Casual Player Penalties FD Should Reconsider

[Iain L]

Kristov, you might want to have a word with Frontier, who regularly try to argue that Elite isn't an MMO. It's how I was persuaded to part with my money, for instance. Reasonable accommodations for those who don't want to treat it like one would be a good thing, and changes like reputation decay would be things I'd include in that.

So you've nothing better to do with your life than fly pretend spaceships all day; bully for you. That's not the case for everyone.

 

[babelfisch]

Kristov, you might want to have a word with Frontier, who regularly try to argue that Elite isn't an MMO. It's how I was persuaded to part with my money, for instance. Reasonable accommodations for those who don't want to treat it like one would be a good thing, and changes like reputation decay would be things I'd include in that.

So you've nothing better to do with your life than fly pretend spaceships all day; bully for you. That's not the case for everyone.

One more time: Reputation decay doesn't exist! It's a myth! A lie! It's capped at 75% meaning you will always be allied if you bother to do ONE mission.

On MMO: When did they say it isn't a MMO? It was written in bold letters on their own homepage over the last year.

 

[segreto]

I agree 100% with the timers. I know it's persistent world that keeps ticking even when I am not there, but it would be nice to be able to at least dabble in all the types of missions without worrying about failure due to having to log off for family matters.

I do like that we have to go get our ships, though. If we really want to change a ship, and it's 1k light years away, it makes sense that we need to make the trip to get it. When this happens, I always see if I can get some cargo to take with me for a quick sale, or I get my scanner going to sell some data when I get there. Everything else I'm on the fence with.

 

[ShimEnki]

No ship transport mechanic

• I get a Viper with all A modules, kitted out the way I want
• I decide I'd like an exploration ship or to just try something new
• I store the Viper and proceed to fly about
• A couple weeks later I want the Viper but it is 1,000 LY away and will take me 30-40 minutes of mindless jumping to get back to it
• If I sell the Viper then I will have to spend weeks re-kitting it with the modules I've found at the random spots in the game (since in the future apparently no ship-yard stocks everything or can re-order out-of-stock items from Amazon 3300= see FD making something "fun" but not "realistic" again!)
• make it magic like the transition to the SRV- I can call any ship I have for a cost based on distance, but after paying it will instantly be available in the starport where I am docked
• It is just a game, realistic or not. Will be like Multi-crew- to be fun FD won't be able to force us to dock and load on the friends ship all the time, there will have to be "teleportation", immersion be darned

This for sure. I gain a little emmersion from having to supercruise a ways but...o m g...it gets old and fast, just to arrive at what i can play hours enjoying.. i could see having to pay some reasonable fee to rematerialize in some system we paid rematerialization fees for or have it linked to some ranking in PP or whatever.
Something to mitigate this supercuise overkill...you can add bounties to the overkill thing too frankly.


I was thinking along similar lines re FD financials and how that is effected more by casual player income and INTEREST than us hard core players with oodles of time or money and time for the game. Even still, im a hard core gamer with time and funds for games i enjoy and game mechanics that over restrict to attempt to install game dynamics is like the chess board check mating itself.

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So, the OP wants a real time online multiplayer game to accommodate his personal schedule and it sucks that it doesn't do so.

Hey there! Welcome to the Internet and Online Gaming, we're so glad you could find your way to these, always glad to have newcomers!

A few things you need to understand before you get started..

1) Your personal schedule is YOUR problem, no one else's! If this isn't a concept you are familiar with, well, I honestly don't know what to say, even children understand this concept, how a presumed adult doesn't understand is beyond me.

2) Real time online multiplayer games don't stop running because you leave the game, they continue running and events happen regardless of your existence inside the game world. Missions have a set time they can be completed it, always given to you upfront, if you don't have the required time to do them, don't take them. See point 1 about schedule conflicts.

There are probably other things that will happen due to it being an online real time multiplayer game that doesn't stop because you leave the game, and you may have issues with these other things, only advice that I can give, suck it up buttercup. This isn't new, it's been a thing for over a decade going back to games like UO and EQ and even farther back to MUDs and BBS games. Your complaints aren't new, they aren't unique, and they've been answered thousands of times already and those answers don't change, your personal schedule is YOUR problem, there's hundreds of thousands of other people using the same game world all the time, no one putting YOU above anyone else. This isn't Burger King, you don't get things your way.

