ED is missing out on play time from occasional gaming

[Lobstris]

To be fair, I think there is a balance to be reached, but for me, things like instant ship transfers would cross the line, for both meta and immersive gameplay reasons.

Indeed. Obviously things like penalties for ship destruction, or 'real-time cargo loading' get dialed back from 'full realism', for gameplay (and player sanity ) reasons - both would kill gameplay outright. However having to wait for a ship to be transferred doesn't kill gameplay - you still have a ship to do things in while you wait, even if it's not optimal for those things, or you have to do something else for a bit.

As to the OP's original comment - again, surely Elite, with its low difficulty after the initial learning curve, its ever present commodities market, its millions of asteroid belts and RES sites, and infinite procedural missions, is an almost ideal game for a casual 1/2-hour's play, assuming you're not hung-up on doing something long-range?

 

[MadDogMurdock]

I'm not a fan of the logging in anywhere idea. I like the idea of Commander presence in the game over things like telepresence, etc.

Sending ships ahead and even booking passage somewhere and optionally buying a ship when you get there sound better to me, but then I suppose players really would be stuck waiting, unless they cancel the flight, taking the insta-pod back.

If we can move around and do things in ships other than piloting them, this might not be so bad. What do they do for entertainment in 3304? Perhaps I shouldn't ask... On the other hand, things like holo-me squadron conference calls in virtual boardrooms or lounges, market/faction negotiations, below deck ship crew operations, or similar might be kind of nice.

These might not be the best examples, and implementing these sort of things isn't trivial, but it goes to show what sort of potential this game has if it were more fully fleshed-out and realized.

These sort of things are in part what I had hoped to pay for with my comparatively expensive Horizons pre-order LEP back in 2015. Just saying.

At this point I only judge the game as it is rather that what I once wished it could be.

 

[schmicknick]

OK. How about a new Contact Services contract which you could sign up for at a station.

For a low flat weekly fee, you can add up to a certain number of ships to be automatically transferred to CG locations each time they change.

 

[Lobstris]

OK. How about a new Contact Services contract which you could sign up for at a station.

For a low flat weekly fee, you can add up to a certain number of ships to be automatically transferred to CG locations each time they change.

Define 'low', because I'm sure the number you're thinking of is lower than the number I'm thinking of. And how many ships, 'cus again, the number I'm thinking of is around zero.

 

[schmicknick]

Define 'low', because I'm sure the number you're thinking of is lower than the number I'm thinking of. And how many ships, 'cus again, the number I'm thinking of is around zero.

Fair enough... but I do think that since it is more of a bulk/ongoing transfer contract, the price would reflect that.
And sure, costs might be somewhat more substantial if the services were automatically suspended should the player not have logged in for a few weeks or so. In fact, it might only apply costs upon log-in, shifting those shops to a current CG location.

Bear in mind that I am simply addressing the OP's puzzle a bit. I'm thinking 3 would be a good number for ships. And idk... 1k, 10k, 50k... certainly quite low.. but it could scale with ship value.. only that its reasonable for new players is all..

Cheers..

 

[NeilF]

Here’s a secret:

The amount of time required to transfer a ship is greater than the amount of time required to fly that same ship to a destination.

Test it out yourselves.

And? The transporters are slow...

 

[[VR] M4st0d0n]

It's not like, you got that option or this option. It's not how stuff went in place.

Last X game will use a similar mechanism to telepresence to manage your fleet of ships. What do we have here? Basically, FDev made people vote for one stupid design against another stupid design, maintaining a level of quality similar to those timer-based mobile games. Except you can skip it in the mobile game with money. Here in Elite you skip it just by playing something else. I's not even costly enough to make it somewhat strategic, it's the ultimate gameplay passiveness.

There is no need to polarize stuff around immersion or balance, then point out the community chose for it. And frankly those two concept may be in people's head but that's all. It's not in Elite. Factually. Elite is not immersive, it's even quite gamey. It got VR support for a redeeming element. It's not balanced neither, people need to actually coordinate their agenda hours before having symetric pvp. And then it's still not balanced because engineers update just added a layer of powercreeped magic spells meta.

Elite development for the past year is more about damage control for a game launched in a beta state and in hiatus. Timer, mission server, crime and punishment, mat traders, ... It's always one war late and not patching any root cause. And then, when it's time to shine and develop something active and fun and engaging, we have the Gnosis or all those other failed stories.

Senseless timers have to go. In PP, in menu logging too. FDev, respect your customers time and provide contents, not fekking timers. MMOs have moved on.

 

[Brian of Ardagh]

It's not like, you got that option or this option. It's not how stuff went in place.

Last X game will use a similar mechanism to telepresence to manage your fleet of ships. What do we have here? Basically, FDev made people vote for one stupid design against another stupid design, maintaining a level of quality similar to those timer-based mobile games. Except you can skip it in the mobile game with money. Here in Elite you skip it just by playing something else. I's not even costly enough to make it somewhat strategic, it's the ultimate gameplay passiveness.

