Obsidian Ant with another great video...

[CMDR Ash]

Now i'm sure most people on here are already subscribed to Mr. Ant and if not then why not? If you love seeing how beautiful this galaxy that we play in can be you really should watch one of his videos, I wanted to bring some attention to his most recent one, as I was one of those people who thought Horizons missed something that I couldn't describe or put my finger on, his latest video answered all of my questions and I 100% hit the like button

Just wanting some other peoples opinions on his video in particular, are you like me and do you think his ideas are well founded?

https://youtu.be/ymyEZHP5mrk

 

[B0GiE]

I totally agree with him. I bought Elite when I saw the pictures of the asteroid bases. 1 year on and still no asteroid bases and now even the asteroid rings look like carp. Everything in Elite is so generic and repetitive at the moment, that's why I have stopped playing. Sort it out please Frontier.

 

[JosiahD]

I also agree with his observations. I suspect that much of what he suggests is in the pipeline though. I also suspect that the loot system will add to the incentives for certain activities though - imagine being able to recover high value ship components to either utilise yourself (assuming they'll be transferable to other ships rather than just the one you're using at that time), or sell for credits (even if at a reduced value, being used or damaged).

 

[ZeeWolf]

I totally agree with him. I bought Elite when I saw the pictures of the asteroid bases. 1 year on and still no asteroid bases and now even the asteroid rings look like carp. Everything in Elite is so generic and repetitive at the moment, that's why I have stopped playing. Sort it out please Frontier.

I'm not sure if you're agreeing with the points raised in the video or if you're attaching your particular gripe against the title of the video. His point was more about the proper interlinking of existing dynamic game mechanics. Asteroid bases would be new set pieces that fall into the hand crafted content category.

 

[GoblinOneEye]

Yeah an excellent video with some great ideas. I also feel like Frontier are already heading in that direction, they've mentioned before a lot of the mission changes and initial content in Horizons was the ground work for what's to come. Hopefully it isn't a process that takes them the full span of 2016.

 

[Heavenly-Hammer]

Good video. I'm pretty sure agreement on his points are unanimous and they have been echoed countless times here and elsewhere.

It's really just another voice added to the sizable choir singing the same sad song. Hopefully FDev feels the same way about the interaction between existing content and are looking to improve it now first and foremost. We really don't need new gameplay mechanics. Not for a long time. Not until these more fundamental pieces that boost gameplay experience and satisfaction arrive.

Godspeed, FDev.

 

[Dannyc]

Another great video but I do now start to wonder if some of the observations which we would all love to see are getting further and further from reality now. Or will be to far In the future that the player base may not support the price model. One thing that he did pick up on in an earlier video was frontiers poor methodology of explaining how the season pricing works and I think he was spot on here.

I wish he would drop the boys and girls intros though they weird me out

 

[ZeeWolf]

What do we really mean by lack of content?

In a way, all of us has a lack of content to face. For some, shyness might be their lack of content. For others, a lack of education might be their lack of content. For us, lack of content is a big, dangerous man who wants to kill us.

 

[Apos]

I agree, I have also brought this point up in some other thread.

Take the BGS for example, very few people really understand that they affect it with whatever they do, let alone how.

Lore is another thing, with people often completely disregarding it. Player groups calling themselves "independent" in the sense that they don't care who their members support, instead of wanting to stay away from all the 3 major factions. That's a bit nonsensical in the world that ED is placed.

If things were better linked, we'd had more people being interested in all of them, having more goals than just buying an anaconda and generally achieving things of a much bigger scope and extracting much more enjoyment from the game out of it.

 

[PiLhEaD]

Interesting vid - thanks for posting the link - have some rep.

I'm coming round to a point of view I hear now and again on these forums, which is that I'd like FDev to stop adding new content for at least one of their planned 'drops', and instead focus on fixing some of the long-standing issues, and smoothing out and linking up what's already in place - which as detailed in the video means more complex/varied/branching missions.

Oh, and for the love of pete, stop 'fixing' working content e.g. sort out interdictions!

 

[askavir]

Also totally agree with Obsidian Ant.

Flying ships, exploring systems, landing on planets and startports, docking as stations and outposts is great. The game's setting, the galaxy, the planets, the ships, is an absolute masterpiece. FD went out of their way to recreate the most plausible reconstitution of the galaxy ever. Went out of their way to create incredible planets, simulated dwon from their tectonic plates, to make them as plausible and believable as possible. Celestial objects are done in an magnificent manner, some are absent, many are present and realistic(ish).

The "gameplay content" on the other hand, is not so shiny. Far from it.

A few days ago I wrote on some other thread that FD created the most impressive and glorious game world that has ever existed, but keep failing to create a compelling game on top of it. And that is because FD keeps adding self-contained, disconnected, isolated minigames after minigames, without any kind of cross interaction whatsoever. And that is what leads do the overall feeling of ED being a half-baked game, the famous "mile wide inch deep".

With Horizons we basically got new doses of the same existing 2 plates: Incredible, realistic(ish), magnificent reconstitutions of planets to add to an already absolutely incredible game setting. And another pack of self-contained, disconnected, isolated, minigames. The new activities do not connect with existing ones, nor do they expand them.

