Odyssey - what's the point?

  • Thread starter Deleted member 182079
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With ships I've gone full circle, several times - from small to big to medium to small etc.

The options you have in both ship outfitting and engineering dwarf anything you can do with gear, where it's mainly "better numbers" but the utility is the same for the most part (shoot and walk).

And I guess the flight model gives me sufficient joy to just fly around without much purpose - whereas walking isn't the most engaging activity unless there's a purpose (walking in EDO without missions gets boring very fast imo), and engineering doesn't let you experiment with different combinations of abilities like in other games (such as Dishonored to give just one example).

The core abilities are baked into the 3 suits, and eng recipes are far from exciting to the point where I look at them and think "can't be bothered". Not the same at all with ships. It's all just very basic and bare bones, and walking around settlements serves no other purpose than gathering mats and work the BGS. There's no NPCs to interact with, just a map to take stuff from or shoot NPCs.
But none of that counters what I say: there is no inherent purpose to much of anything, and almost everything in the game can be done with cheap gear and ships.

When you strip it down your argument basically is "I like doing [X] with ships much more than doing [y] with legs". Which is fair enough, to each his own. It you make it sound as if there is a distinct design difference with ED being all about progress and EDO being pointless. That seems a rather forced take on it; both are 'gameplay loop buffets" with limited need for upgrades.

Honestly, it just feels like you were super hyped before and are currently bummed out on EDO and are trying to objectify why you dont like it. A more simple comment would be"I got bored with legs-loops much faster than ship-loops and I am unhappy about it".
 
Nope, cannot find any - except that some EDO missions requires having your own ship.
Which should not be a problem for an EDO user since a suit or a weapon costs more than a Sidey
Yesterday I played the live version for the first time on my main rig. I ended up spending about five hours on a 144LY journey. To me, EDO adds another layer of depth to the experience, but I see how it would heavily depend on how you play the game in general.
 
Yesterday I played the live version for the first time on my main rig. I ended up spending about five hours on a 144LY journey. To me, EDO adds another layer of depth to the experience, but I see how it would heavily depend on how you play the game in general.
It is for exploration. But for the rest, it's not IMO. It's essentially another game set in the same place.
 
I don't think so - Odyssey did add atmospheric planets.

You're suggesting that will be expanded upon over the next years. What makes you so sure the same doesn't apply for planetary legs?

Ah, i see what you're getting at. I don't really count a skybox being added to worlds with barely any atmosphere "atmospheric planets".

Ok, i'll accept that post as applying now and again in a few years :D
 

Deleted member 182079

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But none of that counters what I say: there is no inherent purpose to much of anything, and almost everything in the game can be done with cheap gear and ships.
Correct, but when I compare ship vs on-foot gameplay 'purpose' the latter is lacking beyond the actual loop itself, i.e. the motivation to engage in it in the first place beyond fun for the sake of it - doesn't help that walking isn't exactly exciting an activity on its own (whereas flying a ship certainly is for me).
When you strip it down your argument basically is "I like doing [X] with ships much more than doing [y] with legs". Which is fair enough, to each his own. It you make it sound as if there is a distinct design difference with ED being all about progress and EDO being pointless. That seems a rather forced take on it; both are 'gameplay loop buffets" with limited need for upgrades.
You're not wrong there either
Honestly, it just feels like you were super hyped before and are currently bummed out on EDO and are trying to objectify why you dont like it. A more simple comment would be"I got bored with legs-loops much faster than ship-loops and I am unhappy about it".
I was anything but hyped, and still got let down. What I did expect more of though was the integration between EDH and EDO.

Zero effort has been put into enriching Horizons assets with EDO gameplay so there's no point in visiting them from an EDO perspective; indeed you're stuck with EDO specific locations if you want to engage in on-foot activities.

It's really like playing two separate games within the same sandbox, and I just find that really disappointing and low effort by Frontier. Even though both ship & feet gameplay certainly share the same concept (as you say "gameplay loop buffet" which I don't really have a problem with per se) but it does it in a way that makes it very difficult for me to immerse myself in a believable galaxy as everything is so disjointed and dare I say it, gamey.

Let's remember this is 2021, not 2011... and given the DLC cost me just about 10 Euros less than RDR2 (or indeed CP2077) I do have higher expectations when it comes to the level of quality and scope in terms of associated gameplay and visuals that I expect for my money - it's sad enough to have to discount everything Frontier do in terms of expectations simply because they're Frontier it seems.

