Elite Dangerous' Game Design is stuck behind a rock and a hard place

[Marasmusine]

Earlier today I spent about 15 minutes in SC traveling to a distant station (240,000 Ls)..

Why did you do that.

 

[Britannkic]

Sorry got bored reading all that

me too. It was too much of "start at beginning of sentence, read, read some more,approach end of sentence, reach end of sentence, drop to next sentence, start at beginning ... Etc ... Etc...."

 

[gamecat]

Earlier today I spent about 15 minutes in SC traveling to a distant station (240,000 Ls). That was not fun, in fact I almost just exited the game to do something else. So I should find something to divert myself during this time? I should keep a magazine handy perhaps, like you find in doctors office to relieve the boredom? I can't just set a timer and come back - I'll over shoot or worse.

Trips over more normal planetary distances are not too bad, but longer range SC trips need to be faster. Seems like an easy fix to me, just significantly increase SC acceleration - It took something like 5 minutes just to get up to speed.

240,000 LS what for? Why make the game tedious for yourself I'd never bother with that distance.

 

[Knightshark]

240,000 LS what for? Why make the game tedious for yourself I'd never bother with that distance.

I was wondering the same. There is a countdown, so ou can guess how long it will take. I'd rather drop a mission an pay a small fine before i spend 40 minutes waiting.

 

[Maruun]

Earlier today I spent about 15 minutes in SC traveling to a distant station (240,000 Ls). That was not fun, in fact I almost just exited the game to do something else. So I should find something to divert myself during this time? I should keep a magazine handy perhaps, like you find in doctors office to relieve the boredom? I can't just set a timer and come back - I'll over shoot or worse.

Trips over more normal planetary distances are not too bad, but longer range SC trips need to be faster. Seems like an easy fix to me, just significantly increase SC acceleration - It took something like 5 minutes just to get up to speed.

Its not the Acceleration of Supercruise that takes so long...its your distance to the other star. So in a way you are already at max speed but because your distance grows from the star so grows your max speed over time.

Just stop at that point and then acclerate and you will see how fast you get to your maxspeed and thenn slowly grows/shrinks depending on the distance to a star.

 

[Globusdiablo]

I really want to love this game. It ticks so many of the right boxes for me. I love how the ships look. I love the concept of a simulated universe. I loved Frontier and First Encounters to death.

But this game... is a chore. A real bore.

And the biggest problem?

The travel mechanics. On paper, great. Great solution. In practice; Tedious. Wait to get out of mass lock. Wait to go into hyper jump. Wait for hyper jump. Wait to go out of hyper jump. Point ship at target in super cruise. Wait a while for super cruise to get you where you want to go.

You want to investigate something? Wait to slow down to target speed. Wait to drop out of super cruise. Investigate, find nothing probably. Wait to get back into super cruise, wait for super cruise animation, wait to drop in to super cruise.

God forbid you want to actually explore all those blips around you; I hope that's all you want to do. Those missions that give you a system and no point of interest is basically a massive luck based time sink that can never justify their returns.

The worst thing about super cruise is the meat of the travel. It's a bloody screen saver. Requires just enough mental activity to annoy, but not to challenge - keeping the ship pointed in the right direction for course corrections... keeping the throttle in the right range (max, then half way once speed > distance to target x 0.1). So they added interdiction; and the first couple times were fun, but realized that just made the whole process even more annoying, so lowered the rate significantly (I assume... I didn't play during the interdiction heavy period, and only picked it up again a couple days ago - haven't been interdicted once).

It's actually travelling the longest distances that feel the most snappy. Multiple hyper jumps? Just keep pointing and jumping. Small down time.

It didn't have to be this way. But 2 factors have conspired to make it this way.

1. The pseudo-realism; realistic star systems, realistic distances. Huzzah everyone cheered. Now we get to feel how awesome it is to travel the great expanses of space! (hint; there's a lot of blackness and pointing in one direction with small corrections).

2. The multiplayer focus; a living breathing universe. Fantastic idea. Everyone's efforts will effect everyone else's and make it feel like everyone is in this living breathing universe! One moment will never be the same to another!


Frontier and FFE both had 1. But they got around the problem of slow travel by been single player. There was no transitioning between supercruise and normal space - you just had a time dilator button. It's a huge change - in the order of 45-60 seconds (time it tacks to get out of mass lock, wait for SC count down, load into SC) per transition in and out of super cruise/time dilation. Add on top the whole acceleration/deceleration mechanic for SC (where as in Frontier and FFE; you didn't actually slow down in time dilation; you continued heading in the vector you were heading at the speed you were heading - small changes you made to your vector while in real time doing whatever you were doing in real time). Moreover, those SP games had an autopilot system that removed the tedium of handling minor course corrections and minor acceleration and deceleration changes. Essentially you had an encounter, then hit the fast forward button again to admire space travel. Travelling large distances still took time, but it was easier. Handling multiple encounters too was easy; 0 down time between going in and out of encounters.

