Things Elite Dangerous can learn from No Man's Sky

[vitz3]

This is one of my first few topics here so try not to lynch me a bit too quickly please.

I really enjoy ED. I'm pretty sure I always have since launch. Minor quibbles here and there, but nothing that breaks the game for me. It really captures my imagination and definitely gives me a sense of wonderment and scale of things when playing. I like the way things are evolving, enjoy the community participation (Go ObsidianAnt!) and it's my favourite VR compatible game right now.

Now that the pandering pretext is out of the way... I've been playing some NMS (No Man's Sky) recently, it's... alright. Anyway, I know that the games are completely different both in design and implementation but I've been thinking of a few things that ED can learn from both NMS's successes and mistakes.

In no particularly important order:

• Caves. When atmospheric planetary landings are put in, there needs to be caves, overlapping terrain, not just a single plane heightmap. These need to exist underwater.
• Rivers. NMS has no rivers that I've noticed. Perhaps some narrow bodies of water, but no indication of flow.
• Waterfalls. Part of rivers, sudden drops, means water drops. Physics!
• Dunes and plains. Areas with high dust or other particulate content eventually form plains or large dunes. Spice must flow. So far I haven't seen these in NMS aside from the bullshot-laden trailers. </gettingMyDigsIn>
• Biomes. Different parts of planets should look different, from orbit and on the surface. The edges and changes within should be appropriate. NMS has no biomes. ED already provides planets with ice caps and such, definitely the right track.
• Seasons, Highly elliptical orbits or planets with an axial tilt should have seasons of some sort. Planets with a very slow rotation speed should show that one side of the planet is visibly colder than another. NMS's planets do not move. In ED, this would be difficult for the player to notice when visiting a planet in a one-off trip, but frequent stops over a long period of time showing the differences in seasons would be mind-blowing for some.
• Weather, NMS provides occasional storms and rain. This should be a given and should make sense in ED. The current cloud cover should reflect what appears on the ground.
• Atmospheric density and composition. Different atmospheres have different densities. When entering these atmospheres we should see friction create flames at different intensities, altitudes and ALSO, different colours. NMS presents a one flame fits all approach. ED programmers can and should take this opportunity to show off their skills.
• Boulders. Glacial movement and tectonic shifts with landslides and such is a thing. Chunks of rock happen and get into strange places. NMS does this well enough but can be done better. The ED team are clever folks.
• Non-issue. NMS's soundtrack occasionally presents scores that fit what's on screen. Especially when wandering aimlessly on a strange planet. I've caught myself stopping and just absorbing the melody within. Some hits and misses. Elite does this too when jumping in, dropping out of SC, in combat (damn good), approaching a station or in SC. Expand on this further please. Your composer really knows their stuff and I think we're eagerly awaiting more. That said, over composition exists, sometimes silence works too. This really isn't a gripe against NMS and ED, both appear to do it well and are on the right track, so just... props.

I have a few other observations and thoughts on this that I'll edit in later. For now it's just what's off the top of my head. When you consider all the systems that are already running, what can be fine tuned and what can/should be implemented to get atmospheric planets up into the game it's mind boggling how much work would need to be done and tested. It's certainly not a small job by any means. It's not just a matter of generating a perlin noise map and calling it a day.

Anything else you saw in NMS you'd like ED to do better? Any missteps in NMS that the ED designers could take away?

I really hope Elite continues to evolve. It's really the best modern space'an sim on the market right now as far as I'm concerned. The amount of things and to see and the fact there's so many people playing in the same galaxy is amazing, my mind is blown! </exits room>

 

[Gaarp Kobayashi]

With all the respect Commander, but you gotta be kidding me!! It's great you're liking the NMS game, but the title of your thread should say: "WHAT NMS COULD BE LEARNING FROM ELITE DANGEROUS, FOR NOT TO END UP HOW IT DID?".

One of zillion reasons why I'm saying you have to be kidding:

[video=youtube_share;D2XX2ZnRk8M]http://youtu.be/D2XX2ZnRk8M[/video]

Please don't compare those two titless anymore. As after releasing NMS it obviously shows Elite Dangerous is a groundbreaking AAA title. While NMS is just a simple "couch" fun for few hours... Still if you like playing it, it's great!

 

[Privata]

You are talking about astmosphere planets , something that is not in the game. (yet. it will happen however)

NMS is trash in my opinion , it has no large bases , no missions , no gas giants , no airless worlds , no astroid fiels , unrealistic dull space and so on

 

[Darth Ender]

yea. but it will be years until Elite has the same level of repetitive things to experience on planets.

so... who knows what NMS will look like then.

 

[Gaarp Kobayashi]

yea. but it will be years until Elite has the same level of repetitive things to experience on planets.

so... who knows what NMS will look like then.

There wont be NMS by the time. Only on many people shelves. Gathering dust. Simple. Sad though.

