PP2.0 - a bellwether for the upcoming colonisation feature?

[Knuttin Atoll]

Long time player here. Was looking forward to PP2.0 to give me a new purpose and motivation to keep playing this game, but having dabbled with it now for a couple of weeks I'm already getting to a stage of tapping out unfortunately.

Balancing issues (that frankly can only be explained by the devs not playing their own game) and how the progression grind was set up is one reason - I just came back from a 5k LY exploration trip that I started after the merit rebalancing to Exploration that Frontier did recently, and a roughly 50m credits of general exploration data, plus 850m of exobio data yielded a paltry 1,000ish merits (I would say 95% or more of that was due to the latter, not sure I even noticed any merits earned when I handed in system data, much of it first discoveries by the way).

Second issue is how it has been implemented besides the progression grind. Added some new (and again buggy/janky) UI elements mainly containing yet more colourful progress bars, an arbitrary and super-gamey 100 ranks of PP progression, some very light-touch cosmetic changes that one could easily miss (concourses etc.), progression rewards that are mostly existing content just rearranged in terms of how long and how they're unlocked (PP modules), and select hand placed assets that appear as if they were recycled from existing megaship/carrier assets (stronghold carriers). I was hoping that changes in how PP systems and stations appear would make them more visually unique depending on who's in charge, adding more character and sense of place to a given system. The actual implementation couldn't have been more subtle and uninspiring. I don't know if the problem is a lack of devs to create new assets, or a creativity issue.

The store received some questionable additions at of course premium cost, such as those cringeworthy, football-scarf-eque PP name 'flags' (of course uneditable), and a bunch of superpower paintjobs that interestingly enough includes some 'Independent' skins (not sure I follow the logic on that one....... but for the rest I guess skin=Arx=money was preferred over making at least some of these PP progression rewards instead). Hard pass all round for me either way.

It is my impression that Frontier's focus, now more than ever, appears to be to keep players busy at all cost first and foremost (=higher chance of converting Arx sales) even at the expense of a consistent, balanced and enjoyable game experience (so pretty much the opposite of what other developers, such as Hello Games or Egosoft, are doing - but I guess those aren't MMOs, maybe that's the problem here). So now I'm sitting here and am wondering what this means for the new colonisation feature.

Am I too cynical, jaded and negative to expect nothing but a grind fest of epic proportions that in the end merely unlocks the ability to place existing game assets (stations and prefab settlements) in a restrictive fashion? Basically semi-opening the dev kit to players while locking it behind yet more progress bars? I don't hate the idea (colonisation) per se, I am/was intrigued in fact, yet I can't help but think that (at least my) feedback will sound eerily similar whenever it'll release.

 

[Coolgroove]

Well, yes, it very much looks like you are too cynical, jaded and negative

I do agree that in a way to many cases "fill that bar" is a game-play, instead of bar being there just for indication. Yep, that is daunting. I don't think balancing will ever be to everyone's liking, yep, it sucks. Latest additions to the game are quite good overall and brought a lot of players, that means more sales, money mean more development and attention for the game. So hopefully (if you can still have it) many things could improve, but it's most likely going to take longer time than any of us whishes. Right now Colonization feature looks exactly as you've described, but we also don't know anything important about it except that it is coming.

New PP doesn't do it for me too, but for a set of a bit different reasons. Although I agree, a better visual uniqueness would be very nice.

On the other hand - maybe you are just burn out on the game, and need to refresh so to say. Game doesn't provide it for you, a break from it could.

Or, my recommendation (even if you didn't ask for it, well...) - is to look up Isinona videos on YouTube. There could be another, a different way to play this game that highlights the best parts about it. Bokatan also makes great videos in the similar style. I love to play Elite Story Mode like that, and has been doing it from the start, as it makes me care a lot less about the bars and much more about adventure and joy of playing it.

Or, you could try even more emergent game-play, and join Fuel Rats or Hull Seals and spend some time traveling the galaxy helping others. Or racing, etc. - Gameplay that driven by players and doesn't rely on bars too much.

These options could refresh how you see the game and lessen your negativity, if you haven't tried any of them yet and think something like that could be your cup of tea. Both recommendations works great as both - a solo commander and with friends.

