"A mile wide but an inch deep."

[Bill Clement]

You're right, I can't afford VR. Thanks for the status-shaming.

Don't be so mean, you started it! If you weren't so sarcastic about other people's enjoyment of the game, maybe those people wouldn't be so inclined to shoot back.

Life lesson: there are two ways to deal with other people having nice things that you can't afford. You can cry about it and maybe even become an activist trying to create real change 'for the many' by taking the nice things away from other people. Or you can congratulate them on their success, enjoy your own and possibly work out a way for you to get access to the nice thing.

Spoiler

VR is expensive, as many things in life are. It's not out of reach for most people living in the West, though. If it's a genuine financial struggle to afford it then you're probably better off without it, but if you can afford it then it's a pretty amazing piece of technology, well worth spending money on. I'm not judging you, Deadlock, I have no idea what your financial position is, but you have internet access and you're discussing a game. It strikes me that your 'status' is wealthy Westerner. As such, VR is within your grasp, but it's up to you how much of a priority you want to make ownership of said tech become. It's unbecoming to snipe at people who are, in all probability, in a very similar financial position to your own, just because they prioritised saving enough to buy a gaming peripheral. There are better and more worthy things to spend the money on to be sure, but there are worse and more trivial ones, too. We live in the land of plenty, we really ought to try and enjoy it. Our ancestors made terrific sacrifices to get us here, we owe it to them as well as ourselves to make the most of the great opportunities we've been given.

 

[StuartGT]

I started playing in premium beta. The universe consisted of a handful of systems.

5 Star Systems in Premium Beta 1.

On release, the universe was suddenly 10^8 times larger in terms of space available

Not true. What actually happened:

Premium Beta 2 = 8 Star Systems
Open Beta 1 = 50 Star Systems
Open Beta 2 = 500 Star Systems
Open Beta 3 = 2400 Star Systems
Gamma 1 = 400,000,000,000 Star Systems
Release = same capacity as Gamma 1

And not much has changed since.

Summary of all the changes and additions since release:

Spoiler

Season 1

1.1 Community Goals
1.2 Wings
1.3 Powerplay
1.4 CQC
1.5 Ships expansion added many new ships
1.6 Mission System
1.7 New mission types

Module storage​

Beautiful station interiors​

New navigation filters​

Ship transfer​

Horizons - Season 2

• Planetary Landings on airless planets and moons
• Engineers
• Guardians
• Thargoids
• SRV
• Ship Launched Fighters
• Passenger transport
• Holo-Me
• Multicrew
• Megaships
• Camera Suite

Beyond - Season 3

• New ships: Chieftain, Krait, Alliance Chieftain, Alliance Challenger, Alliance Crusader
• New hybrid fighters: Javelin, Lance, Trident.
• New weapons
• GalNet Audio: text-to-audio feature
• Wing Missions
• Planet tech improvements: Planetary Visual Improvements
• Revised trade data
• Engineers improvements
• Material Trader
• Technology Broker
• Crime & Punishment improvements: Notoriety, Advanced Tactical Response, Detention Centres
• Megaship interaction improvements
• New Guardian tech and a personal narrative
• New missions and scenarios
• Improved Lighting Model with adaptive lighting, color grades, fog and god rays.
• Squadrons
• Mining gameplay improvements
• Exploration gameplay improvements
• Streamlined cockpit layout and interface
• Orrery System Map
• Full System Scanner
• Scenario Missions
• Night Vision
• Probes
• Codex

 

[Fedora Master]

BGS is deep, PP is deep, dogfighting is deep with a mahoosive skill cap. Engineering is deep again with a high skill cap. Mining is a well fleshed out mechanic...deep as it needs to be. I could go on. There's not much in this game that is shallow if you're objective.

BGS and PP are black boxes, thus we as the players can't affect them in any way that would require skill.
Engineering is a click button -> receive buff mechanic as simplistic as anything that EA would put in their games.

 

[EDanaII]

I dunno... I think the game is a mile wide and an inch deep but I enjoy it. It's all in what you are looking for.

Imagine, if you will, in the real world a large puddle of water of the size described here. And, scattered across and just below the surface are thousands of diamonds. I'm pretty sure that, unless you're wealthy beyond imagination, plenty of people would enjoy carefully wandering across the water looking for these little gems. I can even imagine some people doing this for days at a time.

Speaking for myself, as an explorer, those gems are things like finding a Jovian and viewing its shadow on its rings being lit by a binary star. It's flying through the ice rings of another with the Western Veil nebula filling the sky. Or finding geysers on a binary moon, with the other moon and their parent planet hanging in the backdrop. A ringed lava world. A pair of neutron stars orbiting a massive type O. A massive star system with more than a dozen suns.

No other game has ever offered me anything like this.

 

[StuartGT]

BGS and PP are black boxes, thus we as the players can't affect them in any way that would require skill.
Engineering is a click button -> receive buff mechanic as simplistic as anything that EA would put in their games.

