Yes, it would need to persist even if someone exited to Windows and restarted the game (to have any real effect on the way people play). There doesn't need to be any "real" persistence; the game would just need to set the RNG seed to the name of the system/planet plus the hour of the day (or something similar). Heck, FD could simply update it once a week, like they do for so much other content. That would certainly put an end to spawn-logging.
Grats on learning about pootle - is a great word
I enjoyed your post, but I would say that you can have sandboxes that allow you to pootle about and have lots of fun without what I would consider to be ridiculous grinds - Skyrim as an example. I dread to think how time I spent on that game endlessly pootling about and enjoying every minute of it, but I think for me part of that was that I had a base (modded of course) and I could go out into the wilderness, wander about, find something interesting and blow the fairydust out of it with swords and magic and collect some more crap I didn't need to carry back to my base, and maybe make a few potions or whatnot. Elite suffers from the fact you cant build a base (sure you can call a station a home) but you can't store much and you can't affect it in terms of adding rooms or upgrading it, and for all your pootling about, well really nothing seems to matter - Skyrim was of course the same, you could go off and kill x zillion bandits or vampires but it mattered not, but at least you could drag your lootz home and feel good about it. I think Elite is missing that simple element tbh. Could just be me ofc.
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Fire everyone who complains about it out the airlock.
I'm 28 with a job that consumes 70 hours of my week. The rest is spent trading sleep and and playing games. I too want to be able to enjoy the game. Your situation is not unique to you and is solved through time management.
Bull. Absolute bull. None of my ships are engineered and nothing stops me from doing what I want in game save my own hesitation to do it. Try again.
Someone is not enjoying the game. If they're not enjoying it then why don't they stop playing it? It makes far more sense for them to drop whatever they don't enjoy and go do something else they do enjoy. It would have far more of an impact then leaving all these ridiculous whine threads lying around. A lively forum is a sign of a healthy game even if it has issues.
Silence means no one is around to play the game and therefore something has to change.
Except no one is actually going to do this. They'd rather stomp their feet and whine until they get what they want then actually have some discipline and common sense.
They chose to buy the the game. It didn't live up to their expectations. Rather then accept the loss they try to change the game to what they want.
So - ideas to make the game more engaging to the broader player base? Let's keep it constructive if we can please.
I've already said it multiple times. Players are spoiled rotten by the sheer number of themepark games that hold their hand with big flashing neon signs, quicktime events, and give them a narrative that appeals to their ego making them the most important person in whatever world they're playing in.
So when games like Elite come out where there is no guidance, no narrative, and you are not the most important person in the room with trumpets and heralds announcing you every time you enter a room, they have no idea what to do and default to the most basic nature of gaming. Obtaining the most powerful items in the shortest amount of time and becoming akin to God.
Except Elite does not allow such a thing.
So if you want to appeal the most basic common denominator of players, you need to essentially turn Elite into another game. One with a narrative and an obvious progression that turns you into the most unstoppable force in the galaxy. (See: Rebel Galaxy. Plot, progression tiers of ships, rise from a nobody into God.) Essentially a themepark style questline vis-a-vis WoW would need to be implemented with the ability to automatically obtain a fully A rated Frigate Class ship at the end. And they need to continue to add onto that with bigger and bigger ships that become more powerful over time.
And credits need to rain into player's pockets with every push of a button. Click takeoff? Credit rain! Retract landing gear? Get credits! Fire maneuvering thrusters? Cha-ching! Cha-ching! Cha-ching! with every button push.
The law will not need to apply to the players, they are above the law and can get away with anything with no consequences. Current C&P certainly is proving useful in demonstrating THAT.
Unfortunately that's not Elite Dangerous. Elite was designed to be a journey of discovery. Of playing the game and learning through trial and error. To, as Alfred once said to Bruce Wayne, "Fall so that we may learn to pick ourselves back up." This does not jive with the majority of players spoiled on themeparks. Reading up strategy guides and learning shortcuts. All to get to that ending so they can feel good about conquering a challenge.
Elite cannot be conquered. There is no ending. It is a never ending fight. Most people are going to give up when they realize this.
The rest?
We're too stubborn to give in. We enjoy the constant give and take.
The problem is with the player mindset. How do you approach the game? Do you approach it with the intent to conquer it before you even start playing it? Or do you charge in head first only to get knocked on your , laugh, stand back up, and charge in again?
There is nothing Frontier can do to fix this.
That's on you.
And the whining gets old, very fast. There is no endgame. The big ships aren't necessarily better, just bigger, more expensive, and less fun (imo).
While there are many things I'd like to see changed in ED, I don't want it turned into a different game, which is what so many whiners seem to want.
