Things to do to salvage odyssey

[Falco]

I am not talking about the bugs or performance issues here. This is about core "gameplay" that needs to change. This also isn't about how the weapons look nowhere realistic (ie. the magazine chamber is in front of the grip, shortening the barrel. Weapons look like they do in real life for a reason.) or like the equivalent weapons look on ships. This is purely about mechanics and gameplay, because that's the most important.
I could sit here all day and rant about how stupid and bad odyssey is. The point is I want to be constructive.

1. Stop the grind. 27h to upgrade one thing is ridiculous
2. Stop the grind. Downloading data should be done instantly, not waiting around for 60+ seconds doing nothing. This is literally DESIGNED to waste time. Wasting the time of your playerbase is malevolent and disrespectful. Stop it. A timer is useful if you have something to do while waiting, for example defending yourself. Standing around is NOT FUN.
3. Stop the grind. Increase player inventory size so they can actually get all the items from a location without having to load them into the SUV. This is just a waste of time and serves no other purpose.
4. Stop the bullet sponge. Dumping 2 magazines into someone just to drop their shield is ridiculous. This type of gameplay punishes skill, such as good aim, and instead promotes equipment. It's not the better player that wins, but the one with the better gear. At most 10 shots to drop shields from the WORST weapon and 1-3 for the best one, fully upgraded.
5. Stop the bullet sponge. Introduce hit zones for shields. Head shots should be rewarded.
6. Stop the bullet sponge. Shield regen should be only when no hits were registered for an extended period of time. Minimum 20 seconds.
7. Reduce the difference between resistances. I understand lasers for shields and bullet for bodies. But that type of gameplay is bad. Requireing to swap weapons just to kill someone is just not good gameplay. At most 20% boost for one type over another.
8. Make weapon attachments detachable. How did you add your scope? Did you WELD IT ON? Literally the point of an attachment is to customize the weapon for the situation and if the situation changes you detach or attach a different one. Any other half decent game with weapon modifications will allow you to take them off again and put them on a different thing. Ships already have this system, why do suits and weapons not? If you want the same gun with a different scope you have to grind the whole thing again. Especially since you don't actually get any hard information (meaningful numbers instead of vague bars) about what the attachments actually do. This is a waste of time. Stop wasting your player's time.
9. Promote skill based gameplay. Increase weapon muzzle velocity to realistic values. If you can dodge a "sniper rifle" by side stepping the bullet something is seriously wrong.
10. Promote skill based gameplay. Increase the effective range of all rifles to at least 200m. Bullet speeds should be at least 300m/s and bullet trajectories should be affected by gravity.
11. Promote skill based gameplay. Stop upgrades from making weapons 250% stronger. I understand rewarding people for some effort they put in, but requiring the maxed out equipment just to get anywhere close to what the basic weapons should be like is not the answer. At most the upgraded weapon should reduce the amounts of shots it takes to kill someone by 50%, and that's from 6 shots to 4. Players still get a decent boost, while skilled players can still have a chance.

I'm sure there are other things. But they probably fall in line with the general idea here.
Stop wasting time. Make players play the game because it's fun, not because it's their second job and they can only get to the good stuff after 50 hours of grinding.

And maybe next time finish your product before you dump a prototype on your playerbase for them to play test it for the console release. I don't blame the developers here. The bad decision came from the management to dump this steaming pile on everyone before it was anywhere close to ready.
Either way, please reconsider the type of game you are making. This is a paid for title, not a free to play, mobile grinding game. Free to play mobile grinding games live from wasting the player's time and then offering a fast way out by "pay to win". ED seems to be designed to do the wasting time thing, but then not offer a fast way. And if they did that would be even more of a crap move, because once more: This is a full price title. Stop wasting people's time. Provide fun and engaging content that rewards skill and effort, not grinding literal DAYS of playtime to get anywhere where the game is decently fun.

