I'd consider myself a fan of FPS style games of varying genres. I enjoy both slower paced tactical shooters/mil-sims and more fast paced style shooters like CSGO and Siege. I've been playing many FPS games recently like Siege, HLL, DayZ, Arma, Hunt Showdown, etc and when I come back and play ED:O it just makes me laugh at how poor of a shooter it is.
Some points on ED:O's FPS gameplay:
- Too bullet spongey (mostly because of the awful design of the shields). Most shooters require maybe 1-4 shots to take someone out, not multiple magazines. This rewards accuracy and timing of well placed shots which is the main skill involved in shooters. Its also satisfying to 1 shot headshot with a sniper in HLL/Siege for example (even a headshot with any other weapon, whether it be a pistol or smg, will take someone out - realism). On the flip side, it makes the battlefield a million times more dangerous making for a much more tense and high stakes experience. Maybe Fdev didn't do this because they didn't want to give the OAP's in the community a heart attack while playing, who knows. Nerf Shield cap and regen or remove them imo. The high amount of ammo required to kill also adds the issue of running out of ammo often. You shouldn't be having to restock on ammo 2-4 times in a 10-15 min session in a CZ.
- The switching of weapon types for armour/shields was a failure of an experimental style of shooter imo. Maybe fixes and tweaks could make it work, but I think it is fundamentally a bad idea. Its tedious to babysit your weapons and switch between each one for every ... single ... enemy. Most fans of shooters will tell you that one of the annoying necessities is reloading and you always find yourself stuck in the reload animation at bad times (often resulting in death). This pain is doubled in Elite as you have 2 weapons to babysit. This has turned a necessary frustration into a completely unnecessary one. Remove the need for having 2 weapons by buffing Plasma travel times (but making Kinetic/Laser redundant) or buffing Kinetic against Shield and Laser against armour to the point where you can realistically use a full laser/kinetic loadout effectively (with the downside of making laser and kinetic basically the same weapon, hence why I think this double weapon mechanic is fundamentally bad).
- Engineering is way too grindy and needs to be reduced.
- Weapon design and animation is fairly standard and nothing really special or satisfying compared to the competition.
- Weapon sound design is poor, especially with kinetic weapons. Sounds like you're shooting a toy gun. Disappointing considering the quality of the sound design in the rest of the game.
- Grenades are fairly useless because its difficult to pre-determine the compensation you put on the throw when you are on such varying g planets. Most grenades rarely hit the target in open spaces as they bounce off into the distance. I don't think conventional grenades work in Elite and instead should be replaced with sticky grenades or impact grenades to make them more useful. Also an equivalent for a smoke and flash grenade is needed.
- The scopes in the game are a joke.
- Lack of any real sniper (the plasma sniper isn't a proper sniper. Its abysmal scope and long travel time makes it useless as a long range weapon. I also dont think the projectile can physically travel further than a few hundred meters before it fizzles out, maybe someone can verify the distance of the shot, but it doesn't seem to be far enough. (Its 3308 and this thing is less effective than a Mosin Nagant from the early 20th century, oof. If they do add proper long range weapons, they also need to add rangefinders/binoculars for spotting and also larger battlefields to accommodate for the larger distances (there's plenty of space on the billions of planets in the game).
- Customisation of the weapons is too limited. Needs larger variety of scopes, attachments that can be added/swapped (scrap the whole super-glued engineering attachments, who thought this was a good idea?)
- Variation of weapons is too small. Need more weapons of each type.
- No revive mechanic when most basic shooters have this. This is especially needed in Elite as death is usually quite punishing when you respawn far away from the conflict.
- Allow squad members the ability to respawn back at your ship and/or allow players the ability to construct temporary respawn points (like the Outpost/Garrison in HLL). These can of course be destroyed by enemy players/AI.
- No practical way for natural PvP to occur because of the distance between players in the game. (A way to concentrate players into a handful of ground conflict zones would maximise natural PvP activity. Maybe CG's could provide this.)
- Conflict zones are too basic and surface level. Its too "gamey". (Have larger battlefields with different "gamemodes" other than basic control points. Take a page out of HLL's book with large battlefields that requires proper tactics to manoeuvre. This allows for actual flanking and getting behind enemy lines which can be satisfying.)
- Ground AA is invincible as they magically regenerate about 2 mins after being destroyed. Unrealistic and unrewarding, literally no point in destroying them. This might be a bug however.
- Handheld AA rocket launcher with guided missiles is needed. Most modern mil-sims have them.
- Add a prone position and crawling animation. Prone position decreases weapon sway and increases accuracy. Also bipod attachments for increased stability.
- Get rid of nametags over players heads (maybe unless being right in front of them or if they are in your squad) as it can give away your position.
- Have a "Hold breath" feature for decreased weapon sway.
- Add the dropship capabilities from Frontline Solutions as a module for your ship, allowing you to drop players into the battlefield.
- Add proximity voice comms. Currently no way to really communicate with random players you see. Emotes only go so far and standing in the battlefield typing will likely get you killed.
- Allow NPC crew to go on foot and fight with you.
- Obviously performance needs to be improved across the board in CZ's and settlements in general. Nobody really likes to play FPS games at sub 60fps minimum unless you want a migraine.
EDIT: (Some extra points)
- Medpacks should have a few second animation and require the player to stand still. This will stop players just using them while running/flying in the air, balancing PvP. Also forces you to head for cover and actively remove yourself from the battle in order to heal up.
- Allow the ability to use medpacks/energy cells on others (I don't think its in the game currently).
