Struck a nerve

[Crash Landing]

Just annother whingeing video on ed same content different accent. I don't known why people bother, go off and play f4 or something. Its a game, three hours in differant time, place, environment or reality. Is it so wrong to be satisfied with that?

Nerf this buff that, lets waste collums of text debating why the cutter wont pitch fast or the fdl needs a new...

The games the game stop trying to make it your perfect game and play it for what it is.

 

[Soliluna]

Just annother whingeing video on ed same content different accent. I don't known why people bother, go off and play f4 or something. Its a game, three hours in differant time, place, environment or reality. Is it so wrong to be satisfied with that?

Nerf this buff that, lets waste collums of text debating why the cutter wont pitch fast or the fdl needs a new...

The games the game stop trying to make it your perfect game and play it for what it is.

Whats wrong with suggesting improvements for something you like or at least (if you have no good ideas yourself) discuss where areas need improvements?

 

[Kristov]

Whats wrong with suggesting improvements for something you like or at least (if you have no good ideas yourself) discuss where areas need improvements?

The video brings up some good points, this is true, but he constantly harps on rewards, same as the other videos making the rounds, they ALL bring up a few things that could actually use some improvement on, but the largest part of their commentary is very simple : rewards aren't high enough, give me more credits!

Sorry, but that's not actually suggesting a fix, that's just saying 'I don't like your game, bribe me to play!'. Then what? They'll STILL be doing the same exact things they don't like doing in the first place, they will STILL not be having fun, and they'll turn around and demand MORE bribes to keep playing a game they don't enjoy.

There IS a very simple fix for a game you don't enjoy playing, stop playing it.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

Many people ask "when will missions be finished?" Well, looking at the change log for 1.5 & 2.0, I think it's going to get us pretty close to what the final version of the mission system will look like-multi-stage missions (albeit with only one mission type available in every stage), missions which have to be conducted at a precise time, missions that can be gained away from the bulletin board-via contacts, signal sources & picking up of objects, the very beginnings of escort missions, just to name a few. That serves as a fantastic starting point for the new season, IMHO. It leaves me extremely hopeful that Season 2 will build on this excellent beginning-like bringing in full multi-stage missions, counter-missions from rival factions available from bulletin boards, contacts *and* signal sources, a greater variety of non-monetary rewards for mission completion, extra rewards for extra-successful mission completion & a limited ability to "haggle" over mission rewards (like in Frontier), character driven missions (once we get Tier 2 NPC's), Bulletin Board missions turning up in Power Play, a full revamp of the Military side of the game (as Michael Brookes hinted at in a previous Dev Update), more randomness in what can occur *whilst* you're conducting a mission (like rival pilots trying to thwart you or steal the mission from under you, or sometimes finding your target isn't in the system you were given, so having to do a "scavenger hunt" to find clues to the target's current whereabouts).

I know that's a quite extensive list, but given how far missions have come in just 1 year (they were quite bland & repetitive around December 2014-February 2015), I feel confident that we will see these developments come about.....especially if we keep making these suggestions to the Developers (who, contrary to what some nay-sayers claim, have proven incredibly amenable to the community's ideas, & have a very strong presence on the Forums when compared to other game titles I have played).

 

[Marc_Hicks]

The video brings up some good points, this is true, but he constantly harps on rewards, same as the other videos making the rounds, they ALL bring up a few things that could actually use some improvement on, but the largest part of their commentary is very simple : rewards aren't high enough, give me more credits!

Sorry, but that's not actually suggesting a fix, that's just saying 'I don't like your game, bribe me to play!'. Then what? They'll STILL be doing the same exact things they don't like doing in the first place, they will STILL not be having fun, and they'll turn around and demand MORE bribes to keep playing a game they don't enjoy.

There IS a very simple fix for a game you don't enjoy playing, stop playing it.

I agree, credits are not a driving factor in deciding whether I do a mission or not. I will often take a courier mission (low pay) because it places a strong time pressure on me, & recently has required me to travel long distances in order to complete them....which I consider fun.

What I think improves missions is greater variety-both in the types of missions available & what random wrinkles can occur once you take the mission on (best laid plans & all of that). If we are going to focus on rewards at all, I think we need to look beyond credits. Bigger boosts for reputation & influence. Bigger in-system impacts. Information leading to even more lucrative jobs in other systems (like the location of salvage). Equipment & ships (especially stuff that *only* that your employer can give you).

 

[Kristov]

I agree, credits are not a driving factor in deciding whether I do a mission or not. I will often take a courier mission (low pay) because it places a strong time pressure on me, & recently has required me to travel long distances in order to complete them....which I consider fun.

