Newcomer / Intro Can Elite Dangerous be a casual play game?

[Wyke]

Elite is probably one of the most 'casual player' friendly games out at the moment. It's not perfect by a long ways, but it's a new game and still settling down. It is also, one of the friendlies on-line games that I have taken part in too. Oh, if you read the forums here in depth, you might get the impression that it is a hotbed of grief, with player pirates being nothing more then player killers. But the fact is, even in Open play it is actually quite a quiet game, so long as you stay away from busy systems which are 'camped' by player pirates.

Sadly in a game where you have some form of player piracy it is that subject that seems to garner the most vitriolic posts. With player pirates on one side screaming that traders are making too much money and are too hard to kill on one side, and on the other traders who want to fly anywhere, in Open mode, without anybody being able to interdict them. All that does is give a skewed impression of what the game is about.

Others will go on about the game being nothing but 'grinding', that is doing nothing but boring repetitive game actions. But again, I suspect that those who moan the most about that are the guys who want the top end and most expensive ships. The reality is, you can do most anything with lower end, cheaper ships that don't need to be 'ground' out for.

An example of this is with exploration. Yes, there are a couple of nice exploration optimized ship types, for a pretty cost. But many explorers use the relatively inexpensive T-6 hauler. It's not perfect for the job, it needs some 'fiddling about with' to get the most out of it exploration wise. But even with as close to a perfect fit for exploration, you will still get change out of six million credits, that's both ship cost and cost of specific modules needed for the job. And the best thing is, it is easy to reconfigure it between explorer mode and pure trader mode, so you can buy one for about 1.5 million, trade for a little while to get get your exploration kit for it, then head off out into the boondocks! Oh and what is more, T-6 explorers just love it.

Elite dangerous is what you make it, so jump in and join the gang and start having fun, even if it is only for an hour or three a couple of times a week

 

[Hudsonn]

Can this be a casual game? Yes it has to be. I play it casually, I play all games casually.

 

[Starnr]

+rep to Hudsonn sums it up very nicely

 

[AstroZak]

Can this be a casual game. Yep, I think so.
This is really all about your mindset. If you want to fly an anaconda right now - then you'll be setting yourself up for problems. They are big expesive ships that require a huge commitment in time to get too.
There isn't a single track in the game. You can do what you wish.

the basic types are trading/smuggling - going from point a to point b with goods and selling them to make money.
bounty hunting/piracy - trekking around systems blowing up ships for money/goods
mining - blowing up asteroids then playing pick up for the chunks.
exploration - seeing the sights.

these are very gross generalisations, but they represent different paths that you can take, and no you are not restricted to one path. Nothing stopping you being a hero in one system and a villian in another.
downing the guns and going trading, or switching out the trade hold for mining kit.

It's not about the size of ship that you fly - you can have just as much fun in a small ship as a large one.
Sure there will be more content in time, but that won't stop you enjoying the game for what it is right now.

 

[bamber]

I like the fact that its as enjoyable to fire up the computer and play for twenty minutes while you wait for your dinner to cook and is also fun for 3 hrs on a lazy sunday morning.

you can decide what to do as well you can spend that 20 mins bounty hunting or mining or trading what you are doing when you log off doesnt dictate what you do when you log on. If I get home stressed - jump in the Cobra and go fighting if not jump in the type 6 and trade

There is a little bit of "one more go" about it and I like to end up and my Base of operations (so i can swap ships depending on my mood

 

[Ceodryn]

Thanks all for the feedback! I am hoping to get the game within a couple months, and follow the suggestion to start with simply a keyboard and mouse and see whether the game fits my game play before investing into a joystick
.

 

[kilvenny]

I get a few minutes here and there and this game is ideal for that. Obviously you are not going to progress to the big ships any time soon so the emphasis is on having fun. The great thing about the mechanics is that the transition from station to supercruise to navpoint/uss and from system to system is a few seconds, plus loading times are trivial. Supercruise to docking is a couple of minutes, Launch is a few seconds.

