Newcomer / Intro Is this really a game, am I supposed to have fun or be constantly punished?

[loteq]

Sorry if this is going to be a rant, but I'm done with this. 50 bucks p*ssed away.

I wish I had known how this game is built before I bought it. It is just wave after wave of frustration. It's not how I want to play a game.

No difficulty level: you are supposed to choose your own difficulty level. Fine. Interesting. But the execution sucks, guys. The tutorials are way too easy, and give you a false sense of security when you adventure into anything else than glorified delivery boy. Hell, Threat level 1 kick your ass so bad that it's not even funny. I don't mind hard, but this game is so unforgiving that it makes you feel that you are not going to be able to progress, that 'it's not for you, and you need to stay at Threat level 0 forever.

And it's not about realism either: footsoldiers shooting down a spaceship, having to read the forums to play around the crazy, built-in, arbitrary mechanics to get anything done. People seem to find excuses for this to be such a no-fun time.

I wish I could have revived the feeling I had with the original ELite game I used to play. That game was way more fun, despite all the shiny graphics and millions of dollars invested in this.

Shame. I'm done.

 

[Codger]

Calling @Bottom Hat

 

[Zieman]

Man, can't anyone give the poor soul (OP) some pointers on how to learn some basics, instead instantly craving (pretty much nonexistent) stuphz?
As it looks like, the OP is trying to run before even having learned how to crawl reliably.

Maybe the so called Advanced Tutorials would be helpful, to learn about blue zone, pips, etc. ?

And a link or two, to some guides on setting up controls, learning to fly the ship, combat basics (as between the lines, getting head handed on a plate by low level NPCs seems to be the cause of irritation), upgrading ship, etc.

 

[SlickPBW]

OP if you give it some time you may come to enjoy it. Many of us played the original Elite and there’s no argument that ED has one of the steepest and longest learning curves, even if you have previous experience. Post your difficulties here and folks will help.

 

[Felix DiCestria]

Did they get Odyssey before they went through the new pilots zone?
The tutorials should teach you what to expect if you followed them. Also ground troops have 200m range tops. Keep your range in a ship or SRV and you're perfectly safe.

 

[Para Handy]

Man, can't anyone give the poor soul (OP) some pointers on how to learn some basics, instead instantly craving (pretty much nonexistent) stuphz?

I hesitate to point out that there is a comprehensive guide pinned (sticky thread) at the top of this sub-forum, above which is a link to the Guides and Tutorials sub-sub-forum and then even above that is a link to the Galactic Academy.
...

EDIT: OK as promised, post edited, hope the OP gets past the learning curve.

 

[metatheurgist]

If you played the original then you know what to expect. Trying to trade in Reidquat from the start was a recipe for frustration, and that's right next to Lave.

The threat levels are a misleading, any mission involving combat for a beginner (tho elite '84 guys tend not to have this issue) will probably end in tears not matter what the threat level says.

Stick strictly to non-combat stuff to start with.

 

[Krieger]

Welcome back to the Elite Galaxy commander!

The learning curve of Elite Dangerous/Odyssey is very steep. Maybe your favorable experience with original Elite ('84, '93 ??) put you off guard a little bit. Reading your post my first impression is you tried to do too much too soon. Especially combat is hard initially because the flight model is weird (halfway between a spaceship and an aircraft), you have to manage your pips to keep shields, engines and weapons functioning during the fight and then there's the smoke and creepy noises when taking damage.

Initially concentrate on transport and courier missions to get some flight hours under your belt and make operating the systems on your ship a routine. Use the money you make to upgrade the modules on your ship (esp. shields!) or buy a bigger and better ship.

Most of all: take your time, there's no need to hurry. Relax and have fun. You can't win this game but you can master it.

Maybe you've already found most of the resources listed below. If not, have a look at them and in any case don't hesitate to ask questions here in the forum.

In-game help is available in the form of menu links to the Pilot's Handbook and the Codex (right-hand cockpit panel 1st tab).
For a very good beginner's guide see: An in-depth beginner’s guide to Elite: Dangerous.
Tutorials covering all aspects of the game, many of them in the form of YouTube videos, are available from ED Tutorials.
There is a wealth of useful information available in these forums spread out over hundreds of threads. Thanks to commander @Alec Turner you can access all of that information and more via a single thread: Alec's best of the forum (and elsewhere) [v2].
Here is a good guide on the background simulation (BGS) that simulates the economical and political changes caused by player actions in inhabited systems.
Also check out the inara.cz and eddb.io websites with (almost) realtime info on practically everything in the game.
The coriolis.io and edsy.org websites let you design your ships before buying them.
There are many more Tools and Websites created by fans that make life in the galaxy better.
And last but not least, the Elite Dangerous Wiki contains extensive information on nearly all aspects of the game.

o7

 

[Greasetrap42]

If you played the original then you know what to expect.

