heck, remember when initially the control settings and outfitting menu were just a single long list with everything dumped in? The UI has been improved many times, but every time something is improved people just move to the next thing to complain about while pretending nothing is ever improved. With that mentality, chronic frustration is inevitable. There is almost more stuff to do, its the name of the game.
Frontier has abdicated their progamming responsibilities to Elite: Dangerous
- Thread starter amadeus1171
- Start date
heck, remember when initially the control settings and outfitting menu were just a single long list with everything dumped in? The UI has been improved many times, but every time something is improved people just move to the next thing to complain about while pretending nothing is ever improved. With that mentality, chronic frustration is inevitable. There is almost more stuff to do, its the name of the game.
I know. But that one is getting old and I thought, some new doom would be appreciated ...
*rips audio from Doom Eternal trailers* :3
rootsrat
Volunteer Moderator
Because it's not a requirement. Not sure why you think it is?
*plays it while reading the Dangerous Discussion forum "game is dead" threads*
*loops it on repeat after realizing it could literally take years to read through 4 years worth of Doom prophecy*
I know. But that one is getting old and I thought, some new doom would be appreciated ...
(On the other hand ... calling YOB new is not exactly accurate either.)
Understood but it never gets old for me, as a plus he's in space. As Gir would say "I love that show...". Silly, but both the wife and I loved Invader Zim and we are both 55, I even have an entire fan-made album of IZ inspired music.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/442666-UI-cleanup-It-s-time?p=6927238#post6927238
Here I've made a comprehensive post about my thoughts on Elite's UI. I left a preface stating my intentions were to the good, but afterwards I was not gentle. Let's go viral with it.
Here I've made a comprehensive post about my thoughts on Elite's UI. I left a preface stating my intentions were to the good, but afterwards I was not gentle. Let's go viral with it.
True, but that's the thing with consoles. They will always be less capable than PCs. For many games the best mods only exist for PC for example. Doesn't mean the developer must add these mods to the console version. That said, I am pretty sure that consoles have a browser too so I guess lots of the out of game information is available to them too?
dayrth
Volunteer Moderator
There are a lot of people who enjoy the 'numbers game'. In fact there are posts in this very thread saying so. Trading would be completely dull without it from my pov. Also this was a key feature of the Elite games from the very beginning so what makes you think it wasn't intentional?
I don't think you will get a lot os support for scrapping the current trading system completely.
I agree that ship balancing is far from perfect, but can't see this solution working. Engineers could do with a lot of improvement but I wouldn't want your alternative, and as for points 1 and 2, want to try a different roll. Have to buy a completely different ship, from a different faction, possibly hundreds of ly away and maybe a faction you want nothing to do with in the first place. No thanks.
If you don't have a pc you can use an android or iOS phone or tablet. If you don't have any of these things then you will be at a disadvantage, but that can't be too many people.
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Fully agree that having to use 3rd party websites just to be able to play the game properly is absolutely nonsense.
IF they are going to rely on 3rd party sites then those 3rd party sites should be CLEARLY referenced within the game. E.g. when looking for commodities there should be a big, fat label telling the player that they can get help with finding resources @ https://eddb.io/ or that they can find where the modules are sold @ https://eddb.io/
If they are going to rely on bloody 3rd party websites then ALL players should be CLEARLY NOTIFIED of these websites FROM INSIDE THE GAME so they can actual play the game and not have to waste hours before they find the relevant websites.
Sure, for anyone who played the game for awhile we already know these websites.
For new players this is absolutely garbage.
What's next? Remove galaxy map from in game and plot your route via 3rd party websites?
If a player has no means to look up additional info on 3rd party sites with pc, tablet, or phone, the game is what it is. He/she would exist in a vacuum unaware of all the progress, alien sites, or proper builds. Just like the players of '84.
A pristine universe where all you know is just what you see.
Thanks to reading online the player knows what's out there, feels pressure to perform better in combat and/or trading.
To know these things you must have access to outside resources meaning you have access to player made tools.
It's a broadening of the games scope, but only a necessity if you are aware of it. If unaware, meaning unaccessible, you wouldn't even know you want it.
