I'd prefer that they were just smarter, and way more aggressive based on their ranks, and only tougher if they are meant to be so. Like the ground ATR or something. Hitpoints aren't really an AI thing, their aggression and tactics are, but that's just semantics.Agree that the AI was easy. Watch them become bullet sponges later tho.
ANNOUNCEMENT Elite Dangerous: Odyssey | The Road to Odyssey - Mission Playthrough
- Thread starter Paul_Crowther
- Start date
Seen some fair critiques from today. There are also some weird and funny highlights I've noticed a few times too. Here are a couple (paraphrased):
- "I'm a solo player and I don't think this caters to me. It looks too difficult to do alone." Maybe. Right now, there are some missions you should never take without knowing the risks. It's heavily implied that you have the option to completely stealth through the mission. I can say that honestly, with some of my friends, being stealthy would be far easier to do alone anyway
. SRV assaults on some ground installations now are near suicidal without knowing the layout and exaclty what to do. Will some players immediately try to jump into the deep end of Odyssey content solo with no prep, die, and then disperse their salt here on the forums? Yes. 
- "Why are they only showing us combat? Odyssey is just a generic FPS!"
Highly recommend watching the rest of today's stream.
I like the video and I understand the idea of what we have to expect in the future with many exciting ground missions and I want to thank everyone in Frontier for making this big step happen.
o7
I second this, Thank you Sir Braben for making my wish come true about cracking the whip!
Granted, the video showcases a pre-Alpha version of Odyssey, so we don't really know how the final game will end up, however, based on what i saw gave me enormous concerns, considering the game is supposed to be released in a few months (delay anyone???)
I am aware this is only pre-alpha, so my opinions below are based on that fact..
Pros:
Planetary Graphics looks amazing
Sounds are fantastic as always
Weapons and personal shields look really cool
Walking underneath ships gives an immersive sense of scale
Lighting and shadows look incredible, although i noticed a few anomalies
Cons:
Player animations are poor
-No foot prints are created when they walk over sand (i did spot pre-rendered foot prints, however)
I have no interest in FPS, I'm just looking forward to viewing the new planetary tech and walking around on new planets to explore.
I am aware this is only pre-alpha, so my opinions below are based on that fact..
Pros:
Planetary Graphics looks amazing
Sounds are fantastic as always
Weapons and personal shields look really cool
Walking underneath ships gives an immersive sense of scale
Lighting and shadows look incredible, although i noticed a few anomalies
Cons:
Player animations are poor
- at one point, you could see a player hovering over the ground as they walked
- the player movements were a bit robotic and looks unnatural (but this could be said for a lot of FPS games)
-No foot prints are created when they walk over sand (i did spot pre-rendered foot prints, however)
I have no interest in FPS, I'm just looking forward to viewing the new planetary tech and walking around on new planets to explore.
Hm, alright then...
After a single review of the Pre-Alpha footage, these are the Details that catched my eye :
Ingrees
Seems the Installation required none of the demonstrated "covert approach".
I mean
- the Ship clearly didn't land near some red Trespass Zone
- the two Ground Actors were using the "main entrance" and were clearly in view of both Security, Personnel and Guard Skimmers
- until any crime was triggered, they could have literally just run straight to their Point of Action (Reactor Building) without any implications
two Players running around in a highly and clearly suspicious manner while even having guns drawn in broad daylight.... all in plain sight of the NPCs and no reaction i.e. to investigate?
Seeing that was rather awkward.
And even IF covert approach was required, I'd sure not expect to see the Player Ground Force to openly use the Main Gate.
Instead, I'd expect one or more weak spots where they could sneak through, while using Terrain and Buildings as cover (maybe coupled with some "ESM" reading many FPS Games have these days, indicating a rough probability of detection affected by environment, line-of-sight, light levels and noise propagation)
Target Building
Having only two workers inside the building seems okay, as it appeared tiny.
However, the 2nd worker approaching with a gun drawn (but no alarm yet) didn't make sense.
The very moment any of such NPCs feels forced to draw their weapon in self-defense, sure they're hitting the Comms button and sound Alarm, right?
Combat
Hate to say it, but that was - by far - the weakest and most awkward Phase.
- the surrounding Security/Defensive NPCs seemed to hold a Combat Rank of "incompetent" and acted "harmless" most of the time.
