2020: Do you think its going to be worth the wait?

[Dutchman141]

I'd argue there's still plenty of opportunities left in the core game for "solid content" before we open up a whole new game mode to risk bolting (more) shallow gameplay onto. I'd suggest too much of the developments over the past 2-3yrs have been rather shallow and questionable in design/nature/outcome.


Yes base building sounds odd! For what purpose/outcome/gain? And I can just imagine with the current instancing the fun and games of having people in/around your base you can't even see

I agree, there's plenty of room for further in depth development of the features already in the game.
That's one of my fears too, that this big 2020 update will be a half developed feature again with a lot of oohs and aahs but no lasting substance.
Personally I'd rather see them give more depth to content already in the game and bug fixing of course.
Fdev seems to like adding a boatload of different features to the game which look awesome at first glance but they don't bother to go into depth.
It's a bit like my son who has adhd, look a nice car, oh no there's an even nicer bird, huh? a guy with a hat on!!!
They jump from one thing to another, to much to give each one of them some proper attention.

And base building,.........yeah....

 

[dm06]

2020: Do you think its going to be worth the wait?

I believe FD has roadmap for ED. it is not public for some reasons.
Making it public will stop such speculations once and for all.
Nonetheless I have no expectations about the game. I do not wait for something. I enjoy it as is.
Each update for me is something new and unexpected.

 

[VR jefranklin18]

No idea what to expect with the 2020 update so can't say whether it will be worth the wait. Like a few others on here, the gaps between stints on it are getting longer although that is not because I am playing other stuff.

By the time it launches (December I presume as that was when ED and Horizons launched), it will be around 2 and half years in production and however long in pre-production before then, so it should be quite impressive.

As to when will Frontier show anything off? Well, ED was announced on Kickstarter on Nov 2012 and released Dec 2014, whereas Horizons was announced at Gamescom in 2015 (August) and released the same year. I would hope in order to mitigate the risk of losing too much of the playerbase, they announce at Gamescom this year but I suspect it will be next year, because "top secret" stuff and all that

 

[Eldragon]

When elite was released it was a mile wide and one inch deep. 5 years later it is two inches deep. If the 2020 release makes the game four inches deep I'd be content for a while.

My biggest fear is the 2020 features get the same treatment as Multicrew: An amazing feature that gets strangled in the cradle from a series of short-sighted design decisions.

 

[Ian Skippy]

My biggest fear is the 2020 features get the same treatment as Multicrew: An amazing feature that gets strangled in the cradle from a series of short-sighted design decisions.

When you say 'short-sighted design decisions', are you sure you didn't mean to say 'technical issues they were unable to overcome'? The end result is the same, but the narrative is quite different. As a general rule, when you dont get what you want don't assume people didn't want to give you that.

 

[Eldragon]

When you say 'short-sighted design decisions', are you sure you didn't mean to say 'technical issues they were unable to overcome'? The end result is the same, but the narrative is quite different. As a general rule, when you dont get what you want don't assume people didn't want to give you that.

Yes. I know the difference between a technical issue and a design decision.

Edit: But either way, FDev's lack of communication with the community, washing their hands of a feature after leaving it half finished, is a recurring pattern. So the root cause of the problem doesn't matter relative to FDev's unwillingness to communicate.

 

[zimms]

When you say 'short-sighted design decisions', are you sure you didn't mean to say 'technical issues they were unable to overcome'? The end result is the same, but the narrative is quite different. As a general rule, when you dont get what you want don't assume people didn't want to give you that.

I don't think it was just a technical issue. They didn't quite know what to do with MC, since with the current game mechanics there's just not much to do for a crew and they didn't have enough time to add those and redesign a lot of core functionality of the game.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

We’re half-way there already. Of course, knowing Frontier... Q1 (End of March) will bring us a new ship, probably another Alliance knock-off that looks like a dog doing its business. Q2 (end of June) will some bug fix that no one notices, Q3 (end of September) will be some minor content fragment, and finally, Q4 (just before the Xmas store sale) will give us the actual content.

Will it be worth it? We’ll have to wait and make that decision ourselves and not let the Internet form our opinions for us.

 

[BlackSpaceCowboy]

Nope. After Engineers and Power Play, I don't trust them to make anything fun. They're probably creating a whole new grind system full of stats and complexity.

 

[Old Duck]

All you folk who don't want to build bases can come visit the bases of those of us who do. Check out some of the really cool bases players have made in NMS. There's your new content right there! It should be way better and more diverse than more INARA bases or generation ships, though I'm not sure what gameplay might be tied to these. I guess we'll see!

 

[Lateralus]

Depends... I think if its space legs and base building, the P2P server model could be an issue (if ship-boarding and base raiding is to be a thing). Of course this is all just speculation based on the leak.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

I don't think it was just a technical issue. They didn't quite know what to do with MC, since with the current game mechanics there's just not much to do for a crew and they didn't have enough time to add those and redesign a lot of core functionality of the game.

