Just don't feel like logging in...

[Distance]

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?

When you buy in to a game for the long haul and have put in 600 hours since beta you see the flaws more readily. I've done a lot of everything but only just started trading so it's not like I've been running a 2 station route for a month.

I love the game mechanics but after buying in to the game from reading the DDA and seeing what it could be is the reason why I'm personally a bit negative right now.

I'm not stopping playing though I just want more content and for the game to succeed. I understand things take time but I wish they had waited longer to release as I'd be happy right now knowing it's still beta rather than knowing it's actually a released game. Not everyone has my patience and for a new player coming in buying a released game they won't be here in a years time when fd have (hopefully) added the content. Thats bad for everyone.

 

[Commander Azriel]

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.

See, now you are setting the right goals! Problem solved. Now the game is awesome!

Don't forget about running the same missions over and over again with slight variations of what goes where.

 

[5thNovember]

When you buy in to a game for the long haul and have put in 600 hours since beta you see the flaws more readily.

Oh, don't get me wrong - I see all the same flaws all right. They're just not bothering me yet. Probably because I haven't started on any of the trading, exploring, pirating thing. I'm still having a grand old time in conflict zones and resource locations.

 

[Daffan]

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.

Sad post. But very, very true. I can see the fanboys now "he, he cant be right! NOOOO!"

 

[Soon(TM)]

While it fulfills the nostalgia of the 80's in the sense of being another space trading sim to feed my love of this genre, it leaves me feeling a bit like when movie directors decide to re-make a classic movie by adding new actors and replacing the old special effects with the latest CGI. Yes, it looks stunning and might be a great movie as a whole but, somewhere along the line, it has lost some of the magic of the original

Yup, an example would be the new total recall film.

Really good CGI but nothing near as awesome as the original.

 

[fatmanboozer]

I keep logging into the forums in some vain hope that something makes me want to play again, but instead im getting more and more put off
Far to many people keep saying people don't understand how to make their own goals, I've put far to many hours in to games like minecraft to be told I don't understand the concept of making my own goals.
The goals I'm making are not achievable in this game which I thought would be and I think its mostly down to the way this instance system works.
I was expecting (and maybe wrongly expecting) a living breathing universe with an economy that could be effected, realist game play features, factions that would go to war with each other, epic space battles on conflicts.
There are no production lines in this game, i was expecting something closer to whats seen in the X2 and X3. Technology advancement is illogical, why is there no trade moduals/database yet there is a galactic average and the ability to store information on 400billion stars?! no jump charge disruption yet can pull people out of super cruise. I have barely seen factions interact.
I cant help but feel that the developer is putting more limitations in place rather than adding a more rewarding game experience.
I wish this game was more than what it is. I hope it gets better in time because right now I regret buying this game and dont think its worth the £40 price tag

 

[finchywinchy]

I must admit I'm not sure about ED at the moment.

I hear ya, man. It's like...I've got to prop up my keyboard an inch, then I've got to reach to my left to get the 'stick and over to my right to get the throttle. It's not worth the effort. Just so I can spend an hour doing...not much. Either trying to save a bit of money this time out so I can afford to shoot people next time, or shooting people and getting slowly poorer.

It's not about instant gratification. I don't mind working towards something. It's just there's nothing to work towards that's different to what I have already.

 

[Soon(TM)]

Someone said we should make suggestions on what we think would improve the game content in an earlier post. (Were not taking bug fixes)

So I thought I'd add my 10p.

No masive descriptions, just broad bullet point ideas.

* avatars in stations and galnet news broadcasts scrolling in a window in stations - like it's actually happening, not just flat texts!

* improve mining, make each piece mined half a ton of something instead of 17% or whatever, make mining a bit quiker! Bots for collection is also a good idea.

* Chain missions with a back story, let players start a mission chain that has different requirements, defend a convoy, track down a pirate by scanning debris and jumping to new co ordinates, save an abducted diplomat and bring them back to a set place etc.

* add something to spercruise and hyperspace exit that scrambles scanners for 5 seconds while they "reset" so the game has time to spawn NPCs so we don't notice that space is empty when we enter an instance and then just "suddenly" populated because we arrived in it!

