Horizons After over thirty years of computer gaming.......

[Max Qarnac]

After over thirty years of computer gaming this is the first time i have felt strongly enough about some game issues to make a forum post about it. I have worked in test roles and in management for a well know uk computer games publisher in the past.

Missions. Today i found a mission offering 88 credits reward. Are you kiddng me? That wont even cover the cost of the fuel. Also it seems to me that the large majority of missions will give you a criminal record. The ONLY reason i can see to do any misson is for ranking up with a faction, they are not fun and they are not rewarding. Before horizons i could fairly reliably pick up a misson giving a high reputation gain, usually a pirate hunt. With the new mission tables they have become rare and i find myself only doing transport missons for a medium reputation gain. All in all, i have to say i am amazed at the terrible quality and rewards for the missions. I would expect better mission design to come out of a test departement junior on the back of a napkin in his lunch hour.

After getting very frustrated at the terrible misson choice and seemingly endless task of trying to rank up enough to be allowed to buy one of the new large ships i decided to do a bit of my favourite activity, combat zones. I went into a one of the easier combat zones, in twenty minutes i made more money than in the ten previous hours spent doing missions. All was going well and i was enjoying the game again, until the event that made me quit the game and register for this forum happened. I got rammed by a cutter. I was in a A class python, i had 2 rings of shield and 100% hull. My ship instantly exploded, 7.5million credits down the drain. I would have expected to loose all my shields in such a situation but not 100% hull aswell. This is ridiculous.

Elite dangerous is a fantastic technical achievement, but it is a crying shame that such a wonderfull engine is let down so badly by the fact that frontier developments seems incapable of hiring someone competent to work on the game design.

I completed the first elite on the spectrum back in 1984, twice. I did the same on the amiga version. I want to play this game. But its not fun. Even the bits that used to be fun are not fun anymore. Fantastic engine, a masterpiece of programming, but its not a game, its a technology demo looking for a game.

Regards
Maxx

 

[Hagledesperado]

I hate myself for saying so, but you do have a point - or several. Missions weren't anything to write home about to begin with, but now they outright suck. I still play the game, though. But not for the missions, the NPCs, the BGS or anything like that.

I'll probably do the honk-jump-repeat CG this weekend, because, for me, that's about the best gameplay ED has to offer right now. I'm still hopeful that this will improve. Ok, so the Galnet articles in the launcher are old. Hauling snowballs it is, then.

 

[Ian Skippy]

You seem mostly upset about being rammed to death by a ship weighing +-2500t. Even if you both only go 100m/s, thats still a collision speed of over 700 km/hr with +-3500t involved. Ofcourse you're death, what reasonable other outcome could there be? If you want ED to be easier and more arcade-like, thats fine, just say so instead.

 

[Polusk]

If you want ED to be easier and more arcade-like, thats fine, just say so instead.

I don't feel he asks for more easier or arcade gameplay.
Ramming could happens. In fact it happens often, and I'm sure that everybody except explorers far from humankind was rammed in the past.
Ramming is not something that you can always avoid.
Guys who are saying "just look your radar" are just trolling or have a super agility for avoiding comets. Sometimes it just doesn't work.

What OP describes is just an insta-kill that could happen to everybody. Instakill is not a dangerous gameplay, it is not based on your agility or experience or intelligence. It is just unfair in a game. Just remember that it is a game. And rules behind ED are made for a game (respawn etc...)

 

[Sendraks]

The evolution of missions in ED.

Meh ---> not so meh ---->brief moment of them being OP ---> alright ---> looked pretty good in the 1.5 beta ----> back to meh again.

Somewhere, somehow, between 1.5 beta and people posting vids of really worthwhile and interesting smuggling missions, we're back to stuff paying a pittance again.
Wai FD? Wai?

 

[OriginalBadBoy]

Elite dangerous is a fantastic technical achievement, but it is a crying shame that such a wonderfull engine is let down so badly by the fact that frontier developments seems incapable of hiring someone competent to work on the game design.

