I have concerns about where Elite Dangerous is headed and have for years.

I'm about 1100 hours into Elite Dangerous and have been playing and involved since the start (of the forums and the game - I was the first volunteer moderator).

My concerns began around about the time that the Guardians and Thargoids were introduced into the game and have really just snowballed since. Odyssey is the latest in an example as to why I have concerns about where ED is headed.

Guardians and Thargoids held some promise of content in that they seemed to be just a surface to be scratched which would ultimately spiral into some really compelling universe content. It never surfaced. In fact they were ultimately shown to be time killers where once they were nutted out there was literally nothing further to find out. Sadly they ended up being grind mechanics to feeding the core score keeping mechanism in the game - money, assets and rank. The same happened with community goals and exploration. There isn't this swathe of depth being discovered rather a continuation of a mechanic made to feed a really base outcome, keeping players doing the same thing over and over for as long as possible.

On mobile platforms there is a really large number of games out there that are 'idle' play mechanics. You do the same thing over and over and the psychological pay off is like a gambling machine - you get so far and it flashed bright lights at you, gives you a pretty picture and, if you're lucky, some cash. Then, you start it all over again.

Odyssey is just another of the same. There isn't any real world building beyond being able to walk around the room that is the "space station" or the "space port" from which you gain the gateway to more grind mechanics. Settlements do nothing to introduce life or depth to the universe. They're cookie cutter pew pew environments designed to facilitate one thing, and one thing only. Progression of the score keeping mechanisms - money, assets and rank.

There is nothing in it that makes me feel a sense of wonder. Nothing in it that makes me think that there is intention to "populate" the ED universe and certainly nothing to make me think that there is someone at the helm that has the lofty vision that we bought into all those years ago. Those Odyssey settlements could've been hubs for social interaction with NPCs. They could've been a way to introduce variation into populations that were inferred in the early Frontier Elite days. I remember getting permits to get access to restricted planets which were populated by very private monks to complete missions. The settlements were/are an opportunity to introduce different aesthetics and gameplay loops that fed imagination and diversity. Instead we got an exceedingly poor facsimile of an FPS shooter where it appears the the full extent of imagination for the games producers think tank resulted in "Go here, shoot this, grab this, rinse, repeat".

So my question is - where are you going with this?

David B posted a "Yeah we stuffed it up and we're fixing it" post where he said that there'd be some kind of road map introduced. We'll that's wonderful - it's a given (or at least you'd hope it would be) that when you break something you do what you can to fix it. But here's the rub for me. I simply don't care. Odyssey is a massive let down. It contains nothing that makes me think that anyone has any vision or intention beyond "what is the best way to a) bring in new players (the FPS was a very poor attempt at this) and b) how do you keep them playing for the maximum length of time (answer - base game reward psychology). Show me a real long term roadmap. Tell me why I should stick with you for the ride? Tell me why I dumped a bunch of cash into this at the Kickstarter? Tell me what you really intend to make the game into and how you're going to make the ED universe into a living breathing entity and if it's just more brainless grind mechanics (which is all it has been since the beginning) then tell me now so I can just walk away.

I bought into David Brabens vision - where has that gone?
 
I bought into David Brabens vision - where has that gone?

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Steve O B Have, I know what you're saying. I've felt the same for a long while too. I think the explanation of the situation is a combination of a few things.

1. This is a online multiplayer game which was new for Frontier
2. Online multiplayer games are difficult to develop and manage
3. They can't work out how to progress meaningful story within this environment, so we are left with narratives that involve in-game elements that occurred hundreds of years ago. For example, we get to scan audio or text logs about things that happened all that time ago. This is portrayed to us as a narrative.
4. Frontier aren't willing to financially invest in ambitious or aspiring goals that bring about the technology for such things as seamless vehicle and world transitions, ship interiors and building blocks to create current meaningful narratives.

I've played this game for a long time and I can't be upset with them for making something that I've obviously liked so much to have spent that much time. Yes, I wish they were more ambitious but they've chosen not to be and it's their game to make. There are some hard-working talented people behind this game and I thank each and every one of them for their incredible efforts. It's just that the company has not set the bar as high as I'd liked and I just have to accept it, even though I feel somewhat let down.
 
While you are right on all fronts, the game sure does lack depth.
It has massive potential, hands down on that, but as you said, the surface has barely been scratched.

