Ello!
NOTE: These are views, suggestions, experience from myself. Maybe mentioned ideas, concerns, feedback has already been posted/addressed but i may not be aware as ive not taken the time to read the hundreds of posts/responses/feedback from this forum.
TLDR Version:
- Many mechanics needs to be relooked at
- Space Travel = Fiction. So why cant we have faster traveling?
- Timesink all the things = bad for business
- More Newbie players will find adjusting difficult and give up than make it through = bad
- People who decide not to do tutorials and go directly into game just get overly screwed.
- Market Panel needs a look-see. it kinda sucks... alot
- Player encounters are rare. cannot call an MMO an MMO when you are stuck playing by urself or limited to only friends.
- More players = bigger community = good. improving on issues may = more migrant players to Elite Dangerous.
Intro
So i have been at this for the past few days and have taken the experiences, problems ive faced and decided to bring them here to your attention. assuming Frontier has someone who actively comes by to read the forums and uses the feedback of the community to actually feature solutions, fixes, to issues raised in the game. maybe what gets brought here would help in the future of Elite Dangerous. So me and some friends decided to give Elite Dangerous a try and weve been long time players of other MMOs, Sandbox MMOs (such as EVE Online etc etc) and we figured to also give this a try. Along the way to giving Elite Dangerous a go. we have experienced many things that would be a nightmare for some people, and irritating to the point of immediate refunding through Steam if they got it and played it on the same day as newbs with 0 experience in any flight simulator / mmo experience. So here are some of the issues you may want to look into that we have combined with our own experience and the many reviews we have found for Elite Dangerous along with suggestions that might work to deliver the missing peices.
NOTE: WE bring these things up as these little things do make a significant difference to player experience and catering to the players in these areas may help with retaining players instead of having them nerdrage to no end and ultimately giving up and forcing the refund / or let go of the game. This becomes even more important when you are introducing a game on varius platforms. a game isnt worth anything when you dont have players playing it.
EDIT: Just to be clear here. The reason anyone would voice out concerns of what they percieve to not be "as intended" mechanics or "issues" is not because they want the game to fail but rather to see these problematic items fixed so the game can succeed. That is the intention of this post, as i personally see Elite Dangerous capable of becoming the next big thing in the mmo stage as a game goes. but it requires fine tuning and it has to be welcoming to players. Without that you cannot get the playerbase you would like to have the game grow to be the next big thing.
List Top 5 Issues we have found:
1. Training Missions are not enough. Lack of Newbie information. Overwhelmed by the simplest of basics from Travel / keybinds / features are all in lacking.
2. Timesink. This is the biggest issue we have encountered. This includes Travel time, Grinding. Overall Effort required.
3. Lack of Notification Systems. Proximity, Crimes, Overlay or Radar, etc; Not knowing whats going on can definitely grind people's gears.
4. Lack of Marketing Data / useful information panel and trade. So the new age of space faring cant even tell you what the next orbital station thats 17Ls over has for sale?
5. Limited player action in Open Play. so, where are all the players? where do they congregate? an MMO is not an MMO without player interaction.
So We'll do a run down on these top 5 ive chosen to bring up here today. I feel they are important as they have a significant impact to player experience. Now im sure we will have players who have played Elite Dangerous for some time question these and talk about how they have succeeded without these being fully addressed but the idea is not catering to hardcore players as even for myself. im doing quite fine even with these limitations. Though, it is concerning as not everyone who plays will feel the same, think the same, or experience the same things. The most any Developing team can do is improve for the masses and not the 100%. The idea is to cater to players who you can keep around to help build the community instead of keeping it to a select few who can push through the limitations and finding immediate work arounds and adapt to the game as they hit snags.
