I guess part of the appeal of Elite is that you're your own commander and you're free to do as you will.
But still, one can't help but feel that there's also some merit to having a structured system of progression - just as the progression on the Elite track itself results from kills.
I recall that First Encounters allowed you to sign up to the military and provided military missions that allowed you to progress your Imperial or Federal Navy ranks.
Perhaps these could, should even be added back into Elite Dangerous - as part of the structured gameplay content. Moreover, allow for more career tracks than just a military pilot - maybe you can join a shipping company and move up the food chain in turn allowing you to influence trade routes in the end game.
Or join a team of pirates and progress up the career track of piracy and in turn eventually come to influence the rate of piracy in a system or systems.
The addition of these career tracks and system influence could provide a very interesting back and forth mechanism for dynamic change in the universe IMO, above and beyond the benefits of having additional grind tracks.
Of course along the way you'll get some benefits in each career track - military track allows you access to military technology and discounts, as well as special ships (Fer De Lance anyone?).
Maybe even eventually a political career track that requires you to dash around and spend money on media campaign and check off platform ideas - if you become political you get your own set of missions, but also the ability to influence the rules and regulations of a system (or systems) - e.g. what is or isn't forbidden for trade, how the police should react to various levels of criminality (e.g. shoot people with high bounties on sight, let them through, whether there should be patrolling/scanning, etc).
Moreover, these career tracks are in a way quite modular and quite additive - each expansion could bring in a new set of careers that help to expand the player experience and the number of player influenced variables in the universe, while allowing Frontier Devs to focus on a reasonable scope of work, rather than having to implement all careers at once.
But still, one can't help but feel that there's also some merit to having a structured system of progression - just as the progression on the Elite track itself results from kills.
I recall that First Encounters allowed you to sign up to the military and provided military missions that allowed you to progress your Imperial or Federal Navy ranks.
Perhaps these could, should even be added back into Elite Dangerous - as part of the structured gameplay content. Moreover, allow for more career tracks than just a military pilot - maybe you can join a shipping company and move up the food chain in turn allowing you to influence trade routes in the end game.
Or join a team of pirates and progress up the career track of piracy and in turn eventually come to influence the rate of piracy in a system or systems.
The addition of these career tracks and system influence could provide a very interesting back and forth mechanism for dynamic change in the universe IMO, above and beyond the benefits of having additional grind tracks.
Of course along the way you'll get some benefits in each career track - military track allows you access to military technology and discounts, as well as special ships (Fer De Lance anyone?).
Maybe even eventually a political career track that requires you to dash around and spend money on media campaign and check off platform ideas - if you become political you get your own set of missions, but also the ability to influence the rules and regulations of a system (or systems) - e.g. what is or isn't forbidden for trade, how the police should react to various levels of criminality (e.g. shoot people with high bounties on sight, let them through, whether there should be patrolling/scanning, etc).
Moreover, these career tracks are in a way quite modular and quite additive - each expansion could bring in a new set of careers that help to expand the player experience and the number of player influenced variables in the universe, while allowing Frontier Devs to focus on a reasonable scope of work, rather than having to implement all careers at once.
