The internal contradiction of Elite Dangerous.

[GraXXoR]

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.

I can see where you're coming from... I 100% agree with you WRT credits. The whole game progression is broken.. Day 1 Cobra, Day 3 Asp, Day 5 Python. Day 7 Anaconda (Assuming no ...ahem... FDEV brainfarts, in which case, one day is often enough to get you to an Annie.)

Generally, I enjoy the engineers, but as you said, their benefits are too big, IMO and not outweighed by negatives. They should be unreliable and break down, or have some drawbacks that make them a strategic choice, not a necessity. <--- This is my key gripe.

And the way they implemented max speed (keep requiring boost to travel in a straight line) does my head in.... The idea that I have to boost repeatedly down towards a planet's surface is something I've never been able to understand...

I can understand why they wanted to remove newtonian flight (I didn't enjoy Frontier's combat) but surely they could have come up with a better boost mechanic, like, once you're at max speed you'll stay there unless you try to turn... or something... or anything to make it less arcady.

The whole Free-to-play/arcadification is very sad... To see the game outdone in gameplay mechanics and game loops by an essentially free to play or ¥300 (with in game expansions) Galaxy on Fire HD dated 2014 is really sad.

In GoF, you stole/pirated/bought your blueprints for exotic equipment, collected the requisite materials and credits, chose a suitable location and started production. You could even store materials on site and send materials later (for a cost) if you were short... once production started, you could keep track of progress and either time your arrival at the production facility to coincide with the component's completion or have it shipped to you (for a cost).

This was SOOOO much more believable than the JoooooooooBwaaaah. Grade 1 JoooooooBwaaaah. JoooooooBwaaaah. Grade 2 JoooooooBwaaaah. JoooooooBwaaaah. JoooooooBwaaaah. Grade 3. JoooooooBwaaaah. JoooooooBwaaaah. JoooooooBwaaaah. JoooooooBwaaaah. Grade 4.
JoooooooBwaaaah. JoooooooBwaaaah. JoooooooBwaaaah. JoooooooBwaaaah. JoooooooBwaaaah. JoooooooBwaaaah. JoooooooBwaaaah. JoooooooBwaaaah. JoooooooBwaaaah. JoooooooBwaaaah. Grade 5 - maxed. 160,000,000 Credit, 80T module updated in 2 minutes.
Followed by an insipid "I'm pleased with the way things turned out" cut and paste NPC comment.

The whole instant gratification is just galling after such a good start to the game.

 

[Tuzmaal]

If making money is too easy for you... play the game with your screen turned off... there you go, hard mode enabled.

 

[KellyR]

If making money is too easy for you... play the game with your screen turned off... there you go, hard mode enabled.

That's not hard mode. That's impossible mode.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

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?

A cobra is 350,000 stock at worst. Yes to A grade it, it is 7 million. But I am not talking about that. But missions were that low 500-1000 credits when I first started, but they got better as your rep with the faction got better.

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.

Grind is grind sure. But you still don't have to grind in this game. Its the reason why after more then three years my biggest ship is a python and only have 20 million in the bank. I try my hardest to keep that beginning game experience. But I didn't and won't grind for anything. But that's fine. I am in no rush and not in competition with anybody else about when I achieve my goals in the game.

Basically I see no point in grinding for anything, as you will get there anyway in the long run.

If/When they add an NPC crew system, then I may think about getting one of the really big ships, but at the moment I see no point in them.

 

[seko]

Money does not give you access to the gameplay. The basic gameplay is exactly the same whether you are doing it in a sidewinder, hauler or anaconda. The difference is scale, ease and monetary reward.

The only thing you can't do in the small ships is PvP, unless your opponent is in a small ship too.

I agree, I think FD is appeasing gamers by making things a little too easy, as opposed to the traditional player base that have followed the game from the beginning, but I love playing up bigger ships with bigger guns with my icourier, I can run away when I have to lol

 

[the100thmonkey]

"Progression".

The death of open world games. It's not about progression. If you think it is, you're stupid.

 

[CMNDRMK]

*sigh*


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?

Yes it does lessen my enjoyment, that is exactly the point of the original post.

Look its not hard. Let me break it down.

1. I enjoy the flight model because it makes me feel like I am really in space, flying my own ship, cool, exactly the experience I want from a computer game.

2. I dont enjoy being paid mega bucks for a simple non dangerous task that seems to make no sense in any kind of yea I bet in the future the economy/missions etc will work like this ,because it immediately breaks the fourth wall, reminds me I am not actually in a space ship but just sat at home in a chair in the real world, staring at a screen. Exactly the experience I dont want. I want escapism, not lol look how fake and contrived our game is, have some credits for nothing.

Its not that I resent the money, I resent the absolute contrived way I am getting that money.

Also the logical extension of credits = choice is that the player should start with every ship and the option to configure that ship however they want.

 

[CMNDRMK]

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.

Yes you should warn against memories, the Cobra costs 300K.

 

[znôrt]

Yes you should warn against memories, the Cobra costs 300K.

a stock cobra. if you fly stock ships, you are probably up to something weird or doing something wrong.

a properly kitted cobra is 6-7mill.

 

[CMNDRMK]

a stock cobra. if you fly stock ships, you are probably up to something weird or doing something wrong.

a properly kitted cobra is 6-7mill.

Yea maybe, but no one was talking about that. It was how long it used to take to get stock cobra, which still feels like a big step up from previous ships.

Anyway now it takes 3 missions to go from stock sidey to stock cobra. You dont need to upgrade the sidey in anyway to do those missions, so its about 30-45 mins from stock sidey to stock cobra. Stock Cobra>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Stock sidey.

Obviously its going to take a while to A rate the Cobra, I am glad about that.

 

[znôrt]

Yea maybe, but no one was talking about that. It was how long it used to take to get stock cobra, which still feels like a big step up from previous ships.

Anyway now it takes 3 missions to go from stock sidey to stock cobra. You dont need to upgrade the sidey in anyway to do those missions, so its about 30-45 mins from stock sidey to stock cobra. Stock Cobra>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Stock sidey.

Obviously its going to take a while to A rate the Cobra, I am glad about that.

so you just misunderstood, and my memory seems fine. glad to hear that, i'm coming to an age where i sometimes have to worry ...

personally i've never flown anything except "a" or "a/d" rated ships, except if it is something weird. an "a" rated sidey is superior to a stock cobra in many ways.

about getting missions done in stock ships to speed progress, yes, i agree. i just said the numbers were a bit exaggerated.