The internal contradiction of Elite Dangerous.

[Iskariot]

looking out the window seems so totally real.
interacting with the social simulation seems so totally fake.

Its so jarring.

Sorry for the rant o get a blog, but the above makes playing this game so frustrating. If only the social simulation could be half as good as looking out the window. Instead it just seems so utterly contrived.

What has prompted this vent o get a blog, not this post again is just the venting needed after restarting the game on my sons X Box. Its nice playing on a hoooge TV screen.

What is not so nice is just how utterly fake and easy the economy seems now, compared to when I first started out on my PC. Yes the game had plenty of fakeness then, but at least the social simulation seemed somewhat more "real" in that the game was not in a massive rush to give money for doing essentially nothing.

I have had to spend basically zero time in the sidey, due to getting regular 100K missions that require 1 or 2 jumps at most, nothing happens on these missions, I have had a couple of interdictions but they were cake to avoid. Mostly its money for spending a long time in super cruise.

I really like exploring so I know there is a game style I will enjoy after grinding my way up the ships, I like pew pew a bit but cant pew pew on a x box controller, can barely dock with it.

If I was starting the game totally new and after the initial look out the window rush had worn off, I wonder if I would stick with it.

I dont necessarily want dark souls in space but some element of challenge would be appreciated. However that is not really the core issue, its the jarring unreality of the reward in relation to the task needed to gain the reward. This jarring unreality is then leveraged massively by the excellence of the flight simulation.

A game in which things are faked?
How is that even possible.
I am sure everything is real.

Too easy to get money?
That can't be true. Many people complain about not being able to fly an Anaconda in one hour of gameplay, and they think it is not fair that FDev nerfs missions that enable you to make 300 mil per hour.

I personally feel that every new player should be given an A-rated Imperial Cutter starter ship and 1 billion credits to buy some trinkets.

As far as the xbox is concerned.
I think playing ED on an Xbox is a big mistake. But i am old and hate console controls with a passion. I have never seen something so awkward and lacking in precision control.

 

[Ca$hback]

I knew when they released it for consoles it was the beginning of the end of what I liked about this game. Sure enough, after a couple years most "improvements" have been driving me further away.
-Engineering power creep with very few drawbacks and titanic benefits.
-profit creep to cater to instant gratification
-Telepresence to explain why your crew survives instead of just using the same magic you do when you survive. Losing cool points for no reason.
-Invincible shields force narrow metas for PvP where you're specifically designed to take out shields or you dogfight for 40 minutes
-no NPC multicrew (and the empty seats that go with it)
-arbitrary material limits (no gold in the sulphur box!) instead of increasing the overall limit
-"we don't want players doing this or that so we don't want a player economy etc." (or even the illusion of a dynamic economy)
-no point in trading when trade missions pay 8m+ (20x what the cargo is worth!) you have to do it for "fun" instead of a means of income
-ATR with their patronizing weapons instead of sending adequate numbers. Another result of the ridiculously overpowered shields

They keep giving up more and more on the sim aspect I enjoyed so much about it and just shrug at the magic creeping into it. It used to care more about explaining where this ton of stuff is. Now it just goes in the TARDIS bag.

What hurts the most is that they (game developers in general) will never get as close to making the game I always wanted as this game was when it was first released, bugs and all. Foreboding, difficult and unknown. The direction they were taking it up to Horizons had me transfixed. The planetary landings made the galaxy waaaay bigger. The direction got my hopes up.
Then engineers. Then console crowd. Then "why try to be realistic, we have FSD and shields, after all. No need to explain that." and the slippery slope fallacy isn't so fallacious in retrospect. The likely patterns emerged.

By the time they have atmospheric landings and space legs I wonder what else I love about this game will be deemed too difficult or not necessary.

There's only one elite and you have to be vocal about it to try and steer it in the direction you want, for your part. I don't begrudge people wanting to change this game into something I roll my eyes at. They have to vocalize what they want. It just sucks being on the losing team, that's all. The silent majority have spoken with their money.

I wish they could clone it and take one back to the old earnings and change engineers to have serious drawbacks to overspecialization and diminishing returns. I'd like to see jump ranges nerfed across the board. After all, we have jumponium and neutron boosts. Would be nice but will never happen.

 

[DrBo42]

Well this is the whole point, the 100K missions that allow to buy a cobra super quick are not fun, they are just fly from A to B.

