Problem with this is that not everyone checks his inbox, and we are back on square one.
The "problem" with the current Thargoid attack gameplay
- Thread starter NeilF
- Start date
Problem with this is that not everyone checks his inbox, and we are back on square one.
I't like they saw one of the absolutely worst things from F4 and said: "Hey! Let's add _this_ into our game! People will love it!"
Sometimes I really question the sanity of Frontier developers. I mean, it's SO obvious about what you (the player) or everyone else has been saying about Galnet - for several YEARS - and yet FdEvs are like 'Who? Where? How? ... Now?'. Like totally clueless and disconnected people.
Guys if you cannot see the flaws of your own Galnet, what can we hope for the bigger portion of the game itself in Beyond?
YOU have to be ahead of us - players to see and fix the obvious flaws and quirks,
YOU have to think about what would make your game fun and why people complain so much about same things over and over again.
Being ahead and making things work, not to rely on players to point you such OBVIOUS mistakes and shortcomings. And even then, you fail to deliver.
Honestly, if FDev was an American firm, I'm 99% sure leads & creative staff would've been fired. I know you are dear and kind people on the live stream, but you fail on this game on so many levels, year after year.
And make Obsidiant Ant a permanent employee. That guy alone did what your entire legion of paid devs could not.
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As others said, big events should come up as an emergency news bulletin when you load into the game. Whether or not you look at Galnet. It should come up either in a separate UI box that pops up in front of you, or as a big clear message in your chat window saying 'emergency bulletin - stations under attack - check Galnet for more details', and then in Galnet it's massively highlighted as an emergency bulletin.
Many people playing online spaceship video games will have little interest in reading reams of 'news' about various bits of the game's galaxy, especially if they're random political bulletins in a massive overarching plot you know nothing about (and have no way to find out about besides going on the flipping forums/youtube). This means many people don't look at Galnet often. And they won't keep scanning it every time they log in on the off-chance that somewhere in there is a story that tells them something useful in terms of gameplay.
No, we're not still at square one - more people will check if they are clearly notified about a news bulletin of that kind. Not everyone, but more than currently.
This is the last thing Galnet needs. Unless they figure out some way to properly divide the 'fluff' posts, local info posts, and proper galaxy news bulletins - in which case yes they could go ahead and add more content.
The issue is people not picking up on the important content, i.e. news bulletins about gameplay opportunities (Thargoid attacks/whatever). This won't be solved by adding more content to the news feed.
"We must evacuate damaged stations," I hear some CMDRs telling us. "We must repair damaged stations," I hear some CMDRs telling us. The problem is, what's unfolding risks feeling like a set of switches being flicked each Thursday morning, so IMHO it's not surprising many CMDRs simply risk responding with, Why?
Let's consider for a second where we are supposedly in the ED universe. Thargoids are now attacking stations. So what should we be doing logically?:-Instead, what we currently have is:-
- Possibly sending out scouting parties trying to spot the enemy. Seeing if they're building up in numbers etc etc. ie: Tactical information where they might be heading to next?
- If possible, try and hit them first before they can reach a station? ie: A first strike to stop an attack or reduce their numbers?
- Supply stations at threat to potentially build up defense related assets, to help them defend against any Thargoids arriving there?
- Defend stations, so if Thargoids do turn up, there's forces there or at least nearby to help reduce the damage done?
- And during evacuations/repairs, maybe defense could still be an issue, at least early on there would be the threat of Thargoid ships still potentially turning up again?
- Thursday morning server tick - Station(s) damaged.
- "Safe" evacuation gameplay.
- "Safe" repair gameplay.
So all we see is a distant shadow of what's supposedly taking place in these terrible attacks...
And we're suppose to feel engaged how? We're suppose to feel motivated why? We're suppose to buy into this threat because?
Anyway, this is my take at least on the current position... Looking at it at the moment, personally I don't feel much motivation to get involved because, (a) there's not much gameplay involved that attracts me (this is a game not a job), and (b) I don't feel I/we can make any/much of a difference.
ps: And a minor comment along these lines - Maybe if a station is damaged by a Thargoid attack, any CMDRs who left their ships onboard should face a rebuy screen next logonThis is suppose to be Winter in Elite Dangerous is it not?