I started keyboard and mouse and it was fine once I found a set of settings that worked for me. HOTAS though is just awesome - couldn't believe how much fun.

 

[Ceodryn]

I started keyboard and mouse and it was fine once I found a set of settings that worked for me. HOTAS though is just awesome - couldn't believe how much fun.

I have no doubt. I was lucky to have a Trustmaster as a kid (not for Elite, that was too early), and enjoyed it very much, but a HOTAS set-up is really expansive right now it seems.

 

[Danube]

Thanks all for the feedback! I am hoping to get the game within a couple months, and follow the suggestion to start with simply a keyboard and mouse and see whether the game fits my game play before investing into a joystick.

I would check out Voice Attack, too, which is very convenient for giving commands to your ship. It saves time and adds to the immersion a lot, at least for me. It'll be the best $8 you've spent in years.

 

[Ceodryn]

I would check out Voice Attack, too, which is very convenient for giving commands to your ship. It saves time and adds to the immersion a lot, at least for me. It'll be the best $8 you've spent in years.

Right, well, given my experience using Siri in English with my French accent, I am wary of speech recognition . But for $8, it certainly wont break the bank at least!

 

[Ceodryn]

You all did a great job convincing me. I just bought the game. Now I need to optimize it to work on my Macbook Pro, but at least I am on the launching pad.

Thanks
Philippe

 

[purf]

Right, well, given my experience using Siri in English with my French accent, I am wary of speech recognition . But for $8, it certainly wont break the bank at least!

give your system's Speech Recognition training a few runs. It's a really good learner!
Also: welcome!

 

[Wyke]

You all did a great job convincing me. I just bought the game. Now I need to optimize it to work on my Macbook Pro, but at least I am on the launching pad.

Thanks
Philippe

First bit of advice. Assuming that you are married. Kiss the wife goodbye, give the kids a big hug, and tell them that you will be back at some time.

But seriously, welcome to Elite Dangerous.

 

[Pumpkin]

I'm a casual player too. This means for me on average 2-3 sessions of 1 to 3 hours each a week. I won't give you an advice, tell you if you're right to buy the game or not. That will remains your own choice. Instead of telling you what to do, I will just try to describe my own experience.

But first, I must say that I don't like very much combats so I avoid combat missions, as bounty hunting or military missions. If, on the contrary, you like combat, stop reading here, I sincerely wish you good luck with ED, answer to you that, yes, it can be a casual game and I assure you that you will be pleased.

Always here ? ok, then

- I started as trader. A lot of repetitive tasks but find finally a good interest and fun to find a good trade routes without the help any external tools, just my brain/my logic for "immersion".
- I try some assassination task, but I didn't find any fun, too simplistic : go to This system, get into USS, the good one is often the second or the third, kill the prey, go back to the station (The assassination task on FE2 was far more complex, remember the use of device now called Frame Shift Wake Scanner and all the scenery ?)
- I was miner too. Well... it's an experience that I believe quite close to the reality of a prospector : a lot of work, not always rewarded, with the joy to sometimes win the jackpot, the big vein of precious metal. I personally found this aspect well done.
- Finally, my dreamed goal in ED: the exploration. No chance for me, this is really the dark side of ED for me (remember, casual gamer, not much time to play, etc...). I said round-trip between stations, or mining don't bother me. But I find that a long trip in the core of the galaxy is nearly unbearable for a casual gamer, really a chore. Of course, I saw sometimes strange and beautiful things, but most of the time the only thing I do is just jump, scan, jump, scan, wait... this planet seems interesting ! (5-10 minutes later) in fact, no... jump, scan, jump, scan,... Many type of players, when they start to get bored, can change their activity, but you're at 10000 ly from the nearest station, well all the choice you have is to continue to jump, scan, jump, scan...

Conclusion:
If you are the kind of casual player I am, there's a chance that you won't be happy with ED. The same if you get quickly bored with repetitive task.
If you're a combat lover, ED is really for you, you will find all the "toys" for fighting, so go on and have fun.

