Odyssey trailer - thoughts?

[Alien]

My only thoughts about the trailer were about the things they didn't show us.
Ship to foot, and foot to ship transitions
Death while on foot
Gameplay footage of other mission types
Other methods to complete missions, ie non-lethal methods
They mentioned hacking ... show us that then.

I could go on, but I think you understand my point. They have shown us only one small part of Odyssey, and they've shown us this repeatedly.

 

[Shaele]

My only thoughts about the trailer were about the things they didn't show us.
Ship to foot, and foot to ship transitions
Death while on foot
Gameplay footage of other mission types
Other methods to complete missions, ie non-lethal methods
They mentioned hacking ... show us that then.

I could go on, but I think you understand my point. They have shown us only one small part of Odyssey, and they've shown us this repeatedly.

Almost like thats all they have to show

 

[Bantha]

We’ve had a lot of missed opportunities in ED where things could have been implemented much better, and crucially they could have been improved down the line, but have instead been left to rot.

Power Play, CQC, Multi-crew.

My concern with Odyssey is that the entire expansion will fall in to the same category.

I do hope I’m wrong...

 

[Osbo89]

Almost like thats all they have to show

Though they did say they have more to show later

 

[Shaele]

Though they did say they have more to show later

and yet, they still showed what they showed - expecting better this close to the release is just delusional

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

So the pre-alpha Odyssey gameplay trailer is out.
You see three devs raiding a base then flying away.

My thoughts:

Let's have a look at your thoughts.

Animation is poor. Players walking are just pure cringe! It’s uncomfortable to watch.

Animations were a little rough around the edges, but as it was not even alpha footage, not too bad in my opinion.

FPS element looks worse than, well, every single other FPS game out there.

I disagree. Didn't look worse then every single FPS out there, but thankfully they don't need to compete with dedicated FPSs. Because Odyssey is just an expansion to an existing game and shouldn't looked at as if it's a separate game.

Bases will be procedurally generated - does this mean the same old same old scenario again and again?

Nope. Listen to the Q&A.

Lots of unrealistic elements to the trailer, particularly the NPC behaviour. And I’m pretty sure this will get dull quite quickly.

What do you mean by unrealistic?

Oh, and no VR.

We knew this already.

Gotta say, I was kind of neutral about Odyssey. After seeing this, I could not care less for it at all!

Good for you. The more I see, the I like it.

FDev have got it very very wrong in my opinion. Start with the ships. That’s why we play, to fly space ships. Start there, let us walk in our ships. Let me see where I sleep, where I live, all that stuff. I want to see the cargo hold. Let me look out of all the windows that aren’t part of the cockpit.

I disagree. I have no interest in seeing the cargo hold, where I sleep and looking out of a window unless it has some gameplay value. I'm sure they will do ship interiors or partial ship interiors when they have locked down the gameplay they can add to them.

What about manual ship repair? Let me float outside my ship and fix that dodgy laser that keeps breaking down.
All that stuff!

Because you can repair it with a press if a button. I'm all up for repair mechanics, but they will have to completely change how the AFMU and Repair limpets work.

That’ll do for Odyssey 1. Then build from there.
Sorry FDev, you’ve dropped a ball here...

I completely disagree. Getting the FPP elements right is not easy, so doing them on stations, bases, planets first makes much more sense. Then they can concentrate on stuff like space EVA and ship internals.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

My personal reaction was shock. I might try to check out for a bit because i actually want to be excited about odysee but that video created the exact opposite effect. It was needed to have it, like say war correspondance irl, but the public alpha is in 3 weeks.. that was last weeks state..

Anyway.

• I wonder if they're going to be acting on qualitative feedback like movement and weapon response.
• Max factor promised me there wouldn't be random boxes all over the map that make no sense apart from gameplay cover. He lied. There are so many evenly spaced crates just sitting there, like quake 2.
• I guess that would / could reflect an alpha in the truest sense. Many companies spend months or years from this point to get the gameplay feeling tight and responsive? Its like any other game without AAA polish applied.

