Old player whining

[Darth Wonko]

So, I read through this and I figured I'd throw in my oh-so-important-and-entirely-unique-so-I'm-right-and-you're-wrong-even-if-you-agree-with-me opinion.

Here is the TL;DR:

• The game is amazing to me for my own personal reasons which may or may not apply to you.
• The game also sucks for my own personal reasons which may or may not apply to you
• If you don't like the game, then find a different one you do like

Here's the rambling version:

I've never understood why people come on forums to whine and moan about why they hate a game. If you don't like the game, simply stop playing it. Then, the forums can exist to do what they're supposed to do: allow players to get questions answered, provide suggestions for the developers and allow the developers to make announcements and interact with the community.

Am I being to harsh saying 'whine and moan'? Maybe. It might be this is how these people try to get their suggestions across to FDev. If that is the case, well... I mean, do you really think that kind of dumbassery is going to make someone stop and think, "Wow. I totally see your point and will change my thoughts and opinions accordingly"?

Quite frankly, if I were FDev, I'd ignore pretty much everything in the forums. I mean, look at their latest community update. The FIFTH comment is "Let's hope the developers and testers don't fail it again." and it gets worse. No matter what they do, people are going to gripe and be ugly about it. If it were me, I'd just turn off comments for announcements.

I do believe comparing ED to other games such as NMS, WoW, etc. is not a fair comparison because Blizzard never has to justify why a toon or boss or piece of gear can do what it does. It's a fantasy world for which they create the rules. Hello Games is creating a galaxy out of whole cloth without worrying about realism - it's like playing a cartoon game.

Frontier is trying to create a game based on hard science (as much as it can)... so ELWs are only generated in systems where an ELW could actually exist (based on what we know) and stuff like that. That actually places a ton of restrictions on what they can and can't do. FDev is also trying to create a game that looks and feels real. I don't know if anyone here has ever tried to use a 3D modeling software like Blender or Maya or ZBrush, but if one looks at all of the tiny little 3D pieces and parts that comprise a space station, it would take several thousands of hours to create one, not including the animation, lights, sounds, etc.

Having said that, I also think there is no excuse for having no real story, and I believe it is absolutely fair to compare ED to games like Diablo or WoW on that basis.

Diablo and ED are similar in a few respects - the gameplay is mind-numbingly repetitive, most of the reason one plays is to farm gear or mats and neither are subscription based so the grind has nothing to do with keeping people paying their monthly fees. Instead, the grind is just something to keep players busy so the developer can market "Look how big our player base is! What an active community! You should buy the game!".

The BIG difference is everything one does in Diablo progresses a story arc and contributes to lore. While a sandbox game like ED can't have a linear story like that, it can definitely do things like WoW where questlines are individual and unlock more content and more quests as the player progresses.

For example, in Wow one might start in Durotar and progress a story line via quests until a certain point (generally a particular level) and then the final quest is "Meet your contact in Thousand Needles" which starts a new questline and story. Something similar could happen in Baker's Prospect where once the pilot purchases a particular ship for a role, the quest-giver gives a quest "Talk to the faction leader at Zamka Platform in Opala system" and a new questline begins. There are literally thousands of questlines and story arcs in WoW which are based on (or contribute to) the lore and each expansions builds on that base with hundreds more each patch.

But, keep in mind Blizzard has 8,000,000 subscribers paying $20 per month to play that game and having a revenue stream of $160,000,000 per month gives one a lot resources to do stuff like that.

Even so, in ED, the lore exists, but doesn't matter and it should. Missions are generic and repetitive and while CGs exist(ed) and player interaction has impacted the galaxy (Colonia, XA, etc), those events are far too rare and still are comprised primarily of "pick up cargo from point A and take it to point B".

The Thargoid threat is a great example of what's good and bad about this game. I started playing right in the middle of this (I think) and here's what I experienced:

• OMG! Thargoids! I better get on this!
• What the hell is a Thargoid and why is there nothing at all in the game that tells me about them?
• I'll do a lot of research on third-party sites and watch some videos!
• I need a better ship! I'll go grind for credits and buy a ship!
• I've got the right ship, but now I need the right weapons! I'll go grind for mats and blueprints!
• I've got the right ship and weapons!
• Oh. The threat's over. Dang.