1. TRAINING MISSIONS ARE NOT ENOUGH:
There are 2 types of Newbs who play a game. 1 that reads up and tries to learn the basics before really playing and the other that just dives right in and expects the game to be easy enough that he can plow through very quickly and learn on the fly. The players that dive in would have a much harder time due to the "no tutorial on the fly" when you start the game but, what both have in common is that everything outside of the basic flying is pretty much left to them. while for some that may not be such a giant problem. for many, it is. If you have a starter zone that simply tells people to "fly here and get paid" and then they are left on their own. picking missions from here also doesnt help them decide. Hauling missions to a different station doesnt tell them how far it is from a landing point and some missions will put u 400,000LS from the landing location into a system. Even though you have put that information on the system map, High chances are Newbs will not find it unless theyve been overly frustrated and forced to go on youtube to learn from other players. Assassination missions do not tell u go to the NAV BEACONs, and when u do find that tidbit of insight out, they dont know what to do and what to look for on the orbital body they were told to check out. u literally have to fly aimlessly around for more than half an hour for some just to find a mission related: unidentified signal. But lets not mind all those, lets go directly to Missions with Icons the Newbies do not realize are Horizon Mission for landing on planet facility end up confused and agitated when they dont know how to find the planet let alone supercruise > Glide > Land on a planet. There are so many missing peices Newbies get frustrated over. Simple Steam Reviews will tell you this. This will ultimately leave a sour taste for alot of people who do not want to spend hours of watching youtube to play a game they just spent around 60 bucks on. let alone 30. For most players who have survived the starting horrors, its not an issue but what im bringing up here is not for Hardcore players who know how to use outside resources to play a Space Pixel game over the interwebs but for those who dont. For those who dont have 6 hours to play a game and having to spend 3-4 of those hours trying to learn the simple mechanics prior to actually launching from a station ingame to try and enjoy the game.
SUGGESTION:
- An ingame AI that can guide them (capable of being toggled on and off or if chosen, to skip.) that will simply run them through the basic flight mechanics navigation, 1 hauling, 1 assassination, (For Horizon Players) 1 Planet Hauling mission. This is outside of Regular Tutorials from the Start Menu, so the pilots are all given the chance to get the basics down while also given the chance to start the game, a Full 1 time go tutorial can be done doing all 3 mission types, navigation, and flight mechanics. which can be the start of the commander graduating from flight school and being loaned his sidewinder and must meet X person to pick up Y items from Z station etc;
TIMESINK
Im fully aware that Braben wanted to get a 1:1 scale of the entire galaxy but as soon as u put spaceships, and colonies, and spaceports u have just pushed it into the realm of scifi. So with that said and an earlier mention of the first problem. 400k LS is a horror of flight time. Anyone who experiences that so early in the game will literally give up (i know cuz me and a few of my friends almost did) why would you add such mechanics? why would u allow players to experience that? i understand the wanting of adding some realism but reality is no one wants to sit there if they are given the option for 10-15min watching a spaceship fly between sun and station. Its already bad enough they have grind to to make credits to buy the ship they want to upgrade into which means they must go through a handful of missions, travel between systems, find targets to kill to turn in for credits, Forced to read up / watch videos for every mechanics that is alien to them or had no idea it even existed and then topped off by distance travel mechanics. If you want players, you cannot expect people to want to grind EVERYTHING. there needs to be a balance somewhere and the Timesinks need to be reduced where it isnt needed. There is NO reward to travel that kind of excruciating distance to a station and a newbie knows no better. Most answers to this is "well he didnt need to accept the mission" or "meh, he can just abandon it" the idea isnt to just dismiss that its a problem and the simplest way to handle it is ignore it. there needs to be better methods here.
SOLUTION:
1. Mission Update Additional Rewards: For someone to travel such lame distances instead of ditching these things to stay with the idea of a 1:1 scale. Have the Mission Givers have a High % chance of re-hailing the pilot for a boosted reward letting the commander know they understand the distance to get those items in and are willing to give a very significant amount of credits for completion due to the distance travel. not some cheesy 20,000 -35,000 credits. but something along the lines of 100,000 - 200,000 additional bonus. This way, you still retain the travel time required. The ache of distance in a 1:1 scale and the rewards fit the "Risk Vs Reward" methodology ingame. take a close travel hauling mission = less money. take the excruciating hair pulling hauling mission that requires u to sleep at ur keyboard = loads of money.
