No Man's Sky recent success is good sign for Elite and future Space games/sims

[PiLhEaD]

....comparison....

I don't get the debate that seems current regarding which of the two games is 'better', given they are as alike as chalk is to cheese.

One is a science 'faiction' [sic] space ship game, the other is a science fantasy planetary exploration game. Both I think are excellent in their own way, and seldom in the same way. I really enjoy both for what they are, with NMS more rewarding as a game and ED more rewarding as an immersive experience.

Competitive comparisons are a bit silly imho for, as the OP (I think) alludes to, it is surely just great to have two really good outlets for those wanting to enjoy this genre, and shows the appeal for many gamers!

 

[krylite]

Repped.

They're not mutually exclusive or the same, but NMS and ED are competitors. Healthy competition in the space game market is a good thing for players as it hopefully means developers have to up their game. Hello Games getting their act together may be the shot in the arm FDev need to give us space legs and atmos planets, which would be nice.

Yes they are competitors, but the premise implied that FD is inferior or lagging is incorrect. They have been working on the game with gradual updates and improvements. Heck, they even overhauled engineering, made it easier, and also C&P, due to feedback and respectfully listening to the playerbase and they still get the trolling complaints even when many are good with the changes i.e. FD can never win. The best "shot in the arm" for Frontier is really JWE's success with a million sales over the summer (along with potential cross-dev tech developed for flora and fauna for future ED worlds, as well as PC's crowd npc tech) with Frontier's funding assured for the fiscal year which is good for ED while FD quietly do their work for the new unannounced content only revealed as stated when it's "good and ready" to. Just impatient trolling want to continually attempt to shame'n'blame FD and point at NMS-Next and try to rub their nose in it. NMS had been coasting on HG's underhanded infamous way of taking advantage of the pre-order fad in order to fund further development to begin to approach their fake hyped expectations at release with NMS-Next.

 

[DoppelGanger]

Yes they are competitors, but the premise implied that FD is inferior or lagging is incorrect. They have been working on the game with gradual updates and improvements. Heck, they even overhauled engineering, made it easier, and also C&P, due to feedback and respectfully listening to the playerbase and they still get the trolling complaints even when many are good with the changes i.e. FD can never win. The best "shot in the arm" for Frontier is really JWE's success with a million sales over the summer (along with potential cross-dev tech developed for flora and fauna for future ED worlds, as well as PC's crowd npc tech) with Frontier's funding assured for the fiscal year which is good for ED while FD quietly do their work for the new unannounced content only revealed as stated when it's "good and ready" to. Just impatient trolling want to continually attempt to shame'n'blame FD and point at NMS-Next and try to rub their nose in it. NMS had been coasting on HG's underhanded infamous way of taking advantage of the pre-order fad in order to fund further development to begin to approach their fake hyped expectations at release with NMS-Next.

Engineers and C&P criticism is not trolling. Let's take Engineers - what is new? New UI, basically 1 menu window instead of 2-3.

Changed the values of engineered modules, making them equal for everyone, making the old modules more or less obsolete, pinned blueprint from anywhere. And some other QoL changes.
This is just tinkering with values, only 1 UI menu window is new. The whole Engineer rework is minimal, it brought nothing new to the table, just a simplified, much easier process.

Let's take C&P - who asked for it to be the way it is now? I have no idea. Small minority in the forums? Because IMO it made the game worse. I think it was 1 step forward and 5 steps back.

What's new in C&P? New entry in the menu - IF, where you can pay your bounties and fines. Changed values in getting bounties, notoriety, hot modules, getting teleported by security to another system.

IMO this added very little NEW things, if at all to the average player, though the gameplay was impacted making average player far more prone to be 'Wanted' for any minor mishaps, IMO it is a far more inconvenient system than before, murder hobos laughing at wasted development time while still able to do what they want, system requires a lot of patching still, but it feels abondoned already.

Can you say that I'm trolling? I wouldn't. I play the game, I follow the news, know what's going on, I state my opinion what I think about state of affairs, which can be useful or useless for FD, I don't know - they will decide what to do with it.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Engineers and C&P criticism is not trolling. Let's take Engineers - what is new? New UI, basically 1 menu window instead of 2-3.

Changed the values of engineered modules, making them equal for everyone, making the old modules more or less obsolete, pinned blueprint from anywhere. And some other QoL changes.
This is just tinkering with values, only 1 UI menu window is new. The whole Engineer rework is minimal, it brought nothing new to the table, just a simplified, much easier process.