All valid points comrad, but a little honey goes farther than acid. The OP is merely offering their input and should be addressed imho with far less defensivity.

 

[Kristov]

Kristov, you might want to have a word with Frontier, who regularly try to argue that Elite isn't an MMO. It's how I was persuaded to part with my money, for instance. Reasonable accommodations for those who don't want to treat it like one would be a good thing, and changes like reputation decay would be things I'd include in that.

So you've nothing better to do with your life than fly pretend spaceships all day; bully for you. That's not the case for everyone.

Why would I want to have a word with FD about that? It's advertised as an online multiplayer game, that's an MMO by definition, literally. The adverts simply reinforce that it IS an MMO by constantly referencing all the standard MMO tropes. YOU not getting that is on you, you aren't alone in that miscomprehension I might add, something I can't even blame on this being the Elite fanbase, as many other MMOs have players who make the same mistakes, 'what do you mean, no single player offline mode, I didn't buy WoW to play with other people!'...not a joke, that's an actual complaint.

FD does state that Elite: Dangerous is not the STANDARD MMO, which is true, it's not the standard MMO, and that's why I enjoy it so much, but it still an MMO.

And what the hell makes you think I have nothing better to do with my time? I'm at work between conference calls at the moment, so I'm killing some time. I'm one of those busy execs you hear about, not enough hours in the week for work, much less having a personal life. I get a few hours a week to play Elite: Dangerous typically, and I'm not whining about the game not catering to MY personal schedule. I'm actually telling my store clerk how to do stuff with our new billing system while I'm typing this, multitasking is a real thing around this company, I'm the head of IT, director of programming, customer service and half a dozen other things, and no, I don't get paid enough for what I do, but I enjoy it, we're a Lifeline provider, helping people is something I enjoy doing. It also means I have little, strike that, NO patience for whining self entitled people who aren't one of my customers.

 

[Lowievisser]

Missions timers make sense.

They depend of the state of the system and they can affect the state of the system.

Being able to stack them then do them later when the system has changed it's state would unbalance the BGS.

No one can play 24h/24, everyone as to log off at some point, it s very easy to only take missions that you can do during your sessions.

this + multiplayer game , with other humans. do you leave your soccer game just because your smart phone rings? kinda a social in a multiplayer game to leave cause somebody is at the door and then complain.

and like the qoute , mission timers you see before hand. no need for a clock you see at left menu with 2 button clicks how much time you have left.

 

[SentineI]

Missions timers make sense.

They depend of the state of the system and they can affect the state of the system.

Being able to stack them then do them later when the system has changed it's state would unbalance the BGS.

There are TWO obvious solutions to this problem:

1. Rather than having mission timers running entirely in "galaxy time", allow them to be paused when the player if offline... BUT ONLY FOR 1 DAY. If they are off-line for more than 1 day (in total), then allow the mission timer to continue running down.

2. Alternatively, allow missions to always be paused when the player is offline, but if they are offline for more than 1 day then simply don't let them affect the BGS at all. Since most players just care about the personal rewards, the loss of any BGS influence wouldn't be a real issue, and certainly better than failing the mission completely.

Either solution would please 99% of casual gamers, without causing problems for the BGS.

 

[keirgarth]

I have been playing MMO's since the beginning of them and it always amazes me that people complain about game mechanics running real time even when they are not logged in. Yes it is true that many MMO's have quest systems that don't care when you complete them so logging doesn't have any effect, but we are not really talking about quests here. The OP is talking about taking missions with known timers that are clearly linked to the games internal clock. Because of this link, the mission is going to pass or fail depending on the ability to make the required appointment. Real life does happen, and it should always come first over a game, but a persistent universe can't be expected to wait while you take care of life. If the OP's enjoyment hinges on the game time revolving around his schedule, then perhaps this isn't the game for him and he should consider offline only games as they don't tend to be based on system time. I know it is a bit harsh, but this is the real world after all.

