If you're Undecided about Odyssey, what do you want to see?

[Slange Lands]

I will be buying Odyssey.

However:

I am concerned about FPS PvP gameplay in Open because of the instancing and lag issues in the current game.

Playing Solo may not be as problematic, but right now in Open, lag issues are so significant and commonplace that shadow rams and delayed damage are to be expected. Large ship PvP is not nearly as immersive due to the fact that AI controlled SLFs cause significant lag. The AI contolled SLF, a significant damage dealing weapon, is currently impossible to use in fair PvP.

Instancing issues. It is often very time consuming to get even six people in the same instance even though all are friended and none blocked. Odyssey purports to have Settlement Wars involving soldiers, aerial and srv support. That could involve a lot of Commanders. It would be fantastic, but only if we all successfully instanced. Needless to say, I am somewhat skeptical.

Crossing Fingers.

Take Care, Everybody

o7

 

[dejavoodoo]

VR support, which I know won't happen, but failing that. some method of transitioning from VR in a ship/SRV to pancake mode on foot that's reasonably seamless and doesn't require restarting the game.

That said it would be odd to put in effort into creating a smooth transition when that effort could be just put into VR support.

 

[Deleted member 182079]

Looking at some of the more outrageous wishlists around here, I'd say a number of players will be sorely disappointed.

I mean, I have certain expectations as well but more in terms of quality as opposed to content (for that I can only go by what FDev show us, not what I would like). Some seem to expect Elite Dangerous 2, remember this is a simple (if rather pricey) extension DLC, not a new game.

 

[Dragsham]

Fab Op.
1) First on my list is planetary landings and how to make each and every one of them almost unique. By that I mean just minutely different from one another...currently all planets look and feel the same regardless of that bodies inate differences. So each has to feel unique.
Which leads to my 2nd point.
Flora fauna life etc. Its going to be convoluted narrow species list so on so seeing same stuff over 3000+ apparently different planets will break immersion. Quite how they get round it i don't know. Perhaps they can't.

2) A new ship.

3) a working bridge. fixed personalised voices from crew and thrusters to rotate only on carriers to alter view from aforementioned Bridge.

4) more diverse content across the whole spectrum of elite.

5) A one world open only experience you sign up for or not as you prefer. If you do sign up for it bonuses for mining yield and bountys reflect the risk.
6) get rid of Peer to peer instancing. Laggy unreliable slow hard to code etc get with the times jeez.
7) more bgs pp influence in colonia and the bubble. Quite what or how idk I'm not a game developer.
8) galaxial universal comms. Give cmdrs the option to listen and join in chat within sectors systems so on so forth. Obviously OPTION not mandatory.
9) o) increase dps of rail guns. Increase range of frags/pacifiers PAs to reflect skilled use. Anyone can point a beam or multicannon. Let the game reflect this.
Increase explosive yield of all missiles inc torps.
10) fix ALL multicrew bugs and wing related bugs. Make it a rock solid stable platform not the jerkovision crapout orange sidey it is atm.
11) nerf beams, multicannons hehe.
12.... fell asleep

 

[Rat Catcher]

nerf beams, multicannons hehe.

Would be more sensible to remove all weapons from the game, surely?
That way there would be no need for 'balance' at all or the urge to 'nerf' or 'boost' anything

 

[Arioch]

VR support, which I know won't happen, but failing that. some method of transitioning from VR in a ship/SRV to pancake mode on foot that's reasonably seamless and doesn't require restarting the game.

That said it would be odd to put in effort into creating a smooth transition when that effort could be just put into VR support.

Isn’t that exactly what FDev have said they’re going to do?

We’ll go to an in-HMD flatscreen when going on foot, or we can take off the goggles and continue playing on the monitor:

In Odyssey, players will be able to fly down to planets, fly through atmospheres and drive along planet surfaces in their SRVs - all while remaining in VR.

When disembarking your ship or SRV, players will be presented with a projected flat game screen in their VR headset in order to continue on foot. Players will of course be able to remove headsets if they so choose, but this will not be a requirement to continue your adventure.

There will be no requirement to boot between Horizons and Odyssey in order to continue your journey.

