Message to the Devs: Innovate or die
- Thread starter Touken8
- Start date
Well if you had gone for The Cat Returns I might have given you half pass, but Spirited Away? One of the greats?....never!
Pistols at dawn then?
Some of us are old and won't live another 50 years to see all this come to fruition. Heck, I'm not sure the earth is going to live another 50 years, but that's a topic for a different thread.
There is a lot of gamers that expect Elite to have a end-game. "What is the goal?". There is no goal, there is no finish line. You will not see a video on how to beat the game in 3 hours. The 2 hour adrenaline rush some expect is not there. The game is a simulation of a life in a future world where we live our lives above planet surface. It is about creating communities, fly alone to the other side of the galaxy, trade, fight or whatever you want to do. It is about epic battles between the Powers, with dedicated communities fighting the war. And the thargoids, are they good or bad? It is your choice, fight, flight or stay to make new friends? You can trade or mine, it is all the hunt for the profit. You can have that adrenaline rush in conflict zones, but that is a very small part of the game.
When it comes to stability I'm sort of out of that debate. I had a lot of struggles with the game until I got assistance from support to dive in to the problem. It turned out to be my firewall causing all the problems.
But I come back to this world over and over. I'm not afraid of the grind, that is an essential part. The small goals you set for yourself to build that perfect suit, weapon, ship etc. The satisfaction you feel when you test that build and feel how it fulfills the expectations. I have online friends I've never met. But we chat, we fly, we build that community. We fight, trade, mine or whatever we want to do, and we explore the galaxy together - or alone. It is our choice.
When it comes to stability I'm sort of out of that debate. I had a lot of struggles with the game until I got assistance from support to dive in to the problem. It turned out to be my firewall causing all the problems.
But I come back to this world over and over. I'm not afraid of the grind, that is an essential part. The small goals you set for yourself to build that perfect suit, weapon, ship etc. The satisfaction you feel when you test that build and feel how it fulfills the expectations. I have online friends I've never met. But we chat, we fly, we build that community. We fight, trade, mine or whatever we want to do, and we explore the galaxy together - or alone. It is our choice.
Last edited:
Great points!
I wish they would cut out the grind and replace it will story missions - they do it with the new tutorials, so why not in the game.
Of course, hopefully they won't do what NMS does with Expeditions by making them only available for a limited time - better to be able to do them over with friends anytime.
If I applied powerlevelling principle to the on foot and ship grinds. It would still take about 2 weeks to unlock sufficient engineers collect sufficient mats to complete one or 2 ships a suit and a wep all g5 with mods buffed weps etc.
Point is this...
There is no point...there's no grind only the playing of the game as intended.
It can be grinded to the max = burnout dissolutionment.
So don't do it! Just focus on one thing at a time and you'll find your sidetracked almost immediately.
Grinding isn't gaming it never has been. A short circuit to endgame which of course elite doesn't have.
I admit I did grind alot. Because l wanted certain things quickly.
No regrets I'm glad l did grind.
Am l grinding now? No. Not because l don't need too. Theres always something new to want, it's more like I don't want to anymore. So l just play as intended. Multitasking as l go which results in various things going up like rank mats etc.
Base building is coming. Makes sense what with settlement defence plans etc.
Our own ships based There perhaps. Even engineering new ones from the base.
That's how it'll go..Once the on foot plant life has been exterminated.
Fdev do need to do more. Quite what well that's upto them. Bases on foot goids grappling hook who knows..
Point is this...
There is no point...there's no grind only the playing of the game as intended.
It can be grinded to the max = burnout dissolutionment.
So don't do it! Just focus on one thing at a time and you'll find your sidetracked almost immediately.
Grinding isn't gaming it never has been. A short circuit to endgame which of course elite doesn't have.
I admit I did grind alot. Because l wanted certain things quickly.
No regrets I'm glad l did grind.
Am l grinding now? No. Not because l don't need too. Theres always something new to want, it's more like I don't want to anymore. So l just play as intended. Multitasking as l go which results in various things going up like rank mats etc.
Base building is coming. Makes sense what with settlement defence plans etc.
Our own ships based There perhaps. Even engineering new ones from the base.
That's how it'll go..Once the on foot plant life has been exterminated.
Fdev do need to do more. Quite what well that's upto them. Bases on foot goids grappling hook who knows..
There are many YouTube, and other, videos, third party websites and tools about how to beat everything in elite...
