A Software and UX Engineer perspective of ED Gameplay.

[Drelthar]

Ship interior implementation is the problem, not the UI.

FDev has to have a skip interior option, as otherwise, the only way to skip walking through the interior is to not buy the expansion (or not load it up). That would be a pretty disastrous sales pitch.

They would probably get more sales if walking through interiors was mandatory, and you needed to buy the DLC to be given the option to skip.

I just wish this whole DLC thing would go away so the designers don't need to keep being restricted by having to design in the split between haves and have nots as it compromises the heck out of the expansions.

There's an easy way round this though.

Make sure all ships have an exit very near the cockpit.

Have an animated exit of the ship using the disembark option.

You can do that with Odyssey only.

With interiors expansion, you can also use the other ship entrances, and there's another option to get up, or unstrap or whatever they call it, which gets you out of the seat to do inside your ship things.

Then have a "ingress calculation computer" (or whatever) for docking and force docking with megaships and derelicts, which is like the atmospheric landing suites that give you access to the different planets.

 

[Murfelton]

I just wish this whole DLC thing would go away so the designers don't need to keep being restricted by having to design in the split between haves and have nots as it compromises the heck out of the expansions.

…

(Haven’t any comments about your workaround.)

They need to go with DLCs to get money to pay devs. They have regular sales for the base game, and even gave it away on the Epic store. (I believe that Epic pays developers for those giveaways, so FDev got some cash out of it.) They are a public company, so they can’t just dump resources into Elite without some way of getting paid for it.

The problem with ship interiors as a DLC is that every ship should have one. One of the hoped for gameplay options is boarding - which would cause problems if not everybody has an interior.

 

[Drelthar]

(Haven’t any comments about your workaround.)

They need to go with DLCs to get money to pay devs. They have regular sales for the base game, and even gave it away on the Epic store. (I believe that Epic pays developers for those giveaways, so FDev got some cash out of it.) They are a public company, so they can’t just dump resources into Elite without some way of getting paid for it.

The problem with ship interiors as a DLC is that every ship should have one. One of the hoped for gameplay options is boarding - which would cause problems if not everybody has an interior.

I don't want them to stop selling expansions.

I want the expansions to be required to play all of the game.

I don't want them to care about if that makes not having the expansion in some way "less" so they can just design it without thinking about none expansion stuff.

It's much easier with say, diablo 2.

You buy the expansion, or you can't join the servers using the expansion and can't play the extra levels.

Elite dunt use "levels" and has one universe that is shared no matter what.

I'm not really offering a solution, and I am I suppose mostly saying I just don't care about players without the expansion packs, which is a bit horrible really, but when it causes huge design disconnects it makes me dislike it.

 

[insanephoton]

Oooh you rotten swine you! I was going to offer the young whippersnapper a job, and I would have even gone as far to offer everyone else in the thread a cup of tea and a biscuit.

But now you have gone and done it - blown it for everyone you have - nobody is getting anything, and the OP is certainly not getting a job from me unless he apologizes for your rudeness, and you do the same.

Just out of interest, what sort of biscuits were going to be offered? I am merely asking so that I can gauge the exact level of disappointment I should be feeling.

 

[Pigletslastand]

​

Firstly I want to do a small introduction as I'm new(ish) to the forums. When not playing Elite Dangerous, CSGO or Cyberpunk I find myself spending 8-10 hours a day at my “job” in software development, design and user-experience.
I’ve spent the past 15 years in the field starting from asset and concept art designs for games and game related communities, to switching to commercial software development and UX.

This post does not try to solve any of the problems, but instead takes an approach of opening the communities minds to possibilities.

I hope more than anything this post can be inspiring to the community or at a best case scenario Fdev themselves.

This post for the sake of keeping it to a forum / readable length will generalize at times, so I will group, condense and simplify certain things together.
This post will also not push for or advocate for any features or changes, again it’s more about a fresh perspective and thinking in solutions.

I’ll keep this thread to two initial topics for now, just to see how this is received.

Ship Interiors:​

Might as well start big right?

