What were they thinking?

Pepperinelly

Pepperinelly
I just don't understand. Why?

I'm a new player with less than 3 months in the game. Since starting, they've basically killed VR and added a FPS element to the game while failing to fix all of the multiplayer connection bugs which I've learned have been there since wings and crew were released.

Why FPS when there are major bugs from before unfixed? Why, when the instance configurations for so many missions are identical? Why kill VR, when this was supposed to be the VR king of immersive games?

Why FPS when it is not the sort of gameplay that one would think would be what people come to this title for? The few times I tried it I just cringed knowing I could be playing something like The Division 2 that is an infinity better FPS game. For that matter, EDO is like The Division 2 adding a space simulator to that game. Yep...makes no sense at all.

I think ED is in critical condition. I don't see any recovery from this and I was really excited about the game for the month I was playing it before the release of Odyssey. As is, I haven't logged in for over 2 weeks and each new day find me less motivated than the day before to play this title.

It's very difficult to get motivated to advance in a game that is dying. And that makes me very sad. The first month was magical, even with the bugs. How does a company grow so disconnected from its customers?

Am I wrong? Who was asking for this? Any of you?
 

here_it_comes

here_it_comes
The idea that the playerbase was clamoring for an FPS is downright false. CMDRs at large wanted spacelegs, ie EVA/ship interiors/boardings/social hubs at FCs/Stations. Some speculated that spacelegs would bring on foot encounters with Thargoids, but the claim that CMDRs, in general, were all shouting, "We want FPS!" is completely false. Were there some? Probably, but they were a slim minority.

@Pepperinelly 's reason for this was some combination of two factors:

They thought that by duct taping a popular genre, FPS, onto ED's niche genre, spacesim, their stonks were gonna stonk so hard.

They wanted to compete with [REDACTED] out of fear of being eventually eclipsed. So instead of recognizing ED's unique quality and building on that, they decided to try and engage in catch-up copycat with [REDACTED], despite the massive funding difference.
 
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DemiserofD

D
I mean, fps is kind of a basic assumption of being able to walk around. It's not like you're going to go unarmed.

But I hoped for a lot more than just fps. What I really wanted was something akin to the original Star Wars Battlefront 2; you'd have teams of ~16 on either side, with wide diversity in class and playstyle, accompanied by both ground and air vehicles of varying sizes, all while traditional CZs took place overhead. You'd be attacking bases for rational reasons; for example, bases would have super-heavy turrets that could shoot down approaching craft of any significant size, so the ground CZ would be to disable all the turrets to allow larger ships to get close and take control.

Instead, we got ordinary bases littered with capture points with no lore justification. There's no reason to use anything but a combat suit. There are no new SRVs or surface vehicles of any kind. There are no CZs overhead, or really even any reason why the attacking faction can't just bomb the settlement off the map.

What they SHOULD have done is have each different suit type have its own combat niche where it fits best.

The Dominator Suit is your standard Soldier archetype, with medium armor and speed, and a good range of weapon types and grenades, but no rocket launchers and no utility functionality.

The Maverick Suit would be your Engineer archetype, able to use their tools to hack into vehicles and disable them, or to repair ammo and health vending machines, as well as construct or repair turrets in various locations around the map. They could carry heavy explosives that would need to be placed and manually detonated.

The Artemis Suit would be your Sniper archetype, able to use the Genetic Sampler to detect enemies through walls and in the dark. It would come equipped with Night Vision by default, as well. They would do increased critical damage and move faster, but would have less shields and armor.

There would be a Heavy suit, which would move slower, be more durable, and would be the only one capable of carrying a rocket launcher. Rockets would do significant damage to vehicles, able to destroy ground vehicles or drive off low-flying enemy ships. However, they would be limited to a sidearm in addition to their rocket launcher.