In life it's, usually, about the destination and not the journey.
In ED, it's definitely about the journey...
THAT is what Frontier needed to give instead of this new Odyssey crap.
Elite Dangerous is NOT a FPS and using the same "engine balance" as ship RNG to copy for a shooter RNG was just mocking the FPS world. It doesn't take 3x 30 round clips to kill someone (exaggerating of course but any modern FPS gamer understands this).
Anyway, face it, ED is all about and has always been all about space flight life in terms of a Sandbox Setting or open world, so to speak. These games have no endings or finish lines to reach.
Thrills and rewards can be looked at as what you get for a grind, right? "shrug"
Now small touches such as this Base Building idea, not limited to, is a very good way to stay close to the core foundation of Elite, faster for Devs to create small touches instead of HUGE DLCs that fail but still give some diversity to the game at the same time. Just with that one touch players could immerse themselves into a place that they own or only know about thus giving thrill seekers a new incentive to go out and try to find other players bases. This could also be used as a type of way to get PvP action back into the game instead of CZ or player versus NPC's.
(Obviously more detailed than how I just put it, but you get the point).
Odyssey is here and it's not going away so maybe Frontier Development can pull off a quick turn and stabilize the titles interest if not increase its popularity.
I would just assume see Elite pull ahead in the ratings again than call it old and die off. I've been here since day one of the vanilla and despite Odysseys failure I still love the title and it is still only 1 of 2 games that I play on this machine. 8,800+ hour of casual play. I really don't want to stop.
Who knows, thus try to suggest things and maybe after seeing Odysseys failure Frontier might listen, learn, and turn back toward Elites core foundation.
Don't forget to fuel your ship... o7
Not to mention that not everyone is on Steam. I still use the Standalone Launcher.
And while i was not active in-game, i was still following the Story or bought a Skin in the Shop every once in a while.
But to OP:
Cut out the Grind: Yes. There is good grind and there is bad grind. Odyssey is bad. We do have a very small capacity and usable materials are mixed with those we can only sell.
This is really bad and needs a rework. Sort the Engineer-Materials in a new List so that we dont have to check third party tools to know what we can keep and what is just wasted space.
Reduce the cost of Ships though...no. Ships are already much faster to earn than they were during the early days. You can earn an Anaconda in a few hours with a new Commander (and im not talking about the free one you get at Hutton Orbital).
Even with 1-2h a day the Ships are fast enough to earn. I mean seriously, i make 4M in a single on-foot Combat Zone. Back when i started, i could only dream about that amount. Do you have any idea how many Slaves i hauled?
If you think this is boring...then maybe E
is not the Game for you. There are enough other Games out there.Engineering could be improved, yes, but its not so bad. No one forces you to wait until you have a Ship at 100%. G3 is perfectly reachable by just playing Content without farming for it.
Automation...well...this is not X where we build our own Corporation. Automation was never an intended part of Elite.
A bit of Automation in form of Fleet Carriers though could be neat. Player Markets are not a thing because its so much easier to sell the Material yourself with higher profit.
But if our Fleet Carriers "buy list" would be filled by NPCs too? That would be neat.
If we could sell Engineered Modules? Engineering Materials? That could work too.
But Automation where we passively earn Credits? No.
Area Mic: Sure, could be neat, but it needs to have an Option to be disabled. Those features can be easily abused to strike someone on Twitch for example.
VR: While i would love Odyssey in VR...i understand the difficulty behind it. Improved VR Support overall would be great though, especially the Map is just painful to handle for me.
This feature is included with Odyssey mats so YES, they really should have included this ability to sell Horizon mats as well.
Very nice eyes on point there as I never caught that, as a Vet of Elite I should have.
I don't have VR and I have no idea how many do but I do know how difficult VR code is and resources needed BUT if the core foundation of Elite supports VR all DLC should be VR compliant. (just as a mutual rule of respect for players with products out there)
LMAO, it's very entertaining that this statement is still out there. Never gets old.... LOL
All being said you bring a very good amount of information and ideas with your post.... o7 Commander
Last edited:
It is? Hey, seems like i missed that. When was it added? Let me guess, its one of the new Carrier Modules?
Honestly, i would be fine with just Head-Rotation. I dont even want Full-Body support. Just Rotation would be enough.
Full Head Tracking again could be potentially abusable. Like how we can detach our head inside the cockpit already. Its not hurting anyone, but it is technically not intended.
