A Game At Odds with Itself and Why
- Thread starter Blackcompany
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Indeed. I guess that was part of the PR for the game, and it did get it some extra coverage so i guess served it's purpose. I agree that those poor guys that stumped up £300 must now feel they did indeed waste their time and money. A real shame as those DDF topics were the best fun in relation to ED.
So many great idea's, and all for a game that is seemingly morphing into something all about the 'head-shot' and combat vs aspects. I can see the reasons why, a lot of people play CoD and games like that, but unless they plan to massively nerf the complexity of the controls in ED they are never going to be able to 'convert' those kind of players to ED. ED also isn't a military themed FPS. But i guess they seem to want to run that way?
Poor DDF, poor dreams and aspirations of what ED could have been!
I don't mind CQC so much, in fact I quite like it, likely a good move to attract more people to the game. I used to be really angry about the DDF, and for good reason, but decided to move on and I rarely think about it anymore.. Its a shame FD behaved the way they did over it, its on their conscience..
Retrospectively I think PP wasn't a bad concept but it was poorly implemented.. I don't know what they are going to do with that but Engineers sounds really encouraging and I think planetary landings was a good move for the game, although be nice if there were ships and NPCs on the surface.. etc..
Hello Games has stuck to the June 2016 release date since October when it was announced. I think it was pushed back once prior to that but I think that was more of a Sony thing than a developer thing.
The biggest difference between ED and NMS is that ED claims to be a simulator but if you approach it as a simulator you get disappointed pretty quickly. It does do an incredibly good job of simulating the galaxy and sci-fi style space flight (best flight mechanics hands down) but right now the everything else being "simulated" (trade, exploration, piracy, mining etc.) is pretty bad. NMS on the other hand isn't claiming to be a simulator. It's a game, and as such has a goal. The goal being to reach the center of the galaxy. You can certainly by-pass the goal and sandbox the game as much as you want but at it's core it's a game with "gamey" elements. For example, there are no Gas Giants in the NMS galaxies. They don't see the point in putting in planet types that you can't land on. There ARE, however, planets that look like Gas Giants (some with rings) but that will be environmentally toxic to the player without proper protection. Also, each planet will only have a single biome. So if you land on a "forest world" then the entire planet will be a variation on the forest. The idea is that this will entice players to keep moving through the galaxy. So there's a pretty big difference between how ED and NMS treat their respective universes.
I'm on my way back from the abyss (still about 15,000ly from home) and pretty much planning on this being my last exploration trip until Season 10 (if there is a Season 10). The trip back has been absolutley mind-numbing and more than once I've thought about self-destructing just to get it over with. Life is too short for this kind of tedium. But I'm going to stick it out becasue I can look forward to the hours I'll get to spend selling my exploration data page by page by page so that I can earn some mediocre credits and possibly increase my explorer rank. Working as intended though so at least there's that.
Your account of the game begs the question - Why do you play it? Or at least why did you go exploring so far away if you find the journey tedious?
I agree that in theory CQC and PP would be good additions. My point is that their implementation isn't good enough to offset the missing elements of the game that were pitched in kickstarter and via the DDF.
CQC would IMO be better if it was accessible in the main game and fed into the main game in a few ways. Have in game competitions/tournaments where the winner gets his name on galnet etc...
Currently it's an out of game mode and if fairly lacking in long term entertainment value (I can only play a few matches before I'm back in the main game).
PP in theory, as it was pitched before release could have been a panacea for me and the game. I was expecting it to strengthen the BGS (which IMO is weak and uninteresting to most), tie major and minor factions together well, give you reason for supporting a faction, add a ton of new game play opportunities, lead to large scale military conflicts etc. What we got was a board game overlay that added really nothing new other than a board game overlay that required constant weekly grinding to benefit from and consisted of content that everyone had already been doing for months (trading, bounty hunting, CZs etc..).
Because of this I've little faith in FD and their ability to deliver on what they pitched in kickstarter never mind what they've mapped out for this season. I expect 2.1 to be the same, wafer thin, bare minimum and not the amazing addition some are expecting it to be. Happy to be proven wrong (sadly I wasn't proven wrong about PP or Horizons).
