The idea to increase jump ranges is I believe in the same category as faster materials collection, quick access to engineers etc. Just a short cut to allow the impatient to get what they think that they want. Problem is, when they get what they want quickly, they may very well say thete is nothingleft to do in the game.
Steve
The large issue with the game currently is that there is relatively little reward for travelling out to the edges of the galaxy. Most of the game's activity and features are centered in the bubble as that is where most of the stations, factions, etc. are located. Even the Thargoid invasion is centered in the bubble. So when you say that players will get what they want and then realize there is "nothing left to do" in the game, it seems to me you are only confirming that outside of the bubble, there really isn't anything of excitement. Thus, the game benefits from making long-range travel difficult as it makes the bubble feel much larger than it actually is, thus giving the illusion that there is more to do in the game when in reality, once you leave the bubble, the gameplay gets incredibly boring and limited.
What I am saying is the limited jump range is only serving as a way to pad out the gameplay experience. Some may call it immersive, but at it's heart, it is a design choice to control "pacing" and keep the illusion going that the galaxy is much more active than it actually is so players hopefully won't see the woeful lack of content or realize the majority of the activities they are participating in are meaningless procedural missions that have no soul and are the equivalent of MMORPG fetch and kill quests
ad nauseum.
Quite literally the only thing that keeps injecting life into this game is the promise of discovering new and exciting things that nobody has found before. The mystery angle. The problem is, there is relatively little mystery at this moment. The Thargoids have largely been reduced from a cosmic mystery to just another enemy to pew pew. Even the promise of discovering new mystery set pieces is clearly being heavily controlled by the Developers as there doesn't appear to be any way to organically solve the puzzles related to the mysteries (such as the Maelstroms) without the Developers specifically giving players the key to the puzzle, lest some clever [swear word] discover the solution earlier than they want and ruining the entire effect.
My entire wall of text's purpose being; I don't think what you have a problem with is the idea of easier accessibility to the galaxy as a whole. I think what you are actually concerned about is the lack of genuine, engaging content and the possibility that making the galaxy easier to traverse would only make things feel shallow and pointless.
Notwithstanding concerns relating to the proposal's apparent aim of introducing fast travel into the game, the quoted section would benefit from added detail, i.e. in what way would "Whoever controls these beacons (have) the power to determine the future of humanity.", and how would they be "controlled"?
I hadn't thought this angle all the way through, but the basic idea was to bring in Power Play or BGS elements to allow the Jump Beacons to be restricted based on faction alignment. To avoid the "one-and-done" issue you mentioned in a later post, the Guardian Jump Beacon systems could be restricted to pilots who have been pledged to a specific Power Play faction for several weeks, thus gaining the benefit of using the Beacon as part of their continued support of a given Power Play faction. Once you switch factions, you lose access to any Beacons associated with said faction. Power Play factions could also gain an income benefit from controlling a system with a Beacon as they could tax any and all ships that come through using said Beacon. Thus, a very popular jump location would be a coveted resource as it would not only allow for easier travel, but also would provide a Power Play faction with more income based on the number of estimated ships that would pass through the system.
This game has been dumbed down enough - earning credits, trading, thargoid fighting, engineering, jump range, scanning systems - please don't give them any more ideas.
This game is nowhere near the level of "easy" you seem to think it is. Sure, if you use third-party tools to make up for the terrible baked-in tools, it becomes
easier, but it is still the equivalent of Dark Souls in Space. Just because you enjoy a game with a sharp difficulty curve, barely any tutorials, a dependence on third-party tools, and have plenty of time to waste jumping repeatedly for weeks just to get to a remote corner of the galaxy that contains the same Guardian outpost that has been copy/pasted dozens of times doesn't mean that the vast majority of other players share that sentiment. If you want this game to survive, it needs to be accessible to more casual players with less free time as well as the hard-core players who can commit to playing this game as if it were a part-time job.
The problem with the number of games currently trying to exploit the live-service model is that they are all competing for an incredibly limited resource. Players can only dedicate 100% of their free time to one live-service game at a time, thus at some point it becomes necessary to examine how much time one's game is demanding from players and figure out if it's a realistic expectation based on your market share. Elite Dangerous is nowhere near the top of the live-service game pyramid as it is a very niche game with relatively little content reward for the amount of time it demands from players. Thus, Elite will continue to lose players who decide the grind-to-reward ratio is out of balance to other games that provide more satisfying rewards for less time investment.
If you want the game to be harder, by all means, ditch the third-party tools and only use the game's UI. That should be more than enough challenge. But I doubt you'll actually do that because that would mean you'd be wasting your time.
It could be some Guardian structures in space which could allow long-distance jumps, but to trigger a jump there could be something similar to community goal organized to collect huge amount of necessary elements (fuel) to charge the gate (and maybe data/system scans to predict/calculate destination point). So the gates would be opening once in a while for a short period of time when the goal is complete, most of the time staying just a regular POI attracting space tourists.
Let's say like everything that goes through the port must be at 0 K, so only in Cryosleep. Freeze your character for a week to long-distance jump from Bubble to Colonia. Re-enact your favourite Alien scenes. In practice, the game probably benefits from online players more than offline players.
I don't think I covered this adequately, but part of the limitation of the Guardian Jump Beacon system would be a player ship's ability to power their Guardian FSD with fuel. Making a massive jump of 10,000 LY would require an enormous amount of fuel. Thus, one would have to sacrifice precious internal space aboard their ship to equip numerous fuel tanks. This would mean that larger ships with more space for fuel tanks would be able to jump further than smaller ships with fewer fuel tanks. This also means that it becomes a balancing act of deciding how much of your other optional internal space you are willing to sacrifice or do without in order to equip more fuel tanks for a long jump. The reality is, just because a Guardian Jump Beacon
can allow for a 10,000 LY jump doesn't mean the player's ship will be able to make the entire jump. One could even introduce the risk that players could initiate a Beacon Jump and run out of fuel halfway there due to not calculating the distance properly, and thus become stranded in deep space with no fuel.
Alternatively, there could also be a timed component for these long-distance jumps to help reinforce the idea that this is a long-distance jump and reduce the whole "fast travel" argument. Similar to how a Fleet Carrier has a jump time that lasts several minutes, perhaps make it so a Beacon Jump keeps the player ship locked in witchspace for several minutes while in transit, similar to how the ship and module transfer mechanics work between stations. Travelling 10,000 LY in a single jump could mean 30 minutes of real-time waiting. Thus, trying to chain multiple Beacon Jumps together would still be a bit of a time sink and require planning.
EDIT: Also, I only touched on this briefly, but there is the idea that the new Guardian FSD comes with it's own drawbacks. Namely, that the risk of hyperdiction from Thargoids increases due to the drive's unique signature. Thus, not only is there the associated drawbacks of needing to equip more fuel tanks and sacrifice other internal components, and the potential time-lock mechanics for travel; now there is the additional risk that any and all Guardian FSD jumps through witchspace could be ended abruptly by a surprise encounter with Thargoid interdictor kill-squads that are targeting Guardian technology.
