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

[Ch3ck]

Mm, that's how all the best threads start. Kidding! Mostly. Frontier are addressing mechanics that have, ostensibly, laid dormant (as has some of it's code) for a couple years. However just build a new game, doesn't solve how we got here in the first one.

Frontier work exceedingly hard, but some of the games issues, rightly or wrongly, went into the "too hard" basket, where all great ideas go to die. They're trying to resolve some long-standing issues within the game, and they are almost certainly going to continue to break live, badly, for the foreseeable future. This is just how they've built and maintained elite. A reimagine of a reimagining, wouldn't change, really, how Frontier has electing to release, how they've elected to test, and the cycle they have. This is all well established at this point.

They didn't do it earlier, because they were trying to build a player base and have people fund future development; and that requires shiny things to attract. There won't be a new train though; Braben has mostly clocked out and moved on already. He's scratched that itch; and he only needed our money to do so. We were a necessary evil. Nice guy who fundimentally still has far more interest in the BGS and the Universe than the players who inhabit.

My heart actually goes out to Sandy. He was handed the keys and is pretty much having to set most of the direction at this point; that much is plain to see. He has an excellent team. Working really hard, that are let down by the circumstances and patterns they've had to work with.

The team should be super proud to have got this far; and they are phenomenal for persisting in trying to wrangle the code and the people into something resembling a good outcome. I disagree with some of what they have done; but I have nothing but respect for the stupid hours and massive effort that's gone in so far. I really hope Frontier can get over this hump, and go on to build an exceptional title. We all know the potential is there.

But I am a realist and I know, that this is only going to get a lot worse, before it gets better. So I play with what works; my hour count is now way way down. I've discovered warframe and other titles, and this is giving me fresh perspective,

I think Frontier are on to a winner. I just hope they find a solution to the disconnect between developer and player, and the extremes become much more of the shepherding, the game really needs instead. I think they'll do it, too. Sandy is a fighter. He's more alike than people give him credit for; he's perhaps just not realised how much it might help, to wear the same shoes we do. Like any developer, eventually they will find that balance, and the game will go from strength to strength as a result.

I've gotten way more value than my spend; and I am a-okay with that.

^This!

 

[CMDR Pugwash]

Is this like the Matrix? Give me the blue pill..... wait, was it the red... I don't know now dammit!!!!!

 

[RolloTreadway]

Oh, sure. Another Elite game. Shall we wait twenty years for this one too?

 

[RamirezKurita]

Reading this thread in its entirety does make me wonder how well a behind the scenes tech update as a major patch would actually go down. An update that pretty much does nothing to add or properly modify in-game content but instead a patch with the headline feature of a major code cleanup.

Would players react with frothing mouth's and rage because FD have the audacity to make 3.1 do nothing apparent?

Or would there be much rejoicing as it paves the way for future updates?

 

[M00ka]

Reading this thread in its entirety does make me wonder how well a behind the scenes tech update as a major patch would actually go down. An update that pretty much does nothing to add or properly modify in-game content but instead a patch with the headline feature of a major code cleanup.

Would players react with frothing mouth's and rage because FD have the audacity to make 3.1 do nothing apparent?

Or would there be much rejoicing as it paves the way for future updates?

Most players wouldn't even notice the difference. All they would recognise is the one bug that has been irritating them has disappeared, they wouldn't realise the massive amount of work that was undertaken. And there would be no rejoicing, just a lot of whining on why there is nothing new and shiny.

 

[DemonBDC]

Oh you nerds, ED was supposed to be a 10 years project right from the start. Given the major player base is arround 35-45 years old, why are you so hasty to rush things up ? You'll need ED2 when you'll play sitting in the wheelchair with the brand new alzheimer proof VR helmet.

 

[CMDR Pugwash]

Most players wouldn't even notice the difference. All they would recognise is the one bug that has been irritating them has disappeared, they wouldn't realise the massive amount of work that was undertaken. And there would be no rejoicing, just a lot of whining on why there is nothing new and shiny.

A classic Catch 22.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

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.

Yup. spaghetti feature design sounds about right. And I agree with your regarding wing missions. They should have just completely replaced all the missions and just have all missions shareable. Then it would have been far easier to balance the rewards if the rewards are a share of the cash instead of a duplication. Hey Ho. Maybe they will change it in the future.

