ED is missing out on play time from occasional gaming

[WorldsGreatestForumDad]

For some, anything less than instant is not good enough.

Fuel scoops is not required: dock and refuel.

Ship transfer is not required: travel with the ship you wanted.

Too many jumps for your taste: options.

There is more to it than that. Modules that you cant throw in your cargo bays.

People build their ships differently and they need those things.

If we're gonna wait thats fine. But the time for waiting should be drastically reduced.

 

[GoldenSilver484]

But a combat ship with a fuel scoop is not a combat ship.

My T-10, Corvette, Conda, Challenger, Chieftain, Crusader, FDL, Cobra MKIv, ICourier, both Viper models and my own Krait all disagree with that statement. In fact the only combat ships I have that fits this description are my hull tanked FDS and Orca.

So you mean, store 5D HRP to free up space for a 5A fuel scoop, equip fuel scoop, hit jump 15 times (15 minutes approx), land at CG station, transfer 5D HRP, wait for transfer (36 min), equip HRP and launch? It's still not really changing much. If for example the transfer time was half that, it would make more sense.

That's not what I meant, you could've equipped the 5A fuel scoop, flown to the CG station, initiated the HRP transfer then gone shooting things while you wait for it to be shipped.

Personally I wouldn't consider putting a C5 HRP in a Krait unless I'm fighting Thargoids, and even then a C5 GSB or SCB is far more beneficial.

 

[lenna]

Sure, but I prefer to take all the advantage I can. That's a skill in itself.

Nope - no skill involved in min-maxing ship builds so you can gank other ships.

 

[[VR] DDM_Reaper20]

I did...



Sure, but I prefer to take all the advantage I can. That's a skill in itself.

Also, you are sidestepping the problem by forcing me to play your way.

Does he hold a gun to your head? No. This is not coercion. It's called reasoning. He is giving you arguments why you could do it his way. In no way did he express that you HAVE TO. THAT would, indeed, be forcing you to do something against your will, but that is not at all what he did.

If you don't want to do what he does, who's stopping you, anyway?

 

[MAUXUS]

Thanks guys for the suggestions on how to play the game. So before getting too much off topic, I”ll try and approach this from a different angle.
In real life, if we had to really wait for a real cargo ship to transfer a real combat ship 240LY away, I would be ok with whatever time it takes. But this is a made up, artificial wait and the programmers can choose how long that should take. I think that they should review the time it takes for a transfer because there might be room for improvement and because waiting for a transfer might cause people to get off the game session and never come back to finish that session. It’s a shame to lose gaming play time to a made up artificial, self imposed wait. But this is not limited to just transfer time. It’s just an example.
Also i can understAnd that there are some people who like the wait. Good for you. If they ever cut the transfer time in a half (for example), you could still stay with the old transfer time by continuing playing that side activity for a little longer before going back to the station and pickup your ship. No one is forcing you to take advantage of that change. But if the transfer time stays the same, people who would like a faster ship transfer cannot play that same trick and make it shorter somehow.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Thanks guys for the suggestions on how to play the game. So before getting too much off topic, I”ll try and approach this from a different angle.
In real life, if we had to really wait for a real cargo ship to transfer a real combat ship 240LY away, I would be ok with whatever time it takes. But this is a made up, artificial wait and the programmers can choose how long that should take. I think that they should review the time it takes for a transfer because there might be room for improvement and because waiting for a transfer might cause people to get off the game session and never come back to finish that session. It’s a shame to lose gaming play time to a made up artificial, self imposed wait. But this is not limited to just transfer time. It’s just an example.
Also i can understAnd that there are some people who like the wait. Good for you. If they ever cut the transfer time in a half, you could still stay with the old transfer time by continuing playing that side activity for a little longer before going back to the station and pickup your ship. No one is forcing you to take advantage of that change. But if the transfer time stays the same, people who would like a faster ship transfer cannot play that same trick and make it shorter somehow.

Or you could adapt the way you play the game. At the end of the day, it is up to you. Nobody, none of us, the game, FDev forces you to log off. That is a choice you have made in the way you have chosen to play the game.

Nobody is trying to tell you how to play, it's called advice, you can take it or leave it. I don't really care. If you enjoy logging off because you have placed yourself in that position, then carry on doing it. If you don't, maybe heed some of the advice given or ignore it and continue to not like the experience.

