Since we already know that carriers won't be introduced and are delay to an indefinate amount of time later, I was wodnerign what else Q4 will present.
Exploration and mining overhaul. This sounds actually promising with more tech and interesting gameplay rather than scan-scoop-jump and holding LMB or the primary firetrigger. However, with all the new gameplay additions, we still don't have any reason to do mining in the first place. Same with exploration. Except if you are a tourist and photograph, there is no point in exploring the 'verse as there is absolutely nothing *useful* to find. Some rare exceptions like Dav's hope for material farming, okay cool but even that is a boring gamepaly that involves more relogging and scooping than anything else.
Furthermore, more modules mean bigger ship requiernments and we need more internal space. Let alone all this nonesense with the limpets. Get one single module that can fire different types of limpets and get rid of the cargo requernment on top. Exploration? Allow us to find rare blueprints that we can personally unlock so for example we could mod tech broker modules with them. Heck, I'd go treasure huntign all the way ... if there would be a treasure.
Anyhow, let's skip the boring part and jump right to the point of this thread.
Personally, I don't believe that Q4 will bring any meaningful content or changes to the game. You can polish all of your worthless gameplay but noone will do it as long as it is worthless or boring (worthless in terms of credit/material rewards or something else). Why mining if I can do 50m/h with missions? Why exploring if I can rank grind with passengers 10 times faster? Why trading if I can do haulage missions that give way more profit?
So my bet is that all these changes will be highly played upon release or during the beta but then barely touched due to nomeaningful or valueable rewards. We are excluding the fun here, people will always do something that has no actual point if it is fun. Examples are PvP, BGS, PP and the like. They are of no use but for some they are fun and these activities are played.
However, my bet (and fear) in that matter is that Q4 and thus, ultimately the whole beyond series so far will be a multicrew and CQC of bigger scale. Once touched and then barely used again as there is no reward, no actual point in doing it. The fear is coming from the announcement that there won't be any update coming soonTM after. Not even for the carriers. What's next? Another paid expansion? You gotta deliver and finish the first season pass first. The foundation is simply not yet finished, let alone from a technical point of view. Elite is unable to put more than a hand full of palyers into one instance without serious and game breaking issues like desynchs, extensive lag or loss of information. How can a whole carrier of a full group with many players be implemented and most importantly, what should it do? We really don't need another mobile station. There are more than enough already. And why would you want a carrier in deep space? Explorers can survive on their own anyhow and it's not like you suddenly need to switch loadouts to a combat or trading vessel in deep space.
Lastly, what can squads look like? Since carriers won't be coming? What else could squadrons bring to us that is not already there? Official clan tags? Already available through ship names. Official war declarations? That would be interesting. Our own minor BGS faction and controlable station? Yes pelase, though Frontier has never done any significant and deep changes to existing content. I believe squads will be nothing more than a clan tag and a forum or station board function that has absolutely no impact on anything. We also know that we can't store and share equipment amongst squad members due to "gold digging fears" (which are straight forward said, blantly stupid. Other games have player trading as well and it works perfectly fine).
So after beyond has ended, we will still be stuck with most of the original issues like netcode, balancing issues, lack of end game content or actually a reason to paly this game beyond a Type 6 and a Viper. If it wouldn't be for PvP, the BGS or PP there wouldn't be anything to do.
Finally, what exactly did take so long to develope? I'm not seeing actual results.
Exploration and mining overhaul. This sounds actually promising with more tech and interesting gameplay rather than scan-scoop-jump and holding LMB or the primary firetrigger. However, with all the new gameplay additions, we still don't have any reason to do mining in the first place. Same with exploration. Except if you are a tourist and photograph, there is no point in exploring the 'verse as there is absolutely nothing *useful* to find. Some rare exceptions like Dav's hope for material farming, okay cool but even that is a boring gamepaly that involves more relogging and scooping than anything else.
Furthermore, more modules mean bigger ship requiernments and we need more internal space. Let alone all this nonesense with the limpets. Get one single module that can fire different types of limpets and get rid of the cargo requernment on top. Exploration? Allow us to find rare blueprints that we can personally unlock so for example we could mod tech broker modules with them. Heck, I'd go treasure huntign all the way ... if there would be a treasure.
Anyhow, let's skip the boring part and jump right to the point of this thread.
Personally, I don't believe that Q4 will bring any meaningful content or changes to the game. You can polish all of your worthless gameplay but noone will do it as long as it is worthless or boring (worthless in terms of credit/material rewards or something else). Why mining if I can do 50m/h with missions? Why exploring if I can rank grind with passengers 10 times faster? Why trading if I can do haulage missions that give way more profit?
So my bet is that all these changes will be highly played upon release or during the beta but then barely touched due to nomeaningful or valueable rewards. We are excluding the fun here, people will always do something that has no actual point if it is fun. Examples are PvP, BGS, PP and the like. They are of no use but for some they are fun and these activities are played.
However, my bet (and fear) in that matter is that Q4 and thus, ultimately the whole beyond series so far will be a multicrew and CQC of bigger scale. Once touched and then barely used again as there is no reward, no actual point in doing it. The fear is coming from the announcement that there won't be any update coming soonTM after. Not even for the carriers. What's next? Another paid expansion? You gotta deliver and finish the first season pass first. The foundation is simply not yet finished, let alone from a technical point of view. Elite is unable to put more than a hand full of palyers into one instance without serious and game breaking issues like desynchs, extensive lag or loss of information. How can a whole carrier of a full group with many players be implemented and most importantly, what should it do? We really don't need another mobile station. There are more than enough already. And why would you want a carrier in deep space? Explorers can survive on their own anyhow and it's not like you suddenly need to switch loadouts to a combat or trading vessel in deep space.
Lastly, what can squads look like? Since carriers won't be coming? What else could squadrons bring to us that is not already there? Official clan tags? Already available through ship names. Official war declarations? That would be interesting. Our own minor BGS faction and controlable station? Yes pelase, though Frontier has never done any significant and deep changes to existing content. I believe squads will be nothing more than a clan tag and a forum or station board function that has absolutely no impact on anything. We also know that we can't store and share equipment amongst squad members due to "gold digging fears" (which are straight forward said, blantly stupid. Other games have player trading as well and it works perfectly fine).
So after beyond has ended, we will still be stuck with most of the original issues like netcode, balancing issues, lack of end game content or actually a reason to paly this game beyond a Type 6 and a Viper. If it wouldn't be for PvP, the BGS or PP there wouldn't be anything to do.
Finally, what exactly did take so long to develope? I'm not seeing actual results.