EDIT :

You all did a great job convincing me. I just bought the game. Now I need to optimize it to work on my Macbook Pro, but at least I am on the launching pad.

Oups, too late Well... have fun

 

[Wyke]

I'm a casual player too. This means for me on average 2-3 sessions of 1 to 3 hours each a week. I won't give you an advice, tell you if you're right to buy the game or not. That will remains your own choice. Instead of telling you what to do, I will just try to describe my own experience.

But first, I must say that I don't like very much combats so I avoid combat missions, as bounty hunting or military missions. If, on the contrary, you like combat, stop reading here, I sincerely wish you good luck with ED, answer to you that, yes, it can be a casual game and I assure you that you will be pleased.



Always here ? ok, then

- I started as trader. A lot of repetitive tasks but find finally a good interest and fun to find a good trade routes without the help any external tools, just my brain/my logic for "immersion".
- I try some assassination task, but I didn't find any fun, too simplistic : go to This system, get into USS, the good one is often the second or the third, kill the prey, go back to the station (The assassination task on FE2 was far more complex, remember the use of device now called Frame Shift Wake Scanner and all the scenery ?)
- I was miner too. Well... it's an experience that I believe quite close to the reality of a prospector : a lot of work, not always rewarded, with the joy to sometimes win the jackpot, the big vein of precious metal. I personally found this aspect well done.
- Finally, my dreamed goal in ED: the exploration. No chance for me, this is really the dark side of ED for me (remember, casual gamer, not much time to play, etc...). I said round-trip between stations, or mining don't bother me. But I find that a long trip in the core of the galaxy is nearly unbearable for a casual gamer, really a chore. Of course, I saw sometimes strange and beautiful things, but most of the time the only thing I do is just jump, scan, jump, scan, wait... this planet seems interesting ! (5-10 minutes later) in fact, no... jump, scan, jump, scan,... Many type of players, when they start to get bored, can change their activity, but you're at 10000 ly from the nearest station, well all the choice you have is to continue to jump, scan, jump, scan...

Conclusion:
If you are the kind of casual player I am, there's a chance that you won't be happy with ED. The same if you get quickly bored with repetitive task.
If you're a combat lover, ED is really for you, you will find all the "toys" for fighting, so go on and have fun.

EDIT :
Oups, too late Well... have fun

Actually Pumpkin, as the game is set at the moment Exploration is ideal for a casual player. You can log out of the game in space, and in just an hours game play you can more then easily scan down and explore two, three systems

 

[Pumpkin]

Actually Pumpkin, as the game is set at the moment Exploration is ideal for a casual player. You can log out of the game in space, and in just an hours game play you can more then easily scan down and explore two, three systems

Strangely, on the one hand, I'm agree with you

The thing I want to highlighted is the fact that, IMO, there a real lack of "tools" for explorers. 20 years ago, the "Wormhole Theory" bug permits to explorers to travel very quickly accross the galaxy. Even the fact to take your calculator to calculate your route to make a big jump was fun, even calculation errors were fun ("Damn ! Lost in space again !"); that's may be what you can call "interaction". ED hadn't this bug and FD/DB want "exploration the hard way"? Fine, I'm agree, but the ED's galaxy is 25000ly large, = more than 800 jumps in straight line, how can "casual explorers" deal with that and the multiples "spokes in the wheels" FD create for explorers ? Would it not a form of "racism" against "casual explorers" ? : "Your ship was destroyed ? Ok, so start again the whole trip which take you 2 month, to reach the same point in 2 month"... goooood progression ! Without being ironic and without asking too much, just ONE thing : among all the ships of the game, was it difficult or impossible for FD to create a "Beast for exploration", with a big "B", instead of a "so called explorer" ship which is, in fact, a multi-purpose ship, far from a "dedicated one" ?

