IF Space Legs, Atmospheric Planets and Base Building are not part of New Era...

[Thatchinho]

Sure... though we kinda come full-circle here, as like i suggested before, if all we're getting is atmospheric planets and spacelegs offering no more "content" than what the game currently offers (instead of scanning a beacon, I get out and scan it on my legs?), and if base building is a "self licking icecream", I'd argue that's not really something people would pay for either.

Realistically, if we're somehow already down the path of getting these things, then they must be done in conjunction with the things I've mentioned, otherwise it's nothing more than buying a paintjob for a ship. I'd just prefer to be a bit more realistic, that development of the content using the currently available (and abhorrently underused) mechanics would be more beneficial to the game than any of these other things (which is kinda the point of the Op right? If we're not getting legs, bases or atmos, what would we get?)

Not sure if it’s been mentioned in the thread but I think it’s worth bearing in mind the diversion of narrative resources to working on the new era update.

That was what, June last year? So approx a year and a half of narrative resource working on stuff for the update.

*plus possibly some narrative resource may have been on it for longer
** not sure on numbers of narrative resources so scale is hard to guess
*** I would guess that it won’t be the equivalent of single player stuff that can be unravelled from day one, but rather longer term stuff (possibly/probably/hopefully picking up on some of the existing longer term threads)

 

[askavir]

I think a good example is the USS system. It used to be horrible. Me and some other people from camp fanboy constantly asked for an overhaul. When we finally got it I expected that people would be quite happy about it, it's one of the most important mechanics in the game after all. Making it persistent is exactly what lots of people asked for. But the change was completely ignored. I didn't see anyone saying how much the system improved, instead people just complained about the delay of FCs or something (funnily, almost nobody asked for FCs before they were announced...).

If it helps... I do find USS's to be much better now! And by extent, engineering and USS dependent missions are also better now thanks to USSs being persistent.

 

[babelfisch]

If it helps... I do find USS's to be much better now! And by extent, engineering and USS dependent missions are also better now thanks to USSs being persistent.

Too little, too late. Frontier already got the impression that FCs and mining payouts are more important than good game mechanics.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Here there is a big IF, because tbh all discussions about Legs and Base Building come from an unofficial leak and, even worse, atmospheric planets is purely players speculation.
So what IF the New Era of Elite Dangerous is about none of the three?

Let's prepare ourselves to a B-Plan: with such a "big" manpower of roughly 80 developers working at this project for more than 2 years, what would you expect or wish to see as an alternate content release?

a massive expansion of the base game......

some examples
1) npcs with skills which you can train on your crew - Elite flavour would be E through to A rating I suppose - trade negotiator, science officer, explorer, medical officer, engineering technician, pilot (we have already), gunner.
then make ships of a certain size need crew to fly - on buying they come with a basic crew to allow you to fly, there is a lot they could do with that.

2) wingmates, some that you can hire to do a mission, alternatively missions to join a wing to do something. sometimes you are wing commander othertimes you do what you are told (complete with basic orders option, cover me, attack my target, go on ahead, stay back etc) like SLF pilot but in a proper ship and able to go into supercruise.

3) more time spent on getting persistant npcs, they dont ALL need to be but some should be, and we get to meet up with them again - sometimes good sometimes bad.

4) another mission overhaul with a bunch of new templates.

the difficulty is charging for this........ a lot of that really needs to be in the base game and i think some would quite fairly expect it to be free which is why i am almost certain 2020 update will either be atmospherics of some description or space legs, then i hope the above 1-4 go in as bonus QOL extras for everyone (but there could be extra crew features IF you have the DLC... perhaps you just get basic crew for free, but if you have DLC you get missions to increase training or to find more expert crew with more than 1 skill etc)

 

[babelfisch]

a massive expansion of the base game......

some examples
1) npcs with skills which you can train on your crew - Elite flavour would be E through to A rating I suppose - trade negotiator, science officer, explorer, medical officer, engineering technician, pilot (we have already), gunner.
then make ships of a certain size need crew to fly - on buying they come with a basic crew to allow you to fly, there is a lot they could do with that.

