A Message To Elite Dangerous Developers

[Darkfyre99]

OK, I'm now on a device that makes replying to this post easier. Let's break this apart.

(This thread is essentially 2 dozen topics that could have been threads in their own right. This TOC is here to help you navigate to the individual topics that interest you)

Which is part of the problem. These really SHOULD'VE been threads in their own right. You would've gotten much better feedback. Most people are put off by novella length forum posts.

<snip>

A: Risk/Reward Scaling

This game doesn’t seem to have any logical risk/reward system. The rewards for missions don’t seem to scale properly with your ranks. Because clients offer missions than span reputation and rank requirements, often times, despite having a dozen clients at a single station, there’ll only be one mission worth taking on (if that). That’s another thing, WHY IS THIS? Why can’t missions be player specific? It’d be nice if I could show up a station for once, and be shown a few dozen missions spanning several types that are all available for my rank and reputation… Not be shown 1 that’s actually worth taking, 5 that are data deliveries and other small fry, and 10 that I can’t do because I’m not a high enough rep yet, even though few of them actually seem to give better rewards or are actually interesting. Sometimes the missions that I can’t do yet look almost identical to the ones that I can do, which begs the question, what the hell is the point of unlocking them? You’d think building a rapport with a client would unlock special, higher difficulty missions… No… Not really.

Some look more fun or more challenging, but have lower rewards. Others are boring as hell, but more profitable, and no matter how much progress you make, it always seems like the rewards all around aren’t very good, or are just plain random.

I KNOW there’s an RNG element to rewards. Take the exploit I mentioned earlier… 20 missions… 20 missions per flight, all of which are IDENTICAL. Same mission, same target, etc. Identical in EVERY WAY except for one… Reward. The rewards varied from 50,000 credits to 800,000 credits… WHY? It’s the same mission, it’s the same difficulty no matter what you’re doing, why does one reward 16x more money?

I think perhaps it’s because the devs want to provide the option for people to make good money at anything… But the way they’ve done it is by RNGing the crap out of the reward system… Which effectively means that these missions no longer have a logical value to them. Why should I take on a more challenging mission for less money? Why is a milk run worth more money than an assassination against a tough target?

The game really needs to take into account the difficulty levels of a missions and give a proper reward for them. Furthermore, there OUGHT to be extremely tough but extremely rewarding missions. Very few missions offered seem TRULY challenging. I probably took a good 50 assasination missions before I finally found one that managed to kill me instead. Furthermore, I think the scaling of reward should have a somewhat bigger multiplier than the scaling of difficulty. This would actively encourage players to challenge themselves, to take on tough missions. If a tough target were offered, I could weigh my options: Take it and risk getting my handed to me, but for millions of credits instead of thousands, or do another easy milk run. As it stands currently, there is little differentiation in rate of progression between types of missions, meaning you’re almost encouraged to do milk runs over challenging ones, just because it’s easier to do, and you get the same amount of money either way.

While I certainly enjoy doing milk runs and making a steady and safe income, if I ever get bored of it and want to do something hard for a change, it’d be nice if I were rewarded earnestly for a challenging mission… And right now, there doesn’t seem to be any outside of just doing something different for once. There is SO MUCH RNG in how you get rewarded, that it’s hard to find a mission that actually gives you a reasonably high or low reward for the amount of risk you take for it.

This complaint stems from the fact that there is no traditional progression in this game. There's no leveling up. There's no skill trees to progress down. Reputation ebbs and flows, and the "Elite" ranks are effectively meaningless. Once you reach a certain point in the game, you have multiple ships, plus modules for those ships, so there is very little point of showing ONLY those missions you qualify for. You could very easily want to take a lucrative contract that requires only swapping out a single module in your ship to take it, or swapping ships. Hiding missions that you don't qualify for at this time means you could easily miss out on a high-paying mission, a mission providing valuable materials for engineering, one that better suits your long term plans.

Which brings us to background sim play, which a lot of players enjoy, and many consider the true game within the game. In BGS play, frequently the effects of the mission on a faction are the true reward, not the credits (which are a bonus.) If you stumble upon a system on the verge of outbreak, it is well worth your while to outsource 4 tons of biowaste, even if it's simply a "newbie mission," so you can make a killing on delivering medicines.

It is also very difficult to judge the difficulty of any particular mission, because ships can vary so much. An unarmed blockade runner, piloted by a Commander who's logged hundreds of hours in THAT particular ship, can easily be less at risk from NPCs than a similar combat ranked Commander who only has 40 hours in the entire game from grinding Quince, and has never flown their ship before today.

B: The Reputation System

This game simulates the Milky Way, which has an estimated 400 BILLION stars. This is, in my opinion, the single biggest selling point of the game, the single most interesting and alluring thing about it, and the single most fun thing to do in it. I see all these videos of people travelling to the core, or to these odd planets, and I think… Why haven’t I found anything like that? Why can’t I do that?… Yet due to multiple game functions, this game appears to actively discourage players from exploring in this way. One of these game functions is the reputation system.

Specifically, the client specific reputation system. You have to build a rapport with individual clients in order to unlock (in theory) more rewarding missions from them… This means, if a client offers missions you want that are locked behind a reputation wall, you have to effectively set up shop in one system for quite a long time. During my grind from the ASP to the Beluga, I did the vast majority of my missions in no more than 5 or 6 systems, so as to build reputation there.

And whenever you get tired of the scenery, and decide to pack up and go find something new to do elsewhere… You have to start all over again, from scratch. Sure, missions are also tied to your 4 reputations, exploration, combat, etc… But if a mission someplace new ALSO has a requirement for the client’s reputation… You might as well be a noob to them.

This makes no sense in its own right. Most of these clients work for an entity, such as the Federation… If I go from one federation client to another… Shouldn’t my federation rank matter more than this puke’s neutral opinion of me? Shouldn’t my reputation precede me a little bit? I get that reputation on a personal level matters, but… If they have my “Federation employment files” as it were, then wouldn’t I be almost as trustworthy in that system as the previous one? Shouldn’t the client rank just have a penalty on it for not working with them before or something of that nature? Or better yet, why not limit the client rank to just their personal errand type missions, and not missions related to factions?

I think the devs should take a look at what the current reputation system rewards and discourages, and think about what THEY want to reward and discourage. Currently, this system practically punishes people for exploring away from their originating system.

I also think that missions should be generated for the player. They should be player specific. Why are you showing me missions I cannot even accept? Why are you showing me small fry missions I don’t want to bother with, because they’re the sort you get at the beginning of the game? Why are you populating the mission board with this? Why can’t the clients just populate it with missions I CAN accept and are reasonable for my levels? If there were a greater difference in the rewards and depth of missions depending on my rank with a client, that alone should motivate me to level up with them, not seeing missions that I can’t accept wasting space on the mission boards. It makes it far harder to find missions I actually want to take on. Often times there’s only a single mission in an entire station I want/can take on.

There is absolutely no requirement to take a mission to go exploring. In fact, it's often better NOT to take a mission, and explore at your own pace. The money you may get from a long-range sight seeing mission is tithe of what you'll make from simply exploring. Furthermore, bringing juicy exploration data on an unclaimed Earth-like world is a GREAT way to boost your standing with who you're selling the data to. That's usually my strategy when moving to a new theatre of operations. Take a week to explore, and use the data to get instantly allied with the station owners.

As for whether your standing with a major faction in general should matter to a minor faction...

Look at it from their view point. You've just breezed into the system. The Governor doesn't know you from Adam, and you're a member of the Pilot's Federation, so your allegiance is suspect. Far too many "loyal sons and daughters" turned out to be anything but, switching sides once they'd gotten what they wanted. Until you've built up a relationship with them, they really don't have any good reason to trust you right off the bat, and plenty of reasons not to. Heck, they're doing you a favor by not blowing you out of the sky when you arrived.

Personally, I would like to see more internal divisions in the major factions outside of Power Play. There is no reason why two Federation factions in a system should play nice with each other, and IMO it would make the game much more interesting. Whether it is friendly rivalry, or a centuries old feud, it would add a lot more character to various factions beyond their allegiance and their government type.

C: IRL Mission Timers

This is one of my BIGGEST complaints about the game. As someone else put it, “This game isn’t respectful of your real life”.

I realize that there are a lot of people who think the time limits are fine on this missions. There are people who are more than willing to spend the time to get a mission done in the allotted time. If you can do that, then great for you. If you can do that, than this problem doesn’t affect you… There are people out there, however, who this DOES affect. Just because it doesn’t affect you doesn’t mean it’s not a problem for others.

And it is a problem for me. I work in the military, I have a 10+ hour a day work schedule, plus work and home related chores, plus occasionally working 12 hour shifts and weekends, plus living on a tropical island where I don’t want to get fat from having to grind so much WITHIN AN ALLOTTED TIME FRAME. I don’t want to be at work worrying about finishing a mission with a REAL WORLD TIMER on it.

This is the type of cardinal sin that makes me quit mobile MMO strategy games. You know the kind, the one that keeps farming credits even when you’re offline, the one that keeps getting attacked while you’re too busy trying to do your real world job. This game is one that actively INTERFERES with your real world schedule.

This, honestly, pushes away many players. It excludes an entire player demographic. It effectively caters to people who have no life.

… I realize how that sounds, I’m not trying to offend people who genuinely have an unbusy life, and wish to fill their free time with this game. I used to be in the same boat, and did fill my time with games, so I’m not trying to say that like it’s an insult. What you do in your free time is up to you. My point is only that not everybody has tons of it, and for those kinds of people, these time limits are way more constricting than the devs seem to realize.

This, too, also actively discourages exploration. I’ll give you an example. Some of the worst missions for this problem are extremely long range passenger missions. If I remember correctly, I’ve seen some missions that offered 25,000 light year trips that had to be done in 30 days.

… I would LOVE to do one of these missions. I can go explore the galaxy, get the hell away from fines and interdictions, and actually discover something nobody’s ever seen before. This is, once again, this game’s biggest selling point…

But I can’t… I can’t because of that stupid mission timer… Let’s break it down.

Once, in my Asp Explorer, which at the time, had a max jump range of something like 18 light years, I figured out that I could travel about 400 light years in 1 hour…

Since these trips are round trip, that’d be a 50,000 light year trip… If I spent 5 hours each day (2,000 light years) playing this game, I could get this mission done in 25 days… Do I sound like the type of person who has 5 hours a day for a MONTH to devout to one game? That’s like a g part time job.

Hmm, maybe I could do 2.5 hours a day during the week, and get the other… 17.5 HOURS done on the weekends? Holy crap, you know, I do occasionally have long gaming sessions on weekends, but this is getting ridiculous.

And none of this even includes getting sidetracked to go look at something interesting, like a nebula.

This is what I’m saying when I say this game doesn’t respect your life. There are options for missions in this game that I simply cannot accept, since it’ll only end in failure of the mission. It’s a hindrance to both progression AND exploration. This means that a busy person’s rate of progression is not only slower by mere virtue of playing the game less, but also slower because the game keeps failing their missions with arbitrary time limits. I have failed a staggering number of missions in this game thanks to these stupid limits, and it has contributed to slowing my progress to a crawl.

Now, I can understand why these limits are there. It’s for the persistent universe, right? It makes no sense, in a persistent multiplayer universe, for an NPC to want to go on a cruise for an entire year, for example. Furthermore, your actions in this game can have an effect on the NPC factions, and as such, your actions need to occur in a timely manner…

But then why does this have to be the case for Solo… I almost exclusively play solo, why can’t I play the game at my own pace? I know people are, and have, called me impatient in this game because of my previously described player, but it’s kind of hard not to be, WHEN THE GAME IS ACTIVELY RUSHING YOU. I’d honestly play this game at a snail's pace, and even enjoy it at that pace, if all it did was not have these stupid time limits.

Of course, the answer is because the solo universe is tied to the persistent universe. It’s why you don’t lose progress going from one to the other.

Frankly, what I’d like to see is just for them to get rid of the time limits altogether, just for the sake of making gameplay a little easier on players. It won’t have any effect on players who already have enough free time to accomplish missions, but it will remove the adverse effect the limits have on people who have a busy life.

This would of course have consequences for the factions. If a player accepts a mission that was triggered by an in-game event… And that event ends before the player finishes the mission… Then does the player deserve rewards for completing a mission that is no longer needed?

Frankly, I think yes, the results of the mission’s success would simply no longer have an effect on the factions, or at least have a much smaller effect than it would’ve had before.

If this game wants to be an RPG, then they should treat it as most RPGs do: It’s not a mission, it’s a “quest”, and you finish it on your own time. None of this arbitrary time limit . It might make the game a little less realistic… But it’s a GAME. It’s not REAL. REAL LIFE interferes with this game. As such, the game needs a compromise so that it doesn’t interfere with people’s real lives.

Some might argue this would remove the ability to fail a mission. I disagree. If your mission is to transport cargo, and you lose it through destruction or loss, that’s a failure. There are other failure criteria the game could use. Time limits shouldn’t be one of them. Or at least, not real life time limits. Furthermore, difficulty should RELY on these other criteria, not on IRL time limits. In exchange for the removal of time limits, other types of difficulty could be increased, such as the strength of pirates that chase you.

I’d probably be less mad about this one if the time limits were only active while you were in game. That way you still have a sense of urgency, but you can still pick it up and put it down whenever.

I understand your complaint, but the reality is that you're playing an online game where the evolving galaxy is a major attraction, not a single player-game where the Universe is paused when you save your game. Failure has just as much effect as success on the BGS, and its unreasonable for a time critical mission to be put on pause if you can't complete it during a game session.

D: Mission Variety and Design

The missions in this game don’t have as much variety as they could. Although the target changes, the journey is effectively the same: Go from point A to point B, accomplish task C, and return.

Assasination: Go to this system, kill this guy, return
Cargo: Go to this system, and drop this off
Passenger: I want to see these 3 beacons, and return.
Surface Base: Go to this colony, blow up their generator, and return

… This is what I mean by a lack of variety. You accept a mission from a client, do their dirty work, and return. There’s very limited depth to flesh out the role playing of this RPG… You know what, why not have a pirate kingpin spawn or something, one that you’re tasked with taking down, or grouping up with others to take down… But doing so turns into a drawn out campaign with story arcs and such… Why not stuff like that? ED devs have already thrown in some scripted stuff for the aliens, they NEED MORE OF THAT… LOT’S MORE.

The regular missions themselves could have more variety as well… They ought to be more logical at least.

I think passenger missions are the worst offenders. They promised to add a whole new facet to the game, but the devs made them structurally little different from a cargo mission… In fact, in some ways, they’re worse than cargo missions.

Consider this, if you take on some cargo, say, beer, and then another cargo, say, vodka, do those 2 commodities have to be stored in 2 separate holds?

… NO. Cargo space is cargo space. You stick it anywhere till it fills up. Buying 4 units of beer and storing it in a cargo hold with, say, 12 spaces, doesn’t preclude you from putting anything else in it.

… So WHY ON EARTH does it make sense for 3 idiots to buy 12 cabins? You know what I’m talking about, a single passenger mission will buy out an entire passenger module, regardless of whether or not it leaves that module 90% empty. Any other passenger missions makes you stick them in another passenger cabin… What? No, if cabins are available, you should be allowed to stick people there.

I’m trying not to be rude in my criticisms, but this right here, is such a head scratcher, that it honestly makes me wonder how this was allowed into the game as if it were intended to work this way. There are no logical reasons why you can’t put 2 missions worth of passengers into a single module. That’s not even a limit of cargo missions, so there’s apparently no precedent for this game mechanic working this way. It makes no logical sense in reality either. Why would one person pay for more cabins than they need?

And these missions… They don’t really change anything structurally. They are still client based, basically, and still demand that you go to your specific 3 points, scan, maybe look at something pretty, and go back. They’re very similar to cargo missions. I realize the game devs tried to spice things up a bit by giving us multiple destinations and little characters to the clients, such as “this guy is being hunted” or something, but it’s not really enough IMO. And the multiple destination thing actually makes things rather difficult. If I took on multiple passengers, I try to pick clients with destinations that are near each other… But since almost all of them have 2 or 3 destinations that are all over the place, there’s no real way to do that.

This is effectively a charter based passenger economy… Which is fine… For small ships… For single passenger cabins… It seems like the addition of the Beluga when passenger missions were added was a major misstep, as it is better used in a bulk passenger economy (not catering to the whims of individual nutjobs). But rather than implement a bulk passenger economy that ships like the Beluga can work with, they’ve instead effectively abandoned that ship, and added a new one; the Dolphin, which is admittedly, far better suited to this charter based economy. The Dolphin is the small yacht an individual client would want to charter for their little demands. But… This seems like a cop out. It’s easier to make a new ship that better fits this game’s meta than it is to change the meta itself… But honestly, the meta seems a bit broken, and I wish they WOULD change it. There needs to be more to do in this game, and with how similar passenger missions are to all the others… They aren’t it.

I think the single biggest and BEST thing ED Devs can do for this game is to add a new way of doing business… The mission planner.

Here’s how it works, I have my Beluga outfitted with 4 luxury cabins. I plan my own route from here to, say, the core, with stops for sightseeing along the way. The stops and destinations have a certain “tourist value” to them that affects ticket price and passenger satisfaction. These stops could have added value for actually landing and exploring planets in person. Things like black holes, pulsars, nebula, earth like worlds, etc would have a higher value. This encourages exploration along the trip. Passengers could also earn you more money by renting out extra SRVs or fighter crafts while stopped at a tourist destination.

The game then spits out an estimated “reasonable” ticket price. I can then decide to highball the price to get higher paying customers, but potentially vacant cabins, or low ball it to ensure I get all the cabins filled. This adds a new and interesting gameplay mechanic for players to play with, the idea of starting, owning, and running their own business, complete with supply/demand concepts.

I then put this route up on the mission board… Effectively, this works OPPOSITE to the way it works currently. People show interest and buy tickets. People buy tickets. Individuals, couples, and families pay for cabins… Not entire modules… Cabins… However many would make sense. 1 cabin for 1 or 2 people. Then you set sail. THIS is what a luxury cruise liner does in real life. It sure as hell doesn’t get chartered out to one nutjob.

There’s other gameplay that could be added here. For example, a large cruise liner doesn’t ONLY contain cabins. That would be a very boring cruise. Thus, there should be other gameplay here for providing on-board entertainment. Real life cruise ships are micro economies unto themselves. They have shops, malls, restaurants, water parks, etc… All of these things could be made into optional internal modules. If you aren’t interested in taking 4 luxury passenger cabins, you could trade one or two of those for one of these modules. You could take a restaurant, for example. E class would be like a cafeteria, while an A class would be like a 5 star restaurant. Similarly, you could also have a mini-mall module with a few shops in it, or a gym, or a water park, or a movie theater, etc.

These other modules could provide small, but continual income throughout the trip. It would also increase the attractiveness of your cruise, which would in-turn, buff the ticket prices and customer satisfaction. So there would be benefits. In exchange, you lose passenger capacity, and perhaps have to hire crew to man the modules. If you hire a good crew member, they provide good customer service, increasing customer satisfaction. Conversely, going cheap will adversely affect satisfaction. If you consistently maintain good customer satisfaction while doing these routes, your next cruise will be more popular… If you annoy your customers however, you’ll only end up driving future customers away.

There’s other factors at play here as well. For example, you need to find the right balance of entertainment to cabins. If you have a level 3 economy cabin, and a level 6 5 star restaurant that nobody can afford… Then your restaurant is useless. Conversely, if you have 3 big luxury cabins, and a tiny restaurant, than that restaurant will be packed… reducing customer satisfaction. You need to pick the right balance, and match the quality of each module together so as to maximize the efficiency of your cruise line.

All of this can also apply to previously existing missions. Take, for example, regular old economy transport. Not a cruise line, just somebody trying to get to point B. You could instead run an economy cabin and a cafeteria, and plan a transportation route. This kind of route is a little bit different. You could set it to, say, “I’m willing to deviate from this route by X number of systems” (let’s say 2, in this example). Then anybody on the station who needs transport to anywhere within 2 jumps deviation of that route can purchase a ticket. Once cabins are full, set sail. Furthermore, when you stop at a system to drop someone off, you can pick up new customers on the same route. The longer someone stays on that route, the higher the percentage they pay on the ticket price you set… So for example, if someone’s only going halfway down the route, they pay 50% of the ticket price. You can set up routes along commonly trafficked parts of the galaxy. Customer satisfaction still matters, so depending on the type of system you’re in, you’ll need appropriate class cabins and modules.

This game mechanic could also just as easily apply to cargo runs. You plan a cargo route, and people offer you contracts to take cargo along that route. You can accept the contracts at will, and even charge different prices, for different kinds of cargo. After all, contraband deserves a higher price.

… Do you see?... Do you see the depth that this ADDS to the game? The current charter and client system would still be there for players who prefer it, or for players who are just starting out, but for those who don’t like the current system, THIS adds a whole new facet to gameplay. It gives players greater control over when and how they progress through the game. It gives them greater, and far more creative/thoughtful methods of earning an income. This would add the shorter term goals necessary to keep players interested over long hauls. It gives players options in this universe, and that, right now, is what it so desperately needs.

If nothing else, as I mention elsewhere in this thread... There are elements of game-play that actively discourage "fun" play. For example, most people love this game for exploration, yet don't get their PROGRESS rewarded by doing that. Some of you have given me very helpful tips about how to make money exploring, without accepting timed passenger missions... But even these methods seem to be less lucrative than other options. Part of it may be that this is one of the few systems in the game that doesn't have BOTH a mission method, and a "commodity" method, as some of you have referred to. For example, you can both accept a cargo mission, AND fill in the rest of your cargo space with regular trade goods. You can both earn bounties AND accept missions to take out specific targets. Exploration suffers the same problem as passenger missions, in that it is only one kind of market. Basically, cartographics is a commodity only. There are no missions that DIRECTLY tell you to go explore... Why can't we have a mission board for cartographics that gives you missions, on top of the scan data. Here, I'll give you an example of what a mission could look like:

"Find and scan a planet that is earthlike (so we can colonize it), AND has a moon or a ring, so that we can set up a space industry to help with the colonization effort. Reward is X amount of credits... Oh, and there is no time limits, because especially in this kind of mission, a time limit would be stupid."

This kind of mission would be a little difficult and lengthy to do (I would think at least), but would encourage you to do what is arguably, the best thing to do in this game: FIND COOL CRAP TO LOOK AT.

Ultimately, players in games shouldn't be made to choose between what is fun but not very lucrative, and what is mind numbing, but catapults their progress into the stratosphere. If that choice is given to them, then you'll get a divide. Two camps. One that is frustrated by a lack of decent gameplay, and another that is having a blast, but gets little reward for it... these 2 things should be one in the same. If game designers want to avoid a frustrated fan-base, then they should actively reward them enjoying the best parts of the game... The economy in this game is lackluster... The view however is brilliant...

Given what I’ve seen in my last thread, even people who really disagree with me on most points, at least seem interested in this idea right here. This would vastly increase the versatility and playability of this game. And while it would take some fundamental changes, or additions, of game mechanics, it would likely end up pleasing a majority of the fan base.

This is a good idea, as long as it takes time for your customized mission to appear. Not saying that you can't do anything while its generating, but its quite unreasonable to expect to dock at a station small station, and there just happens to be eight CEOs, six starlets, a politician, and his mistress, all of whom just ALL happen to to show up to the dock heading to your destination. Oh, and they happen to be bringing exactly 96 tons of personal effects with them.

Nor should you expect the same rewards as a standard mission. After all, the current mission system represents the deviations from the norm. The factory owner just had their expected shipment pirated in route, and it'll take two weeks to get another one through normal channels, which means they'll miss their deadline. Mr. "Family Values" is up for re-election, and booking a normal transport wouldn't be clandestine enough. The company lawyer needs to be at her destination by 17:00 UTC to close a deal, and there's nobody going in that direction. 17:01 simply won't cut it.

2: The Grind

A: Progression Rate

Firstly, when I speak about progression, I am referring to normal and natural progression... None of this "Quince" nonsense. Exploits should not be the selling point of a game.

First and foremost, a note to clarify exactly why some people feel the game is too slow paced, and others too fast. Take my 109 hours of game time. In this time, using a mixture of an exploit (apparently inefficiently as some have stated), one community goal, and traditional mission board grinding, I managed to get a Beluga... For some, this almost too short a time required to get a Beluga. Here's the reasoning why: 109 hours, on its own, isn't that long. One could knock that out in 2 or 3 weeks if they REALLY wanted to. For people who have that much time to devout to this game, this is completely reasonable for them to think this amount of progression is too fast. I would normally be inclined to agree, that 3 weeks is too short for getting such a nice ship.

... However, not everybody has that much time to devout to one game. As I've stated above about IRL mission timers, I do NOT have a ton of free time. For some, 109 hours means about 3 weeks... For me however... That meant ONE YEAR. I have been playing this game since last September when I first built a PC capable of handling this game, and while I have not focused on this game as much as I could have even with my limited free time, the point still stands that game hours equates to free time, and some people don't have very much of it... And for those kinds of people, unfortunately, games like this have end game content that is boarderline out of reach... I hope this can put into context why the progression feels slow to some players, but fast to others.

Perhaps if I had focused on this game to the point of detriment, derelicting my social and outdoor life, my responsibilities to work in my training, my physical fitness, and even ignoring other forms of media to the farthest point I would ever could without losing my mind, and playing this to the point of burnout (sans exploits), maybe I could've gotten that down to 2 or 3 months... And this is without rebuys, insurance, or literally any upgrades.

... This is why the progression feels slow to me. If you want to progress fast enough to ever actually SEE end game content, you have to give up a lot... I dunno... Maybe I really am becoming a casual... Now that I've moved out and have a life, I guess video games just aren't worth it... I guess that's not really elite dangerous' fault... But there are at least a few things they could do to make things a little bit easier on those with lives... Like those stupid IRL mission timers.

The grind is unreal in this game. I know a lot of people think me impatient, and I rather have been with this game… Normally I’m not though. Does anybody here play World of Tanks?

World of Tanks is one of the grindiest games out there. Yet I rarely find myself thinking it’s “too slow”. I’ve been playing for 5 years now, and still have yet to get a tier 10. This is because the game offers satisfying gameplay to hold your attention. You’re in a battle, you’re not concerned about the next tank. And if you ever find yourself pining for some rapid developments, simply find a tank line you haven’t started yet, and see how far you can get down the tech tree in a night.

Similarly, in slow strategy games like Stellaris, I play it at the slowest pace possible. This is because it’s a complex games with dozens of little decisions you can make very turn. It may be a slow game, but you don’t notice because it keeps your brain occupied with evolving problems.

… Elite dangerous doesn’t really do that... Or at least, not constantly… It DOES have some satisfying gameplay in it… But a lot of it is designed to be around other game-play that is repetitive that it actually becomes mind numbing after too much of it… Which is bad.

THAT’S when a game’s slow progression suddenly comes to the forefront of your mind. When you’re not making continuous decisions, your mind is allowed to wander… Wander to what you’re working for. You become obsessed with getting to the ship you want… And suddenly the slow progression is overbearing.

A game can have progression this slow… But it needs to occupy your mind with other things… One thing is the gameplay, which as I criticized earlier, is severely lacking in this game. So there are 2 solutions one could take. The first is to simply add better gameplay, or at least, other things to occupy your thoughts. I’d PREFER this. For those of you who keep replying to me, specifically about my thoughts on possibly making progression faster, NO, believe it or not, I would actually PREFER it to be slow... But only if the game can occupy your attention with interesting gameplay... Otherwise the progression IS the gameplay... And if the progression IS the gameplay, then it should be made more palatable.

However, if the devs don’t add this, then the progression system itself BECOMES the core gameplay mechanic… I think they know that… I think they know this game lacks the content it desperately needs. I think they know the grind is the biggest reason anybody plays this game, and as such, they want to stretch that out as long as possible to keep players playing… And now it’s such a slow progression system, that it’s unrewarding. A good game needs short term, mid term, and long term goals to be interesting to people… And this game feels like it has very few short term goals, and MANY long term goals. This seems to be the crux of why so many get frustrated with the slow progression of this game.

Given the time limits the game devs put on missions, I would be willing to bet the game devs perhaps designed this game’s progression rate to be “fair” for those who play it pretty much constantly.

1 month to complete a trip to the core, for example, does actually seem like a reasonable goal for someone who CAN play this game for hours a day, every day… By that same metric, it’s also reasonable for that same player to say, get the endgame ship they want in about a year (no exploits).

… But like I said, this metric is based on someone who can afford to play this game for several hours a day, days on end… That’s actually a pretty small part of a potential player base that can do that. For people like me… That same progression takes forever… And that’s really off putting… I have a lot of gamer friends who won’t even touch this game because they feel like, right off the bat, the ship they want is way too far out of reach to be worth playing for… This is because they have other games they play, a job, school, friends, a girlfriend, etc… This is MOST PEOPLE… They are who I think the game’s progression system should be calibrated for. And if that means someone who does play this game 5 hours a day, every day, gets their end game ships and upgrades in short order, say, 3 months instead of a year… Who cares? Good for them? Why does it need to be slower than that? I honestly don’t see what’s wrong with people getting to the end a little faster than they do now if they play it so much.

“They’ll get bored and quit” I hear a lot of people say… Really? Even this game has enough content to keep people occupied. Frankly, I think the BEST thing about the endgame would be the ability to explore THE ENTIRE GALAXY looking at whatever weird and fanciful systems you want with zero concern for safety (thanks to you awesome tanky battleship that can handle anything smaller than a black hole’s gravity well). In fact, this was my ultimate goal in this game. I wanted to explore the crap out of it, without having to do so worrying about how I’ll ever make money… But the progression rate almost makes that feel out of reach.

Furthermore, there are even grander endgame goals one could have. It’s not limited to just “getting the ship you want”. In fact that should be a mid term goal, not a long term one.

The long term goals ought to be buying and using multiple ships… Even all of the ships. Or taking more interest in the game’s political factions, picking fights or entire wars just for fun… Right now those feel like… I dunno… Glacial goals...

… Of course this is all unnecessary… So long as the game devs make gameplay more rewarding… if they don’t do that however, they really should at least consider increasing the rate of progression to a more reasonable rate instead.

I have seen some of you make valid points about how it could just as easily be too fast. For example, up to about the first 1 million credits, and all the initial ships, I agree, it IS too fast. There are a ton of smaller ships that I simply haven't played because I went straight from a sidewinder to a viper. This is a valid point. Even with my overly busy lifestyle, I was still able to breeze through these, and skip a lot of them. THIS part of the progression definitely ought to be stretched out more. My points here are more aimed at progression above that point.

... Perhaps a solution that could make both camps happy would be economic multipliers. A player could tailor the economy to the way they like, by setting a personal multiplier of as high as 1.25, or as low as .75. In the .75 scenario, everything costs 25% more, and you earn 25% less. In the 1.25 scenario, you earn 25% more, and everything costs 25% less.

I know many of you probably instantly hate this idea, because it could very quickly be abused in Open Play. Perhaps this could be limited to private play and solo play, with multipliers going away the second you enter open play, that way everyone is on an even playing board there? If it were at least done for solo, it would give players the opportunity to tailor their game's experience to the way they want it. I, as someone with a busy life, could play with a 1.25 multiplier, and feel happier about progressing at a decent rate, despite not playing as often. Meanwhile, people who think the game is too easy, and want a challenge, of which there seems to be many experienced players who feel that way, then they could tailor THEIR experience by setting their multiplier to .75. This could allow them to better enjoy, for example, the initial ships when they first start, or to slow their current pace so they can enjoy it more... This is very similar to old games, which used to give an option of 3 or 4 difficulty levels... I know that's hard to implement in this game... But perhaps that's what's needed to please the most players possible.

As I've said before, there is no traditional progression in this game. Anything you can do in an Anaconda you can do in a Sidewinder. The moment you start thinking, "I'll grind at X until I get Y, and THEN I'll have fun with Z," your ruining the game for yourself. The small ships are GREAT for the player who doesn't have a lot of time on their hands. They're cheap, they're maneuverable as hell in Supercruise, and they're extremely profitable relative to the larger ships. It's the difference between getting enough for ten rebuys from the profits of a single mission, vs. getting one rebuy for five missions.

This is doubly true for a new player. The small ships are idea to experiment with and make your mistakes in.

B: Autopilot

Personally, I wouldn’t mind seeing this game’s progression rate and even its core gameplay remain where it is, if only they provided a more passive method of playing on long stretches... I know that immediately ticks some of you off, like, "why are you even playing to begin with", but please hear me out. Furthermore, if you already have some preplanned response to the "autopilot" idea because you've already heard it a million times before, and already have decided against it... Please read this first, don't just skip to your counterpoint.

My suggestion includes making it optional (not forcing it on you if you don't want to use it), giving players who don't use it a very real advantage, and I have ideas on avoiding it becoming a crutch for noobs.

Furthermore, included is ALREADY a counter argument to the typical response that "this is a simulator" as if lacking autopilot is "realistic".

I’m willing to bet the vast majority of players, or at least a large minority, in this game do what I do… Multitask. When you’re travelling those 25,000 light years, I’d bet most of you have YouTube, or Netflix, or cable, or something of that nature on in the background. Personally, even in my short range gameplay, killing surface generators and assassinating people, I still play it in windowed mode so I can watch YouTube videos off to the side. Even as I write this, I am watching YouTube. My mind races often. I have insomnia because I struggle to turn my brain off. So if I am to do something slow paced and passive, I often feel the urge to do it alongside something else that is equally slow paced or passive, to maximize the use of my time.

I am actually ATTRACTED to slow paced games as a result. One of the reasons why I like playing Kerbal Space Program, for example, is because I can watch my bucket list of YouTube/Netflix content WHILE I progress in a video game I thoroughly enjoy… So… No… I don’t necessarily think this game needs to change its pace.

… The problem is I often find it frustrating to even so much as multitask in this game. Long flights are some of the most MENIAL things I’ve ever witnessed in a video game… And to be quite honest, the most menial aspects of a video game DESERVE to be automated.

Why? Why does making 100 jumps in a row require this much attention? It’s not entertaining, it’s just repetitive. I’m not saying it doesn’t use up brain power, it absolutely does… But it’s brain power that’s being wasted. It’s so menial that by the end of it, it’s given you a headache, you feel like you need to lie down for a while… And for what?... Jumps?... Really?... JUMPS? They AREN’T interesting to do. They’re interesting to look at, sure, pretty stars, etc, but they don’t deserve that much attention. You SHOULD be saving your energy and concentration for when hell breaks loose. The ship can fly itself for all I care, I don’t want to even touch the controls unless I absolutely have to… Such as when I get interdicted.