These are some of the things that need to be added/fixed to elevate FPS gameplay to the point where it is even in the same conversation as some of the most standard shooter games out there. If the devs were not able to produce a decent quality shooter, they shouldn't have implemented it into the game and instead spent the dev time on other things imo.
Some points on ED:O's FPS gameplay:
- Too bullet spongey (mostly because of the awful design of the shields). Most shooters require maybe 1-4 shots to take someone out, not multiple magazines. This rewards accuracy and timing of well placed shots which is the main skill involved in shooters. Its also satisfying to 1 shot headshot with a sniper in HLL/Siege for example (even a headshot with any other weapon, whether it be a pistol or smg, will take someone out - realism). On the flip side, it makes the battlefield a million times more dangerous making for a much more tense and high stakes experience. Maybe Fdev didn't do this because they didn't want to give the OAP's in the community a heart attack while playing, who knows. Nerf Shield cap and regen or remove them imo. The high amount of ammo required to kill also adds the issue of running out of ammo often. You shouldn't be having to restock on ammo 2-4 times in a 10-15 min session in a CZ.
- The switching of weapon types for armour/shields was a failure of an experimental style of shooter imo. Maybe fixes and tweaks could make it work, but I think it is fundamentally a bad idea. Its tedious to babysit your weapons and switch between each one for every ... single ... enemy. Most fans of shooters will tell you that one of the annoying necessities is reloading and you always find yourself stuck in the reload animation at bad times (often resulting in death). This pain is doubled in Elite as you have 2 weapons to babysit. This has turned a necessary frustration into a completely unnecessary one. Remove the need for having 2 weapons by buffing Plasma travel times (but making Kinetic/Laser redundant) or buffing Kinetic against Shield and Laser against armour to the point where you can realistically use a full laser/kinetic loadout effectively (with the downside of making laser and kinetic basically the same weapon, hence why I think this double weapon mechanic is fundamentally bad).
- Engineering is way too grindy and needs to be reduced.
- Weapon design and animation is fairly standard and nothing really special or satisfying compared to the competition.
- Weapon sound design is poor, especially with kinetic weapons. Sounds like you're shooting a toy gun. Disappointing considering the quality of the sound design in the rest of the game.
- Grenades are fairly useless because its difficult to pre-determine the compensation you put on the throw when you are on such varying g planets. Most grenades rarely hit the target in open spaces as they bounce off into the distance. I don't think conventional grenades work in Elite and instead should be replaced with sticky grenades or impact grenades to make them more useful. Also an equivalent for a smoke and flash grenade is needed.
- The scopes in the game are a joke.
- Lack of any real sniper (the plasma sniper isn't a proper sniper. Its abysmal scope and long travel time makes it useless as a long range weapon. I also dont think the projectile can physically travel further than a few hundred meters before it fizzles out, maybe someone can verify the distance of the shot, but it doesn't seem to be far enough. (Its 3308 and this thing is less effective than a Mosin Nagant from the early 20th century, oof. If they do add proper long range weapons, they also need to add rangefinders/binoculars for spotting and also larger battlefields to accommodate for the larger distances (there's plenty of space on the billions of planets in the game).
- Customisation of the weapons is too limited. Needs larger variety of scopes, attachments that can be added/swapped (scrap the whole super-glued engineering attachments, who thought this was a good idea?)
- Variation of weapons is too small. Need more weapons of each type.
- No revive mechanic when most basic shooters have this. This is especially needed in Elite as death is usually quite punishing when you respawn far away from the conflict.
- Allow squad members the ability to respawn back at your ship and/or allow players the ability to construct temporary respawn points (like the Outpost/Garrison in HLL). These can of course be destroyed by enemy players/AI.
- No practical way for natural PvP to occur because of the distance between players in the game. (A way to concentrate players into a handful of ground conflict zones would maximise natural PvP activity. Maybe CG's could provide this.)
- Conflict zones are too basic and surface level. Its too "gamey". (Have larger battlefields with different "gamemodes" other than basic control points. Take a page out of HLL's book with large battlefields that requires proper tactics to manoeuvre. This allows for actual flanking and getting behind enemy lines which can be satisfying.)
- Ground AA is invincible as they magically regenerate about 2 mins after being destroyed. Unrealistic and unrewarding, literally no point in destroying them. This might be a bug however.
- Handheld AA rocket launcher with guided missiles is needed. Most modern mil-sims have them.
- Add a prone position and crawling animation. Prone position decreases weapon sway and increases accuracy. Also bipod attachments for increased stability.
- Get rid of nametags over players heads (maybe unless being right in front of them or if they are in your squad) as it can give away your position.
- Have a "Hold breath" feature for decreased weapon sway.
- Add the dropship capabilities from Frontline Solutions as a module for your ship, allowing you to drop players into the battlefield.
- Add proximity voice comms. Currently no way to really communicate with random players you see. Emotes only go so far and standing in the battlefield typing will likely get you killed.
- Allow NPC crew to go on foot and fight with you.
- Obviously performance needs to be improved across the board in CZ's and settlements in general. Nobody really likes to play FPS games at sub 60fps minimum unless you want a migraine.
EDIT: (Some extra points)
- Medpacks should have a few second animation and require the player to stand still. This will stop players just using them while running/flying in the air, balancing PvP. Also forces you to head for cover and actively remove yourself from the battle in order to heal up.
- Allow the ability to use medpacks/energy cells on others (I don't think its in the game currently).
These are some of the things that need to be added/fixed to elevate FPS gameplay to the point where it is even in the same conversation as some of the most standard shooter games out there. If the devs were not able to produce a decent quality shooter, they shouldn't have implemented it into the game and instead spent the dev time on other things imo.
Last edited:
)
