I mainly want Odyssey for FC interiors, and maybe the on foot exploration. Is it worth it for those 2 things? I will not be doing any FPS missions.

[Mark Zero]

Ignoring the doll-house aspect, which if Frontier are smart will spawn a heap of Arx-driven cosmetics, I already see a use, for me, in getting a friend to play more - he is very slow in learning to fly, but plays a lot of FPS games - I can transport him around to EDO settlements for 'fun' until his flying skills improve. (his ship is already on one of my FCs)

That's actually pretty awesome, and I'm happy for you and your friend!

 

[BDelacroix]

Ignoring the doll-house aspect, which if Frontier are smart will spawn a heap of Arx-driven cosmetics, I already see a use, for me, in getting a friend to play more - he is very slow in learning to fly, but plays a lot of FPS games - I can transport him around to EDO settlements for 'fun' until his flying skills improve. (his ship is already on one of my FCs)

Now there's a positive spin.

 

[Deleted member 182079]

I actually don't hate it, and I'm saying that as someone who's hovering around 200 million and has a very long way to go to get one. Player housing in most games is an intentionally high watermark. It's something to strive for and work towards, and it's supposed to be a significant accomplishment when you get it.

Folks who play other games like Final Fantasy XIV joke around that getting a player house in that game is the "true endgame". Fleet Carriers are kinda like that for this game, as I see it. It's a thing that fundamentally changes how you play once you obtain it. Instead of being moored to a specific system or starport, now your ships are wherever you want them. You have assets and services that you define and can rely upon. It all means something. And maybe this makes me weird, but part of that meaning is that you have to clear a really high bar to do it.

Plus, especially with all the "get rich quick" tactics available in Elite, having something appealing cost a catastrophic amount of credits is one of the only ways to make credits still mean anything. At least for a moment.

I've always believed that the gap between the most expensive, A-rated ships and a FC is way too large - I reckon the FC price was based on Borann-era crazy income rates - a price tag of 2-3bn would've been a lot more reasonable in my view. What's somewhat ironic about FC's is that once you get them, credit earning potential shoots up even more (for various reasons I won't go into here) - to the point of rendering credits completely pointless unless you're doing a lot of PvP.

One of the reasons I wiped my account (which was triple Elite and included a fully loaded FC, mostly engineered fleet of 30+ ships, and about 3bn in cash on top) was that I was bored because credits meant nothing anymore, I had it all and there was nothing new I could buy or work towards, other than repeating stuff I did already several times - with the exception of EDO gear of course, which costs pennies in the greater scheme of things.

What I actually miss most about Fleet Carriers is the personal cargo space as that enabled quite different playstyle/options for me - the rest I'm not overly fussed about. Not sure if that's worth 5bn credits though.

 

[Darth Ender]

I've always believed that the gap between the most expensive, A-rated ships and a FC is way too large - I reckon the FC price was based on Borann-era crazy income rates - a price tag of 2-3bn would've been a lot more reasonable in my view. What's somewhat ironic about FC's is that once you get them, credit earning potential shoots up even more (for various reasons I won't go into here) - to the point of rendering credits completely pointless unless you're doing a lot of PvP.

One of the reasons I wiped my account (which was triple Elite and included a fully loaded FC, mostly engineered fleet of 30+ ships, and about 3bn in cash on top) was that I was bored because credits meant nothing anymore, I had it all and there was nothing new I could buy or work towards, other than repeating stuff I did already several times - with the exception of EDO gear of course, which costs pennies in the greater scheme of things.

What I actually miss most about Fleet Carriers is the personal cargo space as that enabled quite different playstyle/options for me - the rest I'm not overly fussed about. Not sure if that's worth 5bn credits though.

i probably would have paid 5 bucks for a horizons account and either shifted my wealth before clearing or just got odyssey on a new account before clearing a multi-year save just to feel like what it's like to be a newbie again.