Thargoid-guardian conflict - this could have been so much more, yet it turned out to be the penultimate grind gateway. If you don't min/max your ship, you won't stand a chance.
Guardians - great potential -> turned into a log/grind-fest.

The CGs.... it's the same every week, kill this, deliver that, logon/off some more for some credits.

Engineers... I did mention the grind, right?

Odyssey - While I'm glad to see DB's statement of them stuffing up and promise to polish the PC version before pushing the console release, I really hope they add more meat to this bone, because in this current state, it's really just a tacked on Battle royal with plant scan mechanic, that is horrible in itself. I really don't feel the "Armstrong moment" when landing on a planet, it's more like a dread, scanning something, and hope I find 2 more samples within a reasonable amount of time and distance.

Things I would have loved to see: Exploring a derelict ship on foot. Collect unique loot! (find an actual module, you haul to your ship, load it, bring it to an engineer, who will then fit it to suit your ship. The module would have some unique features, like double or even triple engineered? Add some RNG to this section!
Find a unique weapon, even Thargoid weaponry! Add missions related to fitting that thing to your ship!
And the derelict sites would not be static. Once you loot it, the site despawns, might spawn again or might not. Add RNG to this.
Here you'd have a good reason for someone to come back from the black, because they found something amazing and they want it fitted. Or have a reason to have a collector limpet controller on an exploration ship. Synthesize limpets for it, be prepared to find the unexpected.

Things like that would give people an incentive to go exploring.
In its current state, I scan a planet, that looks the same as the last 3847632 scanned planets. Scan 5 and you've seen 10% of the galaxy.
Also finding distress signals 2k LY out the black isn't exactly immersive. Even less so if you find 5 of them on the same planet, 2k LY out.

The game needs more depth, more gameplay loops, loops that are engaging, and not forced grinding.
 
Initially, the kickstarter may have been a vehicle for raising funds for a space game called Elite Dangerous, but ultimately the kickstarter was a vehicle for starting a new publishing company.

Mr. Braben chose to be a CEO rather than being a hands on creator of virtual worlds. He could have allocated administrative/logistical managerial duties to others in order to concentrate on coding and creating his initial vision. Seemingly, Mr. Braben hired others to do the Elite Dangerous coding and game making instead.

[Edit] Addendum: I honestly do not think there is any vision at Fdev for Elite anymore. Those at Frontier who initially created the masterpiece and had some sort of vision are probably long gone. I am okay with that. People do change after all. o7
 
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Initially, the kickstarter may have been a vehicle for raising funds for a space game called Elite Dangerous, but ultimately the kickstarter was a vehicle for starting a new publishing company.

Mr. Braben chose to be a CEO rather than being a hands on creator of virtual worlds. He could have allocated administrative/logistical managerial duties to others in order to concentrate on coding and creating his initial vision. Seemingly, Mr. Braben hired others to do the Elite Dangerous coding and game making instead.

[Edit] Addendum: I honestly do not think there is any vision at Fdev for Elite anymore. Those at Frontier who initially created the masterpiece and had some sort of vision are probably long gone. I am okay with that. People do change after all. o7
Well said Cmdr. o7.
 
Initially, the kickstarter may have been a vehicle for raising funds for a space game called Elite Dangerous, but ultimately the kickstarter was a vehicle for starting a new publishing company.

Mr. Braben chose to be a CEO rather than being a hands on creator of virtual worlds. He could have allocated administrative/logistical managerial duties to others in order to concentrate on coding and creating his initial vision. Seemingly, Mr. Braben hired others to do the Elite Dangerous coding and game making instead.

[Edit] Addendum: I honestly do not think there is any vision at Fdev for Elite anymore. Those at Frontier who initially created the masterpiece and had some sort of vision are probably long gone. I am okay with that. People do change after all. o7
If they didn't had a vision, why would they go and change Planet Tech, basically reshaping the entire Galaxy after 6 years?

I think they did it because if not now than it would have been much harder to do it later with all the new surface Structures, Mechanics and NPC's.

If they had no future plans beyond Odyssey, they wouldn't have bothered with new Planet Tech at all. They clearly have a vision, just Issue tracker is getting in the way...
 
If they didn't had a vision, why would they go and change Planet Tech, basically reshaping the entire Galaxy after 6 years?

I think they did it because if not now than it would have been much harder to do it later with all the new surface Structures, Mechanics and NPC's.

If they had no future plans beyond Odyssey, they wouldn't have bothered with new Planet Tech at all. They clearly have a vision, just Issue tracker is getting in the way...

