Do you want ED 2 or an Expansion?

[EdzUp]

The main focus of Odyssey was about setting foot, seems the focus was intended to expand, but 16 updates later and we're still fighting thargoids from our cockpit. Since you mentioned it's a game about flying ships and focused on ships...when was the last new ship? Would anyone even care if they took an Anaconda, or any ship, and reskinned it to look like something else? No! Well probably yes, but it would at least be a new look, a new option. So the focus is on ships...good...give us some!

I think for me having played in Odyssey since it's inception I can say I have left my cockpit for around a dozen or so times, the on foot section of the game for me is mostly for "first footfall" bonuses to planets that's it. I NEVER get out into stations etc as it's all in the cockpit.

ED is a space combat game, as was Elite, Frontier: Elite 2 added the galaxy and landing on planets and FFE refined it somewhat. ED added multiplayer to it but Odyssey derailed the entire franchise by adding on for combat. We didn't need COD in Elite what we needed was more ships like FFE. All they have done is split the community, kill off two HUGE sections of it (XBox and PlayStation) and make it harder for the those left to play Elite with huge performance hits and patchy VR.

What we all just wanted is more options for ships, less focus on engineering and more focus on what made Elite great the space combat dogfighting not the engineering a one hit murder boat.

It's one of the reasons Horizons refuses to die because it runs so well for loads of people where Odyssey runs on for a select few.

 

[metatheurgist]

If I were to pick just ONE major downfall for Odyssey for me... it's that all those fantastic ground assets are almost entirely off limits for me trying to play as a "legal" good guy. The only way I could see inside many of these sites was... to shoot my way in (or steal IDs and hack in). Crime. Which breaks my CMDR role play.

You do know reactivation missions give you full legal access to a site? Granted, with no NPC life. But yeah we could do with way more variety of missions.

 

[CMDR-AD]

You do know reactivation missions give you full legal access to a site? Granted, with no NPC life. But yeah we could do with way more variety of missions.

This was one I tried a few times. I got them to work once. All other times I went out to a mission site, it was already activated.

 

[metatheurgist]

This was one I tried a few times. I got them to work once. All other times I went out to a mission site, it was already activated.

You're probably doing the thargoid ones. Normal ones worked fine last I checked, though I haven't done one in a while.

 

[sqzbox1]

Too much to say in a thread already with 19 pages. Who's gonna read all that? My opinion? Game vision has gone - FD only please loudest voices. Rewrite or expansion - neither will fix the fundamental problem. MY vision is the only right one! Haha - just joking of course. But truly, it just seems that no time is being spent on the things that would keep the original Elite feel which we old farts had from the early days. But then these are the hard things and FD take the path of least resistance - pick the low hanging fruit in order to "get it done and out there" for people to play.

Actually I do understand that to an extent TBH. The simple truth is, Elite was and is a game for a minority. A boutique game as it were. Space sims will never reach the heights of the other big name games out there. So the market is limited and s/w development is expensive. But I still play and remain faithful to the cause.

 

[Rat Catcher]

Normal ones worked fine last I checked, though I haven't done one in a while.

Normal are fine, I did a heap last week on one of my junior accounts.

 

[Cosmo]

Starfield isn't the best example to use of modern graphics, though.

View attachment 369612

Game on the right is 16 years old. Both pics at max settings, no mods. Who wore it better dot jaypeggers

There's mods to fix the weird NPC faces. For example: Crowd NPC eye Ambient occlusion Fix

SF is beautiful with a few mods.

ED could be a lot better if they allow modding. Fdev could implement the best mods into the base game.

 

[Northpin]

ED could be a lot better if they allow modding. Fdev could implement the best mods into the base game.

SF is singleplayer and you can do whatever you want in the game you play without affecting anyone else
ED is realtime, shared galaxy indirect multiplayer and direct multiplayer - so whatever you do in your game is afecting others, even if you play in solo.

Anyway, you have some sort of mods in ED too, mods that alter your hud color scheme or various shader mods - which are not officially sanctioned and which are allowed only if they dont give an advantage over other players.

However, it's really pointless to keep drumming on mods in ED
And even if they will do an ED2, and it would be a pure solo experience, there is still not sure it will allow mods, since IIRC they haven't allowed mods in any of their own games.

 

[Northpin]

Game vision has gone - FD only please loudest voices.

Eh?
I'd say they kept their vision, ignoring the loudest voices

 

[Cosmo]

SF is singleplayer and you can do whatever you want in the game you play without affecting anyone else
ED is realtime, shared galaxy indirect multiplayer and direct multiplayer - so whatever you do in your game is afecting others, even if you play in solo.

They could open up parts of the game such as the graphics, let modders update the ship models and Fdev could add new player designed ships after approval.

Some fans created complete interior layout maps for ships. If Fdev can't be bothered to add it then they could organize a contest to pick the best designs and add those to the game.

Anyway, you have some sort of mods in ED too, mods that alter your hud color scheme or various shader mods - which are not officially sanctioned and which are allowed only if they dont give an advantage over other players.

