Seriously, what is going on with the economy, the sim and any depth of immersion is ruined by what has become clear to me as an economy designed and catering for the instant need and ownership of a A-spec Conda to please the COD generation gamers.
We should all be starting in said A-spec Conda, instead of the Sidewinder to provide any semblance of challenge to the sim, or should i say game. Hell, given just about everyone is using one or owns one, or could own a fleet of them if they so wished is the very issue im making.
As an original 84 player of Elite, which was an open world space RPG sim, i was more than a little excited about the prospect of ED returning for its swansong and defining edition. I pre-ordered of course, and dived straight in...the lack of any real content compared to say the X-series meant i decided to put it on the shelf and allow it to mature despite buying Horizons on release. I recently, prior to the recent update decided to pick it up and give the sim a whirl again as a couple of years of content. including Engineers had since been added and i had 2 weeks of Xmas hols to sit back and indulge myself.
I had left the game sitting in a Viper3, which i had bought after the Sidewinder and a very breif spell in an Adder.....my Aim was to rekindle my long lost affair with the Mk3 Cobra. I like to try a little of everything in the sim, if nothing else it educated me on whats possible and how it works. I did a little trading which made me 80k in a nights play, i tried a little mining, when you actually had to persist in getting lucky, which also made me about 80k for a night work, I ran a few delivery missions which provided me about 150k in an evening, which i felt was a little to generous and easy to get, but still took some time on my journey..... my joy and interest was coming back in spades as i found myself totaly immersed in slowly working my way towards my near goal of a Cobra3.
I eventually, had enough for the Cobra3 and not much left apart from insurance, the ship is ridiculously low priced which is a huge disappointment, but i still had to equip it and this was going to take some time, along with my discovery of the Engineers, i had lots to look forward to.
You see, to this point, i actually had felt there was some challenge,work, drive, immersion, and reward to gaining that CobraMk3, it was really disappointing to me how cheap the ships/equipment are, i would have liked the Cmk3 to be about 4million for the MOST ICONIC SHIP IN THE SIM and one of the best at that. Once i aquired the Cmk3 and had some more room to play with, the money started to roll, as did the latest update......
I A-specked it in a matter of hours , no fun, immersion, challenge or work there, i mean i flyed to 5 systems, honk your horn (which is now free of charge), sell the data in the first station and buy EVERY WEAPON IN THE GAME!!!! and with the change, buy a Mk4 Cobra aswell, Hey lets go mining again, except rather than as before, searching around the meteorites, expending probes trying to get lucky ot make a living..now you just press a button for instant riches to light up and with it the possibility to buy ANY SHIP in the game in a night or two's work!
I engineered my MK3 for a bit of exploration, which was the disciple i had not yet done, and i fancied getting my name on a system...at this point i only had about 500k in credits and a reasonable spec Mk3 i purposely couldn't face mining again because not only was it now way, WAY to easy, Fdev, realising that even that was not going to be easy enough to get the last of the COD players in an A spec'd Conda before the end of the night, also inflated prices for mined materials to ensure they could have infinite re-buys aswell. And before some smart suggests that i "dont have to use the new mining tools you know", well NO, it is completely illogical and thus irrational to the human mind to undertake a task in a way that you know is not the best ,or most efficient way of doing so, self restriction, does not make for engaging play!
So, back to exploration....i jumped out of the bubble about 60 jumps before finding my first system, which i mapped in its entirety, for the sake of claiming the entire system rather than any monetary reasons, i then made my way back as i intended to role play a rare goods trader in my Mk3 for a while, honking my horn along the way, I have no interest in the larger ships, which seem boringly capable of everything all at once, however, i was intending on a slightly more capable multi role ship which is less popular and has quirks in the future....i like underdogs and being a little different, and was thinking AspScout / Keelback. For me ITS ALL ABOUT THE JOURNEY, the fun,immersion and escapism and the role playing are why im drawn to this type of sim, and what made me stand up and get excited in 84 with the original. The work, input and challenge is what provides the reward, the actual reward is if anything an anticlimax, however you do of course have a second level of engagement, in needing to equip / engineer and ultimately use the ship.
