VJ Video - The Guardian Grind

c00ky1970

c00ky1970
Reasoned constructive critism??!!??

It will never catch on you know! ;-)

If there was some incentive to find other guardian sites and these gave you a variant on the blueprint, coupled with less numbers of them to unlock the baser equipment, then I think players would do it.

If the sites gave more insight to guardian history and that travelling across 5 or 10 if them gave you great rewards as well as more hiosrtory I am sure players would do the grind.

But just sitting at one site and relogging to farm the stuff is a bit silly and not a fun way to spend an evening!
 

Frenotx

Frenotx
Good video. You have a bit more patience than I do. I personally find it highly disturbing that the dev team designed the Guardian unlocks the way they did, and thought it was a good idea. I mean, even just on paper the idea should have not looked good. I find it equally distributing that the FSD booster was released in a completely non-functional state. If it only didn't work on a few ships, or didn't work in some specific scenarios then sure- it's rarely practical / possible to test every conceivable possibility. But not working at all on any ship in any scenario? That implies a complete breakdown in QA.
 

Andovar

Andovar
Frenotx said:
I personally find it highly disturbing that the dev team designed the Guardian unlocks the way they did, and thought it was a good idea. I mean, even just on paper the idea should have not looked good.
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That's the thing. I'm not convinced they actually thought it was a good idea. It feels like another placeholder. They're on a timeline, and had to get 3.0 out. So it feels like another case of "just deploy it like this, and we can fix/add to it later".

I don't know if it's lack of time, resources, or capability, but I'm seriously doubting that we'll ever see something like what VJ outlined as part of the gameplay.
 

Frenotx

Frenotx
Andovar said:
That's the thing. I'm not convinced they actually thought it was a good idea. It feels like another placeholder. They're on a timeline, and had to get 3.0 out. So it feels like another case of "just deploy it like this, and we can fix/add to it later".

I don't know if it's lack of time, resources, or capability, but I'm seriously doubting that we'll ever see something like what VJ outlined as part of the gameplay.
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What's the point of place holders if you can't even take the time to fill them in a year-long season dedicated specifically to filling in place holders?
 

Vardaugas

Vardaugas
It more feels that they are lacking the resources to do more than the most basic design pass on game mechanics and are stuck with this primitive gameplay. It's a very first design concepts at its most simple level, which may theoretically work but is in no way something you'd put in the final release if you could help it. It needs another pass to elaborate, then another pass to polish and QoL. This may work for a board game. A video game needs more complexity and dynamics to engage the player.
 

Mengy

Mengy
Frenotx said:
I personally find it highly disturbing that the dev team designed the Guardian unlocks the way they did, and thought it was a good idea. I mean, even just on paper the idea should have not looked good. I find it equally distributing that the FSD booster was released in a completely non-functional state. If it only didn't work on a few ships, or didn't work in some specific scenarios then sure- it's rarely practical / possible to test every conceivable possibility. But not working at all on any ship in any scenario? That implies a complete breakdown in QA.
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Yeah, I agree, it's all very worrisome for the future of the game. Something is very broken at Frontier, and it's holding Elite back from being the game it should be four years after launch.


It's very hard to make forward progress when you trip over your own feet so often, or keep walking in the wrong direction...
 

Andovar

Andovar
Frenotx said:
What's the point of place holders if you can't even take the time to fill them in a year-long season dedicated specifically to filling in place holders?
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Excellent question.
All the more reason why I don't want to see Squadrons as part of the 3.X series.
Fix and flesh out existing mechanics and gameplay. Don't add new stuff until the existing is where you want it.

But with all the people begging for space-legs and atmospheric landings, why on earth would FD accept the notion of not adding new placeholder content?
Sadly, I don't see this cycle changing... ever. :(
 

Flimley

Flimley

Deleted member 38366

D
Wait, you're suggesting modern Gameplay Design to Frontier? Things that make sense? Involving mechanics and elements that can be easily reused or expanded upon for Storyline progression and narrative?
Things that were Industry Standard 10-15 years ago?

I'm afraid these things aren't a concept to them, sorry. They're still living in the 80's and early 90's of Gameplay design. Which would be perfectly fine for an Arcade spin-off of ELITE.
It's either that or the remaining ~10-15 Devs still part-time working on ELITE simply lack the manpower. Business Decision.

