The mechanics of ED with the exception of Odyssey is actually quite stellar. They just failed to put any actual content, past window dressing, and make your own, in there. They should have hired an outside dev to handle the RPG and story elements. They do not need an end game per se, but they should have some game story loops that progress with the game, and are added to over time.
If you could make any publisher buy elite, which would you choose?
- Thread starter theBreadSultan
- Start date
The Erotika Biblion Society
Funny thing is FD doesn't have a license on space games. Anyone is free to do better, still waiting though.
Hmmm I'm not sure I can blindly agree to this...
Let me ask you this multiple choice question...finish the sentence:
Gameplay is:
A. Doing the same thing over and over and over and over again
A good reply easily deserving and worthy of a response.
Yes the galaxy in concept and creation is good, but after that the game falls down.
As has been posted time and time again, it all sounds great in theory, but in real terms, it falls down due to top line decisions and the limitations of the stellar forge engine.
The Lore:
It's entirely forgettable, generic and most importantly creates no sense of urgency whatsoever.
This is then coupled with the fact that the lore / story has no meaningful impact on gameplay. Beyond a few numbers changing on a menu, you would be hard pressed to know there is any kind of story happening at all.
Add to this that nothing you do has any real effect on the game as you play it, beyond slightly different numbers in the same old menu's.
Much of this is because of the limitations of the stellar forge engine, but a lot of it is down to the engine not being properly utilised to create a feeling mission variety.
Even relatively simple things that would add room for significant flavour and decision making.
E.g. you need to transport a VIP in a luxury cabin, and you can chose between 2 NPC eagle escort ships, or accept less pay and get 2 Vultures
You get a mission string to carry out diplomatic missions - as such can only equip size 1 weapons and have to solve a 3 way conflict / issue - and how you solve that issue directly effects your game experience e.g. you lose mining rights in faction 1 systems, or station access in faction 2 systems, or 2 eagle fighter escorts when traveling in faction 3 systems
The background simulation is just that, background. This again is due to the top line decision, for it to apply to everyone and thus it does nothing.
More sense would have been to make the bgs 'opt in' but then have it actually effect the gameplay in a visceral way. Flying through 'hostile' power territory? Better be armed to the teeth, home systems and in good standing, escorts. Rank up your pirate faction standing, pirates no longer Rob you after scanning
As for the thargoids...yes that first hyperdiction was scary and awe inspiring, but the thargoids have been shrouded in too much mystery and there is neither a feeling of threat or urgency when dealing with the thargoids...
Compare all the thargoid lore and content with just 1 conversation between shepherd and the reaper sovereign
The game is designed from the ground up to be procedural, and not need expensive financial investment in actors or hand crafted items each time a new mission or mission type is added.
With the longevity of the game (look at how many hours players out in...), missions need to be procgen. As such, dialogue at each stage would be prohibitively costly.
Having sat at a desk with Mr Corner at their offices, and Mr Stott and actually SEEN the branching spiderweb of a mission generation system, looked at which ones are available given which local political conditions and many other variables (faction type, economy type etc) the variety that we have is a tour de force of procgen mission creation.
Now. 90 percent plus of the missions are this dynamic kind. As are the interesting and varied POI (from the USS with ships in distress, to the crashed and inactive Eagle with a friendly pirate under attack from NPC's.
Over and above this you have what you refer to as LORE.
The thargoid probes and structure mission line, the missing megaships stories with their audio logs, the INRA bases, the RamTah doobrey with the guardian ruins as a story chain.
Add in an ONGOING sprinkling of galactic lore via the CG's, the creation of Colonia and the highway and then the terrorist NMLA attacks and the galaxy is FULL of LORE.
Add to that the back catalogue of Galnet articles going back years.
Now, the one thing that ISN'T there is 'you're the hero of the story'. Quite simply as you aren't. You're one little pilot out of millions.
There are very FEW heroes in Elite. Maybe Zulu Romeo for being the first to Sag A* and a handful of others.
Quite simply, the story lines are either galactic in scale, and you're one small tiny part in that machine if you take part... Or they're the ongoing stories and puzzles that appear week in week out and are associated with discoveries, CG's and the like.
Do I WISH there was more voice acting in the game? Like the stuff from the training missions? Yes. Do I realise that it would either become dull really quick as I rack up ANOTHER few thousand hours of gaming or so expensive that the game would become unviable commercially? Yes.
On to your other point re missions and things like NPC ride along. I will concede that escort missions would be epic fun. I also would give my eye teeth for persistent NPC's that you could chase system to system using the Frameshift analyser. That would be cool. But bear in mind this all needs to exist in a multiplayer environment... And therein lies some rather knotty programming.