So imagine how utterly ruined my experience and indeed my game world felt when i returned from my TINY skirmish into the black where i only discovered and mapped ONE SINGLE SYSTEM, and i was paid for my collective data 10 MILLION CREDITS FOR GOD SAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I can buy the Keelback and probably A spec it instantly! in one bloody go, from zero work, no threats, no anything, just 100 quick jumps and one system mapped, Its completely made a mockery of the sim, i could buy 20 CobraMk4's and have a nice bit of change....i was expecting maybe 1 million credits, NOT 10. What is the point of anything if Fdev are just going to throw money at you in order to please the A spec Conda crew. What is the point, where is the challenge, the reward, the reason to fly other ships or other specs, if money is just thrown at you, I took a mission to pick up some weapons from the system 1 jump away and deliver them to my current station FOR 865K FOR GOD SAKE, it took me 5 minutes, but wait..........as im flying back to the station i get another message, saying "commander, if you deliver these in time (it would have been impossible not to.), were give you another 10 MILLION CREDITS!,
Hell im surprised Fdev dont wire a MILLION credits to your account every time you enter a station.!! Check out the traffic reports in a system Anaconda's 500, small ships 5, Medium ships 50, this tells you everything that is wrong with this sim, its like going down town and every other car is a Rolls Royce.....the other being a Ferrari, and peeps going wow look at that Civic, you dont see many of those eh! Conda's and the like should be a VERY VERY rare sight, only owned by the top 2-3% of players who have invested the time and effort to not just purchase be be able to run such a craft. Not 80% of players owning one..or more...or ALL.
Elite was original meant to be an Open world RPG set in a futuristic space environment, "A lonely pilot, just trying to make his way through space and life" if my memory serves me correctly. It was an open ended sim, with only one distant goal billed. To become Elite in your chosen profession and earn the respect of the universe.
I have no doubt, that D.Braben intended just this for ED aswell.
I play in open play, because i feel its 'currently' not to crowded in the bubble, and the element of real threat gives an edge to the sim which enhances my experience. It is understandable that along with open play you will get the "play to win" COD generation, that just want to shoot at other players and nothing more, Hell they even catered for them via Powerplay. However the BIG disappointment is the entire sim seems to be geared around catering for the PvP play to win, fly the best crowd, leaving everything else in its wake!
Elite should be the open world RPG that it always was first , and if some people want to use it as a COD in space game then that is of course up to them.
Some 'off the top of my head' suggestions....
ECONOMY:
Either reduce the payout's for everything, or increase ship prices by a factor of 10. The fact people are posting vids of 'sidewinder to Anaconda' in 14hrs shows how ridiculous this is! By making it much, MUCH harder to acquire money, means players are forced into spending longer periods in each price class thus giving a more varied balance to the traffic in the world, it also means you need to spend more consideration to what ship you intend to purchase, as it will take longer to acquire and harder to maintain, you will be with it for longer and thus it has more personal worth.
Re-buy is basically like 'lives' in previous games, if you have enough to re-buy your ship 10 times, then you have essentially 'purchased' 10 lives. The price should be raised to 100% of the asset cost. Why wouldn't it be?? you have already provided the cheat that allows anyone to use there ship recklessly with minimal consequence, so at least entertain a little caution based on financial concerns. This would help stop the march straight to the heavies, and would cause some to pause for thought before owning the top three that are oh so common, If your going to drive a Rolls Royce, then its going to cost you to keep it.
Weapons and equipment are also stupidly cheap and common, if they were more expensive and also more dynamically found in stations with some semblance of supply and demand, then this would also cause the traffic to be in a more varied spec, rather than everyone having the A-spec ship.