If you don't need any of it ^ and just want to vent - have at it, forums are a good place to do so

 

[Knuttin Atoll]

Appreciate the fair response (including your first sentence, I suppose I did ask for it hehe).

I'm familiar with Isinona, loved his content back in the days. As for burning out, I've been playing ED a lot over the past decade, and it still manages to pull me back in even when I get frustrated with it. It's the Stellar Forge honestly - if that was somehow implemented in, say, X4 Foundations, I'd be long gone already... but it's not so Elite remains installed.

I'm glad Frontier shifted some focus back to Elite after the long period of trying to fix Odyssey (only partially successfully imo), but I got the impression it recently shifted from building the 'best version of Elite' so to speak to keeping the lights on and squeeze Arx whales as much as they can get away with, and will stick to incremental updates that are limited to few hand placed assets combined with lots of progress bar gameplay based on existing gameplay loops after the Odyssey debacle. It's entirely possible that they don't have (m)any devs around anymore that are familiar with the under the hood stuff of the stellar forge, which may explain it somewhat.

With those limitations in mind, colonisation would be a logical next step as you can 'get away with' applying a similar framework for that (add some UI elements, and any required graphical assets are mostly already available in the game). It is something I'd be interested in, but I fear making any strides in this future content means, in traditional Frontier game design matra, repetitive and mindnumbing filling of progress bars, most likely by hauling cargo, Operation IDA style. Would love to be proven wrong of course but I don't think Frontier will change their ways so late in this game's lifecycle. That is what frustrated me the most (with the Thargoid war as well as PP2.0) - the complete lack of any creative vision.

 

[Coolgroove]

I can perfectly understand a long running frustration with a game, when year after year it compounds and accumulates. Been there. With Elite tho, I have a very different situation, fortunately for me, sry Original was the first video game I ever saw/played in my life. Started ED early. Stopped playing around Horizons launch due to a IRL situations with no negativity towards the game. Since then, played for about 50 hours total in, what it was, 8 years, I think. But I've been watching videos from time to time to keep me in the loop, and was looking forward to be able to finally just enjoy the game. Couple of months ago I got time to play again - here I am, full of nostalgia, joy, and skipped all the dark times of horrific grinds, questionable decisions, etc. Although I don't have all that baggage from ED, but ED is not unique in that regard, and not even that bad. Been there with SWTOR for example, even EvE, and a few others.

When I came back, I thought it was a good idea to do all the grind that I missed quickly. It kinda was, hmm, but even with the current state of the game - if not for Isinona/Bokatan videos playing in the background I would probably not finished it. It feels like all the people who did the grind during the dark times are as resilient as they are made from iron. There were some cool parts (Guardians, Thargoids), but overall it was just way too much "play with my bars". I wish the gameplay was different, yet in the end - I did it to myself, heh.

on a side note - Yes! Stellar Forge! I almost abandoned grind idea to just fly around exploring. But satisfied this urge with (non-neutron/carrier/booster) 5K both ways (up hill, hehe) doing quite a few 1st discoveries / exo on the way.

Then, with all ships I want engineered, suit and weapons, for things I like to do or might encounter - went back to the way I always loved to play ED (and what makes it unique and the best game for me) - Elite Story Mode, RP adventure. Dabbled in various activities, it's fun. Ascendancy hit, Mandalay was the perfect hit for me, PP 2.0 was far from it. I simply don't see how it is very different from 1.0, as the core is still the same - do the bars get the module, now with new pretty UI. Visual changes in stations are nice, hacking ads is fun, stealing/hacking from carriers also fun. That last part I was already doing outside of PP, so...

All in all, aside from Visuals and Ads hacking - 2.0 to me looks the same as 1.0 - still doesn't make much sense in the game world, core (bar => module) is still the main thing about it, no improvements for BGS or connections with the rest of the game, makes Crime and Punishment even worse. You can get all modules from any Power, but because there is a different order and not for player to decide, there are still players who go to 34 then jump ship and go to 34 of another Power again. And more... I already have a debate about PP in another thread, don't want to start it here too.