I assume at these stations there's also a load of dead ships floating around too, right? Surely there's a ton of ships to defend these station as well? No, where are they then?
That's actually a good point...I've only done a couple of the rescue locations, but in both cases there was just the station, there were no burnt-out Vipers outside.
Unfortunately the current way Galnet is presented is woefully poor and does not engage with the player at all.
Ok, Frontier are moving in the right direction with the audio format in the next coming updates, but even that is way over due. I have been using a plugin for voice attack which does the same job for over two years now.
What I think and hope Frontier move towards something like what Vindicator Jones was suggesting in hes great video. A video and audio stream in the top right panel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BvpgRNYGvg
What is GALNET ?
At this time in the Future it should be a Galaxy Wide Internet Info Service,
not only providing Galaxy News, but Local as well (depending on the system where you are at),
with options to show info on systems within a radius around you.
So the Galnet UI should allow us to link it to any thing on the Internet,
in order to provide in game, any and all Information we need from Third Party Sites,
which information is sorely missed in game.
Tie this in to what Vindicator Jones has proposed, and you have something that will be
pertinent to each and every player in the Game, with concrete Info players need,
and Not just Fluff Haystacks with small Info Needles in them.
As far as the Thargoids go, I play in Solo, so I am pretty much out of this part of the Game at this point.
Since the Devs have not given me any option to fight them solo, I am left hanging.
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Hi Dominic,
The problem is one of visibility. GalNet is tucked away under "Galactic Powers" on the Nav Menu, which is hardly intuitive. Secondly, there really isn't any incentive for people to go check GalNet out (aside from wanting to read the news of course). Here's some suggestions:
1) A notification in the top right comms panel when some major story / news occurs, (i.e. Show this as a headline and prompt people to check GalNet).
2) Make GalNet more intuitive to find for new players - it's current location makes no real sense.
3) Clean up the layout of the game launcher so that major news can be clearly displayed along with some pretty graphics.
4) Those wonderful Commander Chronicle videos you guys have been releasing should be added to the game itself. When people load up the game, they get to see these awesome cinematic (with a skip option of course).
As you point out, a lot of people make the criticism that there isn't much news inside the game...and this is a valid complaint. It's not so much that the new isn't there - rather, it's that it's nowhere near visible enough, and I honestly think you guys are missing out on some fantastic opportunities to bring more awareness (and life) to the game, which the above four suggestions would dramatically help with.
You mean that might then requires some salvage type gameplay to break up/carry off/move wrecks? Ideally using some nice physics based mechanics? ie: Again leveraging new gameplay that had been put into the game over the past X years to add interest to these scenarios/events?
Don't get me wrong, I meant replace the auto-generated stuff that's pretty useless with actual narrative content that directs cmdrs to events or grabs their interest in some way.
Yes, +1. The only 'variety' I will get with these is experimenting with different ships
Couldn't they vary it a little ? Like, have the switch on a different day, occasionally? It feels like Thargoid Thursdays at the moment.
Is anyone surpirsed it's like this? After 3 years of the same type of gameplay we get... the same type of gameplay.
Why couldn't each station have...
- a FINITE amount of people to rescue
- A time limit before they all die (suffocation, fire, reactor overload, radiation, boredom)
Then there would be a sense of urgency and a risk of failure and a chance for emergent gameplay as players show up to defend rescuers from gankers (like we saw at one of the stations)
That makes things more exciting but FDev take all that away and give us yet another thing to look at and copy paste it everywhere.
Wasn't there the suggesting that with one of the more recent stations, the passenger missions did dry up? As if there was a finite amount of folks to save, or a finite time frame?
That surprised me as I expected the missions to just go on and on till another server click. But I've not heard anything else since then about it.
Can only support your post here.
Especially point 6.
It's not even the visibility or in-game accessibility for me, i will gladly go looking for info.
Also, i don't mind reading in games. Do plenty of it in other games.
I just found it bland and uninteresting (even cringey at times) as if just quickly scribbled down by some staffer with no writing background.
After the first few days i simply stopped even looking at it.