They have structures in Horizons. What mechanics? And what do NPCs have to do with planetary tech?

I think it's simply because Horizons graphics are looking pretty dated now, next to other games. Pretteh screenshots and videos sell copies.

I don't think the reason is any more complex than that. 🤷‍♀️
 
I bought into David Brabens vision - where has that gone?

Remember during the Kickstarter when they said they didn't want to do "Call of Duty in space"? I do. It's one of the principle reasons I backed, because I hate FPS games. As soon as I have to shoot someone in the face (for no other reason than they are there) to get anywhere, it's over for me.

Odyssey has basically nothing of interest to me. So I'm sure they'll eventually fix (some of) the bugs, and finish the expansion, and make it all pretteh and stuff, but that alone won't make me re-install it, much less play it.

Where is the gameplay in Odyssey that doesn't involve pew-pew & shooting people in the face? If that's it - then when is the next expansion coming that actually builds on the rest of the game (trading, exploration, mining, or even something completely new and innovative)? Where is the medium-to-long-term vision for this game that we were sold and then was discarded with no replacement offered?

I don't care about a console release, much less to consoles with 10 year old hardware. That's not an eventual goal to get on board with.
 
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Remember during the Kickstarter when they said they didn't want to do "Call of Duty in space"? I do. It's one of the principle reasons I backed, because I hate FPS games. As soon as I have to shoot someone in the face (for no other reason than they are there) to get anywhere, it's over for me.

Odyssey has basically nothing of interest to me. So I'm sure they'll eventually fix (some of) the bugs, and finish the expansion, and make it all pretteh and stuff, but that alone won't make me re-install it, much less play it.

Where is the gameplay in Odyssey that doesn't involve pew-pew & shooting people in the face? If that's it - then when is the next expansion coming that actually builds on the rest of the game (trading, exploration, mining, or even something completely new and innovative)? Where is the medium-to-long-term vision for this game that we were sold and then was discarded with no replacement offered?

I don't care about a console release, much less to consoles with 10 year old hardware. That's not an eventual goal to get on board with.
Can't agree more. It's so incongruous that it's jarring. After building a criminal structure where you try to stay on the right side of authorities now all they want you to do is kill people in person. It's just this gross and disjointed departure from the spirit of the game.
 
They have tried a few things over the years.

They tried devs playing commanders in open to tell a story, they were destroyed before they could give the story.


The Thargoid tech that gave morse code of the shape of the ship that scanned them and the hidden spectrogram caused a lot of complaints because it was not completable with in game tools.

The formidine rift story caused a lot of complaints.

The Salome story caused a lot of complaints and alleged death threats. (not a Fdev story).

Stories cause more trouble than if they did nothing.
 
:D it really makes me smile how differently is seen shooting of thousands of ships (piloted by npcs) vs shooting ‘the same npcs’ with weapon on foot. There is zero need to play criminal in Odyssey, you only have choice to do so … same like civilian massacres in ship or killing order for deserters etc … there is in fact zero difference, but how I said, it’s really interesting how differently it’s perceived by players.
 
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They have tried a few things over the years.

They tried devs playing commanders in open to tell a story, they were destroyed before they could give the story.


The Thargoid tech that gave morse code of the shape of the ship that scanned them and the hidden spectrogram caused a lot of complaints because it was not completable with in game tools.

The formidine rift story caused a lot of complaints.

The Salome story caused a lot of complaints and alleged death threats. (not a Fdev story).

Stories cause more trouble than if they did nothing.
I'm not looking for stories, I'm looking for detail, life in the universe, diversity and some indication of direction. The reason why the stories have failed so badly is because they're trying to form a narrative exclusive of the game engine itself. It was suggestive of depth when there was nothing there. Smoke and mirrors to give the illusion of content. Much like community goals.
 
:D it really makes me smile how differently is seen shooting of thousands of ships (piloted by npcs) vs shooting ‘the same npcs’ with weapon on foot. There is zero need to play criminal in Odyssey, you only have choice to do so … same like civilian massacres in ship or killing order for deserters etc … there is in fact zero difference, but how I said, it’s really interesting how differently it’s perceived by players.

In my case, I have 7 commanders spread across two platforms. They are all Elite in at least one thing, usually two (Trade and Exploration).

All my commanders are Harmless, and will stay that way.

Yet to play Odyssey, I have to shoot people in the face.

Why?
 
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