Yes, there is a LOT of grinding. I've accepted that and learned to play the game FD designed. I'd like it if some of the grind was reworked to be more fun and encourage thoughtful behavior, like this (for example): Give us a scanner that will locate concentrations of materials on a planet, so that we don't have to drive our SRV all over hunting for scarce rocks. Or a way to identify USS from further away, so we don't have to slow down to scan them. Maybe add engineering to supercruise to allow faster acceleration/deceleration. Perhaps a single honk of the ADS could identify any interesting objects in a system. I don't want to have to scan a planet with my eyeballs, to find something like Guardian Ruins.
The one thing I don't want is to turn ED into another cookie-cutter game.
Sole Hunter
Banned
So I've observed a decent portion of this forum is taken up with people complaining about the relentless grind. So what's the solution? Since engineers was introduced it feels the community of this game is polarised between people who like the grind (or at least defend it) and those who don't. I personally don't object to a bit of grind but I do really feel it's just too much in ED now. If I was 16 and could spend 5 hours a night flying around waiting for USS to spawn I would do that, but I'm 33 with a family and a job so can only spare a few hours each week. I want to be able to enjoy the game. Where I think (and It's just my opinion) FDev have made a big error is thinking engineers would be an optional process for players. In reality it has become a necessity to endure before you can do what you really want to.
Anyway, we all know there are differing opinions but in the aim of being reconciliary is there a solution that would suit all of us? Please don't one side tell the other it's their fault for not understanding the game and to stop playing. At the end of the day It's a product and FDev are a business. To tell paying customers it's their fault they aren't happy so they should go away is a suicidal business approach. If FDev change the product after I've paid for it and it materially alters it I'm legally entitled to a refund. Let's not encourage that kind of situation.
So - ideas to make the game more engaging to the broader player base? Let's keep it constructive if we can please.
Cheers.
Solution is rather simple, make the game fun.
It's what video games are supposed to be after all, fun.
There's no issues raising the rewards, there's only benefits, if the playerbase has a great time playing, they'll give back to the community and spend money on the game no matter what.
But they keep making bad gameplay design decisions and they barely listen to the community feedback and it shows every new major release of a patch.
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This is basically it.
Call me demanding if you will, but this is 2018 and I have higher expectations of games than "Farmville in Space".
And unfortunately that is not universal.
People wanted stricter C&P to prevent griefing and make criminal gameplay more risky. While I personally didn't care about the anti-griefing, I certainly was in favor of giving the police more teeth given how ineffective they were at their job.
That was the feedback.
Frontier listened and gave us stricter C&P.
Now everyone's howling upset about how the slightest action in their activities causes them to get stranded in a single system or become wanted just for 'grazing' a shot while REZ hunting.
Do you see the problem here? The people got what they wanted and weren't happy with it.
As for me? I remain unaffected because I learned what causes crimes and fines and how to avoid them while still enjoying the game.
So the same people who weren't enjoying the game because of the lax C&P STILL ARE NOT ENJOYING THE GAME despite MORE DRACONIAN C&P and the rest of us who were enjoying the game before barely felt an impact at all to what we did.
Frontier listened to us and implemented the changes we wanted. And resulted in the mess players find themselves in now.
So perhaps maybe they should STOP since it was OUR FEEDBACK that resulted in the conditions people are complaining about.
The other problem is that we're talking about changing a core system that was hard programmed into the game at launch. You seriously expect changes to be fast and easy when it comes to a core pillar that supports how the game is played? Apparently all the armchair developers think it should be that easy including this one knucklehead supposedly a 20 year code vet who thinks Frontier has the most bug infested code ever in all of Games Development. (Which I laughed hysterically at because they've clearly never played a Bethesda game.)
I enjoy Elite Dangerous. This is nothing new. We had rough problems back in 2.0 too which took months to smooth out. (2.1 in particular was a bad time for Frontier.) And even now I still enjoy Elite Dangerous.
I dare you to look at those who claim they aren't enjoying the game. How many of them didn't enjoy the game before now? How many of them now enjoy the game when they got what they wanted in game?
You say solution is simple. I ask you, how the hell can you apply a simple solution to a complex problem?
One of the best posts I have read here and it clearly identifies the problems facing FDev, the players and the game itself.
Because of the open ended way the game is designed, allowing the player to participate in the game at whatever level and intensity they want, ever Commander players the game differently. Some are only interested in PvP, some want the solitude of the explorer out in the far reaches of the galaxy, some want the serenity of mining, some enjoy the trading game, and some have no real idea what they like doing and try everything. Even with the introduction of Engineers (something I didn't think necessary as it exacerbated grind in the game to insane levels but that is my own opinion) others love it as it gives them a chance to tinker with their ships.