It could be a useful and interesting tool, but even GalNet Audio isn't going to save it, if they aren't willing to throw some talent, and therefor money, at it.
Haha you are saying in this thread exactly what ive been saying since the first station attack, ive written them at least a half dozen times and had much less of a positive response. The attacks never happen, its just a spreadsheet "save" button every Thursday...Then it is just re-dressed passenger missions, its the ILLUSION of content.... TLDR; i agree, its exactly what ive been saying for weeks.
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While I don't mind not seeing the opening attack, it would be good to have a thargoid come along at random times to scan the station, maybe have some viper security ships with AX weapons installed to help commanders get rid of them. Make it a bit more dramatic. I am wondering if there is some kind of issue with having ships fighting around stations. All they need to do is swtch off the damage reporting on stations if we accidently hit one so that nobody gets fined or a bounty. Station weapons are already offline I think.
Just mix it up a bit.
Winter may be coming but it's one that's in California where it's an easy 26 celcius (so pretty much summer if you're in the UK and lucky!). I always dislike it when people hype up their own work with other peoples sayings and then it turns out Winter was never coming and there was literally nothing to get excited about because the delivery was all wrong.
We need personal mission content. Something that structures engagement through gameplay.
You've spent so long pushing ARG style content in order to appeal to a tiny amount of hyper-fans whose "discoveries" drive media coverage, that you've not grasped just how alienating it is for everyone else. People don't want to read Galnet, even if they've got the time and energy to keep doing so, because more often than not you're actively hiding the content away even there to generate "Mysteries".
And even if I'm watching the forums like a hawk, and going through GALNET with a fine tooth comb, more often than not it turns out to be something I can't take part in, or is discovered before I even can get there. I never triggered the Thargoid interceptions for instance, because the random chance was too low, or I was possibly not in the right area because the forums had guessed wrong. These fixed instances are somewhat better, in that the content is clearly there for everyone, but again it's generic content that is being fleshed out by community imagination, not in game engagement. Turn up, or not even bother logging in, it's largely irrelevant which you choose because it's not about you personally.
And yet within the game universe, there are huge organisations like the Federal Navy who supposedly know me well enough to give me a Rank, but none of them seem to care whether I'm engaging in the Thargoid content or not, or even seem to have an organisational opinion on any of it themselves? When it's something obscure that hasn't even been discovered yet, maybe you can excuse there being no guidance... but alien races wreck entire stations, and there's not even a mission for you specifically to go save at least the Federal staff, say?
Meanwhile, every beacon, crashed space ship, passenger, and even system aboard my computer is determined to tell me everything about anything down to a tiny change within my inventory... but no one wants to talk about these universe changing events in local radio traffic or send me a direct message?
As for the Thargoids... they have no idea who I am, because they've never even seen me. Wouldn't it be wonderful though to be sent out in a defined area of space by the Federal Navy to look for them, "Patrol these areas", run into them, and then have the option to refuse to shoot them? And in doing so, allow me to express DIRECTLY my opinion? Later on, you can use the number of accounts who acted pro-Thargoid during the wider, background events to start tailoring the narrative.
Unfortunately, Elite simply isn't fleshed out enough to allow it right now, but imagine if we already had the ability to flag as a guild or aligned with an NPC faction (some of which we've seeded ourselves)... Let's say I and my real life friends don't shoot the Thargoids; we're based around Cowini, where United Imperial Dairies are. And because we're considered Pro-Thargoid, that area never gets attacked. Something we could SEE in game. Something we'd directly helped develop.
The Add On Store doesn't help either; if you weren't so dedicated to pushing every decal and skin colour into that, you could tempt people to declare themselves Insect Repellent by giving them Thargoid Kill Markers they could apply to their hulls for shooting them down... and in offering personal rewards, you'd be setting up personal consequences for later when the war really takes off.
So again; we need personal narratives to take part in.
Biggest problem is: Nobody cares. You need to attract people to GalNet. One possibility could be to get breaking news right into your cockpit, but that needs some effort producing the news. Second problem is: Nobody cares. Because a single commander has no - NO - influence on the story, because all storytelling is done by FD and not by the commanders.
Make commanders great again