The negative effects to the improved systems

[William H. Bonney]

As many others do, i'm just voicing my personal opinions here for no other reason than to get it off my chest. Apologies for the wall of text.

I'm one of those players who has 2.8k hours in Elite Dangerous, I truly want to play it, I’m not burnt out or have a desire to play another game.
The thing is I just can't bring myself to "fly". I put some thought into the reason why and came up with the fact that i didn't like the additional negatives that came with the Beyond update, or were introduced just after, some examples:

Wing missions - This was amazing the first few days, our player faction was as active as ever with these. We made a sub game of it by racing each other to deliver the cargo and as we were mostly in the same ships, we would tend to get to both stations at the same time. meaning we would than race to dock, deliver/restock, depart, etc. Then the negative happened (believe the youth call it nerf (although i don't know the abbreviation, my assumption is Never.Ever.Really.Fair?)) the wing missions went from being fun and engaging to what i'd consider a grind. With the rewards reduced and the cargo requirements increased, the fun was completely sucked out of this new content and my player faction hasn't completed another since.

Engineering - The newer system initially made me think it was better, now everyone can be on the same playing field, if you max grade 5, your max is the same as anyone else's. These happy-feelings soon disappeared after I’d converted my "legacy" modules. once i had to start from scratch, it became overwhelmingly tedious. It wasn't necessarily the material cost either, EDEngineer helped a bunch with that. it was the new click-fest created by having to go through each grade (plus when I got to grade 2/3 the selected grade would auto change to the next grade which i wasn't always allowed yet). Sad to admit but without the R.N.G. aspect I wouldn't even look at the "wheels of progress" and just stared at the next level to light up. this also felt like a grind.

Crime and Punishment – Huge improvements let down massively by autonomous access making little sense to me. I personally received a 400Cr bounty for friendly fire, meaning i would now need to spend xx amount of time to find, fly-to and pay an Inter Steller thingy. This means i now don't want to do PVE combat. Thankfully i've read this is being re-re-overhauled but i'll wait and see.

Guardian 'stuffs' - i was fortunate enough to have visited the Guardian site when it was giving out Blueprints all over the place, i than read a post by that new Community Manager ?Will? stating it was a bug and will be removed. As i was already there, i'll admit, i took advantage of it. i remember the post stating that they won't be removing any gained materials from any Cmdr's. i now see that as an acknowledgement that development knew it was going to be hated, but i'm very likely wrong (hopefully).

there are other things, such as the Thargoid predictability, the damaged stations needing ridiculous amounts of materials, rescued passengers would instantly moan “are we there yet!”. The new traders wanting 6>1, etc, etc. I know I’m only one player, but I’ve played this game every day for minutes to hours since Horizons until a week or so ago, and I want to “want” to play it, I just can’t bring myself to do so. I find myself reading 'Q posts' and watching an Ozzie man review video's on YouTube.

TL; DR: All the little negatives that were bundled or added to Beyond feels like the fun parts have been purposely removed, the additional benefits of anything added (except better coloured planets) either doesn't feel beneficial or doesn’t outweigh the time/effort to achieve them.


Anyone else feel this way?

 

[Eidolon]

Nice post.
My wing and I would tend to agree with you. Our play hours have all but stopped for many of the reasons stated in the OP.
It just does not feel like it's all that much fun anymore. I'm hoping for changes but realistically I can't see that happening anytime.
Shame really. We miss 2.4, old C&P, old engineers, the prospect of coop wing missions, meaningful alien interactions and real guardian discoveries.
Still there is always hope that all this is a stepping stone to something better, perhaps with the next paid DLC or the release of 3.4.
Only FDev knows

 

[LP Garnell]

Nerf is a toy product line that uses spongey polyester foam to make non-harmful versions of balls, bats, and even bullets.

Nerfing a game attribute means to degrade it, in someone's opinion, to a significant degree.