With Colonization in the future - I am excited, but also - well if PP stays as it is right now, with only tweaks for bars - out of all the new features I would probably enjoy ships and that is it. Thankfully I don't immediately need them to enjoy the way I play, and if these features bring more and more players - I would love it. Maybe, PP would be improved fundamentally in something like PP 2.1 or 2.2 or even with a release of Colonization, and not in 3.0 in another 10 years.

I can still be hopeful, and hope that this "condensed" story/rant could help you, even a bit, to find more reasons for joy.

 

[Disemboweled Ego]

I feel like I went in with more realistic expectations for powerplay, to quote some of my more "I told you so" posts:

While the announcement didn't give much details on what the powerplay update will actually entail, I think the way these big rework updates end up for most long-running (or past their expiry date) games is just rearranging the pieces in a way that completely changes the game without developing a fundamentally new system or much new content. (Like the thargoid war)

Powerplay is an easy target for that and I can see a simple rework like this that makes powerplay a lot better, but I can't see one that improves the game overall in a substantial way because it's still optional and still has to interact with everything else.

My main hope is that we get some new fun (non odyssey) setpiece scenarios out of it (again, like the thargoid war) and it's not too disruptive to the other parts of the game. I feel like I should temper my expecations a bit more though.

It feels a lot like the odyssey launch communication where all the feedback you can give is "oh this looks cool visually", but there's not enough info to give feedback so they can really go off and make some bizarre decisions for the gameplay stuff that will be a complete surprise to the average elite player because of the "how could anyone think this was a good idea" factor. This is the stuff a good dev would try to get feedback on as early as possible instead of trying to spring it on the community as a surprise.

I didn't think powerplay 2 would be that bad to begin with and it's OK.

Except for the horrendous bugs that even ruin parts of the rest of the game.
And the various balancing issues between activities.

The rank system is extremely unsatisfying due to how long it takes to level and how there's big gaps in levels where you don't get anything at all and/or don't get anything useful. Other than the ranks and levels the draw to powerplay isn't really there.

The overall design itself is playing it very safe, which would be OK if it was just better executed.

Am I too cynical, jaded and negative to expect nothing but a grind fest of epic proportions that in the end merely unlocks the ability to place existing game assets (stations and prefab settlements) in a restrictive fashion? Basically semi-opening the dev kit to players while locking it behind yet more progress bars? I don't hate the idea (colonisation) per se, I am/was intrigued in fact, yet I can't help but think that (at least my) feedback will sound eerily similar whenever it'll release.

The grind might go even beyond epic in this case, but overall even a bad (very restricted) version of colonization has more potential than powerplay because the systems it interacts with (markets, stations) are more interesting. It'll be ok as long as it stays as tightly coupled to the existing mechanics as possible and allows us to create interesting systems worth visiting that can offer unique configurations and things not seen in procedurally generated systems.

All the obvious choices here seem right and the main issue with colonization is what it doesn't set out to do which is adding new types of content, weapons/gear/engineering/missions/combat encounters/hauling challenges/gameplay and other scenarios to the game. It's reheating stale bread to make it a bit more palatable. That stuff has been on a drip feed over years and really needs a kick to keep the veterans interested the recent new ships and even concord cannons have been great, but it's always one thing at a time so it takes ages for it to compound into something truly new (like python mk2 with a set of new pre-engineered AX weapons) which lessens the impact because at that point you're doing stuff you've already done a lot (and might not need to anymore) just in a slightly different way.

 

[IstvaanDCIV]

I don't get why 100 ranks is especially more arbitrary than any other figure would be. It's a video game, some level of abstraction is always going to be inevitable.

 

[Knuttin Atoll]

-snip-

A lot of what you say resonates, even if my experience has been somewhat different with the game. It turned out into something more of a hobby than a game, for close to a decade (and not any real breaks during that time), although I have still do play other games beside it. The last year or two in fact X4 had taken over as my primary space game.

Difference for me was that I achieved virtually all there is technically to achieve (rank, unlocks, carrier, G5'd ships and Ody gear, visiting places and participating in all types of activities) so things have gone pretty stale. So I wiped my account hoping to instil some of that early game 'freshness' again... didn't work because in the meantime Frontier decided to shoot any balancing to pieces - i.e. the early game struggle to work your way through low level gear and ships - and you can't really unlearn all the knowledge from past experience.

