"A mile wide but an inch deep."

AlexAndTheDJ

A
A quote I read somewhere about Elite Dangerous which, for me at least, hits the nail on the head. I really want to love this game. But there's just not enough to keep my interest. I pick the game back up for a few days, and already I'm bored with the repetition and seemingly nothing to work towards. No mysteries to solve, no breadcrumbs to follow. Just meaningless grind.

There needs to be something tangible to aim towards, else what's the point? I have enough credits to kit out my Conda, and I could grind for materials to get Guardian tech. But with no breadcrumbs out in the void to follow, there's no need to.

I had heaps of fun chasing the Formidine Rift mystery, even though there was only a small breadcrumb trail to follow, but it gave purpose to my play. Right now, there's no depth, and from how I understand it, no undiscovered content until the devs decide to implement it.

No, I'm not saying E: D needs to change. It is what it is and I will play other games if I am not enjoying Elite. But is it something that E: D devs need to assess at some point? Or will the players be endlessly content with the game the way it is?
 
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dekot

D
At this point in the game's life cycle, I don't think the game is going to change drastically. That said, I don't think the game's problem is a lack of goals. Games like this have always been about setting your own goals. The problem is that the road to attaining your goal is so damn boring and shallow.

One example is bounty hunting. All that consists of is flying around in supercruise looking for wanted ships, you're more of a patrolman. Or you can go to a RES and kill wanted ships that spawn endlessly in the same 10km radius. It's boring. The fighting itself is fun, the goal is fun, but the gameplay is so shallow it's almost impressive. It's like FD had to reject other more involved and complicated systems to arrive at the one we have, like they had to put in actual effort to come up with something so shallow. Other developers could probably come up with something more interesting by accident.

But really, I think the main problem was Star Citizen. It's my own personal conspiracy theory that SC convinced FD that they would lose a huge chunk of their playerbase when that game released. Nobody knew 5 years ago that SC would be stuck in development purgatory for so long. So FD bailed on this game, pulling resources to other games with a more reliable revenue stream. Almost everything we have are so-called "placeholders." FD never moved beyond the simple and shallow gameplay because they surrendered to SC from the very beginning, and who can blame them? That game looked impressive as hell. I think FD is honestly surprised that Elite is still alive and kicking.

But hey, I hear this game is awesome if you have VR.
 

VR jefranklin18

VR jefranklin18
My take on this: if you switch on Elite Dangerous while you're bored and looking to be entertained, the game is not fix that and you are better off doing something else.

ED works better if you have a goal in mind (whether it is completing an expedition on EDSM, creating your own or whatever) but just don't grind the goal because that will also lead to boredom.

dekot said:
But hey, I hear this game is awesome if you have VR.
Click to expand...

Trust me, it is.
 
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Snowymonk

Snowymonk
jefranklin18 said:
My take on this: if you switch on Elite Dangerous while you're bored and looking to be entertained, the game is not fix that and you are better off doing something else.

ED works better if you have a goal in mind (whether it is completing an expedition on EDSM, creating your own or whatever) but just don't grind the goal because that will also lead to boredom.
Click to expand...

This.

+1 rep
 

CMDR Karrde Sun

CMDR Karrde Sun
What to chase is made up by you in this game. That's the beauty of it and canned experiences get seen in a different light after you've gotten used to it.

Reason i replied though is you actually persisted to go see the formadine stuff? There's tonnes more stuff to do just like in the game.

Specifically, while i feel the thargoid stuff is.. never mind.. the 2 major content pieces for that are significant expeditions if you want to do them all. All the people who complain about them only care about the unlocks, and frontier stupidly failed to mention that if you actually went and did the full ram tah missions, you'd have plenty of mats by the end of it to get all the unlocks.. but people just wanted the toys and frontier nerfed the requirements whatever. Look for the currently available 2 ram tah missions. Actually ill help:

https://canonn.science/codex/ram-tahs-mission/?highlight=ram tah mission
https://canonn.science/codex/ram-tah-decrypting-the-guardian-logs/?highlight=ram tah mission

There's also tonnes of audio logs in floating stations and bases which are worth seeing. They're actually good and give story to parts of the lore.

How elite gets interesting is during the middle of all that, you do sandbox stuff.. mining, trading, combat. Finding a ship, finding an outfitting (that works for you!) and testing it has always been super satisfying. Especially since you want to engineer in most cases so off you go again.. the experience of getting the materials becomes an experience itself and spiral away into forever.

For other stuff to explore, look up generation ships + inra settlements all in the above site.
 

Stigbob

Stigbob
Join a player faction and play the BGS, that way the game comes with all sorts of things for you to do when you are not doing your own thing.
 

smiths121

S
dekot said:
At this point in the game's life cycle, I don't think the game is going to change drastically. That said, I don't think the game's problem is a lack of goals. Games like this have always been about setting your own goals. The problem is that the road to attaining your goal is so damn boring and shallow.

One example is bounty hunting. All that consists of is flying around in supercruise looking for wanted ships, you're more of a patrolman. Or you can go to a RES and kill wanted ships that spawn endlessly in the same 10km radius. It's boring. The fighting itself is fun, the goal is fun, but the gameplay is so shallow it's almost impressive. It's like FD had to reject other more involved and complicated systems to arrive at the one we have, like they had to put in actual effort to come up with something so shallow. Other developers could probably come up with something more interesting by accident.