ENGINEERS:
I really like the idea of the Engineers and crafting, except as usual, its follow the yellow brick road again, no challenge, no randomness, no work, so everyone has the same, which makes it pointless or at a very least the Base default! I the idea if having different spec's variants of the current ships on offer, is a fantastic idea, except, then i discovered that once again its geared to the COD in space crowd, because they provided Material and Code traders....hey, now rather that actually getting out there into the black and searching for, and finding rare materials that enhance your craft, and would allow for a varied state of play along with the reward's that come with it...you just pop down your one stop shop again and get your G5 ship...like everyone else has got....because its so easy.....and thus not fun anymore. Even a bit of random final result would have changed the dynamics and made for a more interesting / rewarding experience.
SHIPS:
Anything less than the top three heavies is pointless unless your role-playing. Fdev might as well remove all but said ships from game! Fighters that well..dont fight, the heavy's (think B-52 bombers) that do fight. Its all back to front and half of what is fundamentally wrong with ED.
In WW2 if you wanted to head over to Germany to fight an air-war to claim air superiority, you chose a fighter, a spitfire or a mustang or similar, in ED you would chose a B-52 or Langcaster ! like the Conda or Cutter..
The problem is the medium class and the heavy class, out class the light fighter class in err.. fighting for crying out loud!!! Here's the solution, increase the light, to light-medium class by at least another 8 ships, this would provide the variety and attraction to the class, at present there is none. Next, any ship from the the fighter class should be MUCH MORE manoeuvrable AND FASTER THAN ANY OTHER CLASS, yes have variance between them, some being faster with less weapon payload while others less manoeuvrable with greater defence / firepower ect, but even the slowest and least able of them should be considerably better at dog fighting than ANY medium class or above ship. The weapon loadout should be more akin (but perhaps not quite as powerful) to the vulture, powerful enough to take out a large ship (just as the fighters of WW2 could knock out the bombers). This would now be the go-to ship class for all would be play to win PvP's who want to do nothing more than shoot each other.
So, why would anyone then want to use a different class of ship?...well because the fighter class should be no use for anything other than fighting...very little defence / armour (a couple of shots needed to dispatch from the medium / larger ships..if you can hit them), no room for trading, and a tiny jump range. The jump range should be so small that even with a modified A-spec ship, you would have to carefully pick you route around even the bubble, this would mean some systems / routes are out of bounds, meaning safer fighter less routes for larger ships / traders to take, and providing hotter routes / systems for those that will be used by fighters, the old classic Star wars quote of "Whats a tie fighter doing all the way out here?" would now ring true. It would also allow for future carrier play!
The Medium class would then provide the genuine all rounders, with room to multirole and enough defence / offence to look after themselfs and make short work of a fighter (if they can get a hit on one), they should not be able to do everything better than a fighter...including dog fighting as they currently are, which renders every ship below them pointless! They can soak up more pain, deliver more of the same, but it would take an experienced Cmdr to gain the upper hand, certainly in Hits against a similar skilled Cmdr in a fighter, thus balancing out the combat, and making it a true game of skill.
The Heavy class, should be super expensive, but also the best way for making serious money, these would the ships that do massive trade deals, jump huge distances, and can mine massive quantity's of minerals, their the big money making machines, that cost big money to purchase and keep. What they are not good for is dog-fighting like they currently are!!, In my opinion, they should have an increased amount of TURRET ONLY hard points for defence / offence, with a SINGLE fixed forward firing hardpoint (because people love to aim and shoot at stuff) of Ultra big class....these weapons destroy all smaller ships (including medium class) with a single shot, but due to the lack of speed / manoeuvrability of the ship itself, makes hitting said ships very hard, and dam near impossible against fighters...hence the turrets, there more for combat between the heavies themselves
So now you have three distinct classes (which of course would have there own sub variants within the class) , with defining roles, People that want to kill people would go for the fighters, because they do it best, people that want to multirole would go medium, and peeps that can afford and want to get serious about a profession, would go heavy. keeping all classes alive in the sim. Currently 85% of the ship roster is essentially pointless!
This clearly doesn't cover all of the ELite dangerous problems and issues, stopping a good sim becoming a great, even classic sim, i could as many of you im sure, bang on until the letters rubbed of my keys, but some simple changes to the economy, and a little more worth, balance and definition to the ship classes all with the 'Open world space RPG' first development in mind, could at least sort the mess out we currently have, before more features are hopfully introduced.