2. Micro hyperdrive Distance thrusters - Well as it says, allows u to micro jump distances and lands u off anywhere between 3-5k LS rather than allow players to be forced to supercruise the vast 400,000 LS distance but can only be done towards targets 50,000LS above (or something along these lines). it can come as a built in thruster mechanic or a separate module to add to a ship which can also benefit fitting styles/ new variable added to gameplay, etc;
3. Distance Related Thrust - The further the distance of the target orbital, allow accelerated thrust mechanics. so ex: 50,000LS distance = Additional 50% stronger thurst power or adjusted however u see fit. the idea here is the further the object the faster ur ship goes. At this moment, the spool time to max speed takes a long time. so by the time uve hit 250,000LS in a 400,000LS original distance to your target orbital u might finally get to maximum speed. it makes no sense to have waited that long. So simply put: you supercruise velocity / speed up faster towards a target much further away than one that is closer and not wait 15minutes before it finally reaches max velocity and finally reach ur target 20-30minutes later....
LACK OF NOTIFICATION SYSTEMS:
Yes, im aware as well there are funny alarms that blare off when u are too close, that u get a simple "wanted" sign when u commit a crime, or lets you know when you speed up and are probably going to overshoot ur supercruise target orbital. For the most part, it seems to be working fine. It lets you know when is about to hit the fan. Though, as of recent were finding out it is lacking, maybe theres a bug im not aware of. but Crime warnings are almost nonexistant. Ex: if u shoot a target who is infact WANTED BUT you did not complete ur scan cycle to show that they are wanted, the cops will shoot u right after. and ull attain the WANTED sign. You are in High Security space, should you not have the options to have ur guns halt if u accidently clicked and going to end up as space debris when you have not secured a full scan yet? im not talking about kill warrant scanning. just targetting a ship, will cycle through and tell u if hes wanted, what faction hes from, etc; if u do not let that complete whether or not he is wanted. ur going to die to the security forces. We have also come across the issue that if u are in a wing, and someone commits a crime in the wing, everyone gets plastered. while im fine with all of that. The lack of Immediate notification that you have just become wanted is what is my concern. you should be informed that ur buddy who decided to get dumb shot someone he/she wasnt suppose to and now ur an accomplice and ur going to die for it too. not be confused as to why ur getting shot by security forces because u didnt even get a wanted notification.
SOLUTION:
- Being able to get a notification plastered on the center of ur screen that dissapears after like 1-2 seconds with a warning notification you just entered being wanted. or have the alarm go off like usual when your in proximity to crashing into something with the WANTED sign showing up ontop of ur fuel bar like normal. u shouldnt have to go asking ur buddy why u died and why he died to security forces. because ull know u were wanted. so someone committed the crime.
LACK OF MARKET DATA:
Every MMO ive played with any kind of market system allows us to see, regional / local goods and where to find them. Literally allowing us to see what other places are selling without having to waste time traveling there to look manually. it would make no sense that you can get intergalactic news, travel between solar systems, use of holographic imagery for your crew to instantly travel to your bridge and be part of your super space team but you cant see whats being sold in a station 10LS away around the next planet down the spacelane. Ive seen so many people complaining about this when concerned about looking for that next ship they want to go buy and upgrade from their measly eagle/adder. The mechanic to trade items to friends, is also limited. while this mechanic also opens up things to be frowned upon like RMT due to the mechanics of the game there are so many limitations on items to be tradeable. The other day i wanted to help my friend get some modules fitted up since im sure we all know thats were majority of the money comes from but i couldnt. so i had to help him in other ways like accompanying him on hauling missions or helping him kill his mission targets. while it doesnt destroy the game it is a hassle when you cant help and interact ingame directly with your friends.
SOLUTION:
1. Market information panel to search for commodities / Ships up to a certain Radius of your current location.
2. a Trade Window for allowable commodities / Ships / Modules.
LIMITED PLAYER ACTION IN OPEN PLAY
So, im sure we all know how this goes. 4 billion stars, only 7 billion people in the world. EVEN if we added 1 person into every system.... yah your still gonna have alot of empty space. So how does one actually play an MMO when player interaction is so scarce? literally it is an open world solo game since majority of your interactions is going to be with NPCs. Maybe there are future plans the DEVs will not share that kinda fills in the gaps but literally, how are players expected to interact with each other without having to go head to head in some arena match?
SOLUTION:
Unfortunately i dont have one. but it is something to think about is it not?
Well those are what i got. maybe people will consider it helpful feedback or not. figured id at least voice it out.
