Please make Elite Stars (prestige) ranks retroactive.

[Amy Pendergast]

This shouldn't be on the issue tracker. It's not a bug!

The issue tracker has enough problems as it is, but part of the reason things can't be looked at properly is people use it incorrectly and spam it with feature requests and then brigade others to confirm and vote up pointless things.


Some Elite ranks like Exploration have been devalued for years. Exploration payouts have had 3 increases over time, the bump at 2.4 for terraformable worlds was pretty big, but with the introduction of the FSS all bets went out the window. The rank thresholds have not been updated since release.

I know someone who's highest single system reward is 70 million credits. That puts you over halfway to Pioneer which is the 6th of 7 old ranks! You can do this in a Sidewinder with a DSS.

Elite ranks have meant nothing for years.

It's even less valuable now that the bio scanning etc is there. Just from buckyballing and honking through a few dozen systems on the search for cool sights I made triple digit millions in a couple of hours.

The balance as you correctly stated is totally off since the beginng. But instead of rebalancing we now have just an extension of the scale.

Don't get me wrong, I'm now 7+ years around with the same commander and I simply don't care about these ranks anymore but I think they could have come up with something better than just what they did.

 

[Ozric]

It's even less valuable now that the bio scanning etc is there. Just from buckyballing and honking through a few dozen systems on the search for cool sights I made triple digit millions in a couple of hours.

The balance as you correctly stated is totally off since the beginng. But instead of rebalancing we now have just an extension of the scale.

Don't get me wrong, I'm now 7+ years around with the same commander and I simply don't care about these ranks anymore but I think they could have come up with something better than just what they did.

While I understand the gist of what you're saying I don't see what the exo-biology has to do with devaluing the achievement of reaching Elite.

The premise of adding new things or extensions of things to MMO and online games in order to keep people playing and encourage veterans to carry on playing, isn't something new at all. Neither is the fact that you previous endeavours aren't counted towards that increase. The only game I can think of that has done it differently recently is ESO when they opened up the CP ranks from 810 to 3,600. That kept progress that you had made before, but they always stored that progress just capped it at 810.

I've been playing since PB but had this character from launch 6 1/2 years ago and 1 have one Elite rank which is in Exploration. I don't care about the others, certainly not Combat. But there are some people who do care about them, and some people who use the ranks as a goal to aim for.

So while the new ranks might not be in keeping with the ethos of older Elite games, if we're frank ED hasn't kept in line with that ethos for years now.

 

[Crank Larson]

The issue tracker has enough problems as it is, but part of the reason things can't be looked at properly is people use it incorrectly and spam it with feature requests and then brigade others to confirm and vote up pointless things.

Yes, but FD designed it that way, so it's not really the players' problem.

 

[Amy Pendergast]

...
So while the new ranks might not be in keeping with the ethos of older Elite games, if we're frank ED hasn't kept in line with that ethos for years now.

This one sentence is the real gist of my try to express myself

Personally I don't care either for the ranks itself, it's just another missed opportunity to make the Elite universe a bit more interesting and consistent. Just extending "Max Level" seems not to fit Elite, there are so many more things they could have done.
And the new ranks don't even mean anything. What does a player get, if they reach a rank post Elite? A numeral more, that's it.

 

[Shanaeri]

While I understand the gist of what you're saying I don't see what the exo-biology has to do with devaluing the achievement of reaching Elite.

The premise of adding new things or extensions of things to MMO and online games in order to keep people playing and encourage veterans to carry on playing, isn't something new at all. Neither is the fact that you previous endeavours aren't counted towards that increase. The only game I can think of that has done it differently recently is ESO when they opened up the CP ranks from 810 to 3,600. That kept progress that you had made before, but they always stored that progress just capped it at 810.

I've been playing since PB but had this character from launch 6 1/2 years ago and 1 have one Elite rank which is in Exploration. I don't care about the others, certainly not Combat. But there are some people who do care about them, and some people who use the ranks as a goal to aim for.

So while the new ranks might not be in keeping with the ethos of older Elite games, if we're frank ED hasn't kept in line with that ethos for years now.

