Hello Games Exploring worlds Vs Elite Dangerous.

On my previous computer and previous internet connection, they were usually 5-10 seconds and often 30+. But the real killer (figuratively *and* literally) was the sys/galmaps. They would routinely take 20sec - 2 minutes to load, locking up your control inputs in the meantime. And of course no way to cancel the loading process. Heaven forbid you should accidentally press the map button during a planetary approach or firefight. I lost multiple ships that way.

Its much better on a high end machine with fiber internet, but it would be really nice if they could figure out how to stream this stuff and deliver the seamless planetary approaches that they promised. Even a half second freeze and stutter is disruptive and ugly.

That is bad. I can live with the half a second pause myself. It is a minor loading/networking pause and i don't think you can get rid of it unless you come out of supercruise early and just slowly fly down to the planet surface. It will obviously take a lot longer.
 

Jex =TE=

Banned
Probably true on the planet size however what is there to see on A ED planet, rocks and more rocks, plus they use procedural generated pois??? at least with NMS there is something to see trees, plants, lots bases that look good!, oh yeah and rocks, And we can walk about with dare I say it Space legs, but keep that to yourself we don't want the community finding out about the space legs word or they'll start...:)

And those plants, rocks and animals are PG too. Whilst some things are the same from planet to planet, the amount of variance is quite staggering so far and so is the science - using the large or medium refinery's to find out what you can make is a pretty complex affair. Recently I've been enjoying long walks. I can scan for buried treasure or knowledge stones and head towards them whilst taking in the scenery.
 

Jex =TE=

Banned
And importantly: nothing they've added since Horizons has
done anything to build out or refine the "mind-bending" science behind Elite Dangerous. Much of what has been added in subsequent updates has made the game world less coherent less scientific and less believable; and has been made without the high standard of attention to detail that made Elite's foundation so compelling in the first place.

Do any of the players NOT want mind bending science and content based around that? Look what happened to NMS - they added in exploration and made up their own periodic table and people enjoy it. FDev regard their player base as idiots who seemingly just want pewpew but not with their crappy AI - just PVP or something. How about they cut the pewpew crap and put in the exploration content massively lacking and give us more science so the few million geeks can come play the game rather than the few thousand playing it now.
 
We got more stuff on planets like brain trees, fumeroles, thargoid and guardian stuff. The only thing we didn't get was different types of SRV.

And how much engaging gameplay did we get with that stuff, brain trees and fumerols are nice to look at the first two times but then what?
NMS has plants that actually attack you when coming to close, you can scan them, get credits and nanites for them which you can use on all different kinds of upgrades, and that's just the plants.
Thargoids are pew pew only and the Guardian stuff is sitting behind a grind wall.

I'm sorry, I know it's not right to compare ED with NMS but the whole planetary landing stuff in ED has a very meager level of content at the moment.
FDev introduced planetary landings, gave us an srv to drive around in but as soon as you go outside the bubble all those planets are literally void of any compelling content except a couple poi locations which repeat themselfs after two or three variants. That's close to 400 billion systems with nothing.

Yeah Horizons was very nice when it was introduced but that's where Fdev decided to go back and concentrate on pew pew again.
 
And how much engaging gameplay did we get with that stuff, brain trees and fumerols are nice to look at the first two times but then what?
NMS has plants that actually attack you when coming to close, you can scan them, get credits and nanites for them which you can use on all different kinds of upgrades, and that's just the plants.
Hey I never said we got any extra gameplay from it. As for all the stuff you get with NMS, well the same applies to ED with synthesis and engineers. It's a similar system. Just for some reason in ED it's called grind, but in NMS it's called cool gameplay.

Thargoids are pew pew only
I didn't fire a single shot when I explored the inside of the thargoid base. Not too sure what you are on about there.

and the Guardian stuff is sitting behind a grind wall.
Guardian hybrid modules may be, but the guardian mission and sites are not.

I'm sorry, I know it's not right to compare ED with NMS but the whole planetary landing stuff in ED has a very meager level of content at the moment.
I completely agree. I never said anything differently.

FDev introduced planetary landings, gave us an srv to drive around in but as soon as you go outside the bubble all those planets are literally void of any compelling content except a couple poi locations which repeat themselfs after two or three variants. That's close to 400 billion systems with nothing.
To an extent I agree, but I do enjoy some of the extreme landscapes in ED and some of the views are breathtaking, but yes more actual gameplay reasons to go to the planets would be good.

Yeah Horizons was very nice when it was introduced but that's where Fdev decided to go back and concentrate on pew pew again.
Very little of horizons was concentrated on pew pew. Engineers was a mixed bag, SLF are pew pew, but passanger missions are not, Multi crew was pew pew, but the holo-me avatar creator was not and the thargoid and guardian stuff is a mixed bag too.