Let's take C&P - who asked for it to be the way it is now? I have no idea. Small minority in the forums? Because IMO it made the game worse. I think it was 1 step forward and 5 steps back.

What's new in C&P? New entry in the menu - IF, where you can pay your bounties and fines. Changed values in getting bounties, notoriety, hot modules, getting teleported by security to another system.

IMO this added very little NEW things, if at all to the average player, though the gameplay was impacted making average player far more prone to be 'Wanted' for any minor mishaps, IMO it is a far more inconvenient system than before, murder hobos laughing at wasted development time while still able to do what they want, system requires a lot of patching still, but it feels abondoned already.

Can you say that I'm trolling? I wouldn't. I play the game, I follow the news, know what's going on, I state my opinion what I think about state of affairs, which can be useful or useless for FD, I don't know - they will decide what to do with it.

Trade tools update was great in my view. It's made trading really fun. But thats me. Funny how in my view the best feature that was added in 3.0 is always over overlooked.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Engineers and C&P criticism is not trolling. Let's take Engineers - what is new? New UI, basically 1 menu window instead of 2-3.

Changed the values of engineered modules, making them equal for everyone, making the old modules more or less obsolete, pinned blueprint from anywhere. And some other QoL changes.
This is just tinkering with values, only 1 UI menu window is new. The whole Engineer rework is minimal, it brought nothing new to the table, just a simplified, much easier process.

Considering how FD is vetting any new changes that causes disbalance, it is not minimal. It appears minimal to gamer.

Let's take C&P - who asked for it to be the way it is now? I have no idea. Small minority in the forums? Because IMO it made the game worse. I think it was 1 step forward and 5 steps back.

Basically everyone asked for new C&P, with stronger list of consequences, less avoidance of punishment. And it works at that level. It needs more at some parts. Again, very big redesign, every part of it took some reconsideration and development, possibly improvements at backend.

What's new in C&P? New entry in the menu - IF, where you can pay your bounties and fines. Changed values in getting bounties, notoriety, hot modules, getting teleported by security to another system.

Again, just what appears to gamer. No actual work can be evaluated that way. Yesterday I shoved about big list of objects in my database. Alone basically nothing. In reality it took me considerable time to vet data, verify data upload, etc.

IMO this added very little NEW things, if at all to the average player, though the gameplay was impacted making average player far more prone to be 'Wanted' for any minor mishaps, IMO it is a far more inconvenient system than before, murder hobos laughing at wasted development time while still able to do what they want, system requires a lot of patching still, but it feels abondoned already.

False on all levels. Murder hobos will laugh at everything. Question is how long they are laughing. As far is known - not so long. FD has kept improving C&P with each minor and major update in Beyond. FD has also major additions in plan to C&P for Q4 as far as I know.

Can you say that I'm trolling? I wouldn't. I play the game, I follow the news, know what's going on, I state my opinion what I think about state of affairs, which can be useful or useless for FD, I don't know - they will decide what to do with it.

It is not a trolling, but not very well informed position - in my opinion of course.

 

[DoppelGanger]

Trade tools update was great in my view. It's made trading really fun. But thats me. Funny how in my view the best feature that was added in 3.0 is always over overlooked.

Giving credit where credit is due, trading update looks really great, a good example how new features should be done. I don't do trading, so no idea how good it is in practice, but it seems like a well done feature. Applaud FD on that one.

 

[Viajero]

Trade tools update was great in my view. It's made trading really fun. But thats me. Funny how in my view the best feature that was added in 3.0 is always over overlooked.

It is almost as if most of these feature discussions were down to personal opinion/taste and subjective. Crazy, I know.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

It is almost as if most of these feature discussions were down to personal opinion/taste and subjective. Crazy, I know.

And even down to being informed about subject matter level.

 

[DoppelGanger]

IMO this added very little NEW things, if at all to the average player, though the gameplay was impacted making average player far more prone to be 'Wanted' for any minor mishaps, IMO it is a far more inconvenient system than before, murder hobos laughing at wasted development time while still able to do what they want, system requires a lot of patching still, but it feels abondoned already.

False on all levels. Murder hobos will laugh at everything. Question is how long they are laughing. As far is known - not so long. FD has kept improving C&P with each minor and major update in Beyond. FD has also major additions in plan to C&P for Q4 as far as I know.