What I think improves missions is greater variety-both in the types of missions available & what random wrinkles can occur once you take the mission on (best laid plans & all of that). If we are going to focus on rewards at all, I think we need to look beyond credits. Bigger boosts for reputation & influence. Bigger in-system impacts. Information leading to even more lucrative jobs in other systems (like the location of salvage). Equipment & ships (especially stuff that *only* that your employer can give you).

Now THOSE are solutions to the problem they describe, which I honestly don't see as being a problem personally. Thing is, after watching the videos(there's a few of them out right now, all almost exactly the same), that isn't what the complainers want, they want more credits, as that seems to be the only form of engagement they consider worthwhile.

I'd love to see influence/reputation increases personally, leading to more lucrative jobs, etc. That's engagement, you have a stake in what's going on, it's not just more credits which are so easy to come by anyway. I currently only take missions that increase the influence of the Empire, that's it, refuse to touch a mission that doesn't help the Empire or causes it any harm, which means I won't take Empire faction missions that negatively affect another Empire faction. Limits me a lot in some systems, but that's fine, I am an Emperor's man, I was pledged to our current Emperor while her father was still alive when I did PP, and while I no longer do PP(explorer, too much time out in the Black), I'm still loyal to her. My bit of RP and how I have fun making my story in the game, which is rather the point of the game's design, we make our own stories, it doesn't feed them to us.

 

[Lucifer Hate]

The AI is still pretty poor. It's just their loadouts are better and scale with rank.

Thisis exactly the reason why multiplayer needed the wings first. Solo is already super easy to farm in as AI is not good enough for wings to be a needed issue and stii are not

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One running theme through the whole video is that everything revolves around making credits... It's actually a theme I disagree with, making credits should not be the sole reason for doing an activity, it should be a side benefit of doing something you enjoy...

I kind of feel so many people focus strongly on maximising their CPH (credits per hour) sometimes to the detriment of their own fun...

He is also wrong on some of the combat mission values, it's not difficult once you get up in your combat ranking to get missions exceeding 1M reward

This is so true and piracy is proof of this. We take days to make a rebuy back that other activities make back in 1-3 hours. Pirates dont do it for credits per hour but for the fun (though it would be nice to make more)

 

[DefiledDragon]

So how many years have you been bounty hunting in Elite Dangerous now? Oh, right, you haven't been doing it for years, so the rate of pay is probably right where it should be if you go by that, wouldn't you agree? What's your Combat rank at? How is your reputation with the factions in the systems you work out of? Those bear heavily on what you get offered you know.

Ok, well first, I thought I was buying a game, not a work permit for a second job with real time career progression. I don't have 40 hours a week to put into ED. My combat rank is Master and my reputation is Allied.

Secondly, you're missing the point entirely, or I'm not being clear. I'm not saying I want to be flying a python in week 2 or an anaconda by the end of the month, but when traders are raking in 10 million per hour and everybody else is lucky to make 2, well, there's clearly a balance issue there and I don't know how anybody can not see that to be honest. The guy in the video makes a very valid point, there's a choice between fun and progression and that just shouldn't be the case. My second point was that rewards don't scale, either to risk (insurance/repair costs) or to your abilities (ship type/ranking). Yes, higher ranked missions are worth more, but the best payout for a mission I've seen so far was just minutes ago when I docked up and there was a pirate kill mission for Dangerous rank paying just over half a million. Those missions can take anything from 10 to 30 minutes to complete. If you factor in travel time and docking/undocking to cash the missions in, plus assuming you get really lucky and there's another mission just waiting to be picked up, that's an income of 1.5 million per hour, plust bounties which could be anything from 500,000 to 2 million depending on how lucky you are with the spawns.

At the end of the day, if FD chose to scale rewards a little more consistently and that meant that players who prefer a certain play style were able to earn a bit more money, it's not going to break anything and it's not going to change your experience, so why the objection? I don't get it.

I often play late at night while drunk, but I always have my rebuy in the bank

 

[Kristov]

Ok, well first, I thought I was buying a game, not a work permit for a second job with real time career progression. I don't have 40 hours a week to put into ED. My combat rank is Master and my reputation is Allied.