But I will say that they developed the wrong features in horizons in my view apart from 2.0 obviously. I have always said that horizons should have concentrated on planetary gameplay and what can be found on these planets. Better scanning mechanics, basically what we are getting in the Q4 update is what should have been introduced with horizons.

Pew pew is also in a poor state. Unless you do PvP combat is pretty bad. You have all the tools in the world but bland combat zones and res sites to use them in.
 
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I would much prefer to see the Q4 update before making any comparisons as to what Frontier should or shouldn't be doing. It's clear that is the more content heavy patch out of all of this year's updates.
 
How bad are your pauses. Mine are literally half a second. I hardly notice them at all.

With lots of traffic it can hang for seconds but if I'm on my own then it's as quick as a snap of your fingers - to the point where if you didn't know it was loading an instance you'd think it was just a sound effect.
 
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I would much prefer to see the Q4 update before making any comparisons as to what Frontier should or shouldn't be doing. It's clear that is the more content heavy patch out of all of this year's updates.

I tend to stay quite pragmatic about Elite, but I have to say I'm expecting a few fireworks from Q4 and then the full 1812 from the DLC. My guess is that they'll both add a lot to the game.
 
I would much prefer to see the Q4 update before making any comparisons as to what Frontier should or shouldn't be doing. It's clear that is the more content heavy patch out of all of this year's updates.

This is what I have been saying too. It took Hello games a year to do the next update. I would prefer to wait and see what FDev do with beyond before we can truely judge.

And from what I have seen it is looking pretty good. Hopefully the new premium paid for DLC will be good too.
 
I would much prefer to see the Q4 update before making any comparisons as to what Frontier should or shouldn't be doing. It's clear that is the more content heavy patch out of all of this year's updates.

Now, where did I hear "Just you wait, next patch is the big one" before? [noob]
 
This is what I have been saying too. It took Hello games a year to do the next update. I would prefer to wait and see what FDev do with beyond before we can truely judge.

And from what I have seen it is looking pretty good. Hopefully the new premium paid for DLC will be good too.

I'm with you on this one.
This year of Beyond updates isn't over yet and the biggest update is yet to come.
I am cautious though not to expect to much from the Q4 update.
The Q4 update is already suffering from a much to high expectation imho. Yes I liked what I saw regarding the new exploration stuff and the new iceworlds for instance but we'll have to wait and see how much actual good gameplay is delivered.
Nice views or new ships don't make good gameplay imho, something more is needed.

Don't get me wrong, I realy do want ED to be the best space game out there and Fdev has come pretty far already but imho no one can deny that more compelling and fair rewarded gameplay is needed to keep things interesting.
I'm no white knight but I'm no doomsayer either, ED is a good game but it has it's needs to stay good.
 
I'm with you on this one.
This year of Beyond updates isn't over yet and the biggest update is yet to come.
I am cautious though not to expect to much from the Q4 update.
The Q4 update is already suffering from a much to high expectation imho. Yes I liked what I saw regarding the new exploration stuff and the new iceworlds for instance but we'll have to wait and see how much actual good gameplay is delivered.
Nice views or new ships don't make good gameplay imho, something more is needed.

It certainly makes considerable part of them. As for Q4 expectations - only expectations that can hurt ED is that it will be somehow radically different. It won't. It will be just better ED with more features to boot and more 'content' and 'gameplay' to enjoy.

Don't get me wrong, I realy do want ED to be the best space game out there and Fdev has come pretty far already but imho no one can deny that more compelling and fair rewarded gameplay is needed to keep things interesting.

I can deny. I actually think rewards are too high, and gameplay is compelling enough. It can be better. Things are interesting, but it really depends on your threshold.
 
I'm with you on this one.
This year of Beyond updates isn't over yet and the biggest update is yet to come.
I am cautious though not to expect to much from the Q4 update.
The Q4 update is already suffering from a much to high expectation imho. Yes I liked what I saw regarding the new exploration stuff and the new iceworlds for instance but we'll have to wait and see how much actual good gameplay is delivered.
Nice views or new ships don't make good gameplay imho, something more is needed.
I am keeping my expectations lowish too, but I do like what I see so far, love the probes idea and then being able to find POI's on the planets which then can lead you to other places in other systems. I am very much looking forward to that.

Don't get me wrong, I realy do want ED to be the best space game out there and Fdev has come pretty far already but imho no one can deny that more compelling and fair rewarded gameplay is needed to keep things interesting.
I'm no white knight but I'm no doomsayer either, ED is a good game but it has it's needs to stay good.
I am no white knight either and I am not a doomsayer. I do see the flaws in ED and would like them made better which I am sure they will happen, whether I will like it or not is another question though.