We should all be starting in said A-spec Conda, instead of the Sidewinder to provide any semblance of challenge to the sim, or should i say game. Hell, given just about everyone is using one or owns one, or could own a fleet of them if they so wished is the very issue im making.
As an original 84 player of Elite, which was an open world space RPG sim, i was more than a little excited about the prospect of ED returning for its swansong and defining edition. I pre-ordered of course, and dived straight in...the lack of any real content compared to say the X-series meant i decided to put it on the shelf and allow it to mature despite buying Horizons on release. I recently, prior to the recent update decided to pick it up and give the sim a whirl again as a couple of years of content. including Engineers had since been added and i had 2 weeks of Xmas hols to sit back and indulge myself.
I had left the game sitting in a Viper3, which i had bought after the Sidewinder and a very breif spell in an Adder.....my Aim was to rekindle my long lost affair with the Mk3 Cobra. I like to try a little of everything in the sim, if nothing else it educated me on whats possible and how it works. I did a little trading which made me 80k in a nights play, i tried a little mining, when you actually had to persist in getting lucky, which also made me about 80k for a night work, I ran a few delivery missions which provided me about 150k in an evening, which i felt was a little to generous and easy to get, but still took some time on my journey..... my joy and interest was coming back in spades as i found myself totaly immersed in slowly working my way towards my near goal of a Cobra3.
I eventually, had enough for the Cobra3 and not much left apart from insurance, the ship is ridiculously low priced which is a huge disappointment, but i still had to equip it and this was going to take some time, along with my discovery of the Engineers, i had lots to look forward to.
You see, to this point, i actually had felt there was some challenge,work, drive, immersion, and reward to gaining that CobraMk3, it was really disappointing to me how cheap the ships/equipment are, i would have liked the Cmk3 to be about 4million for the MOST ICONIC SHIP IN THE SIM and one of the best at that. Once i aquired the Cmk3 and had some more room to play with, the money started to roll, as did the latest update......
I A-specked it in a matter of hours , no fun, immersion, challenge or work there, i mean i flyed to 5 systems, honk your horn (which is now free of charge), sell the data in the first station and buy EVERY WEAPON IN THE GAME!!!! and with the change, buy a Mk4 Cobra aswell, Hey lets go mining again, except rather than as before, searching around the meteorites, expending probes trying to get lucky ot make a living..now you just press a button for instant riches to light up and with it the possibility to buy ANY SHIP in the game in a night or two's work!
I engineered my MK3 for a bit of exploration, which was the disciple i had not yet done, and i fancied getting my name on a system...at this point i only had about 500k in credits and a reasonable spec Mk3 i purposely couldn't face mining again because not only was it now way, WAY to easy, Fdev, realising that even that was not going to be easy enough to get the last of the COD players in an A spec'd Conda before the end of the night, also inflated prices for mined materials to ensure they could have infinite re-buys aswell. And before some smart suggests that i "dont have to use the new mining tools you know", well NO, it is completely illogical and thus irrational to the human mind to undertake a task in a way that you know is not the best ,or most efficient way of doing so, self restriction, does not make for engaging play!
So, back to exploration....i jumped out of the bubble about 60 jumps before finding my first system, which i mapped in its entirety, for the sake of claiming the entire system rather than any monetary reasons, i then made my way back as i intended to role play a rare goods trader in my Mk3 for a while, honking my horn along the way, I have no interest in the larger ships, which seem boringly capable of everything all at once, however, i was intending on a slightly more capable multi role ship which is less popular and has quirks in the future....i like underdogs and being a little different, and was thinking AspScout / Keelback. For me ITS ALL ABOUT THE JOURNEY, the fun,immersion and escapism and the role playing are why im drawn to this type of sim, and what made me stand up and get excited in 84 with the original. The work, input and challenge is what provides the reward, the actual reward is if anything an anticlimax, however you do of course have a second level of engagement, in needing to equip / engineer and ultimately use the ship.