- very poor tactical movement and snail-speed despite being equipped with 34th century suits and Weapons doesn't mix well with hesitant "wild west" shootouts
- Skimmers didn't even appear to join the Combat Phase at all near the building despite Player 1 (Combat guy) performing multiple "suicide moves" outside the Building with zero cover against the whole defensive horde
Egress
- both suddenly running outside and right in front of the entire Defensive Crew (????!) Sorry, that should be your instant scenario failure, plain and clear suicide (Reason : if you can simply tank an entire Defensive Ground Installation just by running past them in front of their noses... there's no point in even bothering or having them in the 1st place.... just dash in, do your thing, dash out and ignore all resistance)
- instead of having only the main exit of the building, I'd very much would have preferred them rapidly hacking themselves through some secondary Air Locks at least in order to have a chance to escape the building without immediately facing the whole Defensive Grid
- the Goliath at the end appearing right next to the Egress Vehicle IMHO should be a total show-stopper, at minimum a worst-case Situation like this should require a Heavy Weapons guy to momentarily disable such a beast. This one acted like it was hacked or something.... all it had to do was to ram the Egress Vehicle to ignite its Ship-disabling EMP bomb and the whole show would have been over
- the Egress Vehicle never came under heavy fire despite being guilty by association (Wing of 3), I'd expect such a Ship in a now-Wanted Wing having to make a rough landing into a "LZ is Hot !!" Scenario and be under significant fire
NPC behavior and Player bullet sponging in general
It's pre-Alpha... and it shows. Slow, unintelligent and non-tactical like an unorganized scout club.
These NPCs made our two actors look like Thor and Superman teamed up and went in there - almost invincible and facing minimal resistance.
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I wouldn't mind :
- being forced to land in some distance
- using Optics/Sniper Rifle Scope etc. to pre-scout the Installation and mark to-be-enemies
- try to find a useful/exploitable pattern or weakness in the presented movements of targets
- check a MiniMap for orientation and work out a Plan B egress Route if Alarms are triggered
- stealth in with a realistic and truly tactical approach (don't be seen and don't draw attention) or try the hard way if the plan is good and lots of manpower at your disposal
- punish clear mistakes... you don't take cover in front of the entire angry based - you eat led/energy and just drop... your mates (or NPC mates) have to drag you into cover, maybe you're reduced to crawling and/or your buddies need to revive/rre-mobilize you then - or vice versa (tactical decision - leave your buddy behind and lose the support... or risk a little, stimpack the guy back into walking condition and have that support back in your team)
The whole foundation of the design btw. should honor the most realistic Scenario :
- vast majority of Players will at all times act alone, at best with NPC support (not shown in the footage)
- means 1 Player will have to manage that whole show at all times, no Wing, no MultiCrew, no Voice Comms to give commands to another human
everything you say is how i felt too...
I wish once the personal shields drop one shot would kill. Also none of the defenders used cover... or seemed to even need it as their shields were 4/5 heavy laser shots to drop.
also also I hate that they show up to this base at random. did the base expect them? did hey have some 'official' business to get permission to land? a forged resupply request? anything!? it would be great if they had have some credentials to literally walk into the base...
Sad to see that this video has brought out the usual E: D hating trolls. After 6 years, I had hoped they'd have gotten bored and moved on by now.
Now for a serious question for the Devs. For the on-foot missions, your community managers mentioned how there would be additional "flavour" added to each mission. They also emphasised the importance of stealth as a method for completing many missions. So I was wondering if you were considering adding this same flavour & stealth elements to regular missions performed in ships & SRV's? It would be cool to have less generic missions, & more stealth options beyond Silent Running would also be appreciated. Also, the ability to sneak and & out of a facility in your SRV, without alerting anyone to your presence, would also be appreciated!
The best thing about Odyssey so far for me is the planetary tech and the sense of scale it brings. The Challenger looks small in Horizons but massive in Odyssey. Can't wait to see the scavenger, POI, exploration and the other new things in Odyssey.
Not a fan of these demos pretending there's more to a game than there actually is. Like, hey if there's line of sight stealth stuff that actually matters, cool; but don't drive your little avatar around your diorama pretending to avoid detection if that's not really a thing.Yeah, but it's a prealpha. I don't expect anything on dedicated FPS level though, afterall a lot of people treat the FPS aspect of it like it's a plague
And of course i'm pretty sure that the initial "infiltration" part was "dramatised" for show (and that's ok), they could probably have been pretty safe running through the settlement to their objective without any care .
So if you agree its plausible, why is it an "excuse" ?
Look I have no skin in this particular game. I`m a console player, so I`m not expecting to play anything before November. All I`m saying is that the Alpha people get their hands on isn't likely to reflect the actual state of development, right now.
I think you are right - but telling marketers not to market is a big ask.
All great suggestions and things you would reasonably expect from a modern production with a decent budget. I don't think we`ll get any of it from Frontier, though.