 

[SAB380]

They still haven't worked out bugs in the basics of this one.
I wouldn't want to see them launch a new one and it be full of the same exploits and issues the current one has.

I would like to see proper crafted narratives enter this game though for the 2 military campaigns and some stand alone stories - perhaps working with a crime faction, etc...

 

[Conflictus]

How the hell do we go from a ten year plan to players saying we need elite 2 ?

 

[Genus]

How the hell do we go from a ten year plan to players saying we need elite 2 ?

I think this is what happens when someone who has been swearing blindly that everything is fine for the last four years, see's something on Question Time and then as a result, changes their mind.

Crying sequel is just a poor mans out.

 

[kofeyh]

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.

Bingo. A game can be highly complex; this does not automatically mean the experience has to be. Frontier have a habit of resolving the need to "hit a nail into a bit of wood", by not using a hammer. They will construct an entire contraption, that's fascinating and intricate and very exciting, to knock that nail into the wood; few understand how it works. But it is amazing.

Sometimes, all you really need, is a hammer.

I watched a two part video into the development of Warframe yesterday (and I need to thank the friend who suggested it). I had no idea that was the same Digital Extremes that developed games for the amiga back in the day, never mind some of the console stuff they did for other studios. They've been around a long time. Anyhoo - the developer's attitude to players coming from a (gasp) free to play angle was really cool to understand better (and like frontier, they had had a really hard time selling the concept for what became warframe, much like Braben did, pitching an elite reboot - probably for the same reason - sci-fi).

The developer recognised early on that if you give people a lever, they will pull it. They removed a lever within 2 days when they discovered someone pulled it 200 times to change a paint setting or some such, because of the premium currency (actual money) cost it translated to. They're aware that there's potential for a gambling aspect and they've tried to find the balance between being profitable enough to continue, but not exploitive.

There was also an example where the very fast movement that now is in the game (chaining various moves to bullet jump, etc) was based originally on a weapon glitch that allowed very fast traversal of tiles which fundimentally changed the way the missions flowed and made it far more dynamic and fundimentally shifted the pacing (for the better). The developer in that instance didn't try to crush those glitches, they've embraced them instead, in a more structured way.

In short, they learned what worked for players, and realigned the game to suit that; rather than perhaps trying to realign players (who would simply leave). I contrast that with Frontier, who are still in full lock-down mode at times (remove missions, disable core functions, clamp dynamic approaches, remove unexpected functionality) and I wonder how different Elite might be, if some of the things players discovered, were re-factored into more structured (and less broken) mechanics rather than just endlessly nerfing and blocking and removing.

Warframe in many ways is just as 'grindy' as elite; and the developer is pretty blunt about the realisation for some it's just too much of a hurdle, and they'll maybe never get those firs-impression players back, and DE works really hard to try and still make that work.

Ultimately, here's two games that in many ways are poles apart, yet actually share a great many of the same issues. Grind. Engagement. Pacing. Retention. No developer is perfect; but there's a lot of parrallels.

People are highly creative, so will break things in unexpected ways; I'm not sure every single one is automatically without merit, though. Yeah sure, some stuff is just detrimental. But the community is highly inventive and I wonder how some of that might have improved the experience. Anyway, it's given me a bit of a different perspective. This wasn't intending to be spruiking someone else's game, and that's not the intent, more just a different approach, and how that affects the experience I guess.

I still firmly believe if a team can sort this out, it's going to be Frontier. I just kinda hope they're learning players, for all our flaws and weird proclivities and propensity for breaking their stuff, aren't just a noisy bunch that makes their life hard 24/7, but perhaps more a source for inspiration for mechanics changes at times. Sometimes, players will figure out a very broken way to use a hammer - but the actual mechanics of how they did that? Might be worth preserving in some fashion.

I think in many ways that would give people a sense that the developer is listening, that we don't always have now. I'll, uh, shut-up now. As you were.

 

[znôrt]

I watched a two part video into the development of Warframe yesterday (and I need to thank the friend who suggested it).

and ... you're not going to share the link. ok. [mad]

 

[Mengy]

I still firmly believe if a team can sort this out, it's going to be Frontier. I just kinda hope they're learning players, for all our flaws and weird proclivities and propensity for breaking their stuff, aren't just a noisy bunch that makes their life hard, but perhaps more a source for inspiration for mechanics changes.

