That Whole Smoke - Fire Thing

shadragon

shadragon
In another thread where someone was objecting to exploration mechanics, I saw this:

Can't we move it to the "Didn't We Have This Thread 50 Times Already" subforum?
Click to expand...
Perhaps when you do get the same topic fifty times, you can start to recognize there's actually an issue.

That whole smoke - fire thing, to put it simply. So here's thread fifty-one.

The devs could have left the existing exploration mechanics alone and layered the planetary surface scanning dynamic like a cake with more rewards for those who want to 'dial the radio'. Instead, they chucked out a system that worked for most and replaced it (and mining) with a grindy multi-screen mini-game that isn't intuitive and makes little sense. And this isn't the first time.

The new ships, SLF, planetary landings, additional station interiors and other contextual changes through the years were great. Yet, some areas of the game need serious review:

- Powerplay
- Crime & Punishment
- Arena / CQC
- BGS
- Missions
- Multi-player
- Mining
- Exploration

All of the above releases degraded my in-game experience. Each has illogical rules imposed that ruin game balance, especially when taken together.

I've played E: D literally every day (with few exceptions like holidays) since January of 2015. Today is the last day of my two week stay-at-home Christmas vacation and I've not booted up any of my accounts, save to update the game itself.

I do think the majority of FDEV staff are magnificent; they care and are a talented group, but some of the base decisions made in core game mechanics are horrifically flawed. I'm an optimist and look forward to hearing what they have planned for 2019 and beyond. Two of my four accounts have LEPS so I'm not worried about access to future material. However, until they sort out the above list, I'll be spending my free time (and money) in other companies games.

If I had to summarize Elite: Dangerous today into one line, I'd say it was 'poor ideas, brilliantly executed.' The latest release, for me, was the straw that broke this camels back. YMMV. If you enjoy the new FSS, congrats. I hope you're buying twice what you normally do in the Frontier store to make up for those of us who have stopped. Frontier Developments has said repeatedly that it wants to use income from E: D to finance future development of other projects. I'd suggest it's prudent to take the time to fix the cracks in the foundation, before adding the third and fourth floors.
 

Doozer

D
shadragon said:
In another thread where someone was objecting to exploration mechanics, I saw this:


Perhaps when you do get the same topic fifty times, you can start to recognize there's actually an issue.

That whole smoke - fire thing, to put it simply. So here's thread fifty-one.

The devs could have left the existing exploration mechanics alone and layered the planetary surface scanning dynamic like a cake with more rewards for those who want to 'dial the radio'. Instead, they chucked out a system that worked for most and replaced it (and mining) with a grindy multi-screen mini-game that isn't intuitive and makes little sense. And this isn't the first time.

The new ships, SLF, planetary landings, additional station interiors and other contextual changes through the years were great. Yet, some areas of the game need serious review:

- Powerplay
- Crime & Punishment
- Arena / CQC
- BGS
- Missions
- Multi-player
- Mining
- Exploration

All of the above releases degraded my in-game experience. Each has illogical rules imposed that ruin game balance, especially when taken together.

I've played E: D literally every day (with few exceptions like holidays) since January of 2015. Today is the last day of my two week stay-at-home Christmas vacation and I've not booted up any of my accounts, save to update the game itself.

I do think the majority of FDEV staff are magnificent; they care and are a talented group, but some of the base decisions made in core game mechanics are horrifically flawed. I'm an optimist and look forward to hearing what they have planned for 2019 and beyond. Two of my four accounts have LEPS so I'm not worried about access to future material. However, until they sort out the above list, I'll be spending my free time (and money) in other companies games.

If I had to summarize Elite: Dangerous today into one line, I'd say it was 'poor ideas, brilliantly executed.' The latest release, for me, was the straw that broke this camels back. YMMV. If you enjoy the new FSS, congrats. I hope you're buying twice what you normally do in the Frontier store to make up for those of us who have stopped. Frontier Developments has said repeatedly that it wants to use income from E: D to finance future development of other projects. I'd suggest it's prudent to take the time to fix the cracks in the foundation, before adding the third and fourth floors.
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I'm a new player, and I will say that I couldn't disagree more. Yes there may be areas that need improvement, but without the new update to the game, I probably would have never jumped on board, seeing the game as a little to boring for me to enjoy. The exploration and discovery mechanics make it interesting enough for me, and I'm happy to be a part of the community of such a unique and interesting game.

