The reason the Xenobiology minigame didn't work, and how to fix it.

[physical0]

Yeah, nah mate. There is no way I'm buying a sequel to this. Not only does the idea of a sequel invalidate the whole Elite is a world concept but FDev would have to make leaps and bounds progress in demonstrating they understand 'what would make Elite fun to play' before I trust them with more money.

Elite has been a constant downward spiral of gruelling grind coated in shiny paint and exobiology is a sign that they're not even paying for gloss anymore and just leaving it as a primer coat.

Like I can't understand the thought process behind "well, they did such a horrible job the first time that they need to start over from scratch, but they'll do it right this time true story despite failing to demonstrate ANY learning from the mistakes they made to begin with".

Yah, no way I'd pre-order anything Frontier makes.

Part of why a sequel would be necessary is that a lot of the world concept would need to be invalidated. There's no good way to make the massive changes necessary to make the game function well. Frontier lacked the courage necessary to fix engineering without allowing all of the player keep their old engineered stuff.
So many aspects of the game require significant work, and it is doubtful that Frontier would expect old players to give up anything they already have.
The only thing Frontier seems to be capable of doing is piling more and more stuff onto the pile. There are systems deep in the pile that need fixed.
I don't think they could fix anything by just adding more.

Fundamentally speaking, the Stellar Forge is interesting, but from a gameplay perspective, it's not very useful.
At the highest levels, the forge creates a structure and a pattern, but you only see that pattern when you are looking at billions of stars. The further and further you look into it, the more and more it looks like noise. This is a necessity of the system because without sufficient randomness, the patterns would repeat and you wouldn't have a single galaxy, you'd have a couple cut and paste copies of parts of the galaxy.
At the scale that we play in, the Stellar Forge is effectively random noise. There are no discernable patterns, except in the places where patterns have been hand crafted. This is very true to life, but it doesn't lend itself to interesting gameplay.

With a galaxy that is pseudorandom, exploration is simply a matter of trying one's luck with the random number generator. Is your next jump going to be interesting or is it going to be just like the last system? The odds of finding specific traits are equal in all places, so where you look doesn't matter. Hinging exobiology on the forge would make it a roll of the dice, just like all other exploration.

A pattern that is discernible to the player must exist at their scale. A player must be able to choose where they go and why they go for those choices to be meaningful.
A game requires a gradient of "easy" and "hard". This game's only analog is "quick" and "slow". The game rewards players based on the time spent performing an activity, not the complexity or difficulty of that activity. There are no places in space that are more difficult than others, there are only distances that take longer to traverse.

A discovery on the other side of the galaxy is just as valuable as one right in your backyard. A single 100ly jump is no harder than a single 10ly jump. Carrying 100 tons of cargo is no more difficult than carrying 10 tons.

The game puts too much value on time and many required changes would invalidate that.
To fix the grind would need to eliminate it. And eliminating the grind would be "unfair" to all the players who did their grind.

The game puts too much value on time already spent. It does not consider the value of new time. A veteran player has tangible advantage over a new player which no amount of play could allow that new player to overcome. A newer play, even if they could gather more knowledge of the game and practice greater skill at the game, the older player will still have an advantage over the new player by virtue of having played longer.
As the game progresses, the time needed to make new discoveries becomes longer and longer, as those discoveries nearby become scarce. New players are faced with a greater demand for their time and effort than older players were expected.

The "New Game" experience is really the hardest part of Elite Dangerous. Learning how to play the game while dealing with inferior equipment is the biggest challenge that the game throws at a player. The game has an inverse difficulty curve where the longer you play, the easier it gets. The only way for an old player to find a challenge is to intentionally put themselves in a situation where they limit their equipment to the point where they lack confidence in their ability to overcome a challenge. Doing so offers less in-game reward than other content which would be much easier for the player.

 

[Burstar1]

There's no good way to make the massive changes necessary to make the game function well.

I'm reminded of the axiom: if a senior scientist says something is possible they are probably right. If they say something is impossible, they are almost certainly wrong.

Fundamentally speaking, the Stellar Forge is interesting, but from a gameplay perspective, it's not very useful.

A pattern that is discernible to the player must exist at their scale. A player must be able to choose where they go and why they go for those choices to be meaningful.

