An Ambitious Tech Demo...

OHMSS

OHMSS
x0nkers said:
For comparison, I played Elite for a little over a month, and I feel I experienced the majority of what this game has to offer. I played Eve Online for three years and I still didn’t get to do it all (e.g. I never built nor flew a Titan).
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I installed EVE Online last weekend. A really promising start, what with choosing my empire and building a character. Then I flew my ship and realized I had to point and click my mouse to move. It was incredibly slow and dull. I should probably give it more time as I'm sure there's a good game in there. Anyway I uninstalled and went back to flying my Krait in VR. True story! I feel good that I've shared this with you.
 

Ignition

I
The game is shallow and simplistic.

Waiting since 2014 for this game to take off once and for all.

FD took a whole year to make mining and exploration, we hope they bring true complexity.

Elite is the most uninteractive space game I played.
 

xondk

X
x0nkers said:
I am sure these posts are common but regardless, I wanted to share my thoughts on this ambitious but, in my opinion, very shallow game. I’ve been playing for a little over a month – I bought the game on 31 August and I uninstalled last night, on 8 October. I played a lot – sometimes up to 5 or 6 hours a day – so I was able to accrue a few hundred hours in the game. Here are my thoughts.

Initially the learning curve was steep, primarily due to what I consider to be a terrible UX design. Switching between keyboard only and keyboard + mouse was confusing initially, but throughout the entire Elite experience I was continuously annoyed by an inability to modify the cockpit (i.e. menu) layout and the horrible fitting screen. I can’t save ship templates? Seriously? I need to manually scroll through over a hundred modules again and again just to turn my ship from a fighter to a miner?

I steadily progressed through the different game “modes” (trading, combat, mining), and for the most part I enjoyed the experience. But there were exceptions. Initially I traded, but then I took my first Federal mission to “kill X number of pirates”. So I went and killed lots of “Mission Target” pirates. I didn’t know for sure how many because there is no kill counter (another stupid UX decision). Anyway, I began counting manually, and I kept killing pirates, until I was certain I had killed enough. But the mission still didn’t complete! Eventually after looking on the Internet, it turns out there is a bug that is preventing these mission types from completing. So hours were wasted, I had to abandon the mission, and I just felt… defeated.

Then I went and completed the engineer grind, and this was most of my playtime. Flying around to collect the different requirements was a fun experience, and the noticeable improvements to my Krait added to the enjoyment. Every now and then I’d head to a combat zone and revel in how much more powerful my ship had become. But before long I’d done it – and there were no more engineers left (in the bubble) to unlock, except for the few that had combat experience requirements because I was only at competent, even at the end.

I headed off for Guardian equipment. For hours I grinded in my SRV running around and around collecting blueprints and Guardian mats. Then I unlocked the Guardian shield and FSD boosters. My Krait was basically maxed out at this point, a PVE killing machine.

Finally – exploration. I bought an Anaconda, fitted it, engineered it, and I flew to Maia to collect occupied escape pods from Thargoid interceptor sites. This took… a long time. I think I did maybe 75 sites, to collect the 25 pods. I would just fly in, scoop up the pod, and fly out. I had originally wanted to kill some Thargoids but it clearly needed a new ship (or ages in outfitting for my Krait) and I couldn’t see the point, once I learned on the Internet that the rewards for killing Thargoids were not exciting. Also – why is everyone in the Maia system so chill with all these Thargoids killing people? You can’t fly 10 LS in Maia without running into multiple Thargoid sites, and yet in the station no one seemed to care. This really broke the immersion (for me). There is a full-on alien invasion happening and these dudes are worried about some civil war? Makes no sense.

Eventually I headed out to explore the galaxy, full of anticipation. I bounced from neutron to neutron to reach Colonia. At Colonia, I thought, “is this it?”, and then after unlocking a few of the Colonia engineers I flew to The Center. I loved how the stars got denser as I neared Sagittarius A*, but then, a few jumps out… they all disappeared! I guess this is something to do with the simulation, but at the time I just thought it was a bug. This was a huge let-down for me. There I was in the center of the Galaxy and not a star in sight. Only the uninteresting background texture and the weird blob that was the black hole.

I flew in a random direction for some planet exploration and I found it boring work. I landed on an ice planet and, sadly, I realized that I had reached the end of the game. There was nothing more to do. I boarded my ship, flew the 25k LY back to Eravate and docked. And uninstalled.

