Elite Dangerous is a fantastic game; I purchased it a while ago but did not actually begin playing until early January. I have about six days of flight time and am worth approximately 55 million at the moment.
The biggest problem is that it's big and it feels empty; I always play in open play mode, and I have encountered only two or three other CMDRs despite roving pretty far from beginner space.
I would like to see more missions that draw CMDRs together for cooperation or conflict. I know Horizons attempted to do this to some extent, but the rewards for multi-crew don't seem to be incentivizing players to take advantage of those features. Having CMDRs interact with each other more often will make the game world feel more populated, dynamic, and alive. Here are some ideas:
When one CMDR is in open mode running cargo/data delivery missions long distance, missions are generated for other CMDRs in the vicinity of their delivery point to intercept and eliminate them.
When missions say, "Ships may be sent against you," this should include other CMDRs being routed to attack you via impromptu mission communiques and lucrative bounty incentives.
When you defect from a faction, other CMDRs in that faction should be routed to hunt you down in addition to NPCs.
Bounties on CMDRs should be multiplied for CMDRs taking them on. Example, I have 50K in bounties, but for another CMDR it's actually 500K, big incentive to risk taking me out. As far as NPC ships are concerned though, the lesser bounty is in effect.
Special assassination missions targeting CMDRs with rewards commensurate with risk and difficulty.
Better perks for multi-crew. Why would I allow someone else in my ship if I can handle it better solo than I could with a crew member? Maybe opening up your ship for trainees to observe you pays based on the time you have a CMDR passenger with you. Maybe +50% boost in bounties when pirate hunting with a multi-crew CMDR. You get the idea.
Obviously tracking another CMDR in realtime adds some challenges not present when dealing with NPCs, namely that the target CMDR can log off and leave the hunter hanging. For this reason the way these contracts work needs to be a bit different from the standard missions, for example they would pop when a CMDR is within a few jumps of the target CMDR but only if the potential hunter CMDR has weapons and FSD Interdictor installed. Also mission updates via comms could let the hunter know when the target changes systems.
The logout prevention measures would also need to be adapted to prevent a target CMDR from simply jumping and immediately logging out. Perhaps CMDRs could be prevented from logging out within 2 minutes of taking fire from another CMDR. This way, if a hunter CMDR is persistent enough, they can keep following their target. Suddenly going dark/stealth becomes more important for preserving CMDRs who are being hunted as well.
The system can be tweaked. Obviously for CMDRs playing in Solo mode, it simply wouldn't apply at all. For those in Open Play it should probably be rank based, with higher trade rankings making you a more likely target, and higher combat rankings making you more likely to get anti-CMDR contextual missions.
The biggest problem is that it's big and it feels empty; I always play in open play mode, and I have encountered only two or three other CMDRs despite roving pretty far from beginner space.
I would like to see more missions that draw CMDRs together for cooperation or conflict. I know Horizons attempted to do this to some extent, but the rewards for multi-crew don't seem to be incentivizing players to take advantage of those features. Having CMDRs interact with each other more often will make the game world feel more populated, dynamic, and alive. Here are some ideas:
When one CMDR is in open mode running cargo/data delivery missions long distance, missions are generated for other CMDRs in the vicinity of their delivery point to intercept and eliminate them.
When missions say, "Ships may be sent against you," this should include other CMDRs being routed to attack you via impromptu mission communiques and lucrative bounty incentives.
When you defect from a faction, other CMDRs in that faction should be routed to hunt you down in addition to NPCs.
Bounties on CMDRs should be multiplied for CMDRs taking them on. Example, I have 50K in bounties, but for another CMDR it's actually 500K, big incentive to risk taking me out. As far as NPC ships are concerned though, the lesser bounty is in effect.
Special assassination missions targeting CMDRs with rewards commensurate with risk and difficulty.
Better perks for multi-crew. Why would I allow someone else in my ship if I can handle it better solo than I could with a crew member? Maybe opening up your ship for trainees to observe you pays based on the time you have a CMDR passenger with you. Maybe +50% boost in bounties when pirate hunting with a multi-crew CMDR. You get the idea.
Obviously tracking another CMDR in realtime adds some challenges not present when dealing with NPCs, namely that the target CMDR can log off and leave the hunter hanging. For this reason the way these contracts work needs to be a bit different from the standard missions, for example they would pop when a CMDR is within a few jumps of the target CMDR but only if the potential hunter CMDR has weapons and FSD Interdictor installed. Also mission updates via comms could let the hunter know when the target changes systems.
The logout prevention measures would also need to be adapted to prevent a target CMDR from simply jumping and immediately logging out. Perhaps CMDRs could be prevented from logging out within 2 minutes of taking fire from another CMDR. This way, if a hunter CMDR is persistent enough, they can keep following their target. Suddenly going dark/stealth becomes more important for preserving CMDRs who are being hunted as well.
The system can be tweaked. Obviously for CMDRs playing in Solo mode, it simply wouldn't apply at all. For those in Open Play it should probably be rank based, with higher trade rankings making you a more likely target, and higher combat rankings making you more likely to get anti-CMDR contextual missions.