Fdev should've added more HUD customization as standard in-game options years ago. Because a lot of people don't like the color orange. They could sell alternative HUD styles as cosmetics.

 

[Rat Catcher]

There's mods to fix the weird NPC faces. For example: Crowd NPC eye Ambient occlusion Fix

SF is beautiful with a few mods.

ED could be a lot better if they allow modding. Fdev could implement the best mods into the base game.

Shame that for a game to be considered "good" it has to be modded first, isn't it?
So, what you are saying, it appears, is that it isn't that good without community mods?

 

[Bonesaw]

Do you want Fdev to make ED 2 or another expansion for ED 1?

ED is almost 10 years old and it has aged a lot. The graphics don't hold a candle to current gen space sims and space themed games. So it would be best for Fdev to keep the good features and learn from other space games for a sequel (Elite 5).

Update: gameplay and comparison, recommendation.

Ed 2, on console !

 

[Bonesaw]

Odyssey was a major rewrite of the product let's complete the game using that rather than fracture the community further with ED2

Not sure it's possible to fracture it even more

 

[Jack Winter]

Heh, I thought the above video was somewhat underwhelming, not sure that the graphics made me go "wow look at that eye candy"..

 

[HappySpaceInvdr]

Starfield isn't the best example to use of modern graphics, though.

View attachment 369612

Game on the right is 16 years old. Both pics at max settings, no mods. Who wore it better dot jaypeggers

That's a really disingenuous comparison... comparing apples with oranges.

For a start, the picture on the left has clearly been put through a sepia filter - Starfield (for all it's many faults) does not look like this when you're playing it.

Secondly, I don't know whether the character on the left is a background NPC or a player avatar that's been made to look deliberately bad to make a particular point... but the picture on the right is a model of a key character designed by a professional 3D artist. If the former, then let's see the character models for minor background NPCs in that game?

Again, I'm not here to defend Starfield, as it has many faults, but I've not yet seen a character model looking as bad as the picture on the left above and the only thing that comes close are the very minor background characters, which are typically a bit janky in any 3D game. Starfields graphics are a mixed bag but, on a PC with a 4080 running at max settings, I've seen some absolutely stunning scenery, and the character lip sync (for the English dialogue) is really impressive considering it didn't come from mo-cap.

This is why you shouldn't believe memes on "teh Internets" kids. They're all created to serve a particular agenda, and happy to use deliberate misrepresentation to achieve that.

 

[Cosmo]

Shame that for a game to be considered "good" it has to be modded first, isn't it?

Most review scores of vanilla SF are very positive. Steam user reviews are Mostly Positive (64,501). There are over 3000 free mods on Nexus. The best is yet to come with the Creation Kit.

ED never had so many high review scores and doesn't come close to the success of Starfield.

 

[HappySpaceInvdr]

Shame that for a game to be considered "good" it has to be modded first, isn't it?
So, what you are saying, it appears, is that it isn't that good without community mods?

No... I think this is just "a thing" with PC game players that are obsessed with mods. I've been playing it via GeforceNow (the 4080 tier), and the graphics are absolutely stunning in places... particularly the parts that have been hand-crafted rather than procedurally generated.

I'm not against mods per se, but the game looks absolutely fine without them. And by "absolutely fine" I mean a game thoroughly deserving of its 7/10 review scores. There are disappointments if you've come from Elite... but I'm over those and enjoying the game for what it is.

It's silly to compare ED with Starfield anyway... they are utterly different games, built from completely different (in fact opposite) starting points.

ED started with the Stellar Forge and they built a space exploration sandbox game around it, but largely left the gameplay up to the player. But they did add missions, and I think it would actually be relatively easy for Elite to move a bit more towards Bethesda-like scripted missions with more story and character interaction. But it would take time and money that I don't believe Frontier are interested in investing for such an old game.

Starfield started from the premise of an RPG with highly scripted gameplay, and they built (some) space exploration features around that. The limiting factor is the Creation Engine which simply isn't capable of creating an open world containing planet-sized planets that you can land (or travel between) on in realtime.

 

[zimms]

It's not like the Elite experience has never been enhanced by community content or tools...

 

[HappySpaceInvdr]

It's not like the Elite experience has never been enhanced by community content or tools...

Exactly... take away Inara, and all those other supporting web tools and I would probably have given up on Elite after a very short time. The very fact that playing Elite Dangerous almost requires that you use 3rd party tools like that is the primary reason I've never been able to convince any of my friends to play it.

 

[Rat Catcher]

There are over 3000 free mods on Nexus. The best is yet to come with the Creation Kit.

What more might I say? The answer is in the response!

It's silly to compare ED with Starfield anyway... they are utterly different games, built from completely different (in fact opposite) starting points.

I agree... but admit to finding it hilarious that some were insisting that Starfield would be an ED killer... It is a RPG, single player and not primarily about flitting around in a spaceship.

I'll even buy Starfield when it is on sale with at least 50% reduction, I like a nice RPG myself!

Most review scores of vanilla SF are very positive

Of course they are, most...