There is no need to polarize stuff around immersion or balance, then point out the community chose for it. And frankly those two concept may be in people's head but that's all. It's not in Elite. Factually. Elite is not immersive, it's even quite gamey. It got VR support for a redeeming element. It's not balanced neither, people need to actually coordinate their agenda hours before having symetric pvp. And then it's still not balanced because engineers update just added a layer of powercreeped magic spells meta.

Elite development for the past year is more about damage control for a game launched in a beta state and in hiatus. Timer, mission server, crime and punishment, mat traders, ... It's always one war late and not patching any root cause. And then, when it's time to shine and develop something active and fun and engaging, we have the Gnosis or all those other failed stories.

Senseless timers have to go. In PP, in menu logging too. FDev, respect your customers time and provide contents, not fekking timers. MMOs have moved on.

Funny, the part of your paragraph that I have made bold is not something I have ever done since I started ED on v1.4. If I only have 30 minutes to play, I play something else on my Xbox, ED isn't the kind of game that I play when I have no time to devote to it; I don't see anything wrong with ED taking some time to play. I have never put Netflix, Hulu or Crunchyroll on my gaming PC either, I play the game. If I have a ship in transit, it isn't the ship I need right this minute, it's the ship I want later and in the meantime I use the ship I have to play the part of ED that it is good for.

 

[WR3ND]

At this point I only judge the game as it is rather that what I once wished it could be.

Fair point, but it should be noted that these sort of things aren't just wishful thinking for at least some of us as players of the game, but also at least roughly outlined and marketed goals to reach in future development and expansions to the game by Frontier.

Whether or not these sort of things are still realistic expectations at this point a few years on... Well, I can only hope that Frontier finds a way to reinvigorate the market for the game with ambitious development of the game. I think there's still a lot of potential for both.

Tying off or complicating these sort of opportunities with short-term development for gameplay workarounds isn't really in Frontier's nor our bests interests overall, in my opinion. It's doubling back on development resources or giving up on – prioritizing? – the game's potential and earlier development goals.

 

[Misty_Dark]

Oh, for one participating in a combat CG rewards you double than if you are just shooting down ships in a RES and second, Smith Landing in Amber, where my ships were parked, was in some kind of lock-down yesterday due to Thargoid sensors activity and all its services were down (refuel, restock and repair where all red).
I haven't read all the comments so far but I've seen plenty of salty people suggesting that I play the game their way or a different way. Reducing the transfer time (for example) wouldn't affect these users and their gameplay one bit, yet the better solution in their mind seems to be that I should change my way of playing.
So the topic here is that ED might be missing out on accumulated play time, over a period of time, from occasional playing. Making this possible doesn't preclude others from enjoying the game with longer playing sessions, yet the latter users manage to limit the others, when doing it the other way around wouldn't be as limiting for the other group of players. And it would bring more people playing more often. This is the argument I'm trying to make.

We understand the game mechanics and play accordingly... You seems to totally be missing the entire point that it SHOULD take time to go from point A to point B. This is a CORE GAME MECHANICS. One that you rejects and now want to change... trying to impose that change to the rest of us.


So travelling from point A to point B is based on things like the jump range of your ship, so obviously outfitting choices affects jump range. So heavy combat ships will by this game design have less jump range compared to ships specially outfitted for long jump range. Something you obviously have understood as you both of these ships.


And now you are complaining about this, and totally rejecting all the suggestion to work with the game instead of against the game design, accusing others of trying to tell you how to play they game, when it is in fact you who are trying to impose your views on how this game should be played onto all the other players.

 

[[VR] M4st0d0n]

Funny, the part of your paragraph that I have made bold is not something I have ever done since I started ED on v1.4. If I only have 30 minutes to play, I play something else on my Xbox, ED isn't the kind of game that I play when I have no time to devote to it; I don't see anything wrong with ED taking some time to play. I have never put Netflix, Hulu or Crunchyroll on my gaming PC either, I play the game. If I have a ship in transit, it isn't the ship I need right this minute, it's the ship I want later and in the meantime I use the ship I have to play the part of ED that it is good for.

Funny you can make a whole paragraph out of just a single phrase I write, taking it out of context. Cant wait for the essay you'll write next. But if it's while a timer tick in Elite for you, you're still not playing the game.

 

[ries]

Combat is my fav part of the game but isn't the only part of the game and its your choice to go to the current CG no one put a gun to your head. If you want instant gratification play something that provides that

Its a common (specially on these forums) to confuse to do the things you actually want to do with instant gratification. Instant gratification is getting the reward instantly, so that means if you start a cg you wil get instantly the cg reward. That's not what the OP asked, he asked to actually participate in the CG, but to do this he needs to wait for his ships to arrive because reasons.