 

[Ralron]

WING MISSIONS

I was disappointing with the wing mission *nerf* as well..
what trows me off even more is the lack of LFW *looking for wing* feature in the game..
not to mention Wing missions are better off done alone lol... ( to easy) like assassinate missions.. i stack these and SOLO them..
Wish they:

1 made wing missions harder ( at lease the assassinate missions)
- make Wings of 10 instead of 6.
- More variety of this.. like attacking thargoid wings
- even attacking mega ships or w/e ( dungeon style like in other MMORPGs)
2 made them pay out more ( specially if they are harder )
3 gave us a way to actually find wings with out using 3rd party apps.

Engineering:

I dont mind this .. honestly its more or less the same as every other game out there... Farm Mats --> use to make item better...
Unlike other games like GW2 i dont need to Level a profession ( engineer ) to level 300 (lol ) to get the best boost

What i would find FUN from engineers is if :
they where PLAYER BASED... like in other MMORPG. where you would essentially be the engineer.. I could master weapons , you could master Shields some one Else has Armor. ect... and have other players boost your ships for Credits or w/e... ( you could master it all or like i said have other players help you )


Crime and punishment:

i sorta like it .. but its a pain in the $$$ going 100LY away to pay off your Bounty.. specially for 400Cr. they should make the Bounty allot more!!! If i kill an NPC or a actual player.. i should be worth MILLIONSSSsssssssssss


Guardians:

I did it in the new patch .. wasnt to bad... 20 hours?~ not much of a grind.. if you even call that a grind to get all that... but it is a little repetitive..

IF AND WHEN they allow us to engineer them... that should be cool!



This game has SOOO MUCH potential. but it feels like ALL the features are excessively underdeveloped with MASSIVE balancing issues... witch seems to be the ED trend.

 

[Kubicide]

As many others do, i'm just voicing my personal opinions here for no other reason than to get it off my chest. Apologies for the wall of text.

I'm one of those players who has 2.8k hours in Elite Dangerous, I truly want to play it, I’m not burnt out or have a desire to play another game.
The thing is I just can't bring myself to "fly". I put some thought into the reason why and came up with the fact that i didn't like the additional negatives that came with the Beyond update, or were introduced just after, some examples:

Wing missions - This was amazing the first few days, our player faction was as active as ever with these. We made a sub game of it by racing each other to deliver the cargo and as we were mostly in the same ships, we would tend to get to both stations at the same time. meaning we would than race to dock, deliver/restock, depart, etc. Then the negative happened (believe the youth call it nerf (although i don't know the abbreviation, my assumption is Never.Ever.Really.Fair?)) the wing missions went from being fun and engaging to what i'd consider a grind. With the rewards reduced and the cargo requirements increased, the fun was completely sucked out of this new content and my player faction hasn't completed another since.

Engineering - The newer system initially made me think it was better, now everyone can be on the same playing field, if you max grade 5, your max is the same as anyone else's. These happy-feelings soon disappeared after I’d converted my "legacy" modules. once i had to start from scratch, it became overwhelmingly tedious. It wasn't necessarily the material cost either, EDEngineer helped a bunch with that. it was the new click-fest created by having to go through each grade (plus when I got to grade 2/3 the selected grade would auto change to the next grade which i wasn't always allowed yet). Sad to admit but without the R.N.G. aspect I wouldn't even look at the "wheels of progress" and just stared at the next level to light up. this also felt like a grind.

Crime and Punishment – Huge improvements let down massively by autonomous access making little sense to me. I personally received a 400Cr bounty for friendly fire, meaning i would now need to spend xx amount of time to find, fly-to and pay an Inter Steller thingy. This means i now don't want to do PVE combat. Thankfully i've read this is being re-re-overhauled but i'll wait and see.

