" threads. I think he should be playing a different game... perhaps Skyrim?

P.S. Yes, ED is a flawed game (just about anything is in comparison to Skyrim). But complaining about it's flawed design (at this point in it's life cycle) is going to have roughly zero effect. Right or wrong, it's design ethos is firmly set in stone, and the best we can hope for is tweaks to existing mechanics.

 

[Jenner]

P.S. Yes, ED is a flawed game (just about anything is in comparison to Skyrim). But complaining about it's flawed design (at this point in it's life cycle) is going to have roughly zero effect. Right or wrong, it's design ethos is firmly set in stone, and the best we can hope for is tweaks to existing mechanics.

I think that it's a good point to make that severe design alterations are unlikely at this stage. Whatever your opinion on the game, it is probably not going to change fundamentally in the future.

 

[hems303]

I've made a few critical posts in the past but reading many of the seemingly continual negative posts on this forum, I am really wondering if some of the authors of said posts are playing the same game I am!
Sure ED has problems, but there is no other gaming experience like it. (I know.. this can be viewed negatively or positively... sigh), ED is evolving as time goes by, just as FDev promised (again Neg or Pos points of view pertain).
I'm supposing there are now so many posts denigrating either ED or FDev or both, because people "care", or is it just a case of inevitable entropy let loose?
I think I need to take a break.... from the forum.

 

[Factabulous]

This is not a salt post.

We'll be the judge of that

This is not a salt post.
What about it? Even if one has the patience to wait on Elite's once weekly, manually induced "tic" it changes nothing.

Hmmm, OP doesn't know difference between BGS and Powerplay. I'm out.

 

[frostypaw]

How am I supposed to randomly find Datamined Wake Exceptions when my major activity is out-of-bubble exploration and deep space mining?
Can I stumble upon said wake exceptions while drilling with my laser in an asteroid field?

ARGH!

What is it that people find so hard to grasp about this.

The whole idea is to get you to do different things and not just hammer one activity.

As long as people continue to stubbornly ignore and refuse to acknowledge that then saying people are being childish and impatient is bang on the money.

What an amazing argument.

How about you start a thread politely asking FDev to confirm which materials are only available from one source? I'm tempted to do it myself. Would you like that?

 

[frostypaw]

I think I need to take a break.... from the forum.

I did for ages, I felt so much less bitter and twisted about the game. Too many players are too keen to reduce the whole thing down to mechanics and spreadsheets and it takes all the joy out of it.

Music? Meh it's just the same notes in sequence all the time etc.

 

[Karunamon]

How about you start a thread politely asking FDev to confirm which materials are only available from one source? I'm tempted to do it myself. Would you like that?

You might as well ask what the Thargoids are up to for the response you'll get.

Too many players are too keen to reduce the whole thing down to mechanics and spreadsheets and it takes all the joy out of it.

Too many players are amused by pretty lights and react with shock and horror when something a bit more substantial is requested.

Aside from combat, are there any activities to do in this game that are tests of actual skill, as opposed to tests of patience? If we take pew pew off the table, where's the skill required in mining? or exploring? or trading? Those are things you just kinda *do*, you can't really learn to "explore better" or "mine better" or "trade better" at anything beyond a very superficial level of proficiency.

Am I missing something?

 

[Dbrn47]

and that's why "kids" and "impatient" stay in there..

Do as you will but the condescending and dismissive attitude completely undermines any valid points you may have actually had. Furthermore, you can't fundamentally misunderstand something as ambiguous as 'blaze your own trail'.

 

[frostypaw]

Do as you will but the condescending and dismissive attitude completely undermines any valid points you may have actually had. Furthermore, you can't fundamentally misunderstand something as ambiguous as 'blaze your own trail'.

*shrug* don't care at all - nobody listens anyway, just carries on whinging. It's all urinating in the wind here - but at least it gets it off my chest.

And yes apparently everyone can misunderstand it as they clearly have to a massive degree. Saying it's not possible when people have just comes off as taking the michael.

Aside from combat, are there any activities to do in this game that are tests of actual skill, as opposed to tests of patience?

Which skill did you want to show off about?

 

[Dbrn47]

And yes apparently everyone can misunderstand it as they clearly have to a massive degree.

Show me where it is universally defined. As far as I can see, according to the website, it is loosely defined as controlling your own narrative and playing your own way, infinite freedom and all that... Pretty damn ambiguous, almost like they expect the player to define that for themselves.

 

[Dbrn47]

ARGH!

What is it that people find so hard to grasp about this.

The whole idea is to get you to do different things and not just hammer one activity.

Could it be that maybe it's a bad idea?

 

[frostypaw]

Show me where it is universally defined.

Oh come on. I "blaze my own trail" through real life - I still have to obey the laws of physics, the local rules and regulations (or their consequences) and accept that banging my head into the wall 2000 times won't get me a 10kg boulder opal. Nonetheless the latter is what some people demand - they're being obviously silly.

Could it be that maybe it's a bad idea?

Now we've hit the actual core issue that people usually dance about.

Say it out loud "FDev I know there's this huge game but I only want to play this one bit of it and still have all the game's content and bonuses come to me"

Do it with a straight face for a bonus 100Cr

 

[Darty]

How about you start a thread politely asking FDev to confirm which materials are only available from one source? I'm tempted to do it myself. Would you like that?

Why would I need to do that when I already know which ones are exclusively or essentially exclusively obtainable through surface prospecting or HGE? What part of asking for expanded game mechanics makes me a childish or immature? Fdev is providing me an experience, that I pay for, and I am giving them feedback on how to improve my experience. I have stated multiple times in this thread and elsewhere I am not against changing up my routine while engineering, the problem is I am FORCED to. The system should encourage players to try new things, but allow them to avoid a a few specific activities that they loath. Unfortunately it doesn't. Engineering should enrich the player's experience by introducing variety, but it just disrupts said experience and replaces it with a grind instead.