Another thing to consider is that the game is at a near all time high of average players on steam. So your dissatisfaction with the game is not necessarily representative of the larger community.
 

the100thmonkey

the100thmonkey
I shan't comment on your whole post, since it's something of a screed with too many undefined issues to have a productive conversation on. There's too much "OMG there's too much stuff I don't like!" with little detail on the specifics.

Nevertheless, with regard to exploration I'd point you to your own signature quote: Any grind is in your mind. The exploration mechanics are more involved, which means, IMO, that you should review your goals. A 10KLY trip is now going to take at least 4 times as long as it used to.
 
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[Diplomacy] Carnegie

[Diplomacy] Carnegie
the100thmonkey said:
I shan't comment on your whole post, since it's something of a screed with too many undefined issues to have a productive conversation on. There's too much "OMG there's too much stuff I don't like!" with little detail on the specifics.

Nevertheless, with regard to exploration I'd point you to your own signature quote: Any grind is in your mind. The exploration mechanics are more involved, which means, IMO, that you should review your goals. A 10KLY trip is now going to take at least 4 times as long as it used to.
Click to expand...

Personally, I find the new exploration mechanics to be LESS involved. Convoluted, yes, but to me 'involvement' comes from flying my ship around. The FSS adds a layer of busywork before the flying and simultaneously negates much of the reason for flying in the first place.
 

Tarman

Tarman
As the poster who posted that bit, it was more the fact that it was yet another post about exactly the same thing that has gone around in complete circles over mostly subjective opinions since this teacup got wound up.

Sometimes a repeat of the same thing just means that it's tiresomely repetitive, not that it has a whole lot of merit that hasn't already been carouseled to death in other threads.
 

IndigoWyrd

IndigoWyrd
With 10,560 hours in, and been around since June of 2016, I'd reason you can see where a vast amount of my gaming hours have gone.

And I disagree as well.

I never had the opportunity to purchase a LEP, nor throw the hundreds or even thousands of dollars some others have into the game's development from the kickstarter days - and I wouldn't have either. Not because I don't believe in the game, but because that's just not how I'd ever spend that sort of cash. Perhaps if I could have bought in at the $100k mark as an investor with a promising ROI... but that's a different matter entirely.

Now, is the new stuff perfect? Of course not. There's room for improvement, and Frontier has shown they are more than capable of improving things as we go. Give it time to mature. That applies to posters as well.
 

Mangal Oemie

Mangal Oemie
The changes may not have satisfied all of those who explored before the patch. But it certainly has pulled in a lot of players into exploration that didn't do it before, just from what I hear in the communities I am involved in. Exploration and mining both.
 

Good Death

Good Death
shadragon said:
I'd suggest it's prudent to take the time to fix the cracks in the foundation, before adding the third and fourth floors.
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It looks like Frontier only has three floors.

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[/IMG]
 

xondk

X
shadragon said:
I
The new ships, SLF, planetary landings, additional station interiors and other contextual changes through the years were great. Yet, some areas of the game need serious review:

- Powerplay
- Crime & Punishment
- Arena / CQC
- BGS
- Missions
- Multi-player
- Mining
- Exploration

All of the above releases degraded my in-game experience. Each has illogical rules imposed that ruin game balance, especially when taken together.
Click to expand...

It is fine you are unhappy, but I really have to wonder if all those releases degraded your in game experience, what in game experience is it you want and how would the devs improve what you wanted?

Personally I think the additions made are nice, perfect no, but very nice.

And I enjoy that exploration feels more technical and involved, rather then honk and then go aim at a planet.

