ED gameplay it's all about -> logoff/logon

[Vorxian]

Instant gratification is not supposed to be a thing in Elite...

Playing devils advocate; I only play video games for instant gratification (after day in day out eyes bleeding looking at FX rates and financials)... It's the only reason games exist for me, is gratification.

It's why I cannot for the life of me play EVE Online. Train skill now to get that ship in.... exactly 32 days 11 hours, 47 minutes and 21 seconds time... In real life.... Who knows what the hell I want in 33 days time. Might not even be alive!

I play a game to enjoy it there and then. Grinding / time sinks only really serves as a mechanism to not get the ship when you really want it. But mentalities are a changeable beast. I'm fortunate and cash isn't an issue in ED. BUT, regardless if you have 20b credits or 100m ASP explorer gameplay is the same either way. I play for the galaxy, not some NPC nobody wanting me to take away planet poo.

I love my ASP E, and my Clipper. I don't have any engineer unlocks yet.. really cant be bothered with the time sink.

 

[Altarf]

So i've been mulling over this for the past hour now.

If you aren't willing to learn or adapt to how the game functions in a normal way... why are you blaming the mechanics of the game? Logging off and on again to refresh missions and so forth, wasn't how our game was designed.

Also, blaming one sole person at our office solely on conjecture isn't tolerated - this borderlines employee harassment.

My intention of starting this thread wasn´t to blame a single person at FD (though Sandy is the lead designer of this game isn´t he?). It should be more a question...
I´m always asking myself why FD didn´t realize how their gameplay finally works if you as a player want a good continuous progress?
The main problem is that there is a very slow progress or bad feeling of success if you try to play the game in a normal way... You can read that very often in many threads on this forum!
Sometimes i have the feeling that FD ignore most of the players feedback and that makes me really sad. Here and now the only thing i read from you is that it´s seemingly my own fault? Ok...

 

[Vorxian]

My intention of starting this thread wasn´t to blame a single person at FD (though Sandy is the lead designer of this game isn´t he?). It should be more a question...
I´m always asking myself why FD didn´t realize how their gameplay finally works if you as a player want a good continuous progress?
The main problem is that there is a very slow progress or bad feeling of success if you try to play the game in a normal way... You can read that very often in many threads on this forum!
Sometimes i have the feeling that FD ignore most of the players feedback and that makes me really sad. Here and now the only thing i read from you is that it´s seemingly my own fault? Ok...

I guess on one hand you're right. That it's human nature to want to take the shortest path somewhere, and if there's a way, they'll do it, even if it ruins the game by making it boring, and it burns you out.

On the other hand, it's probably doing a lot of favors to close that temptation to do it in the first place by removing it from the game.

But then, you take human choice away and it creates more problems than it solves.

There was a psychology test done on children. You put them in a room with an open door and they'll play for hours with a few toys.

Put the same child in the same room, with the same toys and this time CLOSE the door and the kid will panic, bang on the door to be let out, and will never set foot in there again...

Humans are instinctively funny creatures!

 

[Kalimero]

Here and now the only thing i read from you is that it´s seemingly my own fault? Ok...

You tried to tackle a very difficult topic here.
What feels fun and what doesn't is just not a very conscious thing, which is why it is often met with flat out dismissal.

So, again: This should not be the topic. It's easier to talk about mechanics that try to work around it. At least the pro-con-list should be clearer.

 

[jasonbarron]

My intention of starting this thread wasn´t to blame a single person at FD (though Sandy is the lead designer of this game isn´t he?). It should be more a question...
I´m always asking myself why FD didn´t realize how their gameplay finally works if you as a player want a good continuous progress?
The main problem is that there is a very slow progress or bad feeling of success if you try to play the game in a normal way... You can read that very often in many threads on this forum!
Sometimes i have the feeling that FD ignore most of the players feedback and that makes me really sad. Here and now the only thing i read from you is that it´s seemingly my own fault? Ok...

Oh for pete's sake! Obviously the whole mission board hopping is just a byproduct of being able to mode swap. Are you okay with that? Do you stick to just one mode? Do you think everybody should? Do you think Fdev should just force us all into one mode and cure the "problem" that way?

We have board hopping as a result of players getting to pick and choose their modes on the fly. It's called a "necessary evil."

 

[Kalimero]

There was a psychology test done on children. You put them in a room with an open door and they'll play for hours with a few toys.

Put the same child in the same room, with the same toys and this time CLOSE the door and the kid will panic, bang on the door to be let out, and will never set foot in there again...

Humans are instinctively funny creatures!

Intersting! Hadn't heard of that one.
But it's definitely understandable. Knowing you have a way out can be a huge comfort.

