Just don't feel like logging in...

[Rhywden]

Ok, that's consistent.

I would consider GTA and the like as sandbox games, as do many game reviewers. But I don't feel there's a hard definition available to settle this.

More importantly, are you from Germany, does Atari-CC and the name Khen mean anything to you? (Had the same avatar, and it's not the most obvious one, so that's why I am asking)

Guilty as charged.

Since you mention old films and CGI...I thought of this comparison this afternoon: ED is the Phantom Menace equivalent of the originals. It's David Braben's "George Lucas" edit of what he considers a vision to be. All flash, little substance. He nailed it previously but now has completely lost touch with how gaming has changed. This to me is simply his pet astrophysics project funded by game-based backers. I'm half expecting Thargoids to turn up shouting "messir gonna keel you" over the comms channel. But returning to the more serious point made a couple of pages ago, this thread has remained pretty true to the OP and yet there is no sign of Frontier anywhere. This isn't the typical troll post moaning or baiting for replies, it's been a constructive appraisal of how many of us feel right now and again, it's being ignored in favour of "look who discovered a new system" or "come see the pretty lights at Sol" PR. Sadly Frontier are their own worst enemies treating this with silence in the hope it'll be buried soon(tm)

Them's are fightin' words!

Seriously, comparing Elite to Phantom Menace is going to far!




Phantom Menace was much better than this!

 

[Britannkic]

Is this thread just 17 pages of arguing over definitions of sandbox and whether Elite is a sandbox game or not??

lol you guys got too much time. How about we define it a fruitbox game?

Bottom line is, you know how to enjoy it or you don't.

if you can't figure out what to do beyond grinding then I'm sorry for that.

i purposely don't grind 10hours a day because that would just be boring. I enjoy trading in a T6 for various reasons I'm not going to go into here, but I also go hunting player bounties in a Viper/Asp and pirate player traders in the Asp.

The player interaction adds a great deal of the spice here, the adrenalin etc etc

i make sure I have upwards of 10mill in the bank. Maybe later I'll push for a T7 and then Python

 

[Rhywden]

Good to see you!

No points for guessing my identity even though I have cunningly disguised it.

Yeah, the additional "er" at the end of your name totally threw me.

 

[Dave1235]

I would of gladly waited another 6 months......
I'm a kickstarter backer, and I really wasn't expecting them to release it until sometime this year (end of the year to be honest)
I have no idea what it cost's to make a game like this, but I really think they had enough funds to hold off for at least another 6 months before they released this shell of a game.
Don't get me wrong, I love the game but to me it's still beta testing.
I really would like to hear what the Devs think of the feedback that the backers are giving.

I empathise with the OP and agree with you too, gladly wait another 6 months, I have been here since PB, I played a lot more through the beta's but RL has slowed me down a bit since gamma time.

First beta for me (apart from ~3 years in bsgo which was really always a beta until I left it 6 months ago IDK now), I also would have preferred them to have delayed the launch 6 months but they either felt they had to launch when they said they would or wanted to get it released before Christmas, I lean towards the latter, I also understand the reasons for doing it.

I also think it would have been better for FD to have labelled it as "early access" or whatever the correct terminology is from launch to mid / late 2015, I see lots of posts saying "its not like the trailer I want x now!", I have never seen a film at the cinema where the trailer has been less interesting than the film, they always show the action parts its marketing, at least with ED you have tons of youtube & this very forum if you are not sure about buying the game.

That said I have really enjoyed the beta process, its been a great experience for me (yes I am an 84) watching this game grow since PB to what it is now, it's quite funny thinking about the "some xxx blew up my hauler in freeport" now, only half a dozen systems and you are trading in open in the 1 anarchy , I digress.

My point is twofold, over the last 6 months I have seen this Dev team work their butts off, change logs half a mile long, 6 hot fixes in 7 days (twice IIRC) after updates, responding to posts late at night and at weekends, this is DBOBE's dream of 30 years (and thanks to the KS too for making it happen, I found out about it way too late to join in the KS), its their flagship product they are putting 100% into it.

The second is for the OP and the others feeling the same way, you have paid for the game already, take a break but please do take another look in a month or two, there is no subscription to keep paying, I hope you will be pleasantly surprised, if what I have seen in the last 6 months shows their work ethos I think we will see a lot more soon, wings in ~ a month I believe. They have a lot to do to flesh out the game, we know it and so do they MB said so about mining. I am sure it will happen.

