Every time I play Elite Dangerous, I start thinking about what game it could become on the future.
First off I'll discuss a few things that are a problem in my eyes.
Surely you've heard most of the complaints before, but I'd like to write it down so you also see which problems are problems to me personally.
#1 - Pace
It's not even a big surprise that i started thinking about the game a lot (even for my proportions), since the game is extremely slow paced.
Having to work a lot to achieve something is not inherently a bad thing, but usually games fill the time between the little action you get with more action.
For example if you're in a fantasy MMORPG, you don't just hit rocks until you have enough iron ore to craft a useless item, you throw enemies at the players, maybe hide the ore deep inside a raid dungeon or add a mini-game to the mining feature, that stimulates a player's need to put their skills to the test.
So I see two ways to improve the fun for players in the game pacing:
Make the game faster, so the action is more compressed, or add something stimulating to it for in between.
Of course some things are simply there to be a more relaxed experience, but if it aims for something that is necessary in the end-game, it cannot be the only way, or else you'd have to rename the game to Elite:Boring.
If it aims for end-game (and with the current progress system pretty much everything is) there has to be an intriguing way to do it.
Slow and monotonous grinding is the secondary way at best.
#2 - Learning Curve
The learning curve and therefore difficulty spike right at the start of the game is so steep that nobody wants to climb it.
I have to repeat myself, because you didn't do the very obvious:
For PC players REBIND THE DEFAULT KEYS.
Players want to jump into the game and know right away where everything is.
With your obsession to make everything overly realistic, you made it impossible for new players to get into the game in the first place.
Realistic means you have to learn it, that's why there are things like pilot schools.
A lot of crucial keys aren't even bound, or bound in such an un-intuitive way, nobody finds it, unless they look up the entire encyclopedia keyboardconfiguratica.
Also if you make things like mail-slots for station entrances and add things like traffic regulations you have to go all the way.
Ever heard of a traffic lights?
My ship is so huge, the AI is failing to try and fit it through the mail-slot, which it completely fills, and then NPCs fly right into me while I'm flying through.
The game isn't just hard from a difficulty mode perspective, it is also hard because of poor design choices. - Design choices that can easily be fixed!
#3 - Progress System
Your obsession with making everything kinda equal (after players got their first Anacondas way too soon) is over the top.
Why would I grind for months for equipment that is just as good as the stuff I already bought?
Allow your players to make some progress.
Since you're already looking away from the PvP system, just let players be hostile to each other when and where YOU and THEY want it and quit the open PvP entirely.
That prevents unfairness and brings players to fight voluntarily.
They can still PvP in wars as mercenaries or as part of a faction.
But when they do, they know they're potentially fighting against well armed opponents.
So allow a progression system and let players be involved in it.
#4 - Identity / Fun
The game is currently barely more than a Space Truck Simulator.
It wants to live up to its name, it wants to be realistic and it wants to have a CoD-esque arena mode which also flopped afaik.Keep what you have and find an identity that fits.
Space Truck Simulator is not a horrible choice, it worked for Euro Truck Simulator 2, but then you have to dive into it, because right now everything is halfhearted.
The game isn't fun if you're interrupted in your space trucking by pirates and aliens and what not.
The game isn't fun if you have to wait for 20 minutes for your ship to arrive a port to be able to afford a ship that can fight well enough if you play the game for the action part.
The game isn't fun if your being shot down by aliens after exploring the galaxy for 3 days straight, if you play the game for the exploration part.
If you want to be a broad audience game, address the wishes of the individual audiences, instead of mashing it all up.
There are traders who just want to do space trucking, there are traders that want to risk something, there are big battle fighters, there are explorers and lord knows what other players you want to play the game. The important thing is that the individual players want to know what they're in for, so separate it all.
Make safe trading routes
Make unsafe trading routes
Make proper war zones
etc.
You don't have to make it absolutely predictable, but let the players decide how much action they want, how much risk they want to take for how big of a reward. And help them find the right thing.