It's getting to the point that I'm not actually sure what FD are spending all this time developing as it doesn't seem to be getting into the game. If I look at other games that have post release content it's leaps and bounds better than FD seem to be able to produce. Is it just a skeleton crew in team ED and everyone else is off creating theme park games?
p.s. I wonder what happened to the people that defended the game when it released and everyone was pointing out that it wasn't good enough for release? They were keen to point out post release content. I wonder if they're a bit sheepish now........nah, probably not.
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You make a good point. It's a question I've asked myself recently. Right now it's the only game of its kind. But that's about to change. So, pretty soon I predict that I will not be playing it.
Hurricane Moon
Banned
perhaps the commander in question first headed out there all excited...expecting to see something worthwhile...or some great suprise.......i did it myself.
then realised that the further i went the only thing that really changes is the crazy system names and the scattering of the bodies in said sytems......one day in this game whilst exploring i would expect FD to implement long lost ruins on distant planets that we can go to ect....and explore further in FPS......or in supercruise you spot a distress signal coming from a abandonded ship or station and you EVA to explore it and go inside.hell maybey find a life pod inside it...
this is why i back SC because i already get that basic feel of immersion from there alpha system....and NMS....yeah its gonna be actual fun and not the science project slow burn txt driven narrative 1984 gameplay that we have at mo with ED....cmon FD i want you to be the best!
I agree completely. Problem with that is it's more of a point and click game. ED puts you at the helm. You are in the cockpit... with the VR on... it's an experience unlike any other.
Comes back to that old.... "Mcdonalds Fries With BurgerKing Burgers" argument. We want the best of a thing to combine with the best of another thing.
Sadly, that never happens.
On the point about procedural generation - and I know I'm a bit late to this particular party - but I think this is a crucial point for me. It's been the foundation of Elite's universe since the start - albeit in the original game it was still limited to a small number of systems, it was still huge for its day, and it was that openness that made Elite the milestone it was.
It's a given that procedural generation will create patterns. As in the first game - there were only so many photo-fit descriptions of alien planets you could read without noticing the same fragments appearing over and over. And of course all the actual planets and stars and space stations looked exactly the same. But that wasn't a distraction back then because the idea was a fundamental improvement on what games had been; and the gameplay was enough to keep us distracted from the fact that, hey, this new planet I've never been to before is basically exactly the same as the last one. The pirate I've just killed - or been killed by - was a Fer-De-Lance no different from the last twelve I've fought.
But that was the game then, and at the time it was good enough.
Now, that wouldn't be good enough, on its own. Modern gamers are used to more detail, more variety, and are generally a demanding bunch who want to see boundaries being pushed, ideas being refined and improved on.
ED is a massive improvement on Elite in terms of visual and audio presentation and - arguably - the flight model has improved since Elite. Ships feel as though they have weight - even though in some senses that's rather artificial (limiting ships to fixed turn speeds and so on). But aesthetically speaking the game is a huge improvement on Elite.
The pity is that it isn't a huge improvement on First Encounters. I freely admit that this is my perspective based on my years-long assumption that the next game in the series would be an improved simulator. What we have is an improved arcade/action game - which is fine by its own lights, but that's a serious sticking point for me.
Still, what makes me stay with ED even though it lacks a lot of the things I imagined and hoped that Elite IV would have is that it's still based on a procedurally generated open galaxy, on a massive scale. I want that in a space game, because that, to me, is what space is about: having no boundaries. It's the reason why - without any intention of appearing to criticise; it's purely a personal viewpoint - I wouldn't be interested in Star Citizen, however detailed and lovingly crafted the content is.
Like I said, with procedural generation there will be patterns - and it's quite valid to say that in ED the patterns are more obvious more quickly than we might've hoped. But, hopefully, as more and more elements are added to planets - and we're given the ability to land on worlds with atmospheres, oceans and life - the patterns will be obscured again, at least for a while.