I agree with this. I think some of it was time constraints and some of it was technical. They were only going to get so much done in such a small amount of time considering you had other teams working on other parts of the update.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

I agree, there's plenty of room for further in depth development of the features already in the game.
That's one of my fears too, that this big 2020 update will be a half developed feature again with a lot of oohs and aahs but no lasting substance.
Personally I'd rather see them give more depth to content already in the game and bug fixing of course.
Fdev seems to like adding a boatload of different features to the game which look awesome at first glance but they don't bother to go into depth.
It's a bit like my son who has adhd, look a nice car, oh no there's an even nicer bird, huh? a guy with a hat on!!!
They jump from one thing to another, to much to give each one of them some proper attention.

And base building,.........yeah....

I will be suprised if some of the half baked features in ED won't be updated. Also expect another iteration of crime and punishment if space legs becomes a thing. Bounties will need to be tied to the commander again and not the ship.

In fact the only really poor features that are in desperate need of updating in my view are Powerplay, Multicrew, planetary gameplay and Passanger missions/hub. The rest is not too bad at the moment.

I am sure some will be updated with space legs such Multicrew. We also know they are hiring someone to do with NPC SRV's. Maybe there will be more planetary gameplay too for the next big era. We will just have to wait and see.

 

[Eldragon]

I agree with this. I think some of it was time constraints and some of it was technical. They were only going to get so much done in such a small amount of time considering you had other teams working on other parts of the update.

In programming, pretty much all technical issues are actually just time constraints; It's just that the benefits exceeds the time required. I think FDev's problem is that the majority of Elite's post-launch updates have been given so little developer time that even the smallest feature can't be done because of a "technical issue".

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

In programming, pretty much all technical issues are actually just time constraints; It's just that the benefits exceeds the time required. I think FDev's problem is that the majority of Elite's post-launch updates have been given so little developer time that even the smallest feature can't be done because of a "technical issue".

I have been saying for a while that for every update, FDev should have concentrated on one aspect. For instance SLF. It should just have been about SLF and NPCs. Then they release an update for passanger missions/Hub and the whole thing centred around them instead of little bits of everything for each update.

Every update has been pretty big (apart from the two small ones between 3.0 and 3.3), its just that they had lots of disjointed half baked features instead of concentrating on one big feature. It seems to be a recurring issue wth ED.

I am sure there would be less complaining if we had fully baked but less features in the game.

 

[CMDR-ss47ply]

I think that with multi crew and wings FD fell victim to fan wished feature creep and felt the need to deliver somthing of fear of player loss I hope they learned from this lesson. I still feel we are still on the kickstarter time line at the halfway point and not one broken promise. lots of bugs but as there time line is diffarent from us needy bunce i think the game is and will be somthing to stand the test of time. I am proud to be Elite. and hopful

 

[Dutchman141]

I will be suprised if some of the half baked features in ED won't be updated. Also expect another iteration of crime and punishment if space legs becomes a thing. Bounties will need to be tied to the commander again and not the ship.

In fact the only really poor features that are in desperate need of updating in my view are Powerplay, Multicrew, planetary gameplay and Passanger missions/hub. The rest is not too bad at the moment.

I am sure some will be updated with space legs such Multicrew. We also know they are hiring someone to do with NPC SRV's. Maybe there will be more planetary gameplay too for the next big era. We will just have to wait and see.

I wish I could be but I'm not as confident as you, if they left so many features half developed, don't forget the Thargoids and Guardians, then what confidence can I have for the next big thing.
Unless they're combining the state of the current features with the big new thing in 2020 I don't think they're gonna be putting much effort in further development of the existing features, not before 2021 anyway.

Even bugs are severely neglected while those should have a very high priority imho.
Ugh I realy wish I could indeed be confident but taking Fdev's way of handling things into consideration I just can't.
They remind me of a sub contracter who used to do some bulk programming for the company I worked for, they screwed up time and time again leaving results only half processed and in the end we had to do all the programming ourselfs.
After a couple of failures we decided to cut them loose and hire some extra staff to do it which was quite a bit more expensive but at least we knew things got done properly the first time around.
Quality over quantity, Fdev tends to take those two in the wrong order imho.

 

[Sillouete]

For those saying that they are not optimistic, while entittled to that opinion, i say look at deep core mining and how it was a good, well implemented feature. Give some credit to FDev. There are things that need some love and fixing but being negative will not make it happen

 

[Dutchman141]

When you say 'short-sighted design decisions', are you sure you didn't mean to say 'technical issues they were unable to overcome'? The end result is the same, but the narrative is quite different. As a general rule, when you dont get what you want don't assume people didn't want to give you that.

With good planning and research you know exactly what you can and most important what you can't do before you start a new project, at least we did at the company I worked for.
We sometimes had to disappoint certain clients because they were asking for things we knew we couldn't deliver technically. Sometimes we knew we could deliver more then what the customer envisioned too.
When you start a project and half way through you find out you can't realise it then you've got a serious problem regarding planning and/or research, I'm not even talking about the wasted resources and funds.

 

[Dutchman141]

For those saying that they are not optimistic, while entittled to that opinion, i say look at deep core mining and how it was a good, well implemented feature. Give some credit to FDev. There are things that need some love and fixing but being negative will not make it happen

Being positive doesn't help either, tried that.