Is there a war in a system? Offer a tab in the contacts menu that guides players to the action.
Now you probably think "o.m.g. this player hates the game, why don't you just play another game, or "no that's not the game that I want to play, I'm fine with it".
So here are my replies to that:
The game is still in the steam charts and it's not all that low, actually I was quite surprised how high it is up in the ranking, which is GOOD, because that gives the game a chance. - for what? - if the audience is not big enough the game starts to die, so you want it to grow.
First symptoms of death are that the bugs aren't getting fixed and content seeps in slowly and if it comes at a faster pace, it's peanuts compared to a (more) successful game.
So what you like about the game is okay, nobody wants to take that away, but please trust me when i tell you, that what you also want is for the game to be successful, because success is where new awesome content, proper bug-fixing support and a long overall lifespan comes from. Games don't magically start to be played more after their initial reputation has settled in the minds of the gaming community - you have to work for it.
So here are my suggestions to revitalize the game:
1 >> AAA Addon
Other developers have done it before an have proven, if done right, it pays off.
You'd have to wrap up a larger than usual package of content that acts as a game changer.
Content because the game felt empty to a lot of players and game changer because a lot of players quit after they got upset by the previously mentioned points.
Things like player companies and player company run capital ships and space stations would be a step forward.
I'd also suggest a research system that acts as a progress system.
Companies could run their own research facilities and develop more powerful ship components.
They could produce their high-tech and sell it to other players.
Limitations in the research capacities could be used to force players to work together.
Like a company wouldn't have the capacities to run all research projects at once, but had to focus on one technology branch.
That would mean there would be a player company entirely focusing on weapons and another company entirely focusing on shields.
Forcing them to go to the public market would allow them to profit from their work as well as let everyone else profit from it as well, while on top of that it would improve the social factor of the game (which is in a terrible state right now)
Also allow players to progress normally.
Quit the dice-rolling engineer upgrade system and let players simply gain straight forward upgrades for a reasonable amount of work.
If it gets big enough for a little show at an E3, it'd have the chance to win everyone back you lost in the beginning of the game and attract many more.
The game needs proper content, the human gameplay could play a big role in it.
Despite your character models being deep down inside the uncanny valley, they're fixable and are enough to do the trick.
Develop it, let players socialize in space stations and interact with each other in a couple of ways and show people that there aren't so few ships in the game, because you're lazy but because the ships contain much more content than they effectively do right now.
2 >> Immersiveness
You have added a lot of factions and the power play system added even more complexity to it, but nobody feels it, there are just nameless stations in nameless systems doing unimportant things.
Let players join factions or power players, but let them identify with them.
Reward them and bring them together.
A single ship component that nobody really needs won't get players to join a power player. And a few thousand credits won't change their minds either.
Let them achieve something permanent that gives them the feeling of accomplishment and on the way let them feel like they're part of something.
Earlier you've talked about the game being able to create new factions and power players - do something with it.
Let players find their preferred power player and profit from it.
Remove the downsides like interceptors that don't commit crimes when trying to kill you and start letting players profit from the system.
99% of all developers until today got the idea of MMOs wrong, and I would sound like I was totally full of myself, if you didn't know I'm right.
Or else WoW would still have 11 million players and there wouldn't be about 10000 dead MMORPGs and new MMORPGs wouldn't die off quicker than a single-player game.
MMORPGs aren't just about quick action like a brawler, they're about living a life in a virtual universe.
Action is part of it, but there is also the social aspect and the immersion aspect, there are way more things about it than about Tetris (no offense).
So if you want your Milky Way -sized MMO to succeed, address all aspects of a real MMO.
That includes socialization and immersion as well as action and relaxation.
3 >> Socialization
Human gameplay would be ideal for this: players could meet in stations and interact with each other socially.
There should be a reason to go there of course, which could be a deepened mission system or additional ways to progress.
Another thing could be shopping for player outfits, maybe even players-for-players created content.
