So as part of the Development plans, we heard about. The CMs said there was a major feature being updated/reworked for 2023. The way I see it, it could be one of the following features;-
- Engineering (this seems to be the favourite but it will be the third time it will be reworked).
- Crime and Punishment (this includes piracy, Player Piracy, Griefing, Smuggling, the number of NPC pirate attacks)
- More Enhancement to the BGS.
- Powerplay
- CQC
- Exobiology (Suggested by zimms)
As much as I'd love powerplay to be reworked, I feel that the Crime and Punishment is the one feature that I feel this game needs reworking more than any other. Crime has to pay (at the moment it doesn't), I feel there needs to be more NPC attacks in mid, low and populated anarchy systems (An unshielded maxed out T-9 should not be able to make it through to an Anarchy systems base) and some proper consequences for players who go seal clubbing / griefing.
We're thinking of using this as a topic in a future Lave radio episode, so we'd like to know what the players think?
Engineering is the one with the most glaring impacts, especially upon all forms of ship combat encounters. Hitpoint inflation does as well; although not directly
caused by Engineers, it is exponentially exacerbated by Engineering. If Engineering blueprints were rebooted to be the original "specialized tweaks" to our ships that we were sold on conceptually in the very beginning, instead of the grossly overpowered "super buffs" straight out of a copy/paste MMORPG from the early 2000's, allowing combat to return towards the near-perfect state it was in way back in vanilla pre-horizons Elite Dangerous, that would be the most ideal scenario. Eliminating the RNG and repetition grind (also as though copy-pasted from the worst of MMORPG design ideas) would be nice too.
C&P primarily needs to be intuitive. That goes double for NPC pirate attack encounters - the "how" and "why" and "what" just do not make sense for the vast majority of them, which is reflected by the laughable monologues targeted at the player (which has been largely unchanged since what, 2015?). I don't agree that a higher frequency of NPC attacks is a good thing without tackling that issue first. Griefing/seal clubbing is going to happen no matter what you do in any sort of PvP mode, the only true solution is an officially supported PvE mode.
BGS is mostly fine...if letting it remain the
background simulation is acceptable, as opposed to bringing it to more of a
foreground focus for the game. I don't interact with it deeply enough to have any further commentary on it, which is partly to do with it seeming obscure and complicated. But it does seem to hold up to player interaction...mostly.
Powerplay, in lieu of getting a full reboot (unlikely), needs to focus on eliminating "hurry up and wait" tedium, and the loopholes that allow bad actors to mess things up. It also has much to be desired in terms of intuitiveness, similar to C&P. (There's also the issue of Yuri Grom, how he came to be under shady circumstances [namely player cheating/rigging of events], and how his supporters have left the game anyway, leaving a gigantic question mark upon the reason for his creation and continued presence.) Somewhere after those priorities is giving more
life to the characters present in Powerplay; add more reasons for CMDRs to care about them that aren't merely mechanical in nature or exist solely in Galnet posts.
CQC needs two things: AI opponents and the removal of the "power up boosts". It's just not exciting when most of the meta is "who rushed to the power ups first?", and it's not exciting waiting on matchmaking interminably without pre-arranged dates. Better integration into the game universe, like Solaris VII in the Mechwarrior universe, would be nice.
I haven't experienced exobiology as of yet - but it might say something that I feel absolutely no urge to do so in the near future.
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A valuable topic I think you've neglected to mention is the presence (or lack thereof) of functional community tools ingame. Having strong pillars of community interaction can make up for any number of flaws in a game - as evidenced by all the honestly
horrendous MMORPGs that have nonetheless stuck around for decades despite endless trainwrecks of terrible game design, predatory monetization practices, and out-of-touch leadership that lacks any sense of morals (cough, Blizzard, cough). Elite does have
some strong pillars - community goals, private groups, friend finding - but it lacks functionality and polish, and some of what it does have is not in good condition; multicrew is still infamous for being a buggy and inconsistent affair.
But, of course, there's only so much one can cover all at once, so maybe it's food for thought on a future talk episode.