Elite has Grown Beyond its Capacity. Is it time for a new Elite game?

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I see a lot of expert in this thread, gathering around like vultures.

I wonder, with so many QA Experts, Game Design Experts, Programming Experts, and Game Industry Business Experts, why don't you guys stop flocking around the forum and start building the product you say you know 'would defeat all'?
 
I'm not a programmer

/thread

Seriously OP, do not post assumptions you have not fully qualified to make - it is just stir up and makes you look bad (trust me, have hit that mine myself multiple times).

ED is getting incredibly complex. But any new game would be. Improving and adding to old game is way to go.
 
The only fail FD has had is making open in this game. A mainly single player game, adding pg was inspirational. ED never was a pvp game, trying to invite that into the elite universe was an instant fail. If FD had made a separate pvp game it would already be dead.
I always laughed at the single player games that added multiplayer maps as an addon, they never last long.
It was easy to see why this game could never be an offline game, to much data for any computer. Adding a tiny pvp mode, thinking there would be real honorable pirates was, well, it was never gonna happen. Delete open mode and work on the real player base.
Spot on commander. Few games make it with both single and multi. They are either a great single player game or multi but very rarely both. After you find the strongest supported mode you should put the most of your efforts there. It seems ED has done the opposite. The game was founded in single player and ED added open to attract the COD, WOW,EVE......etc players. I believe SC is suffering the same fate (I will be freeing up 38 gig on my ssd when I delete SC).
 
I hate bugs as much as the next guy, but I believe the foundations this game is built on are sound. Throwing that all away and starting from scratch would be crazy. There's an insane amount of work that's gone into the current game, and as a programmer myself, I can see and appreciate that work. The OP's suggestion literally is "Throwing the baby out with the bathwater."

Now, about them bugs.... Fix em!
 
The current game has a number of flaws which have persisted since the game has released. If the same game philosophy were to be applied to a new Elite game I am afraid not much would be different.
 
All the assets and lore of the Elite Dangerous universe have the foundations for a great strategy game.

At least think about it.
 
Speaking as someone who was coding in the mid to late 80s...

We had good code practices, except when we:
- Named variables after vegetables (or favourite foods) instead of a name that reflected what they were for
- Named functions after people names, so you could call 'Fred'
- Created secondary functions that had no real use except to pass a variable
- Added various Easter Eggs.


But on a serious note, good coding practices have been around for many many years. It's just what gets added to it over time that really *expletive* things up! :)

I had one programmer that littered his code with references to classical composers!
 

Jex =TE=

Banned
I see a lot of expert in this thread, gathering around like vultures.

I wonder, with so many QA Experts, Game Design Experts, Programming Experts, and Game Industry Business Experts, why don't you guys stop flocking around the forum and start building the product you say you know 'would defeat all'?

I'm sure if you front $10 million in investment they'll be happy to take you up on your offer :)
 
Well....

It's a conundrum isn't it. It's clear that certain element of this game (for example, the interwoven BGS and mission boards), are extremely complex, intertwined, and impossible to predict.

The formulas and algorithms that generate this game must be so complex and tentacle-y, that you have to admit looking at fixes applied recently, even FD find it difficult to predict exactly hwat will be affected and to what degree when they make a change to a few parameters.

Some would say that is a good reason to draw a line and start again.

I don't think I would be upset to hear that 3.0 will be the last season and Elite 4 is coming soon(tm), but I also probably wouldn't stop playing this version until it came out, it's a good game. Just CnP, omg. There's a balance between harsh and fun, you missed it. Please try again. Thanks!

The issue is, is that I doubt it would get any better. Unless they make a much simpler game. Then you will get people complaining it's too simple and predictable. No matter what FDev do, people are gonna complain about it.

Personally I think we just let them get on with it. Point out the issues with some recommendations and leave it at that.
 
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I've played for 1500 hours and I truly enjoyed that time - AND CONTINUE TO ENJOY PLAYING THE GAME - but I think it's clear that this framework has reached its limits. I will joyously part with my ~200 earth worlds discovered, fleet of 20 G5 engineered ships, billions of credits, triple elite and admiral/king rank, and look forward to the next game. This has been a FANTASTIC game and I place it up there with the greatest games I have ever played - right up there with my favorites of all time (Legend of Zelda 1 for Nintendo, Phastasy Star 2 for genesis, Sid Meier's Pirates for Amiga, Privateer 1 and 2 for PC, Master of Orion 1 and 2 for PC - and Elite Dangerous now right up there with the best of them.)

+Rep

In my two years playing, this has been the worse stretch of bugs for me.

I'm still hopeful they can squish them all

March has got to be 'Nonsense Month'.

As evidenced by the nut-bagger posts that proliferate.

Yours is the first I've seen.

