I've been playing Elite for a solid couple of weeks again after returning from before the 2.1 patch, and while I've tried to find the game enjoyable, it's simply frustrating me.
Specifically, the improved mission system isn't. The last few evenings I've not been able to complete more than one mission successfully, and it's extremely irritating. The missions are nonsensical, the npcs are unhelpful, and for the most part, the reward is still paltry compared to just farming bounties.
My first mission required me to destroy a generator next to a gun emplacement. The "generator" turned out to be a data node that once scanned, caused a big gun in the distance to explode for absolutely no reason. That took a few hours to figure out.
My second mission was an assassination mission that, inexplicably, required me to scan the local nav beacon so that an NPC could magically tell me where the perp would be. Around a planet... In half an hour? No thanks.
My third mission seemed simpler than the last two - "massacre" 36 enemy ships in "conflict zones". Upon taking the mission, the only conflict zone in the system decided to despawn. I kid you not! I couldn't find it anymore, and after repeated relogging attempts I decided to farm the nav beacon for ships of that faction. That worked, but an hour later I was done with just 16 of the 36 ships required, and could not will myself to fight through endless interdictions to kill any more.
My final mission this evening, was to locate some chemical canisters in a nearby system. After an hour of dropping into signal sources and finding nothing, I gave up. Naturally, I once again had to dodge endless interdictions.
The missions simply don't make sense: everything about them seems "forced" and "hacky", as if it simply wasn't possible to implement them in a way that made actual sense. This frustration is compounded by repeated NPC interdictions, which are literally inescapable for me - I have kept my nose pointed toward the escape vector continuously (I'm rather good at aiming, if I may say so myself) and still lost the mini game. Once interdicted, I cannot fight the NPC as 30 seconds later authority ships will drop in to attack me, making the fight impossible. I've had these hunters spawn next to me before as well out of the blue, after they've vanished from super cruise and I've found a signal source to drop into.
In almost all interactions in the game, be it interdiction, authority response, or supercruise ability, it seems to me that the NPCs have been given an unfair advantage that makes playing the game more of a chore than a fun experience. The developers have introduced all manner of caveats and gotchas to try to make the NPCs and missions artificially difficult, and in doing so have thrown any semblance of sense out of the window - how many times has an NPC, after 3 failed assassination attempts and now stuck on 10% hull and no shields, STILL tried to interdict me to claim a 1k bounty?
Despite my criticism, I do still enjoy the game, but honestly I'm beginning to wonder why that actually is. Maybe the fact that I spent 150 dollars on this poorly built X52 joystick is making me try to get some use out of it, or perhaps I still think there are so design decisions to be implemented that I'd actually really dig. Who knows?
Specifically, the improved mission system isn't. The last few evenings I've not been able to complete more than one mission successfully, and it's extremely irritating. The missions are nonsensical, the npcs are unhelpful, and for the most part, the reward is still paltry compared to just farming bounties.
My first mission required me to destroy a generator next to a gun emplacement. The "generator" turned out to be a data node that once scanned, caused a big gun in the distance to explode for absolutely no reason. That took a few hours to figure out.
My second mission was an assassination mission that, inexplicably, required me to scan the local nav beacon so that an NPC could magically tell me where the perp would be. Around a planet... In half an hour? No thanks.
My third mission seemed simpler than the last two - "massacre" 36 enemy ships in "conflict zones". Upon taking the mission, the only conflict zone in the system decided to despawn. I kid you not! I couldn't find it anymore, and after repeated relogging attempts I decided to farm the nav beacon for ships of that faction. That worked, but an hour later I was done with just 16 of the 36 ships required, and could not will myself to fight through endless interdictions to kill any more.
My final mission this evening, was to locate some chemical canisters in a nearby system. After an hour of dropping into signal sources and finding nothing, I gave up. Naturally, I once again had to dodge endless interdictions.
The missions simply don't make sense: everything about them seems "forced" and "hacky", as if it simply wasn't possible to implement them in a way that made actual sense. This frustration is compounded by repeated NPC interdictions, which are literally inescapable for me - I have kept my nose pointed toward the escape vector continuously (I'm rather good at aiming, if I may say so myself) and still lost the mini game. Once interdicted, I cannot fight the NPC as 30 seconds later authority ships will drop in to attack me, making the fight impossible. I've had these hunters spawn next to me before as well out of the blue, after they've vanished from super cruise and I've found a signal source to drop into.
In almost all interactions in the game, be it interdiction, authority response, or supercruise ability, it seems to me that the NPCs have been given an unfair advantage that makes playing the game more of a chore than a fun experience. The developers have introduced all manner of caveats and gotchas to try to make the NPCs and missions artificially difficult, and in doing so have thrown any semblance of sense out of the window - how many times has an NPC, after 3 failed assassination attempts and now stuck on 10% hull and no shields, STILL tried to interdict me to claim a 1k bounty?
Despite my criticism, I do still enjoy the game, but honestly I'm beginning to wonder why that actually is. Maybe the fact that I spent 150 dollars on this poorly built X52 joystick is making me try to get some use out of it, or perhaps I still think there are so design decisions to be implemented that I'd actually really dig. Who knows?
) it reappeared!
