Realistic Expectations

[Ian Skippy]

Hints aren’t very effective at maintaining hope, players need more information than vague generalities. The mining info is a week late and Frontier haven’t even told us why, or when, we can expect it. There is a good chance the exploration reveal will also be late now. A bit more communication from Frontier would do absolute wonders to improve the morale of the community.

Many people got excited when they announced Beyond as being a full season of core development, but the assumption was that 2018 would be devoted to building the core, especially non combat core, to bring it up to the level of combat. The reality so far has instead been a little bit of core development with a lot of new content, much of which has been combat related. 3.1 is more of this, and chances are that 3.2 will be too. Will 3.3 also end up as a little bit of mining and exploration improvements coupled with a heavier emphasis on new multiplayer and combat content yet again? Squadrons and fleet carriers, an already confirmed multiplayer only feature, is already a large part of Q4. Without details we can’t know, and it’s this lack of information which has resulted in poor morale among the players.

This behavior by Frontier is what has worn people’s “realistic expectations” down to an all time low. The only people who can improve the situation are Frontier themselves, but it would take action, not inaction, to do so. Some communication though could really help out right now too.

Huh? When did FD ever say they would 'focus on non-combat stuff to bring it to the level of combat'? Anyway, at the end of the day the simple, though admittedly somewhat depressing, truth is that it doesnt matter what they say or dont say. If/when FD ever releases something that would make exploration great again for you, you will give them money and start playing. Whether that is tomorrow, slightly after any arbitrary deadline you set or even years later. If they release something worthwhile you will spend money, if they dont you wont. So from a practical point of view they only need to focus on eventually having something worthwhile to sell, and they can safely ignore any 'if I dont get x before y I am gone!' rhetoric.

It doesnt matter what we expect, it matters what they deliver.

 

[Sylveria]

Frontier are counting on MVP development to minimize cost, while a multiplayer focus will see players "creting their own content.*

But it isn't going to work. Because sandboxes need interactable sand, shovels, buckets, etc, for people to make content in the box. And Elite is woefully lacking there.

Hence why describing this game as a true "sandbox" was never accurate to begin with, and thus negates the "multiplayer only" arguments.

No player economy or functions
No player housing/bases/territories
No player "structures"
etc. etc. etc.

Players "creating content" requires tools to be available to begin with. FD holds all the keys here. That's also why the "emergent" argument fails- because the only "emergence" happening is players shooting one another and exploding pixels in Open. Even PP isn't going to solve that one. (player territorial disputes, etc.)

 

[Ian Skippy]

Even PP isn't going to solve that one. (player territorial disputes, etc.)

But it will be fun.

I know, I know, its not a fancy buzzword, but it is why some of us play games.

 

[Sylveria]

But it will be fun.

I know, I know, its not a fancy buzzword, but it is why some of us play games.

Oh, I don't disagree that it might be... even if for a few months... and more power to those who participate.

 

[Urbanski101]

But it will be fun.

I know, I know, its not a fancy buzzword, but it is why some of us play games.

Agreed 'fun' is why we play games...and also why many of us no longer play ED

 

[Ian Skippy]

Kind of a more general point - but maybe it's time devs abandon the whold procedural generation gimmick? The notion that an algorithm can build a living, engaging game environment never seems to have really worked that well. I'm still to see an example of it not producing something boring and repetitive. Happy to be disproved by examples if anyone has them though!!

Reality would be a good example...

 

[Vasea Azure]

For me, I think ED has already hit its peak, there may be some nice tweaks in Q4 this year to fill a few old cracks, but I think the game will plateau at the end of this year.
I don't think Space legs can ever happen now, as Sandro said, "dovetailing another game into the game" is no easy task, and I think it would cost too much money and take too much time to implement vs the returns.

Yup, my feelings exactly, there is no indication anything big will happen soon or ever.
Now, the game we currently have gave me more hours of fun than most games these days and I`m far away from saying ED is a bad game - quite the contrary. But for last 3 years I was hoping for real expansions for the game like space legs/earth like planets that would expand my adventure even more but this magnitude of content is out of FD reach or interest I believe - its a business and I think they know that pumping more resources and money in to ED is simply not profitable.
Still we have great fun space game in our hands, and nothing will change that!