But, they look amazing and the sound engineering is unreal and I thought it was really cool how players could impact systems in a very real way by fighting Thargoids and repairing damage (although repairing damage was still "pick up cargo from point A and take it to point B"). The rescue missions from burning stations were also very cool.

But lore? "So, there are these Thargoid things that we fought a while ago and now they're back. Apparently, there are some other things out there called Guardians and they knew about them. Now, the Thargoids are back. Did I mention Guardians?" Cool story, bro.

So, yeah... the game really falls short in some areas. And it really shines in others.

Kind of like every other game out there in the history of always.

 

[Patrick_68000]

I think that the repetitive and soulless aspect evoked by the OP, comes from the fact that the spirit of the Elite series is respected.

Elite has always been on this path. The principle of this series is based on the imagination of the player.

The player sees the galaxy according to his way of seeing things and creates stories in his head.

Finally in FE2 I did like this.

But I think Frontier wants to evolve and steer the game in a new way with the "New Era".

We will see ...

 

[Projectmodule]

First, Money hasnt real value in this game. That is first and important problem. How they balance or add something in this game when this is not fixed?
There is not balanced how much for how hard you get XYZ amount of money. Money must have some sort of ID to locate money from exploits and deleting them. Also this game exist a lot of years and there is no WIPE or ending event or something which can refresh economics and give money value back. There is no healthy money circulating, so players have already billions.

This is probably the main problem for me with Elite Dangerous. It completely ruined experience of trading, smuggling and doing other missions because of the fact that mining or mapping planets pays off 10x better. I wiped my save 4 times already just to feel the beginning of the game when everything matters even salvaging things on the missions where you are asked to recover bootleg liquor. Earning credits in this game is absolutely not rewarding. Mining painite or void opals needs to have very high risk involved.

It irritates me that there were people crying that they need to GRIND credits. Now they all have billions of credits and what exactly they do? More mining? Bounty hunting? Exploring? So literally they do the same tasks but without any additional purpose. How can you be a smuggler or trader without any reward. How can someone roleplay when the potential reward doesnt exist.

Sadly new patches and updates wont make any difference. The only thing they could do is total wipe and rebalance of the economy.

 

[AbsinthSvK]

.

i feel it the same way.

Broken economics = boken every aspec of the game where you collect money, and it is basiclly whole game. Its just anarchy system where players doing stuff which like and completly ignore other. Its about your imagination how hard/easy this game will be. There is no real challenge with skill only grind. Game itself is only broken empty shell with extreme boring and time consuming features and functions which doesnt work as they should. Its fun from beggining but when you know what is behind nice view its disappointing.

Yes, i cant find any info about rework economy so far, too. They just ignore it. And why they should? Nobody care. Rich people are rich and hardcore players reseting account to make it hard like you did.

 

[Old Duck]

i feel it the same way.

Broken economics = boken every aspec of the game where you collect money, and it is basiclly whole game. Its just anarchy system where players doing stuff which like and completly ignore other. Its about your imagination how hard/easy this game will be. There is no real challenge with skill only grind. Game itself is only broken empty shell with extreme boring and time consuming features and functions which doesnt work as they should. Its fun from beggining but when you know what is behind nice view its disappointing.

Yes, i cant find any info about rework economy so far, too. They just ignore it. And why they should? Nobody care. Rich people are rich and hardcore players reseting account to make it hard like you did.

I agree, but you have this set of players who are all up in arms because void opals will soon follow a "supply and demand" model, which these players misidentify as a "nerf". Some even demand that EVERYTHING in the game makes the same amount of credits as void opals! If they had it their way, ED would be reduced to the casual mindless level of Candy Crush.

 

[Linnunrata]

Haven't tried the beta myself, but I'm a bit skeptical that supply/demand will have any significant effect on the mining boom. Numberwise the profits seem still considerably higher than any other income source.

 

[Burke]

i feel it the same way.

Broken economics = boken every aspec of the game where you collect money, and it is basiclly whole game. Its just anarchy system where players doing stuff which like and completly ignore other. Its about your imagination how hard/easy this game will be. There is no real challenge with skill only grind. Game itself is only broken empty shell with extreme boring and time consuming features and functions which doesnt work as they should. Its fun from beggining but when you know what is behind nice view its disappointing.

I hope devs read posts like this. It might help them come to understand what they removed with the ADS. All about the players imagination as you said. It was literally the end game activity for some part of the player base and its removal was a critical hit to the game. Just own up that removing the ADS was a mistake.