Roadmap leaked??

[Barking_Mad]

That's the trouble with Elite Dangerous, it gives a constant perception of hopefully rather than actually.

The problem with many is that they live moment to moment, patch to patch, hoping each one will fix the game without seeing the bigger picture of a game being written under their noses as they play. That's not easy. It doesn't excuse all the mistakes and bugs, but some folk continually fail to adjust their expectations.

The same conversation is being had about the game now as was being had on release. Yet it's still here and demonstrably better than it was then.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Yet it's still here and demonstrably better than it was then.

Powerplay, CQC say hello.

 

[Factabulous]

Powerplay, CQC say hello.

Not one for the holistic view - are you

 

[Rubbernuke]

Not one for the holistic view - are you

Not really when Powerplay involves combat, BGS, ship engineering etc (i.e. touches the whole game) and from that you see how thin a lot of areas are.

 

[Factabulous]

Not really when Powerplay involves combat, BGS, ship engineering etc (i.e. touches the whole game) and from that you see how thin a lot of areas are.

Most agree the BGS, Engineering etc are getting better, so you're implying that PP is actually getting better. Interesting, I guess it was my interpretation that you were disputing Barking's statement - but actually you were agreeing with him. Apologies for my misunderstanding

Edit: But Engineering and BGS are not involved with CQC Now I'm puzzled again... t'internet is difficult....

 

[Rubbernuke]

Most agree the BGS, Engineering etc are getting better, so you're implying that PP is actually getting better. Interesting, I guess it was my interpretation that you were disputing Barking's statement - but actually you were agreeing with him. Apologies for my misunderstanding

I'm sorry to give you that impression. Engineering has not gotten any better- its effects are random and ill thought out. Balance in general is poor, IMO at least the BGS is worse, PP has gotten worse due to lack of anything (and seems to be invisible to the devs).

 

[amigacooke]

Not one for the holistic view - are you

Taking the holistic view, Elite Dangerous is way short of the features trailed at its inception. That's what I donated for, we don't have space legs (yet), atmospheric planets of any sort to land on, damage models for ships, or flying through the atmostsphere of gas giants.

Frontier have improved what there is, but they've had five years to do that, so no great achievement. The 'biggies' stay firmly in the realm of hopefully rather than actually.

 

[Enderby]

Yes, bit OT but, why are there not even damage effects on ships by now (apart from, what, one?)?
Seems a little... stupid in a game about one’s spaceship.

 

[[VR] optimal_909]

Taking the holistic view, Elite Dangerous is way short of the features trailed at its inception. That's what I donated for, we don't have space legs (yet), atmospheric planets of any sort to land on, damage models for ships, or flying through the atmostsphere of gas giants.

Frontier have improved what there is, but they've had five years to do that, so no great achievement. The 'biggies' stay firmly in the realm of hopefully rather than actually.

Pure speculation, but given the fact that the game's published development path went sideways after the well communicated Beyond (i.e. the long radio silence then the 'bombshell' news posted via a humble forum thread) and that the game is even more on standby mode than Beyond (which was a maintenance season by itself), I think the game's engine for the 'features trailed at its inception' were found unfit, and FDev suddenly decided to rebuild the whole thing right from the basics. The news of the new console generation were probably a catalyst too.

I believe whatever we will get by end of 2020 (reads: H1 of 2021) will be a completely new game that happens to transfer all player progress from the old one.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Powerplay, CQC say hello.

I'd like to see both of those vastly improved too. You could argue Frontier actually tried to do too much early on and should/could have not bothered with both them for the betterment of the game as a whole. That said I'm sure many would rather have the current iterations of PP and CQC than none at all.

They've given themselves the best part of 2.5 years to improve the game, that's nearly half the total development time since launch. I'd expect big improvements. It won't fix everything, but such is life...

 

[babelfisch]

Pure speculation, but given the fact that the game's published development path went sideways after the well communicated Beyond (i.e. the long radio silence then the 'bombshell' news posted via a humble forum thread) and that the game is even more on standby mode than Beyond (which was a maintenance season by itself), I think the game's engine for the 'features trailed at its inception' were found unfit, and FDev suddenly decided to rebuild the whole thing right from the basics. The news of the new console generation were probably a catalyst too.

I believe whatever we will get by end of 2020 (reads: H1 of 2021) will be a completely new game that happens to transfer all player progress from the old one.

I really don't know where that idea comes from. Sure, some things will be rewritten. Some things are always rewritten. It's not unlikely that a lot of stuff will be rewritten for 4.0. But why should they rebuild the entire game? It's not like they are changing engines, and even then there are large parts that would be ported. Why should they get rid of stuff like the character editor which works perfectly fine? We completely rebuild all ships and the flight model?

 

[thistle]

I really don't know where that idea comes from. Sure, some things will be rewritten. Some things are always rewritten. It's not unlikely that a lot of stuff will be rewritten for 4.0. But why should they rebuild the entire game? It's not like they are changing engines, and even then there are large parts that would be ported. Why should they get rid of stuff like the character editor which works perfectly fine? We completely rebuild all ships and the flight model?

To be fair I don't think the idea is everything down to ships and flight model would be redone, it would be the same engine with a massive amount of the same code, but the plan at design stage would have been to rewrite areas from scratch to address over complicated code built over years, design decisions that made sense before feature Y and Z were added, technical debt etc. Elite Dangerous Enhanced Edition, sort of thing.

