Time to abandon it

[IndigoWyrd]

Please store your stuff in my bin on your way out and don't let the door hit you where your maker split you.

 

[Ezren]

Dear everyone,

I cannot live my entire life in this game, and thus I quit.

Instead of just doing that, I decided to come and declare it here, for reasons.

Okay. Bye.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

I'm playing NMS at the moment, its a nice game but its very very simplistic like FPS spore. I'm enjoying it in a laid back way (space game fan) but can't really see myself sinking the same hours into it as ED.

My pet gripe for NMS is that if you get ahead of the mission progression by just doing the logical next step you break the story campaign. You have to tear stuff down and rebuild it only when prompted or the game gets thoroughly baffled. It definitely doesn't reward thinking for yourself and the hand-holding is way way OTT for my taste. I like learning as I go, not being led by the nose.

That "Flight model" though, its sub freelancer 'fast' 'very fast' and 'straight line autopilot'. I can see why there's no HOTAS support its just not complex enough for one.

If we are getting space-feet from FDEV the bar they have to clear is pretty low.

the flight model is no ED that is for sure, but that said, it is actually very immersive playing it with oculus touch motion controllers. It is the 1st time i have ever used a "virtual" stick and actually thought.... " this can actually work!".

 

[Stigbob]

Cool..... I didnt realise you could have solar powered thrusters in NMS. I shall keep an eye out for such a beast.

I was lucky it was the first one from the story, repairing it took a few hours but I prefer setting my own goals to following the story.

I was landing next to activated copper jumping out setting the portable refiner going and strip mining between the firestorms in my noob suit and crap gun. In the storms themselves I had about twenty seconds to get back aboard or die.

Since a random player gave me 17 million at the nexus I've been looking at all the other ships and they are not that uncommon, so you should be able to get the upgrade or a ship with one pretty easily.

Googled it : Its called a launch system recharger and you can get it on the anomaly for 460 nanites.

 

[Rat Catcher]

I was lucky it was the first one from the story, repairing it took a few hours but I prefer setting my own goals to following the story.

I was landing next to activated copper jumping out setting the portable refiner going and strip mining between the firestorms in my noob suit and crap gun. In the storms themselves I had about twenty seconds to get back aboard or die.

Since a random player gave me 17 million at the nexus I've been looking at all the other ships and they are not that uncommon, so you should be able to get the upgrade or a ship with one pretty easily.

Googled it : Its called a launch system recharger and you can get it on the anomaly for 460 nanites.

Previous to the recharger, with upgrades (A & S) to the thrusters I could get about 20 launches before needing to refuel them, the recharger is an excellent addition

 

[Mengy]

Elite is good game but gets boring quickly for a sandbox, but still it's a good game and worth money, hopefully New Era will be gamechanger.

That's one issue I have with FDev's design for Elite Dangerous: it's less of a "sandbox" and more of an "amusement park" type of game.

We really don't have any meanginful ways to impact the game environment, nothing we do truly has an incentive. We can grind for credits to buy and outfit ships, then we can do things with those ships. Yet we can't build anything of permanence, we can't do anything with our credits to leave our mark on the galaxy. We can't build bases, we can't own businesses, we can't buy outposts to call home, we can't impact the game world in any meaningful way. It's one reason why SCS Software's truck sim games have been so incredibly popular: not only can you drive trucks but there is the entire business / empire side of the game which gives all of the driving meaning. Farm Simulator does the same thing. The game has goals beyond simply "owning more trucks". Elite is lacking that aspect completely.

My hunch is the "New Era" coming in late 2020 will address this by adding in fleet carriers and player built/owned outposts.