But just when I thought I was out... the engineering rework which made starting from scratch less daunting, and curiosity about PP2.0 brought me back in. Due to how both were implemented, it might not last long, although I will most likely be around when the colonisation update hits. Just need to be prepared that the associated gameplay will be out of reach without putting some serious further time into the game.

 

[Knuttin Atoll]

I don't get why 100 ranks is especially more arbitrary than any other figure would be. It's a video game, some level of abstraction is always going to be inevitable.

What I meant was that instead of following tradition similar to the OG ranks (giving each a name that makes more or less sense) they just went with numbers 0 to 100 (why not go up to 1,000 even?).

I already thought they called it in back when they added those silly Elite I - V ranks, but this is even less effort. How hard could it have been to come up with a bunch of rank names and break them down in a more sensible way (say, 5-10 ranks). I mean... what's the difference between rank 62 and 63? It's arbitrary.

 

[Gabriel H]

I mean... what's the difference between rank 62 and 63? It's arbitrary.

8,000 merits!

Sorry, couldn't resist. It is a valid point though, there are a lot of "dead" ranks. The list of unlocks:

• Rank 1 – Power decal.
• Rank 2 – -20% Reduction in rebuy when killed in your power's territory.
• Rank 5 – Power-specific Reward.
• Rank 8 – -40% Reduction in rebuy when killed in your power's territory.
• Rank 11 – -33% Rebuy if destroyed by another power ship when killed by an opposing power.
• Rank 14 – Power-specific Reward.
• Rank 17 – -60% Reduction in rebuy when killed in your power's territory.
• Rank 22 – Power-specific Reward.
• Rank 24 – Power-specific Reward.
• Rank 27 – -80% Reduction in rebuy when killed in your power's territory.
• Rank 29 – -66% Rebuy if destroyed by another power ship when killed by an opposing power.
• Rank 32 – Power-specific Reward.
• Rank 34 – 1st Power Module.
• Rank 36 – -100% Reduction in rebuy when killed in your power's territory.
• Rank 39 – Power Module.
• Rank 42 – Power-specific Reward.
• Rank 44 – Power Module.
• Rank 48 – Power-specific Reward.
• Rank 50 – Power Module.
• Rank 52 – Power-specific Reward.
• Rank 55 – Power-specific Reward.
• Rank 57 – Power Module.
• Rank 60 – -100% Rebuy if destroyed by another power ship when killed by an opposing power.
• Rank 63 – Power Module.
• Rank 67 – Power-specific Reward.
• Rank 70 – Power Module.
• Rank 73 – Power-specific Reward.
• Rank 76 – Power Module.
• Rank 78 – Power-specific Reward.
• Rank 83 – Power Module.
• Rank 86 – Power-specific Reward.
• Rank 88 – Power Module.
• Rank 91 – Power Module.
• Rank 94 – Power-specific Reward.
• Rank 97 – Power Module.
• Rank 100 – Power-specific Reward.
• Rank 100+ Care package.

Basically, there is an unlock every 2 to 5 ranks, with only a couple of 5 ranks jumps. For a total of 37 "alive" ranks, and 63 "dead" ranks doing little. There is a static value of 8,000 merits per rank after rank 6. Standard convention would have been to have 37 ranks (or preferably a less weird number like 35 or 40 or even 50 at most), and have an exponential growth on merits (XP) needed to get to the next rank.

Part of me wants to applaud FDev for defying convention, but the way they went around it is just silly. Most games that have an XP system (and that's all merits essentially are), have a few "dead" ranks, and the majority being "alive" ranks that give a reward. FDev has reversed that and made it nearly 2 to 1 the wrong way. Thereby generating a unique system, rather than simply following the convention gamers are used to, and are happy to grind within.

 

[oblivionmanman 2476]

im playing at pp2 now i dont care about the ranks i did the pp and have all i want now,it gives you 5 tasks a week do the as you feel like ;you have 7 days to compete 5 tasks,so there isnt a grind i see unless you are rushing to compete with the ranking system,hell its a game not a race,its fun trying to work out the galaxy mapping,thats better then doing the missions. my opinion .