 

[babelfisch]

I’m a regular forum user as many may know, and will also know that I say what I feel.
Which is why I am on many of the "White Knight's" ignore lists - For me, that’s mission accomplished, because it means my posts will only be read by the normal forum users that will respond with neutral and sensible replies.

I don't think that's a good way to start a thread, most of the so called white knights are normal forum users, they just happen to disagree with you on certain topics but have criticism for other areas of the game.

I have followed the development of Elite Dangerous since 2014, I am a Premium Beta backer with around 400 hours in the game (that includes play during the premium beta and gamma phases), 600,000,000+ credits and a large number of ships.

I have watched all the dev diaries (multiple times), those combined with such a promising start, really made me believe that ED was going to be an amazing and immersive space game - Possibly the best space game ever!

But over the years, I've seen the game develop, with some new questionable "features" being added:
(Not all of these were poor additions)

Power Play
Wings
Mining
Planetary Landing
SRV's
Ship Launched Fighters
CQC
Multicrew
Engineers
Thargoids
Mega Ships
etc.

I never had any expectations for the game since I bought the 1.0 release and already was pretty happy with what I got. Still, they managed to surprise me with exceptionally good and equally bad features and implementations.

For me, most of the features just felt like they were tacked on and didn’t really improve the core mechanics or immersion of the game. I won’t go into detail, I have many posts that explain my feelings about the“Features” of ED.
I will also refrain from going into detail about my thoughts on RNG mechanics and the repetitiveness that procedural generation creates, if I did, this post would be three times as long!

Absolutely agree with that.

It's been well over a year now that I (and many others) have been constantly asking for core mechanics to be updated. Exploration has been the same point and click monotony since launch, trading hasn't had any love other than being reskinned into Passenger missions and the BGS is still as stale as it's always been.

Trading just got some pretty good tools, but apart from that I agree.

I think it's got to the point where we need to start to manage our expectations of Elite Dangerous. The game has been out for over 4 years and hasn't really developed the way the dev diaries (or DDF) made out it would – If anything, it’s mostly combat pew-pew focused (Even though pretty much every ED poll ever done has shown that the majority of players are traders or explorers!)
Elite Dangerous is an indie title at heart, and doesn’t have the financial backing it needs to turn it into what most of us want it to be. ED was once 200 dev's strong, now I don’t believe it is even 1 quarter of that.

We can't tell anything about the number of developers since we don't know if they are working on future releases. Apart from that I agree.

You can’t blame FDev for taking resources away from a 4 year old title that isn’t making large profits anymore and moving them to new IP's (Planet Coaster, Jurassic Park World).
Business is business, and it’s all about the profit margins at the end of the day.

Yes, and to be fair, I don't know many games that receive that amount of love and content 4 years after release.

For me, I think ED has already hit its peak, there may be some nice tweaks in Q4 this year to fill a few old cracks, but I think the game will plateau at the end of this year.
I don't think Space legs can ever happen now, as Sandro said, "dovetailing another game into the game" is no easy task, and I think it would cost too much money and take too much time to implement vs the returns.

We'll see. David Braben said last year that the best and most complex features will be added towards the end of the development cycle. He also said that space legs and atmos are coming.

So the TL; DR is basically, ED is an Indie game with limited resources, our opinions and desires for its future development should reflect on that fact.
If Roberts Space industries can’t make Star Citizen in 6 years with 187 million dollars, don’t expect FDev to make a fully immersive Milky-Way galaxy in 4 years with a fraction of that money.

Absolutely agree with that.

See? A white knight just agreed with a large number of your points!

 

[Mengy]

It doesnt matter what we expect, it matters what they deliver.

Very true. I suppose I'd just like Frontier to deliver more often, particularly with regards to non combat development.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Very true. I suppose I'd just like Frontier to deliver more often, particularly with regards to non combat development.