Elite is a different kind of game to mass effect. It is incredibly lore rich, but you will never be the hero of the story. It's just not that kind of game.
It remains to be seen that when the next phase (assuming it exists) of war with thargoids, or the Guardian plot line arrives, whether we will have new audio and stories. I suspect we will, but not until Odyssey has the remaining wrinkles ironed out and potentially not until console players come and join us all.
I don't buy the "your just not the hero" excuse. I think it's a cop-out, and carries the stench of copium.
And I get that there ARE branching missions, what I'm saying is they carry no weight.
Sure you are not the big hero of the galaxy... But now tell me the name of a single character you have cared the slightest bit of a biscuit about?
Name a decision you made that you had to think about?
To contrast with mass effect, how about that time when during an attack on Blue Suns (PMC) base to kill it's leader in order to gain the loyalty and trust of the mercenary your mysterious benefactor provided, you accidentally start a fire and are then forced to chose between saving the innocent workers / slaves, or helping zaeed get his revenge (with the benefits that will give you) - with the mission end revealing that it was zaeed who started the blue suns, but was betrayed by Vigo who shot him in the face.
That 1 mission has more felt story beats than the entire game of elite, and in it, you are not the main protagonist, you're just along for the ride.
This lack of visceral lore permeates the entire game. Outfitting - why is it A rated... Why not Lakon skunkworks - what's inside that module that justifies the cost?
Missed trick from pack of effort.
Same with engineering, and so much more.
They key failure is the top line decision that all content must be universally applied and top down. This is fine for some stuff, but not most things, and it shows.
Thus while there may be lore... gameplay and lore never actually intersect.
And when the first person has done that mission and saved the person from the impending doom, what does the next player do?
Or do we ALL get a crack at saving them?
However what about that time in Elite when there was an isolated clan of dredger people discovered and a university offered to buy their data and there was a bit of a set to and at the end of it, one side won (the scriveners) and the other side had to back down?
Or the NMLA story line where this Theta Seven character appears to be doing dastardly rotten things byt has been stymied at multiple points by community efforts?
I believe you're missing all the content... It is there but you're not taking part! That's the difference. Elite doesn't foist story on you but it is there if you want it.
Just take part and enjoy.
Oh and people? NPC people? Progenitor Lael Wolf. Friend Frederico. Ram Tah. Dr Arcanonn. Jameson (he of the wreck). The poor inhabitants of the various INRA bases.
I get it. You want to play Mass Effect. But this isn't Mass Effect. This is Elite and the design is deliberate and, for my part and for the many hundreds of fellow players I spend my free time with... Thoroughly enjoyable and the elements you are talking of here are neither practical nor particularly needed.
My advice is... Join in the stuff thag IS there. Be part of a player group. Enjoy the political shenanigans through a group's eyes. Take part on the CG's not for the reward but for furthering the story path you want.
Go... Find the beacons, discover the thargoid crashed mother's hip. Activate the machine.
Visit Ram Tah... Go see the guardian ruins and get the various materials. Put the ball in the thingy and light it all up.
Oh and the 'skunk works'? Pretty sure those are the engineers. They do some GREAT mods for ships. As do the technology brokers.
Last edited:
However... To address the OP.
'I don't like what's there it is all rubbish it should be sold to a different publisher' is flagrant nonsense. It is toys out of pram silliness.
Active and well thought out suggestions as to how to make incremental. Improvements, particularly those that are actually achievable are good things.
I look forward to reading your detailed suggestions on the suggestions section!
Alternatively of course, the purpose of this thread was just to bash Frontier and if so, on that case, carry on as you were in this one. As 'sell the game to another publisher' doesn't sound like something worthwhile putting in the suggestions forum.
To be fair, it's a pretty silly thing to put in this one.
'I don't like what's there it is all rubbish it should be sold to a different publisher' is flagrant nonsense. It is toys out of pram silliness.
Active and well thought out suggestions as to how to make incremental. Improvements, particularly those that are actually achievable are good things.
I look forward to reading your detailed suggestions on the suggestions section!
Alternatively of course, the purpose of this thread was just to bash Frontier and if so, on that case, carry on as you were in this one. As 'sell the game to another publisher' doesn't sound like something worthwhile putting in the suggestions forum.
To be fair, it's a pretty silly thing to put in this one.
I am OP
I am OP.
In answer to your first question...yes, exactly that.