So imagine how utterly ruined my experience and indeed my game world felt when i returned from my TINY skirmish into the black where i only discovered and mapped ONE SINGLE SYSTEM, and i was paid for my collective data 10 MILLION CREDITS FOR GOD SAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I can buy the Keelback and probably A spec it instantly! in one bloody go, from zero work, no threats, no anything, just 100 quick jumps and one system mapped, Its completely made a mockery of the sim, i could buy 20 CobraMk4's and have a nice bit of change....i was expecting maybe 1 million credits, NOT 10. What is the point of anything if Fdev are just going to throw money at you in order to please the A spec Conda crew. What is the point, where is the challenge, the reward, the reason to fly other ships or other specs, if money is just thrown at you, I took a mission to pick up some weapons from the system 1 jump away and deliver them to my current station FOR 865K FOR GOD SAKE, it took me 5 minutes, but wait..........as im flying back to the station i get another message, saying "commander, if you deliver these in time (it would have been impossible not to.), were give you another 10 MILLION CREDITS!,
Hell im surprised Fdev dont wire a MILLION credits to your account every time you enter a station.!! Check out the traffic reports in a system Anaconda's 500, small ships 5, Medium ships 50, this tells you everything that is wrong with this sim, its like going down town and every other car is a Rolls Royce.....the other being a Ferrari, and peeps going wow look at that Civic, you dont see many of those eh! Conda's and the like should be a VERY VERY rare sight, only owned by the top 2-3% of players who have invested the time and effort to not just purchase be be able to run such a craft. Not 80% of players owning one..or more...or ALL.
Elite was original meant to be an Open world RPG set in a futuristic space environment, "A lonely pilot, just trying to make his way through space and life" if my memory serves me correctly. It was an open ended sim, with only one distant goal billed. To become Elite in your chosen profession and earn the respect of the universe.
I have no doubt, that D.Braben intended just this for ED aswell.
I play in open play, because i feel its 'currently' not to crowded in the bubble, and the element of real threat gives an edge to the sim which enhances my experience. It is understandable that along with open play you will get the "play to win" COD generation, that just want to shoot at other players and nothing more, Hell they even catered for them via Powerplay. However the BIG disappointment is the entire sim seems to be geared around catering for the PvP play to win, fly the best crowd, leaving everything else in its wake!
Elite should be the open world RPG that it always was first , and if some people want to use it as a COD in space game then that is of course up to them.
Some 'off the top of my head' suggestions....
ECONOMY:
Either reduce the payout's for everything, or increase ship prices by a factor of 10. The fact people are posting vids of 'sidewinder to Anaconda' in 14hrs shows how ridiculous this is! By making it much, MUCH harder to acquire money, means players are forced into spending longer periods in each price class thus giving a more varied balance to the traffic in the world, it also means you need to spend more consideration to what ship you intend to purchase, as it will take longer to acquire and harder to maintain, you will be with it for longer and thus it has more personal worth.
Re-buy is basically like 'lives' in previous games, if you have enough to re-buy your ship 10 times, then you have essentially 'purchased' 10 lives. The price should be raised to 100% of the asset cost. Why wouldn't it be?? you have already provided the cheat that allows anyone to use there ship recklessly with minimal consequence, so at least entertain a little caution based on financial concerns. This would help stop the march straight to the heavies, and would cause some to pause for thought before owning the top three that are oh so common, If your going to drive a Rolls Royce, then its going to cost you to keep it.
Weapons and equipment are also stupidly cheap and common, if they were more expensive and also more dynamically found in stations with some semblance of supply and demand, then this would also cause the traffic to be in a more varied spec, rather than everyone having the A-spec ship.
ENGINEERS:
I really like the idea of the Engineers and crafting, except as usual, its follow the yellow brick road again, no challenge, no randomness, no work, so everyone has the same, which makes it pointless or at a very least the Base default! I the idea if having different spec's variants of the current ships on offer, is a fantastic idea, except, then i discovered that once again its geared to the COD in space crowd, because they provided Material and Code traders....hey, now rather that actually getting out there into the black and searching for, and finding rare materials that enhance your craft, and would allow for a varied state of play along with the reward's that come with it...you just pop down your one stop shop again and get your G5 ship...like everyone else has got....because its so easy.....and thus not fun anymore. Even a bit of random final result would have changed the dynamics and made for a more interesting / rewarding experience.
