Play how YOU want.

[Luciferion Lucario]

Now, I've seen this happen with a few games (warframe, elite dangerous) basically games that have "metas" that stop you from playing however you want. Like a ship that outclasses all the others or a weapon that blows every other one away. However warframe has recently went through a "build how you want to" phase were people play the game the way THEY want, and have fun. Not trying to mid-max there way through everything.

I've come to the conclusion that elite should do the same, you shouldn't pick a python or conda because there big ships that do what they do the best, pick a ship that you like, that you want to fly! Even the crobra IV.

Tell me your thoughts on this commanders.

 

[xXR34P3RXx]

What if you want an Anaconda though?

 

[Luciferion Lucario]

What if you want an Anaconda though?

Then you buy a anaconda. And you fly it proudly. But don't only get it because it's the "cool ship" get it because YOU want it.

 

[Mohrgan]

I've been fortunate enough to have played that way my entire career. I ground a bit, getting into a CMkIII, but that was just a very short time, and I didn't notice it as a grind at the time. Right now I have two ships, an FdL, and a Python, with zero Engineered gear. Because they are the ships I want right now. I have very few systemic complaints with the game.

Right on Commander. o7

 

[Raile]

People fly ships to fit the job they do, not necessarily because they like them, though some do fall for their work ships. The problem is that a lot of ships are balanced to be mostly useless at any job or the job you want to do. Consider the Distant Worlds Expedition. Nearly everyone went in either an Asp or an Anaconda. I didn't see many Vultures or Dropships making that run.

 

[Tarman]

I've always played with a tack for experiential gameplay over progressional. For me this is Pretend Spaceman based around flying spaceships, with increasingly better reasons to do so. There's no endgame so I don't see a point in creating one for myself. I'd rather not burnout my spaceship gaming long term for an ultimately fruitless goal. I'd like to own every ship one day because I want to fly everything at some point and also because of the Pokemon Effect, but I have no all-consuming drive for its completion by month's end or anything.

 

[Battleship Kickass]

Now, I've seen this happen with a few games (warframe, elite dangerous) basically games that have "metas" that stop you from playing however you want. Like a ship that outclasses all the others or a weapon that blows every other one away. However warframe has recently went through a "build how you want to" phase were people play the game the way THEY want, and have fun. Not trying to mid-max there way through everything.

I've come to the conclusion that elite should do the same, you shouldn't pick a python or conda because there big ships that do what they do the best, pick a ship that you like, that you want to fly! Even the crobra IV.

Tell me your thoughts on this commanders.

That could be possible with all engineer mods as Cr bought modules. Customization of ships is a good thing. Putting every new thing you design behind a content grind wall is a bad thing.

 

[Pardot Kynes]

You can't play Engineers 'as you would like.'

If you only bounty hunt it is pretty clear that only a small variety of 'mats' (materials?') ever appear.

So I'm being forced to do a lot of other boring stuff in Elite Dork to get the other 'mats'

Well I won't.

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

…

I've come to the conclusion that elite should do the same, you shouldn't pick a python or conda because there big ships that do what they do the best, pick a ship that you like, that you want to fly! Even the crobra IV.

Tell me your thoughts on this commanders.

I played the game like that until 2.1. Now the game is forcing me to fly ships I don't want to fly if I want to do certain things and I can't use other ships unless I don't want to fight at all.
No more play how you want, no more blaze your own trail. It's use the feature of the month ship or be dead.

 

[Willa Allason]

You can't play Engineers 'as you would like.'

If you only bounty hunt it is pretty clear that only a small variety of 'mats' (materials?') ever appear.

So I'm being forced to do a lot of other boring stuff in Elite Dork to get the other 'mats'

Well I won't.

Then don't? You can bounty hunt very effectively without touching Engineer upgrades.

 

[Mohrgan]

You can't play Engineers 'as you would like.'

If you only bounty hunt it is pretty clear that only a small variety of 'mats' (materials?') ever appear.

So I'm being forced to do a lot of other boring stuff in Elite Dork to get the other 'mats'

Well I won't.

Or, you could only get the upgrades that you get materials for. Enjoy the game, rather than obsess over the Engineers.

 

[Dbrn47]

This is the only way I play, for what I want, unfortunately that means it leads to me doing things I don't want to do or just criticism with the systems involved with what I want to do.

And.. yea yea, don't do this or don't do that if you don't want to. Guess what, that's not really how the game or life works. If you want one thing, you usually have to do something you don't want to do in order to get it. Fortunately, unlike life, you can communicate with developers of video games to make suggestions in order to make the experience less painful.

 

[Cmdr Esteban]

I do play the way I want. Other than keeping a Sidewinder on the side I only fly one ship. From late 2014 until April this year that ship was the Cobra 3, because I loved that ship, and people I came across in game always assumed I was a new player because I was in a Cobra. Strange.