Also company meeting places or the good old ego-shooter could do the trick.
The not so progress focused, but very important part is that players have to get all possible ways to socialize.
Socialization also includes things like self-definition, so the character creation menu is a first step, but can also be improved, as well as more clothing choices are a thing.
Socializing also includes interaction, so ways to sit together, even run couple animations are important but even more important is that the characters are well animated. If they waddle about like 20th century scifi robots, it'll die quicker than you can fix it.
(By the way if you feel like overhauling the way your human characters look, keep the uncanny valley in mind - if you don't want to invest too much money into hyper-realism to jump over the valley, just stay on the unrealistic side. I'd rather have lightly cartoon-like appearing characters than uncanny valley atrocities. And I know there are people who don't see the uncanny valley as much as others do, but to me you haven't made the jump, you slammed into the wall on the last third)
X >> And for crying out loud, quit listening to business gurus that think they know everything.
There is a way to bring this game to glory and you absolutely can get more players 3 years in.
You can defeat the demon of poor reputation, and the concept of the 3X's is a fools guide to ruin your own industry.
And no, there doesn't have to be a pay2win/paywall shop in every single game.
You want a good business concept? Here's one: recursive franchise expansion.
Game made money, next game gets a bolder project, because it's gotten safer to do so. That's how Rockstar did it with GTA, if anyone STILL wonders ...
4 >> nice and simple
Optimize the game for newer players - REALLY ADJUST THE DEFAULT KEYS - if you don't know how, ask me, I took the effort.
Also make a proper tutorial. I know you made a nice little tutorial but you have to start at the very bottom in a game with such an extremely steep difficulty spike. Add subtitles or some side-notes that show the key-configuration players need in the tutorial, and teach players how to land and lift off, how to find their destination, how to jump there and how to FTL to the station.
Your game currently runs full speed, nose down, into the landing pad, but you want new players to slowly glide down onto the metaphorical landing pad, so when they have played their fill for the day, they don't even get the idea to stop playing. Right now the majority of players would rage-quit.
First off I'll discuss a few things that are a problem in my eyes.
Surely you've heard most of the complaints before, but I'd like to write it down so you also see which problems are problems to me personally.
#1 - Pace
It's not even a big surprise that i started thinking about the game a lot (even for my proportions), since the game is extremely slow paced.
Having to work a lot to achieve something is not inherently a bad thing, but usually games fill the time between the little action you get with more action.
For example if you're in a fantasy MMORPG, you don't just hit rocks until you have enough iron ore to craft a useless item, you throw enemies at the players, maybe hide the ore deep inside a raid dungeon or add a mini-game to the mining feature, that stimulates a player's need to put their skills to the test.
So I see two ways to improve the fun for players in the game pacing:
Make the game faster, so the action is more compressed, or add something stimulating to it for in between.
Of course some things are simply there to be a more relaxed experience, but if it aims for something that is necessary in the end-game, it cannot be the only way, or else you'd have to rename the game to Elite:Boring.
If it aims for end-game (and with the current progress system pretty much everything is) there has to be an intriguing way to do it.
Slow and monotonous grinding is the secondary way at best.
#2 - Learning Curve
The learning curve and therefore difficulty spike right at the start of the game is so steep that nobody wants to climb it.
I have to repeat myself, because you didn't do the very obvious:
For PC players REBIND THE DEFAULT KEYS.
Players want to jump into the game and know right away where everything is.
With your obsession to make everything overly realistic, you made it impossible for new players to get into the game in the first place.
Realistic means you have to learn it, that's why there are things like pilot schools.
A lot of crucial keys aren't even bound, or bound in such an un-intuitive way, nobody finds it, unless they look up the entire encyclopedia keyboardconfiguratica.
Also if you make things like mail-slots for station entrances and add things like traffic regulations you have to go all the way.
Ever heard of a traffic lights?
My ship is so huge, the AI is failing to try and fit it through the mail-slot, which it completely fills, and then NPCs fly right into me while I'm flying through.
