Hey folks.
TLDR: "Anything you can do, I can do bett....worse." Apologies for the length of the post, there are a couple of questions at the bottom I wouldn't mind help with please.
Vaguely aware that some of the trickle of content in the works ahead of the apparently delayed next major paid addition will be focused on the new player experience, so in the probably naive assumption that developers read their forums and want feed back....
Quickly said the (old) in the forum titles refers to me, old enough in fact to have played and enjoyed the original, original Elite back in 1984 on a BBC Micro computer. Ironically my potato of a laptop (that to my amazement runs this Elite) takes almost as long to load it as the tape cassette did. Now I mostly only bring this up to remind us that the way we experience gaming has changed quite a damn lot since then, which is to say we don't game in a vacuum, just us and the game. Instead we game surrounded by other players, patched content, communities, non game game related content like streaming, social media etc....etc....and, forum post feedback! Which is to say that our experience and ultimately our enjoyment is coloured by a lot more than just the tape cassette that contains non changing game code. This is relevant because many "new player experiences" begin before their modern tape cassette has even been purchased, and the same happened for me. I saw a bunch of You Tube videos and read a few bits and bobs about Elite Dangerous before I took a chance it would run on said potato.
Think I've followed more or less how, when and (perhaps) why content has been added over the years and like near everything, positives and negatives abound.
So anyway, new player experience. Well, first thing to say is I've re-rolled my character a few times, this might seem like a weird thing to say as there are no "rolls". To be honest there is no character either, we're all the same apart from the Holo-Me. But the re-rolling goes to the heart of my new player experience and the experience I'm choosing to take forward into the game.
First attempt to play, ok, dive in, don't think about things too much, faff around, run some missions, join (not much later leave) a Powerplay faction, experiment with the various elements of gameplay, play in solo/open/whatever, start to get decision anxiety over ships, ship gameplay roles, progression goals....join a Squadron, get on Discord, test ships, upgrade ships, fiddle about with engineering and before I know it....
....I'm feeling the grind, and while that is to be expected in modern gaming what I began to strongly dislike (and what is also sadly to be expected in modern gaming) was the feeling that my actions had little rational consequence. Nothing, but nothing, highlights this more to me than the three major factions, want to "progress" in all of them, at once? No problem! Urgh....
So, ok, that was a gameplay mechanic I could actively choose to ignore. So I did. Decided that I would re-roll and play for just one faction, and just use their faction ships and that would solve that issue for me. So, meh, horses for courses, didn't seem to matter which so I went for the Empire, headed down to Mainia(?) and started to run a huge amount of courier missions to get my faction rank up ASAP to grab the Imperial Courier so I would feel the part. Spam clicking mission accepts and hand in's......so I did that and got the ship and er....started thinking what I would need for the Clipper/Cutter, the credits, the engineering, the rebuy the.....nope, that didn't feel right either.
So now, I'm now thinking, ok this is the other pitfall of modern gaming, the progression trap. Our characters don't progress per ser (no levels) and no individuality through individual actions for the most part, and so in Elite that progression is replaced by ships, get the bigger ship=win the game more. Bigger ship (fleet) means more credits, more time sink, more risk if you loose her (them), more credits to rebuy...more....more....meh.
So, re-rolled again. This time I decided to ignore the major factions, a pox on all their houses, not least because there isn't much to joining then, and joining all of them at once seems bonkers, but also because playing a true Indy is a bit more challenging and I knew would slow me down, (no more spham accepting multiple missions without giving a rats what I was actually doing). So now my new player experience was starting to feel a bit better, my character was focused on something in game, play an Indy.
It was then that I noticed something in the Codex. "Number of ships owned" followed by "Credits spent on ships". This little snippet, this basically has given me everything I need to play Elite and my continued player experience will unfold because of this. It got me to thinking, "Well, ok, my Sidewinder isn't so bad....
....I mean what can't I do in her?"
BINGO!
With that realization I just left the vast majority of the progression trap behind me, now at this point I naturally need to point out that I totally get that for most people it's not a trap, it's a big part of the game for them. They want a fleet, they want to experience how the different ships fly, fight, feel, play, they want to feel that they are progressing and gaining whatever, power, wealth, influence etc etc. And that is totally cool! Problem is, for me, is that power in the gameplay mechanics is a bit illusory, wealth only serves to beget the need for more wealth and influence with NPC's is er....weird.
So as I began to wonder why I needed to chase these things, and as I pondered my Sidewinders capabilities, it naturally occurred to me that I don't need to chase them, so I won't. Everything you can do, I can do worse, Everything your Big Four can do, my Sidewinder can do, worse. I can take her mining, exploring, into combat (er.....right), trading, smuggling, eventing, whatevering....only worse. But I don't need to outfit her much, I don't need to insure her for much, I don't need to engineer her much (can't with just the Indy engineers anyway!).
