Slightly Dissapointed...

[user2]

Hi there,

I feel as if I'm going 'over the top' into no man's land here by saying this but I am a bit disappointed with the gameplay I have experienced from ED so far.

It seems to be very formulaic and repetitive, lacking depth and storyline. Most of the time I find myself offloading nondescript rare goods from one faceless station to the next or flying round in circles waiting for an unidentified signal to be generated.

It seem totally pointless to be modelling the entire galaxy when it has no originality in the local systems - not to mention the fact that it will be incredibly boring flying any distance from the main systems.

The thing that Frontier have raved on about so much - procedural generation - seems to ED's biggest downfall. It's has relied on it to the point it has neglected giving the game any character or depth.

1. Does anyone else feel the same?
2. Am I not playing the game correctly? (yes i know it's sandbox in nature)
3. Will these issues I raise be attended to in the future?

This said, I'm now off to fly around in circles waiting for unidentified signals to spawn... *YAWN*

 

[Kicks]

Without wanting to suggest you're "doing it wrong", I'm pretty sure if you're playing in the style of "fly around waiting for USSs" and nothing else, then it'd probably appear pretty bland...

 

[GrimThara]

You're not wrong, no need to feel like you're heading into a warzone for saying it. A lot of people feel that way in one way or another, me included.

1- Yeah, a lot of people feel the same myself included.
2 - There is no wrong way to play the game, whatever way you play and enjoy playing is the right way.
3- Theoretically, yes. There is a lot of content and features that are planned to fill the vast void of space with things to do and places to go, we'll just have to wait and hope it's true.

 

[Zallibik]

Hi there,

I feel as if I'm going 'over the top' into no man's land here by saying this but I am a bit disappointed with the gameplay I have experienced from ED so far.

It seems to be very formulaic and repetitive, lacking depth and storyline. Most of the time I find myself offloading nondescript rare goods from one faceless station to the next or flying round in circles waiting for an unidentified signal to be generated.

It seem totally pointless to be modelling the entire galaxy when it has no originality in the local systems - not to mention the fact that it will be incredibly boring flying any distance from the main systems.

The thing that Frontier have raved on about so much - procedural generation - seems to ED's biggest downfall. It's has relied on it to the point it has neglected giving the game any character or depth.

1. Does anyone else feel the same?
2. Am I not playing the game correctly? (yes i know it's sandbox in nature)
3. Will these issues I raise be attended to in the future?

This said, I'm now off to fly around in circles waiting for unidentified signals to spawn... *YAWN*

I can understand where you are coming from and your right in some senses I believe, There is no real "campaign mode" as such, perhaps scripted missions will be added with an expansion somehow I don't know, and appear on the bulletin board from time to time. But it's also very easy to overlook a lot of things in the game as well, for example have you tried, mining, exploration for cash, warzones, resource extraction sites, bounty hunting, pirating a player for his cargo, joining in on the various civil war's, or the onion head drug in the news, increase your naval ranks with the imperials and the federation so you can purchase the "rank" specific star ships.
.
.
Also I believe frontier could add something to the procedural generation like, A very small chance 1 in 100,000 systems you visit could have something special to find, so you know there is always that chance you may stumble across something rare while exploring.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I can't agree. There is plenty to do if you just put your mind to it (and not even considering what might come in the future).

On the other hand, i can name dozens of games which were massively sucessful where you did exactly the same thing over and over again: Diablo, Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Asteroids, Sacred, Quake, etc... the list goes on and on.

At least in ED, the main limitation is only your imagination.

 

[Heathy]

the main limitation is only your imagination.

your opening a can of worms with that one my friend.

 

[iujona]

Hi there,

I feel as if I'm going 'over the top' into no man's land here by saying this but I am a bit disappointed with the gameplay I have experienced from ED so far.

It seems to be very formulaic and repetitive, lacking depth and storyline. Most of the time I find myself offloading nondescript rare goods from one faceless station to the next or flying round in circles waiting for an unidentified signal to be generated.

It seem totally pointless to be modelling the entire galaxy when it has no originality in the local systems - not to mention the fact that it will be incredibly boring flying any distance from the main systems.

The thing that Frontier have raved on about so much - procedural generation - seems to ED's biggest downfall. It's has relied on it to the point it has neglected giving the game any character or depth.

1. Does anyone else feel the same?
2. Am I not playing the game correctly? (yes i know it's sandbox in nature)
3. Will these issues I raise be attended to in the future?

This said, I'm now off to fly around in circles waiting for unidentified signals to spawn... *YAWN*

Totally agree . The game mechanics are bust. Its pure repetition and a time sink. Guess they didn't really play test it or think it through.

 

[Craib]

Couldn't have said it better myself. Have some rep sir.

I can understand where you are coming from and your right in some senses I believe, There is no real "campaign mode" as such, perhaps scripted missions will be added with an expansion somehow I don't know, and appear on the bulletin board from time to time. But it's also very easy to overlook a lot of things in the game as well, for example have you tried, mining, exploration for cash, warzones, resource extraction sites, bounty hunting, pirating a player for his cargo, joining in on the various civil war's, or the onion head drug in the news, increase your naval ranks with the imperials and the federation so you can purchase the "rank" specific star ships.
.
.
Also I believe frontier could add something to the procedural generation like, A very small chance 1 in 100,000 systems you visit could have something special to find, so you know there is always that chance you may stumble across something rare while exploring.

 

[baael]

Diablo, Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Asteroids, Sacred, Quake, etc... the list goes on and on.

oh boy, you know what is a difference between those games and ED? Action...