I completed the first elite on the spectrum back in 1984, twice. I did the same on the amiga version. I want to play this game. But its not fun. Even the bits that used to be fun are not fun anymore. Fantastic engine, a masterpiece of programming, but its not a game, its a technology demo looking for a game.

Regards
Maxx

Sorry but your going to get it from quite a few people now .. Myself included ..

Firstly, we all know the missions system isn't exactly brilliant currently, however compared to the missions in Frontier (of which the text file for the game can fit on a few paragraphs) they are still miles better. For me Frontier was fun when I played it in 1993, that game isn't 'fun' anymore, its actually pretty boring considering all you really do is plot a course and engage autopilot. Combat is practically unworkable, and the bugs .. well lets not go there.

Secondly I think saying that 'frontier developments seems incapable of hiring someone competent to work on the game design' is somewhat rude, and tbh downright wrong considering their track record. Given that you work in the industry (assuming your not a complete liar) I would have thought you would know exactly what it takes to make a video game and maybe show a bit more respect than that.

If you want to be constructive fine, but coming to the forums with that sort of attitude isnt going to win you any friends.

 

[Chainguns]

2 rings and an insta-death from ramming in a larger ship? That needs to be looked at. I often use my Clipper as a battering ram and it takes 2++ boosts to knock out a sidewinder.

Missions are a complete joke. If they didn't have time to do them properly with Horizons then it should have been left to patch 2.1
What is the use of giving us more sand in our sandbox, but even fewer boxes than before. Horizons is a fantastic endeavour but somewhere in the rush to get it out, the 'gameplay' memo got mislaid...

 

[Rankaze]

2 rings and an insta-death from ramming in a larger ship? That needs to be looked at. I often use my Clipper as a battering ram and it takes 2++ boosts to knock out a sidewinder.

Missions are a complete joke. If they didn't have time to do them properly with Horizons then it should have been left to patch 2.1
What is the use of giving us more sand in our sandbox, but even fewer boxes than before. Horizons is a fantastic endeavour but somewhere in the rush to get it out, the 'gameplay' memo got mislaid...

Honestly, I think the missions themselves are a great improvement. The mission INTERFACE needs improvement, however, as currently it neglects to give you crucial data. Also, the rewards definitely need some tweaking.

 

[Flimley]

Missions ?? Don't really do them. But one day they may, just may either make sense or become very interesting.

 

[Hagledesperado]

But one day they may, just may either make sense or become very interesting.

If they could just be made to make sense, they would automatically become much more interesting.

 

[Boff'in]

Well,

I've had dodgy low end computer and no computer plus now a decent computer and noticing I'm at the end of the internet and I get lag spikes because (I guess) peer-to-peer.
So I've avoided combat like the plague.
I've got wife and kids, so I've avoided missions like the plague.

basically my only choice was either to explore, mine or trade.
With all the fixes in a beta or the next version
And to be honest I'd rather do none.

After my brief stint at horizons missions and a few more normal missions with the stackable smuggling missions bug craze of 1.4 I'm fed up with missions that just demand exuberant amounts of playtime.
I'm down right apathetic and grumpy.

And that's not to say I'm jaw dropping/trouser changingly excited and amazed about flying round and landing on planets.
But again its trading in time in the SRV, in order to get....random event.