 

[fennster]

There was a psychology test done on children. You put them in a room with an open door and they'll play for hours with a few toys.

Put the same child in the same room, with the same toys and this time CLOSE the door and the kid will panic, bang on the door to be let out, and will never set foot in there again...

Humans are instinctively funny creatures!

Sounds more like Open Vs. Solo and combat logging to me

 

[Bad_Wolf]

I think FDev should just add a "Refresh" button and be done with it. Worked fine in other games. Heck, in Earth and Beyond the boards would refresh on their own every 5 minutes. There's already a 20 mission limit in place, just give the runners what they want so we can drop this silliness.

 

[shadragon]

Sigh. Or you could stop logging off and logging on, and just play the game, taking things as they come. It takes a lot longer, but it doesn't elevate the blood pressure as much.

Journey, not destination and all that.

This. Elite is a game that takes a special kind of person to play. If you feel it is nothing but a "grind" or series of "time-sinks," then this may not be the game for you. I remember a guy who posted that he went from a Sidey to an Anaconda in four days doing Sothis runs then got P0wned by a vet in a DBS because he had no experience on how to fly/fight the conda.

This isn't HALO, or Far Cry or DOOM. There is no end-game, there is no "You Win" banner at some point. Nor is Elite for everyone. OP - why are you in a hurry? Take your time and enjoy the path.

 

[Siranui]

Firstly, it's not cheating.

Secondly, if the other guy is not doing it and I am then that's not fair on him is it? You've made my point for me, in that I have the ability to disadvantage another player.

They could solve the issue simply either by making sure there are enough missions on the board so you don't need to refresh or reducing the amount of missions you can take at one time. Then it's a level playing field for everyone, regardless of how they choose to play the game. That must surely be better than the current situation?

Exploiting then, if you must. It is not how the game is intended to work, so misusing it is an exploit. It is using an exploit in order to gain an advantage over the intended rate of progression. You specifically bring up the case of using the exploit to gain advantage not just over the game, but also over other players.

I personally consider that cheating.

potato, pata-to

Consider:
I do not use this exploit. If you are are and we are both working the BGS in an opposing way, you are using an exploit and will win because of it. How would I consider that anything but cheating?

Your solution is that I am at a disadvantage if I am not mode switching to mission stack, so I should start in order to level the playing field. I should - for the sake of fair play - lower my enjoyment of the game by constantly logging in and out and do what I consider cheat in order to cancel out your own exploitation. To get a fair game I must reduce my enjoyment of the game. In fact, to be properly fair, we should flat assume that everyone else is using the exploit, so we should, too.

But two wrongs do not make a right.

The number of missions normally presented is 'considered' enough by the game developers. That is what the decided in order to set the rate of progression. Players who mode switch decided to operate outside the framework of the game as intended. If the option to do so was not there, it would not happen and the game would be played as intended by all. Nobody would have an unfair advantage in playing the BGS. As far as I am concerned, the best fix is to find a way to prevent it from being done at all.

 

[Alexander the Grape]

Let's use a thought experiment.

Suppose the game was coded in a certain way that if your computer's webcam detected you punching yourself in the face, the game would put 20,000,000 credits and 20 engineer materials of your choice in your cargo hold. Now, are the people punching themselves in the face "stupid"? Well maybe, depending on the definition. But if a large proportion of the playerbase would rather punch themselves in the face than play your game, you need to seriously address what your progression system is like.

The answer, of course, is to both fix the game so that punching yourself in the face doesn't give you a reward, and make sure the actual game has enough meaningful and relatively rapid progression players don't feel the need to punch themselves in the face as an alternative.

This is course not FDev's response, which was to introduce a number of ships, upgrades and CGs that can only realistically be obtained or completed by excessive face punching, and using the face punching as a means to balance everything

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

Oh for pete's sake! Obviously the whole mission board hopping is just a byproduct of being able to mode swap. …

I don't think that mission board hopping is primarily a byproduct of the modes. It looks more like a byproduct of instancing.
Sure in it's current way of doing it it involves jumping between modes, but the gain (new mission board) looks like the result of forcing the creation of a new instance.

If I remember right it used to be possible to log out/in into the same mode. Now it's needed to switch between modes, apparently the developers already added a bit of persistence. It's probably easier to do if the logging out/in happens in Solo mode since no other player affects the instance. In Open Mode other players keep the instance alive and chances are high that the player gets into the old instance.

It would be an interesting experiment to see if other methods of creating a new instance result in new mission boards.


I think FD could make persistent mission boards (and RES sites), it would just require more work and probably more server traffic and synchronization for little real advantages and without affecting mode switching.

