oh elite u so fine

[Aute]

huge wall of text inc, t;dr people move along

hiya, so i am pretty much newbie around here, i did play elite long long time back a bit (was around 8 or something in mid 90's), and i did play frontier and ffe quite a bit more

seeing all the ranting and arguing i thought i'll go ahead and make a thread expressing my thoughts about the game if anyone is interested :9

game mechanics:

i heard some complaining how frustrating it is..well i find it very forgiving, played some mmorpgs in past mostly lineage2 and aion, have to say paying some insurance fee to get your whole outfit back is completely fine..then comes the ship and general game controls...well i have been out of space sim business for a long time and even if i did order x52 week back, i have a bad feeling i wont see it before new year, so playing even with mouse and keyboard i can manage well enough somehow. the whole game idea feels a bit weird for an outsider at start but it did suck me in soon enough : )

bad things:

local system chat! you guys have to integrate one in game..let people who dislike it be able to block it completely or filter people out..i'm myself not very social person as well, but i totally miss some chatter when coming to bigger systems..its so nice to come to more lively places seeing players all around, always some human like troubles, like someone shooting someone, some random ships colliding with each other or stations, mad authortiy vehicles chasing someone down for smuggling evil stuff or god knows what : D all what we miss is the chat, so we could know what exactly is going on or just to have some chatter to complain about waiting queues....

..yes, waiting queues on smaller stations..its crazy! i personally just go solo mode to dock. don't give a damn about those frontier rewards..games should be played for fun not cash. bad move imo, but probably good move marketing wise =p ..o well

too few kinds of quests! more more more, it's probably the most common varying events in game, make them differ as much as you can

npc interaction! too few text messages when engaging someone..or when accepting quests..make more different personalities, more random chat messages : ) very small thing but seeing some changes is always nice, same text messages over and over makes it too much grind a like

more major events! have some gms to build major raids on stations, factions trying to fight each other in local systems taking stations form each other with player able to accept quests for competing sides

things i like:

whole game engine: its great, apart from not seamless feeling (posted about it already in some other thread..dont want to repeat again : ( ship system power management and priority groups, it all gives feeling its some real stuff :3 i really dont like gimballed weapons though, we should aim ourselves them lasers no matter how good/bad we are =p

asteroid fields in fog..oh man they look awesome : D

well.it's elite : ) brings back good memories

difficulty..i think its a bit too easy, yet its still fine at same time. im very busy irl myself, so i cant spend that much time with game, by playing couple of hours everyday i managed to get decently fitted out cobra with lot of cash left..npc interdictions seem a bit too easy, can avoid them pretty easily if i want to and its not hard to kill them or make them run..cept anacondas they toast me in matter of seconds : D i did manage to kill one but it blew up my cockpit and left me on emergency oxygen..i was so happy to make it back to station just to realize it has no repair facility : D flew to next one which had, but died while docking =p buh bye 150k accumulated bounty for other authorities : ( i has no regrets anyway, the whole thing was something to remember :3

pvp..i didnt have that much of it yet..im generally nice person and dont attack anyone randomly.. had very nasty moments when cmdr spacejesus interdicted me, i had viper with some cheap beam lasers and non guided missles..he had cobra with gimballed lasers i guess, i thought i am toasted for sure back then in mid of fight when i was almost dead and i had barely scratched him : D ..but ended up faceshooting like 3 missiles and blowing him up with 7% hull left myself. was great fight, you totally should have had that one actually, i got lucky in very last seconds :3

generally i am quite addicted, its a great game, it does just feel a bit too easy even for me as a newbie, well i really doubt my thoughts mean much to developers, but i guess i will just leave my impressions here. i do enjoy the game a lot, and even imo if it has its faults, i'm really glad i can be a part of it. missed the alpha, missed the beta, but oh well, rl takes it toll : (

 

[Tiamat]

Welcome Commander!

local system chat! you guys have to integrate one in game..let people who dislike it be able to block it completely or filter people out..i'm myself not very social person as well, but i totally miss some chatter when coming to bigger systems..its so nice to come to more lively places seeing players all around, always some human like troubles, like someone shooting someone, some random ships colliding with each other or stations, mad authortiy vehicles chasing someone down for smuggling evil stuff or god knows what : D all what we miss is the chat, so we could know what exactly is going on or just to have some chatter to complain about waiting queues....

