You mean... gas prices like we have right now for real that fluctuate due to factors which literally have no bearing on the material value of the fuel at all but are mostly either profit- or politically-driven? Yes please.
ED game mechanics that are now pointless :(
- Thread starter SentineI
- Start date
You mean... gas prices like we have right now for real that fluctuate due to factors which literally have no bearing on the material value of the fuel at all but are mostly either profit- or politically-driven? Yes please.
That's a good point. However, a lot of the changes the OP mentioned were aimed at players that have progressed onto bigger ships (at least, that is my understanding). This means they would have no effect on new players (a docking fee for a Sidewinder should be very low, for example).
Increasing the time for refuelling or stocking your ship would not add anything at all to gameplay. Why would I want to stare at a menu screen for a few minutes when it is completely unnecessary? Of course, if FD were to implement some kind of mini-game for refuelling and stocking, that might be different. But I certainly don't want any time spent on things like that when there are so many better things they could do.
EDIT: Not sure if the extra time for fueling suggestion was in this thread (isn't in the OP), but I read it somewhere today (and can't really be bothered to check the whole thread to see if it is this one!).
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Well, it doesn't (and shouldn't) simply be a flat price increase. That would add zero gameplay.
I'm thinking more along the lines of adding some variety. For example, make fuel costs depend on the economy type and system state.
Military or tourism system? High fuel costs. Extraction? Low fuel costs.
Add in system states of war, boom and bust, and the changes multiply further.
This adds another wrinkle in planning your journey between systems.
* Fuel costs. I don't even understand why they didn't implement the same mechanic as in previous Elites : buying fuel on the market.
* Spacestation docking fees. I also asked for that
Like in previous Elites (FEII and FFE) a docking and daily fee, even if we don't log in and for each ship * Ship heat stealth mechanic. They could remove it. Launching a heatsink, as already said, is a nice mechanic
* Ship wear & tear due to usage/travelling. I think they should :
- Completely remove this mechanic
- Add all missing "ship parts" in "modules" list
- Add a new core module called "Safety Generator" or "Auxilliary Generator" (fixed, depending on ship) allowing power plant repair when reboot and repair is called.
- Apply wear and tear directly in the list so people know the state of their ship !
With the help of the new mechanic already described to repair hull...
This would add something to the gameplay, imo.
Systems with no scoopable star should have higher fuel prices.
I agree ... we have to have challenge or we loose our drive to learn ... But how often have you read of a players frustration over just beginning ED? And then back to square one for those more experienced writing about how they no longer feel challenged because it seems too easy. I feel for both but alas since I am on the lower end of that stick I guess I should feel thankful, in a way, that I did not have to go through what many of you have already.
Here's to your "Inner Geek" and may it be refreshed with 2.4 ...
Chief
My main issue with the game is how everything is predictable , easy , safe and opitional.
In the early days when you started you felt like a underdog , you had to rise up to the point when you would get a stable amount of profit and then move up to the big leages.
Now you start stable , you start the game richer than 90% of characters from the elite books.
POIs/USSs are predictable (you see a base it will have skimmers and it will have cargo , never will the small buildings be empty , or even overrun with skimmers... every single time it will be the same the only change will be the cargo type and type of skimmers)
(Going to get hate for this)
I dont like the route planner.
I think that before we had it the game felt like getting lost in space and we had to think about what our destination was , and how we are going to get there.
As for fuel increasing the cost will make the game more intense for early games , make credits have meaning , increase depth , immersion and I think new players will love it.
After all , when I was a beta backer I was new to the game and I found the virtual stress and micromanagement fun.
A good alternative would be to have sidewinders not cost as much for fuel , or have it so that there is a price reduction until you reach a sertan point in the game. (or keep the current price for small ships , but make the big ones more expensive)
The game was sold to us as being deep , I dont know why a lot of the depth was taken away.
Even death is meaningless now. (not just because the AI is easy) but because everything is so cheap due to how easy it is to make money.
It used to be a achivement to own a Viper , now a Viper is canon fodder. and I think its a shame
In the early days when you started you felt like a underdog , you had to rise up to the point when you would get a stable amount of profit and then move up to the big leages.
Now you start stable , you start the game richer than 90% of characters from the elite books.
POIs/USSs are predictable (you see a base it will have skimmers and it will have cargo , never will the small buildings be empty , or even overrun with skimmers... every single time it will be the same the only change will be the cargo type and type of skimmers)
(Going to get hate for this)
I dont like the route planner.
I think that before we had it the game felt like getting lost in space and we had to think about what our destination was , and how we are going to get there.
As for fuel increasing the cost will make the game more intense for early games , make credits have meaning , increase depth , immersion and I think new players will love it.