 

[tiger61378]

Not sure why people are getting bent out of shape about mission timers. They're just like the real world...trucking companies expect delivery by a certain time. If you don't deliver by then, there's large penalties. Same goes for mail/package delivery (next time you order something next day air, maybe the UPS or FedEx driver should just deliver when they feel like it?). That's basically what we're doing in game. We're trucking commodities around the galaxy, or hauling data packages from station to station like a trans-galactic FedEx. Or we're working on taking down pirate groups, and maybe the warrant for eliminating them has a set time. Assassin missions? The person will only be in system for that long, so you'd best get there quick.

Remember, just because YOU'RE not online dosn't mean that the galaxy stops. It just means that you're not taking part in the galaxy for a while...things still keep happening. Factions keep fighting/trading/etc. Stations still n.eed things delivered. Pirates keep killing innocent traders. Bounty hunters keep killing pirates. Explorers keep pushing the boundaries of known space. And it all happens real time across 400 BILLION stars, no matter if you personally are not part of it.

 

[Belthize]

Posted elsewhere and frequently but it's applicable.

It's really not possible to make changes to the game without impacting other people. For example one of the simplest ways to drop an opposing minor factions influence is to take and fail (not discard) timer based missions. If a mission has a 24 hour timer then it takes a day to fail. If I can play 2 hours a day and the timer only runs when I'm online it will take almost 2 weeks before it fails. Whether that's an issue or not is open for debate but it's not as simple as 'pausing missions timers only has a positive effect for casuals with no downside'. I'm a casual and it would be very negative.

For some of the other issues I don't seem them as casual vs non-casual, they're just game time decisions. If you don't want to have to jump 1000LY to pick up your other vehicle don't leave it 1000LY away. If you don't want to get killed by 4 NPCs when dropping into a 'mysterious/sketchy signal' don't drop into a mysterious sketchy signal and definitely don't do it if you're carrying mission data you don't want to lose. I can't claim to have done 100s of "don't get scanned" missions but I've done my fair share. I've never once lost the mission to being scanned. There are times I've had to jump out and back in if I came in too close to authority vessels. There are things you can do to interupt their scanning as well.

I'm not sure what you mean by reputation decay, presumably clarified in one of the pages of comments.

So certainly all valid complaints in the sense that all complaints have validity in terms of game design personal preference but as a casual player I don't see them as casual vs hard core issues, they're just 'issues' that you personally don't like.

 

[SentineI]

Not sure why people are getting bent out of shape about mission timers. They're just like the real world

Hint: ED is a game, not real life.

And while real-life can (and does) intrude on game time, players shouldn't be punished for that (as long as it doesn't affect other players).

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If a mission has a 24 hour timer then it takes a day to fail. If I can play 2 hours a day and the timer only runs when I'm online it will take almost 2 weeks before it fails.

Which is why I suggested that the (offline) pausing of missions should only occur for up to 1 day.

 

[Enderby]

So, the OP wants a real time online multiplayer game to accommodate his personal schedule and it sucks that it doesn't do so.

Hey there! Welcome to the Internet and Online Gaming, we're so glad you could find your way to these, always glad to have newcomers!

A few things you need to understand before you get started..

1) Your personal schedule is YOUR problem, no one else's! If this isn't a concept you are familiar with, well, I honestly don't know what to say, even children understand this concept, how a presumed adult doesn't understand is beyond me.

2) Real time online multiplayer games don't stop running because you leave the game, they continue running and events happen regardless of your existence inside the game world. Missions have a set time they can be completed it, always given to you upfront, if you don't have the required time to do them, don't take them. See point 1 about schedule conflicts.

There are probably other things that will happen due to it being an online real time multiplayer game that doesn't stop because you leave the game, and you may have issues with these other things, only advice that I can give, suck it up buttercup. This isn't new, it's been a thing for over a decade going back to games like UO and EQ and even farther back to MUDs and BBS games. Your complaints aren't new, they aren't unique, and they've been answered thousands of times already and those answers don't change, your personal schedule is YOUR problem, there's hundreds of thousands of other people using the same game world all the time, no one putting YOU above anyone else. This isn't Burger King, you don't get things your way.

Bit harsh.

 

[Kristov]

Bit harsh.

No, harsh would be what I would say to the OP face to face, totally not allowed on these forums. I deal with self entitled whiners all day long, goes with the job, and to them I needs must be polite and nice, they are customers after all. But the folks who aren't my customers who are self entitled whiners, I'm quite harsh with them face to face, always have been, always will be. I work for everything I have, always have, taught that as a child, you get what you earn, you aren't entitled to anything but your rights and if you don't fight for those, well, you'll lose them and that's on you.