But I got carried away, I apologize for the off topic. Make no mistake, I'm not a nostalgic person. I don't want to go back in time for nothing in the world, but I admit to be somewhere "emotionally involved", simply because I have been waiting for this game for 20 years. But if I'm currently a little bit "nervous", this will end quite soon if nothing change (= I belong to a insignificant minority), I will have however no regret to leave out the game, for a long time or forever... Arr, I got carried away once again !!

 

[Ancipital]

Yes, you absolutely can play ED casually. As people above have said, the learning curve at first is a bit steep, so if you're only playing for short bursts per day, it will take you a while to get the basics down. After that, you absolutely can log in, do some space truckin', pop some perps at an extraction site, or push on into the inky void fitted for exploring.

Missions, on the other hand, are mostly worth avoiding- especially the assassination ones. They're lamentably broken, seemingly thrown together in beta and left to rot since then, while things like PvP balancing and Wings were added. Some of the time, you will find that they're actually impossible to finish. If you're lucky, you will just find that your target has completely the wrong name and you have happened to kill them without realising. It's a bit embarrassing how shoddy and broken these are, especially for people who remember how exciting such missions were in Frontier/FFE.

Leaving missions aside though, you can play to your own schedule. The game won't let you die while you're logged off- you can hop on and enjoy the majesty of SPAAAAACE when you have a little time to spare. Beware, though- it's a gateway drug- enjoyment is massively increased by adding a good-quality HOTAS and head tracker, and you'll start eyeing up that pesky Oculus Rift if you're not careful

 

[rootsrat]

You all did a great job convincing me. I just bought the game. Now I need to optimize it to work on my Macbook Pro, but at least I am on the launching pad.

Thanks
Philippe

One of us, one of us...

See you in the void, Commander!

 

[Wyke]

Strangely, on the one hand, I'm agree with you

The thing I want to highlighted is the fact that, IMO, there a real lack of "tools" for explorers. 20 years ago, the "Wormhole Theory" bug permits to explorers to travel very quickly accross the galaxy. Even the fact to take your calculator to calculate your route to make a big jump was fun, even calculation errors were fun ("Damn ! Lost in space again !"); that's may be what you can call "interaction". ED hadn't this bug and FD/DB want "exploration the hard way"? Fine, I'm agree, but the ED's galaxy is 25000ly large, = more than 800 jumps in straight line, how can "casual explorers" deal with that and the multiples "spokes in the wheels" FD create for explorers ? Would it not a form of "racism" against "casual explorers" ? : "Your ship was destroyed ? Ok, so start again the whole trip which take you 2 month, to reach the same point in 2 month"... goooood progression ! Without being ironic and without asking too much, just ONE thing : among all the ships of the game, was it difficult or impossible for FD to create a "Beast for exploration", with a big "B", instead of a "so called explorer" ship which is, in fact, a multi-purpose ship, far from a "dedicated one" ?

But I got carried away, I apologize for the off topic. Make no mistake, I'm not a nostalgic person. I don't want to go back in time for nothing in the world, but I admit to be somewhere "emotionally involved", simply because I have been waiting for this game for 20 years. But if I'm currently a little bit "nervous", this will end quite soon if nothing change (= I belong to a insignificant minority), I will have however no regret to leave out the game, for a long time or forever... Arr, I got carried away once again !!

And likewise, I agree with most that you are saying. Exploration is something that could really make the game if sorted out. At the moment, we are nothing more then interstellar cartographers. just mapping systems. what we need is actual things to find. For example, and this is just random thoughts off the top of my head;

An explorer stumbles across a human space station, or colony that for what ever reason has 'fallen off the grid'. That in itself could then lead on to further game play options, such as traders start to look into doing some deep space runs to make premium profits supplying it. Or it could have devolved into a 'Tortuga' station, for the want of a better name, where player pirates could call home, where there is no scanning so all black market goods can be traded with no worries

Or another explorer could find an planet infested by a warlike insectoid race that has killed everything else off on their planet, and they are about to make their first steps into spreading themselves around the galaxy. Hmm, that sounds familiar

There is just so much scope that FD would be silly not to at least have plans to expand on it all