Are we losing the war because of technical difficulties?

[space voyager]

A bit of a joke, but with a grain of truth... The technical bugs are proving to be just as much of a challenge as the Thargoid bugs.

Instances not resetting after the progress bar is completed,
progress bar not appearing,
Thargoid damage being incorrectly shown,
- seeing the heart exposed, hitting it, suddenly the animation shows the Thargoid shield dropping,
- hitting the heart many times to no effect,
- showing the heart exposed and Thargoid suddenly dies,
- ...
no way to force instance reset because not everyone notices the problem nor your messages so they don't exit and the bugged instance persists,
etc. etc..

Seriously, I'm not sure which kind of bugs is dealing more damage to our war efforts. Elite is producing new content that won't help if it won't work. Please, FD, focus on making things work as intended. This is (IMO) more important than pumping new content into the game. Goes for all the bugs that accumulated, though the instancing is most problematic from the Thargoid war perspective. That I know of.

 

[angusmadmac1]

Nah we will lose a bit more , players will become discouraged Fdev reset the numbers or give us "better weapons " players come back . We win a couple , commanders get discouraged rinse and repeat. So working as intended ?

 

[Screemonster]

had a fun one last night where the progress bar at a station instance just refused to move and there was a singlular scout that was targetable, visible, registered hits, but its health never went down.

 

[MVBanks]

Yes, that's the bigger problem than Hydras and Medusas. To this collection of bugs you can add invisible interceptors, invisible scouts, blocked progress bars at any percentage,
fleeing interceptors from ground AX CZ, even if FDev told it's fixed with 14.01.
At the end I noticed - I'm bored. Spent many hours in AX CZs, but 90% of this is fighting scouts, what's boring. Or waiting for any thargoids what's even more boring. Cyclops are often, but easy. It's pity when there's good group of cmdrs in open in AX CZ, ready for hard fight, ready for big interceptors, but that never happens because progress bar is blocked.
As I remember it worked very good in HIP 22460 (before Proteus Wave), and I enjoyed with other cmdrs to play this AX CZs because at this time we were sure that after some waves of scouts and cyclops, there will come big ceptors and we will have good fight. Why it doesn't work now? I could even think it's intentional to slow us down.

 

[rootsrat]

SLF lag is another extremely annoying - and ancient - bug that takes the fun away from this, otherwise great!, experience.

 

[Screemonster]

That's the thing that's possibly the most disheartening - the new content is basically designed for groups. Completing zones can't be done without killing a hydra (and even getting to the hydra is tough to do solo - if individuals can break off to repair then come back while someone else stays in the zone then it's a lot easier) which is way beyond most single players' abilities, but group instances are notoriously unstable even before we get into the whole debate about people having to either play in open or coordinate out of game to set up a PG.

If there were some lower-stakes instances for single players that made a decent amount of progress that'd be fantastic. For instance, when you get interdicted you tend to face the initial thing that interdicted you followed by a couple of waves of reinforcements - if clearing those two-three waves triggered some sort of reward / progress boost that'd be amazing. Specifically single player content (I guess someone in a wing could follow your signal) that's geared to be doable by a single player.

Edit: now I'm thinking of that threat 4 distress call signal where you find a disabled farragut and then pirates start spawning in increasingly-dense waves until finally a hostile, pirate-hijacked farragut shows up. That one's fun.

 

[avow555]

In the end it all kinda sucks.
Crappy instancing, crappy objectives not completing.
Could/should have been a great update but it's not.

 

[bangermsuk]

well lately im getting mis jumps to station, i get the message hit j to disengage jump, and end up 400km away? from station i supposed to be on top of...

 

[starman]

Assuming most cmdrs have to grind credits not sure how sufficient can be obtain legally within the time constraints factoring in other daily activities. ED could easily become a full time job. That's the real problem with the game design as the dev don't have to grind credits in order to obtain the big ships and the 'fun'.

 

[Jack Winter]

One could argue that the smaller ships are more fun!

Also it appears that xeno biology now offers huge payouts!

 

[John Stoutbeard]

Please, FD, focus on making things work as intended.

They are monitoring the numbers, making tweaks despite the bugs.
If we lose the war it's because we're not delivering enough progress when they expected us to do so.

Not because of bugs, but despite bugs.
Personally I hope we never win, because it's darn nice to have this activity near the bubble. But hey, thats just me.

 

[space voyager]

They are monitoring the numbers, making tweaks despite the bugs.
If we lose the war it's because we're not delivering enough progress when they expected us to do so.

Not because of bugs, but despite bugs.
Personally I hope we never win, because it's darn nice to have this activity near the bubble. But hey, thats just me.

