Core Gameplay Elements need improvement

[Captain Hooch]

Elite Dangerous has been out for nearly 3 years now, and most of us can agree it needs some improvements to core gameplay features.

Below are a list of areas I believe need work as well as my own personal suggestions on what I think could make for solid improvements to these areas.

Combat:
-PvP Bounty Hunting
--Why?: Right now its dumbed down to luck of finding a wanted commander at the same time you're prepared with a combat capable ship.
---Suggestion: A way to track players who have bounties perhaps using local station news, galnet news, nav beacons, and the transactions tab

Trading:
-In Game Market Resources
--Why? Currently players rely heavily upon external sources to locate trade routes.
---Suggestion1: A galactic market database that can be searched in game with updates based upon distance and traffic.
---Suggestion2: Have events where certain lesser valued commodities become very valuable as in up there with palladium and imperial slaves with mentions in galnet news popping up now and again creating small gold rushes for traders, these events could appear as galnet news articles silently added giving traders a reason to read the news to check and see if any events are currently happening.


Exploration:
-More stuff to do
--Why? Exploration is fairly light on gameplay and there just isn't enough to do.
---Suggestion: Source the community for suggestions, I have no ideas on how to improve gameplay in this area, only the awareness that it needs improvement to increase player engagement.


Mining:
-Wave Scanner for ships.
--Why? Right now finding a good rock to mine is pure luck, decreasing the randomness would be helpful.
---Suggestion: Wave Scanner module or utility that could be added to mining ships and tied into sensor range allowing players to use its readings to get an approximate idea on the location on high value rocks with higher value ores showing as higher pings and narrowing down the areas they need to search where at which point prospector limpets would take over the job of finding the exact rock that gave the high ping.


Travel:
-Shorter Travel Times for covering empty space
--Why? Traveling distances of 10s of thousands or 100s of thousands of light seconds involves zero gameplay beyond pointing your ship at your destination and waiting.
---Suggestion: Something akin to how Impulse travel works in Star Trek Bridge Crew to cover vast distances in system, or unlocking our FSD once far enough away from nearby celestial bodies allowing maximum supercruise speed to quickly close the gap to our destination.
---Alternate Suggestion: Different ships having different supercruise acceleration, deceleration, and top speed capablities making some ships better suited for in system travel than others.

If anyone else has ideas on areas of core gameplay that could be improved please drop a comment below.

 

[MBaldelli]

Elite Dangerous has been out for nearly 3 years now, and most of us can agree it needs some improvements to core gameplay features.

Below are a list of areas I believe need work as well as my own personal suggestions on what I think could make for solid improvements to these areas.

Combat:
-PvP Bounty Hunting
--Why?: Right now its dumbed down to luck of finding a wanted commander at the same time you're prepared with a combat capable ship.
---Suggestion: A way to track players who have bounties perhaps using local station news, galnet news, nav beacons, and the transactions tab

You are aware of just how vast space is, right? The RNG for finding USS outside the bubble more than 10 LY is completely unrealistic and the sort of thing I often barely can accept as part of the game. same with wanted NPC ships within the bubble. While it's true I generally ignore them, what makes you think it would be any easier to do this with actually commanders inside the Bubble?

Exploration:
-More stuff to do
--Why? Exploration is fairly light on gameplay and there just isn't enough to do.
---Suggestion: Source the community for suggestions, I have no ideas on how to improve gameplay in this area, only the awareness that it needs improvement to increase player engagement.

Honestly there isn't much to improve on this, given that what you're doing is surveying. They have already increased (greatly in some cases) the pay out for ADS/DDS work. There's been a suggestion taking "first discovered by" when a Deep Space Explorer completed an entire system scan from the cherry pickers, as well as working out reputation with the three powers at a significant discount to the local groups (apparently the Devs don't understand how the General Services Administration or whatever the civilian contractors that work with the military operates). Both have either been put on the bottom of the list or ignored. I'm wagering ignored... Not that I mind; I'm patient and will approach it again in the future.