And lastly, there would be specialized suits for the different factions. The federation might have a Gunner suit, with a special minigun that slows you down while firing but releases a veritable rain of bullets on the target. By contrast, the Empire might have a lightweight suit with a much more powerful jet pack, that allows you to take actual flight and attack from the air. The Independents could maybe have a suit that disables enemies somehow? I'm thinking some sort of Kumo Crew Slaver, which fires an electrified net that temporarily disables a target and deals damage over a time period.

The point is, it's well documented that variety in unit type is a good thing for fps games, and there are loads of ideas to draw from, and yet we got one suit with a small set of weapons available.



Then you'd need to add new vehicles. SRVs simply are not in any way effective for combat zones; they're very clearly exploration vessels.

You could have a variety of tanks, of course. Tanks should be mainly good at fighting each other, while being more difficult to attack smaller individuals. But if they do hit, it would kill them in short order.

Then you could have various fighters on the ground that players could get into to fight in the air. Ideally you'd add ground-specific variants, kinda like the Snowspeeders from Hoth.

Last of all, you add some super-heavy tanks, like AT-AT walkers, also from Hoth. These would be large, powerful, and critical to destroy before they reach the base and are able to saturate it with heavy fire.




Of course, to make this work you'd need to redesign the levels so you can't just nuke the area from above. The first step would be the aforementioned Heavy Turrets; right now you can sit above the CZ with missiles and blow up attackers constantly. These turrets would be large and turn slowly, but once brought to bear, would quickly destroy even the heaviest of large ships. Fighters, by contrast, would be too small and nimble to lock onto, and so would be ignored.

On top of that, you'd need to design bases so that substantial portions take place inside or underground, or alternatively the open fields have large amounts of manually operated turrets to take down enemy vehicles.





Last of all, the engine would need to accommodate enough troops to make all this possible. The current CZs just aren't big enough to feel like an actual war zone; they feel more like a gunfight.




Obviously, I'm just dreaming at this point, but my point is, fps could have been great, if it were given the proper development, depth, and integration with existing mechanics.

But it wasn't.
 

CGI_Artist

C
You notice a trend here in the forums? I've noticed that all the threads with content critical of what f-dev is up to, get moved or deleted shortly after they are created. And apparently you can't even say the name of certain games? I made a post asking a simple question about where all our money went? Shocker, that was moved quickly. If you can't draw logical comparison to other games, and if the medium in which you communicate, is moderated, not just of explicit or hurtful content, but a reasonable arguments as well, then I don't know why we bother. Second post this year, before that 2 years.
 

Deyangelo7

D
Pepperinelly said:
I just don't understand. Why?

I'm a new player with less than 3 months in the game. Since starting, they've basically killed VR and added a FPS element to the game while failing to fix all of the multiplayer connection bugs which I've learned have been there since wings and crew were released.

Why FPS when there are major bugs from before unfixed? Why, when the instance configurations for so many missions are identical? Why kill VR, when this was supposed to be the VR king of immersive games?

Why FPS when it is not the sort of gameplay that one would think would be what people come to this title for? The few times I tried it I just cringed knowing I could be playing something like The Division 2 that is an infinity better FPS game. For that matter, EDO is like The Division 2 adding a space simulator to that game. Yep...makes no sense at all.

I think ED is in critical condition. I don't see any recovery from this and I was really excited about the game for the month I was playing it before the release of Odyssey. As is, I haven't logged in for over 2 weeks and each new day find me less motivated than the day before to play this title.

It's very difficult to get motivated to advance in a game that is dying. And that makes me very sad. The first month was magical, even with the bugs. How does a company grow so disconnected from its customers?

Am I wrong? Who was asking for this? Any of you?
Click to expand...
I got almost a year of experience in the game.

If you want a space simulator completely devoted to immersion, try Star Citizen.
If you want a space simulator completely devoted to enticing gameplay, go for No Man's Sky.

You won't find either in Elite Dangerous.
Most importantly, none of your wishes and questions will be answered.