Video games are not a right, they are a privilege of the 1st world, to whine and complain that they don't cater to your personal schedule, are you kidding me?

 

[Rikk]

It's advertised as an online multiplayer game, that's an MMO by definition, literally.

The rest of your post is good, but this isn't. I tried to calm my inner pedant, I couldn't, sorry.

Many online multiplayer games are not MMO's.

An MMO is an game capable of massive numbers of players online simultaneously in the same instance or universe. Which Elite does, kind of, as you previously said. But an online multiplayer game does not make a game an MMO (Example, battlefield 4).

Sorry.

I hope you can forgive my inner pedant.

 

[Kristov]

The rest of your post is good, but this isn't. I tried to calm my inner pedant, I couldn't, sorry.

Many online multiplayer games are not MMO's.

An MMO is an game capable of massive numbers of players online simultaneously in the same instance or universe. Which Elite does, kind of, as you previously said. But an online multiplayer game does not make a game an MMO (Example, battlefield 4).

Sorry.

I hope you can forgive my inner pedant.

I understand totally, since by definition BF4 could be called an MMO but anyone doing so...well...yeah, smack em.

 

[Gedemon]

Le sigh. No one is talking about pausing the flow of moment-to-moment gameplay here. It is just about the mission timers ticking down even when not logged into the game.

I am talking about pausing the flow of moment-to-moment gameplay here, that was the only way to have a game for everyone, and we would not even be talking about that specific problem (the galaxy being paused when you don't play in that mode)

And to repeat myself even within the same thread, because even after I said it, the "but BGS" argument is brought up yet again: missions could simply not produce any BGS effect if their actual completion is after the time would have expired had it run in real-time.

And regarding the point about "doesn't need your food any more" - seriously, who cares? If you want to play the BGS, you would have to do the mission on real-time, if you don't and just want to get it done on your own schedule, you also wouldn't care whether it fits into any story about a local famine any more.

If "any BGS effect" include the reputation, it seems reasonable.

 

[Zelos1983]

The only penalties the game has is the reputation decay with major factions (hardly important) and powerplay decay. And there are not many interesting things to do in powerplay either.

The biggest issue to casual gameplay is the software and server stability. Chances are that limited gametime could not be used because the system is down.

 

[Blackcompany]

OP I feel for you. I agree with you. Decay and real time mission timers are not fun. Nor do they add challenging. There is nothing harder about playing for longer stretches. These mechanics add nothing.

But they take away a lot. Like, say, potential customers. The grown up sort, with their own money.

But good luck. These self appointed "hardcore gamers" have made a willingness to be crapped on by shoddy mechanics and tolerate nonsensical levels of grind part of their identity. They take well to the truth of how ridiculous a lot of this stuff is.

 

[Arjin]

Why do people always preface their suggestion posts by saying I love this game? is it out of fear of being called a hater? Just curious...

To the point on decay, it should only happen while a player is online in the galaxy, or if a player actively does something to create positive or negative change.

If I take a 2 week vacation my standing at work does not change, other than add to the jealousy rating of fellow co-workers

 

[GammaZ]

It's funny how people compare real life jobs to ingame ones, and how people think that because it is either MMO or just online game it must have real time mission timers and other similar mechanics.
Actually - real time timers are just design decision, and nothing more. And a bad one. Most of the MMO-s, which are actual MMO-s unlike elite which is basically just multiplayer game, have either no mission timers at all, or have game-time mission timers. And the only another mmo i played which has real-time timers, eve online, just use them for bonuses, not complete mission failure conditions.
Also in terms of pause, and it being impossible in online games. This is not correct, online game can have pauses. Especially heavily-instanced ones, like elite. There is nothing hard/impossible in pausing instance which containts only one player (which means it will be always available in solo), and if there are multiple players in instance there may be another options. I played at least one MMO which have limited pauses:

Spoiler

View attachment 106147

In elite, it looks like frontier is using this to keep players online as long as possible, similar to some free-to-play mmo-s. Why they want it? I do not know, but things like powerplay merit limitations/fasttracking clearly show this is the case...