The game isn't just hard from a difficulty mode perspective, it is also hard because of poor design choices. - Design choices that can easily be fixed!
#3 - Progress System
Your obsession with making everything kinda equal (after players got their first Anacondas way too soon) is over the top.
Why would I grind for months for equipment that is just as good as the stuff I already bought?
Allow your players to make some progress.
Since you're already looking away from the PvP system, just let players be hostile to each other when and where YOU and THEY want it and quit the open PvP entirely.
That prevents unfairness and brings players to fight voluntarily.
They can still PvP in wars as mercenaries or as part of a faction.
But when they do, they know they're potentially fighting against well armed opponents.
So allow a progression system and let players be involved in it.
#4 - Identity / Fun
The game is currently barely more than a Space Truck Simulator.
It wants to live up to its name, it wants to be realistic and it wants to have a CoD-esque arena mode which also flopped afaik.Keep what you have and find an identity that fits.
Space Truck Simulator is not a horrible choice, it worked for Euro Truck Simulator 2, but then you have to dive into it, because right now everything is halfhearted.
The game isn't fun if you're interrupted in your space trucking by pirates and aliens and what not.
The game isn't fun if you have to wait for 20 minutes for your ship to arrive a port to be able to afford a ship that can fight well enough if you play the game for the action part.
The game isn't fun if your being shot down by aliens after exploring the galaxy for 3 days straight, if you play the game for the exploration part.
If you want to be a broad audience game, address the wishes of the individual audiences, instead of mashing it all up.
There are traders who just want to do space trucking, there are traders that want to risk something, there are big battle fighters, there are explorers and lord knows what other players you want to play the game. The important thing is that the individual players want to know what they're in for, so separate it all.
Make safe trading routes
Make unsafe trading routes
Make proper war zones
etc.
You don't have to make it absolutely predictable, but let the players decide how much action they want, how much risk they want to take for how big of a reward. And help them find the right thing.
Is there a war in a system? Offer a tab in the contacts menu that guides players to the action.
Now you probably think "o.m.g. this player hates the game, why don't you just play another game, or "no that's not the game that I want to play, I'm fine with it".
So here are my replies to that:
The game is still in the steam charts and it's not all that low, actually I was quite surprised how high it is up in the ranking, which is GOOD, because that gives the game a chance. - for what? - if the audience is not big enough the game starts to die, so you want it to grow.
First symptoms of death are that the bugs aren't getting fixed and content seeps in slowly and if it comes at a faster pace, it's peanuts compared to a (more) successful game.
So what you like about the game is okay, nobody wants to take that away, but please trust me when i tell you, that what you also want is for the game to be successful, because success is where new awesome content, proper bug-fixing support and a long overall lifespan comes from. Games don't magically start to be played more after their initial reputation has settled in the minds of the gaming community - you have to work for it.
So here are my suggestions to revitalize the game:
1 >> AAA Addon
Other developers have done it before an have proven, if done right, it pays off.
You'd have to wrap up a larger than usual package of content that acts as a game changer.
Content because the game felt empty to a lot of players and game changer because a lot of players quit after they got upset by the previously mentioned points.
Things like player companies and player company run capital ships and space stations would be a step forward.
I'd also suggest a research system that acts as a progress system.
Companies could run their own research facilities and develop more powerful ship components.
They could produce their high-tech and sell it to other players.
Limitations in the research capacities could be used to force players to work together.
Like a company wouldn't have the capacities to run all research projects at once, but had to focus on one technology branch.
That would mean there would be a player company entirely focusing on weapons and another company entirely focusing on shields.
Forcing them to go to the public market would allow them to profit from their work as well as let everyone else profit from it as well, while on top of that it would improve the social factor of the game (which is in a terrible state right now)
Also allow players to progress normally.
Quit the dice-rolling engineer upgrade system and let players simply gain straight forward upgrades for a reasonable amount of work.