I don't think its doomed, but the honest score of what was shown was somewhere between university project and indie dev. I hope frontier refine it to at least their own quirky standards of released product. It can't be that bad for the public alpha.

The only thing that brought joy from that video was seeing a space ship using the first person fov. Probably closest to the vr experience that non vr play has achieved, really glad its finally available.

Also, if you want to be nice to frontier, pay them. I do. When it comes to the future of the game, avoid being generous in giving them participation medals and provide feedback so they can achieve in the area of best. You're only screwing yourself over by seeing no evil. Or maybe play a real fps. I recommend infinite warfare. Did you pick up bf II for free from the epic games store. Even that will do.

Sorry mate, but I promised no such thing. Maybe you should learn to read better.

 

[thelion]

Up to now, I have not felt enthused for it.

I am intrigued about how far they will take the ground exploration element.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

The trailer left me saddened. I did not buy Elite Dangerous for this kind of gameplay, none of the content I saw in the trailer would be of any use or interest to me at all. Can we see some non-combat gameplay please? Will there even be any non-combat content with Odyssey?

The more I see of Odyssey the less I want to buy it.

There were a number of none combat mechanics shown that could also apply to none combat scenarios. That's what I was looking for, and it looked pretty good to me.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

I'm way more upbeat than the OP, but I am worried that like Horizon's planet-based missions, these scenarios will get repetitive too quickly. What I'd love to see is true PvP scenarios where one team of players is assigned to protect an outpost and another is assigned to defend it. Now that would be pretty epic and something I would not quickly get bored with.

Of course this assumes that the FPS portion doesn't mimic the spaceship portion where we have the suit equivalent of G5 godships (frag FDLs, infinite shield Cutters, etc). If that's the case, well then that kills my interest in FPS PvP - I'll just stick with Overwatch, Battlefront, Fortnite (gasp), etc.

The devs already said a player with basic gear is gonna have a bad time of it going up against a player with engineered game and even used the term bullet spongy. That said (and I didn't see this yesterday so may be wrong)

Haven't FD said they are gonna patch in ED:O content into CQC? If they do that may give the balanced PvP you hope for.

As for the trailer. I am gonna have some fun with it for sure but with the coop all looking forced MP again with no so squadmates, had I not already bought it it would likely be in the deep discount pile. ED: O is not how I wanted ED to go but hopefully it will dowell enough to get another DLC down the road.

 

[Winterwalker]

The Q&A in the livestream was more interesting than the trailer imo.

If the trail is what it looks like, the Q&A seemed to close in a bit more on what it'll be like. They'd rehearsed this and DPS / AI level is irrelevant in pre-release snapshot. (How many balance passes has ED even had!)

 

[LOTGS]

Looked ok to me, though not 'dangerous' at all. Two people walked in through the front door, set off alarms and walked right out again. Would get boring without a lot of variation too.

Hopefully though it's a solid technical stepping stone to a space legs RPG. Imagine docking at a space station, getting out and wandering freely around to explore the recesses, meet locals in dingy bars and get yourself into trouble.

 

[gooddoc]

I'm not into pewpew anymore, not been since I stopped playing the Tomb Raider releases.

While the footage looks ok, though Iv nothing to go on as I don't play the modern day FPS pewpew games, it's something that I'll probably not use much of in game.

I'd prefer the DLC to be more of a Base Building variety, creating my own little Empire on a Planet of my choice.......but hey! that stuff doesn't sell units as good as pewpew does.
I'm just hoping that there's a decent amount of Exploration stuff to do.......so far I've seen squat on that front

 

[MUSKETEER]

Frontier AI

 

[Thelamon]

While I'm not an FPS player (BF2 was the last FPS i really spent time with), I look forward to being abler to get outside the ship in first person at all.

