TL;DR: to grind or not to grind, Frontier screwed up.
Before you all shoot me down with what you think is the culture of the game and so on, I know the game's got history but who here wants a repeat of the world wars?
Anyways, first, the grind and game design. There are F2P games out there that relies on the grind or cash shop (practically all MMOs out there), then there's the like of EVE where you pay for the hours you play, and then there's games you pay for the game and have reasonable progression speed rather than a dragged out grindy so the dev can make more money on the hours you play. You know where ED falls on those categories. I can understand dragging out character progression if you're charging by the game hour, which if it's the case I wouldn't be playing the game to begin with because I think it's stupid to spend my hard earned cash on something that's designed to be a time sink, but at least it's by design and I know that up front. Since you're not charging by the hour, your cash shop are items you can't obtain in game anyways, why not let the players do what they want? Isn't that the intent of the game? That you can be whatever you want? Why do you have to put in an asterisk there that says if and only if you have the hours to grind. There are other ways to reward players which I'll elaborate in a bit, but at the moment you're making in-game cash the only incentive in the game. Use your imagination to see where that'll lead.
Second, the grind and life. Yes, more to address the grind. It's been said enough times. "I have a 40 hours job, I don't need another one". I'm sure you can reach max level in other MMOs in a few weeks, again with a few asterisks, have someone power level you and/or you spend your waking moments playing the game for those weeks. I'm sorry but those who says we need more grind have more time to spare for your own good. I've got a job, a child, a family, and I'm looking to do another job on top of it, and my own professional development, etc... Frontier, do you want your audience to be teenagers who play game all day without working toward their future, or would you like to include the old folks who played your original game and are spending non-game time to earn money which then in turn possibly put some of that into this game of yours? Use your economic sense.
Third, priorities. I've posted this before in ED forum and got shot down pretty quick citing culture of the game and so forth. I want to settle down in the game, I don't want to be homeless, pushing around a warp-capable shopping cart with all my worldly possessions. Some quick to disregard it as possibility to allow player-owned enterprises to exist, but that's the other extreme. I want a place to call home for reasons other than "I just make it my home". This is one of many other things that I feel Frontier probably isn't too stupid to realize but doing it on purpose. Powerplay was a pointless addition to the game, IMO. It's another mean to get credit, which we have plenty of, and none really satisfy all the player-base, because guess what, if getting credit is your only objective and someone finds a way to get a ton of credits easily, everyone's on to it, and it gets nerfed and we're back to being divided on different camps. This leads to my next point
Fourth, design choices. So you get rich quick, you have money to buy your ship and then what? This is what you all worried about right? This is what Frontier's worried about right? That the game is so shallow that if most of player base got rich quick and get what they want then they'll be bored and leave the game? If this is how you design the game then yes that's exactly what will happen. At least I can speak for myself, I wanted to walk around the ship, I wanna fly across planets. If you buy a new ship and all you can do with it is fly around in it, yes no matter how big and expensive your ship is, you'll be bored of it quick! This is why I think Frontier shot themselves in the foot by not adding space legs first. You keep players by the content, not by making them grind their way to another shallow content. When I buy a new ship, I want to walk around it, explore it, learn about it. Yes that's content to be added, and it should have been added a long time ago instead of powerplay and the likes. If I dock at a station and have more to do than missions/trading/refueling/spending credits on more shallow content that I can do at any other stations, I'd be more inclined to differentiate one from another. As they are at the moment, stations might as well be numbered for all I care. At least I can type numbers with 1 hand. Space legs should have been added before horizons IMO. Different kind of rewards should have been added too, engineering is a good example, we need more of those. If space leg was added instead of landing on planets, you could have your engineers on the stations instead of planets, and you tell me how much easier that would have been to develop than landing on planets. While the players are busy with those content, you can take your time developing planetary landings. Rewards that aren't just credit will provide other incentives for players to explore different sides of the game other than making banks. At the moment, making banks is the only thing on everyone's mind. Whatever you wanna do come after you've got your bank.
Fifth, progression. Or back to the grind. This is a suggestion. How hard is it to make the progression dynamic for the players? If you play 100 hrs/week, you progress 10x slower than someone who spends 10hrs/week. The rewards dynamically scale down as you spend more time in the game in case you ask how I'd tell 100 hrs/week from 10 hrs/week players. That way you'd be inclusive of both camps of nerf or not to nerf (or buff or not to buff), as well as your player demographics. I don't know if ED does this whether it'd be the first or not but wouldn't it worth a shot?