Travel:
-Shorter Travel Times for covering empty space
--Why? Traveling distances of 10s of thousands or 100s of thousands of light seconds involves zero gameplay beyond pointing your ship at your destination and waiting.
---Suggestion: Something akin to how Impulse travel works in Star Trek Bridge Crew to cover vast distances in system, or unlocking our FSD once far enough away from nearby celestial bodies allowing maximum supercruise speed to quickly close the gap to our destination.

I agree with this. Stephen Donaldson introduced this in The Gap Series as what's called Blink Jumping. I'm rather surprised that this hasn't been introduced. Particularly with the existence of Hutton Orbital. Unless of course Frontier is still handing out mugs to those players that traverse that .22 LY from entry to the station in which case I'll try to do it during the winter. Otherwise, this needs to be re-addressed.

If anyone else has ideas on areas of core gameplay that could be improved please drop a comment below.

I'd like to see less RNG. This is the 34th century. We should be seeing better technology than we are in the game. If it can be scientifically done in real time, it should exist better in-game.

 

[Captain Hooch]

You are aware of just how vast space is, right? The RNG for finding USS outside the bubble more than 10 LY is completely unrealistic and the sort of thing I often barely can accept as part of the game. same with wanted NPC ships within the bubble. While it's true I generally ignore them, what makes you think it would be any easier to do this with actually commanders inside the Bubble?

I don't know where you got USS out of that, for clarification my idea here is well actually let me just format it in a way of how I'd imagine it working in game.

You go to a system and check the local news via the station menu when docked. You see CMDR Murderhobo is wanted in this system for 20,000cr and was last seen in System X. You add this information to your transactions tab and travel to System X. You scan the Nav Beacon there and get a record of how long ago it was since CMDR Murderhobo was in this system, and his last reported location. You follow this information until you find the system the wanted player is currently in, then it will tell you their current location within the system such as station, planet, outpost, RES site, whatever. There would also be notifications on your transactions tab to alert you if they are online and in your open/private session as well as if their bounty was claimed. With the upcomming pilots fed bounties I would imagine a Top 10 list of most wanted commanders updated weekly and functioning in much the same manner.

 

[SciTrekker]

I don't know where you got USS out of that, for clarification my idea here is well actually let me just format it in a way of how I'd imagine it working in game.

You go to a system and check the local news via the station menu when docked. You see CMDR Murderhobo is wanted in this system for 20,000cr and was last seen in System X. You add this information to your transactions tab and travel to System X. You scan the Nav Beacon there and get a record of how long ago it was since CMDR Murderhobo was in this system, and his last reported location. You follow this information until you find the system the wanted player is currently in, then it will tell you their current location within the system such as station, planet, outpost, RES site, whatever. There would also be notifications on your transactions tab to alert you if they are online and in your open/private session as well as if their bounty was claimed. With the upcomming pilots fed bounties I would imagine a Top 10 list of most wanted commanders updated weekly and functioning in much the same manner.

How would this work if the hunter or the huntee has blocked the other?

 

[Marc_Hicks]

Elite Dangerous has been out for nearly 3 years now, and most of us can agree it needs some improvements to core gameplay features.

Below are a list of areas I believe need work as well as my own personal suggestions on what I think could make for solid improvements to these areas.

Combat:
-PvP Bounty Hunting
--Why?: Right now its dumbed down to luck of finding a wanted commander at the same time you're prepared with a combat capable ship.
---Suggestion: A way to track players who have bounties perhaps using local station news, galnet news, nav beacons, and the transactions tab

Trading:
-In Game Market Resources
--Why? Currently players rely heavily upon external sources to locate trade routes.
---Suggestion1: A galactic market database that can be searched in game with updates based upon distance and traffic.
---Suggestion2: Have events where certain lesser valued commodities become very valuable as in up there with palladium and imperial slaves with mentions in galnet news popping up now and again creating small gold rushes for traders, these events could appear as galnet news articles silently added giving traders a reason to read the news to check and see if any events are currently happening.