Fleet carrier prices are in a tough spot. They're intended to be something few people have , not everyone, so there has to be some barrier that is still meaningful in this era of huge profits (not borann era huge but not very far away either) ... There isn't skill based gameplay mechanics to hide it behind. There aren't complicated difficult to complete mission arcs to hide it behind. All you have is high credit costs and time to limit players.

And yea, it just blows up the economic balance more than it already is.. But i dont think anyone really cares about that. How often do we hear about everyone wanting the panther clipper?

 

[Deleted member 182079]

the BGS was supposed to be leveraged as a thing to manipulate and work on rather than acquiring items (of which there are a finite variety). But fdev keeps that bgs manipulation in a fixed loop that can never really change or really matter. And powerplay never got power collapse and promotion so it too is stuck in a fixed loop of nothing changing to any point of mattering.

If players had a persistent impact on the bgs that changed it in ways that mattered, i think that would go a long ways towards giving players a reason to do things after they've collected their ships and are not willing to grind the carrier or already have one of those as well. If exploration factored into driving factions to expand into uninhabited systems, if players could fully eliminate factions ...taking them out of the game forever, new factions could be created, if stations could be destroyed for good (not directly obviously, but by initiating cz's)...allowing player activity to alter the landscape of the game ....it would create unpredictable gameplay that keeps things fresh, even when fdev hasn't really changed the individual activities.

but none of that exists, and carriers really are of limited use, and any personalization is likely not going to fill your game time since it's just things you buy, not things you make in-game. I'd say it would make a decent goal if you had other players to play with ... But that would be it's primary function, to be a goal with form that you can see and have. Rather than something abstract.

I remember a few bouts of idea discussions with @Rubbernuke about how the BGS could've impacted the state and appearance of the station concourses. As it turns out, all that Frontier could manage is add a few potted plants and change the colour schemes a little. I've given up hoping for more. WYSIWYG.

 

[Deleted member 182079]

i probably would have paid 5 bucks for a horizons account and either shifted my wealth before clearing or just got odyssey on a new account before clearing a multi-year save just to feel like what it's like to be a newbie again.

Funny thing is, I already have an alt - on Steam, Horizons only. I wiped around end of June last year, and at the time, when the DLC was in a much worse state, I figured "now or never" as I figured that if I hadn't wiped my account, I would've stopped playing altogether shortly after because there was (and still is now fwiw) no way in hell I'd spend a single further Euro on this cursed expansion, let alone buy another full-priced copy. So the main account was the one I'd do it with, as that had Odyssey, and I wanted to try the starter zone on-foot (the game actually skips that entirely, if I had known that in advance I may have gotten cold ... feet).

What's even funnier (as I just remember this now) is what annoyed me so much at the time as well is that I bought a lot of FC skins, various thruster colours, and two carrier layouts. The thrusters were bugged (since been fixed), I couldn't apply the default Drake layout for ages due to a UI bug (not sure if that's fixed yet), and worst of all pretty much all my paintjobs looked worse (white became grey, colours changed completely for some, etc.), the lighting of the landing pads makes no sense, the aliasing got worse, draw distance pop-in of FC assets worse than in Horizons, shadow flickering. I basically couldn't stand looking at my carrier anymore, which made the wipe a bit easier to go ahead with. Oh well.

Fleet carrier prices are in a tough spot. They're intended to be something few people have , not everyone, so there has to be some barrier that is still meaningful in this era of huge profits (not borann era huge but not very far away either) ... There isn't skill based gameplay mechanics to hide it behind. There aren't complicated difficult to complete mission arcs to hide it behind. All you have is high credit costs and time to limit players.

And yea, it just blows up the economic balance more than it already is.. But i dont think anyone really cares about that. How often do we hear about everyone wanting the panther clipper?

They are - my 2-3bn is just a rough estimate based on my own playstyle (I mix things up often, try not to grind too much, and often just mess around without making any credits at all), that might not work for others. Having said that, the credit system and balancing in Elite is horribly broken, and I don't expect it to get fixed, ever. It's kind of ok in the early stages of the game (if you only stick to mission board activities, anything outside that earns way too much in comparison), until you can afford to A-rate your first Python/Krait.