But really, I think the main problem was Star Citizen. It's my own personal conspiracy theory that SC convinced FD that they would lose a huge chunk of their playerbase when that game released. Nobody knew 5 years ago that SC would be stuck in development purgatory for so long. So FD bailed on this game, pulling resources to other games with a more reliable revenue stream. Almost everything we have are so-called "placeholders." FD never moved beyond the simple and shallow gameplay because they surrendered to SC from the very beginning, and who can blame them? That game looked impressive as hell. I think FD is honestly surprised that Elite is still alive and kicking.

But hey, I hear this game is awesome if you have VR.
Click to expand...

Not sure I have ever consider bounty hunting as a goal. Its a mechanical tool like PvP, mining, missions etc - to reach an objective, working towards a goal. If my goal was to Bounty Hunt, I think I would have got bored and gone a long time ago. Instead BGS kept us busy since 1.2. Mind you, a lot of others find it boring, but it does add a lot of purpose to a lot of existing gameplay.

Interesting conspiracy theory for SC, all I appear to be able to manage in thiat is being an Amazon delivery driver. Hoping the new flight model will help with HOTAS in SC, as the current model makes the game dead to me.


OP, what works for me might bore you to death! Last roll of the dice, consider a squadron - try and find one that is not your style of play, as it appears to be boring you. In a squadron other folks can help you get up to speed with your new goals. Otherwise just move on.

Simon
 
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StuartGT

StuartGT
AlexAndTheDJ said:
A quote I read somewhere about Elite Dangerous which, for me at least, hits the nail on the head. I really want to love this game. But there's just not enough to keep my interest. I pick the game back up for a few days, and already I'm bored with the repetition and seemingly nothing to work towards. No mysteries to solve, no breadcrumbs to follow. Just meaningless grind.

There needs to be something tangible to aim towards, else what's the point? I have enough credits to kit out my Conda, and I could grind for materials to get Guardian tech. But with no breadcrumbs out in the void to follow, there's no need to.
Click to expand...
Has Raxxla been found yet? No? Then keep following those breadcrumbs and solve that mystery....

I had heaps of fun chasing the Formidine Rift mystery, even though there was only a small breadcrumb trail to follow, but it gave purpose to my play. Right now, there's no depth, and from how I understand it, no undiscovered content until the devs decide to implement it.
Click to expand...
Depth is "undiscovered content" now? Last time it was building bases, before that it was controlling territory, another time it was game mechanics tying together.

Sometimes I wonder if people actually know what "depth" means to other people, or are just using the word because they can't articulate what they actually want.

Like you OP, why not simply ask:"are there any unsolved mysteries in this game?"
 
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Auronio

Auronio
AlexAndTheDJ said:
A quote I read somewhere about Elite Dangerous which, for me at least, hits the nail on the head. I really want to love this game. But there's just not enough to keep my interest. I pick the game back up for a few days, and already I'm bored with the repetition and seemingly nothing to work towards. No mysteries to solve, no breadcrumbs to follow. Just meaningless grind.

There needs to be something tangible to aim towards, else what's the point? I have enough credits to kit out my Conda, and I could grind for materials to get Guardian tech. But with no breadcrumbs out in the void to follow, there's no need to.

I had heaps of fun chasing the Formidine Rift mystery, even though there was only a small breadcrumb trail to follow, but it gave purpose to my play. Right now, there's no depth, and from how I understand it, no undiscovered content until the devs decide to implement it.

No, I'm not saying E: D needs to change. It is what it is and I will play other games if I am not enjoying Elite. But is it something that E: D devs need to assess at some point? Or will the players be endlessly content with the game the way it is?
Click to expand...

The answer is simple. And you already realized it yourself. If you don't enjoy an activity - don't do it. (No I'm not necessarily talking about y/our workplace/s.)

I was burnt out a little bit in September last year and played for 4 months intensively Destiny 2. Nice game. With story. But now I'm done. Grind for weapons, grind for armour, always repetition of same scenarios and activities. I'm bored.

That's somehow the same here. With regards to base activities and scenarios.
However here I can write my own virtual story. At least in my imagination. I can't do that in Destiny 2.
I have now about 22 weeks of total playing time.
Still haven't covered a lot of activities.

Guardian sites? Not yet.
Long distance exploration? Not yet.
Touched base with Thargs but really got in trouble with them? Nope.
So many things I can and will do.

And the best thing. I can fly my ships. Whenever, wherever I want to get to.
Just load with whatever I think I need and up and through the mailslot into the deep black.
Nothing compares.

With all its weaknesses and bugs - and I'm not trying to white knight talking them down - it's still the best space game.

o7
 
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Winterwalker

Winterwalker
Mile wide inch deep mostly dates back to newb comments early after release iirc. It's a computer game so it's not going to brush your teeth for you but follow clues off a listening post or drop into a distress call USS lately and there are definite narrative arcs developing. It really helps (the sandbox) though imo, if you give meaningless things a meaning of your own, to give the game more depth, while devs are catching up.

A little advice from me, is carry something 'useless'. Chieftain lately I carry a one ton cargo of liquid O2, water, medical diagnostic gear and a ton bootleg liquor I found on a planet. Have been carrying that for months but as it happens earlier got hatchbroken by a Fed Assault Ship in a USS drop. Mind went right off the bounties, it was all about getting my booze back! About 400 credits galactic average, a cargo not worth it except when it is.

Yes I did get it back. o7

Even better, I nailed the FAS too. Cheeky git!
 
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