ED's gameplay part is too much like a theme park, or an arcade salon, with its individual, standalone arcade machines where we could put a bunch of coins and play that particular machine for a while. And that is a shame. Feels like the huge potential of the game setting goes somewhat to waste.

 

[Gran Solo]

To borrow from Gertrude: "More matter with less art," Frontier!

 

[MadDogMurdock]

Pretty much nails the missions/POI problem.

A prime example would be the missing pilot missions. Currently, any occupied pod will do, even ones already in your cargo hold - a completely shallow, meaningless, and untargetted achievement.

Instead, just link a small number of several different existing mechanics together.

Part 1 - find out what happened to the pilot's ship.
The mission giver sends you to a specified system with a rough location - say 'last seen in the vicinity of planet 4'.
In space above that location, you can still have the procedurally generated signal sources, but now with an increased chance of finding 'salvageable wreckage'.
Scouring the wreckage may directly find the escape pod - maybe it was just a simple accident.
Maybe you find a black box - that might tell you what happened - and lead to a part 2.
Maybe there's some indication that there is nothing to find here, but there is more wreckage on the surface.

These variants lead into a variety of part 2 scenarios - follow the clues:
- find and investigate surface wreckage - similar potential results to the salvageable wreckage, maybe with the addition of something needing the surface data scanner to find more info.
- find the ship that destroyed the missing pilot's ship - potentially a multi-part mission in itself - visiting local stations to see who can tell you more about the target and where they could be found.
- etc.

The point being that the mission becomes a targeted problem solving exercise with an initially unknown solution instead of just cruise around pretty much anywhere until the right random object spawns.

Those final solutions might be:
- rescue the hostage, combat oriented - could be space or surface based
- negotiated release, trade/salvage/mission oriented - do this thing for us and you can have your guy back
- salvage oriented - follow the crumbs, find the guy - maybe he's dead, maybe he's now a slave, maybe there are other interesting things found with them that start new event chains

Much more engaging

 

[Ozram]

Now i'm sure most people on here are already subscribed to Mr. Ant and if not then why not? If you love seeing how beautiful this galaxy that we play in can be you really should watch one of his videos, I wanted to bring some attention to his most recent one, as I was one of those people who thought Horizons missed something that I couldn't describe or put my finger on, his latest video answered all of my questions and I 100% hit the like button

Just wanting some other peoples opinions on his video in particular, are you like me and do you think his ideas are well founded?

https://youtu.be/ymyEZHP5mrk

Completely agree with him (as usual).

 

[metatheurgist]

Yep, been saying the same since launch. Everything is disconnected. The NPCs you see in one part of space don't turn up in another. What happens in RES doesn't affect the market. Strength of pirates in a system is completely unrelated to the influence of the pirate faction. Static combat zones that don't shift with faction influence. Powerplay is like a completely different galaxy. So much untapped potential.

 

[CommanderGreyFox]

Hit the nail on the head, he did.
never understood the cries of no content, there is so much to do in elite. The problem I find it a lack of motivation and life. I think the mention connecting missions would go along way to help this. Also giving the play a title more than master, dangerous, elite etc, for example scrub bounty hunter, galactic explore. Largely I feel the combat ranks are too vague. With a system like this you could scan someone and find out if they are a pirate, bounty, hunter trailer etc. this of course is a small thing and doesn't matter all that much.
In addition in game voice dialogue would breath so much life into the game. Fly back to your home station and request docking "welcome back commander" just little touches.
The only
other thing I hope for is that the linked missions aren't the same every time, but are most random mission that link together to create a story. Rather than the bulletin board mission of doing the same thing over and over.

Anyway ay just my two pennies.

 

[encrypted]

Some great inner mission system/editor for devs to play with and finally implement amazing missions might be a tough thing to implement, but could lead to potentially great deal and variety of scenarios.

Why not to invest some time to investigate some great ideas from other games/open world games and get them all under Elite's wing? Yes it would be really time consuming and demanding task, but once accomplished, it will make an Elite: Dangerous a game to remember for a long-long time.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

Interesting vid - thanks for posting the link - have some rep.

I'm coming round to a point of view I hear now and again on these forums, which is that I'd like FDev to stop adding new content for at least one of their planned 'drops', and instead focus on fixing some of the long-standing issues, and smoothing out and linking up what's already in place - which as detailed in the video means more complex/varied/branching missions.

Oh, and for the love of pete, stop 'fixing' working content e.g. sort out interdictions!

I don't think it has to be a Zero-sum game. Whether you've noticed it or not, Missions & Signal Sources have undergone a huge amount of evolution over the last 12 months or so. Now we have all the mechanics in place for the developers to create a huge range of procedural generated, fully chained missions-from both within & outside of the Bulletin Board system.....& this ground-work has been laid underneath all the headline grabbing 'drops' over the past year.

 

[Jukelo]

That's the video that made me subscribe to OA. He voices in a sensible manner what a lot of us have been complaining about for a year now (well, part of it): content isn't the problem but we have lots of unconnected mechanics, now would be a good time to start linking them all together into a coherent whole.

 

[DustyArne]

Awesome vid.


I think adding content, and making sure it all works is FD's first priority.

Who know what we will get in the Future..