 

[Knuttin Atoll]

I don't really care about reaching any given rank, let alone rushing it. I do think though they should've kept the PP modules out of it and add them to the tech brokers instead.

But the fact they did still make them part of the progression grind (and it is a grind if your goal is to try them out) does suggest to me that Frontier themselves weren't overly confident that PP2.0 would keep players engaged without them.

 

[metatheurgist]

Nah, more like a mile-marker. That it's been on the wrong road for about 8 years.

 

[Coolgroove]

...

Yes, a hobby. It was a hobby for me once before, and it looks like it's a hobby once again, hehe. On the other hand - I forgot that any other game exists, but yeah, it is more fresh for me, and not that I can or even want to play more than one game.

To wipe an account, seems like a drastic measure, but at the same time - it's nice to start fresh. Even with all the knowledge not going anywhere, should be exciting, plus a second time around it's definitely easier to plan for things, heh. Not that good that it didn't worked out from the start, and roller coaster of ups and downs is probably something you'd wanted to avoid. But looks like it stopped on the Ups, at least Engineering rework is good, even I can see/fell it.

If Frontier wouldn't introduce new mechanic/gameplay for resources, then the biggest grind with Colonization would be Cargo hauling and maybe Mining. FC is the biggest help with that, and with your knowledge and experience - it shouldn't take much effort to get it and some credits-safety net to start with, even with just Exo-bio.

In the mean time, I'm looking for potential systems/areas, to have options once conditions for selection are clear, and after it's launch - probably going to join with other commanders/group in one of these areas, because something tells me that solo it would be insane, hehe. How much I'm going to be involved idk, depends on how the feature will be, how it's going to connect with BGS, PP, Superpowers. At this point I'll still have RP adventure to fallback to.

But as Disemboweled Ego said, and with regards to your first post - I hope Colonization brings some form of refreshment for existing systems that it would inevitably rely on and utilize, so it's not just more of the same with different set of bars, and players with any number in time played could have fun. It'll surely be the most prominent feature of the game, at least for player-driven content, so it has to improve/change/polish core systems. Hopefully. We will see.

 

[Disemboweled Ego]

Part of me wants to applaud FDev for defying convention, but the way they went around it is just silly. Most games that have an XP system (and that's all merits essentially are), have a few "dead" ranks, and the majority being "alive" ranks that give a reward. FDev has reversed that and made it nearly 2 to 1 the wrong way.

This is where the care packages are supposed to come in, it's just that the rewards in there are not unique and kinda irrelevant after the engineering rebalance. At any point in the game you'd be better off getting the materials any other way than grinding merits just to get the next care package (which would be random anyway and not guaranteed to give you the mats you actually want).

Elite would definitely have all the parts there to fill in the rewards with interesting stuff players would want so it feels more like you're guaranteed something interesting every few levels with a big unlock every 10 levels or so.

Instead of just unlocking powerplay modules spaced evenly apart, maybe give us 1-2 free versions of the module at earlier, currently empty levels, before we can buy as many of it as we want for ourselves. Maybe a few crappy power-specific prebuilt ships that you can't modify thrown in as bigger unlocks somewhere along the ranks. Power specific titles, skins, hud colors, etc - most games that go for a rank system like this will shower you with multiple rewards per level (even if the rewards are bad like a Type-7 skin, a ship which FDev must hate for sure) to get the dopamine juices flowing.

We don't get a satisfying rank up animation.

Ultimately though those other games do that for a simple reason - the rank system would just be a bland uninteresting grind without those distractions to hide it. Now adding in all the stuff to fill 100 ranks with rewards would be a nontrivial amount of work, but maybe that should just have shown you don't have enough to pull off a 100-level grind like that.

 

[Knuttin Atoll]

Part of me wants to applaud FDev for defying convention, but the way they went around it is just silly. Most games that have an XP system (and that's all merits essentially are), have a few "dead" ranks, and the majority being "alive" ranks that give a reward. FDev has reversed that and made it nearly 2 to 1 the wrong way. Thereby generating a unique system, rather than simply following the convention gamers are used to, and are happy to grind within.