I watched TheYamicks' videos before buying Elite, and I recognise and relate to the criticism of the grind mechanics in the factions, and powerplay, and engineering and....and....but the main game play element of progression is also pretty grindy, if you let it be. So, I'll try and avoid it all, and focus on the game play (only worse). Now it's not new, I know people have done some pretty crazy things in 'Winders and I'll just be low-waking in their footsteps. But the beauty of Elite is in it's relative freedom to do a few things the way you might like yourself. Also watched Ghost Girafees' videos too, and all the cool things they visited and hijinks they got up felt like sandboxy gameplay, not very grind dependent.
I've just as much chance of running into Raxxla in my 'Winder as a 'Conda. Simple as.
So anyway, er...yes. Developers, you're going to need to do that horrible thing for new players if you want to retain them (which I'm guessing is your problem) and hold their hands for a bit. I don't have a problem with being dumped in a 'Winder and left to it from the beginning, but then er....I played as Jameson.
Guessing many gamers these days have neither the tolerance or patience for the learning curve in Elite, but please don't over do it, please don't dumb the game down as a whole chasing new players.
Quite the opposite in fact, you'll attract more if you finish off your current game mechanics so that they are way more meaningful. I saw the thread below on Half Baked mechanics and that absolutely seems true, but from what I've seen the feeling I get is that the developers want players to do the baking in the sandbox oven, only they keep giving them half a bag of moldy flour, an empty egg shell and a spork and expect them to bake a three tier wedding cake.
Anyway, so far so good, I'm enjoying the game, and I'm enjoying it far more when I'm not focused on the grind (apart from those few Indy Engineers, but not stressing about it). It strangely feels like Elite back then, stuck in my old Cobra Mk III. Got zip, zero, not so much as a fart in space faction gain with the major factions, am still in my starter 'Winder and I'm looking forward to finding Raxxla, how hard can it be?
Oh yeah, questions.
I really don't want any Faction gain, is there anything I should be aware of that might give me it without wanting it? Only run missions from Indy minor faction to other Indy minor faction, only sell goods to stations run by Indy minor faction, only sell Exploration data to the same, don't kill faction ships (but negative faction gain I might be ok with!). Anything else I need to be careful with?
Thanks in advance for any help, and amazed anyone bothered to read to this point anyway.
TLDR: "Anything you can do, I can do bett....worse." Apologies for the length of the post, there are a couple of questions at the bottom I wouldn't mind help with please.
Vaguely aware that some of the trickle of content in the works ahead of the apparently delayed next major paid addition will be focused on the new player experience, so in the probably naive assumption that developers read their forums and want feed back....
Quickly said the (old) in the forum titles refers to me, old enough in fact to have played and enjoyed the original, original Elite back in 1984 on a BBC Micro computer. Ironically my potato of a laptop (that to my amazement runs this Elite) takes almost as long to load it as the tape cassette did. Now I mostly only bring this up to remind us that the way we experience gaming has changed quite a damn lot since then, which is to say we don't game in a vacuum, just us and the game. Instead we game surrounded by other players, patched content, communities, non game game related content like streaming, social media etc....etc....and, forum post feedback! Which is to say that our experience and ultimately our enjoyment is coloured by a lot more than just the tape cassette that contains non changing game code. This is relevant because many "new player experiences" begin before their modern tape cassette has even been purchased, and the same happened for me. I saw a bunch of You Tube videos and read a few bits and bobs about Elite Dangerous before I took a chance it would run on said potato.
Think I've followed more or less how, when and (perhaps) why content has been added over the years and like near everything, positives and negatives abound.
So anyway, new player experience. Well, first thing to say is I've re-rolled my character a few times, this might seem like a weird thing to say as there are no "rolls". To be honest there is no character either, we're all the same apart from the Holo-Me. But the re-rolling goes to the heart of my new player experience and the experience I'm choosing to take forward into the game.
First attempt to play, ok, dive in, don't think about things too much, faff around, run some missions, join (not much later leave) a Powerplay faction, experiment with the various elements of gameplay, play in solo/open/whatever, start to get decision anxiety over ships, ship gameplay roles, progression goals....join a Squadron, get on Discord, test ships, upgrade ships, fiddle about with engineering and before I know it....
....I'm feeling the grind, and while that is to be expected in modern gaming what I began to strongly dislike (and what is also sadly to be expected in modern gaming) was the feeling that my actions had little rational consequence. Nothing, but nothing, highlights this more to me than the three major factions, want to "progress" in all of them, at once? No problem! Urgh....