Can you elaborate on this one, saying that it's all false? "though the gameplay was impacted making average player far more prone to be 'Wanted' for any minor mishaps"

That was my experience. I also watch streamers/youtubers like Down to Earth astronomy, Exigious, Yamiks, Obsidian and sometimes other ones, there were many times that I heard mentioned that the C&P system is in bad place right now, and minor mishaps makes you instantly wanted and blocked in station services, especially if you are PvE player, not even talking about PVP. And streamers play far more than me.

Also, I understand that they spent A LOT of development time working on the changes that they did, I don't discredit that.

HOWEVER, I could take two people, both are going to the gym 3 times a week - one is working out 1 hour, the other 3 hours.

The guy working out for 1 hour looks far better and athletic than the guy who works out 3 hours. What happened?

The amount of time spent does not guarantee the results, that a smarter, more efficient with definitive plan to follow guy, doing all the things needed with purpose, will achieve far more in a shorter amount of time - than basically a mismanaged person who is distracted or does not know how to do things efficiently will ever achieve,

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Can you elaborate on this one, saying that it's all false? "though the gameplay was impacted making average player far more prone to be 'Wanted' for any minor mishaps"

That was my experience. I also watch streamers/youtubers like Down to Earth astronomy, Exigious, Yamiks, Obsidian and sometimes other ones, there were many times that I heard mentioned that the C&P system is in bad place right now, and minor mishaps makes you instantly wanted and blocked in station services, especially if you are PvE player, not even talking about PVP. And streamers play far more than me.

Lot of people complain about C&P because they finally see consequences for their criminal activities while 'grinding for things'. Suddenly it matters how you approach missions. People got used to be sloppy and lazy. Not it requires work. People who just want Anaconda will complain. Of course.

The amount of time spent does not guarantee the results, that a smarter, more efficient with definitive plan to follow guy, doing all the things needed with purpose, will achieve far more in a shorter amount of time - than basically a mismanaged person who is distracted or does not know how to do things efficiently will ever achieve,

Issue is lot of players don't know what FD wanted to achieve with new C&P.

1) Make consequences stick for any criminal activity. They are now. Some lower end bounties got second look in 3.1, and balancing will continue. However if you will blow up system security for getting lockdown or some G5 mats, you will get your backside handed to you;
2) Introduce ATF, which brings balance with Engineered ships;
3) Put down tracks for future improvements;

Lot of those things are actually achieved. Most complains come from players who have used to play ED as arcade trash game with endgame ships at the end of it. Suddenly it has consequences for their actions. OF COURSE they aren't happy. It is AI saga all over again.

 

[DoppelGanger]

Lot of people complain about C&P because they finally see consequences for their criminal activities while 'grinding for things'. Suddenly it matters how you approach missions. People got used to be sloppy and lazy. Not it requires work. People who just want Anaconda will complain. Of course.



Issue is lot of players don't know what FD wanted to achieve with new C&P.

1) Make consequences stick for any criminal activity. They are now. Some lower end bounties got second look in 3.1, and balancing will continue. However if you will blow up system security for getting lockdown or some G5 mats, you will get your backside handed to you;
2) Introduce ATF, which brings balance with Engineered ships;
3) Put down tracks for future improvements;

Lot of those things are actually achieved. Most complains come from players who have used to play ED as arcade trash game with endgame ships at the end of it. Suddenly it has consequences for their actions. OF COURSE they aren't happy. It is AI saga all over again.

Maybe you misunderstood my point:"The amount of time spent does not guarantee the results, that a smarter, more efficient with definitive plan to follow guy, doing all the things needed with purpose, will achieve far more in a shorter amount of time - than basically a mismanaged person who is distracted or does not know how to do things efficiently will ever achieve,"

I meant the development time, not player's experience in game. Sometimes it feels the Frontier has some management issues, things like updates on development and communication takes longer than before also?

Anyway, I don't remember the exact scenarios now, but I was getting being "Wanted" for all kinds of small things, like ramming an NPC in the station accidentaly, shooting a clean ship in RES by accident, not getting out of restricted zone in time, just to name a few, most of them were accidents. Of course most of it is my fault, but it feels like I have to relearn what I can do and can't do, when I want to do normal things, my pilot is not a criminal after all.

When I visit the IF it's always like 200-400c buyout, how can I be a condemned criminal for such a low bounty? It's like being refused of service or put into jail for jaywalking or missing the trash can when throwing candy wrapper. It's nonsensical. Has it changed now? I've been out of bubble for a few months, don't want to deal with that $^@$.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Maybe you misunderstood my point:"The amount of time spent does not guarantee the results, that a smarter, more efficient with definitive plan to follow guy, doing all the things needed with purpose, will achieve far more in a shorter amount of time - than basically a mismanaged person who is distracted or does not know how to do things efficiently will ever achieve,"

I meant the development time, not player's experience in game. Sometimes it feels the Frontier has some management issues, things like updates on development and communication takes longer than before also?