Tweaking the numbers to somehow pull it through despite the half-working system is wrong. To put it mildly.

 

[space voyager]

That's the thing that's possibly the most disheartening - the new content is basically designed for groups.

Just my personal view but I don't mind this part too much. There is content we can do solo but fighting alongside other CMDRs is really fun. Though with a Hydra... it is hard to find the company able to deal with such a threat.

 

[John Stoutbeard]

Tweaking the numbers to somehow pull it through despite the half-working system is wrong. To put it mildly.

As mentioned by FDev, they have this new part of the game-engine trying to orchestrate the war for the Thargoid side.
The need to get the initial balance right. They didn't know how we would be able to respond for the first few weeks.

Besides, they also need to have the next stage of the narrative ready. I'm pretty sure they intend to keep the war running for at least a bit of time, so all commanders can participate. It wouldn't be a epic moment in the history of ED/mankind if it was over too quickly.

All of this is strictly necessary until we get to the point in time when everything is ready for the next chapter. At that stage we're ready to win or lose.

 

[Screemonster]

Just my personal view but I don't mind this part too much. There is content we can do solo but fighting alongside other CMDRs is really fun. Though with a Hydra... it is hard to find the company able to deal with such a threat.

My issue isn't that there's content designed for groups, that part's fine.
The issue is that the content is designed for groups, in a game that becomes unstable when you fly in groups.

 

[EdzUp]

I think the problem for me is the Thargoids used to be a random encounter which was more of a shocker in Elite now they are a species were at war with (due to a FFE bugged ending which nobody knew existed).

Combat in Elite was a tense affair but very doable, but now it seems to be you kill a Thargoid and more turn up then more etc. I actually still play VGA Elite mainly because that was the way i always fondly remember it as a single player game. Now we have Thargoids that are a multiplayer race. Try doing it all in Solo and its a whole new war which we will not win unless weapons are beefed up to make kills quicker.

 

[Jmanis]

Seriously, I'm not sure which kind of bugs is dealing more damage to our war efforts. Elite is producing new content that won't help if it won't work. Please, FD, focus on making things work as intended. This is (IMO) more important than pumping new content into the game. Goes for all the bugs that accumulated, though the instancing is most problematic from the Thargoid war perspective. That I know of.

I mean.... i was saying this since before Odyssey, which continues to be plagued by unresolved bugs extant since before its time.

Mission targets not spawning in your massacre mission? Sounds a lot like the outbreak massacre issue.

CG got cancelled years ago because of the unresolved research limpet issue. So when a similar CG is launched as part of the developing plot post- Odyssey, what happens? Cancelled too, duh.

I just don't understand the mentality of asking for "more content" when the underpinning mechanics of the existing content are fundamentally broken in several cases. To expect anything other than equally broken new content bewilders me.

Connectivity issues, graphics issues, these are part and parcel to any game, and are a constantly moving target, so that's "ok"... but when you have a mechanic that says "do x, and y happens"... and it doesn't... that's a fundamental problem requiring immediate attention... and you can't progress new things when those key systems don't work reliably.

I wonder a little about how substantial the Thursday tick really is too. When the game first launched, nobody would've known it existed. Then CGs started launching and finishing on that day. Then Thargoid activity cycled on "Thargsday"... and now we have the war progress resetting on the Thursday. It's almost like the hooks that let FD persist data and effects day to day doesn't survive the Thursday... obv that's not 100% accurate, but there's something significant in that particular window that needs most key game events to hook off it... and that's always kinda disturbed me...

 

[Ian Doncaster]

It's almost like the hooks that let FD persist data and effects day to day doesn't survive the Thursday... obv that's not 100% accurate, but there's something significant in that particular window that needs most key game events to hook off it... and that's always kinda disturbed me...

I get the impression it's sort of the other way around - there's huge amounts of caching going on, so the most reliable way to make global data changes is to have some brief downtime where every server cache gets cleared at once, all clients are logged out to clear their caches, and then it starts up again with the new data.

(e.g. we thought that they could only add stations on the Thursday reset or similar downtime, then they added one "live" during Enclave but said it might take a while for everyone to be able to see it)

For CGs, they've had multi-week CGs fairly often, and shorter CGs occasionally - I think it's just that if they do last a week (because that is their general plot speed cycle to allow "weekend only" participants) then they might as well be timed not to run during the downtime, rather than the downtime interrupting the activity.

 

[Astaran]

I mean.... i was saying this since before Odyssey, which continues to be plagued by unresolved bugs extant since before its time.

Mission targets not spawning in your massacre mission? Sounds a lot like the outbreak massacre issue.