But because of the diverse nature of the game, whatever FD do is going to upset players, that is just a cold hard fact. Imagine the power brokers in FD trying to decide what to do if they did listen to us in the forums. We can't even agree on not just the introduction of Space Legs, but some only want to walk around their ship, others want to have a lot of the functions like mission givers etc as part of the FPS experience. Add to those that basically want CoD in Space, what is FDev suppose to do?
I believe FD are at least attempting to do the right thing with Beyond focusing on certain areas that needed fixing. And yes, the jury is still out on whether they will be successful or not but to me it shows they are at least trying!
Back on the topic at hand - GRIND. Yes there is grind in the game, and no there is not an easy solution to it, the very core of the game dictates that actions will become repetitive over time. That is because there is no easy way to play it, no short cuts and importantly no set goals, So the players invent their own goals and it becomes their only focus in the game and that is all they do. Others will look some aspect of the game (like the Guardian weapons) and decide not to bother because they can see the grind required.
I honestly don't know what can be done to alleviate the grind. Some here have said 'better gameplay' but what type of gameplay, and will this gameplay be interesting for the majority of players? Some think FD should trim the game like getting rid of SC but that would upset the pirate fraternity and negate USS hunting. All I know is that there are smarter people than me residing in this forum and there I have yet to see solutions that would cater for the player base without alienating a percentage of the players.
You're right. Almost any change will upset someone.
As far as supercruise is concerned, I think the best solution would be to allow engineers to increase the acceleration/deceleration. That would speed up flying around the inner parts of the systems (where we spend most of our time), yet have a relatively small effect on the trip to Hutton Orbital, which would keep the truckers happy and preserve its uniqueness.
As to removing the grind, I can't see how ED can have such a drastic change without upsetting someone. I think the best solution would be a separate variation: Elite Arcade, which I've described (a while back) in the Suggestions forum. Basically, it removes the grinding, the hunting for engineer materials, the long travel times, and most of the penalties for losing a ship, so that it can provide a PvP experience similar to other multiplayer games, which seems to be what so many players are clamoring for.
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I'd start out by swimming more lengths of a smaller pool, but I'd leave the hose running in the background and not sit watching it closely until it got very near the top. If I got sick of swimming lengths (I grind out 2 miles per session) I'd either remember to take a waterproof music player, or go on the slides for a bit.
So you can have a bucket, but you need to fetch it yourself and if you put it on your head and complain you can't see that's your own fault.
Although this is a nicely written post, it rather conflates a few things in a rather polarising way.
Did many players want tougher C&P? Mostly, yes.
Did FD implement tougher C&P? Mostly, yes.
On that basis alone, you're saying that FD gave players what they wanted, as if the design and implementation of C&P was just an on/off switch and didn't matter.
It seems fairly clear to me that the answer to both questions can be yes, and that FD can still completely balls it up.
That is pretty much what has happened.
Like you, being largely unaffected by it and careful with my trigger finger, I look on with a little amusement at the salt, but there is absolutely a valid point to it.
I ordered a pizza last week.
I got a pizza.
It was poorly made, and wasn't good at all.
Did I get what I asked for?
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Big fan of these suggestions.
There should be flash call to arms, warnings of pirate incursions
No one is asking for the game to be made easier, but it's got to be more immersive. RNG really needs to be a minimal factor in this
I like where your ideas are going and that's the sort of thing I think many of us are looking for. Not less time or work, but more interest, more activity. There's too much reliance on RNG... Random mission with random reward sending you to random system to find random USS that randomly spawns within a random amount of time. Meanwhile it's trivial to find bodies with the ADS, trivial to find out the composition of the planet, but have no way to identify where sites or volcanic activity is, just have to eyeball it and hope for the best? These inconsistencies culminate to form these weird time blocks that are there for the sake of taking time and at a high fun cost.
Sole Hunter
Banned
It took them 3 years to release the C&P patch, something most of PVP'ers, including myself, have been asking since the days of kickstarter. People are not happy because it's far from what we've been discussing for the last 3 years. No actual survey or community driven feedback happened in the last 3 years to work on "arguably" one the biggest requested feature that was supposed to eradicate "griefing" and put more consequences and depth to our actions and what we choose to do in-game when interacting with NPC's and other players.
They threw up a bunch of ideas in an orange colored post and said "hey" look this is what we think is going to work! then they pushed it through the beta even though people said it was garbage. This is just another half baked feature that doesn't fix any of the actual problems expecting this would shut the mass amount of cries asking for a C&P system. That's not listening to feedback at all.
Seriously, it's like someone woke up in the morning went to the bathroom and drew up a bunch of ideas on the toilet paper and pushed it through the conveyor belt and left it to the consumer to iron out the loose ends.
Exactly my point.
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