Guardian 'stuffs' - i was fortunate enough to have visited the Guardian site when it was giving out Blueprints all over the place, i than read a post by that new Community Manager ?Will? stating it was a bug and will be removed. As i was already there, i'll admit, i took advantage of it. i remember the post stating that they won't be removing any gained materials from any Cmdr's. i now see that as an acknowledgement that development knew it was going to be hated, but i'm very likely wrong (hopefully).

there are other things, such as the Thargoid predictability, the damaged stations needing ridiculous amounts of materials, rescued passengers would instantly moan “are we there yet!”. The new traders wanting 6>1, etc, etc. I know I’m only one player, but I’ve played this game every day for minutes to hours since Horizons until a week or so ago, and I want to “want” to play it, I just can’t bring myself to do so. I find myself reading 'Q posts' and watching an Ozzie man review video's on YouTube.

TL; DR: All the little negatives that were bundled or added to Beyond feels like the fun parts have been purposely removed, the additional benefits of anything added (except better coloured planets) either doesn't feel beneficial or doesn’t outweigh the time/effort to achieve them.


Anyone else feel this way?

Yes. And frankly, this was predictable when they announced what they would change and how. But it went through. And the game overall is no better off and to some/many(?) it's worse. Beyond is a joke at the moment.

Defend it as you see fit, to the FDev loyalists, but also look at the facts: Steam shows a continued decline in player activity (and is the only data we can see) so this Q1 release certainly isn't an improvement.

 

[Ralron]

Yes. And frankly, this was predictable when they announced what they would change and how. But it went through. And the game overall is no better off and to some/many(?) it's worse. Beyond is a joke at the moment.

Defend it as you see fit, to the FDev loyalists, but also look at the facts: Steam shows a continued decline in player activity (and is the only data we can see) so this Q1 release certainly isn't an improvement.

i think the big problem is that its taking to long to develop... Q1 should of been Q1-2-3 in one roll out over 1-2months. not 9..

 

[Schmack]

I play solo. It feels to me like FD is playing Whack-a-Mole with anything we find interesting by altering it to the point of being undesirable gameplay. I'm not just referring to the crazy payouts for things like passengers and skimmers, but all missions it seems. I used to find gems here and there if I hopped around enough. Now every board is basically the same, kill way more ships than you care to for way less money than you ever did in the past..oh but here's some biowaste to show you we love you. You'd think FD is bleeding money every time a commander makes a few credits.

As a solo player:

I am not going to take wing haulage missions
I am not going to take wing assassination missions
I am not going to take wing massacre missions

Since these missions exist in bunches, I am not going to take charity missions to build rep because the factions only offer missions I wouldn't want anyhow.

I am not going to take skimmer missions because of the C&P system and broken faction "wanted" status.
I am not going to take planetary scan missions for the same reasons.

What I am doing:

Bounty hunting and collecting materials with limpets while bounty hunting.
Farming USS Distress Signals for fights for materials (occasionally finding an actual disabled ship which I refuel with a limpet or face the wave of low payout ships attacking, that will jump out as soon as I start fighting back)
Farming HGEs (found plenty lately)
Engineering my ships (fully engineered most of them, all modules that can be engineered)
Waiting on reports of high payout systems to surface (nothing yet).

PM me if you find something interesting. I'll keep it to myself and return the favor if I find something.

 

[Yosharian]

I disagree with some of what you said.

The new material storage alone vastly improves the Engineering process.

I don't find the actual upgrade process to be that bad. G5 takes quite a lot of rolls to max out, but G1-4 really don't, and you don't need to max out your G5 roll at all to get good results, 3-5 rolls is more than enough to get very good stats. The last few rolls add very little.

Add to this the vast improvement to the experimental system (more effects, can add at any time, doesn't cost rep... holy sh** what an improvement), and you have a really solid system overall.

The only thing that still represents a horrid, mind-numbing grind in the Engineering process is USS farming which remains horrendous.

Your complaints about wing missions seem to boil down to 'they don't pay enough' which is something I can get behind, but it's an issue which affects almost every activity in Elite and I don't think you're really identifying that particular problem in a clear way here.

I agree you shouldn't get bounties for friendly fire.

I don't care about Thargoids.

That's about it.