SHIPS:
Anything less than the top three heavies is pointless unless your role-playing. Fdev might as well remove all but said ships from game! Fighters that well..dont fight, the heavy's (think B-52 bombers) that do fight. Its all back to front and half of what is fundamentally wrong with ED.
In WW2 if you wanted to head over to Germany to fight an air-war to claim air superiority, you chose a fighter, a spitfire or a mustang or similar, in ED you would chose a B-52 or Langcaster ! like the Conda or Cutter..
The problem is the medium class and the heavy class, out class the light fighter class in err.. fighting for crying out loud!!! Here's the solution, increase the light, to light-medium class by at least another 8 ships, this would provide the variety and attraction to the class, at present there is none. Next, any ship from the the fighter class should be MUCH MORE manoeuvrable AND FASTER THAN ANY OTHER CLASS, yes have variance between them, some being faster with less weapon payload while others less manoeuvrable with greater defence / firepower ect, but even the slowest and least able of them should be considerably better at dog fighting than ANY medium class or above ship. The weapon loadout should be more akin (but perhaps not quite as powerful) to the vulture, powerful enough to take out a large ship (just as the fighters of WW2 could knock out the bombers). This would now be the go-to ship class for all would be play to win PvP's who want to do nothing more than shoot each other.
So, why would anyone then want to use a different class of ship?...well because the fighter class should be no use for anything other than fighting...very little defence / armour (a couple of shots needed to dispatch from the medium / larger ships..if you can hit them), no room for trading, and a tiny jump range. The jump range should be so small that even with a modified A-spec ship, you would have to carefully pick you route around even the bubble, this would mean some systems / routes are out of bounds, meaning safer fighter less routes for larger ships / traders to take, and providing hotter routes / systems for those that will be used by fighters, the old classic Star wars quote of "Whats a tie fighter doing all the way out here?" would now ring true. It would also allow for future carrier play!
The Medium class would then provide the genuine all rounders, with room to multirole and enough defence / offence to look after themselfs and make short work of a fighter (if they can get a hit on one), they should not be able to do everything better than a fighter...including dog fighting as they currently are, which renders every ship below them pointless! They can soak up more pain, deliver more of the same, but it would take an experienced Cmdr to gain the upper hand, certainly in Hits against a similar skilled Cmdr in a fighter, thus balancing out the combat, and making it a true game of skill.
The Heavy class, should be super expensive, but also the best way for making serious money, these would the ships that do massive trade deals, jump huge distances, and can mine massive quantity's of minerals, their the big money making machines, that cost big money to purchase and keep. What they are not good for is dog-fighting like they currently are!!, In my opinion, they should have an increased amount of TURRET ONLY hard points for defence / offence, with a SINGLE fixed forward firing hardpoint (because people love to aim and shoot at stuff) of Ultra big class....these weapons destroy all smaller ships (including medium class) with a single shot, but due to the lack of speed / manoeuvrability of the ship itself, makes hitting said ships very hard, and dam near impossible against fighters...hence the turrets, there more for combat between the heavies themselves
So now you have three distinct classes (which of course would have there own sub variants within the class) , with defining roles, People that want to kill people would go for the fighters, because they do it best, people that want to multirole would go medium, and peeps that can afford and want to get serious about a profession, would go heavy. keeping all classes alive in the sim. Currently 85% of the ship roster is essentially pointless!
This clearly doesn't cover all of the ELite dangerous problems and issues, stopping a good sim becoming a great, even classic sim, i could as many of you im sure, bang on until the letters rubbed of my keys, but some simple changes to the economy, and a little more worth, balance and definition to the ship classes all with the 'Open world space RPG' first development in mind, could at least sort the mess out we currently have, before more features are hopfully introduced.
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