I don't know how PG works - I'm not a programmer or a mathematician. But I imagine it as being like a sine wave generator. Tell the generator what frequency to generate and set it going, and you'll get a regular pattern of waves, all identical; predictable. I imagine the star system generator is a bit like that. So then add another generator producing another wave of slightly different frequency or amplitude - call it the planetary surface feature generator - and you can end up with a much more varied pattern in the wave. Add another - say the planetary life-form generator - and three sine waves together can create crazy, apparently unpredictable, random-looking patterns. (As you can tell, I've never really studied wave dynamics either, but this is the gist as I understand it, and if it's a bad analogy then forgive me: I'm just trying to illustrate what I mean.)
So I would trust that if there're enough overlapping generators, the patterns will be so complex, or so obscured by local variations, that it'd end up taking quite a long time to spot them.
For all the arguments that ED needs more hand-crafted content, perhaps what it actually needs is more layers of PG? What we have now is essentially just the system generator and, completely separately, the mission generator. Two independent sine waves whose patterns become very clear very quickly.
Multiple generators around the worlds we can discover - geology, hydrology, atmospheres, biospheres - would overlap to create much variety for explorers. Multiple generators around missions, rankings, politics, local security, reputation - plus additional random problems (say customs issues, hazardous cargoes, passenger illness or demands, technical problems) would add spice for traders and mission runners.
And for interaction with other pilots - NPCs, I mean - perhaps the 'sine waves' could come from a combination of personality 'layers'. Perhaps this pilot has a high sense of loyalty to his or her cause; or perhaps this security pilot is getting close to retirement and is less inclined to take risks; or maybe this trader has family at home, but that trader has recently lost a loved one and is carrying a deep sense of anger towards the world at large. By creating layers of personality or experience - which we as players don't need to be able to see! - and overlapping those layers, we could see a range of different personalities - every pilot we meet would be different, react differently to situations... And perhaps - possibly - with the addition of a relatively basic layer of communication with other pilots, even NPCs, I imagine we could see an explosion of variety in how any given encounter might pan out.
It's a given that procedural generation will create patterns. As in the first game - there were only so many photo-fit descriptions of alien planets you could read without noticing the same fragments appearing over and over. And of course all the actual planets and stars and space stations looked exactly the same. But that wasn't a distraction back then because the idea was a fundamental improvement on what games had been; and the gameplay was enough to keep us distracted from the fact that, hey, this new planet I've never been to before is basically exactly the same as the last one. The pirate I've just killed - or been killed by - was a Fer-De-Lance no different from the last twelve I've fought.
But that was the game then, and at the time it was good enough.
Now, that wouldn't be good enough, on its own. Modern gamers are used to more detail, more variety, and are generally a demanding bunch who want to see boundaries being pushed, ideas being refined and improved on.
ED is a massive improvement on Elite in terms of visual and audio presentation and - arguably - the flight model has improved since Elite. Ships feel as though they have weight - even though in some senses that's rather artificial (limiting ships to fixed turn speeds and so on). But aesthetically speaking the game is a huge improvement on Elite.
The pity is that it isn't a huge improvement on First Encounters. I freely admit that this is my perspective based on my years-long assumption that the next game in the series would be an improved simulator. What we have is an improved arcade/action game - which is fine by its own lights, but that's a serious sticking point for me.
Still, what makes me stay with ED even though it lacks a lot of the things I imagined and hoped that Elite IV would have is that it's still based on a procedurally generated open galaxy, on a massive scale. I want that in a space game, because that, to me, is what space is about: having no boundaries. It's the reason why - without any intention of appearing to criticise; it's purely a personal viewpoint - I wouldn't be interested in Star Citizen, however detailed and lovingly crafted the content is.
Like I said, with procedural generation there will be patterns - and it's quite valid to say that in ED the patterns are more obvious more quickly than we might've hoped. But, hopefully, as more and more elements are added to planets - and we're given the ability to land on worlds with atmospheres, oceans and life - the patterns will be obscured again, at least for a while.