I don't like comparing the two games too much as they are going about things in very different ways to create their own game. Some people will like both, some will only like one of them. Nothing wrong with that.
 
This is what I have been saying too. It took Hello games a year to do the next update. I would prefer to wait and see what FDev do with beyond before we can truely judge.

And from what I have seen it is looking pretty good. Hopefully the new premium paid for DLC will be good too.
The only difference here is that Hello games may have only took a year but 9 months of that was Multiplayer invested time, to say nothing about the atmosphere and general look and feel of the game, Plus NMS came out in 2016, ED came out in early 2014.

The bottom line is ED is or had not focused solely on what Us the community wanted from the game, as all community driven games go we always want more, we have seen slow ish progress from ED and now that we have seen a small indie developer can do it in a short space of time the question is what will ED deliver in Q4, of what we have seen so far is some cosmetic changes ice ground and some bigger rocks, But hey I love Elite as much as I do NMS so I'm hoping for a good showing in Q4 as well.
 
And those plants, rocks and animals are PG too. Whilst some things are the same from planet to planet, the amount of variance is quite staggering so far and so is the science - using the large or medium refinery's to find out what you can make is a pretty complex affair. Recently I've been enjoying long walks. I can scan for buried treasure or knowledge stones and head towards them whilst taking in the scenery.

That's what's good about the game the Exploring you come up with different things and visually you can never seen the same thing twice all bar a few animals. Exploring in Elite is I feel empty, apart from some rock formations, I know real space is kind of like that, but with such a huge galaxy 400 billion stars we start to think is it all just samey ! as players we want something to surprise us something different to happen. So yes exploring around the world of NMS is a real pleasure and is still the only game where I actually stop to take in the sites, unlike many other developers that have tried in the past.
 
And how much engaging gameplay did we get with that stuff, brain trees and fumerols are nice to look at the first two times but then what?
NMS has plants that actually attack you when coming to close, you can scan them, get credits and nanites for them which you can use on all different kinds of upgrades, and that's just the plants.
Thargoids are pew pew only and the Guardian stuff is sitting behind a grind wall.

I'm sorry, I know it's not right to compare ED with NMS but the whole planetary landing stuff in ED has a very meager level of content at the moment.
FDev introduced planetary landings, gave us an srv to drive around in but as soon as you go outside the bubble all those planets are literally void of any compelling content except a couple poi locations which repeat themselfs after two or three variants. That's close to 400 billion systems with nothing.

Yeah Horizons was very nice when it was introduced but that's where Fdev decided to go back and concentrate on pew pew again.

I Agree with many points visually NMS is a step ahead of ED, as much as I like both Games, and less we not forget they are just games, But exploring the NMS universe is far more fun than ED, There are grind elements to both, but I find NMS grind again far more enjoyable than ED. I feel ED are just pushing forward with the thargoid threat everything seems thargoid related, everything you find is material to engineer to the thargoid threat dither dither dither... gets boring quickly! the NMS grind though has that sense of I can get what I want in a shorter space of time but is made to feel like your bettering yourself within the game, unlike ED, Yes ED combat is good, and ships aren't to bad as long as they stop rehashing the old ones which is pure developer laziness IMO. But NMS exploring far out ways ED by a long chalk as far as visuals go. I have always said to Frontier Devs "Hey guys you have 400 billions star systems to explore how about actually putting something in them" Even the most simplest of cargo cans would be good instead of the rinse repeat material all the time...
 
The only difference here is that Hello games may have only took a year but 9 months of that was Multiplayer invested time, to say nothing about the atmosphere and general look and feel of the game, Plus NMS came out in 2016, ED came out in early 2014.

The bottom line is ED is or had not focused solely on what Us the community wanted from the game, as all community driven games go we always want more, we have seen slow ish progress from ED and now that we have seen a small indie developer can do it in a short space of time the question is what will ED deliver in Q4, of what we have seen so far is some cosmetic changes ice ground and some bigger rocks, But hey I love Elite as much as I do NMS so I'm hoping for a good showing in Q4 as well.

I can honestly say that I was also not happy with some of the development that was done, but develop they did. As to how hard and complex it was, you would need to work at FDev to find out. But as to what the community wants it seems to be a mixed bag. I am pretty confident the atmospheric planets are coming soon due to the hints we have had which I know a lot of people have been asking for and I certainly hope that the exploration mechanics are good, but what I don't want is for them to be like NMS. NMS is good for what it is, but it would not work in ED as they are two very different games.

What Hello Games have done with their 24 man crew is pretty good, but I would not call it ground breaking. You can tell it is has been made by a small team (I have the game and play it) and people that compare it to ED in terms of effort are really barking up the wrong tree in my view. We have no idea how many are working on the beyond series of updates, we don't know if they have teams working on other projects for ED. Basicall we know very little as true to FDev style, they keep their cards close to their chest.

