Probably done with this game
- Thread starter Axt0n
- Start date
The issue with this game is that players don't really have an impact in this game. Whatever you do, only matters to you. It only impacts you. Which is most probably your personal wealth, or bottomline. Because really, it's all about your assets. Your PF rank, your faction rank, your bank account, and the number of ships you own.
Everything else, CGs, PP, really have no real impact in the game. You get an occasional new multicannon with small stat improvements (Looking at Zende Partners' victory
), bla bla bla.
What's really needed in this game is something major. And something major that players can impact in the game.
Like all out war between the major factions, like the Empire and Federation, and the systems along the frontlines changing hands depending on players' intervention in the war. Stations along the frontline being damaged, repaired, or even destroyed entirely, as a result.
Unfortunately, with instancing, and room-like CZs and RES site mechanics, there are no real battles or fleet movements in this game. Everything is room-instanced. No real order or battle, no fleet formation or movement, no strategic or logistics factors affecting battle.
Even if major faction war was to take place, it'll likely play out like PP on a larger scale. ie. Boring cargo runs, undermining, and "go to x CZ and kill y amount of ships".
Sorry guys, but the P2P instancing model doesn't really make for anything other than a glorified space-trading game with the occasional fights, all for your personal wealth.
Unless ED does it like Eve-Online, but in flight-sim mode.....
Everything else, CGs, PP, really have no real impact in the game. You get an occasional new multicannon with small stat improvements (Looking at Zende Partners' victory
), bla bla bla.What's really needed in this game is something major. And something major that players can impact in the game.
Like all out war between the major factions, like the Empire and Federation, and the systems along the frontlines changing hands depending on players' intervention in the war. Stations along the frontline being damaged, repaired, or even destroyed entirely, as a result.
Unfortunately, with instancing, and room-like CZs and RES site mechanics, there are no real battles or fleet movements in this game. Everything is room-instanced. No real order or battle, no fleet formation or movement, no strategic or logistics factors affecting battle.
Even if major faction war was to take place, it'll likely play out like PP on a larger scale. ie. Boring cargo runs, undermining, and "go to x CZ and kill y amount of ships".
Sorry guys, but the P2P instancing model doesn't really make for anything other than a glorified space-trading game with the occasional fights, all for your personal wealth.
Unless ED does it like Eve-Online, but in flight-sim mode.....
The playerbase overall has affected the game, it has evolved to some degree to cater for and prioritise requests from the playerbase.
I think that there may be an argument to be made that players expecting to have their actions affect the galaxy are going to be disappointed though, the map we play on is just too big for that, the level of co-ordinated effort required too high.
But some things can be done. Stations have been named after players (Obsidian Orbital comes to mind), ships and equipment have been altered following feedback, regions of space have been made more dangerous or safer to traverse. The players make the game, if you let it. The scenery doesn't need to change for players to have an impact on the game.
Peer-to-peer networking isn't a problem, it's a choice. With a client-server model there would be some situations where it's better, some where it's worse. It is just a choice, latency vs security.
But that's exactly it. You get systems tagged as "Discovered by XXX" ... it really affects only that player. Or in the case you mentioned, a station named after so-and-so. Again, same case as previously mentioned. Even if a hundred players get together, they wouldn't be able to change anything other than the stats of a minor faction in that system. Yay, Zende Partner's percentage bar in Synuefe Bla-bla-chicken-bla goes up, and now a multicannon is up for sale instead of DF missiles. Again, that affects player stats on a personal level.
Then again, a hundred players can't really "get together" because they would, in all likelihood, never be able to all see each other at one time. Again, because "instancing". Hence my statement that this game will never be more than a space-trading game with occasional combat.
A system doesn't change hand. Stations do not get destroyed, neither do planetary bases. Nothing really changes.
There are no real fleets in the game that have jumped into the system to bomb the bejesus out of a planetary base, outpost or station.
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How much of an effect have you had on the Earth, on the Solar System, on our galaxy IRL? You could; a very, very small number of people actually have though.
There are stations that are where they are because of player activity in the region, and in Colonia all but Jaques is there because of player activity. Actually Jaques is where it is instead of Beagle Point because of player UA bombing activity IIRC.
If you are able to persuade enough other players to follow your lead you could make a difference too.
Which brings us full circle back to the OPs post. All we are limited to doing is within the confines of the limited game mechanics. And because those mechanics are limited, what changes is limited too.
Sure... you can convince players to follow your lead, and.....
- bring stuff from X to Y, either from mining, smuggling, trading or cargo runs. But the gist is still, move stuff around.
- fly into instanced CZs (and not all together) to kill X number of ships from faction Y
Oh, Witt's Landing was there last week? No longer, as you and your posse just bombed it out of existence. It's gone, completely. Stuff like that can't happen. You can't change borders. You can't change the map. In reality, everything is more or less scripted.
Don't get me wrong. I accept the game as it is.
We shd just accept the fact that this is, in essence, a space-trading simulator.
We're all free agents just here to make our virtual wealth in a scripted game universe we have no impact on.
Because for this to change, they have to change it from P2P to a Client-Server model. And then get rid of instancing, and make everything, every player and every NPC entity persistent.