I don't know how PG works - I'm not a programmer or a mathematician. But I imagine it as being like a sine wave generator. Tell the generator what frequency to generate and set it going, and you'll get a regular pattern of waves, all identical; predictable. I imagine the star system generator is a bit like that. So then add another generator producing another wave of slightly different frequency or amplitude - call it the planetary surface feature generator - and you can end up with a much more varied pattern in the wave. Add another - say the planetary life-form generator - and three sine waves together can create crazy, apparently unpredictable, random-looking patterns. (As you can tell, I've never really studied wave dynamics either, but this is the gist as I understand it, and if it's a bad analogy then forgive me: I'm just trying to illustrate what I mean.)
So I would trust that if there're enough overlapping generators, the patterns will be so complex, or so obscured by local variations, that it'd end up taking quite a long time to spot them.
For all the arguments that ED needs more hand-crafted content, perhaps what it actually needs is more layers of PG? What we have now is essentially just the system generator and, completely separately, the mission generator. Two independent sine waves whose patterns become very clear very quickly.
Multiple generators around the worlds we can discover - geology, hydrology, atmospheres, biospheres - would overlap to create much variety for explorers. Multiple generators around missions, rankings, politics, local security, reputation - plus additional random problems (say customs issues, hazardous cargoes, passenger illness or demands, technical problems) would add spice for traders and mission runners.
And for interaction with other pilots - NPCs, I mean - perhaps the 'sine waves' could come from a combination of personality 'layers'. Perhaps this pilot has a high sense of loyalty to his or her cause; or perhaps this security pilot is getting close to retirement and is less inclined to take risks; or maybe this trader has family at home, but that trader has recently lost a loved one and is carrying a deep sense of anger towards the world at large. By creating layers of personality or experience - which we as players don't need to be able to see! - and overlapping those layers, we could see a range of different personalities - every pilot we meet would be different, react differently to situations... And perhaps - possibly - with the addition of a relatively basic layer of communication with other pilots, even NPCs, I imagine we could see an explosion of variety in how any given encounter might pan out.
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you are pretty on the nose there, here's the main difficulty with procedural generation, its based around math, math is not unpredictable like proper terrain, "making" procedural stuff 'any' stuff is relatively easy, making it look proper within its context, tectonic activity what have you that Elite has, is very.....very....very hard to get right, making a mountain look real with all the details and such it has in the real world and not just be a sine wave? that's stuff..is not easy to say the least, and they did that, procedural missions are easier but not by much because they need to make sense, and just one little miscalculation 'somewhere' in the big math could lead to the problems we are seeing, which is why they are gutting it and replacing innards with 2.1.
Kinda like you know the problem is in your lunges, so you pull them out and put in some new, where exactly in the lungs is a very difficult question, but replacing them will likely solve the problem.
so yeah they are working on it, and in my eyes one of the problems is that people aren't used to seeing how hard it is to make this game and assume they are slacking or similar because game x y z with static stuff was done faster, or similar.
I think while your right about the major problems of the game with this, it also frustrates people that they frequently don't make the easy changes that would benefit us all. They are definitely working on something, i'm just really hoping it isn't shallow. An in depth customisation system for your ship would be such a huge boon to this game I just spend my time thinking about it chanting "don't make it too simple, don't make it too simple" as so far everytime they added something I was excited about they literally took the easiest possible input and used that
I think while your right about the major problems of the game with this, it also frustrates people that they frequently don't make the easy changes that would benefit us all. They are definitely working on something, i'm just really hoping it isn't shallow. An in depth customisation system for your ship would be such a huge boon to this game I just spend my time thinking about it chanting "don't make it too simple, don't make it too simple" as so far everytime they added something I was excited about they literally took the easiest possible input and used that
> Indeed, if the Engineers update is the equivalent of changing the color of your lasers...I'll be face-palming so hard.
Hey, there's that white knight fanboi who thinks the game is perfect.
What an idiot
That guy is everywhere. I hear they may even be naming a constellation after him or something. ;-)
Edit: He might have to pay for it though.
