What Elite needs going forward

[V'larr]

This surely is true for those playing Open. I for my part, not being into PvP, avoid Open to the largest degree - only when far outside the bubble I would allow for encounters as they are more likely to be friendly (but then again aren't at all likely to happen).

This is why I was referring to using restricted systems - so it would ideally not interfere with the general shared universe.

The existing mission wrinkle is too little too rarely happening. See, this Ram Tah stuff was a really great experience. And frankly, I am not sure it demands huge efforts to create that kind of missions, especially when you revert to Eighties' style text box communication and multiple choice responses. And yet I was highly entertained at the time (okay, the 200 mio. was obviously a high reward, but then again doing the Sothis passenger run achieves more in less time).

If these missions are entertaining and even provide some story line it would get me back into the game big time. And adding a mechanic of having to pay some running costs for your ships, sort of the concept of the fleet carriers, would keep you busy to have to earn some money and not stack the bank account once you have made it. Not too much, so it doesn't end up in a stupid grind, and only if you actually play to not punish players who take a couple of weeks/months off.

I can imagine that there are wildly differing demands from the PvP fraction primarily playing Open, and those of us who perhaps play PG or Solo to experience ED w/o the PvP part. For me the balance thing is largely irrelevant to my style of play, but the motivation in terms what is there to experience is where it is lacking sorely.

I can agree about motivation and missions needing to be more interesting. You just need to understand that regardless of game mode, even in solo, you are sharing the same universe as all other players. That is why an SDK or "modding" will not ever exist with Elite Dangerous.

X4 or Everspace, on the other hand, that might be possible.

 

[V'larr]

I don't know maybe adding geomagnetic storms, radio blackouts and solar radiation storms would improve exploration while we are at it lets add in comets give the players the ability to track and monitor them over distances with probes maybe we can experience a comet smashing into a planet why not experience planets or stars colliding or maybe being able to watch a star explode

Geomagnetic storms, radio blackouts, and solar flares have nothing to do with anything represented in the game.

Comets would be neat, but 'probes' are irrelevant with sensor capabilities able to establish all bodies in a system within seconds. (Current DSS mechanics notwithstanding...)

Astronomical events like comets colliding with planets are both incredibly, absurdly unlikely, and would make a total mess of the procedural rendering engine.

Stars colliding are events that occur over the span of millions of years, they are not sudden events for wayfaring space captains to look out the window and spot to go "Ooh, ahh" at.

It's nice to spitball ideas and all, but you gotta think it through a little.

 

[Stressfest]

An offline mode.. xD

 

[thesnowdog]

I get the feeling that they're abandoning VR for Odyssey. Which is tragic. No Man's Sky deals with FPS parts of the game in VR so I can't see why Frontier can't do the same.

 

[Frankymole]

Oh look, another "oh look" comment about repetition on forums.

Oh look, another "oh look" comment about repetition of repetition on forums.... and so it goes on...

 

[TNTDany]

An offline mode.. xD

Hopefully the add that before moving on to ED: 2

Would be sweet while commuting with the Steam Deck

 

[Soon(TM)]

I like your enthusiasm, but i'm willing to bet money that we see practically nothing in terms of improvements to the game now. I think development will stop completely in 2023, if it hasn't already.

Best you can hope for is Fdev to allow private servers and Modding, that will open the game up massively and let passionate Modders turn this game into the game it always should have been.

That is what I am waiting for.

 

[MUTILADOR]

No hay nada malo con un poco de tiempo de viaje. Pero hay una línea muy fina entre el tiempo de viaje extenso y sin sentido y el juego.
Un ejemplo: no hay un juego significativo para caminar desde el hangar hasta la explanada. Lo entiendo, es para inmersión. Pero desde la perspectiva del juego, no agrega nada al juego.
Si pudieras interactuar con tu nave, o hacer algo, sería un juego. Pero en esta etapa, todo lo que haces es correr desde la plataforma de teletransportación hasta la explanada. Fue genial para las primeras 2 veces. ahora solo vuelo un barco pequeño si tengo que ir a los concursos para reducir tanto el caminar porque valoro mi tiempo por encima de la "inmersión".

Repito, cualquier argumento en contra de los interiores de los barcos siempre será estúpido.

 

[Tikanderoga]

Repito, cualquier argumento en contra de los interiores de los barcos siempre será estúpido.

Nope. Interiors will only make sense if there is something to go with it.
If you add giant halls with nothing in them and call that interiors, they will be useless. Elite already has lots of empty spaces with nothing in them. No need for more nothing.

 

[TheRoninX]

Geomagnetic storms, radio blackouts, and solar flares have nothing to do with anything represented in the game.

Comets would be neat, but 'probes' are irrelevant with sensor capabilities able to establish all bodies in a system within seconds. (Current DSS mechanics notwithstanding...)

Astronomical events like comets colliding with planets are both incredibly, absurdly unlikely, and would make a total mess of the procedural rendering engine.

Stars colliding are events that occur over the span of millions of years, they are not sudden events for wayfaring space captains to look out the window and spot to go "Ooh, ahh" at.