 

[Fizzatron]

edo full price vs horizons when you're not really caring about the fps gameplay, no. it's not worth that, even for the new material based rendering and planet tech they've added and seeing sparse atmospheres.

Elite Dangerous' development is sequential, even when x feature that everyone who naysays Odyssey ackchually wants is ready to go in, they're going to have to get Odyssey anyway, exactly like it was with Horizons. There's a short term view and a long term view at play here. The less Odyssey brings in for FDev the less likely it is that the above will even happen, it's simple math. People supported the kickstarter for the 10 year development plan as well as what we get during it and paid expansions were part of that deal, somewhat akin to funding rounds to keep development going.

sowing discontent between playerbases is fairly next level conspiracy theory'ing.

The playerbase here has never been content. Even before launch. it's always been a struggling bunch of different gameplay ideologies trying to shift the compromise that is ED towards their own favorite. The space legs wants / dont wants and suggestions and everything involved with them has been around from the start as well. The difference these other space games make is a good one though. It provides test samples of what is working and not working and some may do well adapted to elite, some may not.

It's all the same opposition and frustration as it's always been though. Just now sometimes with examples to leverage.

It doesn't have to be 100% this or that, so for sure it's likely not an overarching Darth Sidious plan, but let's not be naive either, and this isn't really a next level conspiracy, there's more levels beyond this. According to you, there were no console wars, Spectrum Vs C64 or Atari ST vs Amiga.. etc.. Factor in sunk cost and there is a recipe to reasonably suspect why a certain portion are naysaying Odyssey, and Elite overall. I've already linked to Steam reviews essentially saying if you don't have a RTX 3090 don't bother, and you'd be better off with SC.

However, FDev has made it fertile ground on more than one occasion, so some of it is for sure self inflicted.

 

[Darth Ender]

Elite Dangerous' development is sequential, even when x feature that everyone who naysays Odyssey ackchually wants is ready to go in, they're going to have to get Odyssey anyway, exactly like it was with Horizons. There's a short term view and a long term view at play here. The less Odyssey brings in for FDev the less likely it is that the above will even happen, it's simple math. People supported the kickstarter for the 10 year development plan as well as what we get during it and paid expansions were part of that deal, somewhat akin to funding rounds to keep development going.

not sure how that's relevant though. If an update contains 90% content they dont care about ...then the price that is set considering that 90% is likely too high.

It doesn't matter if this leads to less money for future updates that maybe they will care more about, they're not asking for donations.

It doesn't have to be 100% this or that, so for sure it's likely not an overarching Darth Sidious plan, but let's not be naive either, and this isn't really a next level conspiracy, there's more levels beyond this. According to you, there were no console wars, Spectrum Vs C64 or Atari ST vs Amiga.. etc.. Factor in sunk cost and there is a recipe to reasonably suspect why a certain portion are naysaying Odyssey, and Elite overall. I've already linked to Steam reviews essentially saying if you don't have a RTX 3090 don't bother, and you'd be better off with SC.

However, FDev has made it fertile ground on more than one occasion, so some of it is for sure self inflicted.

Not the same at all. Console wars was a reference to actual companies directly competing and creating a fanboy base that in most cases, picked 1 or the other because the consoles were too expensive to just have them all.

That's not the case with these games here. And the people leaving reviews paid frontier on steam. It's not simply a free statement to leave a bad review on a product you're trying to undermine. You have to pay that supposed target. To suggest that there is this widespread playerbase that is looking to undermine elite at the benefit of star citizen or vice versa is making a lot of extreme assumptions. And it ignores the infighting that exists within even those who do not care about the opinions of steam reviews or what other games are doing.

Unlike the console wars, I think most of the negativity you're talking about are ex-elite players ...rather than fanboys of star citizen just trashing elite. And that's a massive difference.