NOTE: These are views, suggestions, experience from myself. Maybe mentioned ideas, concerns, feedback has already been posted/addressed but i may not be aware as ive not taken the time to read the hundreds of posts/responses/feedback from this forum.
TLDR Version:
- Many mechanics needs to be relooked at
- Space Travel = Fiction. So why cant we have faster traveling?
- Timesink all the things = bad for business
- More Newbie players will find adjusting difficult and give up than make it through = bad
- People who decide not to do tutorials and go directly into game just get overly screwed.
- Market Panel needs a look-see. it kinda sucks... alot
- Player encounters are rare. cannot call an MMO an MMO when you are stuck playing by urself or limited to only friends.
- More players = bigger community = good. improving on issues may = more migrant players to Elite Dangerous.
Intro
So i have been at this for the past few days and have taken the experiences, problems ive faced and decided to bring them here to your attention. assuming Frontier has someone who actively comes by to read the forums and uses the feedback of the community to actually feature solutions, fixes, to issues raised in the game. maybe what gets brought here would help in the future of Elite Dangerous. So me and some friends decided to give Elite Dangerous a try and weve been long time players of other MMOs, Sandbox MMOs (such as EVE Online etc etc) and we figured to also give this a try. Along the way to giving Elite Dangerous a go. we have experienced many things that would be a nightmare for some people, and irritating to the point of immediate refunding through Steam if they got it and played it on the same day as newbs with 0 experience in any flight simulator / mmo experience. So here are some of the issues you may want to look into that we have combined with our own experience and the many reviews we have found for Elite Dangerous along with suggestions that might work to deliver the missing peices.
NOTE: WE bring these things up as these little things do make a significant difference to player experience and catering to the players in these areas may help with retaining players instead of having them nerdrage to no end and ultimately giving up and forcing the refund / or let go of the game. This becomes even more important when you are introducing a game on varius platforms. a game isnt worth anything when you dont have players playing it.
EDIT: Just to be clear here. The reason anyone would voice out concerns of what they percieve to not be "as intended" mechanics or "issues" is not because they want the game to fail but rather to see these problematic items fixed so the game can succeed. That is the intention of this post, as i personally see Elite Dangerous capable of becoming the next big thing in the mmo stage as a game goes. but it requires fine tuning and it has to be welcoming to players. Without that you cannot get the playerbase you would like to have the game grow to be the next big thing.
List Top 5 Issues we have found:
1. Training Missions are not enough. Lack of Newbie information. Overwhelmed by the simplest of basics from Travel / keybinds / features are all in lacking.
2. Timesink. This is the biggest issue we have encountered. This includes Travel time, Grinding. Overall Effort required.
3. Lack of Notification Systems. Proximity, Crimes, Overlay or Radar, etc; Not knowing whats going on can definitely grind people's gears.
4. Lack of Marketing Data / useful information panel and trade. So the new age of space faring cant even tell you what the next orbital station thats 17Ls over has for sale?
5. Limited player action in Open Play. so, where are all the players? where do they congregate? an MMO is not an MMO without player interaction.
So We'll do a run down on these top 5 ive chosen to bring up here today. I feel they are important as they have a significant impact to player experience. Now im sure we will have players who have played Elite Dangerous for some time question these and talk about how they have succeeded without these being fully addressed but the idea is not catering to hardcore players as even for myself. im doing quite fine even with these limitations. Though, it is concerning as not everyone who plays will feel the same, think the same, or experience the same things. The most any Developing team can do is improve for the masses and not the 100%. The idea is to cater to players who you can keep around to help build the community instead of keeping it to a select few who can push through the limitations and finding immediate work arounds and adapt to the game as they hit snags.