So far, we only ever got :
- Fly to B
- Perform task X
- Repeat {n} times either by Relogging/Mode-switching/Re-Instancing by any means
- Return to A
- Cash in or Unlock respectively

It doesn't get more Linear and Oldschool than that. Perfect and proven game design... for the 16 bit era. IMHO that remains one of our key problems and it seems it's here to stay, regardless of the content it applies to.
 
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Frenotx

Frenotx
Mengy said:
Yeah, I agree, it's all very worrisome for the future of the game. Something is very broken at Frontier, and it's holding Elite back from being the game it should be four years after launch.


It's very hard to make forward progress when you trip over your own feet so often, or keep walking in the wrong direction...
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Indeed. I don't know who's to blame, but there exists some combination of relentlessly terrible design decisions, and embarrassingly noticeable technical issues. It could be that the design team is coming up with great stuff, but keep getting overruled by marketing folks. It could be that the devs KNOW various things aren't ready or done being tested, but some higher-up is forcing their hand to stick to some internal deadline. It could also be that their internal communication structure just sucks, and one hand doesn't really know what the other is doing.

Regardless of who or what is the cause though the result is the same- and that result is highly disappointing. No other game (and I've played my fair share) has come close to Elite's increasingly monumental amount of unrealized and / or squandered potential. It's exceedingly frustrating to watch them keep missing the mark.
 
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Eloy

Eloy
My feeling ist that ED is a very binary game programmed by devs. No offense but I learned that (good) devs are not creative by nature. They are better in using the other half of the brain. ED needs much more creative thinking.
They even seem to be completely unable to look over their horizon (no pun intended) and simply ask themselves "How do other (good and successful) games do this?".
They have absolutely nothing one can call "mission system"; it all feels so hardwired.
Even "new" mission packs (passengers) are nothing but the same old with a few new modifiers
There´s so much space to fill in these missions. heck, the missions could stay the same from A to B, just add spice in between (see video above) !

You need game designers ! Not devs trying to do that job too ! Your game is numbers. Hide them behind adventures.

Good video VJ, thank you.
 

Maka Gucci

Maka Gucci
Vardaugas said:
It more feels that they are lacking the resources to do more than the most basic design pass on game mechanics and are stuck with this primitive gameplay. It's a very first design concepts at its most simple level, which may theoretically work but is in no way something you'd put in the final release if you could help it. It needs another pass to elaborate, then another pass to polish and QoL. This may work for a board game. A video game needs more complexity and dynamics to engage the player.
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Well said, you and others. I couldn't agree more.
 

Maka Gucci

Maka Gucci
Frenotx said:
Indeed. I don't know who's to blame, but there exists some combination of relentlessly terrible design decisions, and embarrassingly noticeable technical issues. It could be that the design team is coming up with great stuff, but keep getting overruled by marketing folks. It could be that the devs KNOW various things aren't ready or done being tested, but some higher-up is forcing their hand to stick to some internal deadline. It could also be that their internal communication structure just sucks, and one hand doesn't really know what the other is doing.

Regardless of who or what is the cause though the result is the same- and that result is highly disappointing. No other game (and I've played my fair share) has come close to Elite's increasingly monumental amount of unrealized and / or squandered potential. It's exceedingly frustrating to catch them keep missing the mark.
Click to expand...

So much this.
 

Ralph Vargr

Ralph Vargr
Frenotx said:
Indeed. I don't know who's to blame, but there exists some combination of relentlessly terrible design decisions, and embarrassingly noticeable technical issues. It could be that the design team is coming up with great stuff, but keep getting overruled by marketing folks. It could be that the devs KNOW various things aren't ready or done being tested, but some higher-up is forcing their hand to stick to some internal deadline. It could also be that their internal communication structure just sucks, and one hand doesn't really know what the other is doing.

Regardless of who or what is the cause though the result is the same- and that result is highly disappointing. No other game (and I've played my fair share) has come close to Elite's increasingly monumental amount of unrealized and / or squandered potential. It's exceedingly frustrating to catch them keep missing the mark.
Click to expand...

It's a failure at the senior command level. It's clear, from what is coming out, that they have an overworked/understaffed crew.
 

Stigbob

Stigbob
Ralph Vargr said:
It's a failure at the senior command level. It's clear, from what is coming out, that they have an overworked/understaffed crew.
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They said from the start that any expansions were dependent on them thinking it was commercially viable. Maybe they listened to the four years of whinging we've had so far and decided stuff it lets make a dinosaur game instead.
 
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