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No please don't!! I didn't even consider that, now it will haunt me forever ><
This is something CIG is also dealing with, letting the public SEE everything that goes on behind closed doors for years before a game is even announced usually. And the whining there is already happened, 'but you promised us this!' when no such promises were made, exactly as we see here in regards to FD. "I think asteroid bases would be cool" David said, well, don't you know, he PROMISED us asteroid bases! "I want to go big game hunting on some alien world" David said, well, look there, another PROMISE that we'll be able to go big game hunting on alien worlds!
Whenever we started a project, we'd blue sky the hell out of it, ideas flowed like water over Niagara Falls, but at the end of the day, we couldn't possibly do it all, so we'd winnow out the impossible for tech reasons, impossible for time reasons, and then start on what was left over and winnow that down based on what we could in a reasonable time frame AND would actually be good to have in the game. Thousands of ideas would end up being a list of 10 that we'd actually implement, with another 20 that we came up during development because they were fun, fit the setting, or were just plain cool and we could fit them in. That's how game development works, some of us know this, we've done it, so it doesn't surprise us at all that the DDF isn't being implemented as it sits.
And if they had STATED the DD were the actual backbone of the game and would definitely be implemented without fail, you folks might have something to complain about, but they didn't, they did just the opposite, repeatedly, they aren't set in stone, they aren't promised features, they may never appear in the game at all, but they are cool, so lets discuss them and see what we can do, no promises though!
There's lots of cool stuff in the DDs, I'd love to see much of it ingame myself, but since it wasn't promised, I can't get myself upset over it not making it in. Some you keep do exactly that, you don't let up, even though there's no actual basis for your complaints, hell I've made some prat's ignore list because I don't find the game boring, THAT is the kind of mentality at work here. You won't stop whining, ever, and that's too bad because no matter what happens with Elite Dangerous, you won't ever enjoy it.
And FOREVER, my friend, is often a rather long time.
Tell me, whats the point in doing a DDF which to participate you had to pay hundreds of dollars to discuss the basic concepts of the game, if FD will completely forget them?
I don't see any logic in doing such thing unless FD were stealing money from the backers.
We're actually in agreement on that as it happens, I don't get that at all, there is no reason in heaven or hell to charge people real money to blue sky with your team if you aren't going to actually implement those ideas if possible and tell the backers who paid that much that you WILL implement those thoughts, concepts and ideas for certain in the game. It's a nice little reward, allowing people access to information that is normally only something the developers themselves ever have access to, the blue skying lists that get created by the team as they try and think of everything and anything they could possibly do, and having a hand in it and actually influencing how the game develops, what a thing to promise people.
Now add in that they do state in the DD's that they aren't set in stone, they are ideas, concepts and may not make it into the game, well, I'm not seeing a money grab, I'm seeing a reward to people gave X amount of money, who were told up 'these aren't set in stone, they may never see the light of day, but here's our thoughts on this and that and we want YOUR input on them, but, again, they may never see the light of day!'. There was no promise made that was broken, people wanting there to be one isn't the same as there actually BEING one. No money grab, no stealing money from anyone, simply a reward to the faithful, one that came with caveats that some people didn't pay any attention to because they didn't want to see them, and still refuse to in many cases.
If you need some money up front to prove to venture capital and the market that such a game is viable due to consumer interest, and want capital to float your business to become your own publisher.
.
I'm sure that, at the beginning, a lot of the DDF ideas were honestly being considered, but as time progressed, the p2p multiplayer just didn't work well (and they've said it worked on LAN, but they were caught by surprise as to how it performed on t'Interweb), and time for other features built on that framework got condensed, things went awol and a 'minimum feature set' for launch mentality set in. During the onset of the Kickstarter we were told that the game had been 'skunkworked' for 10 years prior, multiplayer was pretty much working, ship designs had been blocked out etc. etc. Yet it was later said that production only really got going after the Kickstarter had finished. Oh, and there was that whole 'it'll have single player offline' thing.
.
I'm not saying anything untoward has happened, the best laid plans of mice and men oft gan astray 'n' all that... ...just also perhaps that the sturdy twig of plausibility has been bent close to breaking point occasionally, like this metaphor.
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