The SF is one of the only things FDev got right IMO. The whole issue with Exobiology is that it isn't random which makes it monotonous. Even still, you can make pathing decisions in the random world that are meaningful: You will not find vibrant life in Brown dwarf or Type O systems. The issue here is that many of the decisions a player makes aren't based on a holistic understanding of the science involved.

A game requires a gradient of "easy" and "hard". This game's only analog is "quick" and "slow". The game rewards players based on the time spent performing an activity, not the complexity or difficulty of that activity. There are no places in space that are more difficult than others, there are only distances that take longer to traverse.
A discovery on the other side of the galaxy is just as valuable as one right in your backyard. A single 100ly jump is no harder than a single 10ly jump. Carrying 100 tons of cargo is no more difficult than carrying 10 tons.

Setting aside that there are actually difficulty curves in the game (ie: AX combat) or that some of the most time consuming gameplay loops are the least profitable (cough exploration), your point generally stands. Unfortunately if you made far reaches exploration more valuable you'd get things like the entire Beagle Point quadrant scoured clean while just outside the bubble would be ignored. This just doesn't make sense. The exploration loop design is good enough that it doesn't bother me. Could it use more challenges like making Black holes dangerous, or Notable Stellar Phenomenon that are actually caustic etc? Absolutely. To me the issue is NOTHING breaks the monotony when you're out there, not with the reasons for being out there to begin with.

The game puts too much value on time and many required changes would invalidate that.
To fix the grind would need to eliminate it. And eliminating the grind would be "unfair" to all the players who did their grind.

I disagree. Yes, the grind is long for many things but they can fix this with at least 2 methods:
1) make the gameplay involved in the grind more entertaining/challenging/diverse so that it isn't a grind and more like progression,
2) Make the grind an unlock instead of perpetual. For example; AX combat is endgame most challenging thing in Elite (or PVP depending on the player) imo. After you've grinded the module/tech required you still need to return to farm guardian mats to replenish rearm stocks etc. forever. This needs to go. Make a CG that unlocks human tech rounds that can be farmed through normal bubble activity or even just make needed mats drop during AX combat.

As the game progresses, the time needed to make new discoveries becomes longer and longer, as those discoveries nearby become scarce. New players are faced with a greater demand for their time and effort than older players were expected.

This is patently false. The resources and knowledge base available to new players is leaps and bounds beyond what it was like years ago. Not to mention the improvements to the gameplay loops that FDev has already implemented When the game came out It took like 3 months to earn my first Anaconda. My Epic alt did it in a day with no exploits, or cheats, and I think the record is measured in single digit hours.

The "New Game" experience is really the hardest part of Elite Dangerous. Learning how to play the game while dealing with inferior equipment is the biggest challenge that the game throws at a player. The game has an inverse difficulty curve where the longer you play, the easier it gets. The only way for an old player to find a challenge is to intentionally put themselves in a situation where they limit their equipment to the point where they lack confidence in their ability to overcome a challenge. Doing so offers less in-game reward than other content which would be much easier for the player.

Yes but this is the same for all games. They are difficult until you know what you are doing. I do agree that there should be better difficulty gradation for things like System security, pilot and NPC skill levels and what you're actually doing, for example:

High security systems should be relatively safe but their payouts greatly reduced. It makes sense that with huge long standing markets like say Sol that prices and logistics would have been normalized to the point it is very difficult for new trading entrepreneurs to make significant headway there with the tradeoff being at least its safe. Furthermore, this should have a generalized security increase to surrounding areas. There should not be an Anarchy system anywhere within 50LY from Sol.

Everything else being equal the likelihood you are interdicted is the same whether you're in a Sidewinder carrying 2 tons of biowaste, or a Cutter transporting 512t of Platinum. Also, the AI doesn't give a F if you are Elite in an Anaconda and it is in a Hauler. It will interdict you and attempt to fight instead of run immediately for 90% of encounters like this. Things like these are annoying and points to the core issue with the lackluster gameplay in Elite: too much time is spent making spiffy textures and not enough time making what to do with them sensible and enjoyable.

;tldr the issue with the grind isn't that it is long, but rather that it is unenjoyable and relatively unrewarding. This can be fixed without a rewrite.