So it wouldn't be a complete rewrite, it would mean designers & developers sitting down since last year writing design docs and code specifications that they would have longed to have had in recent years, rather than building on a necessarily overly complicated existing design/code.

There's no evidence that's what's happening though lol.

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

Isn't that like saying once the ship framework was in place, virtually any mission activity was little more than an interface tweak? It's surely the amount of logic and code behind missions and mechanics that's the problem for adding lots of variety. Adding different mechanics for first person play is not going to be any simpler than adding new mechanics for in-ship play, I imagine.

Hey Couz* - I don't see any reason it would need to be more complicated than that, just think how passenger missions were introduced? An interface tweak. Megaship interactions scanning datapoints etc? Another interface tweak.

*(my CMDRs surname is Le Chardon, named after the Scottish national emblem, "Milk Thistle" more formally "Thistle Le Chardon")

 

[JesusRocks1988]

The problem with many is that they live moment to moment, patch to patch, hoping each one will fix the game without seeing the bigger picture of a game being written under their noses as they play. That's not easy. It doesn't excuse all the mistakes and bugs, but some folk continually fail to adjust their expectations.

The same conversation is being had about the game now as was being had on release. Yet it's still here and demonstrably better than it was then.

My word, this so much.
You only have to look at what comments come up in the days or hours before a patch drops to see that most don't hold a bigger picture view of the game.
"I hope this update has spacelegs"
"This had better be the update where they fix clogging"
"Does this patch have atmospheric landings?"
"I can't believe they didn't mention spacelegs in the patch notes AGAIN"

Some people seem to conveniently forget the information that Frontier have given out well in advance about updates.
For that, you only need to see the numerous posts where people complain that the last couple of updates have added nothing major and new to the game. The updates Frontier specifically said in advance were for improving the new player experience.
This happened with the two middle updates for Beyond as well. The updates Frontier specifically said in advance were going to be small and the bigger stuff was coming later.

It truly boggles the mind to think that people pay so little attention to what's going on with the game, yet complain so hard when they don't get what they want.

I personally try to hold onto the wider perspective about the game. Remembering that this game is extremely iterative in its development means that I don't get upset when one patch degrades the texture quality of an asteroid while improving stability, because I know the next patch (or a couple of patches down the line) will probably bring the textures back up again.

 

[zimms]

To be fair, I haven't seen many complaints about this patch's content. The vast majority of complaints is about the fact that an update with seemingly little to no content for a large part of the player base broke so much so badly.

 

[Lightspeed]

Looking further afield on the Cobra engine: it is that engine that is responsible for Jurassic Park and for Planet Zoo, so it's a little myopic to suggest the engine isn't up to some of the developments that we wish to see in ED. They have many of those features already !

 

[ThePriestSeto]

Oh no, developer might actually fulfill on pre-sold PDLC. Supplements earnings via optional cosmetic microtransactions! Won't somebody stop this evil?!?

Seriously, where's my plumed helmet. All of this sounds properly nefarious.

Oh no! Maybe they should throw in OPTIONAL lootboxes and OPTIONAL season and battle passes for cosmetics while they are at it .. to supplement their earnings and add a sense of pride and accomplishment, you know

 

[Skip Rockbounder]

I'd like to see both of those vastly improved too. You could argue Frontier actually tried to do too much early on and should/could have not bothered with both them for the betterment of the game as a whole. That said I'm sure many would rather have the current iterations of PP and CQC than none at all.

They've given themselves the best part of 2.5 years to improve the game, that's nearly half the total development time since launch. I'd expect big improvements. It won't fix everything, but such is life...

Earn ARX in CQC, Tournaments and Championships, for Standard class ships and highly modified super killers that have a time limit with hit on target or damage % if both ships survive, Wing tournaments, and full out last man flying free for all's... Hundreds and Thousands of ARX prize money could be up for grabs with titles to carry into main game... there's a lot FDev could do if they chose!

 

[VR Golgot]

Oh no! Maybe they should throw in OPTIONAL lootboxes and OPTIONAL season and battle passes for cosmetics while they are at it .. to supplement their earnings and add a sense of pride and accomplishment, you know

The time to talk in excitable capitals would be when they actually did that no?

They haven't as yet, 5 years in...

 

[thistle]

Hey Couz* - I don't see any reason it would need to be more complicated than that, just think how passenger missions were introduced? An interface tweak. Megaship interactions scanning datapoints etc? Another interface tweak.

So let's say I was a dev, and I added a new interface tweak to the mission board that said "Deliver 100t of Guardian Special Brew to Glasgow Prestwick Starport, Scotland", then the code for atmospheric landings, the new commodity, the Guardian civilisation making Guardian Special Brew, Guardian planets and stations, and all the logic and code to make the mission work would be automatically generated?

I'm being a little factious, but there will have been a lot of high level design documents, specifications, and finally code to be written to those specifications to add passenger missions. Similarly the megaship scanning, it was adding completely new gameplay mechanics, and code. The interface being a tiny part of it I agree it will have slotted in to the existing systems and been to an extent a variation on previous missions, but the logic and code behind will have been complex. Doing it for much more open and complicated first person missions, the complexity will be huge I imagine. Doable of course, but not quick or simple.

*(my CMDRs surname is Le Chardon, named after the Scottish national emblem, "Milk Thistle" more formally "Thistle Le Chardon")

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