2) wingmates, some that you can hire to do a mission, alternatively missions to join a wing to do something. sometimes you are wing commander othertimes you do what you are told (complete with basic orders option, cover me, attack my target, go on ahead, stay back etc) like SLF pilot but in a proper ship and able to go into supercruise.

3) more time spent on getting persistant npcs, they dont ALL need to be but some should be, and we get to meet up with them again - sometimes good sometimes bad.

4) another mission overhaul with a bunch of new templates.

the difficulty is charging for this........ a lot of that really needs to be in the base game and i think some would quite fairly expect it to be free which is why i am almost certain 2020 update will either be atmospherics of some description or space legs, then i hope the above 1-4 go in as bonus QOL extras for everyone (but there could be extra crew features IF you have the DLC... perhaps you just get basic crew for free, but if you have DLC you get missions to increase training or to find more expert crew with more than 1 skill etc)

Personally I would pay for all of this if I didn't have the LEP. Problem is that it would be better suited for smaller DLCs like 15€ each and people would complain that it's pay to win...

 

[askavir]

Too little, too late. Frontier already got the impression that FCs and mining payouts are more important than good game mechanics.

<...drops white armor and gets back in the black one...>

In fairness, every time they allow a mega-cash-farm to go on for so long, they are asking for it...

I would like to see a day where most careers were somewhat balanced (not necessarily equal) and there weren't at any given time a single activity that makes a complete mockery of all the others. I know this isn't easy to accomplish, but when a single specific activity pays 20 times as much as the vast majority of others then that's clearly a sign something is wrong.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

I think the USS system is a good example definitely, and I certainly think having the USS become persistent was a great idea, but I also think FD had a completely different idea of what the game would be back then.

Game on-release was, IMO, a modern version of FE2, with the added bonus of a BGS (though you couldn't guarantee finding missions for your faction), USS and the formalised exploration aspects. Nothing connected anything, no "Unregistered comms beacons" gave you stories, no abandoned generation ships with voice-acted comms logs, Galnet was literally just fluff on top just like the old FFE journals (I remember the death of the emperor over a major update cycle was actually a 'big deal' even though there was nothing in the game representing it)

Literally, it was all just backdrop to do whatever you wanted. (Un?)fortunately, many other games between FE2/FFE and ED, being things like Freelancer, EVE Online, had kinda shaped that a bit more, building worlds where you could go seek out your own activities, but that unstructured gameplay which is core to FE2/FFE was augmented with structured gameplay that linked aspects of the game together in a natural and fun way. So of course, many wanted the good aspects of those styles of games in what people probably saw as a reliable title (historically speaking).

I think FD genuinely didn't think people need or want in-game narrative and structured activities and events... that's why things as simple as "Are there missions for the faction I want to support on the boards?" weren't there in the first place... again... FD never thought players would get emotional ties to the minor factions[1]; supporting the relevant superpower would be good enough.

At some point FD, imo, decided "we need to get some more of that structure and narrative tie-in"... so we got CGs, current mission boards, tip-offs, all this other stuff that's, frankly, been kinda piecemeal. It doesn't seem to be effectively planned, and for me, that's evidenced by how under-utilised all the new things they've added are.

I hang round and continue to play the game because I really think FD are on the tip of producing something really awesome, but it's not something that'll be realised by spacelegs, atmos or base building. Those things will enrich (i.e multiply) the current experience, but while that current experience is incomplete as it currently is, you'll just be left with a much more weakened experience overall compared to the effort you expended.

[1] That got mentioned in a livestream I forget, but other people remember the same quote.

FD had a very good MP gameloop at the ready: BGS was a great way to have people play in groups and role-play.

Then they decided to rather choke the crap out of players forcing them to grind for unneccessary power creep that only caters to power fantasies. Engineers amputated ED on many levels, but I guess it was fairly successful unwitting players thinking it'd be a great idea to grind for something they already could have playing vanilla.

It was the single most superfluuous content I ever saw injected into a game.

 

[Stigbob]

FD had a very good MP gameloop at the ready: BGS was a great way to have people play in groups and role-play.

Then they decided to rather choke the crap out of players forcing them to grind for unneccessary power creep that only caters to power fantasies. Engineers amputated ED on many levels, but I guess it was fairly successful unwitting players thinking it'd be a great idea to grind for something they already could have playing vanilla.