 

[SirDavros]

You, sir, picked the correct forum; fight, fight, fight, fight..

 

[jasonbarron]

Seeing as how ED does not have atmospheric planetary surfaces enabled yet, it's kind of a moot point, isn't it OP? And when they finally do enable them, please God don't let them be anything like NMS; t'would be a sacrilege.

 

[lysan]

I think Frontier can learn something, but its not what you have listed.

 

[cheesenbiscuits]

Some games you have to wait for the sequel.
NMS 2 will be epic.
They really dropped the ball with the flight system,and the ship designs do not excite me at all.

 

[vitz3]

RE:Gaarp Kobayashi

Lol, yeah. The sky box sun was a major misstep, along with non moving or rotating planets.

Frontier's dedication to realism is fantastic.

My intention with posting this isn't to directly compare the two but to highlight some things that I think shouldn't be over looked and make it into atmospheric landings. Along with some things that I think NMS lacks (there's a lot of basic things missing, namely game play) that ED can do and do well.

 

[vitz3]

Seeing as how ED does not have atmospheric planetary surfaces enabled yet, it's kind of a moot point, isn't it OP? And when they finally do enable them, please God don't let them be anything like NMS; t'would be a sacrilege.

I think we're in agreement with your last statement.

There's a lot of things I'd like to see in atmospheric landings, it would be incredible to see what the ED create with their dedication to realistic environments. I guess it's a wish list really because NMS over promised and under delivered.

 

[PiLhEaD]

I think both games have elements that they do well. Saying that neither can learn from the other is a rather condescending and blinkered view imho.

From what I've experience so far in NMS I am impressed by the speed of 360-degree scanning and the clarity of the results (aka icon's in the HUD indicating item-type and local bearing) that you get when on the planet surface.

One other aspect that would be a good steal would be populating planets/moons with left-over detritus from alien races - be they long dead, or not - so for example ruined and/or abandoned structures. Make these things scannable from low-orbit, add in some associated rewards and missions, and SRV exploration becomes much more fun. Spread these finds along likely arcs of exploration and discovery, as taken by the alien race, and you've got an epic paper-chase to find the aliens' home planet/system.

And for those who haven't done this yet, feeding the animals in NMS is a hoot with 'charming' consequences . Seriously, if you've not tried it, give it a go!

The caves and deformable terrain, whilst excellently done in NMS, are a bit moot for ED as I doubt the ED variant of the Cobra engine supports it - e.g. ED doesn't use voxels.

 

[Devari]

Things Elite Dangerous can learn from No Man's Sky

I've been playing NMS since it launched on PC on Aug. 12 and there is very little for Elite to learn from NMS unfortunately. The biggest lesson to learn from NMS is one that Elite got correct from the kickstarter, promise on what you can deliver and always put the gameplay experience before polish/hype/concepts. I expected very little from NMS but it failed to even meet my very modest expectations, it is one of the few games (along with Battlefield Hardline) that I don't feel was actually worth it's $60 price tag. When I decide to play an MMO I will typically spend upwards of $200-300 during the course of a year so I usually have to be very disappointed with a game to not consider it worthy of even the standard $60 base cost.

 

[WR3ND]

NMS looks kind of interesting to me to mess around with. Might pick it up eventually for 20 USD once it drops in price.

 

[h347h]

NMS shows that 'space sims' are not for the masses. One thing Elite and SC can learn is not to go too far the casual route as it seems they will just ditch the game and bounce. Aim for the low end of the core players and develop content from there up to the hardcore content while making sure casual players can experience a lot with out diluting the game like NMS feels like. SC I don't think will have an issue with it as much as Elite will. The hardware barrier is going to keep a lot of casual players out in the first place.

As well they should both also look VERY hard at making multi player content as that was one of the major upsets of NMS.(Mostly because people thought it would be a multiplayer game but it shows player interaction is important for massive games like this, Minecraft would have suffered IMHO if it were not for multiplayer.)

 

[ThatFuzzyTiger]

To those of you who say ED has little to learn from NMS, you couldn't be more wrong. I know you are here because you love ED, but take the rose tint glasses off yo. Even on the most simple of levels I can reel off a good number of things ED could learn from NMS :

* Multiple inventories and being able to transfer cleanly from one to another and back again without all the associated aggro, we can't even do that with the SRV yet.

* Walking around space stations, NMS does that pretty slickly, ED just gives you a text menu. Sure there's new interiors but you're not going to be able to get out and investigate them.

* Featured, detailed terrains on landing, NMS's might be as shallow as ED's barren planets, but critically there's -more- types. We're STILL on Barren planets, if we're not at least on Volcanic, Frozen and a few others by 3.0 something has gone badly wrong.

* Being able to play offline. This is the kicker, you can PAUSE in No Mans Sky, go get a tea, or go to the loo, and you can resume right where you left off, even in mid flight, try doing that in ED, or better yet, try maintaining a game in ED with a flaky connection. Go ahead, I'll wait

Now there's some -real- lessons ED can learn from NMS.