Secondly, you're missing the point entirely, or I'm not being clear. I'm not saying I want to be flying a python in week 2 or an anaconda by the end of the month, but when traders are raking in 10 million per hour and everybody else is lucky to make 2, well, there's clearly a balance issue there and I don't know how anybody can not see that to be honest. The guy in the video makes a very valid point, there's a choice between fun and progression and that just shouldn't be the case. My second point was that rewards don't scale, either to risk (insurance/repair costs) or to your abilities (ship type/ranking). Yes, higher ranked missions are worth more, but the best payout for a mission I've seen so far was just minutes ago when I docked up and there was a pirate kill mission for Dangerous rank paying just over half a million. Those missions can take anything from 10 to 30 minutes to complete. If you factor in travel time and docking/undocking to cash the missions in, plus assuming you get really lucky and there's another mission just waiting to be picked up, that's an income of 1.5 million per hour, plust bounties which could be anything from 500,000 to 2 million depending on how lucky you are with the spawns.

At the end of the day, if FD chose to scale rewards a little more consistently and that meant that players who prefer a certain play style were able to earn a bit more money, it's not going to break anything and it's not going to change your experience, so why the objection? I don't get it.

I often play late at night while drunk, but I always have my rebuy in the bank

First question, why is it unbalanced that trade makes more? That's a serious question and I'd respectfully ask that you consider before answering off the cuff, as the gut response I personally have to that is the same one you and others would make, 'but no other profession makes that much that quickly!', which in a game with an end game and high level content WOULD be a perfectly valid response.

Therein lies the problem, there is no end game, making credits faster or slower doesn't matter, there is NO competition with other players directly VIA the game itself, we aren't in a race to reach anything, PvP is by choice and must be sought out, and no one can see how many credits you have and the only thing we CAN see concerning another player is their Combat rank and the ship they are in, we can't tell what class of modules they have, only see what they've got equipped.

So, in a game where you aren't in competition with other players and there is no end game or high level content, why does it matter that one profession, arguably the most boring of the professions(ok, exploration is boring as hell to many as well, conceded!), makes more than other, less boring and more engaging professions?

 

[DefiledDragon]

First question, why is it unbalanced that trade makes more? That's a serious question and I'd respectfully ask that you consider before answering off the cuff, as the gut response I personally have to that is the same one you and others would make, 'but no other profession makes that much that quickly!', which in a game with an end game and high level content WOULD be a perfectly valid response.

Therein lies the problem, there is no end game, making credits faster or slower doesn't matter, there is NO competition with other players directly VIA the game itself, we aren't in a race to reach anything, PvP is by choice and must be sought out, and no one can see how many credits you have and the only thing we CAN see concerning another player is their Combat rank and the ship they are in, we can't tell what class of modules they have, only see what they've got equipped.

So, in a game where you aren't in competition with other players and there is no end game or high level content, why does it matter that one profession, arguably the most boring of the professions(ok, exploration is boring as hell to many as well, conceded!), makes more than other, less boring and more engaging professions?

Of course it matters. If not for the sake of "fairness" consider this.

Traders. What do they do? Well, they ship stuff from one place to another. Risk factor? Low. Chance of destruction? Low. Profit? High. What will they do with all that money? Well, erm, err, ahem, ...

Combat oriented players. What do they do? Well, they shoot things and make the galaxy a safer place, or not.. Risk factor? High. Chance of destruction? High. Profit? Low. What will they do with the pittance they earn? Pay for repairs, ammo, rebuy costs, expensive ship upgrades to remain competitive etc...

If you're not a born space trucker as some people are, trading is boring, yes. However, it's also the lowest risk profession in the game and yet yields the highest profit. Combat pilots on the other hand put themselves at risk constantly, the modules they need to increase their survivability and therefore profitability are damned expensive, yet they earn peanuts compared to the low risk trading profession. To me, this is an issue. It just doesn't make any sense at all.

Not only that, but I would love PvP to really take off in this game. I don't believe we will ever see that though, simply because combat oriented players don't have any real mechanism to earn the kind of money you would need to earn to be constantly replacing expensive ships. FD's answer to this problem was CQC. In my opinion, this was a mistake. It's seperated the player base and as the chap in the video correctly points out, it's a game outside of the actual game. I think what FD should have done was to provide better profitability for combat focused careers so people could duke it out in the actual game and not some crappy offshoot.

 

[QziQza]

I agree. ED is built to scale. But if there are limitations now, how can ED scale?

the game is not developed within a time frozen bubble, it's development is also closely tied into technological advancements and future developments. many of the restrictions forced upon them are down to the consumers technology, not their own. horizons will be 64bit only, this is a big step forward and will allow them to push harder and do more. if you want to consider the game and its development properly you need to consider more than you do, or don't, currently see on screen.

 

[Soon(TM)]

I've been like that since Alpha, in awe of what the game could be and disappointed in what it actually is turning out to be!

