I'm extremely envious of that. I wish such a simple change would do so much for me. Yea, they are great to look at, they really did a great job, but I'm still in no rush to spend weeks outside the bubble just cruising around. Exploration just isn't that for me, but it is what it is in the game. I'm hoping Q4 will change that, but until then if I want to look at and take pictures of barren geography the desert is only about an hour drive away for me.
Starting To Seriously Lose Faith
- Thread starter Frenotx
- Start date
I'm extremely envious of that. I wish such a simple change would do so much for me. Yea, they are great to look at, they really did a great job, but I'm still in no rush to spend weeks outside the bubble just cruising around. Exploration just isn't that for me, but it is what it is in the game. I'm hoping Q4 will change that, but until then if I want to look at and take pictures of barren geography the desert is only about an hour drive away for me.
Very much agreed cmdr. Yet, it is also a very positive thing when we are induced to awaken from gameplay trances we tend to entertain.
But yeah, just the mission board itself with few if any solo oriented missions can unplug that rhythm well enough.
If only, updates can be added in a way that embraces what was working and being enjoyed that was developmentally intended would probably go far to
help reduce the fan base backlash with each patch.
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Players love the untold, the secrets, the hidden and the unforseen.
Explorers love to silently cruise the unknown depth of infinity, listening to any signal out there that makes them surprised and intrigued.
Fighters love to boldly go into the fray with the promise of blood, sweat and honor.
Traders love to see their ships get bigger, their knowledge greater and their cashpile higher.
Diplomats love the drama, the intrigue of the diplomatic victory. The unity and the structure of the political lifeform that is the Bubble.
Aliens love the humans, as food, as distraction and as a petting zoo.
Brilliance is when Raxxla is never ever found, but always sought, with plenty of clues that lead them on.... to something... and nothing.
It is the path to wherever it leads, that is what we seek. Not the actual end or the goal.
The road is better remembered than the final act or destination.
There is no destination, only a road of opportunity.
Explorers love to silently cruise the unknown depth of infinity, listening to any signal out there that makes them surprised and intrigued.
Fighters love to boldly go into the fray with the promise of blood, sweat and honor.
Traders love to see their ships get bigger, their knowledge greater and their cashpile higher.
Diplomats love the drama, the intrigue of the diplomatic victory. The unity and the structure of the political lifeform that is the Bubble.
Aliens love the humans, as food, as distraction and as a petting zoo.
Brilliance is when Raxxla is never ever found, but always sought, with plenty of clues that lead them on.... to something... and nothing.
It is the path to wherever it leads, that is what we seek. Not the actual end or the goal.
The road is better remembered than the final act or destination.
There is no destination, only a road of opportunity.
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The issue i have with this statement is that all games have only 2 - 4 reskined gameplay mechanics. The difference is that these other games have a story to bind those mechanics together to give the illusion of depth. But at the end of the day most mechanics are just as simple as what we have in ED.
True, and it took years to start doing that. Shame.
Me as well. I've been bopping around space just looking at the planets for the past few days, occasionally going down to drive around for fun, picking up materials along the way, and this has been the most fun I've had with Elite for over a year. Exploration feels good again to me, thanks to 3.0.
I saw a video yesterday that made a lot of sense. And would be a simple way to make the gameplay emergent. An it’s only using things the game already has in it, it’s stuff it already does, just have to allow the systems to talk to each other.
So, say you’re out on a Federation mission, they ask you to find them a mining node that is Prestine Metallic. You find one out in the black somewhere, but it’s so rich you think heck, I’ll keep this to myself and not tell the Federation, or you sell the info to a different power instead. His does two things. Makes you wanted in Federation systems (while also making you rich as a trade off). Also, it makes the location of this new node available to other players who now flock there to load up on painite. The game sees an increase in traffic and assigns a Rez or two there. As the flow increases even more, the game sees a need for a dock and creates one in the system. This activity will of course draw pirate players to the system, and pirates will attract bounty hunters. Now we have a new fledgling system in game that was made via emergent gameplay. A single miners decision to be greedy made a fairly large effect on the game and how others are playing it.
So, say you’re out on a Federation mission, they ask you to find them a mining node that is Prestine Metallic. You find one out in the black somewhere, but it’s so rich you think heck, I’ll keep this to myself and not tell the Federation, or you sell the info to a different power instead. His does two things. Makes you wanted in Federation systems (while also making you rich as a trade off). Also, it makes the location of this new node available to other players who now flock there to load up on painite. The game sees an increase in traffic and assigns a Rez or two there. As the flow increases even more, the game sees a need for a dock and creates one in the system. This activity will of course draw pirate players to the system, and pirates will attract bounty hunters. Now we have a new fledgling system in game that was made via emergent gameplay. A single miners decision to be greedy made a fairly large effect on the game and how others are playing it.
