I dont know, Sandro Sammarco does sound like a supervillian name. I mean look at that alliteration!
So Sandro Sammarco has moved aside. Who has taken the reins then?
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I dont know, Sandro Sammarco does sound like a supervillian name. I mean look at that alliteration!
It kind of goes both ways, one of the most surefire ways for a developer to stifle negative communication is to directly and frankly explain to their userbase the reasoning behind design decisions. Users get quite irate when there's design and balance that they don't understand and we can't even discuss it without knowing what is going on, while understanding why things work the way they do at least produces ground for meaningful discussion and thought. Sandro has brought up a few points here and there (often in the focused feedback forums), but the design process and thought processes for Elite are still very much a black box.
For example, the grandfathered modules topic brought up here: most people here disagree with their continued existence as they disrupt the balance of the game by providing unobtainable stats and effects by modern engineering. Some players are objectively better at certain things simply by virtue of having played during a certain period. Now, there might well be valid reasons that we haven't thought of or discussed here, but we have no idea what they are. Every discussion about the future of grandfathered modules devolves into an pointless cesspit of baseless hypothesises as we have no idea whether they are on the cards for some work, whether FD is deathly afraid of the backlash from whoever still uses them, whether they are somehow magically making the game better by their existence or if they simply can't be bothered, never seriously considered their removal and any official talk of them is simply pretend that work was done on them.
I couldn't care less about that. Only the min-max grindlords bothered to get them in the first place and that approach seems to make the people who do it unhappy anyway.
People melt down whenever they announce anything and also when they don't.
I think differently. This departure may be an indication that no new developments are going to be carried out for the game in the mid-term future. The focus will probably be on the "next era of Elite", whatever that means, which they will be able to market as a new game and make a profit on again.
The lack of any news about plans for next year, not to mention postponed features, and now this piece of news may very well be hints that the development for the current game version is really going into maintenance mode.
I respect your point of view and have no direct evidence to counter it, but I do not believe that. We are just now hitting the half time mark in the 10 year plan and the next expansion is underway, player numbers are stable, revenue is good. It makes no sense to wind down ED at the current time or 'no longer care' about balance.
I am sure something will be done, eventually(tm), maybe even soon(tm).
OT
Grandfathered modules is a non issue. Fear of missing out and simplest envy keep some folks obsessed with the very idea some overlords roam Open -> LOL
Of course, grandfathered modules are here to stay.
Sammarco made some brilliant yet not understood decisions. Like RNG in weapons. What's wrong with something unique? Problem was it took you sooo long to get the best possible and folks out of fear to be inferior and missing out complained ....our boring "balance" is still endangered by a view god like -> LOL
Elite is unique.
I hope it will stay this way and not succumb to mindless selfishness of a few, not happy with what other players had accomplished over time.
It was made clear very early on there'll be some peerless weapons/modules in game. Deliberately. Sammarco mentioned this years ago.
Grandfathered modules is a non issue. Fear of missing out and simplest envy keep some folks obsessed with the very idea some overlords roam Open -> LOL
Of course, grandfathered modules are here to stay.
Sammarco made some brilliant yet not understood decisions. Like RNG in weapons. What's wrong with something unique? Problem was it took you sooo long to get the best possible and folks out of fear to be inferior and missing out complained ....our boring "balance" is still endangered by a view god like -> LOL
Elite is unique.
I hope it will stay this way and not succumb to mindless selfishness of a few, not happy with what other players had accomplished over time.
It was made clear very early on there'll be some peerless weapons/modules in game. Deliberately. Sammarco mentioned this years ago.
I was really sorry to hear that Sandro had moved onto other projects. I could listen to him talk Elite all day long.
All the very best to you Sandro.
All the very best to you Sandro.
That was just a single example, there's plenty of controversial topics and design decisions that some clarification and explanation of would either remove the toxic arguments that spawn or at very least give us some proper food for debating. Have you never come across anything in-game that has left you scratching your head as to why anyone thought it was a good idea?
Because they're a public company, listed on the stock exchange, and therefore have to obey very specific rules about publication of internals.
All modified weapons and shields should be removed and put back to unmodified modules if the ship is destroyed.
Problem solved.
I disagree.
The IDEA of powerplay was great but the execution was not good for several reasons.
- it became a tagged on RISK game on top of the actual game
- instead of linked the already in place reputation system with factions they invented a weekly scoreboard
- They completely ignored the effects of realpolitik when an imperial senator takes hit PRIVATE FLEET and liberate a system owned by another super power.
- Suddenly we had the equivalent of Obama sending drone strikes against Apple and telling his party to kill apple employees because they are the enemy...
- The reward system was short sighted and mostly a hunt for gimmick items.
I mean, the IDEA was good but it became completely crazy when you started to look at it in how it impacted the actual universe.
What they SHOULD have done would have been:
- Link the PP faction reputation to minor factions under their influence
- Gain a bonus to rewards and reputation when doing missions for a faction under that PP banner
That would mean we could do regular missions from the mission board and still affect the PP game.
Ok, so how does PVP come into this?
- Powerplay missions are automatically flagged for PVP when a mission target planet/station/area is within another PP faction space (so moving stuff within the same PP faction area would only give you your PP reputation bonus towards minor factions.
Its a video game I do them for fun and avoid either entire games or things in them I don't like (including some players thanks to the excellent block function). I'm also happy as an end user as I don't think my opinion on game design is worth more than that of somebody who does it for a living.
- An imperial senator takes his private fleet into federal space and "liberate" the system and the federal government does not give a hoot about it and there is no diplomatic crisis from the empire literally going to war within a federal system. I mean, it's literally a "bay of pigs" situation where you are seconds from a war.
- An imperial blue haired idealist who are against slavery is at war with the federation who also forbids slavery for no other reason that, they are not imperials...
- A corporate CEO of space IKEA is such a threat to the Federation so if you are part of the federation you should kill all their salesmen because somehow that makes sense...
- Imperial PP factions are for some reason NOT executed for treason against the empire when working against the will of the one imperial PP faction that is actually ruled by the empress of the actual empire. One would think that if the empress says, "no" the other imperial PP factions should sit down and shut up.
- How is PP a covert war of political cloak and daggers when everyone has a "flag" that tells you which party they are part of? It's like James Bond have a "007" on his back at all times and the KGB and FBI wears their logo's on their backs when undercover. Somehow the "covert" part of PP has become "flamboyant" instead.
- If an independent corporation with far reaching power takes over the political control over several systems...why does not that major faction that owns said system simply remove his corporation, install anti-trust laws, split up his company so it does not break up the status quo?
I can continue all day long...
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I like sandro, and whilst i did not always share his interests in the MP part of elite I do hope he still has some input into the game (he is still at FD right?)
on the bright side maybe it is good to have fresh ideas for each season? i donno though, i definitely thought other games at FD gained and ED lost when Michael B moved on.
What ever i wish Sandro good luck with future games, i did like is quirky nature, even it it did seem a little strained in more recent streams.
on the bright side maybe it is good to have fresh ideas for each season? i donno though, i definitely thought other games at FD gained and ED lost when Michael B moved on.
What ever i wish Sandro good luck with future games, i did like is quirky nature, even it it did seem a little strained in more recent streams.
Ahhh...less "handwavium" perhaps? Does the new guy want to rethink the mechanics behind SLFs and Multi-Crew etc...
Oh...and hopefully no more winding the community up with "Elite going Open Only" for LOLs
Oh...and hopefully no more winding the community up with "Elite going Open Only" for LOLs
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