1. TRAINING MISSIONS ARE NOT ENOUGH:
There are 2 types of Newbs who play a game. 1 that reads up and tries to learn the basics before really playing and the other that just dives right in and expects the game to be easy enough that he can plow through very quickly and learn on the fly. The players that dive in would have a much harder time due to the "no tutorial on the fly" when you start the game but, what both have in common is that everything outside of the basic flying is pretty much left to them. while for some that may not be such a giant problem. for many, it is. If you have a starter zone that simply tells people to "fly here and get paid" and then they are left on their own. picking missions from here also doesnt help them decide. Hauling missions to a different station doesnt tell them how far it is from a landing point and some missions will put u 400,000LS from the landing location into a system. Even though you have put that information on the system map, High chances are Newbs will not find it unless theyve been overly frustrated and forced to go on youtube to learn from other players. Assassination missions do not tell u go to the NAV BEACONs, and when u do find that tidbit of insight out, they dont know what to do and what to look for on the orbital body they were told to check out. u literally have to fly aimlessly around for more than half an hour for some just to find a mission related: unidentified signal. But lets not mind all those, lets go directly to Missions with Icons the Newbies do not realize are Horizon Mission for landing on planet facility end up confused and agitated when they dont know how to find the planet let alone supercruise > Glide > Land on a planet. There are so many missing peices Newbies get frustrated over. Simple Steam Reviews will tell you this. This will ultimately leave a sour taste for alot of people who do not want to spend hours of watching youtube to play a game they just spent around 60 bucks on. let alone 30. For most players who have survived the starting horrors, its not an issue but what im bringing up here is not for Hardcore players who know how to use outside resources to play a Space Pixel game over the interwebs but for those who dont. For those who dont have 6 hours to play a game and having to spend 3-4 of those hours trying to learn the simple mechanics prior to actually launching from a station ingame to try and enjoy the game.
SUGGESTION:
- An ingame AI that can guide them (capable of being toggled on and off or if chosen, to skip.) that will simply run them through the basic flight mechanics navigation, 1 hauling, 1 assassination, (For Horizon Players) 1 Planet Hauling mission. This is outside of Regular Tutorials from the Start Menu, so the pilots are all given the chance to get the basics down while also given the chance to start the game, a Full 1 time go tutorial can be done doing all 3 mission types, navigation, and flight mechanics. which can be the start of the commander graduating from flight school and being loaned his sidewinder and must meet X person to pick up Y items from Z station etc;
TIMESINK
Im fully aware that Braben wanted to get a 1:1 scale of the entire galaxy but as soon as u put spaceships, and colonies, and spaceports u have just pushed it into the realm of scifi. So with that said and an earlier mention of the first problem. 400k LS is a horror of flight time. Anyone who experiences that so early in the game will literally give up (i know cuz me and a few of my friends almost did) why would you add such mechanics? why would u allow players to experience that? i understand the wanting of adding some realism but reality is no one wants to sit there if they are given the option for 10-15min watching a spaceship fly between sun and station. Its already bad enough they have grind to to make credits to buy the ship they want to upgrade into which means they must go through a handful of missions, travel between systems, find targets to kill to turn in for credits, Forced to read up / watch videos for every mechanics that is alien to them or had no idea it even existed and then topped off by distance travel mechanics. If you want players, you cannot expect people to want to grind EVERYTHING. there needs to be a balance somewhere and the Timesinks need to be reduced where it isnt needed. There is NO reward to travel that kind of excruciating distance to a station and a newbie knows no better. Most answers to this is "well he didnt need to accept the mission" or "meh, he can just abandon it" the idea isnt to just dismiss that its a problem and the simplest way to handle it is ignore it. there needs to be better methods here.
SOLUTION:
1. Mission Update Additional Rewards: For someone to travel such lame distances instead of ditching these things to stay with the idea of a 1:1 scale. Have the Mission Givers have a High % chance of re-hailing the pilot for a boosted reward letting the commander know they understand the distance to get those items in and are willing to give a very significant amount of credits for completion due to the distance travel. not some cheesy 20,000 -35,000 credits. but something along the lines of 100,000 - 200,000 additional bonus. This way, you still retain the travel time required. The ache of distance in a 1:1 scale and the rewards fit the "Risk Vs Reward" methodology ingame. take a close travel hauling mission = less money. take the excruciating hair pulling hauling mission that requires u to sleep at ur keyboard = loads of money.