The sooner you believe me, the happier your gaming experience will be.

Never play the game that is in your dreams, only the one you have in front of you.

Admitting to yourself that Elite Dangerous is a terrible game is nothing to be ashamed of, it means that you will go on to play a better game.
 

Stelar 7

Stelar 7
The game isn't dying.

20210630_121752.jpg


Steam numbers have been solid for years. Yes they fluctuate, no they aren't showing a upward or downward trend.

Odyssey is about to launch on consol, thats another cash injection.

You didn't want on foot gameplay? Thats cool. I did. I'm having a blast with it. Game that was at risk of getting stale is now a riot of fun again.

YMMV
 

CMDR Fnool

CMDR Fnool
Pepperinelly said:
Am I wrong? Who was asking for this? Any of you?
Click to expand...
Well for my part, i would have welcomed a small tomato with wheels attached to it about as heartily as the shooter, IE i'm completely apathetic toward it. I played it once for around 15 mins, and had no inclination to ever play it again. (I do love that clear blue-tinted plastic on the guns though, reminds me of the water pistols i had as a kid). I don't think i'm Draconian, i would have paid 30 quids and just ignored Odyssey so that the game could continue and maybe i'd get something i wanted down the line, but they decided to ruin planets for me as well so....hands in the air I give up.
 
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Red Anders

Red Anders
Stelar 7 said:
The game isn't dying.

View attachment 245786

Steam numbers have been solid for years. Yes they fluctuate, no they aren't showing a upward or downward trend.

Odyssey is about to launch on consol, thats another cash injection.

You didn't want on foot gameplay? Thats cool. I did. I'm having a blast with it. Game that was at risk of getting stale is now a riot of fun again.

YMMV
Click to expand...
This is a game, you're not allowed to have fun - didn't you get the memo?
 

WeComeInPeace

WeComeInPeace
Stelar 7 said:
The game isn't dying.

View attachment 245786

Steam numbers have been solid for years. Yes they fluctuate, no they aren't showing a upward or downward trend.

Odyssey is about to launch on consol, thats another cash injection.

You didn't want on foot gameplay? Thats cool. I did. I'm having a blast with it. Game that was at risk of getting stale is now a riot of fun again.

YMMV
Click to expand...
Why stop the graph in 2018? That's cherry picking. Instead have a look at the last three months:

1625089384189.png

Considering that is shortly after the release of the biggest update for years, it's not good. It's roughly 2/3 of the players that seems to have left.
 

Dragsham

Dragsham
This is such a sore point. That in concept of edo way back, they decided that Eva exploration etc wasn't in keeping with elite?? And opted for the almighty dollar option.
Like I said before. The marketeers got a foothold and rammed this gameplay in knowing it would appeal to those who like the genre.
The whole ethos of elite was flipped on its head. And this is the net result.
Now grant you it's not as bad as roll out now. Still slow especially in srvs or flying near alot of traffic at a Dock.
I'd sooner have had the playability proffered in keeping with this games obvious pedigree.
Just wish the money makers would just leave this title be and let those with passion and vision run amok.
 

Stelar 7

Stelar 7
WeComeInPeace said:
Why stop the graph in 2018? That's cherry picking. Instead have a look at the last three months:

View attachment 245794
Considering that is shortly after the release of the biggest update for years, it's not good. It's roughly 2/3 of the players that seems to have left.
Click to expand...

You should look at the graph again. It doesn't stop in 2018. Thats why there is more line to the right of 2018.

I used the all time setting so I could see month to month and year to year trends.

They show some fluctuation but also a steady straight line.

By all means hyper focus on just 3 months and ignore the whole line, thats the same trick oil companies use to deny climate change.

Elite has a steady steam player base. The line doesn't trend up or down.
 

TNTDany

TNTDany
FPS is just another gameplay option, the star of the show is having the replica of the Milky Way to explore, we just have more variety that's it.
 
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