Chat was never high in the priority list as the game was intended to be just you and your ship. Chat has been discussed quite a lot and there is a surprising number of people that do not want chat channels at all either because it breaks immersion, would be unrealistic from a simulator point of view or that these sorts of channels are always a spamfest of rubbish and things in foreign languages you can't read. That said I think FD are going to cave and add something but many of us (myself included) are just going to turn it off.

..yes, waiting queues on smaller stations..its crazy! i personally just go solo mode to dock. don't give a damn about those frontier rewards..games should be played for fun not cash. bad move imo, but probably good move marketing wise =p ..o well

This is something they are going to have to address as stations with limited slots was a bit of a bad decision. I suspect they will use the lifts to take you into the hangard as soon as you dock to free the pad up.

too few kinds of quests! more more more, it's probably the most common varying events in game, make them differ as much as you can

You will get more variety as your cargo hold size increases and your rep goes up. I'm sure they will continue adding more ideas as well though.

npc interaction! too few text messages when engaging someone..or when accepting quests..make more different personalities, more random chat messages : ) very small thing but seeing some changes is always nice, same text messages over and over makes it too much grind a like

Be careful what you wish for! Back in the beta NPCs spammed like crazy and it has been toned down a lot. The current level is about right but I agree more variety would be good.

more major events! have some gms to build major raids on stations, factions trying to fight each other in local systems taking stations form each other with player able to accept quests for competing sides

This is already happening but it is only just starting up and probably won't get into full swing until the new year. Wars, economic booms/busts and that sort of thing are driven by players but it involves a lot of work. Do a search on "Lugh" as that was our first big experiment in this area. Due to a bug the war didn't hold but that has been fixed now and a few other attempts are happening. The people's party of Eranin had an uprising and they kicked fed backside taking over their system not long ago too but that was dev triggered.

whole game engine: its great, apart from not seamless feeling (posted about it already in some other thread..dont want to repeat again : ( ship system power management and priority groups, it all gives feeling its some real stuff :3 i really dont like gimballed weapons though, we should aim ourselves them lasers no matter how good/bad we are =p

The transitions between supercruise/hyperspace and normal flight are much better than they were but yes they still need work. If you don't know already gimballed weapons do 25% less damage and you can't hit the side of a barn at distance so lazy aimers are just gimping themselves

asteroid fields in fog..oh man they look awesome : D

well.it's elite : ) brings back good memories

difficulty..i think its a bit too easy, yet its still fine at same time. im very busy irl myself, so i cant spend that much time with game, by playing couple of hours everyday i managed to get decently fitted out cobra with lot of cash left..npc interdictions seem a bit too easy, can avoid them pretty easily if i want to and its not hard to kill them or make them run..cept anacondas they toast me in matter of seconds : D

This is an awkward one as many think the game is too difficult yet others find it too easy. I was genuinely surprised that 2 of my friends struggle to even control the ship on mouse/kb yet I find it as easy as breathing! Interdictions are a little too easy but if you make it any harder the traders who carry no weapons and sacrifice shields for cargo space will get very loud on the forums. A hauler can't outrun anything really so they will just die every time.

generally i am quite addicted, its a great game, it does just feel a bit too easy even for me as a newbie, well i really doubt my thoughts mean much to developers, but i guess i will just leave my impressions here. i do enjoy the game a lot, and even imo if it has its faults, i'm really glad i can be a part of it. missed the alpha, missed the beta, but oh well, rl takes it toll : (

Alpha, beta and gamma were much less of an enjoyable experience to be honest as back then we were only given small parts of the game to play with and as you would expect from an unfinished game there were bugs. It was still fun but it is way better now and it is just going to keep improving. I can also guarantee they are going to put some trickier missions and AI for those of finding it a but too easy. Those finding it difficult now will eventually join the "it is too easy" crowd with a little more practice so FD will have to come up with something.

You make some good points there and I'm glad you are having as much fun as the rest of us are