Before you all shoot me down with what you think is the culture of the game and so on, I know the game's got history but who here wants a repeat of the world wars?
Anyways, first, the grind and game design. There are F2P games out there that relies on the grind or cash shop (practically all MMOs out there), then there's the like of EVE where you pay for the hours you play, and then there's games you pay for the game and have reasonable progression speed rather than a dragged out grindy so the dev can make more money on the hours you play. You know where ED falls on those categories. I can understand dragging out character progression if you're charging by the game hour, which if it's the case I wouldn't be playing the game to begin with because I think it's stupid to spend my hard earned cash on something that's designed to be a time sink, but at least it's by design and I know that up front. Since you're not charging by the hour, your cash shop are items you can't obtain in game anyways, why not let the players do what they want? Isn't that the intent of the game? That you can be whatever you want? Why do you have to put in an asterisk there that says if and only if you have the hours to grind. There are other ways to reward players which I'll elaborate in a bit, but at the moment you're making in-game cash the only incentive in the game. Use your imagination to see where that'll lead.
Second, the grind and life. Yes, more to address the grind. It's been said enough times. "I have a 40 hours job, I don't need another one". I'm sure you can reach max level in other MMOs in a few weeks, again with a few asterisks, have someone power level you and/or you spend your waking moments playing the game for those weeks. I'm sorry but those who says we need more grind have more time to spare for your own good. I've got a job, a child, a family, and I'm looking to do another job on top of it, and my own professional development, etc... Frontier, do you want your audience to be teenagers who play game all day without working toward their future, or would you like to include the old folks who played your original game and are spending non-game time to earn money which then in turn possibly put some of that into this game of yours? Use your economic sense.
Third, priorities. I've posted this before in ED forum and got shot down pretty quick citing culture of the game and so forth. I want to settle down in the game, I don't want to be homeless, pushing around a warp-capable shopping cart with all my worldly possessions. Some quick to disregard it as possibility to allow player-owned enterprises to exist, but that's the other extreme. I want a place to call home for reasons other than "I just make it my home". This is one of many other things that I feel Frontier probably isn't too stupid to realize but doing it on purpose. Powerplay was a pointless addition to the game, IMO. It's another mean to get credit, which we have plenty of, and none really satisfy all the player-base, because guess what, if getting credit is your only objective and someone finds a way to get a ton of credits easily, everyone's on to it, and it gets nerfed and we're back to being divided on different camps. This leads to my next point
Fourth, design choices. So you get rich quick, you have money to buy your ship and then what? This is what you all worried about right? This is what Frontier's worried about right? That the game is so shallow that if most of player base got rich quick and get what they want then they'll be bored and leave the game? If this is how you design the game then yes that's exactly what will happen. At least I can speak for myself, I wanted to walk around the ship, I wanna fly across planets. If you buy a new ship and all you can do with it is fly around in it, yes no matter how big and expensive your ship is, you'll be bored of it quick! This is why I think Frontier shot themselves in the foot by not adding space legs first. You keep players by the content, not by making them grind their way to another shallow content. When I buy a new ship, I want to walk around it, explore it, learn about it. Yes that's content to be added, and it should have been added a long time ago instead of powerplay and the likes. If I dock at a station and have more to do than missions/trading/refueling/spending credits on more shallow content that I can do at any other stations, I'd be more inclined to differentiate one from another. As they are at the moment, stations might as well be numbered for all I care. At least I can type numbers with 1 hand. Space legs should have been added before horizons IMO. Different kind of rewards should have been added too, engineering is a good example, we need more of those. If space leg was added instead of landing on planets, you could have your engineers on the stations instead of planets, and you tell me how much easier that would have been to develop than landing on planets. While the players are busy with those content, you can take your time developing planetary landings. Rewards that aren't just credit will provide other incentives for players to explore different sides of the game other than making banks. At the moment, making banks is the only thing on everyone's mind. Whatever you wanna do come after you've got your bank.
Fifth, progression. Or back to the grind. This is a suggestion. How hard is it to make the progression dynamic for the players? If you play 100 hrs/week, you progress 10x slower than someone who spends 10hrs/week. The rewards dynamically scale down as you spend more time in the game in case you ask how I'd tell 100 hrs/week from 10 hrs/week players. That way you'd be inclusive of both camps of nerf or not to nerf (or buff or not to buff), as well as your player demographics. I don't know if ED does this whether it'd be the first or not but wouldn't it worth a shot?