My issue is that there is actually very little Combat content. There are plenty of weapons and ships that are constantly being created, but the actual game play content to use those weapons in is very poor. Combat Zones are rubbish as are Res Site. Both of those are the main combat content and to honest, they stink.

If the exploration/scanning mechanics, the new planetary surface details, better lighting and the Codex that comes in Q4 are any good, I can see exploration as being the most developed part of the game with mining if the mining update is good too. Trade has already got a nice update and probably doesn't need that much more.

Even more so if the DLC is the first iteration of atmospheric planets.

After that Combat scenarios like Combat zones and res sites, really need an update.

 

[BoggiBlanko]

I brought LEP so I didn't have to worry about what came out and I could accept what ever was released for what it was. However, since landing on planets my perception is every release has largely been about content I don't experience.

I am with you and I've seen many people with the same opinion! I don't know why they put efford in things like power play or Engineers for example instead of flashing out Horizons (Planets), because that's what would make this game way more interesting! Maybe the answer is easily, that it was way more cheaper to implement things like this!

I know there are people loving this stuff, but honestly, wouldn't they have something that is really awesome instead? Frontier blew my mind two times:

1. When I started playing this game back then, closed beta.

2. When Horizons came out, giving us so many planets.

Since then I am still waiting for them to blow my mind again, because in more than 30 years gaming no other game made me feel so excited about it!

After many updates I still believe in this game, but also I feel more and more sad, because my common sense is preparing me slowly for disapointment. The last trailer only reinforces my fear, that this game will not be as awesome as it really could be! It's not only my imagination, this game has the potential to be just what I am dreaming of! It is already in many ways, but come on, why did they stop?

Maybe David Braben should get his "baby" back!

 

[babelfisch]

My issue is that there is actually very little Combat content. There are plenty of weapons and ships that are constantly being created, but the actual game play content to use those weapons in is very poor. Combat Zones are rubbish as are Res Site. Both of those are the main combat content and to honest, they stink.

If the exploration/scanning mechanics, the new planetary surface details, better lighting and the Codex that comes in Q4 are any good, I can see exploration as being the most developed part of the game with mining if the mining update is good too. Trade has already got a nice update and probably doesn't need that much more.

Even more so if the DLC is the first iteration of atmospheric planets.

After that Combat scenarios like Combat zones and res sites, really need an update.

This. I am mostly interested in combat but I couldn't care less for the next combat ship or weapon variant. I also couldn't care less for multipew or CQC. The only good combat focused update was SLF and I can't even use them because none of my ships have a hangar...
But the very core mechanics like RES or CZ have barely been touched, which is exactly the same argument for exploration or mining.

 

[babelfisch]

I am with you and I've seen many people with the same opinion! I don't know why they put efford in things like power play or Engineers for example instead of flashing out Horizons (Planets), because that's what would make this game way more interesting! Maybe the answer is easily, that it was way more cheaper to implement things like this!

I know there are people loving this stuff, but honestly, wouldn't they have something that is really awesome instead? Frontier blew my mind two times:

1. When I started playing this game back then, closed beta.

2. When Horizons came out, giving us so many planets.

Since then I am still waiting for them to blow my mind again, because in more than 30 years gaming no other game made me feel so excited about it!

After many updates I still believe in this game, but also I feel more and more sad, because my common sense is preparing me slowly for disapointment. The last trailer only reinforces my fear, that this game will not be as awesome as it really could be! It's not only my imagination, this game has the potential to be just what I am dreaming of! It is already in many ways, but come on, why did they stop?

Maybe David Braben should get his "baby" back!

All the major additions didn't interest me at all, they did add some pretty good QOL features though. Avatars, station announcers, tire tracks, station variants, new assets, galmap improvements, passengers are pretty much complete, new ships and modules, HUD improvements, etc. But I agree that nothing of this blows your mind.

 

[rhiz]

Kind of a more general point - but maybe it's time devs abandon the whold procedural generation gimmick? The notion that an algorithm can build a living, engaging game environment never seems to have really worked that well. I'm still to see an example of it not producing something boring and repetitive. Happy to be disproved by examples if anyone has them though!!