You could still design around a lot of the problems with a jump to point of interest function with supercruise - but as many players rightfully point out, that kinda makes super cruise pointless.

The multiplayer focus very simply destroy's travel by making time dilation an impossible mechanic; forcing the use of super cruise. Moreover, players trading in the universe affect others trading in the universe; so having very low barrier between each instance of trade exacerbates the problem of homogenizing supply and demand and thus removing the ability to profit on arbitrage (the whole point of trading).


With all that been said, I have just thought of a reasonable design compromise between needing supercruise and jumping to points of interest. Essentially, allow players to 'save points of interests' into their travel computer/log/whatever. So the first time they visit a system, they'll jump to the star, but once they find various points of interest, they can in future just hyper jump to those points directly. Super cruise mechanics retained. But much of the tedium of commute travel is jumped away.

This isn't a perfect solution of course; it would raise the ire of the pseudo-realistic brigade; they'll cry that you jump to gravity wells! and points of interest keep moving! And it'd exacerbate the trade homogenization I was talking about.

But then if you can't compromise on any of the fluff, what you get is a game that is fundamentally... boring. Wait to super cruise. Wait for super cruise to load. Wait for super cruise to get you there. Wait to exit super cruise. Just keep waiting.

All very true. Strong post. Thank you.

 

[SgtLennin]

I don't understand what the topic starter wants. Galaxy wide teleport to skip travel? It would save time. But then trading would become boring, all those space stations to pick from to find the best buys. But let's fix that with 'auto select the best commodity market'. Big profits now. But wait, that's boring, having $$$$$$$$$$$$$ in a few minutes. No need to spend it on ships since we have teleport. Now what? Sightseeing? Lets do Google image search, that's faster and more realistic.

Seriously, use your imagination. There are tons of worlds to explore, some with unique details. I have been playing ED for quite a while now and I still discover new things. Besides that, this is a game. Not a way of living meant to keep you entertained 24/7.

Do some travel forth and back between Lave and Xihe, trade the rare items both systems have to offer. When you quit the game, be sure to be parked at one of the stations where rare items are offered. Next start you can buy extra of these. Go scoop rare items in abandoned anarchy systems around the Apollo system, sell them at the black market @ Reisman station which is close to the star. Or stick with a system, do missions to change the influence of local parties. You can set off civil wars at some places.

ED is great. Most criticism I had in the past was due to misunderstanding the game mechanics, doing things wrong. When you start, go to Apollo and make money with rare scoops. Fairly safe systems. Get a Cobra MK III asap, upgrade thrusters etc, you then can travel fast distances without worries for interdictions and ship scans by security vessels, just submit and turbo away. You can even escape from outposts with security vessels that suddenly scan you, if you have illegal goods. There are many things to do and some systems offer beautiful sights.

My two cents.

edit typo

 

[Kicks]

I think super-cruise could be improved with:

1) a change in the "slow-down" mechanic. The 600ls trips don't really bother me (gives me chatting time), but when getting 2 bars on blue. If you drop out @ USSs a lot like I currently do, you spend most of your time blue-bar-aligning than super-cruising. Just needs a tweak to make it easier to slow down quicker. Or I need to get better. Or both

2) More varied USSs.

3) More interdictions. Haven't been interdicted in days...

 

[Sebastien]

Here it comes again......

 

[Muthax]

Drop the sniping and get back on topic please.

What's the topic? That OP wants to play a game where there is no realistic simulation?

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

I think super-cruise could be improved with:

1) a change in the "slow-down" mechanic. The 600ls trips don't really bother me (gives me chatting time), but when getting 2 bars on blue. If you drop out @ USSs a lot like I currently do, you spend most of your time blue-bar-aligning than super-cruising. Just needs a tweak to make it easier to slow down quicker. Or I need to get better. Or both

2) More varied USSs.

3) More interdictions. Haven't been interdicted in days...

In my case was a question of getting better
Please find how you travel PROPERLY in SC here
http://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/2q3h6z/how_to_supercruise_faster_and_save_time/

In SC you have to FLY, if you just want to point and click I think there are games that cater for those tastes

 

[evoelise]

I think super-cruise could be improved with:

1) a change in the "slow-down" mechanic. The 600ls trips don't really bother me (gives me chatting time), but when getting 2 bars on blue. If you drop out @ USSs a lot like I currently do, you spend most of your time blue-bar-aligning than super-cruising. Just needs a tweak to make it easier to slow down quicker. Or I need to get better. Or both

2) More varied USSs.