It will have basically have to be like Eve-Online in simulator mode.
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I think maybe the phrase you are looking for is player agency. It is a fair complaint to level at the game, and something there can always be more of. It is there though, if you interact with other players in any way (via the BGS or directly). There isn't so much in the way of interacting with the environment, only acting on it (ie get rich, gather mats etc).
Ah yes. That's the right term. Player agency.
To be fair, there is a fair level of agency in the game. It is an open ended, open world game, and you have complete control over your player's actions and consequences.
The only thing is that, for an open world game, your actions have very limited impact on the game universe, even if you do band together with other players in an attempt to force it. That's why I was referencing Eve-Online as an example.
Just overlook the fact that it's a spreadsheet RPG. You see, players in that game do actually impact the state of the universe very significantly. They actually OWN, and create/destroy major assets in the game. They change borders. Their actions have far reaching consequences in the game universe.
In ED, players are basically subordinate to the whims and fancies of the NPC powers.
Basically the decision-tree is already provided by FDev, and the only thing the players decide by their actions is which branch to take.....
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Kudos to dxm55 and Riverside for being able to debate their differing view of the game in a refreshingly adult way.
However, if one of you could call the other a mentally deranged ED womble it would be very much appreciated. You're ruining my morning forum fun
However, if one of you could call the other a mentally deranged ED womble it would be very much appreciated. You're ruining my morning forum fun
The BGS could be improved. But making the game universe completely open to changes from players would make it unstable. Imagine a very large group of players banding together and demanding atmospheric landings from Frontier. They threaten to destroy every station in the game until they have atmospheric landings - now that fleet is very powerful, and station defense weapons or security vessels pose no threat to them. They go into the Pilots Federation District and destroy all the stations in there. Very large groups would have a very large influence on the game, which could potentially ruin its universe, or disbalance it.
Player and NPC interaction could be improved, but not to the extent of actually being able to destroy stations - otherwise, as I described earlier, there would be large, influential, powerful groups of players ruling the galaxy.
But it offers a pretty limited experience.
Take a look at this very important and accurate chart:
Especially at the points coming out of "Grind" and "Isolated".
Take a look at this very important and accurate chart:
View attachment 133480
Especially at the points coming out of "Grind" and "Isolated".
Yeah, look at this excellent chart. We are discussing what the game affords to players as gameplay opportnities and agency, so remove the bottom half (a game's quality should never be evaluated on how active the community is).
Now, looking at the top half, consider the in-game consequences of each of those cards/activities. Imagine you have a friend who comes to visit you once a week. One day he comes by and asks: so what have you done in Elite this week? Show me. What can you show him? Two things: 1) numbers in a menu (your credits, your materials, your reputation, the status bar of your BGS faction) and your hangar full of (new) ships.
Now, this does not mean that "but I want to be the King of the Galaxy and singlehandedly win wars and defeat empires!". The idea is far more modest: I would like to feel that the time spend in-game (and we're talking of a LOT of time for most activities) pays out in more ways than just a higher number. It feels like those old arcade games we grew up with, where you'd play until you die just to reach the HIGH SCORE top 10. Nowadays we can ask more of games than a high number. We want to feel involved in a bigger picture with meaning, we want our actions to have some kind of permanent and meaningful effect (like: repairing stations. Sure, you're having an effect, but apart form the station going back to full operational, what consequences are there of you fixing it or leaving it perpetually burn? none.)
Most people who play Elite daily are either happy with this old-fashioned approach to gaming ("I like to fly my spaceship around in VR and earn money by trading") or are heavily involved in the community, finding meaning outside of the game, in the appreciation and friendship of fellow Squadron members. Nothing wrong with it! But it says nothing about the quality of the game, and the lack of meaning of its gameplay loops.
I know this chart and I really like it. "Limited experience" is not equal to "limited things to do". That is why I don't agree with people claiming there is nothing to do in ED. There is a lot to do, but it is neither that varied nor especially elaborate. Hauling goods is not that different to ferrying passengers around.Take a look at this very important and accurate chart:
Especially at the points coming out of "Grind" and "Isolated".
Edit (After being repped): The chart also does show things that are possible in the game, but it doesn't show that a number of activities are not designed, they can just happen. Example: Any PvP activity outside of Powerplay is pretty disjointed from the game. All the racing is completely unsupported.
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Take a look at this very important and accurate chart:
View attachment 133480
Especially at the points coming out of "Grind" and "Isolated".
I see your chart and raise you...
Thanks!
I always try being creative and constructive in constructive posts.Again, as the chart states, if you focus on credits/new ships, you will burn out soon. This game is leaning more towards "process", not "progress". This kind of approach won't suit everybody, so if it doesn't suit you, there's nothing stopping you from playing something else.
Elite Dangerous is the most amazing game EVER!!! It is so amazing that I named my daughter "Elite" and my son "Dangerous".
And the people who play the game are the most amazing people EVER! I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!
There you go, some positive feels for you.
Batteries recharged!Elite Dangerous is the most amazing game EVER!!! It is so amazing that I named my daughter "Elite" and my son "Dangerous".
And the people who play the game are the most amazing people EVER! I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!
There you go, some positive feels for you.