I'd rather just get back to elite basics, trading and defending my ship.
Sure it's grindy and boring but there is one thing that makes it an extra chore
and it's one of the "hardcore" things that persists
making pen and paper notes of the commodity prices....
That needs the nerf gun. It's one thing when you have a couple of hundred stations in the original. But a one to one recreation of the milky way.....comeon! Get real!


and here's the killer.
The game allows you to purchase trade data, but you can only see where stuff is ferried to and from, (it might be a "leg" of a journey not the end section).
And presumably this is part of the background simulation showing the flow of trade to support the colonies.
It's not a reflection of profit.
nope, you got to fly to a station yourself and make a paper copy.

there are sites outthere that do try to collect in-game data.
these sites produce trading runs. (this is a cheat).
These trading runs could be used by traders and pirates alike....kapeesh?

this is it's own meta game, and Frontier could easily integrate it into the pilots federation (similar to to the stellar cartography).
Not only can you save and bookmark systems, you should be able to sell trade data to a faction/PP/ (Empire/federation)
You should be able to set up navigational way points to show a trade route.
Those trade routes could be bought and sold and a percentage of those involved (factions/PP/Empire federation) who you bought it off take a percentage off your profits.



Now I understanda good trade route, and decent cargo size and some proper hours of grind on an amazing trade route sees you in silly money, and that's probably why Frontier have not implemented this,
but sadly the people who want to do this....ARE doing this already with these external sites.

The joy of making the paper note is so people could piece together their own trade routes and feel proud of them, instead of asking an external site to just generate one out of excel spreadsheet.
But paper notes is too much effort with so many ports and options.

 

[Chainguns]

Honestly, I think the missions themselves are a great improvement. The mission INTERFACE needs improvement, however, as currently it neglects to give you crucial data. Also, the rewards definitely need some tweaking.

1) No indication of whether legal or not
2) Very few combat missions (occasional flurry of assassinations all of which sound illegal)
3) Planet side missions not rewarding extra time, cargo opportunity cost (SRV) and risk (huge negative as it means main motivator to go down and see the new content is just tourism/novelty factor)
4) Rewards not scaling to rank or rep

edit
5) Far far too little variety. Sometime only 3 of same playstyle ... for hours.

 

[Vurt]

Most of my insurance claims have been for sudden impact destruction, and I can only agree, the loss really stings for a while, especially if you lose an expensive ship. But to a certain degree, that's why you keep earning credits. Plus, you've learned something important--your ship is not invulnerable no matter how safe you feel.

My first loss was an asp. I was doing rares runs at the time, with not a whole lot of scratch in the bank, and coming into Ethgreze I get interdicted by an NPC pirate. We go the distance for a while, and then some security ships drop in and help out, whittling the pirate's hull down to the single digits, and he decides to run for it. We all boost after him, and he jumps out. I go to check my contacts panel when boom! Insurance screen. From shields at full rings to dead, just like that. My only hint as to what caused it was the screech of metal on metal that immediately preceded the event. I can only imagine that one of the security vipers "helping out" didn't change trajectory after the pirate jumped out, and we ended up on a collision course. With cargo, that accident probably cost me about 3M CR, which as I had said, was a fair amount of what I had in reserves. I filed a bug report, then spent a week cooling off before returning to the game.

My next claim was for a vulture I had lost RES hunting. After a while it got dark--very dark--and trying to find my way out of the asteroid field saw me colliding with a rock. Totally my fault for not being more patient about it.

My last claim was for a cobra I lost while trying to smuggle some cargo from Ceos to Sothis. Built for speed and little else, I was in no position to take on the federal assault ship that kept interdicting me, so I would boost away whenever he did. Finally I made it to the station, but because of the last interdiction, I was approaching from the station's rear end, and so boosted out a little to try and make a wide sweep and approach from the front. For a split second I saw the FAS pop in directly in front of me and boom, instant fatality. That one stung a bit, because who in their right mind thought it would be fun for ships chasing you to spawn in directly in front of you?!?

I have also had plenty of near misses in CZs with anacondas who keep trying to play baseball with my ship using the length of their own as a bat. They're surprising nimble for their size! So I can certainly confirm that ramming is a common occurrence on the battlefield, and I'm not at all surprised that your own was a fatal one. Take heart, you are not alone in this!