 

[zimms]

How about some actual gameplay? Several 2 second clips edited into one video isn't what I'd call a gameplay video.

The keep mentioning that sphere of combat and how great it will be to have people on foot, in SRVs and in ships fight together, but they haven't said a single word how that's supposed to work. Will it end up being another "concept" that just doesn't work for Elite, like CQC and PP? Do you guys remember how Frontier told us before the release of Horizons how awesome it will be for SRVs and ships to work together to infiltrate a planetary base? The actual product didn't even get close.

They said space legs engineering won't be the same grind as we have now. Why not give us an example?

Will the new profession literally be the same as randomly finding bark mounds and using your discovery scanner?

So many unanswered questions, the "dev diaries" were mostly PR videos. I guess people would want to find out the answers to some of these questions before deciding. Will probably have to wait for the Alpha.

 

[TheSisko]

EVA. Maybe its in the game (and future dev diaries), but I doubt it. There's all kinds of fun stuff you could do in zero-g spacewalks but it looks like pew-pew has accounted for a huge portion of development time. I can do pew-pew in dozens of other games, which would do it better than Odyssey.

No EVA = missed open goal for this game. EVA & fixing legacy bugs > FPS content.

 

[Morbad]

I bought Odyssey six years ago, but I'll be undecided about it until I've had significant experience with it.

No particular expectations...a lot of hopes, but those are tempered by past experience with the rest of the game.

I suppose if I had a threshold for what would be required for me to buy it had I not already bought it...it would be more entertainment value than some roughly equivalent alternative, which really isn't a high bar.

 

[Old Duck]

EVA.

You do realize Space Engineers is now out for XBox. Come on, you know you want to!

Space Engineers - "Open" Changes Everything

My love for Space Engineers is well known, but I eventually hit the "What's the point of it all?" wall in my Solo game. The worlds are beautiful, but empty. NPCs are literally empty ships on autopilot just going through waypoints, and the various assets are also empty and cookie-cutter. NMS or...

forums.frontier.co.uk

 

[thistle]

VR support, which I know won't happen, but failing that. some method of transitioning from VR in a ship/SRV to pancake mode on foot that's reasonably seamless and doesn't require restarting the game.

That said it would be odd to put in effort into creating a smooth transition when that effort could be just put into VR support.

They said you can just take the headset off, or use the projected screen in the headset. No need to restart the game.

(what Arioch said)

 

[Old Duck]

The other thing I want to see is a proper NPC crew, but Frontier said this will never happen ever ever ever.

 

[Astaran]

How about some actual gameplay? Several 2 second clips edited into one video isn't what I'd call a gameplay video.

The keep mentioning that sphere of combat and how great it will be to have people on foot, in SRVs and in ships fight together, but they haven't said a single word how that's supposed to work. Will it end up being another "concept" that just doesn't work for Elite, like CQC and PP? Do you guys remember how Frontier told us before the release of Horizons how awesome it will be for SRVs and ships to work together to infiltrate a planetary base? The actual product didn't even get close.

They said space legs engineering won't be the same grind as we have now. Why not give us an example?

Will the new profession literally be the same as randomly finding bark mounds and using your discovery scanner?

So many unanswered questions, the "dev diaries" were mostly PR videos. I guess people would want to find out the answers to some of these questions before deciding. Will probably have to wait for the Alpha.

Indeed, when they announced a "Gameplay" release, I expected them to showcase a mission as an example. From accepting the mission all the way to the end. Not just talking about it, but actually playing the mission.

Yes, from what we've got so far, the visuals and sound appear to be very good, but that's not really what makes for a "good shooter experience". I'm curious about how good the AI is going to be. How good is the AI at using cover and concealment? How do "more powerful opponents" scale up? At the moment I'm expecting a 1:1 copy of ship combat. More "difficult" enemies mean just more bullet sponges. A "harder" AI isn't smarter, it just soaks up (and deals) more damage.

 

[VR StarLightPL]

I want to see environments that look "alive".

... Cyberpunk 2077 style ;-)

That said it would be odd to put in effort into creating a smooth transition when that effort could be just put into VR support.

