A masterclass of fake game design = Void opals by FDEV

[Crank Larson]

Certainly a masterclass. A masterclass in unreasonable expectations and misunderstandings, and blaming others for it...

It's a game. If you don't enjoy it, why play? And you probably need to work out how it works before you start to enjoy it...

PS:I played enough games, and produced enough code, to have a personal idea of what quality is.

Sorry, it's very clear that you haven't, and you don't.

 

[Alone Wulff]

There are certainly some aspects that are subjective when someone complains about some part of this game. There is guaranteed to be many of those.

There are also completely objective complaints.
Supercruise.
Traveling to non-adjacent systems (parade of loading screens) .
Predictable NPC's.
1980's style trade and economy.
Pointless empty systems making up 99.99% of all systems in the game.
Only using NPC's to create risk to players in the game and completely ignoring the environment.

And the list can keep growing without ever touching on something subjective

Your "objective" complaints are surely subjective to some people, or even to others not even complaints at all. Eg "Pointless empty systems..." - they're not pointless, it's a representation of the galaxy. This isn't No Man's Sky. Systems being pointless to YOU is subjective.

Whether a complaint is subjective or not, what's important is how you complain. If you explain your complaint as though you're the only one who plays the game and calling the game s**t just because it doesn't meet YOUR expectations, is going to get a different reception to explaining your complaint as personal thoughts based on personal experience and generally supporting the idea of the game but not what YOU expected etc etc.

 

[Stigbob]

Ever considered playing video games that you enjoy instead ?.

 

[Oytis57]

Hey mate "Bullseye",all the Paladins leveled their lances on you,meaning you hit the spot right in the center.

 

[goemon]

There are also completely objective complaints.
Supercruise.

just as it crops up regularly - IIRC supercruise was added, after backers requested it. the original design idea was jumppoints (instant travel). but backers asked for "space is big".
I'm sharing most of your sentiment, but i think it is important to remember that there are core elements of the game, which are "objective complainable", but are in for some players enjoyment.

as for OP - yes, it can be infuriating. especially if you want to try something, build your own small story around it (going mining deepspace! how cool it this!) and than are hit with bugs or rebalancing or both. bit happenend to me, when i build a megaship- and installation- thiefing ship ... only to find out, it is broken (and is so since months). it's easy to say: do what works, do something else, do what you enjoy...

 

[EvilWinkle]

Have checked that your computer system meets the minimum requirements?

No sorry FDEV, i haven't tough about that, i happen to run the game on a coffee machine, could that be linked to the problem?

The funniest thing is, i didn't connect for 1 year, i just play one week, it's boring and i get hit by the nerf-hammer + bugs, while the new content is too expensive for me.
The only time i had a good experience in this game was hunting for Guardian ruins, which i admit felt like playing a game.
Some people say thargoids are fun too, but i need meaningful money for the rebuys.
Anyway, what a shame this game is.

Also, where did i say i was a game dev?
I just happen to write code, and my code works.
I also go to great lengths to debug and see if people are gonna have fun.
I also wrote scenarios, and i played a lot of games, including countless "elite" offshoots cause the first one is a historical videogame.
I would gladly forgive if FD was a one-person team, like Rimworld, but we all know Rimworld is better-made.
That is all.

The balance of VO was perfect, it took a *censored*load of time and netted a large amount of money.
They added the FC to be sure people spend that money, and now the only thing they were supposed to do was adding more content.
Nothing else was necessary, nothing else was expected.
Some people apparently bought a "solo mode", but i'm pretty sure i bought a game.

PS:
It has already been said in the first message, but please stuff posts like "personaly i enjoy the thing" or "i'm gonna gamexplain it" up your censored.
To show how interesting you really are, would be nice to invite you to a politics TV show.
"Hey David, what do you think about Boris Johnson?"
"I think it's great, i like the new shoes a lot".
"Thanks David, now let....."
"You know a lot of people criticize him but the job is difficult".
"...."
"Did you know he invited schoolkids to visit Westminster?"

 

[Ashnak]

There are certainly some aspects that are subjective when someone complains about some part of this game. There is guaranteed to be many of those.

There are also completely objective complaints.
Supercruise.
Traveling to non-adjacent systems (parade of loading screens) .
Predictable NPC's.
1980's style trade and economy.
Pointless empty systems making up 99.99% of all systems in the game.
Only using NPC's to create risk to players in the game and completely ignoring the environment.

And the list can keep growing without ever touching on something subjective

Good one, mate. If I may:

Suoercruise: look up Alcubierre Drive
Travelling to non-adjacent systems: how else?
Predictable NPCs: as in any other game. Thanks to a lot of very verbal players. When MoM unleashed the full power of the AI, the outcry in the forums was immense - to put it mildly.
1980s style...: well, ED is (was designed as, and sold as) á graphical remake of a computer game from... 1984. A series of games from the 80s-90s, actually, but all with the same trade and economy model.
Pointless empty systems: go outside. At night. Look up. How many of the few systems you can see do you think are settled? Oh, and your number is way off. There are 20,000 settled systems in the bubble (and a handful more in Colonia, Withchead etc.). There are 400,000,000,000 systems in the Galaxy. So that's more like 99,999995% of all systems in the games are "pointless empty" systems. Oh, and less than 0.1% of those have been explored (a year ago, the number was 0.042%).
Environment: uh-huh. You haven't been around for long, have you?

 

[Ydiss]

Your post has some good points (just not constructively written) and I sympathise with some things (but not all) and I hope the pwa gets fixed (it will).

Good luck (with whatever game you move to). I'm off now (dramatic exit).