* add galnet and other features to supercruise, possibly a market screen to track stations visited and prices etc.

* customise ship holographic interiors for each ship. Doesn't have to be massively different just maybe change the shape or colour of some of the displays so each ship feels unique. Cockpits are different but the overlay is always the same so just feels the same to me all the time no matter what ship.

* when exploring, if I scan a planet or Sun, why not have its data pop up in a box on the left or right for a few seconds after the scan with a picture of the planet and a brief description. Images and descriptions are already in the system maps, cant be that hard for it to pop up in a box when I've scanned something relevant?

* make more station interiors, they all look the same inside the docking bay pretty much, sure some have trees and a bit of green but theyre still the same, maybe two or three different similar designs...... For thousands of stations! - maybe asteroid bases?

* maybe add more computer voices, have them read missions to us etc. Make it feel futuristic.

* add multiplayer missions for wings, let people fly missions on patrol or escourt as a group etc.

I can think of more but this post is getting long!

 

[Vasea Azure]

Very good list, +1

 

[Devil's Refugee]

The "Chain Missions" element is a great idea, borrowed from Eve but executed well enough in ED it could add a lot more than the random and frankly pointless ones we have now. Community Goals doesn't go far enough, its to all intents and purposes just a bar counter to grind towards. I really don't understand who can design something like this and think it's actually good gameplay.

 

[finchywinchy]

The "Chain Missions" element is a great idea, borrowed from Eve but executed well enough in ED it could add a lot more than the random and frankly pointless ones we have now. Community Goals doesn't go far enough, its to all intents and purposes just a bar counter to grind towards. I really don't understand who can design something like this and think it's actually good gameplay.

What grates against my senses though is, was every spacestation in the galaxy also put together via community goals? 'cos that's not how we do things on my planet! You either pay for your space-station upfront, you get a loan, or you get it on credit.

THEN you get the Orbulus Spacestation Company to build it for you, 'cos I don't know how to build a spacestation? Do you? Do any of those miners that for some reason always need marine equipment on bare-rock planets? 'course they don't! But for some reason, in ED, spacestations are funded by Comic Relief and food banks!

 

[Zueuk]

Some people need to be told what to do, how to do it and where to go. This isn't the game for them.

Some people need to actually read and try to understand what OP meant to say, otherwise they sound just as stupid as

#it'snotthegameforyou
#I'mstillplayingandIthinkit'sgreatandeveryonewhodoesn'tthinksodoesn'tgethegame

 

[Devil's Refugee]

What grates against my senses though is, was every spacestation in the galaxy also put together via community goals? 'cos that's not how we do things on my planet! You either pay for your space-station upfront, you get a loan, or you get it on credit.

THEN you get the Orbulus Spacestation Company to build it for you, 'cos I don't know how to build a spacestation? Do you? Do any of those miners that for some reason always need marine equipment on bare-rock planets? 'course they don't! But for some reason, in ED, spacestations are funded by Comic Relief and food banks!

What the OP has stated, and what's written in the "Dangerous or Endangered" review are spot on. There are times I feel Frontier has just awoken from a 30 year hypersleep and ignored core gameplay evolution of online multiplayers that's taken place since. Delivering a reskinned First Encounters demo is not what we backed.

 

[Soon(TM)]

What the OP has stated, and what's written in the "Dangerous or Endangered" review are spot on. There are times I feel Frontier has just awoken from a 30 year hypersleep and ignored core gameplay evolution of online multiplayers that's taken place since. Delivering a reskinned First Encounters demo is not what we backed.

This isn't even a FFE reskin, ffe had a story and kind of campaign/mission mode, ED Doesn't.

 

[InMemoriamSirocco]

Delivering a reskinned First Encounters demo is not what we backed.

Man, what I wouldn't give if ED had all the features of First Encounters with just the updated graphics!