It's nice to spitball ideas and all, but you gotta think it through a little.

True in most senses, but there are a lot of systems in this game that should have vampire stars.

 

[jojon]

I'll say this about current empty spaces.

If you do it a lot, it can absolutely quickly get a bit tedious to run through the hangar at a station, take the lift, visit the various dispenser automatons at the concourse, and then make the trek right back; You could easily have made every concourse-bound function more efficiently available through the station BBS, or have gone directly between ship and concourse through the role menu, and nothing would have been lost but some sense of immersion.

...but to me, any tedium inherent to all the time that is lost on that argueably pointless running from A to B is nothing compared to the few brief seconds of black screen whilst the game does its instancing and loading, as you embark or disembark your ship.

There is something to be said for even the most meagre agency and continuity, I suppose...

It needs to be admitteded, at this point, that I play in VR... When playing on monitor, loading screens might be the sometimes welcome moments you take to have a sip of tea, or check an email, or something -- if you're just long-hauling, the game could even almost become more a side activity to those things, than the other way around; But when in VR, any interruptions become particularly annoying, even though I can check my email, and have Youtube videos running next to me, just as well as I can on a monitor, and even when I wouldn't rather not have such distractions taking me out of the game world. :7

 

[Jack Winter]

Nope. Interiors will only make sense if there is something to go with it.
If you add giant halls with nothing in them and call that interiors, they will be useless. Elite already has lots of empty spaces with nothing in them. No need for more nothing.

Indeed, we need jacuzzis, hookers and drugs. If too hard, at least a beer or whiskey while watching a planet outside the bar after a day of grueling mission or opportunistic gameplay..

 

[Tikanderoga]

Indeed, we need jacuzzis, hookers and drugs. If too hard, at least a beer or whiskey while watching a planet outside the bar after a day of grueling mission or opportunistic gameplay..

Yep. Yet currently we can't even order a drink at the bar.

 

[Jack Winter]

At the very least a coffee..?

Edit: In deference to our cherished uk commanders, at least a cuppa!

 

[BigBANGtheory [VR]]

Nope. Interiors will only make sense if there is something to go with it.
If you add giant halls with nothing in them and call that interiors, they will be useless. Elite already has lots of empty spaces with nothing in them. No need for more nothing.

This is essentially the point, the last thing Elite needs is more places to do nothing or some pointless gameplay loop.

What Elite needs going forwards is:

• purpose and agency not deliver 300T of virtual crap for some binary CG
• cause and effect, if I commit a crime that I might get hunted for that crime by players, Fleet Carriers that take damage, non-lethal combat options for piracy
• the ability and content to learn and discover things of value not scan this bush for 5000cr, visit this planet to take a screenshot or map this system for no reason

Ship Interiors only makes sense when you have NPC interactions, a co-pilot, consoles to synthesise and analyse materials, options to tune and repair your ship. They have to come together otherwise its just something to look at

There are some good examples that are in game, things like crash sites, alien ruins and caves... having those properly integrated into the discovery journey of a player and that journey going much further, its feels like we are on Chapter 2 when we should be on Chapter 20.

 

[Jmanis]

This is essentially the point, the last thing Elite needs is more places to do nothing or some pointless gameplay loop.

What Elite needs going forwards is:

• purpose and agency not deliver 300T of virtual crap for some binary CG
• cause and effect, if I commit a crime that I might get hunted for that crime by players, Fleet Carriers that take damage, non-lethal combat options for piracy
• the ability and content to learn and discover things of value not scan this bush for 5000cr, visit this planet to take a screenshot or map this system for no reason

Ship Interiors only makes sense when you have NPC interactions, a co-pilot, consoles to synthesise and analyse materials, options to tune and repair your ship. They have to come together otherwise its just something to look at

There are some good examples that are in game, things like crash sites, alien ruins and caves... having those properly integrated into the discovery journey of a player and that journey going much further, its feels like we are on Chapter 2 when we should be on Chapter 20.

I mean, I've been saying this all along for FCs, Space Legs. They weren't what the game needed... but when people demanded Space Legs, what they were actually demanding was incredibly detailed, full-featured game activities, undertaken on-foot. These demands were pretty incredulous to the fact that such systems were completely without even vague precedent within the game. So these major "features" are exactly how I expected them to be in that context... if people who wanted things like space legs and are disappointed with what they got, did they actually look at what had been delivered to-date?

The "Space game" alone has more than enough mechanics and overall "capacity" to deliver these systems; they simply don't exist yet, because instead of working on them, FD have been doing FCs and Space Legs, yet more "capacity" for a game already flush with capacity, but a distinct lack of actual diverse, evolving, dare I say "procedural" activities... for a game whose lynchpin is it's procedural universe, it certainly lacks in that department..

Of course, we'll never see the space game developed further; such content would be accessible in Horizons, and therefore not drive more sales of Odyssey... but instead the next big DLC thing will be "Gas Giants" or "ELWs" or heaven forbid "Ship interiors" with equally trivial activity loop trappings.