Why anybody would purchase a game without a few moments using google amazes me.

Upon discovering it is a game intended for long-term gameplay (vs fast & quick arcade style game) it is shocking that anybody in the year 2022 wouldn't spend an addtional 5 minutes researching the game. I guess we are in a culture where people look at pretty pictures and press "Select Item".

 

[CMDR SleepyDelegate]

I find it interesting, that we have had a couple of people recently, who tried the game, found it difficult, came on the forum, posted their complaints, threatened to never play the game again, and eventually attacked forum members who tried to help them out. Then some came back to try again, again attacking people who tried to help them...

This game for sure is far from perfect, but it is definitely not overly difficult if you are willing to learn... This is not FS 2020, or DCS... Actually, it does not take longer than an hour or two to become proficient enough, so that you can fly out into the void and start successfully exploring the Galaxy, learning how to fly even better, accumulating data to later get cash and buy better ships, in order to start doing missions, trading, learning the PvE, mining, etc... I would say that this is the best order of learning milestones in the game... Start with the exploration and add more difficult stuff later...

 

[loteq]

Thank you to all who responded constructively to my post.
I really appreciate the calm tone that most of you adopted.

Let me just explain myself a little better. Contrary to what one of the posts says, I think that having to google a game to understand how it is played is a game design defect in 2022. Most complex games will take you through some kind of campaign to show you where you should start, and it should give you an appreciation of your path in the game. I would have appreciated some more hand-holding in-game. I know it's less challenging, but at my age, I prefer having more fun, and have little patience for frustration in my leisure time. So I appreciate all the pointers that you guys have given me, you guys convinced with your kindness that I should give it a second try because the community is worth it, but my point was that I felt the game designers did not really care as much as you do.

Hopefully we'll meet again.

P.S.
84' Elite.

 

[Chris Simon]

Thank you to all who responded constructively to my post.
I really appreciate the calm tone that most of you adopted.

Let me just explain myself a little better. Contrary to what one of the posts says, I think that having to google a game to understand how it is played is a game design defect in 2022. Most complex games will take you through some kind of campaign to show you where you should start, and it should give you an appreciation of your path in the game. I would have appreciated some more hand-holding in-game. I know it's less challenging, but at my age, I prefer having more fun, and have little patience for frustration in my leisure time. So I appreciate all the pointers that you guys have given me, you guys convinced with your kindness that I should give it a second try because the community is worth it, but my point was that I felt the game designers did not really care as much as you do.

Hopefully we'll meet again.

P.S.
84' Elite.

One way to look at Elite is as a puzzle game.
"Figuring stuff out" is, from certain perspective, the main and the only real gameplay loop in the game.

If there were tutorials that would teach you EVERYTHING (and believe me, the tutorials that are in the game now are lightyears ahead of the old "training missions" of old which didn't really teach anything) there wouldn't be anything left to do in the game.

All the game is beyond that is flying/driving/walking your avatar, pointing at things and pressing series of buttons.
Elite works best as kind of a CYOA environment template where you pretend to have adventures that take place mainly in your head.

Personally I love that about Elite. And also the fact that after 7 years of playing it, I still don't understand how some things work.
The answer to all three questions in your title is "Yes, to a degree". Whether it is a good or bad thing depends on what you're going to make of it. You will find that the punishment part slowly recedes as you play and with it the fun part as well as they are inseparably linked together.
Eventually all that's left is a proverbial empty sheet of paper for you to fill with your own "content".

 

[CMDR SleepyDelegate]

Thank you to all who responded constructively to my post.
I really appreciate the calm tone that most of you adopted.

Let me just explain myself a little better. Contrary to what one of the posts says, I think that having to google a game to understand how it is played is a game design defect in 2022. Most complex games will take you through some kind of campaign to show you where you should start, and it should give you an appreciation of your path in the game. I would have appreciated some more hand-holding in-game. I know it's less challenging, but at my age, I prefer having more fun, and have little patience for frustration in my leisure time. So I appreciate all the pointers that you guys have given me, you guys convinced with your kindness that I should give it a second try because the community is worth it, but my point was that I felt the game designers did not really care as much as you do.