 

[space voyager]

I feel the pain of the OP... I'm in an empty Anaconda in my own VO hotspot out of the bubble, in despair over non-working machine that goes PING.

Even worse... With all the shortcomings of this buggy game, it is still the best space game out there, so I can moan all I want, I'm still playing this game after hundreds of hours of moaning.

 

[EvilWinkle]

I feel the pain of the OP... I'm in an empty Anaconda in my own VO hotspot out of the bubble, in despair over non-working machine that goes PING.

Even worse... With all the shortcomings of this buggy game, it is still the best space game out there, so I can moan all I want, I'm still playing this game after hundreds of hours of moaning.

Oh, but i'll probably try the next expansion too, even if i know it will be botched and the devs just don't want to make something that works.
It's like taking drugs, you know it's hurting you, you know you should stop, you know nothing good is gonna come out of it, but you feel an irrationnal need to do "just one more".

Or like making a bet on the worst football club in your country.
You know that one time per century, they could actually win the match!

 

[Bottom Hat]

I suggest leaving as being the most satisfying game choice.

 

[Achtung-Goomba]

I suggest leaving as being the most satisfying game choice.

I keep trying to leave but Big Dave OBE keeps slapping my hand every time I go to uninstall...

 

[Crank Larson]

Also, where did i say i was a game dev?
I just happen to write code, and my code works.
I also go to great lengths to debug and see if people are gonna have fun.
I also wrote scenarios, and i played a lot of games, including countless "elite" offshoots cause the first one is a historical videogame.
I would gladly forgive if FD was a one-person team, like Rimworld, but we all know Rimworld is better-made.
That is all.

Are you going to put your money where your mouth is? Let's see some code?

 

[Thatchinho]

I'm off now (dramatic exit).

< Smoke bomb! >

 

[theBreadSultan]

you dont need to be a developer to know that supercruise, a necessary major aspect of anything you do in space in this space game, is horrible gameplay. Not only is it devoid of anything worthy of your time, but what little bit they try to do during it is phoned in - entirely predictable garbage.

You dont need to be a developer to know that putting 100 loading screens between things a player wants to do and offering nothing but those loading screens is a horribly game design choice.

That's how FDev time barriers work and it's stupid. They know it's stupid too. They absolutely know it's a garbage way to have the game work, that's why even though they designed the game around a 10ly avg jump distance, created a 1:1 representation of the galaxy, and wanted everyone to basically remain in the bubble, and based all of the fake-economy on a fog of war type mechanic - despite all of that they have repeatedly increased jump rates to reduce the perceived distance players have to deal with. They have created modules that basically fly the ship automatically in supercruise. They have basically eliminated the entire point of everything about how the game was designed without eliminating the downside of having hundreds of millions of procedurally created systems and no meaninful content in most of them.

You dont need to be a developer to realize that will undermine any attempt to balance roles and incomes and costs. Players will be driven to circumvent anything attempting to apply time sinks because in elite, those time sinks are empty, gameplay-less wastes of time.

The 1:1 recreation of the Galaxy is quite literally the only reason I play it.

The issue with the lack of content is down to Fdev wanting to create it all themselves, and then deciding it should just be done by an algorithm.

Many games get around this by enabling the people who care the most about the game, the players, to generate content. The best multilayer maps on farcry weren't created by Ubisoft.

I think that given the sheer scale of Ed, its always going to feel somewhat hollow, without player created content

We should be able to create planets, with different assets sets - and once approved it gets sent to a random part of the Galaxy, based on where it is (rocky world, metal rich etc)

Player generated missions would be really good too.

Without this, the game will always be empty and hollow - I like exploration, and space is big and empty - so it's not game breaking for me,

But how about a competition, to create alien plants, animals etc. Winners get into the game

 

[Firkrayt]

Also, where did i say i was a game dev?
I just happen to write code, and my code works.
I also go to great lengths to debug and see if people are gonna have fun.
I also wrote scenarios

Are you, by any chance, developer of Star Citizen? That CV ticks all the marks.

 

[Vetinari]

Another one?!

Tis the season to be jolly...

 

[thistle]

Any person that created 10 lines of code in their live will be able to see that certain mechanics in ED are really bad. But fanboys will never agree that someone else may be right...

Do you mean the design of certain mechanics? I'm assuming that's what you mean?

 

[TiberiusDuval]

The 1:1 recreation of the Galaxy is quite literally the only reason I play it.

The issue with the lack of content is down to Fdev wanting to create it all themselves, and then deciding it should just be done by an algorithm.

Many games get around this by enabling the people who care the most about the game, the players, to generate content. The best multilayer maps on farcry weren't created by Ubisoft.

I think that given the sheer scale of Ed, its always going to feel somewhat hollow, without player created content

We should be able to create planets, with different assets sets - and once approved it gets sent to a random part of the Galaxy, based on where it is (rocky world, metal rich etc)

Player generated missions would be really good too.

Without this, the game will always be empty and hollow - I like exploration, and space is big and empty - so it's not game breaking for me,

But how about a competition, to create alien plants, animals etc. Winners get into the game

Create a planet, you know those planets are on 1:1 scale and need to conform set of physical laws. So no moon sized earth likes for example. And making on 1:1 scale even pretty small moonlet has quite a big surface area to cover with stuff.

 

[Biff Stryker]

We need a mic drop emoticon to stick at the end of ragequits. If we had that, I'd go all Bazmeson at least once a week. Unfortunately none of you could haz my stuff because with the mining nerf I could never afford to get my fleet back to current billionaire levels after I quit and erased my save.