 

[Phoenix_Dfire]

IMHO, there are still some fundamentals in Odyssey that need to be looked at before they start thinking about new features;-

1. More space activity in on-foot missions. I like the little 'mission wrinkles' they've added, like the bounty hunter that comes after you in a spaceship after a massacre mission, or your on-foot target running to a ship which you can shoot down. There needs to be a lot more of this kind of thing to make the two parts of the game feel joined up.
2. The 'Heatmap' showing plants and geological features needs another pass.
3. Something else to do with plants apart from catalogue them (The obvious one is to harvest them for mats).
4. The Horizons settlements need some kind of Odyssey interaction. Maybe a mission terminal, foot patrols or just a generic room that you can visit.. They feel a little left out at the moment.

Once those are out of the way

1. We know that engineering is getting another pass
2. Obviously the on-foot alien encounters will be coming at some point.
3. Crime and Punishment needs another pass too (Crime needs to pay and Punishment should hurt if you're a seal clubber).
4. Powerplay (That old favourite see the other posts).
5. CQC (but I've kind of given up on that one).

At that point, then maybe look at new features in paid for DLC

1. On-Foot VR - I would put this highest on the list because you'll need it for further expansions.
2. Settlement Management / Player Economy - Allow players to set up their own home base on a planetary surface, kind of similar to a fleet carrier but it obviously doesn't move. Allow the player to set up a economy type for their base, which rely on trade with other bases. Players start small and then try to build their base up be doing trade runs etc, but they've got to make sure they have defences to stop NPC pirates from raiding their bases and stealing stuff (please not, not destroy the base, just raid it).
3. Ship Interiors - This will probably take quite a while because it's a huge amount of work.
4. New planet types to land on and explore. Still a huge amount of work required with this one (which is why it's last)

 

[VR andysonofbob]

I would like to be able to place custom and shareable markers on planet surfaces and in space. Obviously a limited number to prevent spams etc.

 

[Slamdance_Kozmopolis]

Certainly just my own opinion, but after the (hopeful) implementation of on-foot VR, and before the (also hopeful) addition of ship interiors and/or other large features, I think the original game loops need to be revamped or even overhauled, but especially the following:

• Piracy
• Bounty Hunting
• Smuggling
• Powerplay

The Suggestions forum has a massive pool of ideas for what can be done with the above, which Frontier game designers can use for a basis, or at least for inspiration.

Aside from that, a lot of work can be done for adding more character to the game and improving immersion, but that would be in the form of a thousand little things that add up to something big.

Many other improvements can be made, but I think the above would be the most impactful.

Of your "game play loops" the only one that actually exists at all is Bounty Hunting. Combat is the only good part of this game and FDev needs to leave it alone.

 

[danteuk]

I think if you don't already like the game or are bored with what's there nothing that gets added is going to change your mind.

This time last year wouldn't have agreed with that, but then Odyssey was released.
What we got was:

• A graphics over haul at the lose of play-ability for a lot of players, frame rates tanked and visuals didn't really get that much better and for a lot of paint jobs, it got worse.
• A UI over haul - mostly negative feedback during the Alpha, none of the major complaints where fixed, just fixes for the obvious bugs and things that got removed by mistake, today I still believe the Horizons Gal and Sys maps look and work better than Odyssey's
• New planet tech - gone are all weird and wonderful RNG planets, replaced by copypasta hand made assets just scaled and rotated to try and look different - This feels and looks like a downgrade in a lot of cases.
• Armstrong moment = magic teleport with state of the ark fade to black effects - stunning!
• Station interiors - only reason to get out in a station is because they made it so you can't take ground missions from your ship, you have to use a terminal in a station.
• Station 'social hub' - where NPC's can sleep, sit around, talk, drink etc, and player can't - they patched in emotes, 8 months later they patched in the ability to sit.
• Taxi's - if you thought flying your ship from a star to an interesting looking planet was too exciting, now you can sit and do literally nothing instead.
• On foot combat - minimal viable effort, copypasta ship combat to onfoot, but without bothering to implement alternative fire so you can switch between dealing kinetic and energy attacks like you can in your ship, instead you have to switch the whole weapon. One type of enemy, one location ( a settlement ).
• Sphere of Combat - SRV's / Ships / Onfoot all in combat together - only in PvP - NCP's never attack with SRV or Ship ?
• New on foot exploration: A new tool to point and click at plants with, that's it - nothing to see here, move along.
• New ships; none
• Ship interiors: No even on the road map
• New space content / things to do: none
• New story: none
• VR support: No
• Crossplay with Horizons players: Before release: 'Yes', After release: 'Later', Today: 'Who knows!'
• Console support: Before release: 'Yes', After release: 'Later', 8 Months after release: 'Never!'

The single biggest update the game as ever had and it's a massive disappointment. ( maybe my opinion is biased because until I got a new PC recently most of the new 'content' as unplayable due to performance issues, even at 1080p on 'supported' hardware - after 8 months and 10 updates I have no faith in FDev's abilities anymore )