 

[Ian Skippy]

1) No indication of whether legal or not
2) Very few combat missions (occasional flurry of assassinations all of which sound illegal)
3) Planet side missions not rewarding extra time, cargo opportunity cost (SRV) and risk (huge negative as it means main motivator to go down and see the new content is just tourism/novelty factor)
4) Rewards not scaling to rank or rep

edit
5) Far far too little variety. Sometime only 3 of same playstyle ... for hours.

Illegal missions are flagged with a skull or something IIRC.

 

[Ddraig]

Missions. Yeah.
For a non story driven game I find them pretty ok. It´s the reward system that needs to be looked upon.
There is no heavier ship or faster in its class than the Cutter. That amount of mass and shields density ought to pulverize any lesser craft, I see no wrong there.
Sucks that happened one after the other to you though.
Hope you can find its appeal once more.

 

[Max Qarnac]

Secondly I think saying that 'frontier developments seems incapable of hiring someone competent to work on the game design' is somewhat rude, and tbh downright wrong considering their track record. Given that you work in the industry (assuming your not a complete liar) I would have thought you would know exactly what it takes to make a video game and maybe show a bit more respect than that.

I have been out of the industry for a few years now. In my opinion the hardest thing in game production is getting things done on time and on budget, nothing comes close to how hard that is. Another hard one is getting the thing to run and working out all the bugs in the code. Overall game design is very complex. FD have done a fantastic job with all of these.

Writing mission descriptions that give the player enough information to determine if they want to do a mission and what they need to do to complete it is very easy, failure to do this is just lazyness, hence my slightly insulting comment. I honestly feel that i could produce a system of determining mission rewards vs time/risk investment and player rank that would perform better than what we have in less than a days work.

One example of bad missions that i find annoying. Assassination missions, 9/10 assasination missions result in a criminal record and as a law abiding pilot i dont want a criminal record and would never consider doing one. The 1/10 very rare assassination missions that dont give a criminal record are great fun and i take every one i see, but with the more varied missions they now turn up less often than they did before. I think i saw one, in ten hours of doing missions. I am sure many people will feel the same way about this particular mission type. For FD to fix things like this is not a big effort, it would not require any new code, just a change in a few numbers in an already existing data set. Not hard, not time consuming, not expensive.

Regards
Max

 

[tomimt]

I must admit, that the Horizon specific missions seem to suck very hard at the moment. Landing on planets is fun and all, but as far the missions themselves go, only thing I've gained from them is fines. It seems to me, that those planet side missions are more than half baked.

 

[Cmdr Thrudd]

I agree that the missions really need a tweak and I'm sure the devs will look at it as it's current state cant be intentional. I usually spend most of my time alternating between trading and running mission but with how the mission generator is just now I've decided to go exploring for a few weeks to give them time to look into it. It was just too frustrating jumping between stations looking for a mission I'd like to do or worse sitting there for an hour watching youtube and refreshing the list hoping to see one pop up.

 

[KellyR]

You want some good missions? Go to Sothis or Robigo. They pay in the high six figures. Sometimes more than a million. I got a 4 million credit mission last night. Sure, it's smuggling and slaves at that, so you do have to know how to smuggle. And with 2.0, being scanned will cause the mission to fail, but if you know what you are doing you won't get scanned. Oh, you might every once in a great while, but not very often. I now have enough to trade in my A spec asp for a Python although I'm not going to. I'm going to buy the python outright and A spec it as well. And it won't take me any more than 3 weeks to a month to do it.

Note: Sothis and Robigo are way outside the bubble. 350 to 450 light years, but that's what fuel scoops are for.

 

[Infinite Horizons]

Hell, with all the gripes and complaints going on I'd just like to see the missions back the way they were! The pirate missions were great for rep, influence, credits, rank, and combat standing all in one sweet package. By all means put new missions on but please don't reduce the BB. It's not like someones going to stuff them all in their pocket and wonder off to do the lot and be mega ranked and credited in under an hour... but with each to their own there was something for everyone - and you would have thought even more so now.

As far as the rest is concerned it will no doubt be ironed out as time goes on...