Hopefully we'll meet again.

P.S.
84' Elite.

Good, you are not snippy at the forum members...

I think the problem is, that this is basically not a game, but more a sandbox. The tutorials will show you some basics, and then you fly, you die, you suffer, you swear and most of the time you have fun...

And i don't think you necessarily need to Google how the game is played, but you should Google it to learn what to expect. It is much more complex than Elite 84, but the difficulty did not increase proportionally to the complexity. Actually, i believe the dogfighting is less difficult than in the original game...

Enjoy the game, have fun and don't stress if you die...

 

[Greasetrap42]

I wish I had known how this game is built before I bought it. It is just wave after wave of frustration. It's not how I want to play a game.

I think that having to google a game to understand how it is played is a game design defect in 2022.

Perhaps I didn't explain myself properly.

Like any purchase on the internet, it is worth taking a moment to determine what you are purchasing.

Any activity that is going to absorb 20+ hours of your time is worth taking 5 minutes to investigate prior to engaging.

Elite dangerous is an excellent game. Putting 100+ hours into it is very common. It is a game of very large scope. Quick investigation shows it can be difficult to get into with a very steep learning curve. In under 5 minutes you can easily determine the play style of the game prior to purchase.

 

[TiberiusDuval]

Well personally I don't like ground missions at all. Even simplest legal delivery mission can go wrong if some NPC wants to scan you and you do not stop fast enough.

When it comes to flying stuff, well everything is difficult with starter Sidewinder, and basically with everything else, untill you engineer your ships. After that PVE game's difficulty drops dramatically. To the point where experienced combat oriented players complain it being too easy.

 

[Para Handy]

........

Elite dangerous is an excellent game. Putting 100+ hours into it is very common. It is a game of very large scope. Quick investigation shows it can be difficult to get into with a very steep learning curve. In under 5 minutes you can easily determine what the play style of the game is.

Whereas in NoMansSky for example you have to go through hours (well, it feels like hours) of required activities just to get going - no matter how many times you have played the game in other "saves", there is no way to get out of their "tutorial" hoops.

Elite, in contrast, lets you get on with things - even if you clear save or buy a new account you can skip the tutorials and get on with enjoying yourself. You can tell the developers assume this to be the case as they have not updated the game manual since release 2.4 yonks ago.

 

[0threeleven]

I bought both Horizon's and Odessey right away, but I spent 1300 hours in Horizon's before I started Odessey. I did exploration heading out to Colonia (unlocking Farseer first) and made a lot of credits doing it in Horizon's.

 

[Bantha]

Get used to Google, Op.
You’ll be referring to it pretty much every time you play the game…

 

[Rock Hunter]

I think Chris Simon has summed up the nature of the game perfectly. Certainly if you’re looking at involving yourself in more than one aspect of the game e.g. PvP flight combat (something like that can lead to following a simple meta pathway until you’re in a position to do one thing repeatedly.)

Beyond that the game is a sandbox that requires as much from you the player than the game itself, arguably even more. It’s the very reason so many play it for thousands of hours and others realise it simply isn’t for them.

Google and YouTube can answer questions quite well but often just point you to the fastest way to complete any task, essentially giving you the ‘how’ but none of the ‘what’s’ and ‘why’s’ which are the real answers. This is the internet so the usual frustration, snippy comments etc apply, but as you’ve found there’s a huge amount of passion, care, interest and knowledge here thats shared in a way that can really open the game up to new Cmdrs - if the basic premise of the game is still of interest once it’s understood.

Hope you stick with it a while longer and see what it can be, a series of puzzles within a big puzzle that takes place in what appears like a beautifully decorated but sometimes seemingly empty room.

 

[R-Irish]

I'm 582 hrs in and i just found out how to use the FSS thingy that I never took notice of until now lol I also have ignored the thargoid stuff because the delayed explosive thing gives me a headache and I don't want to throw my ships at thargoids only to lose (I do intend on learning how to do it soon).

I think the frustration you feel is something most, if not all, ED players go through. I used to rage quit because I hadn't a clue how to earn credits and replace ships or get new ships at any decent rate when I F***** up when trying to try simple things like mining.

It's a bit like Dark Souls, where you fail, fail and fail. Until you finally see its not so hard, get in your grove and enjoy it with a sense of accomplishment.