 

[BillD]

Just annother whingeing video on ed same content different accent. I don't known why people bother, go off and play f4 or something. Its a game, three hours in differant time, place, environment or reality. Is it so wrong to be satisfied with that?

Nerf this buff that, lets waste collums of text debating why the cutter wont pitch fast or the fdl needs a new...

The games the game stop trying to make it your perfect game and play it for what it is.

What is wrong with users suggesting that the game actually be improved? If you think it is perfect the way it ease then ignore the thread. It';s not that hard.
Most of the people here are passionate and are wanting to improve or provide input to an evolving game. Not whinging.
I have been into ED since the very early beta and have been playing for 18months or more so and I can see merits in these suggestions.
I am a strong supporter and love the ED universe but just in my immediate friends, when 5 of my friends that used to be into it are no longer playing, we need to pay attention and understand why.
I am glad you think the game is perfect just the way it is. But it needs more complexity and depth for remain viable for the long term.
I don't just chase dollars, I Love mining, but many people don't like mining and are finding everything else is a little too shallow.
Simple message. Ignore it if it offends you.

 

[Cosmos]

Gonna make my own observations, bit long:

1.0 Release

Its far to say that the 1.0 release was pretty poor and at the time it was not so long after the bomb shell about no offline standalone single player game. To paraphrase David, 'Lots of stuff was left of the cutting room floor', and so the game we got wasn't what we had been led to believe we would. What we thought would be a prolonged beta, or gamma, was dropped and they went on to call the game a full release. It was buggy and lacking in a lot of depth. Again, I think the problem here was peoples expectations and FD didn't really keep the community in the loop. I'm guessing this was a business decision - perhaps it was something that was needed especially given financial realities.. Unlike SC FD were not rolling in cash and seeing an ever increasing revenue stream.

Community Goals

When it comes to the releases I was scathing in my criticism of community goals because I felt it was a band aid for what the game was lacking in content ( I now see it as a pragmatic choice given where they were at the time). All credit to FD though because I think over time how they were used was greatly improved upon.

Solo/Open

Generally, when it comes to the game I think the problem it has is that its trying to be everything to everyone, its an mmo, its a single player game, etc.. up till now it hasn't done either one that well. Having both sort of play modes means that neither one gets the focus and both are somewhat watered down. The raging row over solo and open are testament to this.

CQC

CQC is fun for a bit of a pew pew session, and its of a really high quality, but we need to be able to queue from in the normal game from anywhere out of combat and we need a ranks (elo), leauges, seasons, more modes (i.e. 1v1, 2v2), and rewards etc.. The team games are good fun but I don't enjoy DM so much.. The play revolves around kill stealing and jumping on half dead players to win. So not sure it rewards piloting skill that much. Its certainly got potential and I'm hopeful for its future.

In game PvP/Sandbox

On the in game PvP thing I disagree with the points in the vid. Sorry bro, but you don't have to cruise around in your most expensive ship all the time and that leads me onto his other point. He said the game is a sandbox, its very sadly not. Its an open world game. We can't build or destroy any sandcastles and ultimately there isn't any emergent gameplay. On that one its disappointing to me but FD appear to not want that for the game. A lot is said about the inch deep level of content, and to be fair to FD the game is still in its early days, but if the game was sandbox (yeah, a bit more like EvE - perhaps without the game being entirely group controlled) then we could create endless hours of gameplay and content with our actions and presence.

Groups/Clans/Guilds

Its hard work trying to run a group for the game because at its heart its a singleplayer experience that we can share with friends. Especially because there is zero native support within the game, no clans, management etc, but equally there isn't much in the way of team based game play to support it either. So people have been doing this outside the game and everything is third party. Running a group for ED is like trying to herd cats. Then we have this incoherent mess of minor faction player groups and I can't say I'm impressed with the way player groups are being managed, with some having privileged status and access. There seems to be a bias.

Horizons

Having said all this I do like what I have seen of Horizons, I've had a great experience of it. Landing on planets has really opened up the game and it feels a lot more like the Elite game we were backing in KS. In fact I think its a huge game changer and hat off to Frontier for the excellent work they've done. I do wonder though if later down the line we might find ourselves in the same boat of grinding repetitive tasks. I dunno.. this game is just begging to be a sandbox with emergent gameplay.

Without a doubt Horizons is a massive boost to the game and a year on from 1.0 things are looking so much better. I rekon the game is about to massively take off. I'm really excited and upbeat about whats to come this year and look forward to getting into Horizons properly when its released officially.

edit: I'd also say that I think FD have upped their game too in how they connect with the community. It makes a big difference

 

[Xae]

I watched the entire thing.

