The game needs more stuff, even if that's seen as "bad" stuff.
It feels like it would be very easy to add stuff to do (sadly) to the game actually at least long enough to keep people entertained for enough some to bring the actual content out. This is frontiers main problem. They have so many great ideas they can bring to the game but it all needs time and a player base that is willing or distracted enough to give them that time. People may be irritated that it's too M.M.Oey. Frontier may be irritated because they wanted some of the stuff in the cosmetics store but there needs to be a middle ground where there are arbitrary rewards for certain actions now that Elite Dangerous is out of it's "beta" (even though, it like totally isn't guis). This has to occur long enough that old players are happy, new players are happy and even newer players are also happy. It's simply a fact you can't say yeah we're like in release but totally like not...? for any reasonable length of time before the majority of people catch on.
First lets get one thing straight. I am super enjoying elite dangerous. It has come as close to satiating an itch for space related stuff that has gone unsatiated for quite a while as anything that doesn't involve actual space could.That said. There is a lot of ways the game feels almost dull, void, lacking, unwilling to trap me in an obsession which sucks away both life and soul etc etc. As such I feel I've outlined a few(Note) SHORT TERM solutions below).
Pump out decals, this should be incredibly easy for the art team, they're small pictures afaik that go on ships so make tons of them, make them as ridiculous or classic M.M.O as possible. Small dog decal for 100 kills, done. Hot chick with gun decal for piloting x distance towards a star, done. leopard on fire mauling a man to death, graphically ripping his guts out then displaying them on a pike while drinking an alcoholic beverage, done. The art team should be able to pump at least 5 of these things out per day per person(that's a conservative estimate) and there's literally an internet of content to draw inspiration from( not to mention historical stuff which if you look into I'm pretty sure could provide some sick decals for minimal effort (especially ww2)). What this game needs to keep attracting players to it is things like these. Ridiculous rewards for ridiculous actions. Yeah they're gamey but at the same time this is a game. It's not the real thing, if it were we'd all happily be painting whatever cosmetics we wanted with a few buckets of paint and a few days stuck in a station, maybe even a tutorial on elitetube whatever. The point is to pump out things to do with rewards for the minimal possible effort for long enough to get good deep content in place to back this extraneous stuff that's done early up. Old players will have stuff to do. New players will be like holy look at this cool thing I can grind 10 hours to get instead of doing the much more interesting content released afterwards, people with little to no actual lives can lord over their decal completion percentages everyone wins! You could even even stage the release an act like worthwhile stuff happened in the latest patch!
More ships (especially early game ships). Sorry art department but I'm like gonna all over you because I have literally the minimum experience in what your job entails at all. Again this is a big draw on said aforementioned department but it comes down to the following. Do players really care if ships and stuff are perfectly balanced? I'm not talking cargo/passenger-> light fighter -> light multipurpose -> heavy multipurpose -> heavy fighter- > Corvette-> murder machine levels of balance with exploration and passenger ships in their own little bubble of "lol can't classify me properly". I'm talking about is the Viper Heavy fighter better than the "Rattlesnake" heavy fighter which is totally like the Viper except it's got less speed and more cargo and less useful and more bull and a prettier insides. Again this comes down to adding what is on the face meaningless content yet still adds game play of a sort. Some people (like me) will enjoy piloting the derpy ship which has no redeeming qualities compared to it's superior brethren. Others will say "Holy look how sweet this ride is/how sweet it's interior it is.. BUYING!". Others will only but the mega competitive default viper with it's likelihood of murdering many of it's lesser cousins. What does this add? Simple for the collectivists. Theres the simple to desire to own ever ship. For the endgame player, well may as well have everything. For the scrappy underdog. "Ho Hum I'mma take you down in the fighter equivalent of a hauler". For the average, "I'll like get the best in the meta and get whichever internal most suits my aesthetic". What did it cost to develop some art(sorry art guys). Some minor re-balancing, done. Everyone now has a bunch of gameplay options to strive for which took again minimal time away from that golden goal, actual! content.\
HUD options, yeah it's gonna be controversial, yeah you need to find something (relatively) reliable to tie it to and yeah we can trivially change it through mode. But I'll happily murder 1000 filthy feds for my Empire themed HUD skin which took your art team(SORRY OKAY) a week to perfect, then 1000 independents, then 1000 imperials for the other 2 on top of that.
The games stuck in a position where it needs arbitrary rewards to keep people happy while frontier nails down what content they actually wan to put out there. As a beta purchaser I'm a little disappointing with what got put out. But Equally as a person who would like to stab whoever came up with the idea of grindy gameplay in the eyeballs I recognise that theres a severe need for reward. Even if it's for futile tiny things that barely anyone will see. To keep the game going until Frontier can really put out the good stuff in terms of content and honeys and booze and huh, what? A base payer base is something that anything in early access needs and as this game is pretty much still in what many others would determine to be early access it's essential to keep the focus on extneding the games lifespan until Frontier can bring the cows home/ bring the booze and honeys/ bring the cow honeys and huh what...!?