 

[William H. Bonney]

This game has SOOO MUCH potential. but it feels like ALL the features are excessively underdeveloped with MASSIVE balancing issues... which seems to be the ED trend.

Absolutely agree 110%

I play solo. It feels to me like FD is playing Whack-a-Mole with anything we find interesting by altering it to the point of being undesirable gameplay. I'm not just referring to the crazy payouts for things like passengers and skimmers, but all missions it seems. I used to find gems here and there if I hopped around enough. Now every board is basically the same, kill way more ships than you care to for way less money than you ever did in the past..oh but here's some biowaste to show you we love you. You'd think FD is bleeding money every time a commander makes a few credits.

This is how i'm seeing it, feels very much like the Development team doesn't like people being rewarded "nicely". They could have altered Wing Delivery Missions to Mass-Delivery missions which could be done in a wing if wanted.

I am not going to take skimmer missions because of the C&P system and broken faction "wanted" status.
I am not going to take planetary scan missions for the same reasons.

Same here, starting to look like the problem is, it's not what they added to the game, it's what they took away from the gamer.

What I am doing:

Bounty hunting and collecting materials with limpets while bounty hunting.
Farming USS Distress Signals for fights for materials (occasionally finding an actual disabled ship which I refuel with a limpet or face the wave of low payout ships attacking, that will jump out as soon as I start fighting back)
Farming HGEs (found plenty lately)
Engineering my ships (fully engineered most of them, all modules that can be engineered)
Waiting on reports of high payout systems to surface (nothing yet).

PM me if you find something interesting. I'll keep it to myself and return the favor if I find something.

That's what i mostly did to occupy my time in the week or so before i stopped playing, it probably still feels like it's all i've got to do to be honest. The Thargoid adventure feels like a half full swimming pool with a deflated dinghy and the only amusement you get is watching the frogs fall back into the water as they try to escape.

i'll be sure to send you a message if anything magically pops-up [yesnod].

I disagree with some of what you said.
The new material storage alone vastly improves the Engineering process.
I don't find the actual upgrade process to be that bad. G5 takes quite a lot of rolls to max out, but G1-4 really don't, and you don't need to max out your G5 roll at all to get good results, 3-5 rolls is more than enough to get very good stats. The last few rolls add very little.

Add to this the vast improvement to the experimental system (more effects, can add at any time, doesn't cost rep... holy sh** what an improvement), and you have a really solid system overall.

I did state i don't mind the material cost, it's the click-fest going through each grade, this could be resolved by allowing all grades available to the player, giving each grade a cost accumulating the material costs of the previous grade(s). With no R.N.G. involved it simply adds to the list of minor frustrations.

The only thing that still represents a horrid, mind-numbing grind in the Engineering process is USS farming which remains horrendous.

It would be nice to have just a "Signal Source". With a message in Comm's giving a basic description of what's likely to be there such as "destroyed large vessel, no life signs, etc.

Your complaints about wing missions seem to boil down to 'they don't pay enough' which is something I can get behind, but it's an issue which affects almost every activity in Elite and I don't think you're really identifying that particular problem in a clear way here.

I'm unsure how i came across as 'they don't pay enough' but apologies if i did. I personally don't need credits, i've just over a billion in hand with around 5 billion in assets. The original wing missions meant you could happily complete a single delivery mission easily within 30-60 minutes meaning it didn't get time to get boring. when it was changed, the increase in cargo requirements meant it would now take a heck of lot longer, the reduced payouts simply felt like a kick in the teeth from the developers as they were taking away some the reward for an increase in work/player time. this very much to me seemed to contradict the whole "we respect players time" stated by Sandro (i think it was him).

I don't care about Thargoids.

Presently, me neither... but i really do want too, really want Frontier to push the boat out for 'em.

 

[Robin of Spiritwood]

Nerf is a toy product line that uses spongey polyester foam to make non-harmful versions of balls, bats, and even bullets.

Nerfing a game attribute means to degrade it, in someone's opinion, to a significant degree.

