Things that make a game addictive

[Bloodsign]

Elite Dangerous does some things really well. In particular, the learning and skill curves make accomplishment feel rewarding, and the details of the ships, the nuances of outfitting, and the ability to create goals for oneself in the open sandbox galaxy will take the CMDR on a pretty long ride. Eventually, though, the novelty of things wears off and the monotony can set in. I wouldn't describe the pacing of ED as being riveting or addicting, per se. Once you hit boredom, creating new arbitrary goals can be a mental chore, and actually keep you away from ED. That's where I've been for the last couple months.

So I thought I'd outline some things that I find addicting in other games and overview how they could be implemented into ED.

- The ceiling should be unattainably high, there should always be another level. I think the Elite ranks in ED should be augmented; so the experience gap between Deadly and Elite can be done over and over to rank from Elite to Elite-II to Elite-III, Elite-IX, Elite-XXV, whatever. Keep tacking on Roman numerals, no ceiling ever. Have an ingame CMDR leaderboard for total rank progress, and leaderboards for the individual categories: Exploration, Combat, Trade, CQC.

- There needs to be much more detailed ingame achievements. These should be detailed to the level of distinguishing things like number of Sidewinders destroyed, number of Eagles destroyed, etc. Has anyone played Borderlands? Each enemy type kills are tracked, with experience bonuses or perks for reaching new tiers: 10 destroyed, 100 destroyed, 10000 destroyed, etc. More tracked stats! If this is a hard sci-fi game, give us some serious statistics. There could even be leaderboards for each of these types of categories. Things to be tracked: distance, number of jumps, enemies killed, shots fired, shot accuracy ratios, etc.

- In games like Fallout, I love collecting perks for achievements. Some games have really unbalanced perks systems, but ED could be more subtle but still reasonably rewarding. For example, destroying 100 Sidewinders gives an extra +1% damage bonus against Sidewinders, killing 1000 gives another +1%, etc. Perks could enhance any number of factors, shield recharge, ammo capacity, etc. but for fairly small values, and be capped at +5% (for example) to avoid balance issues. This system not only offers new challenges, but new rewards and optional ways of building up your ships in a different way than engineering.

- More unlocks. Everyone loves unlocks, they make you feel like you really earned something. Well, ship unlocks. I don't personally care much for system unlocks. I think every superpower rank up should unlock something unique and significant. Preferably, there will one day be a ship unlock for every rank up, Federation, Alliance, and Empire. There should also be a seesaw effect, gaining 2 points of favor with the Feds, for example, drops you 1 point with the Empire and Alliance.

- Speaking of unlocks, it really would make sense to make engineering effects unlocks as well, once each effect is unlocked, the CMDR can engineer things by paying extra credits to apply effects they have already unlocked.

It's the little details like these that take gameplay from drudgery to riveting and rewarding.

I do have to say, FDev, that I think you have some understanding of the principles of microrewards, because ARX earning is a great first step. I hope you'll consider some of these measures also.

 

[AgentGB]

- Speaking of unlocks, it really would make sense to make engineering effects unlocks as well, once each effect is unlocked, the CMDR can engineer things by paying extra credits to apply effects they have already unlocked.

Like this bit especially, like a lot. This would be quite sensible.

- In games like Fallout, I love collecting perks for achievements. Some games have really unbalanced perks systems, but ED could be more subtle but still reasonably rewarding. For example, destroying 100 Sidewinders gives an extra +1% damage bonus against Sidewinders, killing 1000 gives another +1%, etc. Perks could enhance any number of factors, shield recharge, ammo capacity, etc. but for fairly small values, and be capped at +5% (for example) to avoid balance issues. This system not only offers new challenges, but new rewards and optional ways of building up your ships in a different way than engineering.

Perks in of itself is an interesting idea, & if synergised well with other gameplay elements, it could add a bit more weight to things. I means, not sure about the grind element, personally, i'd be more in favour of something like Perks applied but only retained while X was true at the most. Either it be something like while you stay aligned to a PP faction, or perhaps when creating your Squadron you can choose a couple of perks that defines your Squadron. But if wanting to add some form of criteria to be met in order to keep these perks active & not just laurels you sit on, perhaps have it related to carrying out something that in the scope of your perks. Would also try to avoid anything more that offers straight up damage stacking on top of engineering & see if its a perk that can be applied to the character prowess or as a doctrine of sort.

So for example if you're a pirate, in order to maintain a perk then benefits something that benefit piracy. it will probably require practicing your trade regularly to justify it. If you decide to change perks, there a few week cool down between changes for example. If mix n matching a couple of perks that diverge, then it would probably mean undertaking two career roles to maintain those two perks, be it a smuggler, pirate, combat, miner trade etc perk/doctrine.

could have all sort of interesting perks/doctrines (but would try to keep away from hard bonuses or more power creep)

(just examples)

Piracy Perk (Letter Of Marque) - If your Squadron or yourself is affiliated with a PP faction, you can sell "stolen goods" as normal goods into the normal goods market. They would no longer be counted as stolen & would naturally receive a bigger profit. This would also stop the detrimental effects of selling into the black market in allied factions.

Smuggler Perk (Underworld Contacts) - Slightly increases your take in the black market & allows you pay of contraband/stolen good fine for less

Bounty Hunter Perk (Informants) - Gives you tips on nearby active players with 'Wanted' status within a range of 40ly in your Galaxy map. Thus also allowing one to better track their assailant.

Mercenary Perk (Dog of War) - Mercenary companies of old live & died by their reputation, since no King would take the services of Mercenaries known for routing. They also usually came better equipped & trained than most standing armies. For this probably would need an accumulative credit multiplier effect that caps out after a certain amount of successful contracts/war bonds. Can also trade war bonds for materials of your choice to better engineer once ship.

and so forth.

These aren't straight up hard bonuses that give over to power creep to much, but instead perks that can be selected that facilitate your play style.