 

[lefty1117]

I admit: yesterday I had a mission to kill 12 skimmers at a planetary base. Only 3 spawned. I switched mode a total of 3 times in order to complete the mission. Now I'm not coming at it from the OP's perspective of competition against other players, min/maxing etc, but this was literally the most time efficient way for me to complete the mission. What else am I supposed to do, I guess leave the planet and then come back into the instance? What kind of gameplay is that?

So my perspective on this is that I don't mind mode switching and the instancing etc - well I do have some issues with it but not relevant to this discussion - but I don't think mode switching should be a preferred option for successful completion of gameplay objectives. If the mission calls for 12 skimmers, then the base should spawn 12 skimmers, or respawn additional ones on a short cooldown or some other gameplay mechanic that allows the mission to be completed without having to abuse gameplay loopholes.

 

[Siranui]

Suppose the game was coded in a certain way that if your computer's webcam detected you punching yourself in the face, the game would put 20,000,000 credits and 20 engineer materials of your choice in your cargo hold. Now, are the people punching themselves in the face "stupid"? Well maybe, depending on the definition. But if a large proportion of the playerbase would rather punch themselves in the face than play your game, you need to seriously address what your progression system is like.

That assumes that if we also make a perfect computer game and put an exploit into it, that the game is SO AWESOME that nobody would use the exploit.

This is clearly not true. It makes a presumption about Elite.

Elite is not some special case where people short-cut gameplay just because it is Elite.

People shortcut gameplay because they are people.

The answer is not to condone exploitation on the grounds that it is only happening because the game is not good: Make Elite a perfect game, and some people will still exploit it.

The answer is to close the loophole.

 

[Kalimero]

Let's use a thought experiment.

Suppose the game was coded in a certain way that if your computer's webcam detected you punching yourself in the face, the game would put 20,000,000 credits and 20 engineer materials of your choice in your cargo hold. Now, are the people punching themselves in the face "stupid"? Well maybe, depending on the definition. But if a large proportion of the playerbase would rather punch themselves in the face than play your game, you need to seriously address what your progression system is like.

The answer, of course, is to both fix the game so that punching yourself in the face doesn't give you a reward, and make sure the actual game has enough meaningful and relatively rapid progression players don't feel the need to punch themselves in the face as an alternative.

This is course not FDev's response, which was to introduce a number of ships, upgrades and CGs that can only realistically be obtained or completed by excessive face punching, and using the face punching as a means to balance everythin

Your experiment captures the problem pretty well I'd say. The thing is, that there is no middle ground in that discussion. One side says there should be more unique content that rewards progression the other side says there should be anything but that since it's already full of unique stuff that feels rewarding to them and don't want to loose that.

They might as well be arguing over whether it is the right thing to like the colour green.

I'm afraid it's just not gonna lead anywhere unless you put forward mechanics that both sides might have interest in.

 

[parablax]

I'm sure this has been mentioned in the previous replies, but....

how about you just stop logging in and logging off.

 

[HalloweenWeed]

Sounds like a mental health issue to me.
Focusing on only one end goal and doing only what will achieve that goal quickest, and losing sight of what you are playing for: FUN!
Unfortunately, fixing mental health might not be possible in this forum.

 

[Karunamon]

This. Elite is a game that takes a special kind of person to play. If you feel it is nothing but a "grind" or series of "time-sinks," then this may not be the game for you. I remember a guy who posted that he went from a Sidey to an Anaconda in four days doing Sothis runs then got P0wned by a vet in a DBS because he had no experience on how to fly/fight the conda.

This isn't HALO, or Far Cry or DOOM. There is no end-game, there is no "You Win" banner at some point. Nor is Elite for everyone. OP - why are you in a hurry? Take your time and enjoy the path.

Well, there most definitely is an end-game. It's called being triple elite in an A-and-engineered Cutter. You have no further progression to make from that point.

 

[fennster]

Well, there most definitely is an end-game. It's called being triple elite in an A-and-engineered Cutter. You have no further progression to make from that point.

Simply no.

 

[Cmdr Basskicker]

So i've been mulling over this for the past hour now.

If you aren't willing to learn or adapt to how the game functions in a normal way... why are you blaming the mechanics of the game? Logging off and on again to refresh missions and so forth, wasn't how our game was designed.

Also, blaming one sole person at our office solely on conjecture isn't tolerated - this borderlines employee harassment.

If it's not intended and is an exploit then why has it persisted since the game released? Not meaning to be snarky, but something that has been around this long, that is not intended yet hasn't been fixed, kind of makes it the game designers' problem. It is your game after all, and if changes are going to be made it has to start and end with you.