The player animation and the behavior of the bots looked extremely crude though. Like 1990's FPS... Couldn't they add some programmers/ Devs that had experience in the FPS genre for Odyssee?

Having said all this:
The biggest issue I have with the shown "FPS" playthrough was that the ship and human pilot were not tied into the gameplay at all (other than as a "manned cut scene" and pointless radio chatter).

• If the ship plays no part why have one of only three players on the team stay in the ship at all?
• Why can the ship land right next to the base, fly right over the base, but not just stay on the ground near the base (or hidden out of LOS in walking distance)
• Why couldn't the pilot support the ground team - at all? (Birds eye view/recon support, help vs. Skimmers and other Drones and last but not least support vs. Skimmer as the ground team left the base and was attacked on their retreat toward the ship. (Thinking of Guardiasn sites at least the ships AMS should have provided cover fire vs. Sentries.)

Right now the main part of Elite does feel totally unattached to the FPS part.

 

[BL1P]

I'm not into pewpew anymore, not been since I stopped playing the Tomb Raider releases.

While the footage looks ok, though Iv nothing to go on as I don't play the modern day FPS pewpew games, it's something that I'll probably not use much of in game.

I'd prefer the DLC to be more of a Base Building variety, creating my own little Empire on a Planet of my choice.......but hey! that stuff doesn't sell units as good as pewpew does.
I'm just hoping that there's a decent amount of Exploration stuff to do.......so far I've seen squat on that front

I am a long time Arma series player, since 2001/2 when I started playing Operation Flash Point.
I quickly moved away from the arcade fps game style and stuck with the more simulation aspects of fps which Arma can provide.

First things I noticed in the demo footage, was that this game play is very arcade in its hud design with to many helpers on screen for the player.
Radar showing enemy locations and incoming shot indicators showing which direction you where shot from etc.
So I will steer clear of the pew pew in Elite. I am sure some will enjoy that style of fps though !

I too am therefore looking forward to the other elements on foot game-play will provide.

 

[MUSKETEER]

I will play it. It will be nice to do some FPS co-op with squadron members.

 

[Quantis Trap]

OP, Odyssey is pre Alpha ... but I do kind of agree that it looks rough.

What I'd like to see is low G and 0 G combat to set it apart from most of the FPS out there.

 

[M_72]

Their trailer should have been along the lines of a ship setting down on an unexplored world, with a team of explorers/scientists getting out, some on foot, some in new land vehicles, showing them going on to demonstrate the new genomics and salvaging roles*, with sweeping panoramas of the new landscapes in the background and amazing new sunsets. That would have sparked the imagination far more than FPS scenarios that look way behind the times and showcase how poor their AI awareness and gunplay is.

Elite built its reputation on ships, exploration and its 1:1 scale galaxy that Fdev were once so proud to boast about. That's where their development time should have gone.

Odyssey FPS is purely to draw in the here today gone tomorrow customers who'll buy it just because its taping into the massive FPS market. Once the hype dies down and they've raked in the cash, the twitch kids will be off elsewhere, leaving the diehards and loyal Elite devotees left - as always waiting for Fdev to throw them a bone, as they're always last to be catered for.

(*but I suspect even these will be incredibly shallow if all their dev focus has been on FPS gameplay).

 

[IamMe]

Not quite impressed with seen!
It looked like hair dressers war with those weird weapon shapes (no weapon designer would ever design weapon shapes like that making it unusable after optics get damaged or malfunctioning)

Also body armor/shields gives feeling of uber arcade game, totally!
CoD feels like real milsim compared to this and mentioning or comparing it to Arma here is blasphemy, i suggest dropping shields out of the list.
I'll give it 3.5/10 when it comes to FPS!
It will add to ED gameplay for sure but some design decisions are very poor.

I just hope they'll focus fully on various atmo planet types (dense atmos, weather and waterworlds) and atmo re-entry mechanics after Odyssey!