 

[Fizzatron]

To suggest that there is this widespread playerbase that is looking to undermine elite at the benefit of star citizen or vice versa is making a lot of extreme assumptions.

Indeed, it would be as big as the assumption that you made suggesting that that was what I was saying. Some take rivalry more seriously than others, and some are more active than others too. There are well known stories that have come out of Eve that should tell you what lengths some will go to to ensure their side wins. I can accept that there are those who don't care about Elite either way or are unhappy about Elite for other reasons, but you're suggesting that there's no-one who would do such a thing as to try to downplay Elite to promote SC?

 

[Darth Ender]

Indeed, it would be as big as the assumption that you made suggesting that that was what I was saying. Some take rivalry more seriously than others, and some are more active than others too. There are well known stories that have come out of Eve that should tell you what lengths some will go to to ensure their side wins. I can accept that there are those who don't care about Elite either way or are unhappy about Elite for other reasons, but you're suggesting that there's no-one who would do such a thing as to try to downplay Elite to promote SC?

I'm saying your evidence of them doing it in steam is without much standing. You have to have at least purchased the game to leave a review and someone who's only concerned with fanboying their preferred game isn't going to do that in general (buy a game just to leave a bad steam review) and the few that are are insignificant in number. The vast majority of reviews on steam are going to be from legitimate players and their opinions of the game are valid ones (good, back, or ridiculous) ...regardless of what shoutouts they may give to any alternatives.

I'm not suggesting that absolutely nobody would downplay competitors to promote their favorite. I'm suggesting that there is no coordinated effort to do so here and that what's been seen in the recent past is a result of organic concurrent poor experiences by a significant portion of the playerbase. If they want to promote an alternative in anger when they're doing that, then they may...but that's hardly the same thing as some fanboy playerbase concocting plans to destroy a competitor's game.

You're not seeing an influx of non-players when it comes to the recent down turn in elite publicity. You're seeing an influx of ex-players. That's the distinction you keep overlooking. And that makes this idea that it's "them" undermining "us" so ridiculous. Elite doesn't need help from the outside to give itself bad publicity. It does that on it's own just fine.

 

[Frop]

Elite doesn't need help from the outside to give itself bad publicity. It does that on it's own just fine.

 

[Fizzatron]

You're not seeing an influx of non-players when it comes to the recent down turn in elite publicity. You're seeing an influx of ex-players. That's the distinction you keep overlooking. And that makes this idea that it's "them" undermining "us" so ridiculous.

I'm not overlooking the distinction, as you put it, I think I cleared that up in my last post, however, maybe you're overemphasizing the distinction as I would say there is a great deal of overlap between the two.

"Elite CMDR plays Star Citizen - AMAZED by Initial Impressions - Day 1 - Star Citizen Gameplay 2021" and in description: Thinking of starting Star Citizen? use referral code (redacted) to get an extra 5000 credits in game

BTW; I don't necessarily blame those for doing this, but it's the equivalent of people hitting you up on Facebook trying to get extra lives for Candy Crush. Or maybe it's what FDev have been overlooking all this time themselves...

 

[Fizzatron]

I'm replying to this separately as I want to answer this directly.

not sure how that's relevant though. If an update contains 90% content they dont care about ...then the price that is set considering that 90% is likely too high.

It doesn't matter if this leads to less money for future updates that maybe they will care more about, they're not asking for donations.

It is entirely relevant. FDev have chosen a development path that leads to a full and final product which includes the features discussed back in the Kickstarter. People complaining about ship interiors (which were never stated to be part of Odyssey - as a matter of fact, but also as matter of fact were stated to part of Elite Dangerous) overlook the bigger picture, and some choose to capitalize on it for their own benefit rather than correct it (see my other reply and the video comments).

