The Old vs the New and player age

[Rat Catcher]

Just didn't play E84

I did, it was brilliant for its time and kept me amused for a couple of years... (I'd just left my 20's behind when it released)
Didn't see the follow-ups because I was too busy working (now I have to wash my mouth out with a single malt!) and missed the kickstarter as I was renovating a house instead of working...
When I did see ED, SC and NMS in 2017 I parted with my cash and had a play, only ED kept me interested - it brought back the fun of E84, and some!

 

[Morbad]

r"roll back engineers" (after what, seven years?)

Better late than never!

Not that anyone expects it to happen any more than any other non-minor/iterative change.

You were NOT playing this game since 1984 or whatever. You played another game in the franchise. This game isn't Elite 1984, nor is it FE2 or FFE.

This game isn't even Elite: Dangerous 3.3, 2.2, 2.1, 2.0, 1.4, 1.1, Beta 3, Beta 1, Premium Beta, or any of the Alphas.

It may be a new edition, but underlying the gloss is still the same gameplay with various expansions added on.
Windows 11 may have more gloss and extras, but ultimately the same basic functions as 3.1.

I have the opposite perspective.

The Elite: Dangerous that I played in Beta 1 was a different game from Beta 2 & 3 release, which was a different game from Gamma through release, which was a different game post-Wings, which became a different game after 1.5/2.0's balance overhauls and new content, which changed significantly with Engineers, which was dramatically rebalanced again with 2.2, then again with 3.0, then was broken in significant ways in 3.4 and never fixed. Then, of course, came Odyssey, which had it's own iterations of refinements and depreciations.

The game I'm playing now is barely recognizable from the one I had when I started (in Beta 1). We've had major alterations to flight models, significant changes to networking, three different equipment systems, two very different exploration systems, many different NPC incarnations, at least three different terrain renderers, and a series of radical inflations to many mechanisms. A lot of the gameplay, good and bad, that was the meat and potatoes of various earlier versions doesn't exist any more.

Windows is the same way. They're all OSes with GUIs and Windows 11 may even share some code with Windows 3.1, but in footprint and feature (and I use the term loosely) set, they are night and day different...and many of these changes were not for the better.

 

[Alien]

We were all new players at some point.

 

[Riverside]

We were all new players at some point.

The environment in which we started, and the tools we had available to us (both in the game and external advice & data) were very different though.

When my Dad & I played the original Elite on the family BBC model B (with disk drive, such luxury!) there was no google to search for solutions to whatever problems we faced, we just each had our own saves & chatted to figure out solutions. otoh having saves (potentially each time we docked) we could each keep trying until we solved the issue & moved on to the next one. Neither of us know anyone else that played until long after we were Elite ourselves (my avatar on this forum is the Acornsoft badge I won for reaching Elite, something I am proud to have achieved but never met anyone that knew what it was pre-internet).

In ED I started shortly after launch (Jan 2015) where there was minimal external advice or stats available, so I worked with only the in-game info & still play that way. It is common now for novice players to have already reached trade Elite from mining the optimal thing in a good place after a few days when it took me nearly a year to reach Trade Elite from A-B hauling and after 1.4, long distance trade missions (they also boosted my Explo rank). There are a lot of achievements I am proud to have achieved in this game that are trivial now and I'm glad I did them when I did. There are always new challenges though, and new players can take pride in their own achievements, they are just less likely to be the first to do something so there will be good quality advice on how to do whatever it is they are trying to do if they choose to search for it.

As Morbad implies it is a different game now, but the external help available from the fanbase is much more sophisticated too.

 

[hems303]

I remember hauling fish and coffee in that restricted 'Beta' test mini-bubble... Aulin Orbital et al. Those were those wide eyed dayz!
I'm still out there, now with two multi billionaire commanders, I've helped newbies, fed them gold, you people wouldn't believe what... nah lets not go there! gg o7

 

[Cmdr. Numa]

The biggest difference between the old and the new players of ED is time and the availability of features. I think a lot of the players who were here for the whole 10 years would have grinded out the game in a few days as well, had it been the game it is now from the start. And they would complain just like new players who do that today.

It simply wasn't there. All the things available today were added over a span of 10 years. And the grind kept at least me busy until the next content bit dropped. With the whole 10 year perspective, everything was painfully slow. The 160 million for the 8A power plant for my first Anaconda in the early game took ages and tested my patience....too much in the end. I bought it as soon as I could, sod the rebuy. And as Murphy's Law has it, I was back in a T6 pretty soon after.