I detest this move.. I mean.. I totally.. utterly detest this.
1. It is NOT a prestige system. The meaning of the word Elite is the pinnacle, nothing higher.. Adding a prestige thingy to Elite is putting something higher.
2. It is NOT a system like 4th Dan.. See 1.
3. Politeness dictates how much this destroys, obliterates and retcons the entire core of the games lore, tradition, all those amazing stories people have written over the 37+years. If Rian Gosling was designing a game, this is how he would do it. It is.. The Last Jedi.. The Star Trek V. The final season of Game of thrones bad..
4. For those who played, pushed through and gained what they thought would be the maximum they have in effect.. just been demoted. The Prime rule of online game design is "do not reset player progress"
5. So far it seems like you gain an elite +1.+2 etc each time you go from harmless to elite.. So to reach triple elite again.. you need to do it FIVE times..
6. It adds ZERO additional gameplay, zero new stuff, just zero now read the above 5 points and decide if that is a price worth paying?

I get that for some the elite ranks don't mean squat, but for others, they are a source of pride, an accomplishment backed up by 37+ years of lore, stories and well.. history so should they suddenly now set aside that pride just because

Since it seems to display once you "rank up" it does not encourage me to earn another credit. explore a planet or shoot a ship in case I have to spend the rest of my time here looking at the abomination that this is.

 

[Arioch]

Muh-Muh-Muh-Muh-MULTiLEEEET !!!

 

[Ozric]

Yes, but FD designed it that way, so it's not really the players' problem.

No they didn't. They designed it for reporting bugs to replace keeping them on the forum.

It's usefulness is an entirely different thing, but I have a separate thread on that

I detest this move.. I mean.. I totally.. utterly detest this.
1. It is NOT a prestige system. The meaning of the word Elite is the pinnacle, nothing higher.. Adding a prestige thingy to Elite is putting something higher.
2. It is NOT a system like 4th Dan.. See 1.
3. Politeness dictates how much this destroys, obliterates and retcons the entire core of the games lore, tradition, all those amazing stories people have written over the 37+years. If Rian Gosling was designing a game, this is how he would do it. It is.. The Last Jedi.. The Star Trek V. The final season of Game of thrones bad..
4. For those who played, pushed through and gained what they thought would be the maximum they have in effect.. just been demoted. The Prime rule of online game design is "do not reset player progress"
5. So far it seems like you gain an elite +1.+2 etc each time you go from harmless to elite.. So to reach triple elite again.. you need to do it FIVE times..
6. It adds ZERO additional gameplay, zero new stuff, just zero now read the above 5 points and decide if that is a price worth paying?

I get that for some the elite ranks don't mean squat, but for others, they are a source of pride, an accomplishment backed up by 37+ years of lore, stories and well.. history so should they suddenly now set aside that pride just because

Since it seems to display once you "rank up" it does not encourage me to earn another credit. explore a planet or shoot a ship in case I have to spend the rest of my time here looking at the abomination that this is.

Lots of old lore from the 37+ years has been retconned for this game though.
Lots of the lore from this game has been retconned throughout it's development.

I imagine the vast majority of players didn't play the original, and probably the majority haven't played Frontier. Now I get that the addition of ranks above Elite has brought into sharp focus just how great the disconnect between the team making Odyssey and the principles of the game is, but this game veered from the original path long ago.

I understand where you're coming from Shan and I do know how much you dislike them. I don't like the idea of prestige ranks either, but to be honest when they said months ago that one of the core design principles of Odyssey was that they wanted you to be able to play the game without ever owning a ship, I knew that the game had made it's final step away from it's core principles.

 

[Shanaeri]

No they didn't. They designed it for reporting bugs to replace keeping them on the forum.

It's usefulness is an entirely different thing, but I have a separate thread on that


Lots of old lore from the 37+ years has been retconned for this game though.
Lots of the lore from this game has been retconned throughout it's development.

I imagine the vast majority of players didn't play the original, and probably the majority haven't played Frontier. Now I get that the addition of ranks above Elite has brought into sharp focus just how great the disconnect between the team making Odyssey and the principles of the game is, but this game veered from the original path long ago.