CG got cancelled years ago because of the unresolved research limpet issue. So when a similar CG is launched as part of the developing plot post- Odyssey, what happens? Cancelled too, duh.

I just don't understand the mentality of asking for "more content" when the underpinning mechanics of the existing content are fundamentally broken in several cases. To expect anything other than equally broken new content bewilders me.

Connectivity issues, graphics issues, these are part and parcel to any game, and are a constantly moving target, so that's "ok"... but when you have a mechanic that says "do x, and y happens"... and it doesn't... that's a fundamental problem requiring immediate attention... and you can't progress new things when those key systems don't work reliably.

I wonder a little about how substantial the Thursday tick really is too. When the game first launched, nobody would've known it existed. Then CGs started launching and finishing on that day. Then Thargoid activity cycled on "Thargsday"... and now we have the war progress resetting on the Thursday. It's almost like the hooks that let FD persist data and effects day to day doesn't survive the Thursday... obv that's not 100% accurate, but there's something significant in that particular window that needs most key game events to hook off it... and that's always kinda disturbed me...

To be honest, I consider myself part of the "more content" group, while at the same time I agree with you that all those broken mechanics and features need to be fixed (let's not even start with "working, but unbalanced" content).

From my own, personal experience, fighting the Thargoid War was fun for about two weeks. Thargoids around stations and over planetary settlements was new the first few times, but in the end we're still fighting the same Thargoid we've been fighting for years, flying the same cargo missions we've been flying for years for the same "rewards" that stopped being meaningful years ago. When I jump into the Thargoid War, there's no "character progression" for me. I'm not getting anything out of it that lets me improve or progress my CMDR.

The new AX weapons are nice for entry level AX combat and (thankfully!) don't require any grind to be available, but FDev could have introduced new types of AX weapons while they were at it. AX cannons, ax railguns,ax plasma guns, hell, why not AX PowerPlay weapons like Packhounds? I really don't want to wait another six months for the story to drag on until (maybe) entirely new AX modules or (gods forbid!) even new ships are introduced.

When you think what a big deal Space Legs and Odyssey was supposed to be for Elite, it's mindboggling that FDev (even after killing console support and introducing legacy mode) still has not included any new ground bases Thargoid content. There are "settlement defense missions" for normal missions, but none for the Thargoid War? Why? There's not even a need to design and introduce Thargoid "in person" just yet. There are those scavenger/skimmer drones at Thargoid bases, just bolt a gun on it and spawn them at human settlements.

Anyway, before I digress even further: The bugs and broken mechanics are just the icing on the cake for me.

 

[Jmanis]

From my own, personal experience, fighting the Thargoid War was fun for about two weeks. Thargoids around stations and over planetary settlements was new the first few times, but in the end we're still fighting the same Thargoid we've been fighting for years, flying the same cargo missions we've been flying for years for the same "rewards" that stopped being meaningful years ago. When I jump into the Thargoid War, there's no "character progression" for me. I'm not getting anything out of it that lets me improve or progress my CMDR.

Yeah same. My first thrust was to get my hands on the new Thargoidy stuff and see what could be made of it. Since that's very clearly gated at this stage (which is sortof ok) I decided to dabble now and then helping out various stations. The intent of me doing that was to give systems of-interest a little kick along such that when the big groups would wash over one system, they'd pick their next targets, see mine I'd be chipping away at (along with other unconnected randos) with just a square or two and go "well, that ones going to be quicker"... but yeah, weekly resets killed that off pretty quick.

When you think what a big deal Space Legs and Odyssey was supposed to be for Elite, it's mindboggling that FDev (even after killing console support and introducing legacy mode) still has not included any new ground bases Thargoid content. There are "settlement defense missions" for normal missions, but none for the Thargoid War? Why? There's not even a need to design and introduce Thargoid "in person" just yet. There are those scavenger/skimmer drones at Thargoid bases, just bolt a gun on it and spawn them at human settlements.

I get people thought Space Legs and Odyssey were meant to be a big deal and it was certainly portrayed that way, but tbh, Odyssey turned out exactly how I expected it to be... a self-licking icecream which is almost completely isolated from the core game loops, but beholden to the extant broken mechanics (whether that's literally broken, such as outbreaks not spawning targets, or logically broken, such as the non-sensical economy).

The current space-game mechanics had so much potential... while FD are finally using some of that in the Thargoid Maelstroms/Maelstrom Systems and HIP22460, there's still a lot they could be doing even though it is a step in the right direction. But fundamentally, when the space game was buggy and under-baked (mile wide, inch deep as people say), I never expected legs to be any different.