I just think that would be so cool. Especially if it’s a system you were first to discover. Imagine that. You’re the first to discover a system and a fairly small decision you made has resulted in that formerly cold, dead, system to become a bustling little place where other players now come.
It could even give power play some new life. Say you get that mission and you’re like ‘hey I know of one just a few jumps away. Only issue is it’s in Imp/Alliance space.’ But you tell the feds about it anyway. So PP players get a message that the Feds are in need of reserves and CMDR _______ has found one just outside our reach in Imp/Alliance space. So a PP mission is created to expand into and take over that system.
Quite so. Space is Elite's biggest strength and its biggest weakness. Other games have masses of scenery which often gives an illusion of 'stuff happening' when in actual fact you're still moving from A to B with object C to give it to person D who gives you reward E. Sometimes you fight bad dude F on the way and he drops surprise loot G. That's a standard Elite carry and fetch mission, only they have to be designed with lots of edge cases in mind and the scenery is space. Which is cool, but often empty.
That said it can still be done better and I'd hope Tier 2 npc's will give another layer of more interesting stuff to do along with more planet types etc. I'd let the BGS loose a little more and give players more influence over them.
Context for action. That's what other games have and ED has not.
This is why the witcher can turn fetch quests into an epic story, and ED cannot. Most ED actions lack context and meaninfull consequences.
I'd agree with that, hence my comment about the BGS being in players face more rather than than hiding at the back of the room mumbling quietly to itself.
Example I suggested some time ago.. https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/353990-Special-BGS-Altering-Missions
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They need to make traveling from point A to B more interesting.
In most open world games there are dangers you have to detect and navigate around. There is loot to be found on the way. There are enemies that may attack you on the way.
If there were pirate bases on certain systems. Players could run into these pirate systems and mark the system as dangerous. Other players who are combat oriented could come in wings to clear out these pirate nests. Until they're clear players could navigate around these systems or take the risk of trying to get through by stealth undetected.
That's why the current situation sucks, 3.0 was supposed to be fixing broken game mechanics.
I wouldn't have worded it in quite the same way -- certainly not with car comparisons! -- but it's hard not to agree with the OP to some degree.
I've already said this elsewhere, but in my opinion what's missing from this game is the feeling of David Braben's hand on the tiller. For three decades the world of Elite was Braben's world (Ian Bell's contributions to the original were vital but he himself had long since washed his hands of it) and the games were glimpses into it. Each of the different versions of Elite, then Frontier and FFE, even those programmed by different teams, seemed to offer an enticing peek into a universe much vaster than the technology could render.
Then along came the Kickstarter and here was David Braben once again, offering the opportunity to enter his world but this time with radically better technology, community input, a dedicated hand-picked team, no publisher interference. It was going to be amazing.
I won't bore everyone with a rehash of the last five years; those who've been here for the journey know the relevant details and those who joined us later probably don't care. But here we are with the product of all that effort and... am I alone in feeling kind of underwhelmed? There's a paradox to ED: it manages to somehow be a visually spectacular, unique, immersive first-person space game but at the same time give the impression of having fallen well short of its potential.
And I can't help but feel that the reason for that is at least partly down to a shortage of Braben. ED is a great game, an even more amazing technology demo, but it's definitely not "the game I want to play" that David Braben was promoting in his videos and talks in 2013/2014. Maybe it can still become that game, but I wonder whether it ever will when there's little evidence that he's still calling the shots.
FD are technical wizards at what they do, but their design choices are all over the place and I'm not sure even they know what game it is they're trying to create. Compare the focus of David Braben's Development Diaries with the on-the-fly, reactionary stuff in some of the recent FD videos. IMO, if the game is to reach its fullest potential, we need that focus back.
I've already said this elsewhere, but in my opinion what's missing from this game is the feeling of David Braben's hand on the tiller. For three decades the world of Elite was Braben's world (Ian Bell's contributions to the original were vital but he himself had long since washed his hands of it) and the games were glimpses into it. Each of the different versions of Elite, then Frontier and FFE, even those programmed by different teams, seemed to offer an enticing peek into a universe much vaster than the technology could render.
Then along came the Kickstarter and here was David Braben once again, offering the opportunity to enter his world but this time with radically better technology, community input, a dedicated hand-picked team, no publisher interference. It was going to be amazing.
I won't bore everyone with a rehash of the last five years; those who've been here for the journey know the relevant details and those who joined us later probably don't care. But here we are with the product of all that effort and... am I alone in feeling kind of underwhelmed? There's a paradox to ED: it manages to somehow be a visually spectacular, unique, immersive first-person space game but at the same time give the impression of having fallen well short of its potential.
And I can't help but feel that the reason for that is at least partly down to a shortage of Braben. ED is a great game, an even more amazing technology demo, but it's definitely not "the game I want to play" that David Braben was promoting in his videos and talks in 2013/2014. Maybe it can still become that game, but I wonder whether it ever will when there's little evidence that he's still calling the shots.