 

[h347h]

To those of you who say ED has little to learn from NMS, you couldn't be more wrong. I know you are here because you love ED, but take the rose tint glasses off yo. Even on the most simple of levels I can reel off a good number of things ED could learn from NMS :

* Multiple inventories and being able to transfer cleanly from one to another and back again without all the associated aggro, we can't even do that with the SRV yet.

* Walking around space stations, NMS does that pretty slickly, ED just gives you a text menu. Sure there's new interiors but you're not going to be able to get out and investigate them.

* Featured, detailed terrains on landing, NMS's might be as shallow as ED's barren planets, but critically there's -more- types. We're STILL on Barren planets, if we're not at least on Volcanic, Frozen and a few others by 3.0 something has gone badly wrong.

* Being able to play offline. This is the kicker, you can PAUSE in No Mans Sky, go get a tea, or go to the loo, and you can resume right where you left off, even in mid flight, try doing that in ED, or better yet, try maintaining a game in ED with a flaky connection. Go ahead, I'll wait

Now there's some -real- lessons ED can learn from NMS.

/facepalm

 

[ThatFuzzyTiger]

/facepalm

Facepalm all you like, but you know damn well I'm speaking the truth here, it's about high time people stopped sticking their heads in the sand and started pushing Frontier to do better on these fronts. We don't even have functional storage or trading tools STILL. In a SPACE TRADING game.

 

[h347h]

Facepalm all you like, but you know damn well I'm speaking the truth here, it's about high time people stopped sticking their heads in the sand and started pushing Frontier to do better on these fronts. We don't even have functional storage or trading tools STILL. In a SPACE TRADING game.

No one has their heads in the sand. If you want offline mode head on over to NMS, that isn't going to be a feature for this game pretty much ever until development stops and that is well funded currently so don't expect it any time soon. Most of the stuff you are talking about is utterly minor trivial stuff and most of it is coming anyways, it is in the works so complaining about it is just ridiculous when it is on the way. Its basically saying hey you guys should do the stuff you are going to already do in the future. Never mind you have to finish the ground work to do it.

 

[Avetorian]

To those of you who say ED has little to learn from NMS, you couldn't be more wrong. I know you are here because you love ED, but take the rose tint glasses off yo. Even on the most simple of levels I can reel off a good number of things ED could learn from NMS :

* Multiple inventories and being able to transfer cleanly from one to another and back again without all the associated aggro, we can't even do that with the SRV yet.

* Walking around space stations, NMS does that pretty slickly, ED just gives you a text menu. Sure there's new interiors but you're not going to be able to get out and investigate them.

* Featured, detailed terrains on landing, NMS's might be as shallow as ED's barren planets, but critically there's -more- types. We're STILL on Barren planets, if we're not at least on Volcanic, Frozen and a few others by 3.0 something has gone badly wrong.

* Being able to play offline. This is the kicker, you can PAUSE in No Mans Sky, go get a tea, or go to the loo, and you can resume right where you left off, even in mid flight, try doing that in ED, or better yet, try maintaining a game in ED with a flaky connection. Go ahead, I'll wait

Now there's some -real- lessons ED can learn from NMS.

Sorry but, ED has VERY VERY VERY little learn from NMS. Walking around space stations? oh yay I can walk into a couple of rooms, Elite is planned to have the entire station accessible and detail, No need to take notes here frontier, The wonderful Art book says otherwise.

Multiple inventories and being able to transfer cleanly from one another and back again without all the associated aggro, we can't even do that in the SRV yet. ---- Again module storage is comming, and when it does we will have MORE SPACE and can stack items, hell we can already stack resources, see materials. No mans sky inventory is terrible, I hate it.

Featured detailed terrains on landing. NOOOOOOPE nothing to learn here. You've seen moons, and those moons look infinitely better than NMS, they look real. Amazing craters and canyons. Volcanism coming in 2.2. The op here clearly hasn't been paying attention!. The atmospheric worlds are gonna be amazing, with cities, proper civilizations, seasons and biomes all there. Not like One biome Sky.

And lastly ED is an MMO. SO that's another big fat nope. you want to pause? drop out of super cruise in the middle of nowhere, make sure no one is on your radar, log out.

I'm sorry, I have my issues with elite dangerous, due to the level of restrictions which are slowly being removed as the tech is evolved. I've had my arguments with other players regarding certain issues in the game,debated etc. But No man's sky, was a game I couldn't continue playing after 78 minutes. The joy of flying isn't there, I can't even so much as do a barrel roll on an g atmospheric world. I can't use my x52 pro, I can't pitch down, I can't have a proper dog fight. There's no inertia, the speed limitations are ridiculous. The space travel is amateur, and unpolished, it's it's.. No. Frontier keep doing what you're doing please. Don't take notes from these guys! they should be taking notes from you!