I've gone back to playing Siege. It's a new season and the metagame has changed considerably with the new operators.

I'm sure I'll pop onto Elite when I need to scratch that space itch, or if something interesting appears during the updates due for the rest of the year.

Funny you say that - after two hours of wing, instance, and SRV issues last night, Rainbow Six Siege was one of the games I proposed to replace Elite in our Wednesday night livestream next week.

Can't grow an audience for my co-op multiplayer channel if the game we're playing is broken :-( Hope they get it fixed soon...
 
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So a non programmer thinks a new game, that has been build from scratch, made by a company that creates its own engine, after 4 years has deteriorated to a wig based on... what?
 
Who said it´s spaghetti code? A FDev? I doubt it.
Everthing else is rumor.
But I understand ppl love rumors ... 11 pages so far on this thread.
 
/thread

Seriously OP, do not post assumptions you have not fully qualified to make - it is just stir up and makes you look bad (trust me, have hit that mine myself multiple times).

ED is getting incredibly complex. But any new game would be. Improving and adding to old game is way to go.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Those that took the time to explain their viewpoints were most appreciated - and I will admit that as a result of their posts my view on the issue has changed and I now have a lot more hope.

I enjoyed the replies from the many in this thread who noted their experience in being able to continue to improve on ancient and flawed programs from decades ago. That particularly gave me a lot of hope that maybe this thing has a lot of life left in it after all!
 
Elite has Grown Beyond its Capacity.

Has it grown beyond its capacity? How did you come to that conclusion?
I think it's nonsense.

FDev is currently doing what they said they would do right from the start, in the kickstarter.
They have build the walls of the house and are now starting to give attention to the details inside.

Is it time for a new Elite game?

Of course not. What would be the point?
This one is in the middle of development.

I'm not a programmer

Aha

I think it's clear that this framework has reached its limits

So you are a programmer?


The biggest problem for this way of developing a game while we are playing it, is that we need so much patience and that many (if not most) of us don't have it.
I am a patient guy, but for me it is a long, long wait too.
There is so much important, essential stuff I am longing for to be implemented.
 
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I hate bugs as much as the next guy, but I believe the foundations this game is built on are sound. Throwing that all away and starting from scratch would be crazy. There's an insane amount of work that's gone into the current game, and as a programmer myself, I can see and appreciate that work. The OP's suggestion literally is "Throwing the baby out with the bathwater."

Now, about them bugs.... Fix em!
Agree. The core functionality in the game/game engine is solid. There are some bugs that were introduced in 3.0 and 3.0.3, but I believe most bugs could be fixed. What needs to be reworked drastically though is the mission system and how the payouts are worked in. They can't keep on nerfing and buffing constantly for every and each youtube video pointing something out. The "mission servers" need to be improved.
 
The issue is, is that I doubt it would get any better. Unless they make a much simpler game.

I find this notion interesting from a game design point of view. Simpler in design does not always equal a "simpler" game, but rather a game which is less obtuse to engage with. I sometimes feel like Frontier often makes things overly complicated for little gain.

For example, missions. The new wing missions are a great concept. So great that the very templates and routines for them could have easily replaced the old routines and templates for hauling, source, massacre, and assassination missions. Making the wing missions adaptable in challenge to encompass both solo players and wings of four would have been great. Instead of needing to populate the mission boards with both single and wing missions you would just have shareable missions, flyable both in solo and in wings, completely up to the players to decide how they wanted to play. More importantly though it would require much less code for the end result as the old solo only routines would be replaced, and simplifying code to accomplish the same task is in my experience always a good thing.

CQC developed as a standalone module was also not very value added to the game. Same with Power Play, created as something external to the main game loop instead of integrated into the core game. Three different and separate game modes for an online massively multiplayer game. An overly complicated engineer and modding system with way too many collectibles and results, making it very hard to balance and integrate. A new crime & punishment system that is so complicated most players don't understand how to interact with it. Over half of the ship modules in the game have no purpose or use to them. There is a lot of code in the game which gets used very little or is redundant with other code. There is a ton of duplicity in how the game is created, and there is a lot of confusing mechanics and features with little consistency between them.

When designing game features it's usually best to improve and repurpose existing features rather than add new ones if possible. Diversity in robust game tools is better than having a plethora of very limited use mechanics or features. In this way, a simpler to play game is not necessarily a simpler game overall, just a smoother playing and more engaging one.

I'm not sure if Elite suffers from spaghetti code or not, but I often feel like it suffers from spaghetti feature design.

That said, I enjoy playing Elite and I'll be around for quite awhile yet hopefully. But the frequent and recurring bugs are concerning, no doubt.
 
Perhaps a spin off game, based in the Bubble, single player more campaign/quest orientated with the station building from Terran conflict would work. However it would be exactly that, not a replacement for ED but something to complement it.
 
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