Overall, Elite is an ambitious tech demo. It reminds me of Worlds Adrift. The journey is fun, but the destination (the end game) is ultimately disappointing. This is ok for Worlds Adrift – the journey is the point. Elite should be the other way around. The good stuff should be hard to reach. The Thargoids should be on the other side of the galaxy, with massive rewards. The procedural generation of interesting sites on planets should get better the further you are away from the bubble. This would give a sense of difficulty, and ultimately a greater sense of achievement.

For comparison, I played Elite for a little over a month, and I feel I experienced the majority of what this game has to offer. I played Eve Online for three years and I still didn’t get to do it all (e.g. I never built nor flew a Titan).

Here is me, at the end: https://www.edsm.net/en/user/profile/id/64113/cmdr/x0nkers

Thanks all, I am glad Elite exists but I won’t be back unless something major happens. o7
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If elite is a tech demo, I seriously have to ask what qualifies as a game in your book?

Even if you do not enjoy Elite, and how frontier has made it work, that doesn't mean it is a tech demo.

And the claim with EVE online is simply folly, honestly, because you are limited by skills in what you can fly there, so you simply cannot do certain things before you've learned certain skills, but in terms of the mission types and similar, yeah, they are in no way more varied then Elite's missions, and no that's not a jab at Eve, just plain fact, that doesn't mean Eve is bad, it is just a statement.

And honestly, no one is going to enjoy all games, and this isn't meant as "If you don't enjoy it leave" statement, but you should be playing games you enjoy, so go enjoy other games and do come back when you think Elite might be more enjoyable, nothing bad or surprising in that, it is as it should be.
 

RymdLazer

RymdLazer
Ignition said:
The game is shallow and simplistic.

Waiting since 2014 for this game to take off once and for all.

FD took a whole year to make mining and exploration, we hope they bring true complexity.

Elite is the most uninteractive space game I played.
Click to expand...

Poop! You talk butt poop!
Err.. Nonsense! You talk nonsense dear chap.
 

Ian Skippy

Ian Skippy
Ignition said:
Shoot, scoop, wait and jump.

Don't tell me Elite has more interactions than EVE, LOL
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I think you'll find 'click to circle -> click to shoot' is not quite the same as 'fly in 3D with FA off using a HOTAS'. One is infinitely more involved than the other. Now clearly you are shifting goalposts by pretending 'interactive' means 'number of things you can do' without taking into account the nature of the activity. Okay, whatever you feel you need to do to hit your moan quotum. [haha]
 

Lightspeed

Lightspeed
x0nkers said:
I am sure these posts are common but regardless, I wanted to share my thoughts on this ambitious but, in my opinion, very shallow game. I’ve been playing for a little over a month – I bought the game on 31 August and I uninstalled last night, on 8 October. I played a lot – sometimes up to 5 or 6 hours a day – so I was able to accrue a few hundred hours in the game. Here are my thoughts.

Initially the learning curve was steep, primarily due to what I consider to be a terrible UX design. Switching between keyboard only and keyboard + mouse was confusing initially, but throughout the entire Elite experience I was continuously annoyed by an inability to modify the cockpit (i.e. menu) layout and the horrible fitting screen. I can’t save ship templates? Seriously? I need to manually scroll through over a hundred modules again and again just to turn my ship from a fighter to a miner?

I steadily progressed through the different game “modes” (trading, combat, mining), and for the most part I enjoyed the experience. But there were exceptions. Initially I traded, but then I took my first Federal mission to “kill X number of pirates”. So I went and killed lots of “Mission Target” pirates. I didn’t know for sure how many because there is no kill counter (another stupid UX decision). Anyway, I began counting manually, and I kept killing pirates, until I was certain I had killed enough. But the mission still didn’t complete! Eventually after looking on the Internet, it turns out there is a bug that is preventing these mission types from completing. So hours were wasted, I had to abandon the mission, and I just felt… defeated.

Then I went and completed the engineer grind, and this was most of my playtime. Flying around to collect the different requirements was a fun experience, and the noticeable improvements to my Krait added to the enjoyment. Every now and then I’d head to a combat zone and revel in how much more powerful my ship had become. But before long I’d done it – and there were no more engineers left (in the bubble) to unlock, except for the few that had combat experience requirements because I was only at competent, even at the end.