After all , when I was a beta backer I was new to the game and I found the virtual stress and micromanagement fun.
A good alternative would be to have sidewinders not cost as much for fuel , or have it so that there is a price reduction until you reach a sertan point in the game. (or keep the current price for small ships , but make the big ones more expensive)
The game was sold to us as being deep , I dont know why a lot of the depth was taken away.
Even death is meaningless now. (not just because the AI is easy) but because everything is so cheap due to how easy it is to make money.
It used to be a achivement to own a Viper , now a Viper is canon fodder. and I think its a shame
I have high hopes for 2.4 , but also a heavy dose of skeptisim.
What if the thargoids are just immune to ''normal'' weapons and we have to do a few weeks of scaning thargoid CGs (or something like it) until the new weapons enable us to kill them.
After we unlock the new weapons , what if they turn out to be just like any other ''threat'' in the game? easy and optional. (not saying danger should be mandatory but even when trading in a pirate system interdictions are more a sugestion that a risk)
Still I look forward to 2.4 , and I know I will enjoy it even if parts of it might be a letdown.
Sort of reminds me of the Independence Day 1 & 2 movies .... Where they had adapted all the alien tech over a number of years to be ready for their (the Aliens) return only to find out HEY the Aliens had advanced a bit too. No, we will have to grind a bit or explore and find the tech we need to counter the "T". But perhaps it will not be too trying.
Chief
I don't see how rolling back these changes would make the game any better. The real problem now is how ridiculously easy it is to earn large amounts of credits, even in a small cheap ship. That would negate most of these things anyway. Why make things worse for big ships when big ships are no longer as useful as they used to be? Nowadays you don't really have much reason to trade up to anything bigger than a Python.
I suppose that my complaint is that these game mechanics ONCE had a purpose, but now you can safely ignore them. I'd like to see them given a little bit of purpose again, as more game complexity (for larger ships!) would makes the game less predictable/repetitive, and so hopefully more enjoyable.
FDev love to add new game mechanics (see every major update), but there are existing mechanics which could easily help reinvigorate the game.
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You are right that game difficulty is a matter of balance. HOWEVER, repair and fuel costs are so low that they are completely meaningless, which also happens to be the point of OP. They could just as well remove repairing and refueling from the game (=make it free) because there is no way a few thousand credits could hurt your bank account in any meaningful way.
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I just agreed with you in another thread.
I now will have to agree again on several points. Try not to make it habit
.1. Docking fees
We never had docking fees in ED and I think we should. I would love it to be a system that had a bit of richness and depth.
For example bigger ships pay larger fees. Also fees could differ depending on the system. I can imagine that high tech stations in the core charge higher fees than some backward mining system. Some systems might not have docking fees at all. I want diversity above all.
Also it should be possible to earn discounts when you do missions for the ruling faction and get higher rep.
Docking fees should never be crippling though. It could be 100 cr for a small ship, 200 for a medium ship and 300 for a large ship.
2. Fuel cost.
They have been far too high for a long time and now they are so low that they have become meaningless. There should be a middle way.
Again I want diversity. Not all prices should be the same. Perhaps we can earn discounts for fuel too.
I also would like the reintroduction of military fuel like in the original games.
3. Stealth mechanic
It is something I never use anymore. I only used it a few times when I started playing several years ago when I thought I needed it to get into stations unnoticed. I quickly discovered that I had no use for it at all.
I would like it to become more meaningful and useful again. For that to really work the ship systems should give better feedback about whether we are safe from being spotted by npc (pc are something completely different) or not.
All successful stealth games have good feedback about the player's visibility. This might not be super realistic, but for a game's stealth mechanic to work this is necessary.
4. Wear and tear
Yes, I too want this to be more meaningful.
In a game like The Witcher 3 your sword does less damage when you do not maintain it and your armour gives you less protection. They never become completely dysfunctional but the player is eager to keep them in top condition.
I am not quite sure how this works in ED. Does wear and tear of components influence functionality at all? I never noticed it, but that may be because, as you already said, I indeed press that repair button in a reflex.
It all comes down to feed back I think. We should have some cool in-ship maintenance screen where we can see the amount of wear and tear of the ship and the consequences for it's functionality. The simple repair button in stations should be transformed into something more meaningful and interesting.
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This would be terrible for explorers.
Totally agreed. All of these "OMG THE GAME IS TOO EASY" things seem to stem from people who already did the grind, and now wouldn't even care if all those things got implemented.
On the other side: small ship mining SUCKS. And all of those costs are straight costs, they're still not meaningful to people with billions in assets, but they want costs that WOULD be meaningful to new players.
I agree with everything here.