 

[varonica]

See, this is one of the things that bugs me a bit about "veterans" - please know that this is not meant rude or condescending. Y

"I was there, I was there 3000 years ago" <- Elrond, and Elite old timers

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

By the way, back when I was a kid, I DID have to walk to school every day barefoot with only rags on my feet, in two feet deep snow, and uphill both ways, in the dark, with no street lights. True story, I swear.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Better late than never!

See, I started the game when engineers had already evolved into what they are now (autumn 2019). I think they're fine, maybe because I didn't go through the apparent drama the early iterations of engineers caused.

 

[Globusdiablo]

See, I started the game when engineers had already evolved into what they are now (autumn 2019). I think they're fine, maybe because I didn't go through the apparent drama the early iterations of engineers caused.

<removes muzzle> Engineers, at it's core, was/is the implementation of a PvP grind wall. It was the the beginning of the end for the united community, and broke any semblance of balanced combat gameplay, be it PvE or PvP. Worst choice FD ever made. But here we are. I will comment no further on this matter.
Elite: Dangerous is still the best game I've ever played.

 

[Alien]

The environment in which we started, and the tools we had available to us (both in the game and external advice & data) were very different though.

When my Dad & I played the original Elite on the family BBC model B (with disk drive, such luxury!) there was no google to search for solutions to whatever problems we faced, we just each had our own saves & chatted to figure out solutions. otoh having saves (potentially each time we docked) we could each keep trying until we solved the issue & moved on to the next one. Neither of us know anyone else that played until long after we were Elite ourselves (my avatar on this forum is the Acornsoft badge I won for reaching Elite, something I am proud to have achieved but never met anyone that knew what it was pre-internet).

In ED I started shortly after launch (Jan 2015) where there was minimal external advice or stats available, so I worked with only the in-game info & still play that way. It is common now for novice players to have already reached trade Elite from mining the optimal thing in a good place after a few days when it took me nearly a year to reach Trade Elite from A-B hauling and after 1.4, long distance trade missions (they also boosted my Explo rank). There are a lot of achievements I am proud to have achieved in this game that are trivial now and I'm glad I did them when I did. There are always new challenges though, and new players can take pride in their own achievements, they are just less likely to be the first to do something so there will be good quality advice on how to do whatever it is they are trying to do if they choose to search for it.

As Morbad implies it is a different game now, but the external help available from the fanbase is much more sophisticated too.

I know what you mean. I had played FE2 and FFE a lot not long before Frontier gave us access to the Elite Dangerous alpha build. I had no trouble landing on a pad manually, and to begin with, I didn't realise the little compass in the top left of the dashboard pointed to the actual pad. Did that make me better at the game? No, but it made it easier for me.

 

[Riverside]

I know what you mean. I had played FE2 and FFE a lot not long before Frontier gave us access to the Elite Dangerous alpha build. I had no trouble landing on a pad manually, and to begin with, I didn't realise the little compass in the top left of the dashboard pointed to the actual pad. Did that make me better at the game? No, but it made it easier for me.

I got to the mailslot with zero problems straight away but then going through it had a hell of a time landing on my pad IIRC I figured out the compass straight away. Now every new player starts with an advanced docking computer and gimbaled pulse lasers, overcoming one of the most obvious reasons for a newbie to give up on the game as being too complicated. I understand why it was done, it makes the game more accessible to new players but it is not the same as when I started. I always thought autodock was supposed to be bad/risky to encourage players to learn how to manually dock ie a dilemma. It is near perfect now (I have one on my trade cutter) & I'm glad to have it as an option but it's a double edged sword imo.

 

[Morbad]

I neglected to mention the largest change of all...the players. 2.1 removed a solid half of the people I used to play with (most of the old-school PvPers) and the addition of the FSS removed another sizable fraction (many of the old-school explorers). Even with no other changes, this demographic shift, in and of itself, was a huge deal for someone who has always played this game as an explicitly multiplayer title. It severed continuity in a way that was more profound than the server wipes of the Betas.

 

[Cmdr. Numa]

See, I started the game when engineers had already evolved into what they are now (autumn 2019). I think they're fine, maybe because I didn't go through the apparent drama the early iterations of engineers caused.

The original engineering had it's charms. You could continue tinkering, rerolling again and again in hopes of that god roll. I enjoyed that. The best I got was a shield booster that was basically resistance and heavy duty in one. And let's not forget the possibility to mod a size 5 shield to fit a Cutter.

The current version has it's pros too. Everyone is on a equal footing as far as the maximum achievable results go. No more RNG besides the number of rolls required to get to the max. But that also means that a ship quickly reaches a point when it's done. No need to touch it anymore, unless you want to make a fundamental change in the modules or the engineering blueprint used.