The choice is yours, you have options available to you.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Also i can understAnd that there are some people who like the wait. Good for you. If they ever cut the transfer time in a half, you could still stay with the old transfer time by continuing playing that side activity for a little longer before going back to the station and pickup your ship. No one is forcing you to take advantage of that change. But if the transfer time stays the same, people who would like a faster ship transfer cannot play that same trick and make it shorter somehow.

By that logic there should be a "give me 5 billion credits" button because people who want to earn it can just ignore the button..

Or give me all class 5 engineered gear because others can still get properly if they want.

For some maximising efficiency is how they want to play the game BUT that is only enjoyable IF you have to actually think about how best to do it.
Having fast travel in a game kills it for me. Multicrew almost pushed me away .,. I agree ship transfer can be improved by having push as well as pull or maybe even remote transfer but it seems some don't want any compromise and just want their way, to hell with the integrity of the game.
Buying a game based in an attempt at a realistic simulation of the milky way travel SHOULD be part of the game. If you insist on going full meta to get every drop of kill power out of your ship as possible is your choice but if that causes issues with transporting it that is on you.
Personally I want more internal consistency in the game not less. If we have instant ship transfer then that tech means instant cargo and data transfer too so no need to trade or data run......
ED was kickstarted partly to allow FD to make more of a niche game which caters more to a less casual kind of game. Publishers like ea etc would have wanted fast travel and all that crap. That is 1 reason (FD claimed) why the self published. I hope they don't go and add that in now anyway.

 

[RamirezKurita]

Thanks guys for the suggestions on how to play the game. So before getting too much off topic, I”ll try and approach this from a different angle.
In real life, if we had to really wait for a real cargo ship to transfer a real combat ship 240LY away, I would be ok with whatever time it takes. But this is a made up, artificial wait and the programmers can choose how long that should take. I think that they should review the time it takes for a transfer because there might be room for improvement and because waiting for a transfer might cause people to get off the game session and never come back to finish that session. It’s a shame to lose gaming play time to a made up artificial, self imposed wait. But this is not limited to just transfer time. It’s just an example.
Also i can understAnd that there are some people who like the wait. Good for you. If they ever cut the transfer time in a half (for example), you could still stay with the old transfer time by continuing playing that side activity for a little longer before going back to the station and pickup your ship. No one is forcing you to take advantage of that change. But if the transfer time stays the same, people who would like a faster ship transfer cannot play that same trick and make it shorter somehow.

It isn't simply a wait though, it does offer meaningful choices in the game. You have a variety of ways to get your ships and modules from A to B, ranging from taxiing over and transferring them all the way through to manually jumping your ships over yourself. Balance is when these are all viable options with regards to time and credit cost. Instant or near-instant transfers without a serious credit cost would effectively negate the option of moving ships around manually.

Not only that, transfer times add in a logistical side to gameplay - rewarding forward planning. Instant or near-instant transfers means that everything can be done on a whim rather than having to premeditate your game sessions. Transfer times aren't an issue if you plan around them, either by starting the transfer at the end of a game session or by taxiing over in a functional ship and doing things in the meantime (this taxi could be outfitted for a completely different activity to the transferred ship, there's nothing stopping you taxiing over in a trader and doing some trading while waiting for your combat ship to arrive). Even better is if you already have fully outfitted ships near your destination if you often engage in particular activities in particular regions, which will often cut transfer times down to 5 mins or less; alternatively you could just set up a proper home system and keep your entire fleet there, keeping the majority of your operations to within travel distance rather than trying to maintain an entire bubble-wide presence in your min-maxed 0.28 ly range combat ship.

 

[[VR] M4st0d0n]

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.

Min maxing is an end game problem on it's own, and something ship transfer with timer don't even solve. Ask a starting player with a limited fleet in a game where small ships have limited roles what he feels about waiting for them.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Ask a starting player with a limited fleet in a game where small ships have limited roles what he feels about waiting for them.

the cobra mkIII is cheap as chips and is a true multipurpose vessel. i was a good 2 - 300 hrs into the game before i went beyond that ship and i had done everything by that point, trade, missions, kill pirates and exploration.,

given you can get into a cobra within 60 mins of starting i do not see the problem now

 

[sollisb]

By that logic there should be a "give me 5 billion credits" button because people who want to earn it can just ignore the button..

Or give me all class 5 engineered gear because others can still get properly if they want.