Problem statement: Fdev made a comment on a recent live stream mentioning that one of the reasons they are not prioritizing ship interiors is they feel they add no meaningful gameplay and the grind of walking through them constantly would get boring fast.

Possible Solution: In truth they are partially right, It will largely get tedious at a certain point for a certain / possible majority of players. Especially if they’re feeling the pressure to do something.

Do not forget current Elite is at its core a game about grinding. So rinsing and repeating a lot of quick and repetitive gameplay where you want to do it as fast as possible. (sorry for the generalizing for explorers and space truckers)

However there are ways to implement ship interiors in a more balanced way.

1. You can assign a setting in your ship panel on what disembark actually means, similar to the setting for what should happen when jumping into a system (de-throttle).
   
   There you can assign to: “Walk around your ship”, “Immediately exit your ship” or “Immediately enter a rested zone”. The last option is for when docking at a station, you will ‘teleport’ to the cafe area of the station so you do not need to walk through the hangar (if not at a station you will simply walk down the stairs).
   
   
2. Disembark automatically gets you into the cockpit, but you can choose to use the stairs or use the doors behind you.
   
   Going behind you will lead you through the ship whereas the stairs will give you that armstrong moment.

The intention here is to offer the flexibility to players to choose how they play, if someone is grinding they can choose for quicker options whereas someone who wants immersion can choose others.

Mission board / Contacts​

On a similar note to the previous topic, one thing I noticed is a certain lack of options for odyssey players while staying in their ship in a station.

If we keep to the same argument about meaningful/tedious gameplay, why must I always leave my ship to see a contact inside the station? Why can i not contact them through the contacts board of a station? Why is there a difference between the mission board on ships and a mission board in person?

Problem statement: How can we ensure a balance between station interiors, mission board and contact access?

We want to make sure a commander feels compelled to do some things that make sense in person. Otherwise station interiors would have no purpose other than immersion.

How can I offer balanced gameplay that suits those doing quick missions / runs to those looking for immersive / expansive gameplay.

Possible Solution: Some things such as handing in bio samples, buying suits and weapons etc makes sense to keep those largely as in person experiences.

Additionally:

1. Illegal missions can only be done in person.
2. Trying to get a better reward from missions can only be done in person.
3. Signing up to conflict zones and taxis make sense when in person.
4. Suit engineering makes sense in person.

However while in a ship i should have the options too:

1. See the same mission board in person and in ship.
2. Handing in none-illegal missions should be done in a ship.
3. Contacting persons on the station through the contacts panel while in the ship should be possible.

Again the reason being is that it allows players to choose the routes they want to take, if i’m choosing for settlement support missions it makes little sense to leave my ship to see the mission board. Likewise if i'm handing in a quest why see the quest giver in person if i don’t need too?

But what we do have, is reasons to still do those things if you want the extra rewards / bargaining power or you want to do multiple things while in the station.

The result tries to be balanced between the various play styles while not trying to remove any of the incentives.

I’m curious about the thoughts you all have!

o7 CMDRS

Very nice, have thought the same myself and said so in other places.. the argument about getting fed up of it taking a long time to board or disembark becomes null and void if you just give us a choice. There are already choices for doing the same thing such as supercruise assist so it would be in keeping with the rest of the game too.

 

[Bottom Hat]

Just out of interest, what sort of biscuits were going to be offered? I am merely asking so that I can gauge the exact level of disappointment I should be feeling.

Maryland cookies. It's quite tragic

 

[the100thmonkey]

The "Armstrong moment" is a flawed concept that is quite illustrative of the flawed understanding and expectations that players have of the game: The feeling of the "Amrstrong moment" comes from its incomparable uniqueness - the effort, ingenuity, sacrifice and historical context from which it was born. It is/was quite literally a moment like no other. Just the idea of it being in a video game robs it of its currency. The second time makes it effectively meaningless. Role-playing stepping on to yet another boring rock (with or without the possibility of there being a few bacterial mats lying around) is an exercise in futility: The player has done nothing meaningful in the game with historic consequences.