Anyway, I don't remember the exact scenarios now, but I was getting being "Wanted" for all kinds of small things, like ramming an NPC in the station accidentaly, shooting a clean ship in RES by accident, not getting out of restricted zone in time, just to name a few, most of them were accidents. Of course most of it is my fault, but it feels like I have to relearn what I can do and can't do, when I want to do normal things, my pilot is not a criminal after all.

When I visit the IF it's always like 200-400c buyout, how can I be a condemned criminal for such a low bounty? It's like being refused of service or put into jail for jaywalking or missing the trash can when throwing candy wrapper. It's nonsensical. Has it changed now? I've been out of bubble for a few months, don't want to deal with that $^@$.

Accidental fire got toned down considerably - either in 3.1, or one minor patch prior that. I recently tested it myself, bruised sys sec considerably, but got out with warning.

And yes, those things will get weeded out.

As for development time - considering how complex game is, I don't see how one can evaluate what is too long. It is all highly subjective. Considering we are eager for new cool stuff, it adds additional issues on their own too.

 

[DoppelGanger]

Accidental fire got toned down considerably - either in 3.1, or one minor patch prior that. I recently tested it myself, bruised sys sec considerably, but got out with warning.

And yes, those things will get weeded out.

As for development time - considering how complex game is, I don't see how one can evaluate what is too long. It is all highly subjective. Considering we are eager for new cool stuff, it adds additional issues on their own too.

Fair enough, maybe C&P one day will be fine, hope that day comes sooner than later.

I understand that the game is highly complicated, but if it takes too long or not, we could take few factors into consideration: other games and player burn-out.

Let's not use NMS as example, lets take an MMO, because those are the most complicated games to develop. Games like WoW, Guild Wars 2, Elder Scrolls online, have improved the quality of each new patch/expansion they released. If you play each expansion, it gradually feels better with each iteration. Though I would argue those games have much more to offer in terms of content.

Player-burnout: since 2.X it feels after some months after the patch, not only that there is nothing new to do, or even the patch didn't bring new things to do which particular player would be interested, but also, the bugs and issues. Then the waiting game begins, waiting for something "getting excited (tm)", when it takes at least 4 months to be released.

Each patch the capacity of the burn out is increased, and it sometimes reaches cricital point.

So yes, it is possible to objectively define whether the development time is long or not. Maybe not 100%, but data and other games compared could be used to factor in the time.

 

[babelfisch]

Maybe you misunderstood my point:"The amount of time spent does not guarantee the results, that a smarter, more efficient with definitive plan to follow guy, doing all the things needed with purpose, will achieve far more in a shorter amount of time - than basically a mismanaged person who is distracted or does not know how to do things efficiently will ever achieve,"

I meant the development time, not player's experience in game. Sometimes it feels the Frontier has some management issues, things like updates on development and communication takes longer than before also?

Anyway, I don't remember the exact scenarios now, but I was getting being "Wanted" for all kinds of small things, like ramming an NPC in the station accidentaly, shooting a clean ship in RES by accident, not getting out of restricted zone in time, just to name a few, most of them were accidents. Of course most of it is my fault, but it feels like I have to relearn what I can do and can't do, when I want to do normal things, my pilot is not a criminal after all.

When I visit the IF it's always like 200-400c buyout, how can I be a condemned criminal for such a low bounty? It's like being refused of service or put into jail for jaywalking or missing the trash can when throwing candy wrapper. It's nonsensical. Has it changed now? I've been out of bubble for a few months, don't want to deal with that $^@$.

Most of the stuff you listed are just fines.
Some stuff like attacking a clean ship needs to give you a bounty because otherwise people wouldn't be allowed to defend themselves when they are getting attacked. Let's assume you are getting attacked by a clean ship. You return fire and nobody gets wanted until one ship is blown up. This means that NPC security will not help either side until the battle is over and that you get wanted for defending yourself, and get attacked by security after the battle. That's pretty stupid.

I do lobby for an apologise feature for minor bounties since quite some time though.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

So yes, it is possible to objectively define whether the development time is long or not. Maybe not 100%, but data and other games compared could be used to factor in the time.

100% isn't objectively It is always a guess work which can go either way. Most of MMOs just tweak their formulas, without introducing fundamentally new gameplay. It is just not that comparable, in my humble opinion.