Keep the background mission system that is there now, and don't waste any more time on it. And instead have a series of story driven missions that are attached to the player.
Have these story missions unlock content, perks, skins, 1 off ships, crew etc.
But most of all, have these story missions create an emotional connection to people, and places in the galaxy.
And again, the 'you have to find the story' is a copium cop out. - if elite has normalised it for you, just play literally any other game that isn't pubg.
Different publishers and developers have different styles, so the question was valid.
I am OP.
In answer to your first question...yes, exactly that.
Keep the background mission system that is there now, and don't waste any more time on it. And instead have a series of story driven missions that are attached to the player.
Have these story missions unlock content, perks, skins, 1 off ships, crew etc.
But most of all, have these story missions create an emotional connection to people, and places in the galaxy.
And again, the 'you have to find the story' is a copium cop out. - if elite has normalised it for you, just play literally any other game that isn't pubg.
Different publishers and developers have different styles, so the question was valid.
Realistically? Egosoft. They have the potential to take Elite and make a really compelling offline game. It would need to be "Elite Dangerous 2.0", because there's a lot of crap in ED that they would need to scrap and / or replace with their own flavor of gameplay.
While I love both Space Engineers and No Man's Sky, I just don't think either of these games would produce good "offspring" if mated with ED. I'm talking specific code rather than concepts (I'd love to have NMS-like procedural flora & fauna and SE-like ship interiors and systems). X4 feels like the closest match, and therefore the most compatible "mate" for Elite.
A. The current mission and story system absolutely isn't a waste. If you ditch development on it you'll actively kill the game. Ditch the thargoids? The guardians? The missing megaships? The faction support? The new npc interaction mod mission and on settlements? All those things added since launch and more to come? All the STORY?
B. New handcrafted story driven missions JUST for your commander would not fill the void.. They would provide a few days of gaming. Then what? Do more? It would be a finite pool and become dull very fast without VAST investment.
C. There are already emotional connections. Locations, factions, story. There were in 1984 when I first played, there was again with Frontier Elite 2. The emotional connection in Elite isn't to people, never has been. It is to the universe, your ship... The experience. Which is VERY emotive.
The question is invalid as it is irrelevant.... You're trying to mask a complaint with the game behind a 'what if'. It isn't written or published by anyone else and won't ever be. It is written by the continuation of the team who wrote Elite back in 1984... And is a worthwhile successor.
B. New handcrafted story driven missions JUST for your commander would not fill the void.. They would provide a few days of gaming. Then what? Do more? It would be a finite pool and become dull very fast without VAST investment.
C. There are already emotional connections. Locations, factions, story. There were in 1984 when I first played, there was again with Frontier Elite 2. The emotional connection in Elite isn't to people, never has been. It is to the universe, your ship... The experience. Which is VERY emotive.
The question is invalid as it is irrelevant.... You're trying to mask a complaint with the game behind a 'what if'. It isn't written or published by anyone else and won't ever be. It is written by the continuation of the team who wrote Elite back in 1984... And is a worthwhile successor.
The question is completely invalid since there is no way it would ever happen.
Elite: Rebirth, we could just have one sidewinder and 4 systems
I would pick Blue Bottle Games. If they were making the design decisions and had the resources of the Frontier dev team, ED might start becoming a game with actual emergent content and that feeling of being in a living galaxy.
Problem is - then it would probably be much less popular.
Problem is - then it would probably be much less popular.
Last edited:
ED already has griefer content.
Bluebottle only do single-player games.
My post was more about a kind of design choice that would be different if there were a different publilsher.
For example if I was referring to an economic difference I might have mentioned CCP, or for character development I might have mentioned Bethesda.
My wish is for emergent gameplay where at the same time the character is not the most important person in the world so I chose Bluebottle, which kind of do that really well.
Commander Jameson stood atop the cliff watching the sea heave itself against the rocks, crashing against them in a crescendo of romantic violins, his muscles rippling in the wind. Felicity's bodice almost exploded at the sight of the commander's long mane of hair tossed and tumbling in the sea breeze. "John! There is something you must know!"
The heaving commander slowly turned to face the engineer. There was a jolt of electricity as their eyes met. His deep booming voice had a sullen tone. He knew what she was going to say. "It's the atypical disrupted wake echoes, isn't it?"
Her heart was breaking. How could such a calamity befall them? She couldn't bear to look at him as she said "Yes. I can't upgrade your frameshift drive without atypical disrupted wake echoes"
...It sounds good to me, but of course we will need the approval of DrinkyBird before we go ahead with this idea