The Stellar Forge is a work of genius, but the rest is really showing its age now, and I hoped that EDO would add a considerable amount of longevity to my favourite ever game, but beyond a bunch of mini-games it really didn't.

Anyways - I was in two minds about this thread in the first place, the initial draft had a lot more detail in terms of my thoughts but I it went on for a bit so decided to axe it (only to summarise it, poorly it seems, as a second try).

I've been eyeing up X4 ever since EDO launched, and maybe it's just time for me to move on (Elite won't be completely abandoned as long as the most severe issues are fixed), given that the future of Elite is quite clear for us to see in broad daylight now. I know it's "just a game" but for me it was (and still is, but it's deteriorating at a rate I haven't experienced during past botched updates) a proper hobby - never before did I invest so much time, money and emotions into a computer game before. So in light of that it's a bit more difficult to accept that the game is no longer what I want from it. I'll get over it of course.
 
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Deleted member 182079

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The 10 year cycle wasn´t really a statement of exact time limit, just a rough order of magnitude referred to by Braben and others. FDEV will most likely continue developing and growing Elite for as long as it returns a reasonable value and makes business/commercial sense. I.e. why would FDEV stop a product line if it brings decent returns? Or viceversa if it doesn´t of course. That could be 8 years, 10 years, 12 years or whatever.
I totally get that, and hope Elite will go far beyond the 10 years which is just a number I'm sure they pulled out of their Arx when they said it - yardstick stuff.

The point I was trying to make was that we're now into a significant time into the game's lifecycle, and additions to the game have become more incremental previously and now with EDO more compartmentalised. This to me suggests we're not going to see a complete revamp of Elite the game (meaning all DLC combined) in the future where individual aspects are more fleshed out and made more coherent; they'll likely just tack on stuff they feel will make money particularly in terms of MTX (given how much effort they put into EDO cosmetics compared to the rest of the game).

I'm pretty sure base building will be next, ripe for doll house customisation that gels well with Elite Feet. But probably completely separate (again) from the core spaceship stuff I imagine.
 
It's really like playing two separate games within the same sandbox

Definitely, yes.
Feels and plays like 2 different games set to run in the same universe and in the same timeframe


The Stellar Forge is a work of genius, but the rest is really showing its age now

Well, yes.
The Stellar Forge is genius, but the game engine needs an upgrade. At the very least to allow multiple light sources from stars

Standing on the planetary surface in multi star system, where the main star is under the horizon (sic!) and the secondary is high above, and really bright... yet you find yourself in complete darkness because the game lighting engine ignores the bright star that shines above your head... is a really really bad experience


edited for clarity
 
The point I was trying to make was that we're now into a significant time into the game's lifecycle, and additions to the game have become more incremental previously and now with EDO more compartmentalised.
This is a pretty iffy statement. Horizon content was pretty tacked-on to the base game, with specific areas in the game world only for Horizon players that base players could completely ignore. You'd go to the surfaces of planets for the Horizons content. Many of the critiques back then are quite similar to those now: poor performance, stability issues, segregated content, grind, little concrete reasons to go to the planets beyond shooting rocks, poor balance between mission rewards and so forth.

And yes, they likely will continue to add stuff to it rather than spend a similar time re-vamping stuff. It was how they suggested they would do it in the KS (with a tentative list they are slowling ticking off), and its far easier to sell trailers with atmo planets and ship interiors than "powerplay, but more balanced". Base building (or ship interior custimization) is pretty high on the list of a huge part of the community. You may cynically brush it aside as 'just to sell more Arx!" but it is what other people want. Just because you (or at times I) have different preferences doesn't make it any less valid an addition.

I've been eyeing up X4 ever since EDO launched,
You should, it is also a very good game. :) But I do warn you though that it, too, has its own fair share of things to get hung up. Both ED, X4 and NMS and so forth are in the end just games, and while it is easy to imagine them being better (or even perfect) it is also quite easy to forget everything that these games do well. EDO, NMS and X4 in their current version would have been mind blowingly awesome if you'd only go back to 2014, and these projects could have each ended up much, much worse. Playing all three makes you appreciate just how much work goes into these games, and how much entertainment we get for relatively little money.
 
Well, yes.
The Stellar Forge is genius, but the game engine needs an upgrade. At the very least to allow multiple light sources from stars
At some point we're going to hit a brick wall with that stuff. There is a reason why EA releases new versions of their games every 1-2 years; it is much easier to keep up-to-date that way. You cannot keep updating an game to keep it modern; ED is not going to have raytracing or DLSS for example. And when UE5 is going to be more mainstream we'll enter a new generation of graphics again. And if ED, SC, X4 or any such game wants to compete even remotely they'll have to start from scratch on ED2, NMS2 and so forth.