I understand where you're coming from Shan and I do know how much you dislike them. I don't like the idea of prestige ranks either, but to be honest when they said months ago that one of the core design principles of Odyssey was that they wanted you to be able to play the game without ever owning a ship, I knew that the game had made it's final step away from it's core principles.

To me though there are some things that are kinda ok to retcon (like the mycoid virus outcomes) as only one option could make it into a multiplayer game(you can't have an either-or alternate timeline thing) and there are others that are so fundamental that they are the very pillars on which the "elite" universe is built (note it's not called the Elite 5* universe ).

And I think it's not just that, that annoys, it's that this single change represents a fundamental shift away from the "science first" approach so many people loved and were attracted to. Towards the CoD prestige loot em shoot-em gameplay. It shifts it from something unique and special to another me-too game. and I hate the fact it has come to this. So in actuality, this change is more than "just another few pointless titles" it is as you say the severing of a unique and enduring design philosophy. And that... hurts,,

To lose all of that.. uniqueness for the sake of adding more of the same is well dispiriting. It is perfectly ok to have a maximum of something, without pointlessly extending it.

I know many, many players who have hit an Elite rank and thought "phew that's that done, now I can go do something else in game" But now? Now like charlie brown and lucy with the football they took a run up, thought they were there and at the last moment lucy just moves the ball...

 

[Deleted member 182079]

This confused me to no end because the ranks (or rather, progress bars) didn't show up until the fix yesterday.

I'm triple Elite for some time now, and while I'm not upset at this, I just find it incredibly lame from a game design perspective.

I'm going to go ahead ignoring these, although I'll find it more difficult to ignore how creatively bankrupt Frontier appear to be. Very sad to see this.

 

[Deleted member 182079]

they wanted you to be able to play the game without ever owning a ship

Is that really what they meant though? I always took that as "it's certainly possible to play without ship, if you really want to", rather than them encouraging it.

 

[Riverside]

This confused me to no end because the ranks (or rather, progress bars) didn't show up until the fix yesterday.

I'm triple Elite for some time now, and while I'm not upset at this, I just find it incredibly lame from a game design perspective.

I'm going to go ahead ignoring these, although I'll find it more difficult to ignore how creatively bankrupt Frontier appear to be. Very sad to see this.

I didn't notice this yesterday but reading your post I just logged in to check and my ranks now show Elite with progress bars showing a tiny amount of progress despite my codex counting over 90,000 confirmed kills (bounties+combat bonds).

So whether it's by design or not it is now seemingly starting to count only from the Odd launch. I'd be very interested to understand the reasoning behind this if it's intended, because if kills significantly below my rank are now being counted (as the patch notes also state) that's makes it even easier to countback.

Still though, it's only a game (named for the achievements)

 

[Arioch]

it's not called the Elite 5* universe

Perhaps it should be...

 

[Deleted member 182079]

I didn't notice this yesterday but reading your post I just logged in to check and my ranks now show Elite with progress bars showing a tiny amount of progress despite my codex counting over 90,000 confirmed kills (bounties+combat bonds).

So whether it's by design or not it is now seemingly starting to count only from the Odd launch. I'd be very interested to understand the reasoning behind this if it's intended, because if kills significantly below my rank are now being counted (as the patch notes also state) that's makes it even easier to countback.

Still though, it's only a game (named for the achievements)

I kept looking in-game prior to yesterday's fix, and couldn't see those elusive "5 stars" anywhere, even posted here asking what the story is. So after reading more about how it looks/works I double checked last night and lo and behold there they were.

What does tick me off (and is not necessarily specific to these ranks) is how seemingly nothing in relation to EDO exclusive activities is being tracked in the Codex - that still appears to be as if I was still playing Horizons only. Say if I wanted to see how many ground CZs I completed (given it's stuff that's required for engineer unlocks you'd think it's a worthwhile bit of detail to track and show somewhere...). Half arxed implementations everywhere.... I could pull my hair out quite frankly.