When I worked my way to the first cobra it was fun, and it was not just doing missions. As others have said it made me feel like a real space ship captain who had his own ship and was trying to make it work, now I just land at a spaceport and get credits shoved down my throat for doing nothing. Again I repeat the point, its not just that money allows you to buy ship X, money is content, if you get lots of money for doing something easy it seems really fake and contrived, and this is my real problem with the current iteration for early play, its not fun, there is zero challenge and it seems totally fake.

Money should not be content. The game was NEVER challenging, just required exponentially more time to buy things. People keep saying the grind doesn't exist and nothing is a grind unless you want it to be and then they romanticize how long everything used to take years ago. The hypocrisy is staggering.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Money should not be content. The game was NEVER challenging, just required exponentially more time to buy things. People keep saying the grind doesn't exist and nothing is a grind unless you want it to be and then they romanticize how long everything used to take years ago. The hypocrisy is staggering.

The game was challenging at the beginning. It isn't now and that's the issue. It's easy. There are no risks as rebuya are so easy to get.

When I started the game it was not like that.

 

[DrBo42]

The game was challenging at the beginning. It isn't now and that's the issue. It's easy. There are no risks as rebuya are so easy to get.

When I started the game it was not like that.

Completely disagree. Only challenge was getting over your own inexperience or cockiness. Like flying without insurance because you think you can't die or not understanding how many opponents you could take. It's the same now except you can engineer and quality of life is way better.

 

[CMNDRMK]

Money should not be content. The game was NEVER challenging, just required exponentially more time to buy things. People keep saying the grind doesn't exist and nothing is a grind unless you want it to be and then they romanticize how long everything used to take years ago. The hypocrisy is staggering.

#
Money is content by definition, its impossible for it not to be content of the game, its in it.

The point you dont seem able to grasp is that I want to believe in the social and economic simulation as much as I believe in the flight model aspect of the game. If I am being payed to much to do to little that is very hard to do. For me believing I am a space captain = fun. When I first started the "hardness" or whatever, the realistic rewards to risks, made it possible to believe I was lone captain of my own vessel.

Now having money shoved down my throat for doing nothing via mission rewards makes that experience much harder to attain. It just seems utterly fake.

Before you say its the same now as then, that is just not true. When I started in 1.0 you did not get 100K+ missions in a sidey.

 

[andrewg_oz]

...a whole lot of sensible stuff I agree with...

+1 and repped

 

[Older Gamer]

Got to love the E D forums. On other forums it would be all 'nerf sword mighty.thx' and then in the message it would say '^^^^^^'

But here we have posts like '

The internal contradiction of Elite Dangerous​

' with an essay supporting arguments and counter arguments.

For me, E D started to make sense when I moved from a single joyatick to a hotas.

Then I got an oculus rift and all my Christmas's came on one day.

ANd now I am really into the universe. WHat happens in it. WHat goes on. I invest my time playing my game in my way. When im bored with that, I will probably find a player group with real purpose.

But yeah, the maturity Level of E D is the coolest.

 

[Roybe]

Since there is really no economy in the game...and it was actually broken before release BTW (notice the calls for a reset on release...which did not happen!)

Credits are nothing to worry about...the economy of the game means everyone will, eventually, have infinite credits.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Completely disagree. Only challenge was getting over your own inexperience or cockiness. Like flying without insurance because you think you can't die or not understanding how many opponents you could take. It's the same now except you can engineer and quality of life is way better.

I disagree. You see when I started most missions were a paltry 500credits. That means you couldn't afford the rebuy to begin with. It was dangerous and risky and fun. These days it is easy, not risky and you will be in a Cobra in a few hours completely negating the need to even upgrade your sidewinder or the need to get a hauler, eagle or adder.

 

[VR Murgle]

*sigh*

This again?

Really?


I boardhopped my way into a Cutter and got a big ship way faster than some people would like and it forced me to learn me how to fly. So when someone fell down a hole I could use my Sidey (and lots of time) to get him out. Without my Cutter I might not have had the same amount of control. The Cutter also meant I could earn back my losses in a reasonable amount of time and that's probably why I'm still here, yes I've taken several breaks and I did some more boardhopping to get to rear admiral and then for the Sirius permit but I haven't bothered to join any of the gold rushes. I do not however blame anyone who did.

Having access to easy credits give you choice and I for one like that. If I want to do some trading, I have ships for that. Combat? I have ships for that too. Want to go exploring? Can do, I have ships for that as well. I can afford to bounce around in my SRV or fly around aimlessly and if I were to lose a ship I know I won't be in trouble right away and I like it that way.