3) More interdictions. Haven't been interdicted in days...

I've also noticed that as you're closing in on a USS that often a couple more appear around you. These disappear when you have dealt with the first USS and go back into supercruise.

It would be nice if you could somehow visit all of the "nearby" USSs that appeared - it would give you a few more things to do and mean that you haven't spent all that time slowing down & coming out of supercruise just to find some discarded biowaste canisters. As we get more varied USSs this would become even better.

This would make the supercruise journey more of an adventure & you still have the option to ignore them and carry on to your destination.

 

[Muthax]

I've also noticed that as you're closing in on a USS that often a couple more appear around you. These disappear when you have dealt with the first USS and go back into supercruise.

It would be nice if you could somehow visit all of the "nearby" USSs that appeared - it would give you a few more things to do and mean that you haven't spent all that time slowing down & coming out of supercruise just to find some discarded biowaste canisters. As we get more varied USSs this would become even better.

This would make the supercruise journey more of an adventure & you still have the option to ignore them and carry on to your destination.

If you supercruise at very slow speed a lot of USS pop out and they are easily reachable because you are going 'slow'
Makes USS hunting a lot easier

 

[Kadaeux]

I really want to love this game. It ticks so many of the right boxes for me. I love how the ships look. I love the concept of a simulated universe. I loved Frontier and First Encounters to death.

But this game... is a chore. A real bore.

And the biggest problem?

The travel mechanics. On paper, great. Great solution. In practice; Tedious. Wait to get out of mass lock. Wait to go into hyper jump. Wait for hyper jump. Wait to go out of hyper jump. Point ship at target in super cruise. Wait a while for super cruise to get you where you want to go.

You want to investigate something? Wait to slow down to target speed. Wait to drop out of super cruise. Investigate, find nothing probably. Wait to get back into super cruise, wait for super cruise animation, wait to drop in to super cruise.

God forbid you want to actually explore all those blips around you; I hope that's all you want to do. Those missions that give you a system and no point of interest is basically a massive luck based time sink that can never justify their returns.

The worst thing about super cruise is the meat of the travel. It's a bloody screen saver. Requires just enough mental activity to annoy, but not to challenge - keeping the ship pointed in the right direction for course corrections... keeping the throttle in the right range (max, then half way once speed > distance to target x 0.1). So they added interdiction; and the first couple times were fun, but realized that just made the whole process even more annoying, so lowered the rate significantly (I assume... I didn't play during the interdiction heavy period, and only picked it up again a couple days ago - haven't been interdicted once).

It's actually travelling the longest distances that feel the most snappy. Multiple hyper jumps? Just keep pointing and jumping. Small down time.

It didn't have to be this way. But 2 factors have conspired to make it this way.

1. The pseudo-realism; realistic star systems, realistic distances. Huzzah everyone cheered. Now we get to feel how awesome it is to travel the great expanses of space! (hint; there's a lot of blackness and pointing in one direction with small corrections).

2. The multiplayer focus; a living breathing universe. Fantastic idea. Everyone's efforts will effect everyone else's and make it feel like everyone is in this living breathing universe! One moment will never be the same to another!


Frontier and FFE both had 1. But they got around the problem of slow travel by been single player. There was no transitioning between supercruise and normal space - you just had a time dilator button. It's a huge change - in the order of 45-60 seconds (time it tacks to get out of mass lock, wait for SC count down, load into SC) per transition in and out of super cruise/time dilation. Add on top the whole acceleration/deceleration mechanic for SC (where as in Frontier and FFE; you didn't actually slow down in time dilation; you continued heading in the vector you were heading at the speed you were heading - small changes you made to your vector while in real time doing whatever you were doing in real time). Moreover, those SP games had an autopilot system that removed the tedium of handling minor course corrections and minor acceleration and deceleration changes. Essentially you had an encounter, then hit the fast forward button again to admire space travel. Travelling large distances still took time, but it was easier. Handling multiple encounters too was easy; 0 down time between going in and out of encounters.

You could still design around a lot of the problems with a jump to point of interest function with supercruise - but as many players rightfully point out, that kinda makes super cruise pointless.

The multiplayer focus very simply destroy's travel by making time dilation an impossible mechanic; forcing the use of super cruise. Moreover, players trading in the universe affect others trading in the universe; so having very low barrier between each instance of trade exacerbates the problem of homogenizing supply and demand and thus removing the ability to profit on arbitrage (the whole point of trading).