It wouldn't be too hard to remedy this either. If they gave the material trader a 2:1 ratio for trading across categories and a 4:1 ratio for trading up grades the problem would get a lot smaller. We would still have an incentive to search for HGE, but we would have an alternative (killing ships that drop the same category of material that we are looking for) available if we wanted a change of pace or got bored after a sting of bad luck. We would still have an incentive to play space car surface prospect, but we would also be rewarded if we spent time mining instead. I really like the idea of encouraging players to try new things, but I the current engineering system is way too heavy handed about it.

But I guess that makes me an immature child.

 

[John Xenir]

ARGH!
What is it that people find so hard to grasp about this.
The whole idea is to get you to do different things and not just hammer one activity.
As long as people continue to stubbornly ignore and refuse to acknowledge that then saying people are being childish and impatient is bang on the money.
(...)

So you're admitting then that in order to find material/data, you need to perform specific activities that reward them.
And that supports your "you're not supposed to grind specifically for them" theory how exactly?

You're contradicting yourself, is what I'm saying. Not only that, but:

(...)
Remember you're not meant to be out specifically farming these things. That was never the intention. You're meant to find loot as you play: flying somewhere "ooh look a USS(...)

... you can't even provide evidence of what you're saying is the intended design. The more you speak, the bigger my impression is the way "you're supposed to do it" is your own preference, and nothing more.

 

[Mangal Oemie]

LHS 3458 Gold Partners - BGS weekly update.

This week as you know we've been recovering from a nasty outbreak of something whilst fighting a civil war with those blighters the LHS 3458 Progression Party. We fully expect the war to be over within the next few days. It's not really possible to say who will win or what the outcome of this war will be, or indeed what we were fighting about, but you've all done a sterling job...well done.

Next week once the war is over and nobody has won or lost we're expecting a period of famine...so there's a rough few days ahead chaps. There's no particular reason for the famine, we just haven't had one for a while so we thought we'd just change things up. The good news is that directly after the famine and for no explicable reason we'll be experiencing a boom period and I know how much you all enjoy those...so that's something to look forward to.

Our long term goal has always been expansion into another system as this will mean we will experience more of these inexplicable and transient states with greater frequency, variety is the spice of life after all. Now then...best foot forward, eyes to the horizon and don't ask too many questions....off you go!

Your utter ignorance about the workings of the BGS is showing.

That makes this hilariously funny in ways I suspect you didn't intend.

 

[frostypaw]

The system should encourage players to try new things, but allow them to avoid a a few specific activities that they loath. Unfortunately it doesn't.

Think it through Darty.

Everyone likes different things and has different activities they want to avoid.

In order to provide what you're asking for across all the players that would mean every activity can be avoided - and then there's nothing to make players try those other activities.

But I guess that makes me an immature child.

You don't need me to think these things through for you, and I think you know that don't you?

So you're admitting then that in order to find material/data, you need to perform specific activities that reward them.
And that supports your "you're not supposed to grind specifically for them" theory how exactly?

Doing an activity for the sake of the activity is not the same as specifically grinding for materials. Exploring a planet is an activity, finding mats is the side-bonus. Purely going to planets to hunt materials is then specifically grinding for them and comparatively boring.

It's not contradictory once you think it through and don't look at it in the simplest terms possible.

 

[Dbrn47]

Oh come on. I "blaze my own trail" through real life - I still have to obey the laws of physics, the local rules and regulations (or their consequences) and accept that banging my head into the wall 2000 times won't get me a 10kg boulder opal. Nonetheless the latter is what some people demand - they're being obviously silly.

Yes, because possibly having a couple of other ways to obtain Very Rare Material X or just making that gameplay loop a bit more engaging than shuffling through mission boards or driving on a planet surface listening to faint scratching noises is comparable to that.

 

[jasonbirder]

So you're admitting then that in order to find material/data, you need to perform specific activities that reward them.
And that supports your "you're not supposed to grind specifically for them" theory how exactly?

Because you're NOT supposed as a matter of course to Engineer a ship to a point where it has G5 upgrades on all its modules...they're outliers...obtained by Min/Max'ers determined to GAME the system to refine all their stat's to within the nth degree of maximum...
It might seem obvious to YOU that the point of Engineers was to as rapidly as possible obtain all the best modules with all the best stats...and that the process of getting there seems like a massive grind...because you have to do a HUGE variety of tasks, repeatedly (especially if you want the OH SO IMPORTANT mutliplicity of rolls on each of them) but that's NOT compulsory...and it patently wasn't the designers intent...
Take a step back...some materials you obtain investigating USS...some materials are obtained via combat, some via mission rewards...some via surface prospecting...
Its almost as if EVERY activity gives easy access to SOME engineer upgrades...but NONE give ALL of them...hmmm I wonder what the intent behind that design was...

 

[Darty]

Think it through Darty.

Everyone likes different things and has different activities they want to avoid.

In order to provide what you're asking for across all the players that would mean every activity can be avoided - and then there's nothing to make players try those other activities.

If it takes you 4 hours of shooting up combat ships in a CZ to get the same amount of pharmo isolators it would take you 30 minutes of HGE searching to get, most players are going to do the HGE. SOME players, who absolutely hate HGE searching or really really love CZs are going to take the long way, sure. But that's not a problem. It's OK if some players decide they don't want to expand their horizons beyond what they know. That's there prerogative. What engineers should be doing is giving the 90% of players who are willing to try something new if they see a reason to said reason.

Just because something CAN be avoided doesn't mean there is no reason for someone to try it.