A transition is probably not so much work. Games did that already, notably x-rebirth. Based on the proximity sensor in the gogles the transition required 2-3 seconds to "kick in", but it worked quite okay. Probably not so hot idea in the middle of multiplayer firefights, but still.

Looking at some of the more outrageous wishlists around here, I'd say a number of players will be sorely disappointed.

My personal favourite is 4k60 on PS4 ;-) Something that mightiest of PCs couldn't do well (especially in stations), will be available on last gen consoles. Yeah right PS5, yes, probably, maybe.

The more I watch the vids, the more I am convinced that they will pull a huge one on many of the CoD:IW minded commanders here
I suspect it will be... PvE only, with PvP "hubs" like Crucible in Destiny 2. The missions and whole shebang will not be against other players (not with that netcode, no way, they would be laughing stock of the whole industry). In other words it will be against AI. Stations will for sure be "safe zones", just like in Destiny and there will be no PvP fighting except controlled environments. And you know what? I'm fine with it PvP in this game is heavily unbalanced and you cannot have a ship which can do both PvP and PvE, which is tedious. I miss the pre-engineering times when skill (and not min-maxing) mattered, and A-rated meant something. I suspect they would want to avoid that mess completely in Odyssey, but we will see. My bet is on PvE.

As for things missing, I'm with @TheSisko on EVA. I highly doubt we get EVA when we don't have ship interiors, we will see in a few months. But if it isn't there, it's a huge missed opportunity.

All in all it's a step in the right direction, pardon the pun. But will it be "one giant leap for mankind"? We will see...

 

[VR StarLightPL]

I'm curious about how good the AI is going to be. How good is the AI at using cover and concealment? How do "more powerful opponents" scale up? At the moment I'm expecting a 1:1 copy of ship combat. More "difficult" enemies mean just more bullet sponges. A "harder" AI isn't smarter, it just soaks up (and deals) more damage.

Sarah Jane Avory (sorry if I mistyped the name) aka The Mistress of minions, did a really good AI back when engineering became a thing. Bar the bugs (multicannon plasma anyone?) the AI was GREAT, it was CHALLENGING and you really needed to watch your back when you heard for example "Warning, Impulse Attack". It required skill to survive. You know what happened? Global forum outcry happened, and the voices of those happy with new difficulty level were dwarfed in the whinging and crying and ee'ing of the community at large. So FDev nerfed it to oblivion and never looked back it seems - or the engineer powercreep made it impossible. Either way we ended up with what we have now. If you want to read something about these times, this is a start. Warning, it's a sad lecture

Spoiler: reddit QA with SJA

https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/4lmhmm

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/4lmhmm/fd_ai_programmer_sarah_jane_avory_comments_on/

 

[TheSisko]

You do realize Space Engineers is now out for XBox. Come on, you know you want to!

Space Engineers - "Open" Changes Everything

My love for Space Engineers is well known, but I eventually hit the "What's the point of it all?" wall in my Solo game. The worlds are beautiful, but empty. NPCs are literally empty ships on autopilot just going through waypoints, and the various assets are also empty and cookie-cutter. NMS or...

forums.frontier.co.uk

I do but......Game Pass is keeping me busy. Wasteland 3, Gears Tactics, Gears 5 Hivebusters DLC, Control, and soon the Megacorp expansion for Stellaris on console. I will try Space Engineers (I know I've said that before), just not sure when yet.

 

[thistle]

Indeed, when they announced a "Gameplay" release, I expected them to showcase a mission as an example. From accepting the mission all the way to the end. Not just talking about it, but actually playing the mission.

The "gameplay release" that was announced was actually just a "gameplay trailer". They were never going to release a 20min real time mission for a trailer, were they?

We will ALL get to see full missions by either playing it in alpha, or watching frontier or streamers play it in alpha. Thats what fdev livestreams would be for I guess, reveal livestreams.

I think we expect too much from the very first "gameplay trailer" in an awards show.

 

[Kaocraft]

THE GAME

 

[Deleted member 182079]

... Cyberpunk 2077 style ;-)

A transition is probably not so much work. Games did that already, notably x-rebirth. Based on the proximity sensor in the gogles the transition required 2-3 seconds to "kick in", but it worked quite okay. Probably not so hot idea in the middle of multiplayer firefights, but still.