[video=youtube;nBr7EhL6Jpg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBr7EhL6Jpg[/video]

 

[Von Adder]

See here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=84770

 

[ZeeWolf]

It requires a certain mindset to take responsibilities over your actions in the 'open world'. There are actually some interesting little things to discover out there. Last night I came across the federal 'check points' on my way to Sol. I've not read or heard about these in the forum so it was interesting to drop out and see the Feds chat over the comms about why they were there etc. If you read Galnet and head towards some of the systems mentioned it can be interesting.

I spent a few days in some backwater resource extraction system helping the local security forces fight a faction known as the 'family'.

Then I spent a whole evening trading unsuccessfully in a Type 6, it was kind of boring but largely that's because I chose to do that. I could keep a combat/exploration ship in a nearby station and alternate between them.

While it could do with a whole load of more 'stuff', if you choose to do something dull in an open world game no amount of extra features or story will make it more interesting for you.

 

[CaptainKremmen]

Totally agree . The game mechanics are bust. Its pure repetition and a time sink. Guess they didn't really play test it or think it through.

It's pure repetition if you do the same thing again and again, yes. And if you do the same thing, time after time and don't enjoy it, it's a time sink in a bad way, sure.


Me, I'm currently trying to improve relations with Jet Comms, a faction from Ho Hsi that a bunch of players collectively bolstered in terms of influence, tipping the whole system over to civil war. I've just collected half a dozen computer components they were after, plus a black box from a nearby sector... and have a 150,000CR mission payout waiting for me for killing a pirate lord named Jane. It was tough knocking out that Anaconda, as I'm no longer using shield cells - I didn't like the way they changed my game approach. But kill it I did... with a hold of goods, and the stolen black box, too. Glad the cops never showed up to "help", or I would have been in even more trouble.

It's back to the civil war conflict zones, after that, to try out my gimballed cannons again.

A week or two ago, I was taking a tour of the Pleiades cluster. Found a black hole there - the gravitational lensing was awesome.

In between, I've taken rare goods 150 LY from A to B, and sold them for really good money. I've flown with a mate of mine from work, snuck into stations with heaps of illegal goods, mined asteroids that spit out 50% platinum chunks... after lugging a refinery and mining laser 135 LY to a far-flung colony.


That's just since release.

I was doing different stuff at other times before then.

 

[Commander Dave]

Storyline games are shallow.
Once the story is over what's left to do?
Nothing.
You put the game down and that's the end of that.
Elite has no storyline, that has to come from you.
Life has no storyline, that has to come from you.
If you can't find your own direction in the game then look around and see what others are doing. Perhaps think about doing something similar. You have to develop your own direction and purpose in this game.
In time you'll figure out that direction.

 

[user2]

Thanks for your input everyone. Don't get me wrong, Elite is a great game, just one i fear is a little flat and tedious. It's that's fear that makes me concerned about it's future unless something is tweaked.

Up till now I had been trying to join the alliance faction. The missions I'd been doing were a few personal rare goods trips and numerous pirate hunting missions. Although my rep was hi, no unique alliance missions had appeared yet.

I've taken on board your advice and I've tried to change my gaming style. I decided to go and find one of my mates, and kill him. Although i took great delight in this idea, i couldn't actually find him as he wasn't in open play the coward. After this failed attempt at fun i decided to try and get a permit for Sol, by doing some federation oriented missions, I quickly managed to get up a rank in with the Feds and now I see a little more promise in the game.

However i stand by my main argument that the game lacks depth or character. So much of the game is just accelerating or decelerating - Moon Lander has already satisfied this objective completely.... *stops writing and plays Moon Lander for 10 minutes and has an amazing time*...

To have fun one would expect that you would do missions from the bulletin board; from what i have seen, missions involve:

- running cargo
- searching for unidentified signals (these include pirate hunting, bounty hunter killing etc)

Worryingly, so much of the content that should generate fun and depth seems to hinge entirely on unidentified signals. Seems like lazy programming. Procedurally generate everything - then through in some regular spawning doorways into sub levels containing a very limited level of uniqueness and originality.

Games like PacMan or Space invaders have character (maybe not depth) and an objective. If a game lacks character, then everything becomes flat and meaningless, the factions just mere names, allegiance is nothing more than a soulless percentage the list of casualties can be endless. The objective in Elite it seems is to become Elite - which would appear to involve countless hours of acceleration and decelerating and flying round in circles (yes, this is the most effective, and least time consuming way to get the unidentified signals to spawn). A little hint to offer on this: hunt for them at the slowest speed you can in super cruise and they spawn much closer - which is another very unimaginative element of the gameplay.

This tedious nature of this accelerating and decelerating is down to the logarithmic way in which ED deals with scale. All it would take is a little mathematical tweaking of the code to reduce the buggering about one has to do when actually trying to get somewhere.

Another point related to this is that Frontier wanted the game to be seamless. I'm afraid to say that it doesn't appear that way when targets disappear when the drop out of super cruise. It makes the walls between system and system object pretty glaring.

From what a lot of you are saying is that the game itself will not generate fun; you have to imagine it in your head...

 

[Connor Caple]

I like the open-ness and the scope of the game, I just want a better on-board computer. A much better onboard computer. I'm thinking more like X3 here - really - that's what it needs for me! Nice upgrades purchasable, more memory, useful trading data, etc.

If I wanted a ship computer as backwards as ED's, I could have kept my Atari ST...

 

[rdizz]

Closest thing to a story line is a twitter feed in all the cookie cutter ports. I have to agree with the op 100% on all of his points. However I still have high hopes for what the future brings to this game. I just hope it's not a day late and a dollar short like so many games before it. Maybe I am setting myself up for disappointment again... who knows.