A friend of mine encouraged me to write this on the forums, in the hope that FDev read it.
I have a real love affair with ED, I truly do. The game is fantastic - mostly! But the engineers update has left me feeling quite low, to the point where i have decided to put the game down and look to other ways of spending my time.
The main reason for this is that I don't feel that the game (or the devs I suppose) respect the amount of time that the game demands of it's players. I in no way want an instant gratification game, objectives that you can achieve in an hour or two aren't as satisfying as one which take many times that to achieve. But I have spent 20+ hours in the game this weekend and for a variety of reasons failed to achieve anything meaningful. This is partly due to mission bugs, telling me to kill a certain number of something then not spawning enough to complete the mission, or changing the delivery destination then not allowing me to complete the mission at the new destination. While I do understand that the patch is just out, I can't help but feel that an update which was delayed "for quality reasons" should exhibit some improvement in quality - especially since many of the issues encountered were flagged during beta. The bugs in the missions, as well as the meta alloy bug has resulted in a significant amount of time spent not achieving anything in the game, which is to say the least, infuriating. I have no objection to failing a mission, providing it's something I did wrong. This way I can learn from my mistake, a learning process which I find rewarding. The only thing I have learnt from the bugged missions is to avoid certain mission types unless I am prepared to have the game go "nope, not this time buddy".
The thing that shows a rather significant disrespect for my time is the RNG nature of crafting. A little RNG is good, it allows for the wonder of discovery. But the engineers are RNG, on RNG, on RNG, on RNG. A random chance you'll find the materials (this is fine), then a random chance you'll get something good, then another random chance that you'll get a (randomly assigned) special effect! The result is you spend 15 hours doing missions to get some of the materials which are only available as mission rewards, as well as dropping into every ship wreck and roaming around planets - only to be told by the RNG that the dirty drives mod will not net you a 10% speed and maneuverability boost, but rather a 4% boost. This is a significant difference, and one that renders my efforts largely meaningless. Ah well I can try again after another 15 hours of gameplay!
I enjoy the fact that Elite requires a time commitment, I class that as a real selling point of the game. But after basically two solid days playing I should feel like I have achieved something with my time. As it is I feel like I really would have been better spent doing almost anything else this weekend. Long term it leaves me worried for my future enjoyment of the game.
Now many of you will call this burn out - you may be right. I have been playing the game for a while, maybe it is time to take a break. However given my experience over the last few days I'm not sure how enthused I will feel to come back to ED. There will be that voice in my head going "Yeah, but you could just be about to waste 4 hours of your evening. Why not do something else that you know you'll enjoy?".
Others will say that I want an instant gratification game - these people can sod off!
As alternative to this I have downloaded Stelaris, if you don't know it have a look, it's an awesome space RT Grand Strategy game. It is not instant gratification. It is also hard as the proverbial nails, but I feel like even in failure I have achieved something useful after I've been playing it.
And yet others will tell me that they like the game like this - fair enough, you are entitled to your opinion, and I am happy for you. But I would be remiss if I didn't make my concerns known, especially since the Devs truly do listen to the community.
And that's really what this is about. I'm not sure if the devs have thought about the direction they are heading with this. I appreciate a game that is for the hardcore gamer crowd, more should be made. Built there is a difference between a hardcore gamer, and someone with the luxury and patience to sink 4 or 5 hours, every day into playing a video game. At the moment it feels like the game is being built for the latter, and penalizing the former. If that is truly what they want then fair enough, but I'm not sure that it is - and I hope that in reading this and other posts like it they will realise the effect their current design philosophy is having on a proportion of their player base.
Anyhoo, see you all in 2.2, to see if this has resolved into a game I want to play again. If not, no hard feelings. The year I've spent in Elite Dangerous has been awesome!
TTFN
I have a real love affair with ED, I truly do. The game is fantastic - mostly! But the engineers update has left me feeling quite low, to the point where i have decided to put the game down and look to other ways of spending my time.
The main reason for this is that I don't feel that the game (or the devs I suppose) respect the amount of time that the game demands of it's players. I in no way want an instant gratification game, objectives that you can achieve in an hour or two aren't as satisfying as one which take many times that to achieve. But I have spent 20+ hours in the game this weekend and for a variety of reasons failed to achieve anything meaningful. This is partly due to mission bugs, telling me to kill a certain number of something then not spawning enough to complete the mission, or changing the delivery destination then not allowing me to complete the mission at the new destination. While I do understand that the patch is just out, I can't help but feel that an update which was delayed "for quality reasons" should exhibit some improvement in quality - especially since many of the issues encountered were flagged during beta. The bugs in the missions, as well as the meta alloy bug has resulted in a significant amount of time spent not achieving anything in the game, which is to say the least, infuriating. I have no objection to failing a mission, providing it's something I did wrong. This way I can learn from my mistake, a learning process which I find rewarding. The only thing I have learnt from the bugged missions is to avoid certain mission types unless I am prepared to have the game go "nope, not this time buddy".
The thing that shows a rather significant disrespect for my time is the RNG nature of crafting. A little RNG is good, it allows for the wonder of discovery. But the engineers are RNG, on RNG, on RNG, on RNG. A random chance you'll find the materials (this is fine), then a random chance you'll get something good, then another random chance that you'll get a (randomly assigned) special effect! The result is you spend 15 hours doing missions to get some of the materials which are only available as mission rewards, as well as dropping into every ship wreck and roaming around planets - only to be told by the RNG that the dirty drives mod will not net you a 10% speed and maneuverability boost, but rather a 4% boost. This is a significant difference, and one that renders my efforts largely meaningless. Ah well I can try again after another 15 hours of gameplay!
I enjoy the fact that Elite requires a time commitment, I class that as a real selling point of the game. But after basically two solid days playing I should feel like I have achieved something with my time. As it is I feel like I really would have been better spent doing almost anything else this weekend. Long term it leaves me worried for my future enjoyment of the game.
Now many of you will call this burn out - you may be right. I have been playing the game for a while, maybe it is time to take a break. However given my experience over the last few days I'm not sure how enthused I will feel to come back to ED. There will be that voice in my head going "Yeah, but you could just be about to waste 4 hours of your evening. Why not do something else that you know you'll enjoy?".
Others will say that I want an instant gratification game - these people can sod off!
As alternative to this I have downloaded Stelaris, if you don't know it have a look, it's an awesome space RT Grand Strategy game. It is not instant gratification. It is also hard as the proverbial nails, but I feel like even in failure I have achieved something useful after I've been playing it.And yet others will tell me that they like the game like this - fair enough, you are entitled to your opinion, and I am happy for you. But I would be remiss if I didn't make my concerns known, especially since the Devs truly do listen to the community.
And that's really what this is about. I'm not sure if the devs have thought about the direction they are heading with this. I appreciate a game that is for the hardcore gamer crowd, more should be made. Built there is a difference between a hardcore gamer, and someone with the luxury and patience to sink 4 or 5 hours, every day into playing a video game. At the moment it feels like the game is being built for the latter, and penalizing the former. If that is truly what they want then fair enough, but I'm not sure that it is - and I hope that in reading this and other posts like it they will realise the effect their current design philosophy is having on a proportion of their player base.
Anyhoo, see you all in 2.2, to see if this has resolved into a game I want to play again. If not, no hard feelings. The year I've spent in Elite Dangerous has been awesome!
TTFN
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