 

[alisterwallbank]

The OP is pretty much spot on. I feel exactly the same. I'm 47 and have been playing computer games since way back in 1978 when I first soldered together a Compukit UK101 which had 1K of RAM (expandable to 8K!). Heck, I seem to remember I could write a dozen lines of BASIC with that 1K. I was mesmerized by the original game back in the day on my BBC micro and although we have now moved on to multi-core processors and talk gigabytes the game just doesn't come close right now to emulating that mind blowing experience.

I've put quite a lot time into the game since signing up at the very early beta stages. Done a bit of this and that, never truly grinded, just approached the game in a manner that I hoped would lead me to find the mix of activities that would keep me hooked. That hasn't happened yet and it won't until the ED Universe become awe inspiring.

I remain quietly confident that ED will, eventually, get to a place that leaves me with sweaty palms after navigating into a truly anarchic system for 15 minutes. It will hopefully re-create those moments of sheer relief upon reaching a station in one piece.

I really hope that the ED Universe will allow me to forge my own path while throwing a multitude of complex and evolving mission possibilities and outcomes at me. But most of all, I can't wait to be mesmerized again.I think the release date was probably way too early, I know the DEV team have worked heroically and that's how life pans out sometimes.

My hopes may have to wait a little while yet and I may have to focus my attention elsewhere for an interlude until such time as I begin to hear rumors of a stolen experimental ship?????

 

[Dubber]

My 1p's worth.

I'll go along with the OP. Did quite a bit of exploring which was OK for about a week then it became a point and click thing. Had a go at PVE which was quite a nice change but the repairs didn't make it worth while. Then jumped into mining, that only lasted about four hours as the monotony was awful.

OK, said I, I'll have a bash at trading without external tools, yeah it was ok, but a hell of a slow grind so I got hold of Slopeys tool (narf narf). Aha, this is more like it, at least I'm getting something even though it's still a grind fest. The changes came to the economy and I just don't know if I have the resolve to ocr a load more stations. In short, maybe the lack of depth and boredom hit me before the economy changes kicked in. I wish I'd jumped into the trade tool thing much earlier on at least I'd have a nice chunk of money to see me through until something happens that makes me want to log in.

 

[acroyer7907]

My 1p's worth.

I'll go along with the OP. Did quite a bit of exploring which was OK for about a week then it became a point and click thing. Had a go at PVE which was quite a nice change but the repairs didn't make it worth while. Then jumped into mining, that only lasted about four hours as the monotony was awful.

OK, said I, I'll have a bash at trading without external tools, yeah it was ok, but a hell of a slow grind so I got hold of Slopeys tool (narf narf). Aha, this is more like it, at least I'm getting something even though it's still a grind fest. The changes came to the economy and I just don't know if I have the resolve to ocr a load more stations. In short, maybe the lack of depth and boredom hit me before the economy changes kicked in. I wish I'd jumped into the trade tool thing much earlier on at least I'd have a nice chunk of money to see me through until something happens that makes me want to log in.

It really sucks when a Developer makes big changes to a system that was generating cash for players and keeping them interested in coming back. Here's to you coming back when things are better!

 

[Devil's Refugee]

True to form, Frontier replies to the recent thread thanking them for efforts but again fail to acknowledge in any way the deficiencies in the game mentioned here and in the recent Elite Dangerous or Endangered review, or at least the fact they're considering the feedback. It's very disheartening.

 

[DYSEQTA]

This thread has been great and we've all had a nice AA-style share of our feelings and a bit of a cry so how about we now get constructive and start offering ideas for a solution. We all know about the DDF and it's gold mine of design ideas but the DDF was a pre-release thing whereas I am asking players post-release to share things that for them would prevent the sentiment of the OP now that the game is live and running.

Here's my contribution:

DISCLAIMER: Any reference to the words "we", "our",or "CMDRs" are references to minds that align with my thinking and are not references to the entire human race.