Another topic based on spoiled greed for spoonfed automation and instawin mechanics based on irrational need to max out meaningless rewards and dilute gameplay to democratic vapidness.
A pristine universe where all you know is just what you see.
Thanks to reading online the player knows what's out there, feels pressure to perform better in combat and/or trading.
To know these things you must have access to outside resources meaning you have access to player made tools.
It's a broadening of the games scope, but only a necessity if you are aware of it. If unaware, meaning unaccessible, you wouldn't even know you want it.
Another topic based on spoiled greed for spoonfed automation and instawin mechanics based on irrational need to max out meaningless rewards and dilute gameplay to democratic vapidness.
I expect two things when I start a new game.
1) For the game to have the tools needed to play the game properly implemented as features of the game and available IN the game.
2) There being some forum (steam, website, reddit) where I can ask or look for certain information.
What I do not expect, and never will tolerate as acceptable, is when a developer grows complacent and lets 3rd party tools become necessary to fully enjoy the game. That just makes the developer stink of lazyness and/or poor game design, which in turn makes me completely lose all respect for them as a company and as a content creator.
Kudos to those who actually made 3rd party sites, but the fact that they are so crucial for the game and yet are not even bloody mentioned inside the game is not just a screw you to the 3rd party developers, but also completely arrogant by FDEV as they are then indirectly making a claim that their game has everything needed to play it already incorporated while in reality the game has so many holes and insufficient features that a large 3rd party community has grown from it... which is more of a testament to how lackluster the in-game features than how great the Elite community is.
Put simple, if the game had proper features in it then we wouldn't need to have a fairly large and complex 3rd party tool network around the game itself.
Lazy and complacent developer is a bad rep to have in gaming industry and the way features are neglected and left not-even half finished in the game (i.e. multicrew) has directly impacted my decisions to buy other Frontier products and games, as in, I haven't bothered with them as I expect exactly the same half-finished approach in those games as well.
I never needed or used third party apps to play ED, been playing since original beta. They are not necessary at all.
If you think that's bad try using 3'rd party tools while in VR.
While the game is totally manageable with just the in game tools and player discovery but it’s just not a good experience. If you want to actually be efficient with your time third party tools are a must (which may or may not be a bad thing depending on your stance).
While they arent at the apocalyptic level that OP implies and you shouldn’t have every single bit of data at the snap of your fingers the UI definitely has a lot of work ahead of them because at the moment its just not a good gaming experience and seeing the generous amount of bugs that said in game tools have it’s a rather frustrating time as well.
While they arent at the apocalyptic level that OP implies and you shouldn’t have every single bit of data at the snap of your fingers the UI definitely has a lot of work ahead of them because at the moment its just not a good gaming experience and seeing the generous amount of bugs that said in game tools have it’s a rather frustrating time as well.
Your definition of lazy does not align with mine. Your complaints are petty imho. As I stated in my post is that the lack of info is irrelevant if you didn't know about it to begin with. What you are asking, demanding, is simply a ingame browser. Big whoop.
@amadeus1171: Yes I suppose that can be bothersome. I am one of those who learned typing so I can write without seeing my keyboard and as far as I gather you can have your browser wherever you want right in the cockpit. But yes, I guess it's fiddly as it would be even implemented in the game proper.
Edit: In general what I am saying is that so much complaining is out of proportion and very improperly worded and just comes off as stupid negging which just makes everyone that reads it annoyed and riled up. So much silly drama and meaningless arguments.
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I dont doubt it was intentional. I'm saying it's intentionally stupid. It's a boring, crap mechanic (commodity trading) that doesn't make sense within the game's own logic ...much less is it really any fun in real life playing it as a game. Nobody likes this. You've just been stockholme'd into thinking it's something you enjoy, like enjoying going to school or enjoying tv commercials.
1. lets look at it from within the game's own universe. Why would a single pilot get into bulk commodity trading when such commodities are being tranported and traded between stations in quantities that would dwarf the hold in any ship a player can pilot many many hundreds of times over in all but the most unpopulated tiny stations? almost all stations other than those populated < 10,000 would be serviced by huge transport ships operated by massive companies. You'd never be able to undercut their costs/prices. Nobody would ever buy your "Trader joe" level prices for goods when they can buy from the walmarts of the Elite universe.
