Brett, I'll try to use my best English, this to be the most understandable, and sorry in advance, my post will probably be extremely long...
1- Elite : What ?
First of all, let's make an all-round of what is Elite: Dangerous, was, be, will be, could be, and must be.
Elite is an universe (and I insist on this term : Universe) with an extreme experience, lore, and possibility for every kind of player who decided to make "a way" in.
Since 1984, -I was 8 years old-, Elite was my very first experience in what we can call today the "Space Opera", a game with a mix of history, search, exploration, fight and all this happens in space.
My English spoken language limitations -at this time- makes me totally unable to exploit Elite:1984 at it full potiential. Lots of frustration, but I managed to play well with it.
Year 1984 still not permit to the players to communicate each others. Indeed, What we know today as "Internet", was still unborn (1984 was the year of the introduction of the DNS protocol, in the Arpanet, still localized in the U.S.A.). So the social interactions were near from zero. The Elite:1984 Commander was in Solo, alone, in this vast piece of space, between Orrere, and Leesti...
I'll not make all the history of what would become Elite: Dangerous. The successors of Elite:1984 managed to evolve with their own time, that's all, period.
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Planet Earth, present day.
An English Game development studio -like many others- try to create the succession of an old game franchise, and decide to introduce "Elite: Dangerous". Galaxy map at 1:1 scale. Massive Multiplayer Online, let the player to become what he wanna be : Explorer, Fighter, Trader, Good, or Evil ; Clearly, his avatar could let him -or her- become a virtual being of its dream...
And this idea is clearly a dream. Add this a social interaction with other players, everywhere in the real world, and this game could become more than a game : It can become a virtual universe, where you can lives and evolve through your own avatar...
Elite:Bad Guy ? Yes, here's come the first problem... And not a little one... Toxics, agoraphobics, griefers, extreme bad guys... Like the real life, there is this kind of people all around the globe. Each country have jails full of this kind of guys, unable to interact with our society. The universe of Elite: Dangerous can sublimate these types of characters. We'll not finishing in real jail if we kill someone this way after all, isn't it ?
Elite:Bungler ? Yes, another problem, not a little one this one too... Toxicity can have multiple faces. directly or undirectly, every player who decide to launch this universe on his screen can become toxic in many ways. Killing a player, by text, or by destroying all the job done by another one....
Yes, I'm speaking about another great subject, the "BackGround Simulation" (BGS) and, more vastly, the managing of player's minors factions.
Many, many players are trying to play this way : expand, control, Roleplaying and creating the identity they decide to be, as an ingame faction, group, guild, clan, whatever else...
Elite:Exploited ? Yes again. Creating a virtual universe involve great reponsabilities. One of these is to let every people inside this universe to do whatever he want within range. We talked about direct hurting, groups politics, now let's talk about what is important ingame, as much as in real life : Acquiring Credits/Money.
I'm bloody well aware that some of players/readers guess where I wanna go. And I will be OK with them : Elite must not become a source of IRL money creation for any of us. Elite: Dangerous is the property of Frontier Development LLC, and is the lone entity able to gain money from this game. A player must not gain money by doing or selling something for another player, and I'm one hundred percent ok with this.
The drawback of this decision, in an extreme way, is that nobody ingame can become a "real" ingame trader, managing markets or goods, with any other player, front its own group, or another...
Elite : Deaf ? Yes Finally.
Powerplay exclusively in Open Play, Solution for ingame improvement by the core players, well experienced of the game they are using every day, rollback of some ideas already implented, or from the very beginning of the kickstarter, like a real offline Solo, instead of an online Solo. Lots of decisions taken by Frontier are totally understandable by the core players...
All this text reveal a real problem of the core base players, like ones I am playing with every day.
PvE, PvP, RP, BGS players, same fight ! Those I know since 2014 for now, one after another is leaving the game -for their own reason- but the bigger problem, is that they leaving the game with their experience of the game itself. And the experience's bleeding, is the biggest problem, because the most experienced you are, the biggest sophisticated things you can do in this domain...
Every time Frontier takes out a new version of the game, you can see some players come back to see what happens, but they are not staying here for a long period. Because for each way of playing, it is not what they expected... And they loggin'off again, with a taste of deception and frustration, because lots of them are loving the game, but not enough to bear all the problems it involve ingame...
2- Let's Elite Become Elite
However, there is multiple possibilities to counter the player core presence bleeding. But You, Frontier must reconsider that you are not alone. It is your game, but some of your players think that they one too, by their own social involvement for example, creating groups of players, organising ingame events, and creating content globally.
Once again, only experienced players can have enough practice of the Elite Universe for creating contents like that. Let'em leaving the game is a total nonsense, for you, and for us...
- Ok, let's become explorers.
Lots of friends were extremely pleased to go in an exploration of the Elite's Galaxy. But, as usual, doing the same thing, again and again, let them fell a taste of boring, day after day.
One solution is to create more interaction and needs for completing a good exploration, and need a more variety of tasks for performing a better journey.