Each to their own, but I do not think there has been 50 threads, or even if there has and there are lets say 200 people that dislike the new mechanics, that does not in any way indicate that the majority of people do, what you want to count is unique involvement with a threat, not simply the amount.

It is fairly easy for a small group of people to create a lot of noise on the forum, that does not mean that their argument is valid, what you need is something objective, like how many people actually in that noise supported them, agreeed with them, how many unique id's and how many disagreed, only then do you begin to get an idea of the actual scope, because regardless if you dislike it and I do, the true state of how many like it or do not cannot be revealed by such low numbers of posts.
 

Eidolon

Eidolon
I agree Shadragon. There are problems. I had hoped that the updates would be optional in the end.
But alas when making an online multiplayer game we must all drink from the tainted water of MMO apparently. Because E-sports or something. That never happened with ED and never will, the user base is too small.
Game is not doomed but from my real life perspective it seems to be shrinking. I used to know eight others who played ED and now sadly I am the only one left who plays now. I don't log on now too much myself, but I do log on. Just not for long, plus I don't buy from the store anymore. No point.
Offline mode and mod support why have you forsaken us [blah]
 

Ulysses_W

Ulysses_W
Well I for one Fully agree with the OP. There. I said it.

For me, the biggest failure of the FSS lies in the fact that it’s yet another thing that takes me out of my cockpit and into a huge display with very little of that real estate actually being used. We have a little display screen near our nether regions which would be perfect for the FSS. <Sigh>

FDEV should try to ‘integrate’ new features into our ships, not just ‘bolt’ them on with rusty nuts.
 

Urbanski101

Urbanski101
I never thought I'd say this but I actually feel sorry for FDev on this occasion.

I like the new changes in 3.3..mostly (don't get me started on the codex) and were in line with what I wanted from FD. Are the FSS and mining mechanics perfect? No but I think both are a vast improvement on what we had before, what can I say, I actually like them.

Reading this and other similar threads on the forum has led me to believe that FD are in a no win situation when it comes to pleasing the community (well, the forum community anyway).

I genuinely think what we got in 3.3 (specifically FSS and mining) was the best FD have to offer and was some of their best work to date but they still can't win. They kept legacy mining and were criticised for it, here they didn't keep the legacy ADS and are being criticised for it (rightly or wrongly...who knows). I think anything they do now will draw huge amounts of criticism (and I will more than likely be one of those criticising)

I will add, I think this is a situation of their own making. There have been so many dead end developments in this game, poor design decisions, strange implementations of features and muddled thinking that they seem to have coded themselves into a corner. IMO the 3.3 update and features thereof should have been added right after the game launched instead of 4 years later, but that is a whole other thread.

Right now however, I do feel for them....must be something I ate. WARNING Massive empathy overload
 

Tarman

Tarman
Urbanski101 said:
I never thought I'd say this but I actually feel sorry for FDev on this occasion.

I like the new changes in 3.3..mostly (don't get me started on the codex) and were in line with what I wanted from FD. Are the FSS and mining mechanics perfect? No but I think both are a vast improvement on what we had before, what can I say, I actually like them.

Reading this and other similar threads on the forum has led me to believe that FD are in a no win situation when it comes to pleasing the community (well, the forum community anyway).

I genuinely think what we got in 3.3 (specifically FSS and mining) was the best FD have to offer and was some of their best work to date but they still can't win. They kept legacy mining and were criticised for it, here they didn't keep the legacy ADS and are being criticised for it (rightly or wrongly...who knows). I think anything they do now will draw huge amounts of criticism (and I will more than likely be one of those criticising)

I will add, I think this is a situation of their own making. There have been so many dead end developments in this game, poor design decisions, strange implementations of features and muddled thinking that they seem to have coded themselves into a corner. IMO the 3.3 update and features thereof should have been added right after the game launched instead of 4 years later, but that is a whole other thread.

Right now however, I do feel for them....must be something I ate. WARNING Massive empathy overload
Click to expand...

You're weirding me out with your unexpected concerns for FD. Time to apply a fresh handprint of blood perhaps, get yourself sorted out! :)
 
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