As for burnout, ED is game people love come back to, even for short bursts. I doubt that's gonna change.

Also FD openly signalled about Beyond being boring for those who look for new exciting things.

 

[babelfisch]

Engineers and C&P criticism is not trolling. Let's take Engineers - what is new? New UI, basically 1 menu window instead of 2-3.

Changed the values of engineered modules, making them equal for everyone, making the old modules more or less obsolete, pinned blueprint from anywhere. And some other QoL changes.
This is just tinkering with values, only 1 UI menu window is new. The whole Engineer rework is minimal, it brought nothing new to the table, just a simplified, much easier process.

The biggest and most common complaint about the Engineers was the RNG that determined the outcome of your modifications, potentially making a lot of effort that you put into gathering materials a waste of time and created an uneven playing field. That got fixed. Complaints about the Engineers are very rare now and mostly focus on the unlocking process (which truly needs an overhaul in my opinion).

 

[babelfisch]

Fair enough, maybe C&P one day will be fine, hope that day comes sooner than later.

I understand that the game is highly complicated, but if it takes too long or not, we could take few factors into consideration: other games and player burn-out.

Let's not use NMS as example, lets take an MMO, because those are the most complicated games to develop. Games like WoW, Guild Wars 2, Elder Scrolls online, have improved the quality of each new patch/expansion they released. If you play each expansion, it gradually feels better with each iteration. Though I would argue those games have much more to offer in terms of content.

Player-burnout: since 2.X it feels after some months after the patch, not only that there is nothing new to do, or even the patch didn't bring new things to do which particular player would be interested, but also, the bugs and issues. Then the waiting game begins, waiting for something "getting excited (tm)", when it takes at least 4 months to be released.

Each patch the capacity of the burn out is increased, and it sometimes reaches cricital point.

So yes, it is possible to objectively define whether the development time is long or not. Maybe not 100%, but data and other games compared could be used to factor in the time.

ED maintains a pretty stable player base though, so your objective criticism of the quality of updates doesn't seem to affect everyone. Which makes it subjective.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Giving credit where credit is due, trading update looks really great, a good example how new features should be done. I don't do trading, so no idea how good it is in practice, but it seems like a well done feature. Applaud FD on that one.

And if the mining, exploration and Codex features are just as well thought out and good, then ED will be in a much better place for them to expand upon in the future.

 

[MAD DOG MacD]

Arguing the merits of both games is like the intellectual "Coke vs. Pepsi" debate, it boils down to personal taste.

Both games have things to offer that sets them apart from the other. I believe the original point to this post is that FD should take note, that they are no longer (pun totally intended) the only game in town when it comes to Space/Space Sim. TIme to either catch up or be left behind.

One thing I will have to say about NMS that FAR EXCEEDS FD... bug fixing and community involvement.

Over a year later on the PS4 release, we still can't have more than 2 SRV's Planetside in Elite and a few other little bugs that are now celebrating birthdays. NMS, very small team, are bending over backwards and fixing. In fact, they stated nothing new or community goals until the bug fixing is done.

Community involvement is incredible (compared to 2 years ago when we were sharpening our pitchforks and lighting our torches) and NMS has to be the only game I've ever played where the involvement far exceeds what is expected.

FD take note, a small team is out performing you. Yes, they do have something to prove, so do you.

Gary

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Arguing the merits of both games is like the intellectual "Coke vs. Pepsi" debate, it boils down to personal taste.

Both games have things to offer that sets them apart from the other. I believe the original point to this post is that FD should take note, that they are no longer (pun totally intended) the only game in town when it comes to Space/Space Sim. TIme to either catch up or be left behind.

One thing I will have to say about NMS that FAR EXCEEDS FD... bug fixing and community involvement.

Over a year later on the PS4 release, we still can't have more than 2 SRV's Planetside in Elite and a few other little bugs that are now celebrating birthdays. NMS, very small team, are bending over backwards and fixing. In fact, they stated nothing new or community goals until the bug fixing is done.

Community involvement is incredible (compared to 2 years ago when we were sharpening our pitchforks and lighting our torches) and NMS has to be the only game I've ever played where the involvement far exceeds what is expected.

FD take note, a small team is out performing you. Yes, they do have something to prove, so do you.

Gary

They didn't communicate with their player base for whole full year since launch. Them trying to get back in community good graces has nothing to do with FD. Also bugs means that their game is still very beta. And that's for single player game is something.