This is the summary (which is a wall of text in itself) of the abridged wall of text that required a third wall of text to set-up correctly.
I was Seriously contemplating a powerpoint presentation and video seminar to explain the 'setup'.
This below is a break down of the game super-simplified, and it may hurt your gaming experience to think of the game so.
Elite has tasks and game loops that drive 4 main progress bars.
The rewards are access to ships (with different stats) and module with different stats
Effectively you are stat shuffling the capability of completing tasks.
Except powerplay, as that actually offers benefits to your aliegences.
Tasks & Rewards
So Tasks.
We need to focus on are breaking the progress bar grind into smaller progress bar grind (PBG),
Like we saw the mission boards do in 2.1
But having multiple avenues to collect rewards, similar to 3.0, (this goes for the 4 main progress bars, rank, rep,materials).
So those “chained” missions, need to be “branched” missions.
Fetch quests for item X, mean item X must be attainable from more than one career Path, piracy, mining, bounty-hunting. (material brokers helped out, but cross careers need to expand)
Frontier vowed to improve the beat-to-beat moments of the core careers, giving them much needed love in the gameloop and content department.
So rewarding those gameloops correctly is essential, if a goal is set sensibly, and with enough rich diversity of tasks to accomplish that goal, a player can balance with mixing and matching their own choice RNG+REPETITION to mood and playstyle of the day.
Reward.
One word
Immersion.
We already have our modules, ships and ranks, but when you boil it down, all you get is a stat re-balance.
And this is something the forumers keep coming back to,
Immersion comming from affecting your relationship and interactions with the game world
(or rather immersion breaking because of the lack of it)
It's like shooting at a wall and not leaving bullet holes.
We NEED in-game rewards to those small, medium and large Progress Bar completions
-decorative
- emotional,
- give us a benefit that makes the Tasks easier in another part of the game
Immersion is enhanced by our actions having consequences and rewards in the world we live.
A personal story should NOT be another module/weapon that I can spend weeks to attain,
it is an emotional story with highs and lowers, measured in small and large achievements that I can reflect on - ingame.
So for examples Things, that money can’t buy, but are earned IN-game!
Decals & paintjobs & bobbleheads
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/395139-Rescue-Decal <= JUST THIS ALONE sells the concept.
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/0/07/GeneralAzzameensTrophies-XWA.png/revision/latest?cb=20150211053219
Clothes (naval uniforms for those big rank changes, medal for small missions)
https://www.pinterest.se/pin/393572454918453472/
http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/530652-wing-commander-1-2-windows-screenshot-wc1-earning-your-first.gif
Stripped off clothes (rank) as you degrade as well?
Tatto's & insignias
Getting a bunch of naval tattoos, easy for a artist to pump out.
Local faction insignia's as decals and/or tatoos, okay that's several months of R'n'D.
Ecomony color, plus number, plus some barcode/qrcode/heightmap that helps spit out curves and geometric shape that can conjour up an insignia
In-game-Support
oh look, yet another post.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/421400-Friendly-factions-do-they-have-my-back
Discounts at aligned stations, extra taxes at “enemy” stations.
Aligned ships don’t scan so often. Non-aligned, the ships make an effort to scan you.
Or you drop support if you try to run from a scan too many times?, or you lose rep carrying illegals
Which again some of this (like the mission/rep system) is in game, but not highlighted in anyway (until 2.1)
But extend it,
Access to NPC crew (cheaper) who are willing to help out because of your allegiance in “local sector”, but some do not like straying too far.
Aligned ships come quicker to support you if attacked.
Aligned ships can shadow you as unofficial wing support capacity (hey we got bounty hunters that shadow us, don’t tell me this isn’t possible).
Heck we can even hire (money, / as favour at the cost of rep) for such a service in the mission brief.
Have the navies/factions call you up mid-flight and DEMAND (refusing losses you rep and benefits) you help join in a fleet attack or defend a station.
PERMIT systems,
I lost the post from that commander the other day, (or maybe it's in the mmo-complaint thread).
Give us some unique art asset in the permit systems, or some cool benefit going there.
---------------------------------------------------
For every post about progress bars and grind over time = content,
you'll see another about Hey this would make the game a little more immersive.
Now I know FDEV have probably scheduled up the workload until summer, so Q3 okay Sandy, let's see a push for this kind of thing.
Punctuate progress by in-game rewards.
Highlight the emotional impact our character has by doing song and dances over small changes in rep, saw when you swap NPC's or discount is achieved.
Have clandestine missions occur at one of the many wonderful art assets floating around, instead of "deep space" Signal source spawn points.
Tell us this story of ours, this emotional journey we are on.
I was Seriously contemplating a powerpoint presentation and video seminar to explain the 'setup'.
This below is a break down of the game super-simplified, and it may hurt your gaming experience to think of the game so.