If it gets big enough for a little show at an E3, it'd have the chance to win everyone back you lost in the beginning of the game and attract many more.
The game needs proper content, the human gameplay could play a big role in it.
Despite your character models being deep down inside the uncanny valley, they're fixable and are enough to do the trick.
Develop it, let players socialize in space stations and interact with each other in a couple of ways and show people that there aren't so few ships in the game, because you're lazy but because the ships contain much more content than they effectively do right now.
2 >> Immersiveness
You have added a lot of factions and the power play system added even more complexity to it, but nobody feels it, there are just nameless stations in nameless systems doing unimportant things.
Let players join factions or power players, but let them identify with them.
Reward them and bring them together.
A single ship component that nobody really needs won't get players to join a power player. And a few thousand credits won't change their minds either.
Let them achieve something permanent that gives them the feeling of accomplishment and on the way let them feel like they're part of something.
Earlier you've talked about the game being able to create new factions and power players - do something with it.
Let players find their preferred power player and profit from it.
Remove the downsides like interceptors that don't commit crimes when trying to kill you and start letting players profit from the system.
99% of all developers until today got the idea of MMOs wrong, and I would sound like I was totally full of myself, if you didn't know I'm right.
Or else WoW would still have 11 million players and there wouldn't be about 10000 dead MMORPGs and new MMORPGs wouldn't die off quicker than a single-player game.
MMORPGs aren't just about quick action like a brawler, they're about living a life in a virtual universe.
Action is part of it, but there is also the social aspect and the immersion aspect, there are way more things about it than about Tetris (no offense).
So if you want your Milky Way -sized MMO to succeed, address all aspects of a real MMO.
That includes socialization and immersion as well as action and relaxation.
3 >> Socialization
Human gameplay would be ideal for this: players could meet in stations and interact with each other socially.
There should be a reason to go there of course, which could be a deepened mission system or additional ways to progress.
Another thing could be shopping for player outfits, maybe even players-for-players created content.
Also company meeting places or the good old ego-shooter could do the trick.
The not so progress focused, but very important part is that players have to get all possible ways to socialize.
Socialization also includes things like self-definition, so the character creation menu is a first step, but can also be improved, as well as more clothing choices are a thing.
Socializing also includes interaction, so ways to sit together, even run couple animations are important but even more important is that the characters are well animated. If they waddle about like 20th century scifi robots, it'll die quicker than you can fix it.
(By the way if you feel like overhauling the way your human characters look, keep the uncanny valley in mind - if you don't want to invest too much money into hyper-realism to jump over the valley, just stay on the unrealistic side. I'd rather have lightly cartoon-like appearing characters than uncanny valley atrocities. And I know there are people who don't see the uncanny valley as much as others do, but to me you haven't made the jump, you slammed into the wall on the last third)
X >> And for crying out loud, quit listening to business gurus that think they know everything.
There is a way to bring this game to glory and you absolutely can get more players 3 years in.
You can defeat the demon of poor reputation, and the concept of the 3X's is a fools guide to ruin your own industry.
And no, there doesn't have to be a pay2win/paywall shop in every single game.
You want a good business concept? Here's one: recursive franchise expansion.
Game made money, next game gets a bolder project, because it's gotten safer to do so. That's how Rockstar did it with GTA, if anyone STILL wonders ...
4 >> nice and simple
Optimize the game for newer players - REALLY ADJUST THE DEFAULT KEYS - if you don't know how, ask me, I took the effort.
Also make a proper tutorial. I know you made a nice little tutorial but you have to start at the very bottom in a game with such an extremely steep difficulty spike. Add subtitles or some side-notes that show the key-configuration players need in the tutorial, and teach players how to land and lift off, how to find their destination, how to jump there and how to FTL to the station.
Your game currently runs full speed, nose down, into the landing pad, but you want new players to slowly glide down onto the metaphorical landing pad, so when they have played their fill for the day, they don't even get the idea to stop playing. Right now the majority of players would rage-quit.
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