Frontier breaking their own design language consistency, whether that's UI or gameplay related has been bothering me since 4.0. It seems like parts of the game have been outsourced to a different team, one which isn't familiar with the game. Maybe it's just a case of a new generation of designers and decision makers taking over. Gives the game a less refined and tight feel though (like it did pre 4.0).

 

[oblivionmanman 2476]

its difficult as some some player did pp and im one chopped and changed collect ie pack hounds etc,others didnt,now if you stick to a power you can get all the stuff by staying with one power but have to stay with that power,its a hard subject to breach,im actualy wasting my time doing pp2 but at least it give me something to do each week, each to there own in this case,im a long time player as are others but others are fairly recent, give them a chance i say,rank only applies to pp2 if you want the goods just a game thing doesnt make you a better player.

 

[Knuttin Atoll]

This is where the care packages are supposed to come in, it's just that the rewards in there are not unique and kinda irrelevant after the engineering rebalance. At any point in the game you'd be better off getting the materials any other way than grinding merits just to get the next care package (which would be random anyway and not guaranteed to give you the mats you actually want).

Elite would definitely have all the parts there to fill in the rewards with interesting stuff players would want so it feels more like you're guaranteed something interesting every few levels with a big unlock every 10 levels or so.

Instead of just unlocking powerplay modules spaced evenly apart, maybe give us 1-2 free versions of the module at earlier, currently empty levels, before we can buy as many of it as we want for ourselves. Maybe a few crappy power-specific prebuilt ships that you can't modify thrown in as bigger unlocks somewhere along the ranks. Power specific titles, skins, hud colors, etc - most games that go for a rank system like this will shower you with multiple rewards per level (even if the rewards are bad like a Type-7 skin, a ship which FDev must hate for sure) to get the dopamine juices flowing.

We don't get a satisfying rank up animation.

Ultimately though those other games do that for a simple reason - the rank system would just be a bland uninteresting grind without those distractions to hide it. Now adding in all the stuff to fill 100 ranks with rewards would be a nontrivial amount of work, but maybe that should just have shown you don't have enough to pull off a 100-level grind like that.

I don't actually think the original PP levelling system was completely off the mark (in hindsight). Wasn't it 4 or 5 levels, with increasing benefits connected to them. I don't see why they couldn't have kept that particular aspect, perhaps just added some titles (similar to Elite ranks) to make it less abstract from a lore perspective.

The biggest issues were (again, imo) the merit decay and the mind numbing activities associated with levelling up, including UI choices to somewhat speed it up when it came to hauling PP cargo - clicking through 75 times fast tracking cargo allocations to fill a Type-9 was a sure way to put players off it - that it survived for so many years unchanged is ... impressive, in a twisted way. But they could've easily addressed it with a minor QoL patch in the past, but chose not to.

I would've also liked FDev to be bolder around making a PP pledge come with noticable consequences - can't fly Imp/Fed/Ali ships any more depending who you pledged for (maybe still allow access via black market at the cost of credits), restrict access to certain systems (with a bribe backdoor costing X credits or minor faction rep perhaps circumnavigating that), can't rank with superpowers concurrently anymore, and so on. Would've required a rework with a larger scope, and annoyed a few players perhaps, but could've contributed positively to the world building. The more of this lowest common denominator design gets applied you just keep trying to please everyone while truly satisfying no one.

its difficult as some some player did pp and im one chopped and changed collect ie pack hounds etc,others didnt,now if you stick to a power you can get all the stuff by staying with one power but have to stay with that power,its a hard subject to breach,im actualy wasting my time doing pp2 but at least it give me something to do each week, each to there own in this case,im a long time player as are others but others are fairly recent, give them a chance i say,rank only applies to pp2 if you want the goods just a game thing doesnt make you a better player.

It always amuses me when players (not having a go at you personally) make it sound like these rules and designs are set in stone, like a force of nature that can't be changed and has to be worked around or ignored.

Frontier designed it that way and they could easily amend it, and when I'm imagining being a developer who was involved in creating those locked-behind-grind assets, if people decide it's just not worth it they will never experience them, wouldn't I feel that my efforts were kind of wasted?

