Seriously I m starting to get agro with the designers

[777Driver]

No, normal games add something to the quest. Going from A to B is an excuse, a mcGuffin, to experience actual gameplay designed by the developers. This is the equivalent of re-shooting the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but remove Sauron, the Orcs and every other challenge and just have four dudes walk in a straight line for three movies in a row. Nobody makes those movies, because it is beyond absurd.

ED at it's core is a space trucking simulator. The dude just needs to do 3 trips to unlock a minuscule portion of the game. Broo isn't even an essential unlock. I did the delivery a while back, calculated an optimum A-B-A trade route between Fujin & MUANG. Made a ton of credits, and unlocked everything in under an hour (wasn't getting a 23 respawn) certainly didn't want to mess around with quests etc.

 

[Ian Skippy]

Nope.

It's the equivalent of a tiny minor scene at best in a movie.
To use your analogy it's like watching frodo cross the plains of mordor for 5 minutes... which unsurprisingly is exactly what we see.

Okay, if you think this is good game design that is your opinion. I think it is depressing that FD's only hand-crafted missions are worse than the procgen ones.

 

[fu9ar]

you could have had a friend shuttle lots out to you until you filled up your hold and then gone to Broo.

 

[Chris Simon]

you could have had a friend shuttle lots out to you until you filled up your hold and then gone to Broo.

I was just about to suggest that, but from the vibe this OP gives out, I don't think they have many friends...

 

[Chaparral]

As a general design rule, fetch quests are the LOWEST common denominator.

So many other options possible, chained missions, boss fights, smuggling runs, etc. etc.

Instead fetch quests. Fetch quests that have to be repeated without any deviation. It's lazy.

Anyone that tells you otherwise is being dishonest.

 

[Ian Skippy]

You're kidding me right? You don't see the issue here? You just think OP needs instant gratification?

Unlocking engineers doesn't have to be a mindless chore, I'm really glad I'll never have to do it again. In other games I enjoy going through the unlock process a second time, why? Because those games made the unlock process fun, in other words it was good game design, but the elite engineers is just lazy, bottom of the pit game design, there is so many ways they could improve on it, but they haven't, they had an update dedicated to the engineers and they didn't even touch the unlock process. Each engineer has a back story, they could have a mission for each engineer which is related to their backstory, or related to the modifications they will offer, something like that. Who needs 50 tonnes of fujin tea? And why do we have to go back and forth multiple times to deliver it when we have enough space for one trip? 50 tonnes of kamitra cigars? 5000 light years of exploration to unlock a mod that benefits combat ships? It's a sandbox, why are we being forced into other types of gameplay, let us go at our own pace.

I dont even know why this is being debated at all. How many people have said:"I am considering wiping my save, but would hate to unlock the engineers again!"? Loads of us. How many people said:"I am considering wiping my save, and can't wait to unlock all engineers again!". To my knowledge literally nobody, ever.

Unlocking the engineer is a chore, it is something people put up with for the rewards. Which means it is poorly designed.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Each Engineer unlock should actually involve some kind of mini mission arc with the reward being a single blueprint.
Something both fun, and relevant to the blueprint, and capable of being procedural, so it's not the same for everyone.

 

[777Driver]

You're kidding me right? You don't see the issue here? You just think OP needs instant gratification?

Unlocking engineers doesn't have to be a mindless chore, I'm really glad I'll never have to do it again. In other games I enjoy going through the unlock process a second time, why? Because those games made the unlock process fun, in other words it was good game design, but the elite engineers is just lazy, bottom of the pit game design, there is so many ways they could improve on it, but they haven't, they had an update dedicated to the engineers and they didn't even touch the unlock process. Each engineer has a back story, they could have a mission for each engineer which is related to their backstory, or related to the modifications they will offer, something like that. Who needs 50 tonnes of fujin tea? And why do we have to go back and forth multiple times to deliver it when we have enough space for one trip? 50 tonnes of kamitra cigars? 5000 light years of exploration to unlock a mod that benefits combat ships? It's a sandbox, why are we being forced into other types of gameplay, let us go at our own pace.

Forcing players into different types of gameplay is the worst possible way to encourage it. And it boggles my mind that there are people at frontier who are this stupid.

No idea why you are banging on about Kimatra cigars and back story's about engineers.. Let's just stick to facts. OP is complaining about making 3 trips for Broo Tarquin, that is the only thing I have commented on.

In order to unlock you need to focus on Combat, get to rank Competent, make 3 cargo runs (probably less in boom state) Just my opinion but I don't think that is anything to cry over..

Regarding unlocks in general, have always said that Naval ranking and engineer unlocks need more depth to it, like a campaign or story mode.

 

[Strangepork]

I'm unlocking Broo Tarkin so I need 50 fujin tea. bUt the tea is sold in lots of 23 so that means 3 there and backs. I'm %100 positive the designers were laffing there butts off when they designed that. "Hahaha, make them waste time when it would be totally possible to sell 50 tea at a time. Hahahaha"

If you spread honey really thin on toast, no like really macroscopicly thin so that you can only just taste it, the jar lasts for a long time.

 

[CMDR Carbo]

You what?

23!?!!???

When I unlocked him a few weeks ago, it was 5!!

Same. Makes me wonder when that was changed, must have been recent.
So the OP should acutally be thankful to the designers.

 

[Ian Skippy]

No idea why you are banging on about Kimatra cigars and back story's about engineers.. Let's just stick to facts. OP is complaining about making 3 trips for Broo Tarquin, that is the only thing I have commented on.

In order to unlock you need to focus on Combat, get to rank Competent, make 3 cargo runs (probably less in boom state) Just my opinion but I don't think that is anything to cry over..

