More sandbox, more sim, less manually injected stuffs

[SteveLaw]

I want to see deeper and more complex gameplay and missions, etc. but I also don't want to see less Dev narrative. That hand-moderated touch is rare these days and an automated system, no matter how good, is no substitute for clever and nuanced human narrative. (I feel our narrative could be a lot more clever and nuanced, but that's a different story... narrative, different story... oh, never mind. )

 

[Tinman]

Assassination missions for more casual player who want revenge on a pilot.
Escort missions for traders (trade dividends are to low for a figther to be content with, but more means too high for a "traders only" convoy).
Mercenary missions (sellswords), like "come with me to fight in a war which is not yours", aka conflict zones.
Pirate missions, you want to stay clean but you need stolen goods.
Providing missions, you're busy but you have to buy/source some specific goods.

That's better!

Assassination missions is a good one (and has actually been hinted in a Swedish magazine interview).

Rough translation:

"It feels like the BBS in the game almost requires player created missions too.

Absolutely! We will be adding more and more detail there. We have a couple of technical issues to solve, but I want that players should be able to put a price on each others head..."

Escort missions would also be good, but they are already possible by forming wings (even if player to player credit transfers aren't there). I guess you could create a mission for this, but would you really play the game that way? Isn't it much more likely that you would form a wing with someone on your friends list or by finding someone through the local chat in a frequently visited station? This is a maybe for me.

Mercenary missions, same thing, form wings. They are going to be able to collect combat bonds anyway.

Pirate missions? Here we come back to the why again...why would you need stolen goods? The only thing in the game currently that makes you need these is if you yourself have taken a mission to acquire these stolen goods. So instead of doing them yourself you are going to pay someone to do it for you? I assume less than what you yourself will get for the mission, otherwise what would be the point? And here is where it falls down...why would that other player take the mission from you for less pay if he/she instead could just take an identical mission directly from the game itself for more pay?

Source specific goods. Once again...why? Why do you need to source these goods? There is nothing in the game currently that requires these goods other than trading them or deliver them in missions. There is no manufacturing industry...

So, not everything is automatic.

Didn't say that...but many things indeed are.

But my "let the sim do it" is especially for community goals. I'm worried about what the game will become the day FD will stop to inject things, since they have purely delete the offline mode. It count also for the Galnet (some news are generic), but games like "Starpoint Gemini 2" have news feed automatically generated every day. Ex: "The economic state of Harma is so high that Gabriel Enterprise is now able to produce a bigger diversity of ships ! And also grants a -20% discount on all Lakon Gateway ships for 2 days" < Actually these are hand written Galnet's news, it could be automatic, then more randomly dispatched through the galaxy.

Local news are procedurally generated based on the (I guess this is what you mean with "generic"), but sure this can certainly be expanded on more in the future. Having only a few select systems with "major events" has a very clear purpose though. Bringing the playerbase together around hotspots in the galaxy. If these things happened all over the place all the time then people would be far less likely to meet.

Worrying about the day FD will stop injecting things at this time is unfunded for two reasons.

1. They are currently in a very good position financially and unless something completely unexpected happens they are good to go for quite some time.
2. This time will allow them to keep on adding to the game and improving these kind of aspects so when/if they eventually close down the game might be running more or less "automatic" even for the things you want. I also see no reason why these things can't be handled by "open source" if the game gets released freely in case of a shutdown. Something they have indicated they will do.

Do you realise that there is billions of stars, thousands inhabited but there is only 1 ship discount every 4 months within the whole inhabited bubble ??!!

I got constant discounts in the Founders world! And anyone reaching Elite status gets the same.

 

[LARY STARKEEPER]

Why do they create hot-spots? Why can't we spread anywhere we want? There is more events in a single state in 2015 during a day than in the 3301 Milky Way. Like DB sais in one of his video "the scope is so huge"... Great, but we need to fill the scope...

 

[medwyn]

Hi,

There is so many thread about what "we" want to see in ED, about the wrong things that Frontier did with the Powerplay...
The thing is, Elite: Dangerous is less and less a sandbox game. Yes you can choose what you're doing, but since almost every interesting stuff in it are "injected" by the devs, you can't do what you want... You can do what you want in the limits of what Frontier allowing you to do.

I never get bored in a game calling itself "sandbox" before ! Because things never ends ! But the more Frontier manually put in-game stuff through injected event, the less the game is a sandbox game. It's even worst than scripted events, because you can repeat scripted events ! What will happen to the game the day when Frontier will stops to manually puts things in it ?

First :
Many players asked for "player's written missions" like :
Player A pay 1000 Cr to put his own mission in a specific station and X Cr to reward the one who complete it. Or maybe be Allied with the station owner to make it.
Player B take the mission : Go in deep-space to refuel a player, transport commodities, etc...

Why this is a good thing ? Because it allow players to create non-generic content in addition of the generic content. This create more interaction, more immersion. Admit you don't want to have all and nothing in it, Frontier can write generic missions where the player just have to choose who, what and/or where they want to.

Second :
The game really suffers of a lack of contents AND features. The Powerplay wasn't necessary, and after a month in it, I can say that it's just a grindfest... Yes I want Archon Delaine to stay in the race, but if I don't care about the Powerplay, we will just disappear. It's boring.
We need more way to support our leader ! Why, as pirates, we don't have to pirates enemies ??? Why we just have to destroy them, take slaves, deliver them to Harma, take contraband, deliver it to X system ? The Powerplay adds unnecessary complexity to an "unfinished" game (unfinished because of the lack of content)...

Third :
There is a LOT of people asking to help Frontier to achieve their goal ! A lot of people with a lot of skill just asking to create stuff, to create content : Why shouldn't we be allowed to create our own decals ? Our own paintjobs ? Our own missions ? If Frontier fears about immersion breaking... Just give us the tools and accept or decline our propositions. It will take you less time to approve or not, than doing it yourself !

Fourth :
Let the sim do it ! Stop to inject events, like manual powerplay updates ! Do what you need to do once for all and let the game moves by itself when you're focusing on what really matter : Features !!!

Fifth :
I'm bored about being stuck in my seat... Bored about watching things moving around me in Starports without being able to reach them by foot...

Actually the game "Interstellar Rift", maybe ugly compared to Elite: Dangerous, maybe "cheap" compared to Elite: Dangerous, maybe less -everything you want-, makes me wanna play it... Instead of Elite: Dangerous. Because there is much more things to do in it ! Elite: Dangerous has promised so much, but after six months in it, I'm bored. And I'm not alone in this case. This never happened to me in a previous Elite game...

Then, Frontier, are you interested about making new customers or keep your actual community ? Money or Trust ?

Regards,

Welcome to the club, OP.
Nice write up!

 

[Tinman]

Why do they create hot-spots? Why can't we spread anywhere we want? There is more events in a single state in 2015 during a day than in the 3301 Milky Way. Like DB sais in one of his video "the scope is so huge"... Great, but we need to fill the scope...

You can go wherever you want. No one is stopping you.

People who want to meet do need too know where others are though...therefore hot-spots.