I mean, I get why they chose it that way, PP seems to (still) need a carrot to make players engage with it at all (a damning verdict if true), though at least with PP1.0 it made sense that Prismos get handed out by the Blue Princess etc., whereas now all powers have access to all of them? It's actually making the powers even less distinguishable (for a new player) as you just pick the one with the bonuses that suit you, modules are all-inclusive (eventually), the page about the powers' ethos etc. may as well be a link to the Arx store instead. It seems Frontier just doesn't care anymore about these little details, versimilitude be damned.

 

[Knuttin Atoll]

To wipe an account, seems like a drastic measure, but at the same time - it's nice to start fresh. Even with all the knowledge not going anywhere, should be exciting, plus a second time around it's definitely easier to plan for things, heh. Not that good that it didn't worked out from the start, and roller coaster of ups and downs is probably something you'd wanted to avoid. But looks like it stopped on the Ups, at least Engineering rework is good, even I can see/fell it.

I regretted it for a while, but now I don't even miss access to the rank locked ships or my FC anymore. Once you realise that you can do everything with base gear and ships, it removes the need to grind for anything that's locked behind a rank or credit wall while affecting your day-to-day gameplay loops relatively little.

Though I will say that participating in CGs and the Thargoid war was not much of a (fun) option any longer when you don't have the right gear at hand, so I stopped engaging in those. The engineering rework has made it easier to catch up again in general though to be fair, it's just the engineer unlocking process that's still a drag (some of them are still bugged and unlock straightaway which helps, been this way for years but I'm not complaining).

If Frontier wouldn't introduce new mechanic/gameplay for resources, then the biggest grind with Colonization would be Cargo hauling and maybe Mining. FC is the biggest help with that, and with your knowledge and experience - it shouldn't take much effort to get it and some credits-safety net to start with, even with just Exo-bio.

Kind of. I went for a 5k LY trip (as mentioned above) and made close to a billion over the course of a few days of Exo. You're right that with some dedication, which I can't really muster anymore now, I could probably get back to the FC hamster wheel faster than ever before, but I see the FC more like a burden these days. I would still prefer if the game's economy and credit supply wasn't so desperately out of whack, which would put the fun into the early game progression again. But that ship seems to have sailed, and new players won't know what they're missing out on, I'm glad I could experience it in the early days of the game though.

In the mean time, I'm looking for potential systems/areas, to have options once conditions for selection are clear, and after it's launch - probably going to join with other commanders/group in one of these areas, because something tells me that solo it would be insane, hehe. How much I'm going to be involved idk, depends on how the feature will be, how it's going to connect with BGS, PP, Superpowers. At this point I'll still have RP adventure to fallback to.

I'm thinking it'll be similar effort as Operation IDA back in the days. Given my current unwillingness to grind a large amount of assets (ships that are effective enough to make somewhat of a difference, FC, credit assets that presumably will also be needed for unlocking and/or purchasing assets) I'll probably end up simply checking out other players' creations and then decide whether I want to jump on the band wagon myself after all. Right now, can't see it but who knows. It really depends on Frontier's design decisions - I still remember the initial FC maintenance fees during the beta, they were eye-wateringly crazy (wasn't it like 150m per week or something like that?) and if they decide against a proper beta phase and acting on player feedback once more and instead just YOLO the numbers involved again, well.

But as Disemboweled Ego said, and with regards to your first post - I hope Colonization brings some form of refreshment for existing systems that it would inevitably rely on and utilize, so it's not just more of the same with different set of bars, and players with any number in time played could have fun. It'll surely be the most prominent feature of the game, at least for player-driven content, so it has to improve/change/polish core systems. Hopefully. We will see.

Agreed, and fingers crossed.

 

[Gabriel H]

Ultimately though those other games do that for a simple reason - the rank system would just be a bland uninteresting grind without those distractions to hide it. Now adding in all the stuff to fill 100 ranks with rewards would be a nontrivial amount of work, but maybe that should just have shown you don't have enough to pull off a 100-level grind like that.

It just feels like someone decided there should be 100 ranks, and then struggled to make that number meaningful. Players can see and feel that a mile away, and instead of making it engaging it drives people away. Cut it to 50, rebalance the merit gain.

 

[metatheurgist]

Another Fantasy RPG convention. We had magic crafting. Now we got 100 levels.