I've just been reading through the "Pause Button" thread, and I figured I'd share a few things I'm finding a bit odd.
For starters, players have been questioning the use of the word "Pause" in this game for a while. Why would they call it that? Why not something more accurate, like "Menu"?
A few things that are really getting to me lately are the following:
1) Disabling all menus if when docked you select "Outfitting" from the menu. I can get around this by entering the hanger first, and then doing other things while the ship plays though an animation, but why lock me out? Personally, I'd prefer to have certain menus only available to you if you actually enter the hanger. Once or twice I've clicked on that by accident. Other times, I literally just want to check if they have a certain module in stock, and have to sit through a long, boring animation just to find that they don't, which then leads to...
2) The long boring launch animation. Luckily on this one, they don't completely lock all other menus. If you press launch, you can check your side menus and plan your route. But why is the animation so long? It just seems so egotistical to me. I don't mind the rotation, and sliding in to place, but what on earth is the deal with having to wait for that staircase to fold down? If you don't fly off straight away, it stands back up anyway, and there's occasionally a large tower in front of you anyway, so it's not like people will just fly forwards. I fly vertically up, and then out the system. Why do I need to sit there for an additional 14 seconds just to watch the pointless animation? Does anyone know what it does? Also, I've just upgraded my ship to a Lakon... and is it me, or is the launching animation even longer now?
3) Accidentally pressing the Launch button. Man, this one is annoying! Luckily I've only done this twice since I got the game, but what a pain. Not only do you have to sit through the animation, but you can't stop it. Then, once you're released from the dock, you can't just reconnect... nope! You have to leave the station, request docking again, and then fly back in. This one needs a cancel button in my opinion. Just rewind the animation back to the default landing state. Don't force us to leave the entire station!
4) This one's a touchy one, but it's driving me nuts. A mate of mine recently got the game, but he's not interested in anything but combat. He informed me that he was about 20k credits short of something he wanted to buy. I have a lot of money, so I thought I'd help him out. However, the only way I can help him out is by flying into a station, buying the most expensive things they have, flying 10km from the station, abandoning them, and then wait for him to pick them up, fly into the station with his 2 cargo slot Eagle, sell the items, and repeat until he has enough. Why can't I just wire my friends some credits? I know there was talk about farming money... but this is crazy, in my eyes.
5) Say I'm looking to upgrade a weapon, and selling my old one. So I'm docked at a station while voice chatting with my mate who's also docked at the same station. I don't want the gun I have any more, but he does. The thing is, the station we're at doesn't sell the gun I have. I would like to give him the gun... but nope. The only person I can sell my gun to is the outfitter, who will kindly hold onto my gun until I leave the area, but won't sell it to anyone else.
6) Like I said, I recently traded in my Cobra for a Lakon 6. Without leaving the station, I look in outfitting, and find the the jump range of this ship is a lot less, and I can't afford an upgrade, so I want to buy back my old ship. Tough! It's been melted down for scrap, instantly, never to be seen again.
7) Interdiction. My friend was interdicted within the first 5 minutes of playing. Seriously, his first super cruise, and was instantly interdicted. I was flying right next to him, but couldn't do anything. I tried to interdict the person attacking him, and all that did was make my menu go mad for a few seconds. He drops out, and a low wake appears. I lock onto it, drop my speed to the lowest it can go, and slowly fly towards it. No indicator telling me to drop out. I get 3km metres away and decide to manually drop out. I do so, and I'm in the middle of empty space. Meanwhile, my mate gets utterly destroyed, and is immediately put off the game for a short while.
TLDR - What I simply can't get my head around is how the designers can't seem to put their finger on what they want the game to be like. Is it a simulator? Is that why we have to jump through so many hoops just to fly to a system and dock? Why I have to sit through a long, pointless animation of some stairs lowering? But if it's a simulator, why can't I send my mate some credits? Is that not allowed in the future?
The game does so much right, but it gets the simple things wrong. The other day I was playing Torchlight 2 with another friend. I described the experience as a single player game, with a friend on your screen. Neither of us could figure out how to send each other items, or share money. If we weren't on the same screen, we were invisible on the map, meaning the only way to find each other was to verbally direct... It just felt lonely... and that's how Elite feels. Massive... but empty. I don't think any games like this should include boring, pointless, elements.
Game design is meant to be about the player. If something doesn't add to the game, and instead takes something away from the player's experience, then that element should be removed, or at least improved.
*Disclaimer - Love this game, and have been playing it a lot the last week or so... but that cursed stair animation is really starting to grate on me after watching it well over a hundred times.