Yeah there did seem to be something in that from the livestream. If patrols see you (line of sight) that raises the chance of being stopped, scanned and in this case found to have an illegal EM spike - and I think they mentioned having a fake ID too - on you.
Yeah. Though that small, probably suppressed, machine pistol probably isn't representative of larger weapons.
I am a bit concerned that it takes two point-blank-range bursts to the spine of an unarmored worker to drop them. Also, tracers in suppressed sidearm is pretty silly.
Hopefully TTKs and the potential for stealthy takedowns, among other things, will be adjusted during the alpha.
Nope, that was purely for show.
Frontier's demonstrated tactics, in essentially all of their previews streams, have little to no bearing on how the game is actually played.
It's why I focus more on the discrete parts...how those work will dictate how I, and most meaningful allies/opposition/content, are able to put them together.
I'm sure all of this will be present, in some scenarios. Far less convinced NPCs will be up to creating the need for these scenarios.
This is an online-only multiplayer game the assumption of assistance for more difficult tasks should be essentially a given.
It's been the same with every ED launch, trailer, demo, and livestream. They have a vision for how the game should look, but the underlying mechanisms either don't support, or fail to incentivize, it. Sometimes the actual gameplay is better, often it's not, but it's rarely what's on the script.
I recall one of the early Horizons livestreams where they showed a few SRVs racing into a base under fire, with a Federal Corvette making a ground attack pass in support. It was all very cinematic, but people quickly figured out that there were much easier ways to do it...and two versions later, they put the datalink scanner on ships, which meant you no longer needed an SRV at all for planetary base assaults.
Mechanisms are the sand.
Agree that the AI was easy. Watch them become bullet sponges later tho.
Looked like they already are.
Sorry, but this is wishful thinking most of the time.
I've been in a few Alphas so far, the last one was the 2020 MS Flight Simulator. There's always the hope for some "unicorn build" that the developers are working on behind closed doors, that isn't pushed to the Alpha players because reasons, and that is much further ahead of what the Alpha version is showing.
What usually happens is that what you see in the testing versions will be pretty close to the final product, with some additional tweaking here and there. Even back when Elite: Dangerous first released, it was exactly like that. The final testing versions (called "Gamma" at that time) were pretty much what you got at release.
And I'm not saying that to pick on Odyssey, I mostly liked what I saw in that demo yesterday.
It certainly looked like me breaking into the local gas station then infiltrating the loo (using the key provided by the clerk earlier) then stealing the paper towels and running back to the car.
Ai were like: Oh sod them, i'm not being payed enough to run after a roll of paper. We have enough in the storeroom.
The resemblance between AI and StarWars StormTrooper is shocking - they can't really aim their weapons.
Or it's like the current situation where the local Eagle Police Ship is shooting at my 5k vette
I hope for the latter tho, because there is nothing i can do about the enemy AI - but at least i can dumb my ship enough to make things interesting.
Planetary tech looked nice. Looking forward for it.
Ai were like: Oh sod them, i'm not being payed enough to run after a roll of paper. We have enough in the storeroom.
The resemblance between AI and StarWars StormTrooper is shocking - they can't really aim their weapons.
Or it's like the current situation where the local Eagle Police Ship is shooting at my 5k vette
I hope for the latter tho, because there is nothing i can do about the enemy AI - but at least i can dumb my ship enough to make things interesting.
Planetary tech looked nice. Looking forward for it.
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Well, gammas are supposed to be release candidates and betas are supposed to be feature complete.
I've argued that we are in the seventh year of the Elite: Dangerous alpha test.
The way they described the gameplay systems in the stream yesterday tells me that the developers liked to play the Hitman and and Deus Ex games a lot. The possibility for stealth, hacking systems to access certain areas, varied mission objectives, there's a lot of potential there.
I hope they just roll with it, and don't get bogged down too much in trying to adapt certain established gameplay concepts of E: D to the on-foot gameplay that may feel familiar, but might ultimately seem silly in that context. The bounty mechanic that kicked in even though they silently killed the workers in the demo, with no one else noticing in the base, was a good example for that.
I think the takeaway was in this case, this mission, they took the base power offline and that shut down base turrets by default. Arf did talk about full base defence taking his Challenger down in about five seconds.
There weren't any potshots from security ships at the end either, once the ship had wanted criminals aboard. Not sure if the pilot got a share of the wing's bounty in this build (expect a rewatch would tell us that) or if they were out of there so fast security ships were just ineffective. Basically this mission went pretty well for them but I've a funny feeling the assault could have been a bit more messy even on this build.