I headed off for Guardian equipment. For hours I grinded in my SRV running around and around collecting blueprints and Guardian mats. Then I unlocked the Guardian shield and FSD boosters. My Krait was basically maxed out at this point, a PVE killing machine.

Finally – exploration. I bought an Anaconda, fitted it, engineered it, and I flew to Maia to collect occupied escape pods from Thargoid interceptor sites. This took… a long time. I think I did maybe 75 sites, to collect the 25 pods. I would just fly in, scoop up the pod, and fly out. I had originally wanted to kill some Thargoids but it clearly needed a new ship (or ages in outfitting for my Krait) and I couldn’t see the point, once I learned on the Internet that the rewards for killing Thargoids were not exciting. Also – why is everyone in the Maia system so chill with all these Thargoids killing people? You can’t fly 10 LS in Maia without running into multiple Thargoid sites, and yet in the station no one seemed to care. This really broke the immersion (for me). There is a full-on alien invasion happening and these dudes are worried about some civil war? Makes no sense.

Eventually I headed out to explore the galaxy, full of anticipation. I bounced from neutron to neutron to reach Colonia. At Colonia, I thought, “is this it?”, and then after unlocking a few of the Colonia engineers I flew to The Center. I loved how the stars got denser as I neared Sagittarius A*, but then, a few jumps out… they all disappeared! I guess this is something to do with the simulation, but at the time I just thought it was a bug. This was a huge let-down for me. There I was in the center of the Galaxy and not a star in sight. Only the uninteresting background texture and the weird blob that was the black hole.

I flew in a random direction for some planet exploration and I found it boring work. I landed on an ice planet and, sadly, I realized that I had reached the end of the game. There was nothing more to do. I boarded my ship, flew the 25k LY back to Eravate and docked. And uninstalled.

Overall, Elite is an ambitious tech demo. It reminds me of Worlds Adrift. The journey is fun, but the destination (the end game) is ultimately disappointing. This is ok for Worlds Adrift – the journey is the point. Elite should be the other way around. The good stuff should be hard to reach. The Thargoids should be on the other side of the galaxy, with massive rewards. The procedural generation of interesting sites on planets should get better the further you are away from the bubble. This would give a sense of difficulty, and ultimately a greater sense of achievement.

For comparison, I played Elite for a little over a month, and I feel I experienced the majority of what this game has to offer. I played Eve Online for three years and I still didn’t get to do it all (e.g. I never built nor flew a Titan).

Here is me, at the end: https://www.edsm.net/en/user/profile/id/64113/cmdr/x0nkers

Thanks all, I am glad Elite exists but I won’t be back unless something major happens. o7
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I can't help feeling I've read a very similar thread before ..... maybe more than once.
 

Archvillain

Archvillain
I realized that I had reached the end of the game. There was nothing more to do.
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I think you're a fair way from the end game. You've definitely reached the end of the advanced tutorials though ;)
For example, one fun afternoon (for me at least) might be: Can I chart a route that flies me so high above the bubble that I can first-discover tag a system that is directly above Sol? As the stars up there thin out beyond your jump range, you have to start figuring out navigation for yourself rather than just letting the computer grab stars in the approximate direction. If navigation is your kind of thing then it can be pretty interesting. (It will be much easier now with Guardian boosters, but still a different kind of gameplay that wasn't spoon-feed to you)
If it's not your kind of thing then skip it, but it's an example of how the central path protects you from many of the challenges it offers.

That said however, I really think this game works better if you play it for a few weeks then drop it for a few months, play other games, then come back, rinse repeat, and don't grind; only do things you find interesting. This is how I approach it and so I don't get the feeling that I've done everything in the game, instead I get the feeling that the game content is accumulating faster than I can play through it.
 
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[VR] M4st0d0n

[VR] M4st0d0n
Slopey said:
So in summary: "Game is not EvE. Quitting".

Hey ho. o7
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In summary, pretty valid points and criticism about UI flaws, grind and endgame content, written intelligibly and respectfully. That's what a developper could name feedback and crave for when QA team is sparse, most player leave without a sound and only 2.8% of the regulars are left only to bootlick ad nauseam.
 

Adept Geraden

Adept Geraden
My main has 5300 hours last time I looked. My alt has a Cutter, working on the Corvette. Once my main leaves for DW2, I think I'll need a third commander.

Have worn out 2 Saitek X52's, now working on wearing out an X52 Pro. And I think my cockpit needs a new seat.

Joined a player group several months in, haven't looked back since.

YMMV.
 
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