Where is the paid 'content' LEP holder get for 'free'

[Komemiute]

Coming at this forum with fresh eyes, I see so much toxicity. More, more, faster, faster!

I understand the enthusiasm, especially if you prepaid for future content. However, I think what a lot of folks don't understand (and not to any persons fault) is what is truly involved.

Elite Dangerous is a self published, crowd funded title, currently in it's post release phase, being developed by a sub-set of a relatively small developer.

They don't have Sony or Microsoft throwing millions at them and saying, "Here, buy yourself 100 more programmers/artists. In the meantime we'll throw a few more million at the TV networks to put primetime ads on repeat so we can sell 5 million units."
They are nowhere near the size of Bungie, which STILL had the weight of Activision behind it in order to churn out Destiny and its DLCs.
And they certainly don't have the funding to keep pre-release level staff working on the game full time, 4 years after release.

My point is that this game IS going to take a long time to mature. That is a logistical fact. They're certainly not taking their time for fun. It would be uncouth for Frontier to point that out, so they just say there's a 10 year plan. Then they remain largely silent on forum and social media complaints because trying to explain all this would look like excuses and back peddling.

Those are just my thoughts on the matter.

On a lighter note; Look at Jurrasic World. Made in the same engine, a framework for volumetric lighting, water and terrain hydroerosion, large scale foliage instancing, fauna AI capable of evolution/mutation, reusable prop and audio assets. Sounds like strategic funding to me. Just sayin...

I think I love you?

 

[Stigbob]

Concept art from the period tells it's own story.



If you're going to publish stuff like that and then go with the whole "Ah, but we never said we were going to...." thing, you probably need to take some kind of business ethics class.

*EDIT*

Would somebody like to go through the details of that pic' and point out the stuff that is/isn't in the game, or should I do it?

I can't see any legs in it for starters.

 

[Devari]

Elite Dangerous is a self published, crowd funded title, currently in it's post release phase, being developed by a sub-set of a relatively small developer.

Except that's not actually true. Elite has brought in at least $100 million USD of revenue for FD since launch (probably more) and they have over 300 employees. They have more than enough resources to use to develop Elite, they are simply choosing to direct them towards Planet Coaster and JWE instead and spend the absolute minimum amount of resources on Elite.

The first casualty is always the plan.

Especially if you take the revenue generated to fund that plan and spend it on roller coasters and dinosaurs instead of, you know, the game you actually sold to customers.

 

[Stealthie]

I can't see any legs in it for starters.

It looks like those are some kind of animals stood at the edge of the river, drinking from the water, by the vegetation, on the atmospheric planet.

presumably they have legs. [where is it]

 

[Devari]

FD changed their business model. Completely within their rights. LEP owners got nothing for thier purchase of extra content that others had to bay for. and FD doesn't feel as thought they need do anything. Welcome to capitalism at its finest!

Customers have quite a few rights as well, especially with the very strong consumer protection laws in the UK, and I doubt that it would be hard for an LEP owner to get a refund under these circumstances.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Concept art from the period tells it's own story.

Story that it is concept art?

Also they have never said that they won't do something. It is all about time frame.

Being salty is one thing. Trying to dress up as you have legit objective case is completely different. You have none.

FD plan for ED is ever changing but still ongoing. Last time I checked they are ones actually making game. We are just hanging out and having fun. Or not, in some of your cases.

 

[Stigbob]

It looks like those are some kind of animals stood at the edge of the river, drinking from the water, by the vegetation, on the atmospheric planet.

presumably they have legs. [where is it]

I'll take your word for it as I haven't got my reading glasses on.

Although they could be giant alien slugs.

 

[Canoe]

I distinctly remember a tech/render demo, well over a decade ago, from Frontier, of a 3d model of a man running, - this was back when Elite IV was the unofficial name of the next version of Elite. Space legs have been in development in one way or another, for a very long time.

 

[Devari]

Yes, to the former... as a part of team of players who wanted to understand the PG rules behind the distribution of materials on the surface of planets, and I had a blast doing it. Science, even in video games, is fun!

And then they moved collecting that data to the detailed surface scanner. The least they could've done is required taking a few surface samples in order to get that information!

I did something similar with my MEF thread and actually did enjoy that part of the game, but much of that time I spent wasn't really efficient in terms of contributing to game progression. It did allow me to obtain several hundred MEF which I used for my overcharged incendiary multicannons and that did give me the ability to create mods that otherwise wouldn't have been feasible so I don't regret the time I spent at all even if it wasn't the most "efficient" use of my gaming time.

As for the latter, since I never counted how many base runs I've done since Horizons, I would have to answer yes, I have done countless base runs.

In all seriousness, though, I've never needed hundreds of MEFs, or any other G5 material. The ones I've gotten has been more than sufficient for my engineering purposes, and those were gathered via normal game play. Of course, it helps that like everything else in this game, if there's an aspect of it I don't find fun, I'll shelve it until it becomes fun. I never liked the random nature of the first iteration of Engineering, so I banked the G5 materials I'd gotten via normal game play, and waited for Frontier to change how it worked.