 

[kromc5]

The "my immurshion" crowd did ruin the ship transfer feature... I'm okay with wait times (particularly if it's going someplace like the Pleiades or Colonia), but a transfer shouldn't take longer than it takes to just do it myself. At the very least there should be options (slow transfer, cheap price or fast and expensive)

I move around maybe twice a month with my traveling circus of ships, just one ship costs around 12+mill each transfer. I would like to have seen the times reduced to what the average flight time would be as I'm usually moving 5+ ships at a time.

 

[WR3ND]

...

I see what you're saying and actually somewhat agree with the general premise, but a timer for automated things that inherently take time manually accomplishing in the game while being core gameplay elements (like flying spaceships around in space) makes sense to me. Choosing to min/max a ship and then being upset about the repercussions of the min characteristics of the ship seems at least somewhat counterproductive to me.

That isn't to necessarily say that these sort of differences in ship potentials couldn't be reevaluated and adjusted if deemed appropriate to do so. With the Engineer FSD range mods being a multiplier, the differences between the lower end and higher end are comparatively wider, so for some, transferring and waiting for ships might seem easier, but by extension less engaging, than it necessarily should be.

 

[Brian of Ardagh]

Funny you can make a whole paragraph out of just a single phrase I write, taking it out of context. Cant wait for the essay you'll write next. But if it's while a timer tick in Elite for you, you're still not playing the game.

I don't think the phrase is out of context, you have said what some other players complain about, that the "timers" force players to skip playing ED. I don't see it that way, I didn't see any need to address any of the other points in your post and my response was related to the OP's complaint that they logged out of ED to play Far Cry 5. I never find any activity in ED forcing me to log out, if a player can't find something else to do while playing ED, well that's their problem.

As for the timer tick comment, I'm not currently playing ED, I'm at work waiting for the timer tick that counts down to quitting time.

 

[Lobstris]

It's not like, you got that option or this option. It's not how stuff went in place.

Last X game will use a similar mechanism to telepresence to manage your fleet of ships. What do we have here? Basically, FDev made people vote for one stupid design against another stupid design, maintaining a level of quality similar to those timer-based mobile games. Except you can skip it in the mobile game with money. Here in Elite you skip it just by playing something else. I's not even costly enough to make it somewhat strategic, it's the ultimate gameplay passiveness.

There is no need to polarize stuff around immersion or balance, then point out the community chose for it. And frankly those two concept may be in people's head but that's all. It's not in Elite. Factually. Elite is not immersive, it's even quite gamey. It got VR support for a redeeming element. It's not balanced neither, people need to actually coordinate their agenda hours before having symetric pvp. And then it's still not balanced because engineers update just added a layer of powercreeped magic spells meta.

Elite development for the past year is more about damage control for a game launched in a beta state and in hiatus. Timer, mission server, crime and punishment, mat traders, ... It's always one war late and not patching any root cause. And then, when it's time to shine and develop something active and fun and engaging, we have the Gnosis or all those other failed stories.

Senseless timers have to go. In PP, in menu logging too. FDev, respect your customers time and provide contents, not fekking timers. MMOs have moved on.

Whilst I agree with you about power creep being evil in engineering, since when has Elite been about 'symmetric pvp'? And timers ALWAYS have a place in game for things that... er… should take time. And not blindly following prevailing MMO tropes is another thing I believe Elite deserves praise for.

 

[Spacecat]

You should have anticipated the CG, switched to your Krait, then left it in a closer system.

 

[AnotherVoice]

ED is missing out on play time from occasional gaming

ED requires you to know at least one day before your playing session what you'll want to do when the time comes, so you don't spend half of your gaming time traveling to your destination before being able to do what you want.

It's called planning ahead, people seem to like it, but it's not compatible with "impulsive" gaming, and after several hundred hours of play time, it gets old.

 

[Iron Golem]

You see for me whos been gaming 40 odd years the OP sums up a bad design choice by FD.

Even tho I think its bad and once again this thread has the same old rinse and repeat answers in it, and there are ways around it, the OP wanted to jump in do a bit of ED and log out, instead he logged into another game and payed that.

People who by their posting nature tend to drive players away from this or any game are only hurting the game they proclaim to love above all others.

To note as said I think its a bad choice by FD but its not going to change and I for one have learned to live with it

The game respects your time...(mumble mumble)...

 

[metatheurgist]

I think there may be an argument to be made to rebalance jump ranges, bringing up the low end a bit, even though I personally don't have an issue with it.

Yeah, jump ranges are amazing now. Pre-engineers I'd have said it was pretty bad for combat ships but any ship can get around the bubble in a handful of jumps now. Even the corvette can do that with a guardian booster. If you're one of those that can't live without the extra 2m/s speed you get from a reduced D class FSD and won't change, well, that's your choice. The game allows you to make spaceships that can't space, just don't blame the game for your own choices.