One of the core design elements of Elite is that it is about a wo/man and their ship livin' life. Your ship is your home. Except they aren't... The game doesn't actually support that design specification and CMDRs don't really seem to be 100% behind that concept either:

• This is a multi-player game at it's functional core regardless of whether or not you play it in a personal bubble
• Players aren't identifying with their ships as their home. I see ships referred to in the following way "I have a Python" not "my Python" an awful lot. There is a distinct lack of possessive language used when CMDRs are referring to ships
• Players regularly refer to systems and stations with possessive language such as "home"
• Ships are presented in-game by the game's own mechanics as disposable items. Owning multiple ships at present is a chore unless you have the afore mentioned "home" station you operate out of. Therefore selling ships and buying new ones so you can switch roles if you are tired of what you have been doing is encouraged. This encourages detachment between CMDR and ship
• The universal HUD layered over pointless dash geometry and fake displays further distances CMDRs from feeling personal connection with the ships they buy as it makes them feel very same-ish
• Paint jobs are a good first step toward helping CMDRs feel connected to their ships but as CMDRs can't currently see that very often it doesn't really work in that way
• There are no official customisation options for ships that allow CMDRs to personalise that part of their ship that they spend the most time viewing, i.e. the cockpit

A little expansion on some of those points:

CMDR Identity and Home
CMDRs, funnily enough, seem to be identifying with their avatars just fine, even with them being only faceless names right now. Doesn't appear to be any need to change in anything is this regard short of what is already planned in expansions.

It should be no surprise that as human beings we all crave a home with varying degrees of intensity. As already established above our ships aren't our homes and so when we inevitably look for a home system and/or station we find that the game doesn't really have the infrastructure to support that desire.

Even when we can walk about our ships, unless they are Star Citizen style with fully interactive interiors including interactively useless, yet familiar items such as showers, food prep areas (see mod note at bottom of post), beds, etc they will never become close to being homely. Home is where the heart is, and right now it seems many CMDRs have their hearts with their chosen factions and favourite stations. Maybe it's time to consider working with the CMDRs rather than fighting against them?

Reputation with Factions
When a CMDR works hard to ally themselves with a local faction of their choice they are rewarded with precisely nothing more than a more cordial greeting upon requesting docking. That's it. Here's a few ideas that could improve that:

• Becoming friendly with a local faction earns you the right to purchase an apartment in that faction's owned stations/outpsts? Having apartments open's up all kinds of options for vanity items both earned in game (don't under estimate the value of this for player engagement) and purchased in your cash store. I am aware that this is probably not particularly practical until a future expansion
• An ally is treated as such and is considered innocent until proven guilty instead of guilty until proven innocent. This would mean that allied security would place the allied CMDR at a low priority when it comes to scanning around stations, in SC, and in system instances
• An ally of a faction does not need to request docking when approaching a station or outpost owned by that faction. Instead the station controller would be notified by the F.O.F. system that an allied CMDR has entered the stations "airspace" and would automatically greet the CMDR and assign a bay if one is available. If one is not available then the station controller would notify the CMDR and then work towards a solution. A solution might be booting out a docked NPC to make a bay available or prioritising the CMDR in a docking queue
• Security response to CMDRs should be based around standings. The higher a CMDRs reputation then the quicker the response should be as well as the number sent to support. When in an instance with multiple CMDRs and or NPC CMDRs system security should prioritise defence of the CMDR with the highest reputation with the faction running security
• CMDRs with extreme standings should be met with security flying out to escort them in when approaching an allied station or outpost
• The above ideas were considered in relation to reputation with local factions but could be applied at a global faction reputation level as well but with a large reducing scale applied
• This could be taken so much further but those are some starter ideas with the crux being that in allied space a CMDR should feely reasonably safe

Universal HUD
I understand that this was a convenient design choice. I can see the justification. It's easy to produce from a development perspective, it is seemingly helpful from a game-play perspective, but the reality is it detracts from the game and CMDRs identifying with their ships as valued possessions. Why have a dash or instrumentation of any kind at all if everything is going to be HUD? Please, please, please take the time to make each cockpit unique with fully functional instrumentation that is common across all ships but individually represented in each cockpit. The current "solution" comes across as lazy and that adds to feelings of disappointment.

Anyway that's a few ideas from this CMDR and I would encourage other's to have a think about some things that would improve the game for them and share.

P.S. Question to mods... Why is the word k.i.t.c.h.e.n. considered profanity on this forum??

 

[Ideas Man]

Good post DYSSEQTA, very nice.

