While it is undeniable that combat has been in the spotlight for a long time it hasn't really helped it all that much. First there was engineers, which while good in paper, absolutely destroyed the essence of PvP, then we had the SLF's which were much better in terms of adding something to the experience. Then came Thargoids which while cool and relatively hard to fight don't really add much to the old combat formula (Besides making a separation for AX ships which is an entirely different can of beans) and the risk/reward is absolutely dreadful especially when combat is one of the most expensive career paths. So; yes combat has gotten a lot of attention but when you start to analyze it most of that attention hasn't really done much. Payments could be worse but they're far from great, there's little risk outside of dull PvP attrition battles and when there is risk it's simply not worth it at all. Risking my 40 million corvette for a 7 million mission simply doesn't make sense. I feel FD simply hasn't been focusing on the right areas, multicrew is pretty much decorative at this point, the benefits simply aren't there and even without looking for money it just isn't what I would call a great experience. Small ships are pretty much dead in combat, Capital Ships are a joke and Surface Combat is still irrelevant. I feel Base assaults are an exemplification of what is wrong with combat as it is at the moment, they're risky (when done solo since if you get a wing there are far more productive things to do) and they don't make up for that with money. There's very little structure to support them and they are just kind of boring imo.
In short: Combat has gotten a lot of love but it hasn't done much for it, FD has been focusing on the wrong areas and no doubt it could do with a focused update; however there are plenty of issues with the rest of career paths and I can see why those would take more priority over what is in arguably the most "acceptable" state.