 

[Rat Catcher]

From 3million copies sold you have 3500-4000 avg. playerbase from steam charts and lets say in best scenario twice as much from FD store.....so at best 10 000-20 000 active players.
So where are those 2980000 players, i guess majority quit after 50-300h when novelty wore off, leaving only space addicts and grinders.
So i think his argument weights a lot more than yours!
6 ppl i know quited after 50h mostly cos of grind game design and sterile space enviroment, saying they will get back when KS goals being achieved.
Elite is good game but gets boring quickly for a sandbox, but still it's a good game and worth money, hopefully New Era will be gamechanger.
If not, no regrets from my side, 300h were more than enough fun for 50€.

OP: Very nice and polite thread with some constructive criticism.
I stopped playing over a year ago (300h ingame) but with option to get back when New era pops in, depending on content.

Elite could gain much higher numbers if there wasn't grind design combined with 100% predictable and repetitive gameplay in non-dangerous enviroment.
Adding arcade MC and FSS popup screen minigame did brake immersion and drift away game from cockpit space "simulation".

Imo much better design would be if they implemeted survival features like other sandboxses have, when you die you start from scratch and build up faster than now avoiding grinding.
That way goal would be to survive in galaxy not farming money and buy yourself new life and high-end ship when dead.
On survival design i mean:
-you never know when enemy is going to jump you no matter what you carry in your ship and no matter where are you in galaxy so you need to run or fight.

-when ship damaged you need to find planet to land and gather materials to fix it and resupply (abandoned outposts and stations in orbit as well on planets could be also source of material.

-space enviroment itself representing danger and damaging your ship and it's systems, as well random ship malfunctions.

All this would bring excitement and struggle for explorers aswell to everybody else.
And if space legs are valid leak than even better regarding survival element, also add basic atmos and you have best game ever.
Gameplay and space enviroment shouldn't be 100% predictable with given decision to player will he engage into something or not.
Imagine every other game that enemy doesn't shoot at you if you don't shoot first or provoke him to do so.....pretty much boring.
Also engineers did ruined pvp for casuals, now pvp is grindmaster game.

Regarding FC, i find it meh with those landing pads, would be much better if they had huge entrance and hangar with ships laying next to each other and maybe animated maintenance on them.

Small chances i'll see this in ED but anyway when new things arrive i'll try them for novelty, i guess.

Not wishing to dispute your numerical 'facts' - but Oculus launches not in steam too, so a couple more to add there Also, does steam 'count' unique players in those figures, or just concurrent?
Just asking

Oddly - 3 people I know started playing ED recently... multiply that by the thousands playing and the game growth must be exponential

 

[Stigbob]

Previous to the recharger, with upgrades (A & S) to the thrusters I could get about 20 launches before needing to refuel them, the recharger is an excellent addition

It gives a few percent a minute, so you can run it to zero if you hop about enough. But ten minutes later you've got one lift-off so just go gathering poop.

 

[Rat Catcher]

It gives a few percent a minute, so you can run it to zero if you hop about enough. But ten minutes later you've got one lift-off so just go gathering poop.

My favourite recharge is to go mining platinum, gold and silver in the asteroids, by the time it gets boring your 'tank' is full and there are goodies to sell at the market terminal

 

[Rat Catcher]

That's one issue I have with FDev's design for Elite Dangerous: it's less of a "sandbox" and more of an "amusement park" type of game.

We really don't have any meanginful ways to impact the game environment...
...we can't impact the game world in any meaningful way.

My hunch is the "New Era" coming in late 2020 will address this by adding in fleet carriers and player built/owned outposts.

BGS manipulation allows players to impact the game world quite nicely (thinking of Carcosa being given back to The Nameless)

If we get player built/owned outposts I wonder if, like FC's, they will be invulnerable to player damage - with the current 'risk averse' handling of the game it would seem likely as folk would probably get a little salty if the bulldozers found their 'hidey hole'

 

[IPFreely]

Star Citizen has had over half a BILLION dollars, (if not more), donated over a 5 year period and is still in Alpha - Still a single star system - Longer travel times point to point - No guarantee of when it will be finished or even remotely playable - So, go-ahead - Take the chance that it will someday be complete - BUT - What if it never is? - Think all those hard-earned dollars will be returned to the Players? -

 

[Ezren]

It gives a few percent a minute, so you can run it to zero if you hop about enough. But ten minutes later you've got one lift-off so just go gathering poop.