Elite has tasks and game loops that drive 4 main progress bars.
| Progress Bar of tasks to grind | Who for | To attain | Which does? |
| Money | self | Ships,modules, weapons | Reshuffle stats on task effectiveness |
| Reputation | 1 - local Faction | Harder missions (higher rewards) | higher entry stats, |
| Permits? | Another location to gather tasks to grind | ||
| 2 Powerplay-faction | weapon/module | Reshuffle stats on task effectiveness | |
| money(wage) | Ships,modules, weapons | ||
| negatives | Hostile Systems to your alignment. | ||
| benefits | Local cost reductions, local bonuses | ||
| 3 Super-Power | Permits? | Another location to gather tasks to grind | |
| Materials | engineer, brokers | amped up modules | Reshuffle stats on task effectiveness |
| Rank | Super-power | ship unlock, (which *then* require money) | Reshuffle stats on task effectiveness |
The rewards are access to ships (with different stats) and module with different stats
Effectively you are stat shuffling the capability of completing tasks.
Except powerplay, as that actually offers benefits to your aliegences.
Tasks & Rewards
So Tasks.
We need to focus on are breaking the progress bar grind into smaller progress bar grind (PBG),
Like we saw the mission boards do in 2.1
But having multiple avenues to collect rewards, similar to 3.0, (this goes for the 4 main progress bars, rank, rep,materials).
So those “chained” missions, need to be “branched” missions.
Fetch quests for item X, mean item X must be attainable from more than one career Path, piracy, mining, bounty-hunting. (material brokers helped out, but cross careers need to expand)
Frontier vowed to improve the beat-to-beat moments of the core careers, giving them much needed love in the gameloop and content department.
So rewarding those gameloops correctly is essential, if a goal is set sensibly, and with enough rich diversity of tasks to accomplish that goal, a player can balance with mixing and matching their own choice RNG+REPETITION to mood and playstyle of the day.
Reward.
One word
Immersion.
We already have our modules, ships and ranks, but when you boil it down, all you get is a stat re-balance.
And this is something the forumers keep coming back to,
Immersion comming from affecting your relationship and interactions with the game world
(or rather immersion breaking because of the lack of it)
It's like shooting at a wall and not leaving bullet holes.
We NEED in-game rewards to those small, medium and large Progress Bar completions
-decorative
- emotional,
- give us a benefit that makes the Tasks easier in another part of the game
Immersion is enhanced by our actions having consequences and rewards in the world we live.
A personal story should NOT be another module/weapon that I can spend weeks to attain,
it is an emotional story with highs and lowers, measured in small and large achievements that I can reflect on - ingame.
So for examples Things, that money can’t buy, but are earned IN-game!
Decals & paintjobs & bobbleheads
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/395139-Rescue-Decal <= JUST THIS ALONE sells the concept.
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/0/07/GeneralAzzameensTrophies-XWA.png/revision/latest?cb=20150211053219
Clothes (naval uniforms for those big rank changes, medal for small missions)
https://www.pinterest.se/pin/393572454918453472/
http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/530652-wing-commander-1-2-windows-screenshot-wc1-earning-your-first.gif
Stripped off clothes (rank) as you degrade as well?
Tatto's & insignias
Getting a bunch of naval tattoos, easy for a artist to pump out.
Local faction insignia's as decals and/or tatoos, okay that's several months of R'n'D.
Ecomony color, plus number, plus some barcode/qrcode/heightmap that helps spit out curves and geometric shape that can conjour up an insignia
In-game-Support
oh look, yet another post.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/421400-Friendly-factions-do-they-have-my-back
Discounts at aligned stations, extra taxes at “enemy” stations.
Aligned ships don’t scan so often. Non-aligned, the ships make an effort to scan you.
Or you drop support if you try to run from a scan too many times?, or you lose rep carrying illegals
Which again some of this (like the mission/rep system) is in game, but not highlighted in anyway (until 2.1)
But extend it,
Access to NPC crew (cheaper) who are willing to help out because of your allegiance in “local sector”, but some do not like straying too far.
Aligned ships come quicker to support you if attacked.
Aligned ships can shadow you as unofficial wing support capacity (hey we got bounty hunters that shadow us, don’t tell me this isn’t possible).
Heck we can even hire (money, / as favour at the cost of rep) for such a service in the mission brief.
Have the navies/factions call you up mid-flight and DEMAND (refusing losses you rep and benefits) you help join in a fleet attack or defend a station.
PERMIT systems,
I lost the post from that commander the other day, (or maybe it's in the mmo-complaint thread).
Give us some unique art asset in the permit systems, or some cool benefit going there.
---------------------------------------------------
For every post about progress bars and grind over time = content,
you'll see another about Hey this would make the game a little more immersive.
Now I know FDEV have probably scheduled up the workload until summer, so Q3 okay Sandy, let's see a push for this kind of thing.
Punctuate progress by in-game rewards.
Highlight the emotional impact our character has by doing song and dances over small changes in rep, saw when you swap NPC's or discount is achieved.
Have clandestine missions occur at one of the many wonderful art assets floating around, instead of "deep space" Signal source spawn points.
Tell us this story of ours, this emotional journey we are on.
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