-story-connected mission chains
-interactive bulletin boards
-NPC faces and multiple choice dialogue communication
-insant-paying of fines via intra-system long range communication
-hidden black markets and cop traps
-passenger missions
-scaling missions depending on your Elite status (mission rewards that went into the millions, but also questgivers who wouldn't allow you to take their mission because your rank was not high enough)
-criminal record
-external view
-ship crews (even though just taking up space and costing money)
-dozens of ships
-many non-playable ships that are just there for fluff (shuttles, bulk carriers, long range cruisers)
-planetary landings
-tractor beam cargo scoop
-autopilot
-pirate attacks by multiple ships
-actual functioning established trade routes that were safe to travel and didn't suddenly dry up as if a whole planet's economy had crashed over night
-multiple different station designs, depending on faction and economy
-functioning newtonian flight model that allowed for dogfighting if you used it correctly
-mining drones
-orrery system view with navigational use
-special equipment that you could only get through missions
-different in-game newspapers that reported on important galactic events from different points of view (propaganda)
-commodity stock market info and newspaper issues downloadable via intra-system long range communication from the nearest starport. You could literally jump into a system and contact the starport from your entry point, transferring outstanding fines and fees or downloading information.
-Thargoids

 

[finchywinchy]

Man, what I wouldn't give if ED had all the features of First Encounters with just the updated graphics!

...great big list...

Time is obviously the missing ingredient. Give FD time, they'll put all that stuff in, almost certainly. Considering how long its taken to make what there is suggests its going to be a very long time for ED to be on a par with FFE

Weird how nostalgia has elevated FFE, innit?

 

[RhinoOnAStick]

To address the OP's point 1 which resonates with me quite a lot (no game beyond the targets you set yourself).

I can't help but feel that as multiplayer and wings becomes a thing in the game, your enjoyment will be fuelled by that. I know in other games, the fun really starts when you're invested in something with other people. Maybe you'll join a wing whose purpose it is run a particular trade route, and you'll be offering fighter support. Maybe you'll be performing raids deep into enemy territory, with a fleet of anacondas set to disrupt enemy economics. Maybe you'll be in the Anaconda, maybe you'll be protecting them. Maybe you'll be attacked endlessly where you're so invested in what's happening that you'll not be able to even get up to take a pee. This is where the game will become super fun.

For what it's worth; use this time to sharpen your skills, lay down a load of money, and hold on, because it's going to get wild out there really soon.

 

[Spam]

1) The first MAJOR issue that I have with ED is that there's no point to any of it, no goals beyond what you set yourself. And that's like looking down at your kitchen floor and deciding you will spend the next hour deliberately stepping on every corner of every tile, as a self-imposed objective, and calling it fun. It's a kitchen sandbox where you can play the way you want to play. Which is fun. Right.

I wanna play the kitchen tile game! It sounds ace.
Can I play it in my Rift?

PS - Good points well made.

 

[Devil's Refugee]

Time is obviously the missing ingredient. Give FD time, they'll put all that stuff in, almost certainly. Considering how long its taken to make what there is suggests its going to be a very long time for ED to be on a par with FFE

Weird how nostalgia has elevated FFE, innit?

They had time. They've spent it on the glossy bits and forgot the real content.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

To address the OP's point 1 which resonates with me quite a lot (no game beyond the targets you set yourself).

I can't help but feel that as multiplayer and wings becomes a thing in the game, your enjoyment will be fuelled by that. I know in other games, the fun really starts when you're invested in something with other people. Maybe you'll join a wing whose purpose it is run a particular trade route, and you'll be offering fighter support. Maybe you'll be performing raids deep into enemy territory, with a fleet of anacondas set to disrupt enemy economics. Maybe you'll be in the Anaconda, maybe you'll be protecting them. Maybe you'll be attacked endlessly where you're so invested in what's happening that you'll not be able to even get up to take a pee. This is where the game will become super fun.

For what it's worth; use this time to sharpen your skills, lay down a load of money, and hold on, because it's going to get wild out there really soon.

If Community Goals is anything to go by, I have serious doubts Wings will fulfil what we are all hoping on. They've set the course with instancing and now they're going to be constrained by that design decision for a long time to come. I'm waiting for Wings with hope but if it fails to deliver promise then I can't see me investing chunks of my time in the game past that point. There's too much competition coming this year.

Community Goals in action....I mean seriously, you now have a grind counter to watch.

 

[Daffan]

Yup, an example would be the new total recall film.

Really good CGI but nothing near as awesome as the original.

Oh god, i hate how they made it. Dumbed down story