I hope so. Frontier has a lot of incredible talent working for them, Elite's art and sound design are some of the very best in the industry. Even the UI design is usually very good for a game like Elite, you need only look to other space sim games to see just how good Elite's UI really is. They begin to suffer when it comes to game mechanic design, often making odd choices with a very strong propensity for grindy mechanics. I'd almost call it a lack of vision somewhat for how players actually play the game. And then the recurring bugs and regular breaking of things by updates which point to something being very wrong on the devs end. Someone mentioned a few pages ago that they'd never seen a game suffer so much from returning bugs before, and I have to admit I can't think of a worse example either. It's almost comical at this point, if it wasn't so incredibly frustrating too.

The link in my signature proposes a lot of exploration improvements, and most of them utilize existing mechanics in the game which can be improved to provide more engaging and interactive exploration. Improving tools already in the game rather than introducing a bunch of completely new tools to sit alongside them. Part of me is very anxious to see how the Q4 update will pan out for exploration, yet another part of me is terrified that Frontier might go in directions none of the players ever wanted them to. I don't want exploration to be overly complicated, I just want it to have varied gameplay with a lot to see and do while out in deep space, and this can readily be accomplished with most of the tools we already have in the game, if they simply improve upon them.

Elite hasn't grown beyond it's capacity, it's just become too bloated for it's own good in many ways, and I fear this is a large reason for many of the quality issues we keep seeing. Simpler is sometimes better.

 

[NW3]

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

I'm still hopeful they can squish them all

Unfortunately, any program of any significance WILL have bugs. It's unavoidable. That doesn't mean that bugs should be accepted, they need to be fixed, but every code change has the potential to introduce multiple new bugs.

I once worked on a product that had a great QA team and a boss who strived for a quality product. When we were later acquired by a large company, the Tech Support team loved us: No one ever complained about bugs in our product. At the time, we actually had more than 1000 open, unfixed bugs, most of which were nearly impossible to trigger or were so minor no one ever complained.

 

[kofeyh]

and ... you're not going to share the link. ok. [mad]

Argh! Okay. I just didn't want to hijack the thread, even tho it's on the topic of should they build a new game maybe fix the first one and I'm just referring to an example and don't hurt me mods! <3

Spoiler

Part 1:
[video=youtube_share;UOE6528pwFc]https://youtu.be/UOE6528pwFc[/video]

Part 2:
[video=youtube_share;NA5vT1LooXk]https://youtu.be/NA5vT1LooXk[/video]

 

[WR3ND]

I hate to bump threads like these, but I have to disagree with the premise. I think this game still has a lot of future potential. Whether or not it is realized, I couldn't say, but I think Frontier and us as players alike are mostly in it for the long haul.

So, from me personally, no thanks. I think a relaunch for a new title in the line would be a huge waste at this point, and would primarily serve to disenfranchise the majority of the player base.

Thumbs down. [down]

 

[Captain Willard]

You'll need ED2 when you'll play sitting in the wheelchair with the brand new alzheimer proof VR helmet.

Oh heck yeah. I need that now.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

Will still suggest to you all again.

Lobby frontier to remove the mission board, or ignore it yourself (hint, like you used to). Suddenly elite returns to bliss. And all issues are invalidated.

Go sully yourself with the lowest common denominator and you have a clusterfrack of expectations and frontiers desperation reactions from releasing code changes where they dont test the edge cases of of the procedural gen.

They should hire some technical testers to do it. If the developers build some internal api's some savvy testers im sure could automate generation of edge cases (based on understanding the bgs rules of generation) for any new change. Create some simple rules based on design on what would be a defective result (mission payouts at 0 credits or above 10 million eg) and just automate it. /armchair

 

[TheHavoc]

Most players wouldn't even notice the difference. All they would recognise is the one bug that has been irritating them has disappeared, they wouldn't realise the massive amount of work that was undertaken. And there would be no rejoicing, just a lot of whining on why there is nothing new and shiny.

And THIS ! ! ! Nothing more to add.