Keep the Tradition alive, eh? Everyone needs to make that Journey one day
Thanks
"im not talking about the free one you get at Hutton Orbital"Not to mention that not everyone is on Steam. I still use the Standalone Launcher.
And while i was not active in-game, i was still following the Story or bought a Skin in the Shop every once in a while.
But to OP:
Cut out the Grind: Yes. There is good grind and there is bad grind. Odyssey is bad. We do have a very small capacity and usable materials are mixed with those we can only sell.
This is really bad and needs a rework. Sort the Engineer-Materials in a new List so that we dont have to check third party tools to know what we can keep and what is just wasted space.
Reduce the cost of Ships though...no. Ships are already much faster to earn than they were during the early days. You can earn an Anaconda in a few hours with a new Commander (and im not talking about the free one you get at Hutton Orbital).
Even with 1-2h a day the Ships are fast enough to earn. I mean seriously, i make 4M in a single on-foot Combat Zone. Back when i started, i could only dream about that amount. Do you have any idea how many Slaves i hauled?
If you think this is boring...then maybe E
Engineering could be improved, yes, but its not so bad. No one forces you to wait until you have a Ship at 100%. G3 is perfectly reachable by just playing Content without farming for it.
Automation...well...this is not X where we build our own Corporation. Automation was never an intended part of Elite.
A bit of Automation in form of Fleet Carriers though could be neat. Player Markets are not a thing because its so much easier to sell the Material yourself with higher profit.
But if our Fleet Carriers "buy list" would be filled by NPCs too? That would be neat.
If we could sell Engineered Modules? Engineering Materials? That could work too.
But Automation where we passively earn Credits? No.
Area Mic: Sure, could be neat, but it needs to have an Option to be disabled. Those features can be easily abused to strike someone on Twitch for example.
VR: While i would love Odyssey in VR...i understand the difficulty behind it. Improved VR Support overall would be great though, especially the Map is just painful to handle for me.
Do any suggestions ever get used? I feel like posting anything here is just like screaming into a bottomless pit?
It's very hard to say. Certainly things suggested here have ended up in-game later, or things solving the same problem in another way have. And for the forums more generally, I've had really obscure bugs that I mentioned once tens of pages into an obscure thread and nowhere else fixed fairly quickly on a couple of occasions. They certainly read a lot more than it might appear.
On the other hand, you can almost never prove that Frontier didn't also see the problem mentioned elsewhere, or thought of it as a feature themselves, for any specific instance - and there's certainly not a lot to indicate that the Suggestions forum specifically is any better than anywhere else on the forum for this sort of thing, as long as you're posting somewhere reasonably on-topic.
Numbering of Bio/Geo POI, %ages on Shields lots of small stuff. No huge features - which a lot keep submitting
To be honest that just shows that during lockdowns loads of people were playing EDH or EDO heck they could have been sitting there gibbering insanely with the launcher open it doesnt actually specify what they were doing, the fall could equally be down to people returning to work after remote work has slowly been discouraged in some prefessions.
The data starts April of 2015, and the floor is pretty consistent excepting April 2020 to April of 2021.
US/UK were substantially locked down beginning April of 2020.
Odyssey launch date was May 2021.
Freedom from lockdowns was/is regionally variable, but mid 2021 is a reasonable timeframe for "most" western regions.
I don't know that you can meaningfully disentangle player behavior between 2020-4 and 2021-4, but the post 2021-04 behavior clearly shows EDO failed to grow the player base on the Steam platform. I don't have the time at the moment to dig up the post from another threat, but Frontier's financial accounting treatment of Odyssey pretty clearly indicates Odyssey was a cluster-#$%!.
I suppose you could chock it all up to Covid, but a quick canvassing of other games on the steam platform doesn't indicate much of a player behavior change during that period. It may be that some of the fall could be down to people returning to work, but I'd be pretty skeptical that that's a material factor.
In any event, OP was claiming Steam Charts proved out doom for ED. I think the most likely conclusion the available data shows is ED fans continue to like ED, warts and all.
The new Odyssey mats can be traded, of course, and sold at the bartender I believe, but sadly I wish the same could be said for Horizons mats as they can only be traded.
Maybe here in the future Frontier might change that so we can sell Horizon mats too. Who knows. "shrug" o7Someone please correct me if this is incorrect information.
Edit: Ok, ya, you can sell them at bartenders for credits.... o7
Last edited: