A Message To Elite Dangerous Developers

[Vasco Sapien]

Hello all.

I have taken many criticisms about the WAY I wrote this OP into consideration. I fully understand it's a long read, and even put a disclaimer in the OP about this. I do not expect you to read it if you do not want to. Generic TL;DR comments aren't exactly helpful. However, a few of you have honestly made some good points about how it could be better formatted or written, and I will be editing it to include such suggestions. These are valid criticisms, as a good argument can be undermined by bad writing, and even those who agree with me on a lot of points seem to think it could have been better made.

Firstly, a few of you have suggested that I add a table of contents. This makes good sense, and I will be adding one. The OP is essentially about 2 dozen topics, all of which could have INDIVIDUALLY been made into their own threads, so having this would better allow people to skip to the parts they are most interested in, and at least read those, even if they aren't interested in reading its entirety.

Secondly, some have requested better formatting such as titles... I HAVE included a format, with titles and bullet points. However, this is still a valid criticism, as these do not pop out. One would still have to read the OP in its entirety to even notice such titles. As such, I will play around with the formatting options this forum provides to make them easier to spot.

Thirdly... the story about the Beluga was clearly a horrible idea. I know how it comes off, and even stated in the OP that I'm fully aware these were my own stupid mistakes. However, since it is the FIRST thing people read in this OP, for those who aren't willing to read it's entirety, especially based on how the first 10% reads, then it is fully understandable a significant number of posters would simply assume it's a rebuy rant... My original intention with making it the introduction was to give people context for my frustration prior to my suggestions, and honestly, for comedic effect... It is a very silly situation, as one reply stated, "like watching scientists be idiots in horror movies". However, it seems this entire idea has utterly backfired, as people seem to think the "don't buy if you can't afford rebuy" point isn't already well apparent to me.

I should not have put my proper argument behind this rant, as it makes it more inaccessible to people. Thus, I will remove it from the OP entirely, and give only a very short summary of it in the "Ship Recovery" portion of my critique, near the very bottom. I may decide to quote it in a reply, for those who want the context of the previous 8 pages of replies.

Doing this should help people to more quickly get into the meat of the critiques and suggestions, which is the better part of the OP.

Furthermore, I plan on adding a few things here and there that I forgot to mention that would have already addressed some of the replies I've recieved. However, that's for new readers. For brevity's sakes, I will reply to people who made such replies individually, so as not to waste their time with a partly rewritten OP.

I honestly think the Elite Dangerous game for you, your passion, your interest is this forum and writing, editing, maintaining and formatting mega posts.
You know the forum is free and the game cost you money. So in hindsight you might have saved yourself some money.

 

[Deleted member 115407]

/thread

I got past the point where you straight up lost your ship of your own accord and realised the phrase "wall of text" has been heavily misused until now.

TL;DR

> OP grinds up money for Beluga
> OP flies Beluga without rebuy; in fact, a mostly stock Beluga without rebuy
> OP takes an illicit passenger, knowing the risk of dying if scanned
> OP gets scanned
> RIP OP.

You even admit you knew exactly what you were getting into. You made a dumb decision, took a risk, and lost.

Shoulda bought an Orca...

Phew! The way this thread was going yesterday I thought I was the odd man out.

Just wanted to chip in and say thanks to Hat Man for the feedback. I've just got into the office so will be spending a while going through the OP and the subsequent replies to put together some points from the discussion. There's a lot of text in the OP, but please refrain from attacking that if you're not interested in the discussion points. I urged this feedback be posted (and/or PM'd to me) and I'm glad that it was posted because hopefully it sparks some interesting discussion. Let's keep it civil and constructive, if only to make it easier for me to gather feedback and counter-points from you all. Thaaaaaanks!

Dale, a lot of people (me included) have posted the same or similar concerns as the OP. But there is nothing nonconstructive about ribbing the OP over what appears to be the impetus for his post.

From what I've read from his post (and his previous), this all stemmed from OP not managing his own risk effectively. He bought an Asp, decided that the next step up for him was, of all things, a Beluga, and grinded until he got one. I assume he didn't bother having enough money to upgrade it, and based on his post I also assume that he took no time learning how to fly it, and he certainly didn't have enough in the bank to cover the rebuy. He then proceeded to take one of the riskiest missions (because one scan and you're dead) and promptly got himself blowed up.......and it's the game that's all jacked up.

Don't get me wrong - I'm all for rage-quit posts. You get frustrated with a game and it's understandable. Natural even. I'm also for the community offering to help people out when frustrated players post them.

But for the community to coddle the OP and dismiss the circumstances that directly led to his two frustrated posts does neither the OP nor the game any good.

OP hosed himself by shooting for the biggest, shiniest ship without being able to cover the whole cost. He then risked that ship unnecessarily and boom, consequences. Had OP shot for an Orca or a Dolphin, he would be happily cruising around the bubble right now and we likely would have never heard from him.

 

[Vasco Sapien]

Phew! The way this thread was going yesterday I thought I was the odd man out.



Dale, a lot of people (me included) have posted the same or similar concerns as the OP. But there is nothing nonconstructive about ribbing the OP over what appears to be the impetus for his post.

From what I've read from his post (and his previous), this all stemmed from OP not managing his own risk effectively. He bought an Asp, decided that the next step up for him was, of all things, a Beluga, and grinded until he got one. I assume he didn't bother having enough money to upgrade it, and based on his post I also assume that he took no time learning how to fly it, and he certainly didn't have enough in the bank to cover the rebuy. He then proceeded to take one of the riskiest missions (because one scan and you're dead) and promptly got himself blowed up.......and it's the game that's all jacked up.

Don't get me wrong - I'm all for rage-quit posts. You get frustrated with a game and it's understandable. Natural even. I'm also for the community offering to help people out when frustrated players post them.

But for the community to coddle the OP and dismiss the circumstances that directly led to his two frustrated posts does neither the OP nor the game any good.

OP hosed himself by shooting for the biggest, shiniest ship without being able to cover the whole cost. He then risked that ship unnecessarily and boom, consequences. Had OP shot for an Orca or a Dolphin, he would be happily cruising around the bubble right now and we likely would have never heard from him.

100% agree

 

[JonLuis69]

The bit I don't get, at all, is why you would choose a criminal passenger mission with no rebuy.

Darwin award level decision making from a clearly intelligent and thoughtful person.

I am perplexed by this aspect.

The op is full of good stuff though, so...

Do the road to riches in a cobra for a few hours, maybe trade some rares first.

 

[Watcher]

Well I certainly agree about mission timers in a general sense.
I think most of them should be based on in game time rather than real world time - then everyone gets the same consistent limit. This does present some interesting dev problems with things like faction control of stations and so on but I think these can be managed - it will take a bit of effort but a) it should be okay and b) Presumably they still need to manage these problems for missions with longer duration timers anyway..

I don't mind the mission/passenger system as is BUT I agree it would be great addition to be able to play this the other way around by offering up your services given a route or destination you've specified. I've made the same suggestion myself.
I like the idea of extra modules for entertainment and so on, that could be neat

Not sure about the auto-pilot. I can see an argument both ways but if tied to a module like you say perhaps that is a reasonable way to do it..

I absolutely agree about things to keep you entertained on the longer flights. A media player isn't necessarily my first choice but that makes sense. I'd personal like more things in game to do, not quite sure what those could be but still.. Some 'mini games' - people don't like that word but I'm sure there are things we could do. Little bits of ships maintenance to provide a slight bonus over stock. Some sort of decryption game to get more out of some of those data scans? Keeping up with your contacts to get useful information about things? Hmm..

I tend to disagree about progression speed, I don't mind things taking time, but that depends how fixated on that one thing you want or want to do. I'm sorry it lead you to a bad experience in the end. I do agree that missions could be more consistently scaled and so on.

Anyway, sensible suggestions all in all
Sorry you had such a bad experience..

 

[Robbie84]

Cannot say much at this... Good post but very hard to reply, made a audiofile and listened to it. 90 minutes (had to adjust some stuff so it isnt too fast, etc...) I can share it with OPs permission

Anyway, add me ingame (see profile below) if you want some help (bounty hunting) getting some phat credits. You deserve them.

 

[Kale Regan]

You do know that you can a Nav Beacon or us an Advanced Discovery Scanner to reveal the last known location of an assassination target and they will spawn a Mission Signal Source with the target in it, right?

 

[Deleted member 115407]

You do know that you can a Nav Beacon or us an Advanced Discovery Scanner to reveal the last known location of an assassination target and they will spawn a Mission Signal Source with the target in it, right?

Wow, that was deep enough in the post that I missed it.

Yeah, OP, you don't have to pull anyone out of supercruise. Just scan the system and it will tell you what body to go find the target at.

 

[Thatchinho]

Hello all.

I have taken many criticisms about the WAY I wrote this OP into consideration. I fully understand it's a long read, and even put a disclaimer in the OP about this. I do not expect you to read it if you do not want to. Generic TL;DR comments aren't exactly helpful. However, a few of you have honestly made some good points about how it could be better formatted or written, and I will be editing it to include such suggestions. These are valid criticisms, as a good argument can be undermined by bad writing, and even those who agree with me on a lot of points seem to think it could have been better made.

Firstly, a few of you have suggested that I add a table of contents. This makes good sense, and I will be adding one. The OP is essentially about 2 dozen topics, all of which could have INDIVIDUALLY been made into their own threads, so having this would better allow people to skip to the parts they are most interested in, and at least read those, even if they aren't interested in reading its entirety.

Secondly, some have requested better formatting such as titles... I HAVE included a format, with titles and bullet points. However, this is still a valid criticism, as these do not pop out. One would still have to read the OP in its entirety to even notice such titles. As such, I will play around with the formatting options this forum provides to make them easier to spot.

Thirdly... the story about the Beluga was clearly a horrible idea. I know how it comes off, and even stated in the OP that I'm fully aware these were my own stupid mistakes. However, since it is the FIRST thing people read in this OP, for those who aren't willing to read it's entirety, especially based on how the first 10% reads, then it is fully understandable a significant number of posters would simply assume it's a rebuy rant... My original intention with making it the introduction was to give people context for my frustration prior to my suggestions, and honestly, for comedic effect... It is a very silly situation, as one reply stated, "like watching scientists be idiots in horror movies". However, it seems this entire idea has utterly backfired, as people seem to think the "don't buy if you can't afford rebuy" point isn't already well apparent to me.

I should not have put my proper argument behind this rant, as it makes it more inaccessible to people. Thus, I will remove it from the OP entirely, and give only a very short summary of it in the "Ship Recovery" portion of my critique, near the very bottom. I may decide to quote it in a reply, for those who want the context of the previous 8 pages of replies.

Doing this should help people to more quickly get into the meat of the critiques and suggestions, which is the better part of the OP.

Furthermore, I plan on adding a few things here and there that I forgot to mention that would have already addressed some of the replies I've recieved. However, that's for new readers. For brevity's sakes, I will reply to people who made such replies individually, so as not to waste their time with a partly rewritten OP.

I thought it was useful context tbh.

Correct me if I'm wrong but if I've understood correctly you don't actually have an issue with the flying without rebuy incident itself but rather with the mechanisms at your disposal for getting the money for the ship in the first place, and your severe disenchantment with having to do it all again when you already unhappy about having had to do it the first time round.

Have I got that correct?

Also, if I might make a suggestion - don't delete the original post. Put it in spoilers. Put a note at the top saying you've updated your post based on feedback from other cmdrs and that the original is in spoilers at the end. Then put the new post in between. Make the note as clear as you can. It'll help avoid some confusion when people come new to thread after your update.

 

[Old Duck]

Don't get me wrong - I'm all for rage-quit posts. You get frustrated with a game and it's understandable. Natural even. I'm also for the community offering to help people out when frustrated players post them.

But for the community to coddle the OP and dismiss the circumstances that directly led to his two frustrated posts does neither the OP nor the game any good.

OP hosed himself by shooting for the biggest, shiniest ship without being able to cover the whole cost. He then risked that ship unnecessarily and boom, consequences. Had OP shot for an Orca or a Dolphin, he would be happily cruising around the bubble right now and we likely would have never heard from him.

You do know that you can a Nav Beacon or us an Advanced Discovery Scanner to reveal the last known location of an assassination target and they will spawn a Mission Signal Source with the target in it, right?

This is one of the things that bothers me with the original post (and subsequent displays of lack-of-knowledge). The poster should have first come on and said, "What am I doing wrong?" instead of saying "This is everything that Elite: Dangerous does wrong!"

That said, I've probably done the same thing at least once, so I don't want to shame the OP away from the game and the forum, but it would be nice to see him back away from rewriting the game his way until he understands the game as it currently is, a lesson I myself have had to learn (and continue to learn).

 

[Deleted member 115407]

This is one of the things that bothers me with the original post (and subsequent displays of lack-of-knowledge). The poster should have first come on and said, "What am I doing wrong?" instead of saying "This is everything that Elite: Dangerous does wrong!"

That said, I've probably done the same thing at least once, so I don't want to shame the OP away from the game and the forum, but it would be nice to see him back away from rewriting the game his way until he understands the game as it currently is, a lesson I myself have had to learn (and continue to learn).

Very well said +1

 

[Andrej]

This is one of the things that bothers me with the original post (and subsequent displays of lack-of-knowledge). The poster should have first come on and said, "What am I doing wrong?" instead of saying "This is everything that Elite: Dangerous does wrong!"

That said, I've probably done the same thing at least once, so I don't want to shame the OP away from the game and the forum, but it would be nice to see him back away from rewriting the game his way until he understands the game as it currently is, a lesson I myself have had to learn (and continue to learn).

I don`t believe that it is a OP intention, he already admit that it is a probably not the best idea to tell how he bankrot. OP don`t ask for advice, he writing about how to, in his opinion, make game better, and he have some really interesting ideas.

 

[Zambrick]

Phew! The way this thread was going yesterday I thought I was the odd man out.



Dale, a lot of people (me included) have posted the same or similar concerns as the OP. But there is nothing nonconstructive about ribbing the OP over what appears to be the impetus for his post.

From what I've read from his post (and his previous), this all stemmed from OP not managing his own risk effectively. He bought an Asp, decided that the next step up for him was, of all things, a Beluga, and grinded until he got one. I assume he didn't bother having enough money to upgrade it, and based on his post I also assume that he took no time learning how to fly it, and he certainly didn't have enough in the bank to cover the rebuy. He then proceeded to take one of the riskiest missions (because one scan and you're dead) and promptly got himself blowed up.......and it's the game that's all jacked up.

Don't get me wrong - I'm all for rage-quit posts. You get frustrated with a game and it's understandable. Natural even. I'm also for the community offering to help people out when frustrated players post them.

But for the community to coddle the OP and dismiss the circumstances that directly led to his two frustrated posts does neither the OP nor the game any good.

OP hosed himself by shooting for the biggest, shiniest ship without being able to cover the whole cost. He then risked that ship unnecessarily and boom, consequences. Had OP shot for an Orca or a Dolphin, he would be happily cruising around the bubble right now and we likely would have never heard from him.

Thats the point of the whole post if you had actually read it. Instead you got to the final straw portion of the OP and stopped.

If you havent actually read it, then your opinion really doesnt matter.

The point of the OP was not the fact that he lost the Beluga. Its the fact that the amount and type of activities required to afford said ship, is beyond boring, tedious, and only actually attainable by people who play many many hours a day or cheat. The entire game is based upon an artificially created and extended grind. Some people have a job so they dont want to come home and hop right back into another job.

So basically the only "successful" players are players who have gotten rich using exploits or players that have 2000 plus hours into the game. That is not open for debate, its a simple fact of the game.

The people who dont want to cheat or spend 2000 just to make the game accessible have lives outside of this game so the 2000 hour commitment is never possible. The vast majority of the games content is unavailable to your average game player. Right now a large portion is only available to people who have a bunch of free time and are also the vast minority of the player base.

I dont know why I bother, you will just reply with some odious blowhard attempt at proving your unparalleled superiority compared to anybody else. Your next move will be to prove the OP wrong when the OP has nothing to be wrong about, as the OP was providing his experiences and suggestions/ideas as to why the game is so unapproachable to new players.

 

[SushiCW]

IMHO a couple of the problems with Elite that OP is describing (at least in the first chapter) can be summed up thusly:


The game has a *really* sharp risk curve, where you can go from A-OK to dead in far less time than anyone expects. And the game doesn't do a good job of communicating your risk level, so it comes as a really rude shock. This is compounded by the fact that what's at risk (without players having a good idea of the risk level) is often dozens or hundreds of hours of "work."

IMHO, one thing that would really help is to have Trouble come in the form of downward spirals, where bad situations tend to get worse but as they snowball you can fight them and maybe turn things around by making increasingly desperate gambits. It's not that you make the game less dangerous, exactly... you just make the danger less precipitous. Instead of being "no real risk" 99% of the time and "crap I'm dead" 1% of the time, it should be easier to get into trouble, but take longer for that trouble to turn into final death.

One reason the passenger scans are annoying is that in 9/10 approaches to a station, nobody scans you at all. Apparently the size / prominence of your ship affects this but it's *not well communicated by the game*. There's generally no indication that you're in danger of being scanned until the scan begins, and by then it's likely too late to do anything. Even something as simple as NPC chatter along the lines of "Security Bob to Control, I'm moving in to range to scan MyShipName" would help and give you a bit more warning.

Another principle that would help is this: Trouble should, for the most part, mean "making hard choices" or "the stakes get raised" rather than Instant Death. I don't have time to talk about this more but this idea is really well explored in the tabletop RPG space, and I think it really applies to Elite as well. Google "hard moves vs soft moves" for some discussion about it. You get to death eventually but going straight there is basically never fun, and if someone is doing something that really warrants risking it, it needs to be very well communicated.

 

[yodajedifishmaster]

i support the op in making a long thoughtful post. sadly i have not had time to more than scan it. what i have read sounds like thoughtful suggestions, constructive criticism.

i cannot agree to an autopilot. you already have one in sc - point and throttle to blue, and leave it. it will manage your speed. it doesnt need to change direction. if you need to course correct it or if an autopilot needs to, then you should be at the controls.
were FD to retrofit all ships in an update with autopilot as separate module i would pull it from EVERY ship. autopilot should automatically lose you the interdiction game WITH NO EXCEPTIONS. using an autopilot when someone attacks you should shave off seconds or minutes of your survival time to wake or turn and fight. in short, autopilot is as near a death sentence as you could get.

others have suggested being able to jump INSTEAD of supercruise. apart from removing combat of all kinds unless you go to a combat one from the game, such an idea is very similar to the autopilot concept excepting the fact it would mean you never need anything in way of shields, armor or weapons. just cargo space and a DC. jump into system. jump to target station, dc on. hell, why not just have an office on earth and tell ships where to go, and have a contract system to carry cargo run from the mission board? whats the point in having a spaceship, if you do not even need to fly it? that is one of the basic things this game is about, flying the damn ship.

i can empathise with the rebuy situation. i have also run that risk but that was before engineers dropped. i was able to do cg and finish the build of my asp ex spirit of discovery, as an armed trader like the cobra i sold but with more cargo.

 

[Old Duck]

The people who dont want to cheat or spend 2000 just to make the game accessible have lives outside of this game so the 2000 hour commitment is never possible. The vast majority of the games content is unavailable to your average game player. Right now a large portion is only available to people who have a bunch of free time and are also the vast minority of the player base.

Some of us, maybe just one of us, like it this way. I've been playing for months (PS4), and I only just was able to buy my first Orca. It may be months more before I can afford a Conda, and I don't know if I'll ever be able to own a Corvette.. For me, it's not the destination, it's the journey. I'm getting way more hours, enjoyable hours, out of this game over the long haul than I would have if I was given an [insert dream ship] on my second week of gameplay.

That's not to say that we don't need more compelling missions and game mechanics. I just don't want my "Credits for nothin, and my ships for free."

 

[Zambrick]

This is one of the things that bothers me with the original post (and subsequent displays of lack-of-knowledge). The poster should have first come on and said, "What am I doing wrong?" instead of saying "This is everything that Elite: Dangerous does wrong!"

That said, I've probably done the same thing at least once, so I don't want to shame the OP away from the game and the forum, but it would be nice to see him back away from rewriting the game his way until he understands the game as it currently is, a lesson I myself have had to learn (and continue to learn).

Yeah and when it comes to making ED fun and engaging, Elite Dangerous most definatly does it wrong. EDs current philosophy is as follow.

If it takes 300 hours or more then its fun. Thats where this entire game operates thus far and is lacking because of it. That is the only space in which you can play this game. It offers nothing more at this point than the fact that more time equals more fun. Which is categorically and unabashedly wrong.

The game is not done so I am fine with it. However the mere fact that the OP took the time to make the thread shows how much he likes the game and how much he wants to continue to play it. It has everything in the game to make it fun. It has all the tools it needs to make it fun. However they dont use those tools and rely on the crutch that time = fun. I know that they know this. They have made games that are much more rewarding. I would say that 2 of EDs predicesors was more engaging than this one is right now. Planet Coaster is amazing, fun, engaging, and provides you a feeling of accomplishment. ED is amazing, engaging, sometimes fun, and punishes you more often than provides a sense of accomplishment.

Its like going to work at a job that you love, but instead of getting a paycheck so you can survive, you have to pay your employer money. So you have to get a second crappy job that you hate, in order to pay for the job that you love. That is exactly what ED is like currently. We shall see what the Thargoids do, but whatever it is it must change the entire paradigm of the game. If it doesnt, then I see no end of this time=fun philosophy in the future.

 

[Deleted member 115407]

Thats the point of the whole post if you had actually read it. Instead you got to the final straw portion of the OP and stopped.

If you havent actually read it, then your opinion really doesnt matter.

The point of the OP was not the fact that he lost the Beluga. Its the fact that the amount and type of activities required to afford said ship, is beyond boring, tedious, and only actually attainable by people who play many many hours a day or cheat. The entire game is based upon an artificially created and extended grind. Some people have a job so they dont want to come home and hop right back into another job.

So basically the only "successful" players are players who have gotten rich using exploits or players that have 2000 plus hours into the game. That is not open for debate, its a simple fact of the game.

The people who dont want to cheat or spend 2000 just to make the game accessible have lives outside of this game so the 2000 hour commitment is never possible. The vast majority of the games content is unavailable to your average game player. Right now a large portion is only available to people who have a bunch of free time and are also the vast minority of the player base.

I dont know why I bother, you will just reply with some odious blowhard attempt at proving your unparalleled superiority compared to anybody else. Your next move will be to prove the OP wrong when the OP has nothing to be wrong about, as the OP was providing his experiences and suggestions/ideas as to why the game is so unapproachable to new players.

Ah Zambrick! Allow me to to provide you with counterpoint that will prove my unparalleled superiority to anyone else!

As I mentioned earlier in the post, my wingmate has been playing since just before 2.3 dropped. He maybe has 100 or 200 hours in game. Actually, I need to ask him. I can tell you that it's not much though.

Guy has never been to quince, never killed skimmers or stacked massacres. No, he mined and ran missions and CGs in a Cobra and T-6 until he could afford an Asp with plenty of rebuys to spare, then took that biznatch exploring one day, and just returned from an 11k Ly round trip, and is sitting one something like 250M in cash.

Your position, that the only way to make money in this game is to either cheat or grind endlessly, is false.

Your position that the game is unapproachable to new players isn't way off, but frankly it's part of the charm of the game. The wingmate I spoke of above had two very experienced wingmates to show him the ropes and get him off on a good start. And while a lot of fun can be had in the discovery phase, the discovery phase can be incredibly frustrating as well for folks who have no tutelage.

That being said... even without tutelage, once I got out of the sidey I never flew without rebuy.

(Also, people kill people and always will. If we do make it to space someday, there will be no utopia and the killing will continue.)

 

[Zambrick]

Some of us, maybe just one of us, like it this way. I've been playing for months (PS4), and I only just was able to buy my first Orca. It may be months more before I can afford a Conda, and I don't know if I'll ever be able to own a Corvette.. For me, it's not the destination, it's the journey. I'm getting way more hours, enjoyable hours, out of this game over the long haul than I would have if I was given an [insert dream ship] on my second week of gameplay.

That's not to say that we don't need more compelling missions and game mechanics. I just don't want my "Credits for nothin, and my ships for free."

That is again FDEVs fault. The in game currency only has a few things to use it on.

For example if you want to make your ship look cool and unique. You have to spend real money, not your credits. Thats their fault. Paint Jobs and suits real money. Thats also a decision they made.

The buying. maintaining. and upgrading of ships is the only thing that makes credits have any sort of value. Its like having the worlds most demanding Tomagotchi or pet rock. Its like buying a 100,000 dollar sports car but you cant drive it because each disposable tire you need for the car is 1.2 million dollars each. The game actually punishes its players. While that is fun for a bit, people like myself who have been here for 3 years or more are starting to burn out. The game has soooo much potential and they dont want to see it wasted.

So I do understand that some time does make you appreciate what you have, however if you spend nothing but time just to attain what you dont have, then you will forever be unfulfilled. That leaves a hollow feeling unfortunately. Nobody likes to work for free. People especailly dont like to pay someone else so they can work.

 

[metascrawl]

Ah Zambrick! Allow me to to provide you with counterpoint that will prove my unparalleled superiority to anyone else!

As I mentioned earlier in the post, my wingmate has been playing since just before 2.3 dropped. He maybe has 100 or 200 hours in game. Actually, I need to ask him. I can tell you that it's not much though.

Guy has never been to quince, never killed skimmers or stacked massacres. No, he mined and ran missions and CGs in a Cobra and T-6 until he could afford an Asp with plenty of rebuys to spare, then took that biznatch exploring one day, and just returned from an 11k Ly round trip, and is sitting one something like 250M in cash.

Your position, that the only way to make money in this game is to either cheat or grind endlessly, is false.

Your position that the game is unapproachable to new players isn't way off, but frankly it's part of the charm of the game. The wingmate I spoke of above had two very experienced wingmates to show him the ropes and get him off on a good start. And while a lot of fun can be had in the discovery phase, the discovery phase can be incredibly frustrating as well for folks who have no tutelage.

That being said... even without tutelage, once I got out of the sidey I never flew without rebuy.

(Also, people kill people and always will. If we do make it to space someday, there will be no utopia and the killing will continue.)

I'm not doing quite so well as your friend, but I've been playing for around 360 hours - many of them tootling around not trying to make a penny. I have maybe 350 million total assets including an engineered Python, plus an FAS and a couple of others. There's really nothing I can't do in my Python, so the game content feels 100% accessible to me. Hell, it felt that way 150 hours earlier when I only had an Asp for missions and a Vulture for combat. 2000 hours is indeed a wild exaggeration.