I don't think the devs could say that to the community, however, even if someone had actually articulated it in a design meeting.

"I've set foot on an alien world for the first time, and I might as well have just followed through on a fart for all the import it has" is the most charitable way I know to characterise the "Armstrong moment." It's a marketing phrase designed, it seems, to specifically annoy me.

Unless there is a specific, contextually important meaning to the moment of the kind I've mentioned above, "Armstrong moments" are a content-free fleck of a buzzword. You can imagine it being important for such events as being the first person ever to find an active non-human signal source on a landable planet and finding it to be a populated Thargoid base, or an active Construct site, or some new civilisation introduced for the purposes of the game. However, that's only possible as one event for the entire player base.

I guess that's a long way to say that procedural generation is practically antithetical to the "Armstrong moment." I wish everyone would stop talking about it. FD are right to prioritise other aspects of the game; for almost all intents and purposes it's a one-time event.

Contacting persons on the station through the contacts panel while in the ship should be possible.

Agreed. You'd think that in the 34th century people would have some way of contacting others while they are not physically present. It would probably be mobile, because radio waves are a thing, and might even be conceptually similar to a contemporary technology commonly called a "phone." I suggest we call it a "mobile phone." I've just had my first Armstrong moment.

 

[CMDR SJ]

(Haven’t any comments about your workaround.)

They need to go with DLCs to get money to pay devs. They have regular sales for the base game, and even gave it away on the Epic store. (I believe that Epic pays developers for those giveaways, so FDev got some cash out of it.) They are a public company, so they can’t just dump resources into Elite without some way of getting paid for it.

The problem with ship interiors as a DLC is that every ship should have one. One of the hoped for gameplay options is boarding - which would cause problems if not everybody has an interior.

I don't want them to stop selling expansions.

I want the expansions to be required to play all of the game.

I don't want them to care about if that makes not having the expansion in some way "less" so they can just design it without thinking about none expansion stuff.

It's much easier with say, diablo 2.

You buy the expansion, or you can't join the servers using the expansion and can't play the extra levels.

Elite dunt use "levels" and has one universe that is shared no matter what.

I'm not really offering a solution, and I am I suppose mostly saying I just don't care about players without the expansion packs, which is a bit horrible really, but when it causes huge design disconnects it makes me dislike it.

I don't think not having the 'interiors' dlc would actually be a problem to be honest.

Based on elites game design boarding anything other than a capital ship makes little sense, without further changing instancing mechanics and other complexities.
As for example, you could be boarding a vessel and another engineered player comes along and instantly blows up the ship.

Boarding capital ships can (in theory) be done with the same instancing technology they have for Conflict Zones. When a capital ship appears, players can see an option to board it and begin interior gameplay.
Scoping the feature to this type of gameplay means less overhauling initially, allows Fdev to learn, see how players interact with it and be able to iterate on it quickly.

Lets say interiors do get added for all ships: When on salvaging missions for crashed ships, you can only enter the ships if you have the interiors DLC. Again this is an instancing solution, you don't 1-1 see the same thing between players with and without the DLC. if both players are on the same location, they can't see each other as they are instanced differently.

But here lies the thing: it doesn't make sense for this to be a paid DLC on top of a 40eur expansion that is odyssey.

It makes more balanced sense to do fleet carrier and capital ship interiors first for all players with odyssey. This means the initial costs, investment and risk are more inline and manageable. Those who bought the expansion can get more of their moneys worth in gameplay features as well.

When it comes to player ship interiors: For the time being (if we're saying it's an expensive update and needs extra funding), ARK can pay for player ship interiors as an initial cosmetic update to the game.
This means this can be done on a per-ship basis. This also allows the community to vote on which ships should be worked on first and next.
This gives the community a choice and allows Fdev to see how well it is received.

If interiors are a success, they can be trickled down into regular odyssey gameplay. Such as crashed ships for example.

This seems to be a more balanced approach to the subject, where it tries to balance company and community interests.
But there are many other approaches to this, such as keeping interiors too the bridge + a initial hallway + captain quarters for example.


o7 CMDRS