So are you basically telling me that you essentially didn't do much Engineering before Beyond launched? If so that is basically my point here. A massive amount of the grind I've done has been to collect mats and Engineer my fleet of 30 ships. If you didn't do that grind, well, then you didn't do that grind. It doesn't mean the grind wasn't there.

In the case of the former, it takes but a moment to check a USS during the course of my normal game play to see if its something worth my time to investigate. Heck, I've even stopped my FSD charging sometimes because one popped up as it was spooling up. By the time the engineering rules changed, I had what I needed to get my ships up to G5 mods.

In the case of the latter, I again banked my EFCs until the rules changed so I wouldn't need hundreds of them to do the things I'd do with them.


*thinks*

I guess I have been "investing" my precious free time to have fun in the future. I just made sure I had fun getting it in the first place.

The issue here is that we had no indication that FD was going to completely invalidate the prior Engingeering mods. If anything they successively nerfed the power of those mods throughout Horizons since 2.1 launched, claiming they were "too powerful". There was every expectation that putting that grind into Engineering at the time was "endgame" content. Then with Beyond they dialed the Engineering mods back up to 11 and attached an entirely new grind to it. Anyone who chose not to grind earlier was basically choosing to not play that part of the game because we had absolutely no indication FD would do that.

So far, the only potential "gaps" in my ship roster are the Federal Corvette, primarily because I think its absurd that we can rank up with both Superpowers. I don't know how much good will I've got banked with the Federation due to taking certain missions for them during the course of my BGS work, but the Fed Navy progress bar has been at 100% for about three years now. I'm just waiting for another Fed ship sale to complete my roster of Fed ships for any false flag operations I may want to perform, no ranking up required.

I don't yet have the rank for the Imperial Cutter, but that's because I'm in no hurry to get it, since I figure there's at least six more years of life, including paid expansions, left in this game, and I want to save some goals for the future. That being said, thanks to the changes to mission rewards, I'll get there a lot sooner than I would've a year ago if I'd chosen to grind away at it.

Again, that's basically choosing to not do the Naval Rank grind. We had no indication whatsoever that FD would change this to the point that the earlier grind was going to be made dramatically easier with Beyond and doing that grind was the only way to get a Corvette or Cutter. Choosing not to do that grind does not make it "not a grind". You didn't get the "endgame" rank-locked ships by having "fun", you simply accepted that you were not going to get them.

As for Engineering... I have yet to go out of my way to unlock any of the Engineers, and I doubt that'll change anytime soon, nor have I yet had to do activities over and over and over again.

How many Engineers did you unlock having "fun" exactly? I've unlocked a total of 18 Engineers and have used 12 of them for the Grade 5 mods required for Engineering my ships so far. I had to specifically accomplish certain tasks to unlock them, their unlock requirements did not just "happen". I couldn't have obtained the Engineering mods I needed without doing that which, again, was a form of grind that was required for game progression.

There are certainly activities I have yet to do, but given that I anticipate playing this game for many years to come, I'm content to save them for the future. Take the Guardians, for instance. I'm sure there'll be Guardian ruins on the surface of atmospheric planets as well as airless ones, so I'm saving them for when we have those. I think flying in the kinds of environments atmospheric planets will bring will be a lot more fun, and by the time we can land on them, I'll have better exploration tools to find anomalies on them than the old Mark I Eyeball.

My issue here is that the we don't need more shallow grindy game loops. We need more actual content and the playerbase apparently needs to continually put pressure on FD to actually develop space legs and atmospheric planetary landings even in a rudimentary form because otherwise all we will get is more delays and disappointment. Until I can walk around my cockpit and set foot on a planet's surface the game is not going to provide sufficient immersion because there's only so long you can look at a ship HUD or station menu. Until I can land on an Earth-like world I discovered and see basic flora and fauna there isn't much point in going back out exploring just to see a planet from orbit. Elite needs new game mechanics that expand the scope of gameplay, not just new grinds to waste more of our time on.

 

[Luniticisi]

There is no way that boarding Players ships will be a thing. NPC's possibly but actual players ... no way that is happening ..ever!

 

[StuartGT]

I distinctly remember a tech/render demo, well over a decade ago, from Frontier, of a 3d model of a man running, - this was back when Elite IV was the unofficial name of the next version of Elite. Space legs have been in development in one way or another, for a very long time.

[video=youtube;Glr71X-cr84]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Glr71X-cr84[/video]

 

[Canoe]

It was a developer rendering video, not even a full game trailer, but the models in the video have the same scale, who knows if it was related..

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

There is no way that boarding Players ships will be a thing. NPC's possibly but actual players ... no way that is happening ..ever!

I don't know how it turns out to be, but why not? Sounds like quite doable if all mechanics in the place.

If you mean *stealing* ship that's different matter.