 

[DextersIndignation]

Since you mention old films and CGI...I thought of this comparison this afternoon: ED is the Phantom Menace equivalent of the originals. It's David Braben's "George Lucas" edit of what he considers a vision to be. All flash, little substance. He nailed it previously but now has completely lost touch with how gaming has changed. This to me is simply his pet astrophysics project funded by game-based backers. I'm half expecting Thargoids to turn up shouting "messir gonna keel you" over the comms channel. But returning to the more serious point made a couple of pages ago, this thread has remained pretty true to the OP and yet there is no sign of Frontier anywhere. This isn't the typical troll post moaning or baiting for replies, it's been a constructive appraisal of how many of us feel right now and again, it's being ignored in favour of "look who discovered a new system" or "come see the pretty lights at Sol" PR. Sadly Frontier are their own worst enemies treating this with silence in the hope it'll be buried soon™

Dude.....

that is harsh.

nothing is as bad as the phantom menace.....

 

[Lovecraft]

@DYSEQTA

I could see those ideas being really cool. Particularly the station apartment and allied benefits- the feeling of returning home would be welcoming, and would provide incentive to rep with someone more than you might now. In turn you would feel more inclined to defend their hold on the system as this is your home, you have your apartment, with all your trophies and personalisations there, and they offer genuine perks, such as faster docking protocols, more logical defense etc. Player actions are rewarded and fuel further gameplay.

Need a lot more suggestions like this.

 

[TerrorTrooper]

My expectations of what ED would be like have been fulfilled quite satisfactorily. Anything new from here is a bonus to me.

EDIT: Perhaps FD could have better communicated the inherent 'aimlessness' of the game that will be completely lost on people who haven't played the previous incarnations...

On the contrary sir.

You are generalising the community a bit there.
I, like many others are players from the originals generation.
I am also no stranger to sci fi sandbox games, like many of egosofts X series, evochron mercenary etc.
The point is, these games also relied heavily on you setting your own goals, Elite, in its current state however doesn't allow you to set them very far away and doesn't provide much of a pitch to set them up in with very little progression.
For example, there's little tangible rewards in befriending any factions as they treat you no differently or offer any progression of gameplay. Mining is a thankless, repetitive chore that doesn't change much from your first hour to your tenth hour.
Exploration is nice as the Galaxy they created is inspiring! but sooner or later knowing that there's not much to actually find kills the enthusiasm a little. Missions are just mind numbingly generic. Everytime I set a goal, I reach it through some form of repetition and struggle to see what made it worth doing in the first place. Even ranking with the major factions is a cold and thankless grind and you really don't feel like much of an "ally"

Take Egosofts X games, I could spend weeks planning and setting up a manufacturing supply chain to provide weapons/ammo/missiles for a capital ship fleet as equipping a destroyer is a mammoth task, then I could spend another couple of weeks building a fleet. The satisfaction of seeing the results of your hard earned and maticulously planned infrastructure paying off is immense. Elite offers very little in terms of effort/reward/satisfaction

 

[Orffen]

Elite offers very little in terms of effort/reward/satisfaction

I think more feedback from the game on what effect your actions are having would be nice. I don't have faith they're having much effect as the systems stand at the moment, but more regular feedback besides bounties being given would be good.

There's basically no feedback from scanning a star or planet nor when you deliver a bunch of goods on how they've affected the economy. It makes it really hard to believe any of my actions have any point to them.

 

[thorn-]

I fail to see how determining whether or not Elite is a traditional sandbox, or open-world, or perhaps a virtual sushi restaurant has much relevance to it's long-term success factor.

But in any case, I continue to read statements such as "It's up to the player to set their own goals."

Fair enough, then.

My goal is to get a group of Cmdrs together, and stop all trade traffic to a particular system. Wait, cannot do that.

No problem, I'll make a new goal. More specific in nature.

Instead, my goal will be to stop the flow of Perf Enhc from a station to T9's by killing all the T9's until they stop jumping in. Wait, they just keep appearing. Ah. Can't do that either.
Well... ok. I'll contact several T9 owners, and we will purchase ALL the Perf Enhc supply (currently shown at 500,000T) and dump it in space, thus ending the trade runs. Erm... the supply never drops... ok, can't do that either...
Ok - so THIS will work. A T9 can only hold SO MUCH cargo. SO, my group of Cmdr friends will take all of our full T9s to the Seeking Ships, and fill them up with cargo. Then they will jump, and leave the system. Wait, what do you mean the NPC T9's have infinite capacity?

Well, crap. I guess I'll need to set ANOTHER goal for myself.

I know, I'll hunt one of those top 5 bountys in GalNet. Assuming they ever appear in my instance. And assuming they are still where ever they were last sighted, because there's not a way to track a player (except by sniping their live feed.) So maybe that's not a good goal.