It feels like it would be very easy to add stuff to do (sadly) to the game actually at least long enough to keep people entertained for enough some to bring the actual content out. This is frontiers main problem. They have so many great ideas they can bring to the game but it all needs time and a player base that is willing or distracted enough to give them that time. People may be irritated that it's too M.M.Oey. Frontier may be irritated because they wanted some of the stuff in the cosmetics store but there needs to be a middle ground where there are arbitrary rewards for certain actions now that Elite Dangerous is out of it's "beta" (even though, it like totally isn't guis). This has to occur long enough that old players are happy, new players are happy and even newer players are also happy. It's simply a fact you can't say yeah we're like in release but totally like not...? for any reasonable length of time before the majority of people catch on.
First lets get one thing straight. I am super enjoying elite dangerous. It has come as close to satiating an itch for space related stuff that has gone unsatiated for quite a while as anything that doesn't involve actual space could.That said. There is a lot of ways the game feels almost dull, void, lacking, unwilling to trap me in an obsession which sucks away both life and soul etc etc. As such I feel I've outlined a few(Note) SHORT TERM solutions below).
Pump out decals, this should be incredibly easy for the art team, they're small pictures afaik that go on ships so make tons of them, make them as ridiculous or classic M.M.O as possible. Small dog decal for 100 kills, done. Hot chick with gun decal for piloting x distance towards a star, done. leopard on fire mauling a man to death, graphically ripping his guts out then displaying them on a pike while drinking an alcoholic beverage, done. The art team should be able to pump at least 5 of these things out per day per person(that's a conservative estimate) and there's literally an internet of content to draw inspiration from( not to mention historical stuff which if you look into I'm pretty sure could provide some sick decals for minimal effort (especially ww2)). What this game needs to keep attracting players to it is things like these. Ridiculous rewards for ridiculous actions. Yeah they're gamey but at the same time this is a game. It's not the real thing, if it were we'd all happily be painting whatever cosmetics we wanted with a few buckets of paint and a few days stuck in a station, maybe even a tutorial on elitetube whatever. The point is to pump out things to do with rewards for the minimal possible effort for long enough to get good deep content in place to back this extraneous stuff that's done early up. Old players will have stuff to do. New players will be like holy look at this cool thing I can grind 10 hours to get instead of doing the much more interesting content released afterwards, people with little to no actual lives can lord over their decal completion percentages everyone wins! You could even even stage the release an act like worthwhile stuff happened in the latest patch!
More ships (especially early game ships). Sorry art department but I'm like gonna all over you because I have literally the minimum experience in what your job entails at all. Again this is a big draw on said aforementioned department but it comes down to the following. Do players really care if ships and stuff are perfectly balanced? I'm not talking cargo/passenger-> light fighter -> light multipurpose -> heavy multipurpose -> heavy fighter- > Corvette-> murder machine levels of balance with exploration and passenger ships in their own little bubble of "lol can't classify me properly". I'm talking about is the Viper Heavy fighter better than the "Rattlesnake" heavy fighter which is totally like the Viper except it's got less speed and more cargo and less useful and more bull and a prettier insides. Again this comes down to adding what is on the face meaningless content yet still adds game play of a sort. Some people (like me) will enjoy piloting the derpy ship which has no redeeming qualities compared to it's superior brethren. Others will say "Holy look how sweet this ride is/how sweet it's interior it is.. BUYING!". Others will only but the mega competitive default viper with it's likelihood of murdering many of it's lesser cousins. What does this add? Simple for the collectivists. Theres the simple to desire to own ever ship. For the endgame player, well may as well have everything. For the scrappy underdog. "Ho Hum I'mma take you down in the fighter equivalent of a hauler". For the average, "I'll like get the best in the meta and get whichever internal most suits my aesthetic". What did it cost to develop some art(sorry art guys). Some minor re-balancing, done. Everyone now has a bunch of gameplay options to strive for which took again minimal time away from that golden goal, actual! content.\
HUD options, yeah it's gonna be controversial, yeah you need to find something (relatively) reliable to tie it to and yeah we can trivially change it through mode. But I'll happily murder 1000 filthy feds for my Empire themed HUD skin which took your art team(SORRY OKAY) a week to perfect, then 1000 independents, then 1000 imperials for the other 2 on top of that.
The games stuck in a position where it needs arbitrary rewards to keep people happy while frontier nails down what content they actually wan to put out there. As a beta purchaser I'm a little disappointing with what got put out. But Equally as a person who would like to stab whoever came up with the idea of grindy gameplay in the eyeballs I recognise that theres a severe need for reward. Even if it's for futile tiny things that barely anyone will see. To keep the game going until Frontier can really put out the good stuff in terms of content and honeys and booze and huh, what? A base payer base is something that anything in early access needs and as this game is pretty much still in what many others would determine to be early access it's essential to keep the focus on extneding the games lifespan until Frontier can bring the cows home/ bring the booze and honeys/ bring the cow honeys and huh what...!?