 

[Devari]

There is no way that boarding Players ships will be a thing. NPC's possibly but actual players ... no way that is happening ..ever!

Then I really have to ask, what was the point of that concept art? And what was the point in describing boarding actions as a planned feature when the LEP was being sold? Did Braben intentionally mislead us? Is there any reason they can't actually develop that feature? It's been done in other games and is obviously technically feasible so it's not an issue of the existing gaming technology not being up to the task. It's also not an issue of resources when Elite has generated at least $100 million USD of revenue for FD (again, that is a very conservative estimate, the total revenue is probably considerably higher than this).

Why exactly have our expectations of Braben and FD fallen so far that we don't actually expect FD to develop the game they originally described?

 

[Drelthar]

Then I really have to ask, what was the point of that concept art? And what was the point in describing boarding actions as a planned feature when the LEP was being sold? Did Braben intentionally mislead us? Is there any reason they can't actually develop that feature? It's been done in other games and is obviously technically feasible so it's not an issue of the existing gaming technology not being up to the task. It's also not an issue of resources when Elite has generated at least $100 million USD of revenue for FD (again, that is a very conservative estimate, the total revenue is probably considerably higher than this).

Why exactly have our expectations of Braben and FD fallen so far that we don't actually expect FD to develop the game they originally described?

I am pretty sure that they mean that it would cause some serious upset if players ships could get stolen. As well as some "exploits" and "Money transfer" methods.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

I am pretty sure that they mean that it would cause some serious upset if players ships could get stolen. As well as some "exploits" and "Money transfer" methods.

Boarding does not mean stealing really. Boarding can be done for numerous different reason, burglary being numer one.

Also players get upset for more ridiculous reasons. I fail to see how successful boarding - which most likely will be very though to pull off - will be worse than griefing. In fact, I find it hard to believe it might matter that much in grand scale of things.

 

[Devari]

I am pretty sure that they mean that it would cause some serious upset if players ships could get stolen.

It would be no worse than the current ship destruction griefing and trolling we have now. There's no need to turn it into GTA in Space either, you can simply consider boarding as another means to disable a ship for proper piracy. The ship itself can have the controls locked out and wouldn't be possible to "steal", only to board and remove the cargo.

As well as some "exploits" and "Money transfer" methods.

Being able to board a ship, disable the reactor or incapacitate the crew for the purposes of piracy doesn't need to involve any sort of exploits or money transfer methods. It's basically a much more developed version of using a hatch breaker limpet, except you are literally doing EVA where you use space legs to go over the ship yourself and board it. Really that would turn piracy from being essentially nonexistent in the current gameplay to being a very immersive and fun "career".

 

[Luniticisi]

Then I really have to ask, what was the point of that concept art? And what was the point in describing boarding actions as a planned feature when the LEP was being sold? Did Braben intentionally mislead us? Is there any reason they can't actually develop that feature? It's been done in other games and is obviously technically feasible so it's not an issue of the existing gaming technology not being up to the task. It's also not an issue of resources when Elite has generated at least $100 million USD of revenue for FD (again, that is a very conservative estimate, the total revenue is probably considerably higher than this).

Why exactly have our expectations of Braben and FD fallen so far that we don't actually expect FD to develop the game they originally described?

It was an idea, not well thought through ... the way the community has turned out there is no way that FD will allow someone to lose a ship by someone else taking it through ship boarding.

The amount of tickets sent to support would be overwhelming. Like I said NPC ships could have this happen. Therefore the "promise" isn't broken.

 

[Devari]

It was an idea, not well thought through ... the way the community has turned out there is no way that FD will allow someone to lose a ship by someone else taking it through ship boarding.

Who said anything about "losing" a ship? It's no different than using a hatch breaker limpet to steal cargo, except you're doing it yourself using EVA, a cutting torch and a laser pistol. Which is basically the best way to pirate another ship.

The amount of tickets sent to support would be overwhelming.

Why would that happen exactly? Does support somehow process a large amount of tickets when players are blown up from legitimate PVP interactions in Open?

Like I said NPC ships could have this happen. Therefore the "promise" isn't broken.

The "promise" was very clearly that it would be an actual game feature which involves the player doing boarding actions themselves. Read the description on the LEP page again.

 

[Stigbob]

Then I really have to ask, what was the point of that concept art? And what was the point in describing boarding actions as a planned feature when the LEP was being sold? Did Braben intentionally mislead us? Is there any reason they can't actually develop that feature? It's been done in other games and is obviously technically feasible so it's not an issue of the existing gaming technology not being up to the task. It's also not an issue of resources when Elite has generated at least $100 million USD of revenue for FD (again, that is a very conservative estimate, the total revenue is probably considerably higher than this).

Why exactly have our expectations of Braben and FD fallen so far that we don't actually expect FD to develop the game they originally described?

My expectations haven't changed at all, I bought the game they actually made and have always regarded DLC as potential extra's and not a certainty. Which is why I never got an LEP.