As to visually it's all down to taste. I am not a fan of NMS visuals in any shape or form. ED's though I really like.
 
I Agree both games are different and bring different things to the table, I feel the same toward ED and atmosphere planets are coming however I just concerned on how they are doing this and in what way they will roll it out, I can't help but feel they will do what they have always done, Big build up but a lazy effort to show for it, For example they have shown off the ice ground texture, great looks nice and with no effect of graphics performance even better however, but whether we will get the whole atmospheric experience is something time will tell.

Though I play both NMS and ED currently I am still having more fun with NMS because of this new atmosphere and 3rd person view I wont go into space legs as ED is no where near ready for that yet!! But NMS is providing a good look for me personally with the bright colours etc, may not be every ones cup of tea but that's all our own preference which is totally fine.

I guess I have my small rants about both in some ways but my rants are more ongoing with ED mainly to protect and have that passion about the game as I wont give up on it, so it's a good small rant really.
 
I Agree with many points visually NMS is a step ahead of ED, as much as I like both Games, and less we not forget they are just games, But exploring the NMS universe is far more fun than ED, There are grind elements to both, but I find NMS grind again far more enjoyable than ED. I feel ED are just pushing forward with the thargoid threat everything seems thargoid related, everything you find is material to engineer to the thargoid threat dither dither dither... gets boring quickly! the NMS grind though has that sense of I can get what I want in a shorter space of time but is made to feel like your bettering yourself within the game, unlike ED, Yes ED combat is good, and ships aren't to bad as long as they stop rehashing the old ones which is pure developer laziness IMO. But NMS exploring far out ways ED by a long chalk as far as visuals go. I have always said to Frontier Devs "Hey guys you have 400 billions star systems to explore how about actually putting something in them" Even the most simplest of cargo cans would be good instead of the rinse repeat material all the time...

Personally I wouldn't say that NMS is visually a step ahead of ED.
Imho ED looks gorgeous with an incredible amount of detail, ships, structures, planets, nebulae.
Everything else you said I completely agree with.
ED has 400 billion starsystems but as soon as you go outside the bubble that galaxy is almost void of anything interesting to find or explore except nice vistas.
From when I began to play NMS I realy liked the abundance of stuff you can find on planets, but also the effort vs reward system is much more gratifying.
Every resource you find has an immediate purpose and you don't need to go around for hours to get enough materials to produce what you want.
Getting five fill ups for my hyperdrive takes less then 10 to 15 minutes, plus walking around getting copper is fun because you find all different kinds of fun stuff.

I also like the surprises you walk into.
Yesterday I planned to trade in my starter ship for an S class Exotic.
At first I wanted to wait at a trading post to see if an S class would spawn but thought it better to use my signal booster in order to find a distress call with a damaged ship, exchange my starter ship for that and get a higher trade in sum.

So I went to the nearest planet and on entry I was close to a trade post so I landed there just to talk to the people there and maybe get some more navigational data.
The minute I landed a very nice S class Exotic landed right next to me.
It was like the game read my mind :D

I now have two Exotics, an A class Hauler and a very nice A class Explorer.
Yup loving this game!!
 
That's what's good about the game the Exploring you come up with different things and visually you can never seen the same thing twice all bar a few animals. Exploring in Elite is I feel empty, apart from some rock formations, I know real space is kind of like that, but with such a huge galaxy 400 billion stars we start to think is it all just samey ! as players we want something to surprise us something different to happen. So yes exploring around the world of NMS is a real pleasure and is still the only game where I actually stop to take in the sites, unlike many other developers that have tried in the past.

Elite should use procgen the way NMS uses procgen. And I don't mean put animals everywhere. NMS generates variants of every rock, plant, building interior, outpost/base layout, ship, etc. Elite just has cut and paste assets for all their stations, outposts, guardian site, brain trees, points of interest, scatter rocks, etc. The procgen terrain is great. The procgen star systems are great. Why can't smaller, more intimate things have a procgen aspect as well? Use those ship kit pieces on NPC ships. Create tiled sections of geometry for station interiors, exteriors, etc, and make everything unique. Why does every tourist station have to have the EXACT SAME park layout and the same exact statues everywhere? It would make such a difference if there were more variation in the details, especially for the types of locations you interact with again and again (looking at you surface data point scan locations).

Remember how excited people were when they added a few more station interior types? That was a good move. The game should be progressing in that direction all the time. Anywhere that it's possible to use procgen to create unique variants of something, it should be done. Every skimmer doesn't need to look the same. Every surface turret doesn't need to look the same. Every surface mineral deposit doesn't need to look the same. Etc. This would make such a difference. Much more than the guardian sites or any of the other initially new and exciting but copy-pasted assets they've created.
 
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