 

[ThinkingPortals]

1. That is a bit ridiculous, although it varies by what you've already unlocked, your asset stores, and engineer unlocks. If you know what you're doing, and have a nice area set up, it doesn't take too long.
2. They pretty much addressed this, I haven't had to wait more than 30 seconds while downloading in a while. Disabling the power reactor / opening manufacturing containers desperately needs a way to hasten it though, standing around for 3 minutes is no fun.
3. Increased backpack on a Maverick, only times I've ever filled up have been looting everything in large tourism sites
4. 2 magazines into a shield? Are you using a low level kinetic gun vs a high level shield? Use the plasma pistol / sniper, or use the thermal vs shields and kinetic vs armour.
5. That would be nice. Or even headshots that break through shields should knock enemies on their ass
6. Given how dangerous it is to have no shields in some areas, you're basically asking people to take a 30s time-out every time their shields drop
7. It's an odd design choice, but I kinda get it. Plasma pistol does it for me almost everywhere except high CZs
8. Yeahhhhh I hope this gets changed
9. Muzzle velocity definitely needs to be upped on various weapons
10. This works for and against you. If it were as you said, enemy sharpshooters would be near-instant death and unavoidable. I wonder if they could make it like plasma chargers, where you could hold down the trigger for a long range fast shot on the sniper, and tapping would be slower.
11. That would be part of an overall balance change. My G5 executioner two-shots everything (damn you damage gating) except high CZ Enforcers. My G5 Oppressor takes 6 seconds of constant fire to remove a shield.

Grind has always been a part of elite, whether it's PerSOnAL NaRRaTIve or just to keep people playing. If you do it passively as you play, and know where to go / what to do when you want to grind, it's not as bad. Especially as Odyssey adds the function to SHARE materials, unprecedented and I wouldn't be surprised if fdev remove it.

 

[xzanfr]

Rock me Amadeus.

 

[taniwha-qf]

Especially as Odyssey adds the function to SHARE materials, unprecedented and I wouldn't be surprised if fdev remove it.

Considering the effort required to implement item drops they way they are, there is no way the ability to share is accidental. Thus it is highly unlikely FDev will remove it.

 

[Straker]

8. I'm really trying to like what they've done with Odyssey but this one keeps tripping me up and I end up not engaging with the suit and weapon engineering component of the expansion. It's seems like we have to fight to get them to change this - like we did with the original Horizons engineering and its randomised outcomes, although I'm not entirely certain I have the energy left.

If I may be permitted to add my own.

12. Fix Head/Eye tracking - or just disable it when on-foot. https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/34299

 

[TScal12]

Completely agreed OP, forced primary weapon switching is dumb, either that or must use plasma. They want us to play the way they want us to play, extremely limited, rather than give us options to only play with the weapons we like (As limited as the weapon variety is). At least in ships, kinetics have thermal engineering that lets them melt shields. I personally hate the look and feel of the laser weapons, and not a big fan of the plasmas. I'd much rather play with kinetic weapons only. My 2 cents.

 

[taniwha-qf]

Completely agreed OP, forced primary weapon switching is dumb, either that or must use plasma. They want us to play the way they want us to play, extremely limited, rather than give us options to only play with the weapons we like (As limited as the weapon variety is). At least in ships, kinetics have thermal engineering that lets them melt shields. I personally hate the look and feel of the laser weapons, and not a big fan of the plasmas. I'd much rather play with kinetic weapons only. My 2 cents.

Even a g3 (let alone g4) p-15 chews through shields at a decent rate. Even a g3 ar-50 isn't too bad at close range (so long as you actually hit). Most complaints of sponginess are the result of hip-firing and thus generally missing. I almost always use aim down sights, and most of my misses are due to my actual aim being bad.

 

[TScal12]

Even a g3 (let alone g4) p-15 chews through shields at a decent rate. Even a g3 ar-50 isn't too bad at close range (so long as you actually hit). Most complaints of sponginess are the result of hip-firing and thus generally missing. I almost always use aim down sights, and most of my misses are due to my actual aim being bad.

At a high CZ? the 5 bar enemies? I wish the AR50 had a single fire option, it makes absolutely no sense that a single shot from the pistol yields more damage than a single round of the rifle.

 

[taniwha-qf]

At a high CZ? the 5 bar enemies? I wish the AR50 had a single fire option, it makes absolutely no sense that a single shot from the pistol yields more damage than a single round of the rifle.

I don't carry a p-15 in a CZ (my backup pistol is the laser piston).
In a CZ, I'm perfectly happy switching primary weapons, it's just a single button press and doesn't take all that long (frustrating when the switched-to weapon needs reloading, though).

 

[TScal12]

I don't carry a p-15 in a CZ (my backup pistol is the laser piston).
In a CZ, I'm perfectly happy switching primary weapons, it's just a single button press and doesn't take all that long (frustrating when the switched-to weapon needs reloading, though).