Different people enjoy the game in different ways. Accept it, because they're not gonna change just because you want them to. And really, does it affect you in any way? Does it lessen your enjoyment of the game?

 

[frostypaw]

Different people enjoy the game in different ways. Accept it, because they're not gonna change just because you want them to. And really, does it affect you in any way? Does it lessen your enjoyment of the game?

Do you advocate for the option to start the game with a billion and a python? Maybe as a premium option?

I'm curious now how many of the "credits don't matter, should be easy, gib freedom" are really all-in on this.

 

[Ca$hback]

Accept it, because they're not gonna change just because you want them to.

You have your voice, I have mine.

And really, does it affect you in any way? Does it lessen your enjoyment of the game?

Watering down the standards affects us all. For my part, I'd like to see things remain difficult and hard to get to increase it's value. Nothing prevents you from earning the money you need but if people don't get it right away they think it's wrong. I disagree with them. It's called discourse.

 

[GraXXoR]

I agree. When I started you got missions for 500 credits, it took me 2-3 months to get a Cobra and had a massive sense of achievement. Now it's in the 100,000s and bam straight into a Cobra after one otr two missions. Might as well get rid of the starter ships and start them in Cobra's from the beginning.

Agreed. The Sidewinder isn’t even a stepping stone any more. It’s literally fifteen minutes after watching a YouTube video.

 

[GraXXoR]

I concur.

It's far, far too easy to make money in the game as it is now. I remember I spent the best part of four months maining a Viper Mk. III, and it wasn't only because I love the ship.

I think what’s happened is that it’s now 2018 and all the millennials have come of age, got an XBOX and got their mummy to buy them Elite Dangerous for Christmas. People seem completely incapable of playing the slow game and enjoying the journey, instead whinging when some AspSpit crazy 200MCr per hour bug is fixed.

Depressing state of affairs.


edit: Apparently I was unfairly singling out 18 year olds... So I'm going to add anyone in their early 30s with a family!
Shame on you, for not wanting to spend 30 hours a week playing ED! ;-)

 

[frostypaw]

I think what’s happened is that it’s now 2018 and all the millennials have come of age, got an XBOX and got their mummy to buy them Elite Dangerous for Christmas. People seem completely incapable of playing the slow game and enjoying the journey, instead whinging when some AspSpit crazy 200MCr per hour bug is fixed.

Depressing state of affairs.

This seems deeply unfair - most of the hardcore complaining I see is from guys around 30 stropping out that they should be able to see and do everything at the "same pace" as everyone else even though they have kids/family/work - presumably competing against some imagined work/school-free teenager that they think spends all day doing this and that they think they have to keep up with.

 

[Ca$hback]

This seems deeply unfair - most of the hardcore complaining I see is from guys around 30 stropping out that they should be able to see and do everything at the "same pace" as everyone else even though they have kids/family/work - presumably competing against some imagined work/school-free teenager that they think spends all day doing this and that they think they have to keep up with.

Definitely got a point. Keeping up with the Jones' is what, ego based?

 

[GraXXoR]

This seems deeply unfair - most of the hardcore complaining I see is from guys around 30 stropping out that they should be able to see and do everything at the "same pace" as everyone else even though they have kids/family/work - presumably competing against some imagined work/school-free teenager that they think spends all day doing this and that they think they have to keep up with.

You have a good point, there. Can't argue with that... Well, I could, but it would be fruitless... if not out of character for a denizen of these fora. ;-)

 

[znôrt]

I agree. When I started you got missions for 500 credits, it took me 2-3 months to get a Cobra and had a massive sense of achievement. Now it's in the 100,000s and bam straight into a Cobra after one otr two missions. Might as well get rid of the starter ships and start them in Cobra's from the beginning.

i agree but your numbers seem a bit off. mission payouts weren't that bad at start, and a cobra is more like 7mill. haven't done missions in a while, can a fresh harmless cmdr get 2 5mill missions in a row now?

also, i would warn about perceived memories. i still love small ships above all, but part of the excitement of the start (agree, best part in most games) comes from the novelty. once that wears out and you figure out how everything works, grind is grind no matter the ship size.

 

[Bieltan]

I wasnt aware people were having a gun held to their heads and being ordered to upgrade their ships immediately?

This just seems like a veiled "My fun is better than your fun" post tbh.