Exploration:
-More stuff to do
--Why? Exploration is fairly light on gameplay and there just isn't enough to do.
---Suggestion: Source the community for suggestions, I have no ideas on how to improve gameplay in this area, only the awareness that it needs improvement to increase player engagement.


Mining:
-Wave Scanner for ships.
--Why? Right now finding a good rock to mine is pure luck, decreasing the randomness would be helpful.
---Suggestion: Wave Scanner module or utility that could be added to mining ships and tied into sensor range allowing players to use its readings to get an approximate idea on the location on high value rocks with higher value ores showing as higher pings and narrowing down the areas they need to search where at which point prospector limpets would take over the job of finding the exact rock that gave the high ping.


Travel:
-Shorter Travel Times for covering empty space
--Why? Traveling distances of 10s of thousands or 100s of thousands of light seconds involves zero gameplay beyond pointing your ship at your destination and waiting.
---Suggestion: Something akin to how Impulse travel works in Star Trek Bridge Crew to cover vast distances in system, or unlocking our FSD once far enough away from nearby celestial bodies allowing maximum supercruise speed to quickly close the gap to our destination.
---Alternate Suggestion: Different ships having different supercruise acceleration, deceleration, and top speed capablities making some ships better suited for in system travel than others.

If anyone else has ideas on areas of core gameplay that could be improved please drop a comment below.

In relation to exploration, I'd like to see USS's that aren't just man-made. USS's could also cover a wide array of spatial phenomena & anomalies, to really highlight what an unusual place deep space is. Likewise, just because human related PoI's might start to disappear as you get further from the bubble, doesn't mean you can't find PoI's of artificial-but non human-origin. The last remnants of an alien settlement on a planet whose atmosphere was stripped bare by a cataclysm, or an off world settlement of a space faring race which long became extinct. We already have Thargoids, Humans & Guardians as current or former inhabitants of the galaxy.....so why can't we have dozens more, either current or long dead?

 

[MBaldelli]

I don't know where you got USS out of that, for clarification my idea here is well actually let me just format it in a way of how I'd imagine it working in game.

It's sort of a bone of contention with me given you're dealing with a galaxy 100,000 light-years in diameter and just under 1,000 light-years tall. With an estimation of 400 billion stars, the amount human population in 3303 to find a USS within both within and without the Bubble would need to exceed the Octillion range (1 with 27 zeroes following it). Yet, here I am... 1,000+ LY from Sothis is still seeing USS in every.... bloody.... system...

With this in mind, the odds for finding a wanted Commander in his ship not only within and without the bubble but also within the expanse of a star system would be equally astronomical.

As I've said before, I'm giving some leeway to the developers for this being focused on the player specifically and not the sandbox, but even then, it's pushing it.

You go to a system and check the local news via the station menu when docked. You see CMDR Murderhobo is wanted in this system for 20,000cr and was last seen in System X. You add this information to your transactions tab and travel to System X. You scan the Nav Beacon there and get a record of how long ago it was since CMDR Murderhobo was in this system, and his last reported location. You follow this information until you find the system the wanted player is currently in, then it will tell you their current location within the system such as station, planet, outpost, RES site, whatever. There would also be notifications on your transactions tab to alert you if they are online and in your open/private session as well as if their bounty was claimed. With the upcomming pilots fed bounties I would imagine a Top 10 list of most wanted commanders updated weekly and functioning in much the same manner.

From a coding standpoint this would be a nightmare. First, you would need to program and monitor who has the highest bounties on them: in real time. Then you would need to track how many of them have bases of operation and are in that system for x amount of time before they would hit the news. Then you would have to produce either news or simply a USPS-like Wanted Board of the pilots that are wanted... Also in real time. The shorter the time before the news generates the more processor splicing you're going to require to identify those pilots... Often with near omniscient quality.

Never mind what SciTrekker says about the ignore function completely foiling this method of handling.

Sounds all right in theory, but when it boils down to it... Word of mouth on Griefers is tons more effective than trying to get the game to assisting.