Let's talk about the Nav Beacons. Totally useless today, except for some specific missions like pirate assassination (and you don't need these beacons if you have a advanced discovery scanner !)
What about these game mechanics, added in the explorer duty ?
a. The Exploration Data Drop Zone
i. Jump in an unknown system –NOT NEAR THE SUN–, Simply because your navigation system is unable to fix a specific coordinate due to the unknown exact configuration of this system (you can randomly appear very far or very near the main star, depending the distance of your hyperdrive's jump).
ii. Launch a scan probe (i.e. Advanced discovery scanner) and collect all global datas from this system.
iii. Head to the main star and find the "Goldylock’s like" zone where you can drop in normal space your future own Nav Beacon, created by a new internal component, able to synthetize a Nav Buoy with some internal material (you can loot these materials with your SRVs on planets).
iv. Your nav Beacon doesn’t appear until you are able to activate it by selling your exploration datas (If someone else manages to drop a beacon and sell his datas before yours, you’ve lost, period).
v. If a player’s created nav beacon already exist, you can scan this one to gather informations already taken by its creator, and you can add ones if its not complete (Rings composition, lack of moons coordinates, whatever…).
b. Improved data analysis (Rings, Planets, capacity to sell markpoints)
i. The detailed surface scanner can launch specific probes to analyse the compositions of Rings, Asteroids, Planets, and other bodies presents in thus systems
ii. All probes are like munitions. They MUST be synthetized to make the scanners to work properly.
iii. If a player managed to gather informations about a specific location of pristine mineable ores, he can sell it to another commander for his own needs (improvement of social interaction between explorers and miners for example. These datas can be sold in a specific market, where players can sell to other players. Can be easily monitored by Frontier).
- Ok, let's become traders.
a. Re-brand the LawLess - MidLaw - LawFull Space identity
i. Create extremely risky, but extremely lucrative missions between a lawful and lawless space. Let the traders taking less risks or more, depending their will.
ii. Develop a Player's hiring zone, where Traders can hire Mercenaries (NPCs for Solo/PG, and Humans for Open), here for develop interactions between players (Traders/Fighters) and let players who don't want human's interactions play their own game, alone.
b.Re-brand the nav Beacons :
i. Make hyperjump directly towards the Nav Beacon, making him to drop instantly in normal space, in a known and specific location.
The risks : Being ambushed by pirates players, but can be countered easily by mercenaries players or NPC cops patrolling inside these beacons.
The goods : If they are already wanted pilots, they can be harassed by cops or NPC bounty hunter, or Players.
ii. Make hyperjump towards the targeted system, but avoiding the Nav Buoy.
The risks : Appears randomly inside the system, between 0 ls to 100.000 ls from the main star, depending the LY distance from jumping-out system, and the complexity of the jumping-in one. (with the same risk of being interdicted by patrolling ships in supercruise).
The goods : Possibility to avoid an ambush zone (beacon) and possible to gain LS from the main star and the targeted station.
- Ok, let's become Fighters.
a. PvE boy ? Or PvP Guy ?
i. Show the Crimes On/Off status directly inside the targeted ships details in the lower left section of the hud, in normal space or in supercruise. It will help each others to identify each of us or let the pirates have the situation to taking risks of a "Crimes on interdiction".
ii. Create a "bounty hunting zone" where a killed player can place a bounty with Credits remunerations on his attacker/killer, when the victim was in crimes off. It can be a real Re-brand of the PvP bounty hunter duty, with a true remuneration on it, and can be a real dissuasion effect on some kind of griefers (not all, for sure, but the 100% situation is a dream).
b. Pledge your own trail
i. Powerplay in Open Play only ! It was explained since the beginning of the idea, so do it ! Sandro SanMarco itself said that the Powerplay was made for PvP interactions... It must be done like this.
ii. Become more reactive against the combat logging. If a player is catch in a combat log action (by a video and a log telemetry for example). It must be punished, as is (More or less period of ban of the game, or whatever else...).
- Ok, let's become Politics.
a. B.G.S. or not B.G.S. ?
i. Being undermined by an unknown quantity of Solo or Private Group pilots could easily become an awful nightmare for players who are making the consolidation or the expansions of their own minor faction. I will not ask you to reverse back all your machinery by explaining that all actions in the persistent universe must be done only in open (even I personnally thing it is the logical solution) but something must be done against this nightmare.
Lots of players left the game because others unknown players decided to neutronize all their job, without explaining why, and in Private groups, being totally hidden.
a. Frontier Become more informed ?
i. Ok we, Frontier, have an idea, what do you think about it ? Why not launch periodical surveys, directly in the launcher, helping yourself to gain the feeling of your player base ? (The Powerplay in Open Only could be a good example, every forum is not an exact snapshot of your pilots situation. Lots of them are playing without being registered in it...
I have lots of ideas like this, but I think those one are good enough for debate and evolution of the game... Please, read carefully, and please again, answer to it Brett...
Thanks for your attention.
Regards.