The use of the word began in Ultima Online, after adjustment of weapons enchantments. People complained that combat had been prolonged to the point where winners were determined by who were able to keep playing longest. The swords had been turned into spongy nerf bats.

 

[Lucifera Danzig]

Guardian 'stuffs' - i was fortunate enough to have visited the Guardian site when it was giving out Blueprints all over the place, i than read a post by that new Community Manager ?Will? stating it was a bug and will be removed. As i was already there, i'll admit, i took advantage of it. i remember the post stating that they won't be removing any gained materials from any Cmdr's. i now see that as an acknowledgement that development knew it was going to be hated, but i'm very likely wrong (hopefully).

Will Flannigan stated that the devs were contacted about this earlier, and he said (and he then reported it here) that he'd been informed that they are working on rebalancing things to alleviate the amount of time required to unlock Guardian tech. So relief on that front is already in the works.

And they're talking about increasing the tolerance (again) for friendly fire to avoid situations like you just described.

 

[Speedy O]

It’s seems to be a pattern we’ve seen before with FDev.

New stuff gets added and, of course, players find a way to take ‘advantage’ of a certain set of circumstances...
Stuff gets nerfed in an early patch, only to be rebalanced in a much later patch or the next update...

Correct me if I’m wrong (I usually am), but passenger missions being one I can remember....

The nerf bat swings quicker than the magic wand... or something...

I feel your pain OP.

For me, in this game, there’s so much to do, that it’s usually not an issue and I just go off mats gathering or exploring, but with the exploration update on its way sometime, I can’t bring myself to do it until that drops.

So I’m moving home system and generally feathering my nest, waiting for the potential to be realised...

 

[rp198419]

I play solo. It feels to me like FD is playing Whack-a-Mole with anything we find interesting by altering it to the point of being undesirable gameplay. I'm not just referring to the crazy payouts for things like passengers and skimmers, but all missions it seems. I used to find gems here and there if I hopped around enough. Now every board is basically the same, kill way more ships than you care to for way less money than you ever did in the past..oh but here's some biowaste to show you we love you. You'd think FD is bleeding money every time a commander makes a few credits.

As a solo player:

I am not going to take wing haulage missions
I am not going to take wing assassination missions
I am not going to take wing massacre missions

Since these missions exist in bunches, I am not going to take charity missions to build rep because the factions only offer missions I wouldn't want anyhow.

I am not going to take skimmer missions because of the C&P system and broken faction "wanted" status.
I am not going to take planetary scan missions for the same reasons.

What I am doing:

Bounty hunting and collecting materials with limpets while bounty hunting.
Farming USS Distress Signals for fights for materials (occasionally finding an actual disabled ship which I refuel with a limpet or face the wave of low payout ships attacking, that will jump out as soon as I start fighting back)
Farming HGEs (found plenty lately)
Engineering my ships (fully engineered most of them, all modules that can be engineered)
Waiting on reports of high payout systems to surface (nothing yet).

PM me if you find something interesting. I'll keep it to myself and return the favor if I find something.

Didn't you know? ED is desperate to become a social media platform.

Solo players don't matter any more.

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

@William H. Bonney:

That is a very well thought out and eloquently presented summary of how many of us feel about the 3.0 update. I wasn't fortunate enough to be able to benefit from that bug you had encountered at the guardian site so I had a real struggle on my hands to get the guardian materials. The new crime and punishment system has always struck me as inherently flawed, and none of the changes brought about in any of the minor revisions since release of 3.0 change that.

The planets are now the colours they always should have been, however, its most disconcerting to think that the planets had a wide gamut of colours in 2.0 and into 2.1 (IIRC) yet were "beigeified" later, ie planetary renderings took a backwards step, and its taken two years to remedy that. Although to be fair they are vastly improved over where they were at the point of "beigeification".