As OP, I don't understand the purpose of advance maintenance now for fixing your ship. It's meaningless. It should have a meaning. You should balance what you need to repair now. Of course, hard to balance between playstyles. Combat pilots would suffer...
The fuel costs don't bother me that much but yes, it's very cheap being a spacefarer these days... I don't really know how running costs should be arranged. On one hand you've got the payouts, on the other the expense (weak). How should they balance the 2?
and the cherry on the cake, my biggest E: D letdown : stealth. Why, just why. All wrong there, FDEV. Killing it both for smugglers and for combat. I think one day the design team just woke up and said "we don't need stealth anymore. remove it. Space submarines are so 2007."
Going cold was just so cool. I would imitate isinona and approach stations from very far, flight assist off, icy cockpit.
And ok, stealth meta PvP was annoying as hell (did not make sense as well) but why kill the possibility altogether. Some ships just screamed "stealthboat" and it was great fun.
As OP, I don't understand the purpose of advance maintenance now for fixing your ship. It's meaningless. It should have a meaning. You should balance what you need to repair now. Of course, hard to balance between playstyles. Combat pilots would suffer...
The fuel costs don't bother me that much but yes, it's very cheap being a spacefarer these days... I don't really know how running costs should be arranged. On one hand you've got the payouts, on the other the expense (weak). How should they balance the 2?
and the cherry on the cake, my biggest E: D letdown : stealth. Why, just why. All wrong there, FDEV. Killing it both for smugglers and for combat. I think one day the design team just woke up and said "we don't need stealth anymore. remove it. Space submarines are so 2007."
Going cold was just so cool. I would imitate isinona and approach stations from very far, flight assist off, icy cockpit.
And ok, stealth meta PvP was annoying as hell (did not make sense as well) but why kill the possibility altogether. Some ships just screamed "stealthboat" and it was great fun.
The elephants in the room are obviously credits, naval ranks and engineers.
Since Frontier is incapable to deal with board flipping cheaters who even post their cheats right here on Frontier's own site, earning credits, naval ranks or collecting materials for engineers is pointless. Just cheat.
Why not just add a slider and button on the start screen where players can pick the level of cheat they want to skip to in one board flip? Would save them even more time, wouldn't it?
Since Frontier is incapable to deal with board flipping cheaters who even post their cheats right here on Frontier's own site, earning credits, naval ranks or collecting materials for engineers is pointless. Just cheat.
Why not just add a slider and button on the start screen where players can pick the level of cheat they want to skip to in one board flip? Would save them even more time, wouldn't it?
I would like that.
I want the game to be hard , even outright cruel in some cases.
But I dont want that to be forced on those who hate it.
And so I think the difficulty options could be a good addition (even if they are just optional debuffs to money and so on)
I just agreed with you in another thread.
I now will have to agree again on several points. Try not to make it habit
1. Docking fees
We never had docking fees in ED and I think we should. I would love it to be a system that had a bit of richness and depth.
For example bigger ships pay larger fees. Also fees could differ depending on the system. I can imagine that high tech stations in the core charge higher fees than some backward mining system. Some systems might not have docking fees at all. I want diversity above all.
Also it should be possible to earn discounts when you do missions for the ruling faction and get higher rep.
Docking fees should never be crippling though. It could be 100 cr for a small ship, 200 for a medium ship and 300 for a large ship.
2. Fuel cost.
They have been far too high for a long time and now they are so low that they have become meaningless. There should be a middle way.
Again I want diversity. Not all prices should be the same. Perhaps we can earn discounts for fuel too.
I also would like the reintroduction of military fuel like in the original games.
3. Stealth mechanic
It is something I never use anymore. I only used it a few times when I started playing several years ago when I thought I needed it to get into stations unnoticed. I quickly discovered that I had no use for it at all.
I would like it to become more meaningful and useful again. For that to really work the ship systems should give better feedback about whether we are safe from being spotted by npc (pc are something completely different) or not.
All successful stealth games have good feedback about the player's visibility. This might not be super realistic, but for a game's stealth mechanic to work this is necessary.
4. Wear and tear
Yes, I too want this to be more meaningful.
In a game like The Witcher 3 your sword does less damage when you do not maintain it and your armour gives you less protection. They never become completely dysfunctional but the player is eager to keep them in top condition.
I am not quite sure how this works in ED. Does wear and tear of components influence functionality at all? I never noticed it, but that may be because, as you already said, I indeed press that repair button in a reflex.
It all comes down to feed back I think. We should have some cool in-ship maintenance screen where we can see the amount of wear and tear of the ship and the consequences for it's functionality. The simple repair button in stations should be transformed into something more meaningful and interesting.
If there is docking fees then i want to own my personal planetary outpost.