You do not understand the three features you just wrote about, at all.

 

[Deadlock-3000]

BGS is deep, PP is deep, dogfighting is deep with a mahoosive skill cap. Engineering is deep again with a high skill cap. Mining is a well fleshed out mechanic...deep as it needs to be. I could go on. There's not much in this game that is shallow if you're objective.

BGS is broken nonsense. PP is ... whatever the hell it is, mostly looks like an unexplained wall of numbers hiding rewards-free fetch/carry/murder missions to me. Engineering is, as you say, about as deep as Minecraft crafting, a game enjoyed by children the world over. Mining did indeed just become four times deeper because it's now four shoot-the-target things instead of one - arguably one of them doubles the depth of skill needed because you now need to remember to back away slightly, yikes, that's positively labyrinthine gameplay.

Deep doesn't just mean pointless layers of obfuscation.

 

[Deadlock-3000]

Not true. What actually happened:

Well done, you can cut and paste pedantically, have a gold star.

 

[RamirezKurita]

Tired of hearing this. Elite is exceptionally deep, it just isn't very accessible. EVERYONE who ever said it was shallow, bar none, has not played it AT any depth.

One of the reasons it's so difficult to get into is because of the depth of all of its mechanics. Even taking off and landing is deep when you're new!

I suspect that you might be confusing depth and complexity. Elite is a pretty complex game, all things considered; so much information is outright hidden from the player, there's so many different activities to engage in and a fair amount of the stuff in the game is only feasibly accessible via 3rd party sites. However, that is not depth, as the actual decision making beyond that veiled wall of information is very rudimentary.

 

[Deadlock-3000]

You do not understand the three features you just wrote about, at all.

Only special people understand the special game.

 

[Stigbob]

Only special people understand the special game.

You need VR to see it properly.

 

[Aashenfox]

BGS is broken nonsense. PP is ... whatever the hell it is, mostly looks like an unexplained wall of numbers hiding rewards-free fetch/carry/murder missions to me. Engineering is, as you say, about as deep as Minecraft crafting, a game enjoyed by children the world over. Mining did indeed just become four times deeper because it's now four shoot-the-target things instead of one - arguably one of them doubles the depth of skill needed because you now need to remember to back away slightly, yikes, that's positively labyrinthine gameplay.

Deep doesn't just mean pointless layers of obfuscation.

The BGS has just been fixed again and is for the time being, behaving largely as expected. We have some new tweaks to certain mechanics to figure out, and some of it has been badly borked by FD (states, HGEs, again, etc), but we'll figure it out, FD will fix it and soon it'll be stable again, and intriguing. Obviously it's difficult to post a conversation about tactics in an ongoing operation, but some of these conversations are really mind blowing, I wish I could share. We employ distraction, division, misdirection, all kinds of Machiavellian tactics. It's been designed with a depth that is sometimes confounded and convoluted by parts of it not working properly occasionally, but to say it's not deep, or moreover that it doesn't enable deep strategy of play when played by players, is to be denying something that is tangible. There are some poorly considered parts to it too, I particarly dislike when I need to work against my favored faction to achieve a goal, but that doesn't take away from its depth.

Engineering is as deep as minecraft...ok, whatever. My credentials won't interest you but I find Elite's engineering system imperfectly balanced, but interesting and extremely deep. Since that's how I play games (mathing stuff out, theorycrafting), I find Elite to have succeeded there, and arrogantly believe that any who think otherwise must have been disinterested in understanding it in the first place. There is some really poor gameplay surrounding it, but the interaction of stats and the sheer number of modifiable items on a ship makes for a deep and thoughtful minmaxing experience with great depth. I still have eureka moments occasionally after playing it since it was introduced.

If you don't see this, then I can only conclude that you are so disenchanted with the game in general that you are not capable of acknowledging anything positive about it any more. That's said cold as ice, I'm not defneding myself, or attacking you, no offense intended, it's just the impression I got from your posts.

 

[Aashenfox]

I suspect that you might be confusing depth and complexity. Elite is a pretty complex game, all things considered; so much information is outright hidden from the player, there's so many different activities to engage in and a fair amount of the stuff in the game is only feasibly accessible via 3rd party sites. However, that is not depth, as the actual decision making beyond that veiled wall of information is very rudimentary.

No, I wasn't but thanks for offering me the chance to realise it. There is great depth to many features in this game.

I'm no white knight, I've been complaining bitterly recently, any frequentee of this forum will tell you that, but truth is truth.

 

[AlexAndTheDJ]

Ha! So many salty replies!

I'd heard this community had gotten toxic since I was a regular here, but to see it first hand is kinda sad.

Didn't realise questioning the depth of the content would trigger so many people.

For those saying "don't play it then" I'd advise brushing up on your comprehension skills. I clearly state in the OP that if I get bored I don't play. . . Common sense really.