For some maximising efficiency is how they want to play the game BUT that is only enjoyable IF you have to actually think about how best to do it.
Having fast travel in a game kills it for me. Multicrew almost pushed me away .,. I agree ship transfer can be improved by having push as well as pull or maybe even remote transfer but it seems some don't want any compromise and just want their way, to hell with the integrity of the game.
Buying a game based in an attempt at a realistic simulation of the milky way travel SHOULD be part of the game. If you insist on going full meta to get every drop of kill power out of your ship as possible is your choice but if that causes issues with transporting it that is on you.
Personally I want more internal consistency in the game not less. If we have instant ship transfer then that tech means instant cargo and data transfer too so no need to trade or data run......
ED was kickstarted partly to allow FD to make more of a niche game which caters more to a less casual kind of game. Publishers like ea etc would have wanted fast travel and all that crap. That is 1 reason (FD claimed) why the self published. I hope they don't go and add that in now anyway.

I cannot for the life of me understand 'Having fast travel in a game kills it for me'..

If you don't want to use fast travel because of whatever reason, then don't use it.

What you are implying is that because you don't like it, no-one else should have it.

I don't like the idea of all the external data on websites, but hey, if you wanna use them, go ahead. See the difference?

As for the 'give me 5 billion credits button' - Lol.. I made 2 bn last weekend alone. No need for a button!

 

[[VR] M4st0d0n]

the cobra mkIII is cheap as chips and is a true multipurpose vessel. i was a good 2 - 300 hrs into the game before i went beyond that ship and i had done everything by that point, trade, missions, kill pirates and exploration.,

given you can get into a cobra within 60 mins of starting i do not see the problem now

I believe you when you say Cobra was meta once. So did you wait for your modules in front of a timer? Or used eddb to find new ones? Did you just skipped engineering? Was it also fun and immersive to do so? Or is it some kind of rose tinted memory from when you were so in love with the game?

 

[Jukelo]

I believe you when you say Cobra was meta once. So did you wait for your modules in front of a timer?

Module transfer wasn't always a thing.

Or used eddb to find new ones?

Eddb wasn't always a thing

Did you just skipped engineering?

Engineering wasn't always a thing

Was it also fun and immersive to do so? Or is it some kind of rose tinted memory from when you were so in love with the game?

The game had a lot of problems back then, but for the most part different problems. These days the main problem is Frontier tried to make a game out of this space sim to catter to a wider audience, and the blend isn't without its quirks and inconsistencies. And yet people complain about QoL features Frontier added which objectively make things better while also not breaking the game world too much.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

I believe you when you say Cobra was meta once. So did you wait for your modules in front of a timer? Or used eddb to find new ones? Did you just skipped engineering? Was it also fun and immersive to do so? Or is it some kind of rose tinted memory from when you were so in love with the game?

no transfer if i wanted to change ship i flew to my ship. Ship transfer was a "coming soon" feature however so we knew it was on the cards and was outlined how it would work in 2013.
didnt use external sources
no engineering (indeed i only started doing engineering maybe 12 months after it released as i hated the power creep.... (i still do hate the power creep but i kind of enjoy the material gathering so....................)
fun and immersive? hell yes. in many ways the game is much better now than it was then... but, the opposite is true too.

Whilst it was far more incomplete, the features which WERE in place fit together a lot better and respected the game universe much more. I am convinced back in pre launch beta had someone suggested multicrew using telepresence it would have been shot down immediately. At some point the direction of development changed... and imo it is not always for the better.

so over all i enjoyed my time in the game much more then.

I dont know how to fix it to be honest but for instance, the credit inflation is so silly now that piracy is pretty much pointless as a career. (other than fun, which it may still be fun, but there is no logical ingame reason to ever be a pirate any more)

when a ship drops its load it is not worth my time scooping up because the time spent doing it i could make 10x... maybe 100x even more doing a mission board mission. this is the kind of disconnect i am talking about.

back in 1.0 in your C rated cobra and you could make a (relatively) good salary by picking up dropped cargo. this to me is in keeping with how the game should be.... not leaving stuff in space to rot because it is worthless.

Think about that for a minute..... piracy is not a worth while career in an Elite game? this is one of the CORE game career choices!.