Ah. Ok. How about... I'll jump to a star about 10LY, and click a SCAN BUTTON. I'll wait 10 seconds for the screen to tell me some data was collected. Then I'll jump to some other place (or supercruise), and activate that nifty scanner again. After about 200 times of this, I'll probably get the hang of it. And finally, I'll understand what "setting my goals" was all about and realize that complaining about things in 1.1 like insane heat buildup in weapons so that dogfights require more micro-management than filling out my income taxes or increasing power and heat factors so that small ships can barely use any equipment was just ... not understanding "what the game was really about". Which was clicking the Discovery Scanner button exploration.

 

[stevie]

I probably havent put in enough time, cause im still enjoying ED.

I try to find great trading areas, do some missions (if lucrative) and mine once in a while, and just have a fun time.
Any game is generally a waste of time, but i have a good time or move over to something else.

 

[Devil's Refugee]

Ah. Ok. How about... I'll jump to a star about 10LY, and click a SCAN BUTTON. I'll wait 10 seconds for the screen to tell me some data was collected. Then I'll jump to some other place (or supercruise), and activate that nifty scanner again. After about 200 times of this, I'll probably get the hang of it. And finally, I'll understand what "setting my goals" was all about and realize that complaining about things in 1.1 like insane heat buildup in weapons so that dogfights require more micro-management than filling out my income taxes or increasing power and heat factors so that small ships can barely use any equipment was just ... not understanding "what the game was really about". Which was clicking the Discovery Scanner button exploration.

Like I've said before, this has become Braben's science project not a game. And if the dogfighting in 1.1 has truly become like that then I'll mourn the passing of the last bit of Elite I had left to enjoy. Oh wait, there's always Mining.....

 

[5thNovember]

Interesting discussion. I can see both sides of the argument and feel firmly planted in the middle. I got in late (retail) so haven't put in the hundreds of hours prior to official release. I'm also not an ex elite player, so no expectations on what it should be based on its history. Although I have played a lot of other space flight combat sims, from the full X wing series to Freespace/2 and Starlancer among others. Part of what made each of those games great ED does better and for me that has been the biggest hook of the game so far. The actual feel of the game - audio, visual, flying, combat, manoeuvring, etc - is all really very good. For me the end game, if you will, is to actually master the piloting and dogfight combat techniques. And that is going to take me a heck of a long time (thanks FA off). So all that said, I'm happy to wait for the game to get up to speed in the background while I hone my skills and sharpen my Cobra in the meantime.

I'm surprised how few of you guys seem to be seeing the beauty in at least this part of the game, and milking it for what its worth while there doesn't seem to be much else better to do. Did you come to this game for the trading? Really?

That all said, there were other features about those games that made them stand out just as much, if not more than ED for their time. I'd like to think a lot of what I am talking about there does eventually find its way into ED. As well a heck of a lot of what has already been mentioned previously. Game does lack content, lacks soul to... but I knew that coming into it. Read some reviews, watched some videos, had feedback from mates that got me into it. So no complaint from me. Had my moneys worth already... but I do look forward to continued improvements and more fleshed out content

 

[hiciacit]

Just to add to the general consensus of this thread: I more or less stopped playing too. Game is boring and pointless atm, and judging from the little we know of future plans, not much will change (or might even get worse). I had such high hopes for this game...

... things in 1.1 like insane heat buildup in weapons so that dogfights require more micro-management than filling out my income taxes or increasing power and heat factors so that small ships can barely use any equipment was just ... not understanding "what the game was really about".

I've installed the beta but cannot really be motivated to try it. These changes are insane. I was just reading some of the threads in the beta 1.1 forum...they really *want* this game to be a slow, painful grind it seems. If everyone's game time is completely consumed with menial mini-games, maybe they won't notice that none of the major stuff in this game is actually working properly.

 

[Vasea Azure]

I've installed the beta but cannot really be motivated to try it. These changes are insane. I was just reading some of the threads in the beta 1.1 forum...they really *want* this game to be a slow, painful grind it seems. If everyone's game time is completely consumed with menial mini-games, maybe they won't notice that none of the major stuff in this game is actually working properly.

Really? That is not good news since I`m only mtivated to do raids on wanted ones in asteroid belts. If they managed to make cobat tidieous thats bad. I will have to jump and try 1.1 I see.