Engineering has been a branching cluster since implemented with RNG, its had more reworks than tongue will tell, and what the new system gives you on one hand of no god rolls, no edge cases, no wasted materials on worse rolls, it takes away with the other hand by insisting that you re-roll for each module from g1-->g2-->g3.... I actually started a protest against this while we were in beta of 3.0, and got shot down by the community. To be fair to FDev they did reduce the amount of rolls required to get through the earlier grades around that time.

From reading the more active threads on this forum it appears as though there is an ever widening cognitive disonnance between what the designers want us to have and what we the players want to play with.

 

[Schmack]

Didn't you know? ED is desperate to become a social media platform.

Solo players don't matter any more.

I feel like the goal is to create the illusion of game traffic around the systems with people running for interstellar factions and such, and wing missions back and forth dozens of times for low payout. Otherwise, perhaps as a console player, you get on and there's nobody in the game, maybe. I get the risk vs reward aspect of any game (that's why makes it enjoyable, to a point) but this game seems to funnel you toward becoming wanted, then it punishes you with more time grind. There's no real alternative career path as a wanted outlaw regardless of the fact that black markets exist (with big flashing neon signs out front).

I don't know. I like some of the new features like how materials are handled and part of how engineering is handled (let's be honest, if you have the resources, why not just get and option to purchase the highest upgrade you can without all the pomp and circumstance of every single iteration - power dropping and all, since it's no longer RNG?)

 

[William H. Bonney]

@William H. Bonney:

That is a very well thought out and eloquently presented summary of how many of us feel about the 3.0 update.

I find it truly sad that my initial thought was you were going to start ripping into my post and do the white-night thing.... many thanks for not doing that, guess i've just been around these forums to damn long!!

Will Flannigan stated that the devs were contacted about this earlier, and he said (and he then reported it here) that he'd been informed that they are working on rebalancing things to alleviate the amount of time required to unlock Guardian tech. So relief on that front is already in the works.

And they're talking about increasing the tolerance (again) for friendly fire to avoid situations like you just described.

many thanks for the info

 

[Zynniah]

I haven’t put as much thought or analysis into this as you have. So, I’m going to explain my support of your point in a different way.

I got ED when it was on sale around Christmas. I got ED and Horizons together and started playing. I played most days. Not always very long but I did spend a few long weekend days in the middle of winter in ED.

Beyond Landed. I messed with the new engineering and liked it. I upgraded most of my modules. I got a new ship and engineered it too. I looked into the new Guardian modules and worked out the effort to get the ingredients/materials/data and concluded it was far too much grind for little reward.

I looked at wing missions and thought they would be fun but none of my friends play ED. The payout for solo missions is higher. Then solo missions started disappearing and bounties became an issue that complicated figuring out combat missions but didn’t add reward.

Then, 2 or 3 weeks ago (I write this the first week of May), other things caught my interest. Last week and this week all I’ve done is one trip to get the minimum requirements for the lowest tier reward for the community goals and parked my ship.

I don’t know what changed. I didn’t pick up a new game. I have gone out to enjoy spring but that’s only been a few hours a week.

I do want to unlock some of the Guardian tech but not with the current effort required. I do want to do some exploring but I want to unlock Palin first so I can get as much sublight ability into my ship as I can. Those Anacondas are a pain in supercruise and normal space but a ship that big probably should me.

 

[Conflictus]

People to lazy to get the high grade engineer content ... yawn start as the ceo and destroyer of worlds fresh off the starting dock fun....

 

[William H. Bonney]

People to lazy to get the high grade engineer content ... yawn start as the ceo and destroyer of worlds fresh off the starting dock fun....

i'm not entirely sure what you're on about, but i'm far from lazy at getting high grade engineer 'stuffs', which you get by doing what exactly? There's only so many times an Endurance Run can be considered 'fun'.

Last week and this week all I’ve done is one trip to get the minimum requirements for the lowest tier reward for the community goals and parked my ship.

oddly... exactly all i've done too.

 

[ebbrell]

Personally i would like a longer battle. phew phew gone pointless.


two large ships fighting it out shouldn't be quick