2. Lets look at it from a player perspective. This is a mechanic that existed 30 years ago almost completely unchanged. It offers nothing to gameplay or strategy and quickly devolves into needing to manage external data to make any of your time spent worthwhile. These are things as a developer of a game you dont want to force onto your players. Gameplay should be engaging, fun, hard, thought provoking. Commodity trade boards in Elite are none of those things. The entire trade mechanic is a boring carbon copy of the same exact mechanic it had 30 years ago.
3. The correct trade mechanic should fit within the Elite universe that's been setup, (you're an independent pilot out in the big universe), and it should leverage whatever other game mechanics are implemented to make it fun, engaging, and at least helpful in role playing. I think the best way to go about that is trash the commodity trading boards and utilize the mission system to replace trading altogether. Allowing companies and npc fixers to contract independent pilots for one-off courier needs. Players looking for something in the merchant area that goes beyond that would need something like a stock market mechanic to invest in.
This is more of a complaint about having your armada be readily accessible than a complaint that my alternative wouln't be better. In my version, engineering is much less of a big deal because it's so temporary. So there's no grind to do a roll. There's only the initial grind to unlock an engineer (and there'd be far less of them since there's far less "modules" to engineer). And in my version, you wouldn't roll dice to get your mod (not that your roll dice much anymore for anything).
But, yes my alternative would make the fact that you dont have instant access to all your ships wherever you are a bigger issue than it currently is since I'm forcing players to switch ships instead of making one ship that is a jack of all trades.
To compensate for this, I'd suggest changing how off-duty crew are handled. Currently, off-duty crew are treated in a mind-numbingly stupid way where they automagically appear at whatever station you are in without having any way of actually getting there other than some non-disclosed method. Instead, I would propose that non-active crew members can be slaved to your ship and assigned to any other ships you have in the current station. They will then follow you as wingmen. This allows free instant transport of up to what, 3 ships (should be plenty for even the most complicated missions). However, these ships can be destroyed and you will have to pay for insurance and lose your crewmember. Also important to note is that ships piloted by crewmembers need to dock before you can access those ships again directly. They will hang out in space around non-viable landing areas and follow you system to system otherwise. If you land in a station and logoff before your crewmembers arrive, they will take X amount of real time to reach it and also dock. And since you can only assign crew members to pilot stored ships, there's no worry about abusing this for transporting goods etc that your primary ship wouldn't be able to since stored ships dont have cargo stored.
I think that kills multiple birds with one stone.
OP, I disagree. This game is modeling the real world when I doesn't tell you where everything is and hand everything to you.
It's not every store's responsibility to make sure it markets directly to every consumer in the real world. Consumers in the real world have to search for what they need from multiple information sources and quite often the things they are searching for are not found on the first go.
It's not every store's responsibility to make sure it markets directly to every consumer in the real world. Consumers in the real world have to search for what they need from multiple information sources and quite often the things they are searching for are not found on the first go.
It's a game; not the real world.
Sadly, this sentence encapsulates almost all of Elite's problems, at least from the gameplay mechanics point of view. "People loved it in 1984, they'll love it in 2014 too!"
It's been mentioned a few times in this thread why there are a lack of ingame tools that 3rd party sites can do.
Consoles do not have keyboards, or mice. Therefore, it is very difficult and cumbersome to design a UI that does all the things we would like, but with only using a controller. There is absolutely no way FDev are going to make a separate PC branch of the game with these improvements because all console owners would march upon their offices and chant outside the walls.
Clearly, this is the way it is. I just wish all devs would stop trying to deny parity - it's insulting.
Consoles do not have keyboards, or mice. Therefore, it is very difficult and cumbersome to design a UI that does all the things we would like, but with only using a controller. There is absolutely no way FDev are going to make a separate PC branch of the game with these improvements because all console owners would march upon their offices and chant outside the walls.
Clearly, this is the way it is. I just wish all devs would stop trying to deny parity - it's insulting.