Which is to say: you cant have the game that has the most and best gameplay, the biggest gameworld, the best physics, the best visuals and so forth, because by the time you get parts of it done the rest is already outdated. And that puts 'everything' games like ED in a tough spot. If they manage to add better atmos in, say, 2023 and ship interiors in 2026 they would have done fantastically well. But they'd be running a modified version of a PS3-era engine versus what will then be the PS6 era. And it will be increasingly harder to optimize stuff; UE5 can do things better and easier on medium'ish pcs than CryEngine3 could do on a NASA pc.
 
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After a pause I returned back to Elite just because of Odyssee and now I am playing and enjoying it every day if possible. Most of the time I am on foot in settlements in stations or on planets. The spooky feeling in settlements at night is immersive especially when you hear the noise of a landing ship in the background. Also I enjoy scanning planets and contributing to on-foot combat zones.

Yes, the renderer should be optimized a bit more. Yes, it also needs better aliasing. Yes, I really would like to have an additional set of in-game stories, similar to the tutorial missions. But for now I am really happy, how Elite Dangerous evolved. We can play it 8 years now where I still have to wait for Star Citizien.

I am really looking forward to more progress in the Elite universe. And once I will build my own space ship cockpit hardware for that and maybe other space sims, if available.
 

Deleted member 182079

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This is a pretty iffy statement. Horizon content was pretty tacked-on to the base game, with specific areas in the game world only for Horizon players that base players could completely ignore. You'd go to the surfaces of planets for the Horizons content. Many of the critiques back then are quite similar to those now: poor performance, stability issues, segregated content, grind, little concrete reasons to go to the planets beyond shooting rocks, poor balance between mission rewards and so forth.

And yes, they likely will continue to add stuff to it rather than spend a similar time re-vamping stuff. It was how they suggested they would do it in the KS (with a tentative list they are slowling ticking off), and its far easier to sell trailers with atmo planets and ship interiors than "powerplay, but more balanced". Base building (or ship interior custimization) is pretty high on the list of a huge part of the community. You may cynically brush it aside as 'just to sell more Arx!" but it is what other people want. Just because you (or at times I) have different preferences doesn't make it any less valid an addition.
Just want to clarify, whenever I mention Horizons I really mean the entire package up until FCs. Due to the hours I dumped into that even that sizeable content had become stale, and I was hoping for a decent injection of life that EDO would bring, but it really didn't - I played what I believe are all the aspects of what EDO has to offer, and less than a month in I'm already feeling I've seen everything there is to it (apart from G5'ing my gear but unlike ship engineering I don't feel I want to engage much in it).
You should, it is also a very good game. :) But I do warn you though that it, too, has its own fair share of things to get hung up. Both ED, X4 and NMS and so forth are in the end just games, and while it is easy to imagine them being better (or even perfect) it is also quite easy to forget everything that these games do well. EDO, NMS and X4 in their current version would have been mind blowingly awesome if you'd only go back to 2014, and these projects could have each ended up much, much worse. Playing all three makes you appreciate just how much work goes into these games, and how much entertainment we get for relatively little money.
Glad to hear - and yes I think NMS Elite and X4 will complement each other well in my library (even though I don't have the motivation for NMS at the best of times, it's a very well 'serviced' game though to be fair). What I'm really missing from Elite is the scope and coherence of a working interconnected galaxy, and I think X4 will be able to scratch that itch - I won't play it or expect it to play like Elite of course. It appears that it certainly feels more alive than Elite does - NPCs have a purpose, the environments are busy, trading makes sense etc. (all this is based on review videos of course and I'm sure it has its issues, but I don't expect games this complex to be perfect).
 

Viajero

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I totally get that, and hope Elite will go far beyond the 10 years which is just a number I'm sure they pulled out of their Arx when they said it - yardstick stuff.

The point I was trying to make was that we're now into a significant time into the game's lifecycle, and additions to the game have become more incremental previously and now with EDO more compartmentalised. This to me suggests we're not going to see a complete revamp of Elite the game (meaning all DLC combined) in the future where individual aspects are more fleshed out and made more coherent; they'll likely just tack on stuff they feel will make money particularly in terms of MTX (given how much effort they put into EDO cosmetics compared to the rest of the game).