 

[Riverside]

I could pull my hair out quite frankly.

It is Odd

 

[angusmadmac1]

Been triple for 3 years and needed no more ranks to keep me playing , if it was retrospective I would probably be elite 5?
I think it devalues the triple elite. To me the Elite rank was the tops , a trip to beagle got my exploration , 2 years of trading ( no mining ) got me( 2017) my trade elite (2018)and then Combat (2018).. Now I'm at the bottom of the elite ??
Kick me in the teeth elite well done

 

[Deleted member 182079]

Been triple for 3 years and needed no more ranks to keep me playing , if it was retrospective I would probably be elite 5?
I think it devalues the triple elite. To me the Elite rank was the tops , a trip to beagle got my exploration , 2 years of trading ( no mining ) got me( 2017) my trade elite (2018)and then Combat (2018).. Now I'm at the bottom of the elite ??
Kick me in the teeth elite well done

To be fair, they already devalued the (Trade & Exploration) Elite ranks when they took a baseball bat to the credit balancing, allowing players to become Elite in either in a much shorter time compared to some of us long-time players. I don't begrudge them, in fact I feel sorry for them as the progression is completely borked and it feels no longer like a long-term achievement to aim for.

Combat Elite was by far the worst grind (yes I did grind for the last 30% of Deadly to Elite) in the entire game for me, no contest. So there we have the extreme opposite. It's just completely broken and pointless; the only reason to go for them is to unlock ShinDez and later the decal, and even that looks like Arx at the moment with the shaders broken and low-res textures being the way they are upon close inspection. Whatever.

 

[Screemonster]

I kept looking in-game prior to yesterday's fix, and couldn't see those elusive "5 stars" anywhere, even posted here asking what the story is. So after reading more about how it looks/works I double checked last night and lo and behold there they were.

What does tick me off (and is not necessarily specific to these ranks) is how seemingly nothing in relation to EDO exclusive activities is being tracked in the Codex - that still appears to be as if I was still playing Horizons only. Say if I wanted to see how many ground CZs I completed (given it's stuff that's required for engineer unlocks you'd think it's a worthwhile bit of detail to track and show somewhere...). Half arxed implementations everywhere.... I could pull my hair out quite frankly.

I got a bunch of first discoveries on plants but I don't have my name in the codex (I assume that someone else found the same plant in a different location) so I have no idea where I can find my name on a bunch of plants.

I'd love to be able to go back and browse my first discoveries, like by body type or whatever, look up where I found them and so on. One of the first things I did when I installed Odyssey was revisit one of my earliest first-discoveries and hop onto all the planets to get first footfall and tag all the plants, just as I'd gone back there to get the first mapped tags when the FSS was introduced.

 

[Ozric]

Is that really what they meant though? I always took that as "it's certainly possible to play without ship, if you really want to", rather than them encouraging it.

Well that's what they said. It's all about "player agency", so if you want to play the game without ever owning a ship then you can.

That to me goes more against the core principles of Elite, than adding some extra ranks.

 

[Deleted member 182079]

I got a bunch of first discoveries on plants but I don't have my name in the codex (I assume that someone else found the same plant in a different location) so I have no idea where I can find my name on a bunch of plants.

I'd love to be able to go back and browse my first discoveries, like by body type or whatever, look up where I found them and so on. One of the first things I did when I installed Odyssey was revisit one of my earliest first-discoveries and hop onto all the planets to get first footfall and tag all the plants, just as I'd gone back there to get the first mapped tags when the FSS was introduced.

The entire Codex was a major disappointment, and, like other features is rotting on the vine. Another defeat snatched from the jaws of victory. I still remember the hoo-hah made about when they introduced it - I loved the idea and the possibilities, but the implementation... urgh. If it even works at all.

 

[Crank Larson]

No they didn't. They designed it for reporting bugs to replace keeping them on the forum.

It's usefulness is an entirely different thing, but I have a separate thread on that

What I meant is that the tracker is useless for its intended purpose. While its intention was to report bugs, its design means that it is useless for that purpose... And to blame the players for that is simply wrong.