I feel you buddy, and I'm real glad you're enjoying it, however as I mentioned in my earlier comment, I simply don't enjoy the laser nor plasma weapons yet we're forced to use them. My personal preference though

 

[Sighman]

I don't carry a p-15 in a CZ (my backup pistol is the laser piston).
In a CZ, I'm perfectly happy switching primary weapons, it's just a single button press and doesn't take all that long (frustrating when the switched-to weapon needs reloading, though).

Stowed reloading is definitely on the wishlist for my CZ dominator suit.

 

[Terry Daniels]

I think Fdev realised the player drop that would happen when Odyssey released with broken mechanics and limited content - then hurriedly upped the grinding required for the new 3rd new crafting mechanic (post ship and Guardian) to keep hours-played-in-game metrics up.
Same reason free ARX was increased for a week.
Once (if) player numbers start increasing I'm pretty sure the grinding will become more like the ship based version.

Ship internals will be boring after a couple of times but grinding for 30 hours for a welded on scope never stops being fun - lol!

 

[CMDR Von Abrahart]

Beta

 

[taniwha-qf]

Ship internals will be boring after a couple of times but grinding for 30 hours for a welded on scope never stops being fun - lol!

Actually, yes. I watched my brothers play SC... I got bored of the interiors within minutes. As for getting that scope (or for me, night vision, audio masking, and noise suppression), there are endless ways, all involving missions and actually having fun playing the game as intended, not doing endless relog fests.

 

[Falco]

1. That is a bit ridiculous, although it varies by what you've already unlocked, your asset stores, and engineer unlocks. If you know what you're doing, and have a nice area set up, it doesn't take too long.
2. They pretty much addressed this, I haven't had to wait more than 30 seconds while downloading in a while. Disabling the power reactor / opening manufacturing containers desperately needs a way to hasten it though, standing around for 3 minutes is no fun.
3. Increased backpack on a Maverick, only times I've ever filled up have been looting everything in large tourism sites
4. 2 magazines into a shield? Are you using a low level kinetic gun vs a high level shield? Use the plasma pistol / sniper, or use the thermal vs shields and kinetic vs armour.
5. That would be nice. Or even headshots that break through shields should knock enemies on their
6. Given how dangerous it is to have no shields in some areas, you're basically asking people to take a 30s time-out every time their shields drop
7. It's an odd design choice, but I kinda get it. Plasma pistol does it for me almost everywhere except high CZs
8. Yeahhhhh I hope this gets changed
9. Muzzle velocity definitely needs to be upped on various weapons
10. This works for and against you. If it were as you said, enemy sharpshooters would be near-instant death and unavoidable. I wonder if they could make it like plasma chargers, where you could hold down the trigger for a long range fast shot on the sniper, and tapping would be slower.
11. That would be part of an overall balance change. My G5 executioner two-shots everything (damn you damage gating) except high CZ Enforcers. My G5 Oppressor takes 6 seconds of constant fire to remove a shield.

Grind has always been a part of elite, whether it's PerSOnAL NaRRaTIve or just to keep people playing. If you do it passively as you play, and know where to go / what to do when you want to grind, it's not as bad. Especially as Odyssey adds the function to SHARE materials, unprecedented and I wouldn't be surprised if fdev remove it.

So what you mean to say is: The plasma pistol is the only viable weapon there is. Just becaues the plasma pistol is the best choice doesn't mean that the whole design is valid.
27h of hard core grinding if you start from nothing. If you were to do it as you play and doing fun activities, you'd take years. Stop kidding yourself.

Beta

No. If we don't speak up, nothing will change. This isn't about bugs or coding issues or models and textures. This is core design choices that have been made deliberately.
It feels like the people at frontier don't play their own game. They release the hot new every 2 years, then dump 15 patches in the next few weeks and then radio silence until the next grind is ready.
Had any of them actually played their game and went through what it took to actually get decent or even the best gear without using developer cheats, then maybe things would be a bit different. ED is a cash cow, not a piece of art to those people.

 

[Falco]

How do I delete this post?

 

[taniwha-qf]

27h of hard core grinding if you start from nothing. If you were to do it as you play and doing fun activities, you'd take years. Stop kidding yourself.

Rubbish. No grinding (unless you count getting good at stealth in tourist settlements as grinding, so at least no hardcore grinding), and I've got my engineering more or less where I want it. More importantly, I enjoyed the process.