FD are technical wizards at what they do, but their design choices are all over the place and I'm not sure even they know what game it is they're trying to create. Compare the focus of David Braben's Development Diaries with the on-the-fly, reactionary stuff in some of the recent FD videos. IMO, if the game is to reach its fullest potential, we need that focus back.
Amem to that!
I think this is down to FDev's approach to game design & their approach to fixing gameplay problems:
I think FDev believe that the best games are those which feel 'real' & which take a long time to learn & master. And they believe the best way to achieve this is by having a simulation of (some aspect of) the world, which the player interacts with.
Hence all their games are designed "Simulation first, game second", aka "Let's make this simulation a fun game". (They just manage to hide the simulation part better in some of their games.)
And so any new additions to their games also have to fit into their simulation framework.
I'm not saying this is a bad way to make games, but it is a bit unusual. And not appropriate to all types of players, nor all types of games.
While their approach to fixing gameplay problems is quite abstract: They look at the problem(s), and rather than implementing the 'obvious' solution (which might be short sighted), they instead try to find the underlying cause of the gameplay problem(s), and then design a solution to solve that underlying problem. And if they can make one gameplay change which fixes several problems, so much the better.
On paper this sounds like a good idea, but in practice they often seem to loose sight of what the player will think of the changes. Their game designers seem to sit in ivory towers, meticulously planning their gameplay changes/additions (preferably as intricate rule-based systems that they can hang their gaming degrees on)... And then hand them off to the poor programmers who have to implement them exactly as written, without worrying whether they've overlooked anything. They then roll those changes out to us, without allowing for any real internal feedback (apart from fixing implementation bugs).
Basically they treat us players as inscrutable black boxes, who cannot be understood or easily predicted. They prefer to let us be the guinea pigs for new features, and take our feedback into consideration for the next version of the game (in many months time)... Rather than first iterating on new features internally (which would take more development time, but would save us players much angst).
They also seem to love designing big complex systems (simulations?), rather than trying to make games simple to learn. Which takes us back to my first point about their games being simulations first, games second.
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Frontier got the message, I think. Beyond is an attempt to reset the game a bit to better respond to how players interact. But after 4+ years of not really understanding what players are doing, and some pretty crazy missteps (original engineering basically was completely ignorant of actual player interaction) combined with massive massive changes, it simply won’t improve overnight. Or even next week.
Part of Frontier’s issue, is that they just haven’t understood player interaction. I can only assume they have virtually no telemetry with the game, and clearly their QC team is purely triaging major changes when presented to the community.
Frontier are working hard. And they are trying. They just are struggling I think to work out “where to, from here”. How do they improve the experience? The forums are full of diametrically opposed commentary; people often have an axe to grind and there’s no small amount of pushing to get entire parts of the community forced out, along with a fundamental refusal to accept the game is both simulation and adventure.
All of this conspires to create a lot of noise. Very little signal. When you add the extreme changes and degrees of values Frontier persists in using, it’s a bit of a bad recipie.
Part of this is Frontier becoming intimately familiar with the player experience. Part of it is making more conservative changes. Part of it is listening. And part of it is learning when to say “no” to people.
I want to believe if any team can get a handle on it, it’ll be Frontier. They are good people. The question, really, is will they end up a bit like Warframe and other titles where huge numbers abandon, forcing the developer to fundamentally rebuild the game based on a deeper understanding because the alternative is to go under.
Honestly? I think they will take that hard road. Hard core people will stay. But a lot of players won’t accept the current situation because it’s not sustainable. Beyond is the start of that road imho. I wish Frontier all the best and hope this works out. I really do. Elite is amazing.
Part of Frontier’s issue, is that they just haven’t understood player interaction. I can only assume they have virtually no telemetry with the game, and clearly their QC team is purely triaging major changes when presented to the community.
Frontier are working hard. And they are trying. They just are struggling I think to work out “where to, from here”. How do they improve the experience? The forums are full of diametrically opposed commentary; people often have an axe to grind and there’s no small amount of pushing to get entire parts of the community forced out, along with a fundamental refusal to accept the game is both simulation and adventure.
All of this conspires to create a lot of noise. Very little signal. When you add the extreme changes and degrees of values Frontier persists in using, it’s a bit of a bad recipie.
Part of this is Frontier becoming intimately familiar with the player experience. Part of it is making more conservative changes. Part of it is listening. And part of it is learning when to say “no” to people.
I want to believe if any team can get a handle on it, it’ll be Frontier. They are good people. The question, really, is will they end up a bit like Warframe and other titles where huge numbers abandon, forcing the developer to fundamentally rebuild the game based on a deeper understanding because the alternative is to go under.
Honestly? I think they will take that hard road. Hard core people will stay. But a lot of players won’t accept the current situation because it’s not sustainable. Beyond is the start of that road imho. I wish Frontier all the best and hope this works out. I really do. Elite is amazing.
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