I played NMS last year when the Beyond update hit, but the loop kind of bored me. A lot of time was spent just waiting to find a good ship to buy, which was so random that it became rather mind-numbing. The credit grind was scanning things on planets and that got a little tiresome, too.

I know there's been updates but I haven't had the motivation to get back into it. A few bugs had my base-building questlines completely stopped cold, which was the nail in it for me. The story was cute but the sense of wonder went out of it pretty quickly; did enjoy the "learning language" mechanic though.

 

[Ezren]

Star Citizen has had over half a BILLION dollars, (if not more), donated over a 5 year period and is still in Alpha - Still a single star system - Longer travel times point to point - No guarantee of when it will be finished or even remotely playable - So, go-ahead - Take the chance that it will someday be complete - BUT - What if it never is? - Think all those hard-earned dollars will be returned to the Players? -

It's easy to think that something is perfect if it isn't real.

 

[Comandante]

After many years of play I think it's time to abandon it, in the end you realize that the game has too many limits that I hope will be introduced in the future, now everything is limited to grinding and making money and once you get the ship and build properly you have finished the game because everything only leads to making money and nothing else, everything brings you back to this.

I do not understand your sentence. The first sentence specifically, in your three sentence wall of text. Reminds me to use commas more often, at least.

Take care, don't play anymore and find a game you like.

For myself, the only limits in this game are the ones people impose on their own selves. So there are no limits for me in this game.

 

[StewartScott]

OP just do as I did, I have been playing since beta and I after engineers was first introduced there was lots of problems with it and after already peaking out my ship after 'many hours of grind' I felt I didn't have 'the strength' to attempt the new engineer grind so I just took a LONG break. Well now I am back and having a fun grind engineering my ship again, "time can heal all wounds" ;-)

PS- OH and I finally invested in a VR setup (Oculus Riff S) and ED is also now for me a completely different game. WOW.

 

[Ezren]

I do not understand your sentence. The first sentence specifically, in your three sentence wall of text. Reminds me to use commas more often, at least.

Take care, don't play anymore and find a game you like.

For myself, the only limits in this game are the ones people impose on their own selves. So there are no limits for me in this game.

He said he grinded, which is...a choice.

Grinding and then complaining about how you grinded is a lot like the people who go to the gym in January and go every day. That's not going to be sustainable when you're just starting at the gym, and they burn themselves out fast, and then I usually get the equipment free by around mid-February.

 

[StuartGT]

From 3million copies sold you have 3500-4000 avg. playerbase concurrent from steam charts and lets say in best scenario twice as much from FD store.....so at best 10 000-20 000 active concurrent players.

Concurrent != playerbase

SteamSpy's Patreon-only charts show Elite has a fortnightly playerbase of 80k Steam players.

Including CMDRs on other platforms (non-Steam PC, Xbox, PS4) puts the overall playerbase somewhere in the region of 150k to 200k fortnightly players.

 

[Comandante]

He said he grinded, which is...a choice.

Grinding and then complaining about how you grinded is a lot like the people who go to the gym in January and go every day. That's not going to be sustainable when you're just starting at the gym, and they burn themselves out fast, and then I usually get the equipment free by around mid-February.

I understand. The specific sentence I did not understand was this:

"the game has too many limits that I hope will be introduced in the future"

I received a parse error and couldn't continue

 

[Ezren]

I understand. The specific sentence I did not understand was this:

"the game has too many limits that I hope will be introduced in the future"

I received a parse error and couldn't continue

Lot of ways that could make sense, if it was a different sentence.

In terms of trying to understand the OP, I think you should refer to the thread title on that one.

 

[GJ51]

Everyone has their own way of seeing things and is free to express them

Thank you for your permission to do that...