Regarding unlocks in general, have always said that Naval ranking and engineer unlocks need more depth to it, like a campaign or story mode.

It isn't something to cry over, but it is valid to politely discuss whether uneventful repeated fed-ex quests are great or, just maybe, can or even should be improved.

 

[Stigbob]

The issue isn't that people 'want it now', the issue is that people want engaging gameplay and this aint it. Doing it once was already a chore. There is no risk, challenge, excitement or anything to it. It is like FD had a brainstorm session start off with the question:"How can we make the most despised quest in games, 'fed-ex quests', even more terrible?", and then at some point a designer said:"I know, we can remove literally everything but the object itself, so nothing happens whatsoever. But that is not all, we'll make them do it multiple times. And no no, I aint done yet: we'll add variety to the number of times people have to do it, so it is even more irritating."

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner!", said whatever numbnut was in charge.

Moving space cargo from A to B in your spaceship is one of the games cornerstones. Objecting to it seems a little unrealistic.

 

[Ian Skippy]

Moving space cargo from A to B in your spaceship is one of the games cornerstones. Objecting to it seems a little unrealistic.

That is why I am not objecting to moving space cargo from A to B in your spaceship, but about nothing happening while you're doing it. Again, the defensiveness of some people here is odd. Nobody ever said:"the greatest gaming experience of my life was bringing a box from A to B with nothing happening in between." Why people are so resistant against admitting that this could be improved upon is baffling.

 

[Stigbob]

That is why I am not objecting to moving space cargo from A to B in your spaceship, but about nothing happening while you're doing it. Again, the defensiveness of some people here is odd. Nobody ever said:"the greatest gaming experience of my life was bringing a box from A to B with nothing happening in between." Why people are so resistant against admitting that this could be improved upon is baffling.

I'm not being defensive I'm wondering what some people were expecting from an elite game and why they label one of its basic professions as some sort of unreasonable punishment.

I use cargo as a pirate magnet as its loads of fun and more lucrative than trading. Takes a few sessions of pootling back and forth blasting bad guys for me to unlock an engineer in my cool cargo running FDL with its four tonne bay.

 

[Kaocraft]

... and you have to do it ... once. Anyway. as others have said, plenty more where Broo came from

Lol. The old "it's not THAT bad!" excuse. Sometimes works for real life problems. Not such a great justification for why a videogame should have boring schlepp work in it. You do realize that the devs could have made the unlock requirements for Tarquin be ANYTHING, right? Kinda weird that they chose something barely interactive and needlessly time consuming due to artificial market refresh limits. I don't *think* the designers have a "minimum amount of forced boredom" quota they need to fill, but hey I don't know how the U.K. Government works.

 

[Stigbob]

Lol. The old "it's not THAT bad!" excuse. Sometimes works for real life problems. Not such a great justification for why a videogame should have boring schlepp work in it. You do realize that the devs could have made the unlock requirements for Tarquin be ANYTHING, right? Kinda weird that they chose something barely interactive and needlessly time consuming due to artificial market refresh limits. I don't *think* the designers have a "minimum amount of forced boredom" quota they need to fill, but hey I don't know how the U.K. Government works.

How dare they expect you to fly your spaceship in the spaceship flying game.

 

[Kaocraft]

Each Engineer unlock should actually involve some kind of mini mission arc with the reward being a single blueprint.
Something both fun, and relevant to the blueprint, and capable of being procedural, so it's not the same for everyone.

How about DONT make them procedural, and just focus 100% on making them fun instead? If each mission is a one-time unlock task, you're only going to complete them once anyway. Build an interesting one-off mission for each blueprint unlock and boom - there's your single player story campaign right there. Elite doesn't need procedural content, it needs PROFESSIONAL content. If I'm having fun I don't care if someone else also had the same fun. I'd rather be generically entertained than uniquely bored.

 

[Deleted member 115407]

How about DONT make them procedural, and just focus 100% on making them fun instead? If each mission is a one-time unlock task, you're only going to complete them once anyway. Build an interesting one-off mission for each blueprint unlock and boom - there's your single player story campaign right there. Elite doesn't need procedural content, it needs PROFESSIONAL content. If I'm having fun I don't care if someone else also had the same fun. I'd rather be generically entertained than uniquely bored.

This, I agree with.

I think the mission boards rely too much on procedural generation, and with a very limited scope it seems.

We have a bubble of what, 20,000 inhabited star systems? And yet we have only a small variety of mission types.

 

[Kaocraft]

How dare they expect you to fly your spaceship in the spaceship flying game.

Where "flying your spaceship" = Hyperspace jumps to a predetermined location and supercruising in a straight line to go grocery shopping at a store that will only sell you ⅕ to ⅓ of what you've been sent to deliver, because reasons. Here's a free tip: if your game play could easily be automated, you should either automate it, or make it more complex so it actually benefits from human intelligence. Fetch quests are valid as TEMPLATES for mission design, but it is the designer's job to ensure that interesting things can and will happen during that A->B trip. If the actual mission experience literally boils down to "go over there, then come back, then do it again 3,6,8 times; you haven't actually created anything.

If hyperspace and Supercruise were more involved tasks with nuance and an interesting range of situational and skill-dependent outcomes, I would agree with your point. But that's not the case. You might as well have an engineer unlock called "wait", where your job is to hold a parking space for the engineer by sitting at the pad for an hour and flashing your headlights whenever another ship flys nearby.

So yeah, to borrow your words: How Dare They.

 

[777Driver]

If hyperspace and Supercruise were more involved tasks with nuance and an interesting range of situational and skill-dependent outcomes,.

The basis of any fetch mission (or freight haulage) is to get from A-B without seeing a rebuy screen due to having high value cargo onboard. Guess that is something veterans seem to forget.