It was the single most superfluuous content I ever saw injected into a game.

I like engineering, by not grinding you get all the benefits and none of the perceived negatives. Just extra zoomy shooty fun.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

I like engineering, by not grinding you get all the benefits and none of the perceived negatives. Just extra zoomy shooty fun.

I seen little hamsters run their in their wheels. I don't know what they like about it but they do seem to like it indeed. I wouldn't do it however.

 

[Stigbob]

I seen little hamsters run their in their wheels. I don't know what they like about it but they do seem to like it indeed. I wouldn't do it however.

If one of the hamsters sat in the corner sulking about the wheel for three years I bet the other hamsters would laugh at it.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

If one of the hamsters sat in the corner sulking about the wheel for three years I bet the other hamsters would laugh at it.

Are they social animals?

 

[Stigbob]

Are they social animals?

Yep, very social as a rule.

Not so much the Russian ones though they tend to hang off your finger by their teeth. Makes them very easy to count though.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Yep, very social as a rule.

Not so much the Russian ones though they tend to hang off your finger by their teeth. Makes them very easy to count though.

I heard you are expert on Russian ones.

 

[Comandante]

IF there is not a space legs update in 2020, we sue Frontier, mass-march on their offices and all get arrested, all chanting "I am CMDR Spartacus!".

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

... people would complain that it's pay to win...

I think ARX here draws the line because one could argue that the game is already pa2win.
If you read the basic definition of pay2win this includes also generic DLC's and in ED we have Horizons that gives access to the Engineers and to the Guardian technology.

So as long as we can't buy ships and weapons with ARX imho the game can't be defined a pure pay2win.

 

[Stigbob]

I heard you are expert on Russian ones.

Just an incredibly convincing photoshop I'm afraid.

 

[babelfisch]

I think ARX here draws the line because one could argue that the game is already pa2win.
If you read the basic definition of pay2win this includes also generic DLC's and in ED we have Horizons that gives access to the Engineers and to the Guardian technology.

So as long as we can't buy ships and weapons with ARX imho the game can't be defined a pure pay2win.

Personally I only see things that directly give you an advantage as pay2win. For example 'buy the shield cell booster package and double your charges for 6 uses". Stuff like that. A DLC that adds mechanics which might turn out being beneficial isn't pay2win for me. On the other hand, I am not among those who would complain...

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Personally I only see things that directly give you an advantage as pay2win. For example 'buy the shield cell booster package and double your charges for 6 uses". Stuff like that. A DLC that adds mechanics which might turn out being beneficial isn't pay2win for me. On the other hand, I am not among those who would complain...

It's a bit far fetched to call it pay2win. Tho it's no secret it totally blew apart the last bits of balance that were in the game.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Pay2Win, when there’s nothing to win. Ingenious.

DLC changes a game, is often sold, and is not a basis for any pay2win situation, sorry, that’s how it goes. Elite should be split into two instances, one for those without Horizons, one for those with Horizons, so that non-Horizons players never encounter Horizons players, to be “fair” to those who do not have Horizons for whatever reason. Then there could be no complaining.

 

[Viajero]

I think ARX here draws the line because one could argue that the game is already pa2win.
If you read the basic definition of pay2win this includes also generic DLC's and in ED we have Horizons that gives access to the Engineers and to the Guardian technology.

So as long as we can't buy ships and weapons with ARX imho the game can't be defined a pure pay2win.

The debate about Horizons pay2win or not is by now a throughly dead beaten horse to be honest. But yeah, my personal take is that it is akin for example to the expansions in WoW where you got access to extra levels etc. If you consider that p2w then Horizons is too .

Horizons has a built in natural balance mechanism though in that it requires time for you to "level up". Lots of time in some cases. Time that other non Horizon players can use instead to go up the ladder to a better ship or better rated modules, get synthesis or simply save money for rebuys allowing them more risky playstyles. This natural balance tends to thin out once players get billions and all the top ships though (although if players get to that level they all probably have Horizons by now and the issue is moot).

Either way there is a very fundamental difference between that "pay2win" mitigated by a very clear time opportunity cost, and instantaneous pay2win with direct purchases of upgrades and improvements for real money such as in WoT or War Thunder.