For those moaning that its "this thread again"; those of us who don't visit the forums regularly aren't aware if this has been discussed before, or how frequently. But as you allude to it being a recurring topic, perhaps there is some depth to it (see what I did there?).

I appreciate the sensible, adult-like input from the rest of you. The BGS stuff sounds pretty interesting!

 

[Achilles7]

How.very.dare.you?! After four years of Frontier's inspirational creative development, that's patently a gross misrepresentation of the extant state of the game...

...it's at least TWO inches deep now!

 

[Stigbob]

Ha! So many salty replies!

I'd heard this community had gotten toxic since I was a regular here, but to see it first hand is kinda sad.

Didn't realise questioning the depth of the content would trigger so many people.

For those saying "don't play it then" I'd advise brushing up on your comprehension skills. I clearly state in the OP that if I get bored I don't play. . . Common sense really.

For those moaning that its "this thread again"; those of us who don't visit the forums regularly aren't aware if this has been discussed before, or how frequently. But as you allude to it being a recurring topic, perhaps there is some depth to it (see what I did there?).

I appreciate the sensible, adult-like input from the rest of you. The BGS stuff sounds pretty interesting!

Its a thing with game forums, over time people start playing and stop and return. A tiny minority having stopped hang about getting salty with anyone enjoying themselves, over time they grow in number getting increasingly toxic spamming the same old whines repeatedly. The players reply in kind and things spiral downwards.

The cure is banning accounts of anyone who says they've already quit, but that's a bit draconian for FDEV.

 

[Old Duck]

There's not much in this game that is shallow if you're objective.

I just covered 7000 LY while cleaning up around the house. DS4 controller in one hand, dirty dishes, trash, junk mail, etc. in the other. Only time I had to look at the screen was to line up with the star to get fuel, which isn't hard. In fact, I actually forgot I was "flying", kinda like one forgets they are driving when on a straight highway with no other cars nearby.

I couldn't do that in the other games I'll be playing today.

I'm not claiming ED is deep or shallow, just sharing some "objective" truth.

 

[Aashenfox]

I just covered 7000 LY while cleaning up around the house. DS4 controller in one hand, dirty dishes, trash, junk mail, etc. in the other. Only time I had to look at the screen was to line up with the star to get fuel, which isn't hard. In fact, I actually forgot I was "flying", kinda like one forgets they are driving when on a straight highway with no other cars nearby.

I couldn't do that in the other games I'll be playing today.

I'm not claiming ED is deep or shallow, just sharing some "objective" truth.

I don't think that whether the main method of traversing large distances requires concentration or not is 100% relevant to a game's depth. I agree, jumping around isn't the best, and nor are long supercruise rides, but I find what you just described preferable to riding my horse halfway across Skyrim. What happens when you get there is what's more important.

I suppose saying there isn't much that is shallow was giving people an easy statement to attack, what I really meant was that out of the key mechanics that make an MMO, Elite isn't lacking depth in any area except proliferation of storyline and galactic information, since they chose not to introduce narrative through game world NPCs and quests (which is something that would add depth of play as well, but an equally divisive topic when raised), also probably the one single thing that has led to the game APPEARING to be sterile, and giving people this impression that there is a lack of content.

 

[Fedora Master]

I just covered 7000 LY while cleaning up around the house. DS4 controller in one hand, dirty dishes, trash, junk mail, etc. in the other. Only time I had to look at the screen was to line up with the star to get fuel, which isn't hard. In fact, I actually forgot I was "flying", kinda like one forgets they are driving when on a straight highway with no other cars nearby.

I couldn't do that in the other games I'll be playing today.

I'm not claiming ED is deep or shallow, just sharing some "objective" truth.

Now imagine if they removed the need to steer away from the star each jump, too. You'd have barely any game to play.

 

[Aashenfox]

Now imagine if they removed the need to steer away from the star each jump, too. You'd have barely any game to play.

Do you really believe that? I've never been playing WoW and on the way to the raid thought to myself, hm...I'm glad they put mountains in the game that I have to fly my dragon around so I don't get bored, otherwise there'd be no game here at all!

 

[Bill Clement]

BGS is broken nonsense. PP is ... whatever the hell it is, mostly looks like an unexplained wall of numbers hiding rewards-free fetch/carry/murder missions to me. Engineering is, as you say, about as deep as Minecraft crafting, a game enjoyed by children the world over. Mining did indeed just become four times deeper because it's now four shoot-the-target things instead of one - arguably one of them doubles the depth of skill needed because you now need to remember to back away slightly, yikes, that's positively labyrinthine gameplay.

Deep doesn't just mean pointless layers of obfuscation.

Ok, I'll bite. What does 'deep' mean, Deadlock? How would you make mining 'deeper'? What activity in ED would you change and how would you change it? No need for development or budget, just what would you like to see if cyber Aladdin happened by and granted you a quick ED wish?