I'm pretty sure base building will be next, ripe for doll house customisation that gels well with Elite Feet. But probably completely separate (again) from the core spaceship stuff I imagine.

Ok, yes. But I do not think time, per se, is a key factor here other than the fact the more a piece of code grows the harder it becomes to manage (which incidentally may explain why some of the gameplay FDEV has built in Elite seems to be more compartmentalized, as that helps avoiding overcomplexity and minimizing interference related conflicts or bug risks). Imo further additions or improvements to the game are primarily down to estimated returns and technical limitations (of which code complexity is one), and to a certain extent reputation and image.

The fact certain bugs or mechanics may not be revisited or improved for a long time is sometimes a compromise in order to be able to dedicate resources for new content (which is one of the main, if not the main, ways for Elite to keep the lights on). Resources are limited and the developer needs to strike a very hard balance between fixing some old bugs/gameplay or developing new content to maintain community interest and growth. It is obviously up to FDEV to decide where to use its finite resources and get that balance right or wrong.
 
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Glad to hear - and yes I think NMS Elite and X4 will complement each other well in my library (even though I don't have the motivation for NMS at the best of times, it's a very well 'serviced' game though to be fair). What I'm really missing from Elite is the scope and coherence of a working interconnected galaxy, and I think X4 will be able to scratch that itch - I won't play it or expect it to play like Elite of course. It appears that it certainly feels more alive than Elite does - NPCs have a purpose, the environments are busy, trading makes sense etc. (all this is based on review videos of course and I'm sure it has its issues, but I don't expect games this complex to be perfect).
The economy simulator really ties everything together indeed, and what happens in System X can trickle down to countless other systems. It is really fascinating to see on the micro level; you want a ship build, so the demand for turrets goes up, some turret-factory sends out a call for components and that goes all the way down to mining ships refining the stuff needed for the stuff needed for the stuff needed for the stuff that is needed for the turret. And you can follow all these ships. Its really cool. It also took them years to get to this point; they rebuild their economy sim with X:Rebirth and that was fundamentally broken. It took them years to fix, and then some more when they launched X4. But now, after all those years, the sim is in a pretty impressive state.

Some things kinda break down when you get too invested in it; AI is not that stellar and the real 'pro bois' know that OOS (out of system; the simulator of all systems you are not in) is easier than when you are around. In other words, its best if you stay away from everything and just give spreadsheet commands to your empire. If you visit your factories personally suddenly things can get attacked and damage way more seriously and such.

Its the kinda stuff you'll never notice the first few hundred hours, but if you dig deep eventually these things start to become more and more noticable. And by then you jump to the next game, or back to an old one to check for progress. X4 is like ED a 'game in its own class'. I dont see anyone trying to do what EgoSoft has done, never mind try succesfully. Games like Call of Duty or Fortnite can be cloned easily, games like X4 and ED pretty much not. :D
 
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Deleted member 182079

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The economy simulator really ties everything together indeed, and what happens in System X can trickle down to countless other systems. It is really fascinating to see on the micro level; you want a ship build, so the demand for turrets goes up, some turret-factory sends out a call for components and that goes all the way down to mining ships refining the stuff needed for the stuff needed for the stuff needed for the stuff that is needed for the turret. And you can follow all these ships. Its really cool. It also took them years to get to this point; they rebuild their economy sim with X:Rebirth and that was fundamentally broken. It took them years to fix, and then some more when they launched X4. But now, after all those years, the sim is in a pretty impressive state.

Some things kinda break down when you get too invested in it; AI is not that stellar and the real 'pro bois' know that OOS (out of system; the simulator of all systems you are not in) is easier than when you are around. In other words, its best if you stay away from everything and just give spreadsheet commands to your empire. If you visit your factories personally suddenly things can get attacked and damage way more seriously and such.

Its the kinda stuff you'll never notice the first few hundred hours, but if you dig deep eventually these things start to become more and more noticable. And by then you jump to the next game, or back to an old one to check for progress. X4 is like ED a 'game in its own class'. I dont see anyone trying to do what EgoSoft has done, never mind try succesfully. Games like Call of Duty or Fortnite can be clones easily, games like X4 and ED pretty much not. :D
I think I'll be much less critical of its issues compared to Elite because as you say it'll be new for me, and even if I 'only' get a few hundred hours out of it, and given it's a single player game (which also means some of the tediousness of Elite can be skipped eg. in terms of travel from what I saw) that's better than most other games I own (highest number of hours besides Elite would be in the 300hr range, compared to 4k+ for Elite). I'm actually quite excited now to try it.
 
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