From a Star Citizen perspective it would be like a whole cadre of people complaining, saying that they will stop playing because CIG released the gas giant area but not a second system, and get out the pitchforks decrying the gas giant area at every opportunity because of it. But you don't really see that, especially among the Elite sucks Star Citizen rocks crowd. Even though it would be as justified as those complaining about ship interiors in Elite - though in actual fact it would be justifiable as CIG promised SC would be feature complete by 2015, which would have included more than one system - but don't let that fact get in the way of folks saying that FDev are deceptive yada yada. What you see are people enjoying the new features for what they are, and hey, I'm fine with that (I'm quite sure I won't be buying SC but the gas giant part looks pretty cool), but what you saw and still see are Elite players who are enjoying the Odyssey content, for what it is, being told off or dismissed as white knights etc.. Noo, you should hate Elite, FDev & Odyssey because they didn't release ship interiors and I'm going to twist a community manager's comment and give it precedence over the CEO of the company to spin a narrative that they are never coming. (oh, and why oh why are FDev community managers so silent now?? See? FDev Baaaad..)

Like I said, the kickstarter promised expansions to the main game and that they would be "paid for expansions", why else would it be other than to keep funding development of the game? It's not donations, I think that misrepresents what I'm saying, and not the only thing I have said that you've misrepresented. What I am saying is this, and I'll put it in quotes: "as part of the overall development cycle for Elite if any player wants to see Elite Dangerous come to full fruition it is in their interest to support FDev, even if the expansion doesn't fulfill your immediate desire for the game, it is still nevertheless a step that will lead to fulfilling that desire."

Hence my sequential comment, and I would argue in the case of Odyssey, it is a huge and fundamental step towards fulfilling any part of Elite that still remains undeveloped/underdeveloped.

An analogy I would make would be investors who are looking to build a skyscraper for the purposes of the investors (bear with me), as the builders reach milestones they look for investments, but the building is not fully furnished yet, the framework is there and while they've completed the stairwells that allow access to all levels you have a segment of investors saying:

Investor: "where's the elevators?",
Builder: "they come later"
Investor: "why aren't they there now?"
Builder: "If you looked at the plans you would have seen that they weren't planned for this phase"
Investor: "Well, are you going to put them in now?"
Builder: "No, as said there were no plans to put them in during this or plans for the next phase"
Investor: "Well that's not good enough, I don't like walking up stairs..
Builder: ".... you can use the construction elevator.."
Investor: "Ugh, how dare you, I don't want to use that, so that's it, I'm not funding this shambles.. and I'm going to try to convince all other investors that the builders are incompetent, slow and don't know what they're doing etc..."

Bearing in mind, all the while these investors have zero building experience.. "but I've been in other buildings that have elevators, why can't this one? They said there's no plans for them so they're never coming and I don't like that, it's heartbreaking, these builders have smashed my dreams etc.."

Different Builder: "Hey come over and invest in my skyscraper being built, it has elevators. "
Investor: "Really? Awesome! Let's go!"

However, this building, after the same amount of time, only has a fully furnished foyer and seating area, and the elevator only opens and shuts its doors but doesn't go anywhere as they haven't started on the second floor yet.

Investor: "whee!! Elevators!!!! take my money! What? I get a perk for bringing other investors on board too? Let's goooooo, elevator doors go brrr, but the elevator will go up at some point, right?"
Different Builder: "Oh sure, look over here, there's a bar"
Investor: "WOO HOO!!!"

Bringing it back to "spacegames"TM. Honest question; who's the fool in this situation, if there is such a thing in all of this? The investor who is easily blindsided by shiny things? Or the developer who doesn't recognize what motivates these types of investors and ends up losing them?

 

[Darth Ender]

no. if fdev wanted to position the development the way you want to describe it, it wouldn't be implemented as entirely optional and inconsequential to those who don't purchase it. it would be integrated. or they would use a business model that supported recurring income without depending on optional purchases.

what you're asking is players buy things they may not want in a completely un guaranteed hope that some future update will contain something they want that would likely only happen with this intermediate donation.

ridiculous. buying unwanted updates just makes it harder for developers to tell if what they are doing is good. if too many updates are bad according to players based on sales to the point the game dies, that's not the players fault... and buying them wouldn't have magically brought out better updates... it's more likely it would just lead to more bad ones.