 

[Northpin]

And let's not forget the possibility to mod a size 5 shield to fit a Cutter.

I still think they owe us (how entitled ) an Shield Experimental that increases the Maximum Mass limit for shields - so i can fit a size 5 shield gen on a Cutter.
Or experimentals for Sensors and life support

 

[Felix DiCestria]

Windows is the same way. They're all OSes with GUIs and Windows 11 may even share some code with Windows 3.1, but in footprint and feature (and I use the term loosely) set, they are night and day different...and many of these changes were not for the better.

Yet both are recognisably Windows and not DOS. They share more than sections of code.
Or would you say you've only been using Windows since 2021?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

The armed trader gameplay was core from day 1.

Though largely not the case in Elite Dangerous, of course - there's no particular need for a trader to be armed, while if you want to seek out combat there's no real benefit to carrying cargo along the way.

The change from "things happen to you on the way" to "things happen when you get there" is one of the biggest changes between Elite Dangerous and the previous games; that combined with the change to a persistent multiplayer environment means that the trading mechanism inherited from the previous games really doesn't work even with the extra details added in ED.

(While of course some of the other content added in ED really wouldn't work in an "along the way" model - mining was a fairly pointless addon in the first three)

 

[Northpin]

Though largely not the case in Elite Dangerous, of course - there's no particular need for a trader to be armed, while if you want to seek out combat there's no real benefit to carrying cargo along the way.

Definitely.
If i have my large trader loaded with 500+ tons of precious goods, i really dont want my A-B trade run to be fragmented by combat encounters. It will only delay my arrival to my destination and the profits that wait for me there.
And if i want to do combat - why should i bother with cargo racks since they dont improve my combat experience.

I wonder how the game would have fared if they had a less customized outfitting approach - so all ships could fit some combat modules ontop of the basic (and un-removable) cargo hold

At least in that scenario my armed trader would fight another armed trader and not a g5 murder boat.
Maybe

 

[Felix DiCestria]

Though largely not the case in Elite Dangerous, of course - there's no particular need for a trader to be armed, while if you want to seek out combat there's no real benefit to carrying cargo along the way.

The change from "things happen to you on the way" to "things happen when you get there" is one of the biggest changes between Elite Dangerous and the previous games; that combined with the change to a persistent multiplayer environment means that the trading mechanism inherited from the previous games really doesn't work even with the extra details added in ED.

(While of course some of the other content added in ED really wouldn't work in an "along the way" model - mining was a fairly pointless addon in the first three)

That was the game in '84, and what I wanted from ED to which end my Cobra, Krait, Python, Anaconda and even my Type 9 have been built for. Whilst a trader could avoid combat if they wanted to, I find that rather dull and why I take Delaceys over the Lakons given the choice.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I wonder how the game would have fared if they had a less customized outfitting approach - so all ships could fit some combat modules ontop of the basic (and un-removable) cargo hold

That isn't even necessarily a requirement (though is how it worked in Elite, yes). In FE2/FFE every combat (or even non-combat) module fitted directly took capacity out of your cargo hold - whereas in ED you can fit a fair few into hardpoints and utilities without compromising cargo at all.

But the way the journey to the station worked in FE2/FFE was very different:
- there was no interdiction stage; while it was theoretically possible to dodge an attacker, in practice you couldn't do that while also maintaining a high enough time acceleration to get to the destination in less than a few hours. So interactions with pirates basically always started with them rapidly closing to weapons range, and if there were pirates in the system at all you'd have to fight past at least most of them to reach the station.
- there was no low-wake option; you could flee to hyperspace (though you'd eventually run out of fuel, and your destination system would also have pirates, so this was a last resort rather than a get-out-of-jail-free option), and if you had a much faster ship than your opponent you could probably clear out of weapons range long enough for you to both get your shields back, but that was about it: once in a fight you usually needed to resolve it by destroying the enemy
- all NPCs (even with their fairly limited piloting skill) were capable of eventually destroying an unshielded unarmed ship.

So the question wasn't "weapons or cargo?", the question for maximising trade profits was "how few combat modules can I fit and still be confident of winning the fights?" - which is obviously not a consideration for the average ED trade ship where the answer is "none, there won't be any fights".

It will only delay my arrival to my destination and the profits that wait for me there.

Which is one reason why the Elite/FE2/FFE trade model doesn't work in Elite Dangerous.

In the previous games, the trade profits (far more than the direct bounties) were your reward for defeating the pirates. In ED it's not clear what the profits are actually rewards for, and the underlying "buy low sell high" model remains essentially the ultra-simplified one from the previous games where it didn't need to be more sophisticated.