 

[MAUXUS]

I am a practical guy. You can give me a thousand reasons to justify the fact that transferring a ship from the bubble to the Pleiades should take an hour of wait but to me it will always make no sense because ED is a game. It's not like it's a simulator that compares things to real life, where you can measure that taking a ship to Colonia takes 3 and a half days of wait, for example, then divide that time by the distance and extrapolate how long it should take to other destinations. We have a choice. We could make the transfer time and other things that take long time in ED, shorter, to reduce the probability that gamers get off the game at some point, while waiting for that thing to finish.
It was not my choice to get off the game while the transfer happened, it was a forced choice. I opened the game to do some combat (CG) and because of the long transfer time I could not. Yes, I could have done mats harvesting in the meantime and/or manually transferred the combat ship and/or do other things but that was not my target. My only reason for starting the game that day was to do some combat and I could not achieve that in the time frame I had, so I got off the game and played something else instead. All I'm saying is that ED gives the player too many opportunities to get off the game because of downtime and this aspect of the game should get a second look in my opinion.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

I am a practical guy. You can give me a thousand reasons to justify the fact that transferring a ship from the bubble to the Pleiades should take an hour of wait but to me it will always make no sense because ED is a game. It's not like it's a simulator that compares things to real life, where you can measure that taking a ship to Colonia takes 3 and a half days of wait, for example, then divide that time by the distance and extrapolate how long it should take to other destinations. We have a choice. We could make the transfer time and other things that take long time in ED, shorter, to reduce the probability that gamers get off the game at some point, while waiting for that thing to finish.
It was not my choice to get off the game while the transfer happened, it was a forced choice. I opened the game to do some combat (CG) and because of the long transfer time I could not. Yes, I could have done mats harvesting in the meantime and/or manually transferred the combat ship and/or do other things but that was not my target. My only reason for starting the game that day was to do some combat and I could not achieve that in the time frame I had, so I got off the game and played something else instead. All I'm saying is that ED gives the player too many opportunities to get off the game because of downtime and this aspect of the game should get a second look in my opinion.

that is your opinion and that is fine. i have no doubt that fast travel would improve this game for some people.
it will also kill it for others. ultimately it is up to the devs what they do and we have to accept it or move on.

(dont get me wrong, whilst i do accept most of the things FD have added, it does not stop me moaning, after all that is what the boards are for )

some games i play for instant gratification... i would not fire up Battlefield 4 accept having to wait an hr to get my gear shipped in because getting your gear to the BF is not part part of the game.
(OTOH Test drive unlimited or Forza horizons 2 i would personally be ok with it beause they are open world games where travelling around the map IS part of the game- i have no idea if there is fast travel in either game and not using them as a literal example)

but elite i play for similar reasons that i read a book or watch a film... and it would cheese me off no end if in chapter 10 or an hr into a film, a limitation which was a key part of an earlier chapter / scene which was made a deal of was suddently completely ignored.

to me that is a difference between sci fi and fantasy. the rules are / should be more important in sci fi than in fantasy.

but that is just my view

of course then there are games like skyrim or fallout... they DO have fast travel and are open world....

 

[CMDR Dumbfries]

So not a comparable example!

Well, that is quite the compelling counter-argument.
You totally changed my mind. /s

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Well, that is quite the compelling counter-argument.
You totally changed my mind. /s

nothing i say could ever change your mind... just like you could not change my mind. I was not trying to!

but if you are going to use a dishonest example such as a racing game where driving your car to the circuit is NOT part of the game and compare it to an open universe game where travel from 1 location to another IS a huge percentage of said game then there is not a lot i can do.

hell in another post in this very thread i myself gave fairer examples and i do not even want fast travel.... but skyrim and fallout have fast travel. i dont want it in ED but at least they are honest comparisons.

Test drive unlimited or forza horizons would be much better examples as these ARE about driving your car...... these may even have fast travel in. it does not change my view that i dont personally want it in elite but again, they would be a fairer comparison.

but your example was a deliberate attempt to be snide imo.. and as such i responded in kind.

 

[[VR] M4st0d0n]

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.

Meh. I'm jealous of your work now. Thanks for that.

 

[[VR] M4st0d0n]

Module transfer wasn't always a thing.



Eddb wasn't always a thing



Engineering wasn't always a thing



The game had a lot of problems back then, but for the most part different problems. These days the main problem is Frontier tried to make a game out of this space sim to catter to a wider audience, and the blend isn't without its quirks and inconsistencies. And yet people complain about QoL features Frontier added which objectively make things better while also not breaking the game world too much.

I'm sorry you feel that way about Elite's exclusive spacesimness soul, but Frontier deciding to sell the game as a service meant from the start player retention would define its servers shelf times. Knowing that, I think an inclusive perspective, for new or returning players, should be the rationale to follow here.