2. Micro hyperdrive Distance thrusters - Well as it says, allows u to micro jump distances and lands u off anywhere between 3-5k LS rather than allow players to be forced to supercruise the vast 400,000 LS distance but can only be done towards targets 50,000LS above (or something along these lines). it can come as a built in thruster mechanic or a separate module to add to a ship which can also benefit fitting styles/ new variable added to gameplay, etc;
3. Distance Related Thrust - The further the distance of the target orbital, allow accelerated thrust mechanics. so ex: 50,000LS distance = Additional 50% stronger thurst power or adjusted however u see fit. the idea here is the further the object the faster ur ship goes. At this moment, the spool time to max speed takes a long time. so by the time uve hit 250,000LS in a 400,000LS original distance to your target orbital u might finally get to maximum speed. it makes no sense to have waited that long. So simply put: you supercruise velocity / speed up faster towards a target much further away than one that is closer and not wait 15minutes before it finally reaches max velocity and finally reach ur target 20-30minutes later....
LACK OF NOTIFICATION SYSTEMS:
Yes, im aware as well there are funny alarms that blare off when u are too close, that u get a simple "wanted" sign when u commit a crime, or lets you know when you speed up and are probably going to overshoot ur supercruise target orbital. For the most part, it seems to be working fine. It lets you know when is about to hit the fan. Though, as of recent were finding out it is lacking, maybe theres a bug im not aware of. but Crime warnings are almost nonexistant. Ex: if u shoot a target who is infact WANTED BUT you did not complete ur scan cycle to show that they are wanted, the cops will shoot u right after. and ull attain the WANTED sign. You are in High Security space, should you not have the options to have ur guns halt if u accidently clicked and going to end up as space debris when you have not secured a full scan yet? im not talking about kill warrant scanning. just targetting a ship, will cycle through and tell u if hes wanted, what faction hes from, etc; if u do not let that complete whether or not he is wanted. ur going to die to the security forces. We have also come across the issue that if u are in a wing, and someone commits a crime in the wing, everyone gets plastered. while im fine with all of that. The lack of Immediate notification that you have just become wanted is what is my concern. you should be informed that ur buddy who decided to get dumb shot someone he/she wasnt suppose to and now ur an accomplice and ur going to die for it too. not be confused as to why ur getting shot by security forces because u didnt even get a wanted notification.
SOLUTION:
- Being able to get a notification plastered on the center of ur screen that dissapears after like 1-2 seconds with a warning notification you just entered being wanted. or have the alarm go off like usual when your in proximity to crashing into something with the WANTED sign showing up ontop of ur fuel bar like normal. u shouldnt have to go asking ur buddy why u died and why he died to security forces. because ull know u were wanted. so someone committed the crime.
LACK OF MARKET DATA:
Every MMO ive played with any kind of market system allows us to see, regional / local goods and where to find them. Literally allowing us to see what other places are selling without having to waste time traveling there to look manually. it would make no sense that you can get intergalactic news, travel between solar systems, use of holographic imagery for your crew to instantly travel to your bridge and be part of your super space team but you cant see whats being sold in a station 10LS away around the next planet down the spacelane. Ive seen so many people complaining about this when concerned about looking for that next ship they want to go buy and upgrade from their measly eagle/adder. The mechanic to trade items to friends, is also limited. while this mechanic also opens up things to be frowned upon like RMT due to the mechanics of the game there are so many limitations on items to be tradeable. The other day i wanted to help my friend get some modules fitted up since im sure we all know thats were majority of the money comes from but i couldnt. so i had to help him in other ways like accompanying him on hauling missions or helping him kill his mission targets. while it doesnt destroy the game it is a hassle when you cant help and interact ingame directly with your friends.
SOLUTION:
1. Market information panel to search for commodities / Ships up to a certain Radius of your current location.
2. a Trade Window for allowable commodities / Ships / Modules.
LIMITED PLAYER ACTION IN OPEN PLAY
So, im sure we all know how this goes. 4 billion stars, only 7 billion people in the world. EVEN if we added 1 person into every system.... yah your still gonna have alot of empty space. So how does one actually play an MMO when player interaction is so scarce? literally it is an open world solo game since majority of your interactions is going to be with NPCs. Maybe there are future plans the DEVs will not share that kinda fills in the gaps but literally, how are players expected to interact with each other without having to go head to head in some arena match?
SOLUTION:
Unfortunately i dont have one. but it is something to think about is it not?
Well those are what i got. maybe people will consider it helpful feedback or not. figured id at least voice it out.
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