With all that been said, I have just thought of a reasonable design compromise between needing supercruise and jumping to points of interest. Essentially, allow players to 'save points of interests' into their travel computer/log/whatever. So the first time they visit a system, they'll jump to the star, but once they find various points of interest, they can in future just hyper jump to those points directly. Super cruise mechanics retained. But much of the tedium of commute travel is jumped away.

This isn't a perfect solution of course; it would raise the ire of the pseudo-realistic brigade; they'll cry that you jump to gravity wells! and points of interest keep moving! And it'd exacerbate the trade homogenization I was talking about.

But then if you can't compromise on any of the fluff, what you get is a game that is fundamentally... boring. Wait to super cruise. Wait for super cruise to load. Wait for super cruise to get you there. Wait to exit super cruise. Just keep waiting.

There's nothing wrong with any of the mechanics you describe. Hell, the travel method is one of the things I love the most, cruising around a system, getting a good look at the gorgeous locations without taking real months...

 

[Muthax]

There's nothing wrong with any of the mechanics you describe. Hell, the travel method is one of the things I love the most, cruising around a system, getting a good look at the gorgeous locations without taking real months...

Yes me too, the problem I see is that it's all very good to have suggestions to improve a game IF they just don't plainly go against the spirit of it
It's like going on Gran Turismo forums (or Forza! for xbox) and complain that the game is too complicated and it should be more like Ridge Racer...

There is a limit to everything

 

[Kicks]

In SC you have to FLY, if you just want to point and click I think there are games that cater for those tastes

I'm sorry, I wasn't aware that anywhere in my post I wanted to just "point and click" and needed the game catering to me?

 

[TheArtist]

Fun fact, in all those scifi series, you know what the heroes are spending 90% of their time doing? talking to eachother because there are busy traveling those long distances, travel is simply part of the game, use it to double-check your route/cargo, maybe check a trade calculator check routes back to your origin system to see whats most profitable, theres plenty to fill the time with.

You shot yourself in the foot because no sf-series will show you any long travels in real-time! You just made a great argument for time delitation, hehe!

 

[SgtLennin]

When you fly into an USS that's still far away deselect it as a target but keep it in focus so that you see the distance. You can now approach it much faster. Target it again when you're really close.

When you fly in a system, leave the planetary plane. There is less influence of mass. Personally I fly hyperbole on longer distances.

Before accepting a mission I always check where the destination is. In an n-tupple system where there is a chance the destination is 1000's of LS away I pass.

By the way, there are small systems with different worlds (extraction - agricultural - industrial - high tech) close to each other. You can do easy cargo runs station to station. PS Once I made thousands in one run doing a delivery from one Earth station to another Earth station. Even that is possible.

 

[Muthax]

I'm sorry, I wasn't aware that anywhere in my post I wanted to just "point and click" and needed the game catering to me?

You are welcome any other doubt just ask away

Woops seems I mixed your post and another one, sorry!
But yeah if you check that reddit page I linked there are some solutions/helps to teh slow down conundrum

Sorry again!

 

[Colas]

I think the OP raises very valid points.

Myself, I would like to be able to do more while SC-ing. Currently I browse my missions, but when looking at the galaxy map, I encounter the flaw the OP describes, as SC (and galaxy map) is not designed to let you do other things: by planning your actions in the galaxy map you run the risk of overshooting your target, running into a star, missing USS, not react timely enough from interdictions. For instance galaxy map could be a HUD function allowing us to react timely to events...

Basically, ED should design should be tweaked to allow more player multitasking.

Note that I like alot ED. I have been playing WoW (World of Warcraft) from the beginning, and let's say that WoW was nearly unplayable in some ways in the months after the release. So I have no issues with releasing an unfinished game, we are in for a multi-year journey through the building of the game. I read a very good review of ED in "Canard PC" where basically it said: "if you expect a ready to play complete game, come back in some years".
I have a big issue though: WoW (and quake in its years) was sure to be a success in big part because of the extensive customizability from the start, via a rich API and a built-in customization language. This way WoW tapped into the creative powers of players, if there was an itch, hundreds of player would program extensions to scratch it. Thus lots of features evolved organically, and Blizzard could cherry pick the brillant ideas and incorporate in the game. We should have now hundreds of players coding now a better SC, an built-in market tool, coding new missions, ...

My fear is that Frontier do not realize that an extension language and a game designed with a full API in mind is mandatory for the survivability of this type of game in the long term. In nature, newborn of iteeligent species do not need to be perfect at birth, but they need to be extensively adaptable...

 

[Perjoss]

Travel is ED is just fine, any faster and space would just start to feel small. It would be cool to have a bit more control on where you land in a ststem with multiple stars though. Could be cool to choose which of the stars we land close to.