Yes, but that’s the only conceivable way of achieving something with Elite’s scale and degree of freedom.

 

[SentineI]

I think it's got to the point where we need to start to manage our expectations of Elite Dangerous. The game has been out for over 4 years (snip)

I came to that conclusion a year ago! The game has been out too long now for the game's core to drastically change. There'd have to throw away too much code (and effort & money), for too little gain (from their perspective).

ED was once 200 dev's strong, now I don’t believe it is even 1 quarter of that.

But here I think you are over-pessemistic. I still think there's a big possibility they're putting massive efforts into atmospheric planets (maybe even ones with life), but it turned out they needed to massively revamp the engine (*) to achieve some things, so Beyond is basically treading water until that work bears fruit.

Sure, they may not have 200 strong working on ED, but even if half are working on another game, that may indirectly benefit ED in a year or two: Note how the new Jurassic Park game has elements that could potentially be used for planets with alien life. I doubt that is by accident...

And if FDev also have another revenue stream, that helps fund David Braben's pet project (Elite) in the longer term...

I say wait & see what comes in 2019 (i.e. after Beyond) before giving up all hope.

(* e.g. A better lighting model than ED's slightly crappy existing one. Which we know is getting improved as part of Beyond Q4.)

 

[Ian Skippy]

I came to that conclusion a year ago! The game has been out too long now for the game's core to drastically change. There'd have to throw away too much code (and effort & money), for too little gain (from their perspective).


But here I think you are over-pessemistic. I still think there's a big possibility they're putting massive efforts into atmospheric planets (maybe even ones with life), but it turned out they needed to massively revamp the engine (*) to achieve some things, so Beyond is basically treading water until that work bears fruit.

Sure, they may not have 200 strong working on ED, but even if half are working on another game, that may indirectly benefit ED in a year or two: Note how the new Jurassic Park game has elements that could potentially be used for planets with alien life. I doubt that is by accident...

And if FDev also have another revenue stream, that helps fund David Braben's pet project (Elite) in the longer term...

I say wait & see what comes in 2019 (i.e. after Beyond) before giving up all hope.

(* e.g. A better lighting model than ED's slightly crappy existing one. Which we know is getting improved as part of Beyond Q4.)

Not just the lightning, which they are doing. They are also need to PG 'layered stuff' over the core surface, which is also coming in Q4. Plus they need dynamic weather (check), flora&fauna (check), PG clouds (check). Anyone who thinks they are just doing Beyond as a polite farewell is missing something.

 

[Soon(TM)]

I would have to say that at least 200 hours of my play time has probably been me trying to prepare for what I thought the game was going to develop into. Gathering 600 million + credits and A rating all my ships in preparation for the atmospheric landings , hunting animals, gathering materials for trade etc.

None of that has come to fruition so I feel like those hours may have been wasted.

This mention of the cobra engine having to be redesigned to be able to handle atmospheric planets etc. Is there any truth to this? Link maybe?

 

[RJMcReady]

The merry-go-round of half baked game mechanics, grinding, unbalanced gameplay continues rotating around at an slower and slower pace.

Occasionally the devs give a half hearted push to quiet the children sitting aboard the weather beaten horse carousels.

However the plans for exciting new fairground attractions seem to have gone from "Soon" to "would be nice but not something we are looking at for the foreseeable".

Time to get off the ride.

I would love you to have my stuff but unfortunately the overbearing GM doesnt trust players with agency in the game.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

A write-off. A single update put me back into "new player experience" and that experience sucked major balls. Not going through that grind again.

 

[Soon(TM)]

A write-off. A single update put me back into "new player experience" and that experience sucked major balls. Not going through that grind again.

I never got that feeling from any of the updates, it was too easy to spot that they were all built on the base mechanics that were defined in the beta.

That's why I'm so disappointed really, instead of wasting time on such useless features as Multicrew, CQC and Power play, they could have used that time to actually expand the core mechanics for Trading, exploration and mining.

Even now, with the mining update, part of me feels like this new asteroid type that can actually crack and break will have a model that makes it stick out like a sore thumb. Compared to the rest of the asteroid assets.