I'm not in 100% agreement, but close enough.

 

[Soon(TM)]

Watched the full video. Its spot on, explains exactly what is wrong with the way FD are going about the development of this game.

Struck a nerve alright, and ripped a bandage off too!

 

[Webferret]

Day off today, watched the video and have to agree. As much as I love Elite and play it each day for a few hours, this video is pretty much on target. But I am hopefully that once a certain amount of content is in place it will be refined to be a much improved version of it. I am sure FD need to keep pushing out updates and new things in the early year or two and then maybe start getting it nice and polished (One can hope)

Regardless I shall be flying in Elite for many years to come, this is still the game I waited 30 years for since playing Elite on C64.

 

[xondk]

I hope that people will remember that horizon is doing something that hasn't been done before and it suddenly adds a TON of possibilities that season 2 can bring to the game, each update has suddenly an enormous amount of more potential options then stuff just being in space. Also what is being done with horizon is a first on the technical aspect of it, no other game has this level of procedural generation of content, yes it isn't perfect, but at least to me they are clearly working on it, and there's more then enough to keep me playing the game happily so.

And note, despite these lacks you are still here commenting about it, wanting more, I want to mention something hopefully people will think about.

Practically all games are slow in the initial year, and iron out a lot of problems in that year, as time progresses, the game improves and improves, and given the scope of Elite it only gets more and more potential..I get people want "this that this and this" 'now' and that it is difficult to pace yourself with as many games as there are on the market, but remember the size of frontier's team compared to especially star citizen, significantly smaller, yet still has attracted just as many players, and star citizen is still not even close to launch and will do it from an entirely different perspective, where such things as landing on all planets is not in the game, that is not something that is going to happen, at best a few select planets, but that is it.

Elite is using an older development model, foundation->ongoing development, best way to compare it is Eve online in terms of development. And what Elite is doing is very very difficult, anyone that has played around in procedural generation will tell you, generating 'something' is easy and decent looking is not too bad, generating something great looking and actually functional, and makes sense is very hard.

Could Elite be better, yes.
Is it getting better? in my opinion, so very yes.

Is it getting better "fast enough" for me yes. For others...clearly no.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

What is wrong with users suggesting that the game actually be improved? If you think it is perfect the way it ease then ignore the thread. It';s not that hard.
Most of the people here are passionate and are wanting to improve or provide input to an evolving game. Not whinging.
I have been into ED since the very early beta and have been playing for 18months or more so and I can see merits in these suggestions.
I am a strong supporter and love the ED universe but just in my immediate friends, when 5 of my friends that used to be into it are no longer playing, we need to pay attention and understand why.
I am glad you think the game is perfect just the way it is. But it needs more complexity and depth for remain viable for the long term.
I don't just chase dollars, I Love mining, but many people don't like mining and are finding everything else is a little too shallow.
Simple message. Ignore it if it offends you.

Because the suggestions always seem to be focused on bigger credit pay-outs, rather than making the missions themselves more interesting. Case in point-a bog standard Pirate killing mission (kill 3 pirates for 450,000 Cr). Option 1 is simply make it 1 million credits. Option 2 is that, whilst killing off a pirate, you find a Trade Data Cache in the wreckage. When you scoop it, you get a mission update telling you that this trade data would be vital to the faction you're working for, so return it to Station NNNN within a fixed amount of time. The added wrinkle is also that the rival faction will be trying to stop you from getting back to the station with the trade data intact.

Now which makes the mission system more interesting?

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Maybe I'm more patient thanks to my experience with the Civilization Franchise. In that game, as much as I loved it, we had to wait at least a full year before we even got any extra content, whereas Elite: Dangerous has already added quite a lot of additional content in just this past year, with much, more more to come.

 

[Soon(TM)]

Maybe I'm more patient thanks to my experience with the Civilization Franchise. In that game, as much as I loved it, we had to wait at least a full year before we even got any extra content, whereas Elite: Dangerous has already added quite a lot of additional content in just this past year, with much, more more to come.

They haven't added content over the past year, they have completed the beta of Elite: Dangerous.

All they have done is finished developing the 1.0 release of the game, it was still beta when they officially launched it and only now, 12 months later, has it gotten to Gamma phase.

Elite Horizons seems no different, release it in a beta state and spend 12 months fleshing it out into the expansion its supposed to be.

Get the customer to pay full price for a barebones release and then finish it off after you have their money.

The proof is in the past 12 months and the DDF.

Its like buying a PC and they send you your extra 8gb of RAM, second hard drive, DVD drive, speakers and graphics card in installments over a 12 month period!