In the meantime, I’d rather watch a YouTube Video. I have issues doing that even now, because you jump basically every 10-20 seconds. Unless you take the time to point your ship away from a primary, and leave the game to change what video you’re watching or something, you have a pretty small window to do that. You have to actively fly the ship for the most part. And don’t even get me started on trying to read something like an article or book on these long trips… And you land with your face in a star, and if you’re not paying attention, at full throttle. That’s another thing too, why can’t we come in tangential to the star? You can still drop just as close to the primary, there’s zero reason to have your ship land pointed right at it. Are you just trying to troll players who get distracted by something? What if the phone rings mid-jump or something, and they forget to throttle down before they leave the keyboard? Crap like that seems unnecessary, and only serves to annoy.

Menial chores should have the ability of being automated out of games. Consider this, one of the failings of VR FPS simulators is how to handle reloads… It’s a simulator with motion controllers, so the immediate idea is to add in realistic reloading, involving grabbing a new magazine, shoving it into the slot, pulling the bolt back, and THEN shooting. This is fine and dandy and all, when it works, if you’re actually interested in full realism… However, if you’re just trying to have fun shooting in VR… This can actually detract from gameplay. It’s JARRING to be suddenly taken out of the action to handle some stupid menial task that has, for decades, been handled automatically in gaming by pressing a button.

It gets even weirder when you think about that example outside of VR gaming… Imagine having to handle ammo use in a game like GTAV for example. Imagine having to press a button to drop a mag, another button to grab another one and put it in, another one to pull the bolt back, etc… Now imagine you don’t have infinite magazines. Imagine if you have more bullets than magazines to hold them. How about magazines you shoot half of, reload, and have to come back to later when you’re running out of ammo… Now you’re loading in half empty magazines… THAT would be realistic… It would also be menial and obnoxious. That’s the kind of crap that deserves to be automated, so the player can better focus on the more interesting parts of the game.

Now here’s the kicker about all this. In this example, The one thing that can be said about having to reload manually, and manage ammo like that, is that it’s realistic. That’s its biggest defense, and it’s the only reason one might want to have it in a video game… Now... Is it realistic to fly a multi million dollar spaceship with ZERO automated flight methods?...

… Hell NO. Seriously?

If you are going to tout this game as a “simulator”, with all the “realism” that implies, then I’m sorry bud, but spaceships are some of the most automated things on (and off) the planet. I’m not sure Alan Shepard ever even touched the manual flight controls on his suborbital flight. Even simpler and more commercially available craft like, say, the Boeing 747 that you can fly in FSX or XPlane 11 have autopilots (because they’re simulating a real aircraft) that can quite easily handle maintaining altitude and heading for a 10 hour flight, and even basic maneuvers… And if you're going to tout this game as a "simulator" that includes REALISTIC distances and travel times, then they should be at least afforded the option of a REALISTIC way of handling it.

Are you going to call any flight sim player that’s training to be an actual pilot that avails themselves of that autopilot function “a lazy boi who just wants the game to play itself?” No… Probably not… And if you are, then you’re an idiot. The autopilot’s job is to maintain the course, and handle simple maneuvers. This is GOOD for the pilot, as it means they can free themselves of that menial, MIND NUMBING task of flying in straight lines for 10 hours to focus on more important things… Such manually landing at the destination, or taking control and flying manually if an emergency occurs.

Thus, I don’t think it’s any way, shape, or form, valid to state that anybody who wants an autopilot in this game is just someone who can’t handle the fact that it’s a “simulator” and “wants the game to play itself”... No… They just want to focus on the not-so-mind-numbing portions of the game. They want to save their attention for situations that actually deserve it. It’s not unreasonable to ask that such a feature be implemented. This way, a player can relax on long flights, and only play when their input is really needed, such as during combat and interdictions.

Now that that’s out of the way, I want to talk about HOW such a feature should be implemented.

First of all, it shouldn’t take over too much. Obviously, the player would be pointless if their entire craft were basically just an NPC, effectively farming missions for them. Thus, here is what I think, AT MOST, an autopilot should handle:

1: Jumps
2: Navigating around the primary
3: Fuel scooping when fuel levels hit 25%
4: Avoiding temperatures exceeding 80% of max (so your autopilot doesn’t fly you into a star… In other words, it has to be not stupid)
5: Automatically scanning for objects upon entering a system, if a scanner is equipped
6: If something interesting is noticed, notify the player… Notifications could be customized, if a player is looking for something specific, such as water worlds and earth-likes, or perhaps even notifications of points of interest left behind by previous explorers
7: Notify the pilot if an emergency occurs, such as interdiction, so they immediately reclaim control to handle the situation.
8: Though I don’t think it’s entirely necessary, it could also include automated flight between stations, planets, and ground bases while in supercruise.

Second of all, I do think these autopilots need a catch.

Namely, that catch should be that it’s a physical item in the game. There should be an optional module slot. Like the planetary approach suite, it should be it’s own slot. It should be size 1 for all, like scanners are. It should take up mass and power, should cost credits, and should be non-standard to spacecraft.

This also adds in a new gameplay mechanic. If you just want basic jump navigation, then you could get a 1E autopilot. If you want it to auto fuel scoop, auto scan, navigate in-system at supercruise, and do your g laundry for you, then you can get a 1A. The downside of getting a better autopilot is that it costs a lot, and will eat up more mass and power… So you have to weigh your options on how much you really want automated flight, and to what degree.

Furthermore, if you wanted to forgo the autopilot system, but still want that kind of functionality, then there could be even more options for multi crew ships. Instead of having an autopilot, you could instead hire a copilot, and order him to handle more menial flight for you… Some of this type of gameplay is already in the game, in the form of NPCs who will fight your mother ship for you while you hop in a fighter. This crew member could also have the added benefit of fighting interdictions. They would of course, cost money to hire, but the better the crew member you get, the better they are at fighting interdictions.

My point is, there’s a lot of options for new gameplay here. Personally, I’d be happy if all they did was add in autopilot for jumps, and that’s it. The advantage of forgoing ANY of this is that you don’t have to pay some sleezy NPC your hard earned credits, and you don’t have to eat into your mass and power consumption. There’s a very real benefit to manual flight, and the game can reward players for that. Personally, I’d probably only ever use auto piloting on just any trip over 100 light years.

Some of you have pointed out a concern that the autopilot would become a crutch for noob players, and prevent them from ever learning how to play properly. I agree with this concern, and it's one I MEANT to address in the original edit of this post.

While it is a concern, it shouldn't preclude the mere existence of autopilot, as there are easy solutions to this problem. If we operate under the assumption that this is an in-game item that can be bought or sold, then the solution is simple: make it prohibitively expensive for new players. Like I said before, this should be a non-standard feature. That slot on ships should remain empty when a player first buys it. The cost for a 1E autopilot could be, say, 1 million credits... And a 1A, and everything in-between, obviously, scale in price. Thus, a player doesn't earn the right to delegate the task of flight until AFTER they have become proficient at it. At that point, it's their choice, not their crutch to rely on. And the crew choice wouldn't even be available until a player purchases a multi-crew ship.

this is very similar to the docking computer. IT can be used as a crutch by some players... But in my personal experience, by the time I even learned that it exists, let alone what it does or how to use it... I was already proficient at docking, and still never use it.

A lot of people seem to think I recommend autopilot as if it's a feature that would be forced on them... It's like a word they immediately have a "NO" response lined up for. Here's a thought, if you don't want to use an autopilot on your 25,000 light year mission because you think the "don't crash, scan, jump again" mini game is so fascinating, then hey, DON'T USE IT. All I'm advocating for here is an option for people who don't find that particularly interesting.

Here's my chief objection to an autopilot as you describe. You can stick a penny in your keyboard, plot an economical 10kly route, and you don't even need to be at your computer anymore. Want to go to Colonia? Start the trip before you go to work, jam that penny into your ADS button, and when you get home, you'll be there with millions of credits worth of exploration data. I have seen stuff like this happen in WAY too many games.

There's way too much automation and "get rich quick" schemes in this game as it is. Want to get to Elite in exploration in an evening? Here's the list! Want to get to Elite in trading with no risk, and all reward? We've got a site for that!

C: Entertainment

SPEAKING of multitasking, like I said previously, I know a lot of people are like me, and watch YouTube or Netflix while they’re playing this game… I’m sure many also listen to audio books, music, or podcasts… And for good reason, this game is basically a space trucking simulator. It’s one of the reasons people like it… It’s one of the reasons I like it…

… That’s why I think Elite Dangerous devs should USE THAT to their advantage. They should make it easier for people to enjoy other forms of media while they are playing.

There’s a spot of unused UI space to the upper right in the cockpit… I think a multimedia player should go there. I think it should have the ability to detect MP3s and MP4s stored on the player’s hard drive, and play them. I think it should also have the ability to connect to the player’s internet connection, so the player can search google, play youtube videos, and watch netflix, or use spotify, all INSIDE the game. No need for windowed mode, or multiple monitors, etc. It could actually be really immersive, it could be done up like you’re using GalNet while you’re surfing the web or something. When combined with the autopilot system, people who go on really long trips in this game could treat it like a proper road trip or airline flight. Just relax and enjoy the movie, while the stars of every shape and size go by… Personally, I think that sounds really relaxing, and would make super long trips less off-putting.

Also, this could actually be an insanely useful tool to more hardcore players. This game does require a lot of on the web research, and if you want the most bang for your buck, a lot of third party websites too... Now imagine how much more streamline things would be if you could just access rougey's or alien ruin maps, RIGHT THERE ON YOUR UI, without EVER having to use your phone, or play in windowed mode, or on two monitors, or by alt-tabbing. Imagine being able to access the game's wiki IN THE GAME. This game has a real problem with new players struggling to learn about features because the information isn't always there in the game, but rather on websites. This could immediately solve that.

Again, I see people replying "well I like being on the edge of my seat, not distracted by YouTube, I don't know how anybody could ever play like that"... To which I say, AGAIN, then DON'T USE IT. Again, it's just an option for those who want something else to listen to or watch on long trips, or even to do game related research.... Personally however, I wouldn't be surprised if you started using it to jam out and check rougey's literally the day it would be added.

You do realize that you're telling the Dev Team that their game is so boring, you want them to them to waste their time adding a media player to the game, right?

I also loved this line, "This game does require a lot of on the web research, and if you want the most bang for your buck, a lot of third party websites too... "

[voice=announcer]Why play the game by developing your own skills, learning new game mechanics, and having fun? Just turn off your brain, and let our algorithms and bots do your playing for you! Just sit back and watch Neflix. We've got you covered! Sure, it'll take you three times as long vs someone who knows how to actually play the game, but at least you can catch the next season of Game of Thrones![/voice]

As much as I like these third-party sites for offline reference, they're great for figuring out the price of tea at Azaban city, in the game I've always relied on the skills I've developed, and the tools the game actually provides. I can make three cargo runs winging it, at 900 credits/ton of profit per trip, in the time it takes to research and run a 1200 credits/ton trip via those websites.

D: VR:

This media system would be even more ideally suited for VR. I have an oculus rift… But I don’t use it for this game. I don’t even play this game in full screen anymore. It’s all because I enjoy playing this game to the tune of other media.

I recently tried to get that experience of watching a youtube video IN elite dangerous, while in VR… It would’ve been immersive if it hadn’t been so obnoxious.

The problem is, if you want to do this, you have to use a 3rd party overlay to make it work. There are desktop overlays that exist for this purpose… But the ones I found don’t really work with Oculus because of the way ED draws directly to the VR goggles, rather than through steam, even when in steam VR mode… Vive works with it though… Guess that’s what I get for going for a VR system that costs half as much.

I did however find an application called “Hello V” that is practically made for VR games like Elite Dangerous. It’s adds a little widget in game that you can open up, and has media apps on it.

… It sucks. It’s a fantastic idea, but there’s no settings for it that I’ve found to change key bindings, so Elite Dangerous and Hello V both constantly get confused about which one you’re trying to control. I’ll be spinning out of control when I’m trying to change videos, and minimize the video when I’m just trying to change power settings on the ship. And the app insists on using either an XBox controller or touch controllers to fully control where the panels go, and which ones are up… And at that point, with a joystick, keyboard and mouse, touch controllers, game pad, NONE of which you can see btw… It turns into a management nightmare that finally made me just give up on the idea, and go back to playing windowed non-VR.

… All of which wouldn’t be a problem if Elite Dangerous had their own method of playing media while in-game.

These last 2 ideas aren’t entirely necessary, but they’d be really nice touches that would make Elite Dangerous a more enjoyable experience for many players. I know I’m not the only one who’d like this for VR, in my research for something like this, I found tons of people trying to get these overlays and apps to work specifically for Elite Dangerous.

Adding in ways to play other media in game during the dullest moments would alleviate a lot of frustrations people have about progression. How can you get mad about how slow the progression is when it’s so comforting to watch Laser Cops and Space Taxi with stars going by in the background? You’ll get there when you get there, and for now, it’s a relaxing experience.

Reading this again, I still get the feeling that we're playing very different games. I'm playing a fun, usually fast-paced space sim where I sometimes don't turn on the TV for days because I don't need a distraction from the game, and this was before I got a VR headset. Even on a simple cargo run, I'm trying to keep track of many different things at once, primarily because I'm also trying to accomplish many different things at once.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to end this here. Laundry's done, and I'd like to get at least an hour of Elite: Dangerous tonight before bed. I'm getting very close to adding a Type-9 to my stable of ships. Because it shares quite a few core modules types with the Anaconda, I can use it to get the 'Conda's modules ready, and then use it in CGs until I can afford the actual Hull.

Over a dozen engineered and A-specced ships in my stable, my two largest being a Type-7 blockade runner and my Python. Just shy of 100 million credits in the bank. 500 hours logged in to THIS commander since my last reset just before release. I've never ground, always had fun, never watched Netflix, and spent way too much time on unprofitable activities like Buckyball Racing, conducting surface surveys after Horizons released, or just fooling around.

Others may disagree, but personally I think I'm doing something right.

I may or may not reply to the rest of the your book. Tomorrow's another busy day at work and afterwards, and I need me some Elite time.

 

[CMDR Pugwash]

Others may disagree, but personally I think I'm doing something right.

Nope, if you're having fun, you're doing it right. +1

 

[Old Duck]

OK, I'm now on a device that makes replying to this post easier. Let's break this apart.

I very much enjoyed your reply, and I feel a bit more enlightened / educated regarding why certain things are the way they are (particularly concerning BGS). Whether or not OP appreciates your insight, I do, so thanks for that.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

OK, I'm now on a device that makes replying to this post easier. Let's break this apart.



Which is part of the problem. These really SHOULD'VE been threads in their own right. You would've gotten much better feedback. Most people are put off by novella length forum posts.

<snip>



This complaint stems from the fact that there is no traditional progression in this game. There's no leveling up. There's no skill trees to progress down. Reputation ebbs and flows, and the "Elite" ranks are effectively meaningless. Once you reach a certain point in the game, you have multiple ships, plus modules for those ships, so there is very little point of showing ONLY those missions you qualify for. You could very easily want to take a lucrative contract that requires only swapping out a single module in your ship to take it, or swapping ships. Hiding missions that you don't qualify for at this time means you could easily miss out on a high-paying mission, a mission providing valuable materials for engineering, one that better suits your long term plans.

Which brings us to background sim play, which a lot of players enjoy, and many consider the true game within the game. In BGS play, frequently the effects of the mission on a faction are the true reward, not the credits (which are a bonus.) If you stumble upon a system on the verge of outbreak, it is well worth your while to outsource 4 tons of biowaste, even if it's simply a "newbie mission," so you can make a killing on delivering medicines.

It is also very difficult to judge the difficulty of any particular mission, because ships can vary so much. An unarmed blockade runner, piloted by a Commander who's logged hundreds of hours in THAT particular ship, can easily be less at risk from NPCs than a similar combat ranked Commander who only has 40 hours in the entire game from grinding Quince, and has never flown their ship before today.



There is absolutely no requirement to take a mission to go exploring. In fact, it's often better NOT to take a mission, and explore at your own pace. The money you may get from a long-range sight seeing mission is tithe of what you'll make from simply exploring. Furthermore, bringing juicy exploration data on an unclaimed Earth-like world is a GREAT way to boost your standing with who you're selling the data to. That's usually my strategy when moving to a new theatre of operations. Take a week to explore, and use the data to get instantly allied with the station owners.

As for whether your standing with a major faction in general should matter to a minor faction...

Look at it from their view point. You've just breezed into the system. The Governor doesn't know you from Adam, and you're a member of the Pilot's Federation, so your allegiance is suspect. Far too many "loyal sons and daughters" turned out to be anything but, switching sides once they'd gotten what they wanted. Until you've built up a relationship with them, they really don't have any good reason to trust you right off the bat, and plenty of reasons not to. Heck, they're doing you a favor by not blowing you out of the sky when you arrived.

Personally, I would like to see more internal divisions in the major factions outside of Power Play. There is no reason why two Federation factions in a system should play nice with each other, and IMO it would make the game much more interesting. Whether it is friendly rivalry, or a centuries old feud, it would add a lot more character to various factions beyond their allegiance and their government type.



I understand your complaint, but the reality is that you're playing an online game where the evolving galaxy is a major attraction, not a single player-game where the Universe is paused when you save your game. Failure has just as much effect as success on the BGS, and its unreasonable for a time critical mission to be put on pause if you can't complete it during a game session.



This is a good idea, as long as it takes time for your customized mission to appear. Not saying that you can't do anything while its generating, but its quite unreasonable to expect to dock at a station small station, and there just happens to be eight CEOs, six starlets, a politician, and his mistress, all of whom just ALL happen to to show up to the dock heading to your destination. Oh, and they happen to be bringing exactly 96 tons of personal effects with them.

Nor should you expect the same rewards as a standard mission. After all, the current mission system represents the deviations from the norm. The factory owner just had their expected shipment pirated in route, and it'll take two weeks to get another one through normal channels, which means they'll miss their deadline. Mr. "Family Values" is up for re-election, and booking a normal transport wouldn't be clandestine enough. The company lawyer needs to be at her destination by 17:00 UTC to close a deal, and there's nobody going in that direction. 17:01 simply won't cut it.



As I've said before, there is no traditional progression in this game. Anything you can do in an Anaconda you can do in a Sidewinder. The moment you start thinking, "I'll grind at X until I get Y, and THEN I'll have fun with Z," your ruining the game for yourself. The small ships are GREAT for the player who doesn't have a lot of time on their hands. They're cheap, they're maneuverable as hell in Supercruise, and they're extremely profitable relative to the larger ships. It's the difference between getting enough for ten rebuys from the profits of a single mission, vs. getting one rebuy for five missions.

This is doubly true for a new player. The small ships are idea to experiment with and make your mistakes in.



Here's my chief objection to an autopilot as you describe. You can stick a penny in your keyboard, plot an economical 10kly route, and you don't even need to be at your computer anymore. Want to go to Colonia? Start the trip before you go to work, jam that penny into your ADS button, and when you get home, you'll be there with millions of credits worth of exploration data. I have seen stuff like this happen in WAY too many games.

There's way too much automation and "get rich quick" schemes in this game as it is. Want to get to Elite in exploration in an evening? Here's the list! Want to get to Elite in trading with no risk, and all reward? We've got a site for that!



You do realize that you're telling the Dev Team that their game is so boring, you want them to them to waste their time adding a media player to the game, right?

I also loved this line, "This game does require a lot of on the web research, and if you want the most bang for your buck, a lot of third party websites too... "

[voice=announcer]Why play the game by developing your own skills, learning new game mechanics, and having fun? Just turn off your brain, and let our algorithms and bots do your playing for you! Just sit back and watch Neflix. We've got you covered! Sure, it'll take you three times as long vs someone who knows how to actually play the game, but at least you can catch the next season of Game of Thrones![/voice]

As much as I like these third-party sites for offline reference, they're great for figuring out the price of tea at Azaban city, in the game I've always relied on the skills I've developed, and the tools the game actually provides. I can make three cargo runs winging it, at 900 credits/ton of profit per trip, in the time it takes to research and run a 1200 credits/ton trip via those websites.



Reading this again, I still get the feeling that we're playing very different games. I'm playing a fun, usually fast-paced space sim where I sometimes don't turn on the TV for days because I don't need a distraction from the game, and this was before I got a VR headset. Even on a simple cargo run, I'm trying to keep track of many different things at once, primarily because I'm also trying to accomplish many different things at once.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to end this here. Laundry's done, and I'd like to get at least an hour of Elite: Dangerous tonight before bed. I'm getting very close to adding a Type-9 to my stable of ships. Because it shares quite a few core modules types with the Anaconda, I can use it to get the 'Conda's modules ready, and then use it in CGs until I can afford the actual Hull.

Over a dozen engineered and A-specced ships in my stable, my two largest being a Type-7 blockade runner and my Python. Just shy of 100 million credits in the bank. 500 hours logged in to THIS commander since my last reset just before release. I've never ground, always had fun, never watched Netflix, and spent way too much time on unprofitable activities like Buckyball Racing, conducting surface surveys after Horizons released, or just fooling around.

Others may disagree, but personally I think I'm doing something right.

I may or may not reply to the rest of the your book. Tomorrow's another busy day at work and afterwards, and I need me some Elite time.

Reputation and Ranks wouldn't be meaningless if FDev follow through with their plans to make them into a form of "currency" that you can spend on various aspects of the game (like you currently can in relation to Weapon Special Effects). Using Engineer Rank to "call in a favour" so as to make minor tweaks to upgrades, or to get materials returned to you if you trash an upgrade, or to purchase upgrades "off the shelf". Calling in favours with Factions to gain early access to Engineers, or to haggle over mission rewards, or to get tip offs......just to name a few of the most obvious uses.

 

[Robin of Spiritwood]

It really is a bit difficult to justify the absence of autopilots in Elite when we are on the cusp of self driving cars.

 

[Sasquatch_Punter]

This isn't some run and gun "I'll just respawn if I die" 60 hour shooter game, this is an "eating the elephant one bite at a time over 10 years" game.

LOL

I know this goes way back to the first page, but I really think the forumites here need to lay this argument to rest. The elephant, if it was ever an elephant, is emaciated and, in a lot of parts, broken. Nobody's gonna sit around a skeleton picking at their teeth for 10 years; there needs to be enough to maintain people's interest and the updates need to be big and expansive enough to keep them coming back. You don't ascribe longevity to a game "because that's the pace the devs set for development", you ascribe it because that's how much staying power the goddamn thing has, and in ED's case the player count speaks for itself.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

It really is a bit difficult to justify the absence of autopilots in Elite when we are on the cusp of self driving cars.

Gameplay trumps realism IMHO.

 

[V'larr]

in the game I've always relied on the skills I've developed, and the tools the game actually provides. I can make three cargo runs winging it, at 900 credits/ton of profit per trip, in the time it takes to research and run a 1200 credits/ton trip via those websites.

Wait, only 900 cr/t round trip? And you think 1200/ton is a good route?

Dear me, what are you doing wrong? I can easily find 3500/t+ routes, not using community goals and not using Imperial Slaves (my personal roleplay reasons), and also find upwards of 4500/t if you are into the short-term-opportunities of Medical Diagnostic Equipment. (Short term, because there's nowhere in the galaxy with a high enough stock of the things.)

Also, the reason I use third party tools for trade is because the ingame ones aren't just useless, they're not even just bad, they're actually completely misleading and have never, in my experience, accurately indicated the presence of a profitable trade route. It's one of the things I imagine Fdev will be focusing on post-2.4.

 

[Pyrobee]

Yes!!! I'm with you. I'd like to see gravity wells have an increased effect making us plot an optimal course through the system. That would make a cat and mouse chase strategic and fun. F.U.N. (that's how you spell fun, with a challenge)

They used to and then got nerfed because people wanted to fly in straight lines.

 

[WR3ND]

Gameplay trumps realism IMHO.

Besides...

Spoiler

 

[Hat Man]

They used to and then got nerfed because people wanted to fly in straight lines.

I could see that happening. And that would be an example of a change that benefits one group's gameplay, but detracts from another... Which is just as bad as not making the change at all.

I've been noticing a lot of people who take the exact opposite stance that I have on subjects like automation, and they typically have some pretty compelling points, namely that if FTL travel simply involved the pilot more, then there wouldn't even be a need for automation, as it would be an interesting experience in its own right. Initially, while I agreed, I couldn't really see any possibilities for that kind of gameplay that could be implemented in a way that made logical sense in the ED universe, or didn't just annoy the player even further.

... Since then however, I've thought it over, and I have a few ideas on gameplay that might work. It builds on the "escape vector" problem when being interdicted. Since that's already in the game, it sets a pecedent that we can draw comparisons to, and see if similar problems can be applied elsewhere to interstellar flight.

Part of this concept involves giving the player control over how involved they are in these navigation problems, using a risk/reward system. This way, a player could choose to play passively, but at a much slower speed, or instead actively participate in the navigation, challenge themselves, take risks, and be ultimately rewarded by arriving at their destination far sooner. This gives both schools of thought on the subject an option.

When I get back home from work later tonight, I'll add another section to the OP under the autopilot section with further details on these ideas. I'll also quote that section in a reply for those who don't want to go back and find it in the OP.

 

[Soon(TM)]

Couldn't read it all, made my eyes hurt.

You have some good suggestions and some bad.

Pretty much like all other forum members, except your post was 10x longer than most.

 

[Scotsman84]

Nice honest review..

1. The game is not a finished article.. Still a work in progress. Your comments about the rebuy and being able to sell other assets i.e other ships is already in the pipeline.. ( as I am sure many other things also are)

2. Servers.. What servers? This is a p2p based game i.e when you and your friend meet you are connecting directly to each other. Granted though the instancing does need a lot of work and is very frustrating at times.

3. I hate to say it but the golden rule in ED.. If you can't afford the insurance.. Do not fly it.

If you haven't already.. Join a PowerPlay faction and you will (like I did) find a wholeeee new side to the game

Regards,

Scotsman84 (1472 hrs in and still hooked )

 

[NorMonsta]

I agree fully, and this is how I plan to approach this game from now on.

However, in the OP, I went in depth after this story to explain why I focused on grinding, and why the gameplay is unsatisfying.

To sum it up for that point in particular, ultimately, for me, I wish to explore the ED universe... But it makes no monetary sense for me to do so, as any tourist missions, for example, that go out that far, I cannot complete before the timers on them end. In fact, there are many missions I often fail because of the timers interfering with my day to day life, which limits me to just a few kinds I can reliably complete. A lot of the boredom stems from those kinds of gameplay limitation. There are other aspects of this game that seem to actively discourage exploration, despite that being one of this game's biggest selling points.

you dont need the passenger missions to make exploring pay, I recently got 90 mill plus for a week and two weekends play time( more admittedly than you claim to have though i do work full time and have a to run a house etc) The good thing about this however is there are no time limits on it.....just get out there and scan at your own pace and cash up when you want to come back...the better news..no one demands you buy them new undies when your x quillion LY from any station.
like a lot of the suggestions you have made, dont hold out for too many changes however ( and also having MAAAJOOOR connectivity issues for the last month)

 

[Valorin]

First, I didn't read it all, but what I saw was at least meant as constructive criticism, which can't be wrong in my opinion.

I think though, the viewpoint is not correct. Your post sounds like a review for an open world mmo, and if Elite was one, I guess you would be right (in my opinion) about a few points, but it isn't. Elite is at its core a Space Sim game. Since this was an almost forgotten genre until it was brought back to life 2 years ago or so. As somebody already said before me: It's about vehicles in space in a believable and to some point realistic way, even on the expense of convenience. For example exploration: yes, more content would be awesome, but this content can't be random cool things in the middle of nowhere only to entertain us. And the fact that it's a real drag to get to the center of the galaxy is completely how it should be. If it wasn't, we'd lose the whole feeling of how big the galaxy is. At this point it is not supposed to be an exciting gameplay experience all by itself, but about being that pilot yourself, perhaps watching a series while traveling, or whatever. It's the journey which is exciting, the endeavor. That's basically exploration in a space sim game.

Same goes for the "grind" and progress... Progress is something that happens on the way. It is supposed to take a long time, that's why it's a sim, not an arcade game or mmo. It's not designed to satisfy the Instant-Gratification-Monkey in us.

I never grinded in Elite and I own many ships, including a fully outfitted Anaconda. When I started the game I just didn't expect to have all that stuff within a month or two, no matter how much I'd play, but just played the game.

It's similar for the Engineer stuff. All those modern games, especially mmos, seemed to have trained people for thinking it's all about the high end gear. In a sim, it's simply not realistic that all engineered stuff has the same stats, and expecting that your ship is one of the few that gets the best of the best on the first 10 or 20 tries is not realistic, and, even more important: you don't need it. You want it, you DEMAND it, perhaps you feel entitled to have it, and perhaps you are a bit jealous that others have it, but you don't need it and that should be okay. That's sim for you. Variables, different outcomes, a more realistic picture on expense of giving all people the same stuff.

Yes, I also think some mechanics could be more interesting, and I am sure things will be added in order to entertain us more, but it will happen in a space sim kind of way, not by adding content that feeds that impatient monkey.

- end of rant -

 

[WR3ND]

...

I think you're being a little overly optimistic, but in general, I agree with the sentiment, or at least insofar as what sort of game I would like this to be.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

I could see that happening. And that would be an example of a change that benefits one group's gameplay, but detracts from another... Which is just as bad as not making the change at all.

I've been noticing a lot of people who take the exact opposite stance that I have on subjects like automation, and they typically have some pretty compelling points, namely that if FTL travel simply involved the pilot more, then there wouldn't even be a need for automation, as it would be an interesting experience in its own right. Initially, while I agreed, I couldn't really see any possibilities for that kind of gameplay that could be implemented in a way that made logical sense in the ED universe, or didn't just annoy the player even further.

... Since then however, I've thought it over, and I have a few ideas on gameplay that might work. It builds on the "escape vector" problem when being interdicted. Since that's already in the game, it sets a pecedent that we can draw comparisons to, and see if similar problems can be applied elsewhere to interstellar flight.

Part of this concept involves giving the player control over how involved they are in these navigation problems, using a risk/reward system. This way, a player could choose to play passively, but at a much slower speed, or instead actively participate in the navigation, challenge themselves, take risks, and be ultimately rewarded by arriving at their destination far sooner. This gives both schools of thought on the subject an option.

When I get back home from work later tonight, I'll add another section to the OP under the autopilot section with further details on these ideas. I'll also quote that section in a reply for those who don't want to go back and find it in the OP.

For me Supercruise is generally interactive already, sure there could be more to it. But what most people do is set the throttle to 70% and watch some TV, then get annoyed when they get interdicted and say that the ship appeared out of nowhere. Or maybe they where just not paying attention.

I have never done that, I always have the throttle on max, try to steer around gravity wells and constantly scanning new contacts (ships) that turn up, so I know whats out there and don't get surprised. Could it have more, it sure could. I would love to be able to look at the local news on longer SC journeys, so I can see whats going on and they need to make that news a bit more intersting, maybe even get possible mission pointers out of it. But really most supercruise flights are as interesting as you make them. Obviously the ones that are over 100,000ls away can get boring, hence the reason why i would like to have something in-game to do, like the local news etc.

Obviously when out exploring, that is a different matter and unfortunatly there isn't that much you can do.

 

[Darkfyre99]

Wait, only 900 cr/t round trip? And you think 1200/ton is a good route?

Dear me, what are you doing wrong? I can easily find 3500/t+ routes, not using community goals and not using Imperial Slaves (my personal roleplay reasons), and also find upwards of 4500/t if you are into the short-term-opportunities of Medical Diagnostic Equipment. (Short term, because there's nowhere in the galaxy with a high enough stock of the things.)

Also, the reason I use third party tools for trade is because the ingame ones aren't just useless, they're not even just bad, they're actually completely misleading and have never, in my experience, accurately indicated the presence of a profitable trade route. It's one of the things I imagine Fdev will be focusing on post-2.4.

I was talking about vagabond trading, ABA trade loops. In other words, I'm traveling from A to B for some reason, and my cargo hold isn't full. My apologies for not being clear. If you're familiar enough with how trading works, the profit you get is similar enough to what those sites provide, that what you may lose in gross profit per ton, you make up in sheer volume of trades. Not to mention that I find uncertainty to be fun. The thrill of victory or the agony of defeat is much more stimulating than dull inevitability.

Faction state trading is a different matter, and IMO the in game tools are superior to those sites, because the use information direct from Frontier's servers. Those sites rely on data mining provided by players using third party software, which means their databases won't update until a player physically.

What those sites excel at is finding profitable routes using information the game intentionally keeps from you unless you actually visit a station, because that's the way the setting works. Information travels fastest aboard ships,* and most of the Pilots' Federation's power is derived having a near monopoly on information flow through Human space. In a lot of ways, the Pilots' Federation is like Comstar, only instead of a religious cabal dedicated to uniting all of Humanity under their thumb, the Pilots' Federation is a criminal cabal dedicated squeezing as much profit from Humanity as they can. So the Pilots' Federation deliberately suppresses market information, because it's easier to take advantage of someone if they don't know what stuff is really worth.

___________________
*Ignoring telepresence, which is a nonsensical explanation for a game play compromise in the light if all other game mechanics and other aspects of the game's setting. If you have high bandwidth, low latency FTL communications, data delivery missions shouldn't be a thing, there is no need to physically crew any ship, including combat ships, there should be no need to hand deliver bounties, combat bonds, and exploration data, and the Pilots' Federation would be finished as a galactic power.

 

[Old Duck]

It really is a bit difficult to justify the absence of autopilots in Elite when we are on the cusp of self driving cars.

We do have an autopilot / self-driving ship. We can dismiss our ship to go up into orbit, and then later recall it, and it will find a nice place to land in uneven terrain against the forces of gravity all by itself.

However we have to manually keep our SC destination centered for n-number of boring minutes until the computer tells us we can push the little button to exit SC. Believe me, I've been down this road before (link)...

 

[Thatchinho]

It really is a bit difficult to justify the absence of autopilots in Elite when we are on the cusp of self driving cars.

Except there are autopilots in Elite.

Examples:
- Flight Assist
- Dismiss/Recall ship when in SRV
- Flying an SLF without crew

The above are all pretty simple tasks though. When it comes to anything more sophisticated, it's worth bearing in mind that AIs are banned in-game.