My personal favourite is 4k60 on PS4 ;-) Something that mightiest of PCs couldn't do well (especially in stations), will be available on last gen consoles. Yeah right PS5, yes, probably, maybe.

The more I watch the vids, the more I am convinced that they will pull a huge one on many of the CoD:IW minded commanders here
I suspect it will be... PvE only, with PvP "hubs" like Crucible in Destiny 2. The missions and whole shebang will not be against other players (not with that netcode, no way, they would be laughing stock of the whole industry). In other words it will be against AI. Stations will for sure be "safe zones", just like in Destiny and there will be no PvP fighting except controlled environments. And you know what? I'm fine with it PvP in this game is heavily unbalanced and you cannot have a ship which can do both PvP and PvE, which is tedious. I miss the pre-engineering times when skill (and not min-maxing) mattered, and A-rated meant something. I suspect they would want to avoid that mess completely in Odyssey, but we will see. My bet is on PvE.

As for things missing, I'm with @TheSisko on EVA. I highly doubt we get EVA when we don't have ship interiors, we will see in a few months. But if it isn't there, it's a huge missed opportunity.

All in all it's a step in the right direction, pardon the pun. But will it be "one giant leap for mankind"? We will see...

I don't really get it, since the majority of people on this forum should know better (given the supposed maturity at least in terms of age).

I'm currently luke-warm at best about Odyssey after seeing the combat and base environments. Cookie cutter architecture and not particularly impressive looking (no doubt also held back by the console versions) - I've been playing Cyberpunk 2077 for the last few weeks and bugs aside, that is what I want environments to look like, but it's just not going to happen in Elite, as it's only an extension to the base game so same principles apply in terms of what's doable and what isn't, at least to some extent.

I love Elite, I still play it regularly, but my god, in the words of Marcellus Wallace, the Elite community is filled to the brim with unrealistic m*********s.

The pricing of Odyssey hasn't helped either - I was expecting it to be about 10 Euros cheaper than it's now sold at - that's getting dangerously close to AAA price levels, which comes with expectations that Odyssey simply won't match (if you want to alpha-test, it'll be 47 Euros - CP2077 was only 13 Euros more expensive).

 

[Ferry_25]

tl:dr. unknown content, worries it'll be too combat orientaded, the bugs and unwillingness to fix those and the nerf hammers.

Good question, OP. Only pre orders I can remember making were expansions of the Sins of a solar empire game. For the rest I won't buy anything I can't lay eyes on first. And I don't care about carrots being dangled in front of my face like unique ships. From what I've seen of O so far my only selling point are the improved graphics. It's not really the amount of money which makes me reluctant. It's the game itself and FDEV. Gamewise I sorely miss interaction from the game. I get it's a MMO so the galaxy can't revolve around me but I'm feeling it's the opposite. F.e. I did a lot of food delivery missions on a small famine system. Like 10k-ish population. I brought quadruple digits tons of foods to it. Yes; other players must be able to do the same. But a small message "thanks to your effort the situation starts to improve" with a small bonus would add so much to the imersion.
My biggest concerns are bugs and the nerf hammers. No this game isn't on Cyberpunk 1977 level but it is bugged. The unwillingness I've seen from FDEV to fix those I've never seen any other dev show. IMO the PWA bug has only been adressed through high public pressure. And it's not even fixed 100% yet. And I chose the word "unwillingness" because it strikes me FDEV manages to fix game exploits whithin days. Not to advocate exploits, just to argument there are recourses to fix things. An expansion will inevitably have bugs. i get that. But I don't want to spend months/ years with moronic "work arounds" to play this game. Also I'm "afraid" I will find activities in Odyssee which aren't approved by the pew-pew community which will be nerfed into the ground because there is "no risk involved." Like I said elsewhere I don't like the combat in this game. Mostly because I suck in it. And I even suck worse in FPS combat. But I get it's a part of the game. And I agree combat direly needed a buff. But the nerfs (either directly with the prices or indirectly through trolling with the markets: f.e. have a great offer price with only 1 demand) of the things I liked has really set me off.