Kickstarter pledges are one thing, we pay for hopes and dreams and the developer appears to listen. players have no such voice since release, fdev has reduced or eliminated player input over time since launch. without that input this is a sale transaction.

 

[Deleted member 182079]

Good lord.

 

[Fizzatron]

no. if fdev wanted to position the development the way you want to describe it, it wouldn't be implemented as entirely optional and inconsequential to those who don't purchase it. it would be integrated. or they would use a business model that supported recurring income without depending on optional purchases.

what you're asking is players buy things they may not want in a completely un guaranteed hope that some future update will contain something they want that would likely only happen with this intermediate donation.

ridiculous. buying unwanted updates just makes it harder for developers to tell if what they are doing is good. if too many updates are bad according to players based on sales to the point the game dies, that's not the players fault... and buying them wouldn't have magically brought out better updates... it's more likely it would just lead to more bad ones.

Kickstarter pledges are one thing, we pay for hopes and dreams and the developer appears to listen. players have no such voice since release, fdev has reduced or eliminated player input over time since launch. without that input this is a sale transaction.

In your opinion. But I agree there's an element of trust. So, in your mind, who's more trustworthy to make good on their plans? FDev or CIG?

 

[Darth Ender]

In your opinion. But I agree there's an element of trust. So, in your mind, who's more trustworthy to make good on their plans? FDev or CIG?

A more important question which might concern players who are leaving elite dangerous for star citizen is which company is doing things that include the players and look to be heavily invested in continuing to add things and work on the game.

Whether they're right or wrong about trusting one or the other doesn't really matter in the end. Most players aren't veterans of both games for 8 years and know the history of both. They're making choices based on the immediate situation and the inertia of possibilities in the near future. Something star citizen is very good at keeping on top of generally since they've historically had to rely heavily on the inclusion of player and playing on that idea of what will be - as good or bad as that ends up being.

And none of that really plays into what you should spend your money on in elite dangerous. The OP's question was if they dont care about the first person shooter aspect of odyssey, is there enough left to warrant the cost? is halving your performance, reskinning the planets and the other bits worth the cost of nearly a full aaa game when you have horizons there for like 5 bucks? That might depend on how much fun customizing carrier interiors is. So i suggested to wait until carrier interiors but if not, then no - it's not worth 35-40 bucks. If it had been released with just the things the OP finds interesting, it probably would only be worth 5-10 bucks if anything. we've seen free updates with more content and less negative baggage.

 

[MacIntoc]

In your opinion. But I agree there's an element of trust. So, in your mind, who's more trustworthy to make good on their plans? FDev or CIG?

Digital Extreme

 

[Fizzatron]

A more important question which might concern players who are leaving elite dangerous for star citizen is which company is doing things that include the players and look to be heavily invested in continuing to add things and work on the game.

Whether they're right or wrong about trusting one or the other doesn't really matter in the end. Most players aren't veterans of both games for 8 years and know the history of both. They're making choices based on the immediate situation and the inertia of possibilities in the near future. Something star citizen is very good at keeping on top of generally since they've historically had to rely heavily on the inclusion of player and playing on that idea of what will be - as good or bad as that ends up being.

And none of that really plays into what you should spend your money on in elite dangerous. The OP's question was if they dont care about the first person shooter aspect of odyssey, is there enough left to warrant the cost? is halving your performance, reskinning the planets and the other bits worth the cost of nearly a full aaa game when you have horizons there for like 5 bucks? That might depend on how much fun customizing carrier interiors is. So i suggested to wait until carrier interiors but if not, then no - it's not worth 35-40 bucks. If it had been released with just the things the OP finds interesting, it probably would only be worth 5-10 bucks if anything. we've seen free updates with more content and less negative baggage.

That's a lot of words to dodge answering the question, which isn't surprising to me at all.

 

[Fizzatron]

Digital Extreme

Another one to dodge the question. Hello.