Then this year I sold it and bought a Python, which I like even more. Even with modified thrusters (and FSD) which brought the Python back to pre-nerf speed/agility, I know I'm still outclassed for combat by an FDL. I don't care, I don't want an FDL, a Corvette, a Cutter, nor any other ship. I won't be buying another ship for a very long time. I just want to fly my Python (and occasionally hop into my enhanced Sidewinder).

I'm pretty much a one ship pilot, and there are not "metas" as far as I know or care.

 

[crushdepth]

Once you get over building the biggest tank you possibly can, small ships become more attractive.

 

[Cmdr Esteban]

Some people are saying "The game is forcing me to do things I don't want to do!", and then in the same breath they say "I won't do it!". Pssst! If you've chosen not to do it, you're not being forced. QED.

 

[DNA-Decay]

Even the crobra IV.

ewww.

 

[DaveB]

At the core of ED's design is the concept put forward by the OP, that there "shouldn't" be an overpowering meta that demands a player follow it unless they want to seriously diminish their play experience. However, actually achieving that goal is HARD. FD have got close in many aspects of this, but gamers being the gamers that they are, there is still this temptation to min/max for your preferred play style, leading to a particular profession tending towards a choice of two or three ships and for each of those at least a "guiding principle" for the "best" loadouts. The "metas" that exist in ED only exist because WE make them, not because of the design and development strategy but often in spite of it. That's always going to happen. Fortunately FD are as aware of that as we are and when a particular meta starts dominating too much of the game then you just know there's a patch coming that will step on it, even though the folks that are using it will then kick up one heck of a stink on here - that's as much human nature as the desire to min-max your build is in the first place. Since the earliest premium betas we've seen this happen over and over again and I hope FD keep doing it, because that's how they will preserve teh ED universe for everybody.

 

[Armour]

You can play how you want.

If you choose to chase objectives that you define, and if that chase involves you participating in game roles you personally fail to enjoy, then it was your choice to do so.

Other people probably like those roles that you hate, and hate ones you like, so asking for things to be changed to suit you seems somewhat selfish. Luckily most aren't doing that too much. What they are doing is asking not to have to do anything other that what they like most (usually seal-clubbing, or meta-ing their way to gazillions of spacebucks.)

Asking for material collection to be bypassed entirely in favour of markets so one might get all the pew-pew and dakka-dakka without any real effort seems attractive at first, but then what?

The same players will soon be back to complaining that everything is easy and therefore a boring grind to a new goal that they just decided is now the objective. And the cycle will begin again when the next update comes in, and repeat for yeeeeears.

Or they'll be demanding moar better guns, and the game will end up with arms hyperinflation rampant as the law of diminishing returns kicks in. Once they no longer get the same adrenaline rush they did five minutes earlier from the new ultrahypermegalazor, they will demand a gigaultrahypermegalazor. Get it, use it, pretty, bored now, want moar. Rinse and repeat.

What FDEV should do is put all the modded gear and every ship type in Arena. Really go for it. Put an small SAS team of quality devs on it. Have loads of different game modes and maps that allow all the ships and gear to exploit their advantages and expose their drawbacks. Let it be a testbed and a crucible to determine what gear and mod balance works best for eventual rebalancing of the game at large. Get every meathead in there so they can fire their huge modded insecurities at each other, and leave the galaxy to everyone else.

That way, Arena wouldn't be such a ghost town (except when FDEV do a livestream), the people who do just want to see all the shiny and smash all the things can do that quick and get it all out of their system before getting back to playing the game like adults, and the forum and reddit might see the end of all the whiny "2.1 makes me see other bits of the game and I hate it" threads.

 

[We Are Groot]

You can play how you want.

Only if the game allows it. I would love to do space trucking in my Clipper but most missions I enjoy doing end up saying "Ship is to large." so I can not accept the missions. Instead I have to use my Python which is a pretty good ship for missions but it is not the ship I would love to fly. The Clipper is far from perfect but its biggest drawback for me is not being able to land at outposts.

I could use it but if I can only do 1 mission instead of 5 then progress gets very slow. There are very few ships I really like but it seems the ones I do like I can not really use them for things I enjoy doing. Actually I think the only ship I really want to use is the Clipper. Now if the Engineers had a module that allowed it to land at outposts that would be pretty sweet.

 

[Mohrgan]

Only if the game allows it. I would love to do space trucking in my Clipper but most missions I enjoy doing end up saying "Ship is to large." so I can not accept the missions. Instead I have to use my Python which is a pretty good ship for missions but it is not the ship I would love to fly. The Clipper is far from perfect but its biggest drawback for me is not being able to land at outposts.

I could use it but if I can only do 1 mission instead of 5 then progress gets very slow. There are very few ships I really like but it seems the ones I do like I can not really use them for things I enjoy doing. Actually I think the only ship I really want to use is the Clipper. Now if the Engineers had a module that allowed it to land at outposts that would be pretty sweet.

That seems more like focusing on the minutiae, instead of on the spirit of the idea behind 'play as you like'. You're in a quandary because your favorite ship has limitations. Maybe you could look into direct trade more, rather than mission work. I don't have an answer for your specific trouble, but I don't see it as a fault in the idea of just playing the way you enjoy.