So, ok, that was a gameplay mechanic I could actively choose to ignore. So I did. Decided that I would re-roll and play for just one faction, and just use their faction ships and that would solve that issue for me. So, meh, horses for courses, didn't seem to matter which so I went for the Empire, headed down to Mainia(?) and started to run a huge amount of courier missions to get my faction rank up ASAP to grab the Imperial Courier so I would feel the part. Spam clicking mission accepts and hand in's......so I did that and got the ship and er....started thinking what I would need for the Clipper/Cutter, the credits, the engineering, the rebuy the.....nope, that didn't feel right either.
So now, I'm now thinking, ok this is the other pitfall of modern gaming, the progression trap. Our characters don't progress per ser (no levels) and no individuality through individual actions for the most part, and so in Elite that progression is replaced by ships, get the bigger ship=win the game more. Bigger ship (fleet) means more credits, more time sink, more risk if you loose her (them), more credits to rebuy...more....more....meh.
So, re-rolled again. This time I decided to ignore the major factions, a pox on all their houses, not least because there isn't much to joining then, and joining all of them at once seems bonkers, but also because playing a true Indy is a bit more challenging and I knew would slow me down, (no more spham accepting multiple missions without giving a rats what I was actually doing). So now my new player experience was starting to feel a bit better, my character was focused on something in game, play an Indy.
It was then that I noticed something in the Codex. "Number of ships owned" followed by "Credits spent on ships". This little snippet, this basically has given me everything I need to play Elite and my continued player experience will unfold because of this. It got me to thinking, "Well, ok, my Sidewinder isn't so bad....
....I mean what can't I do in her?"
BINGO!
With that realization I just left the vast majority of the progression trap behind me, now at this point I naturally need to point out that I totally get that for most people it's not a trap, it's a big part of the game for them. They want a fleet, they want to experience how the different ships fly, fight, feel, play, they want to feel that they are progressing and gaining whatever, power, wealth, influence etc etc. And that is totally cool! Problem is, for me, is that power in the gameplay mechanics is a bit illusory, wealth only serves to beget the need for more wealth and influence with NPC's is er....weird.
So as I began to wonder why I needed to chase these things, and as I pondered my Sidewinders capabilities, it naturally occurred to me that I don't need to chase them, so I won't. Everything you can do, I can do worse, Everything your Big Four can do, my Sidewinder can do, worse. I can take her mining, exploring, into combat (er.....right), trading, smuggling, eventing, whatevering....only worse. But I don't need to outfit her much, I don't need to insure her for much, I don't need to engineer her much (can't with just the Indy engineers anyway!).
I watched TheYamicks' videos before buying Elite, and I recognise and relate to the criticism of the grind mechanics in the factions, and powerplay, and engineering and....and....but the main game play element of progression is also pretty grindy, if you let it be. So, I'll try and avoid it all, and focus on the game play (only worse). Now it's not new, I know people have done some pretty crazy things in 'Winders and I'll just be low-waking in their footsteps. But the beauty of Elite is in it's relative freedom to do a few things the way you might like yourself. Also watched Ghost Girafees' videos too, and all the cool things they visited and hijinks they got up felt like sandboxy gameplay, not very grind dependent.
I've just as much chance of running into Raxxla in my 'Winder as a 'Conda. Simple as.
So anyway, er...yes. Developers, you're going to need to do that horrible thing for new players if you want to retain them (which I'm guessing is your problem) and hold their hands for a bit. I don't have a problem with being dumped in a 'Winder and left to it from the beginning, but then er....I played as Jameson.
Guessing many gamers these days have neither the tolerance or patience for the learning curve in Elite, but please don't over do it, please don't dumb the game down as a whole chasing new players.Quite the opposite in fact, you'll attract more if you finish off your current game mechanics so that they are way more meaningful. I saw the thread below on Half Baked mechanics and that absolutely seems true, but from what I've seen the feeling I get is that the developers want players to do the baking in the sandbox oven, only they keep giving them half a bag of moldy flour, an empty egg shell and a spork and expect them to bake a three tier wedding cake.
Anyway, so far so good, I'm enjoying the game, and I'm enjoying it far more when I'm not focused on the grind (apart from those few Indy Engineers, but not stressing about it). It strangely feels like Elite back then, stuck in my old Cobra Mk III. Got zip, zero, not so much as a fart in space faction gain with the major factions, am still in my starter 'Winder and I'm looking forward to finding Raxxla, how hard can it be?
Oh yeah, questions.
I really don't want any Faction gain, is there anything I should be aware of that might give me it without wanting it? Only run missions from Indy minor faction to other Indy minor faction, only sell goods to stations run by Indy minor faction, only sell Exploration data to the same, don't kill faction ships (but negative faction gain I might be ok with!). Anything else I need to be careful with?
Thanks in advance for any help, and amazed anyone bothered to read to this point anyway.
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