This is a review I recently wrote and its a shame, it had so much potential and still does.

[SkipRat]

I won't argue about PP or CQC; I've never tried them. But those pirates seem to be annoying you. The solution: ignore them. They don't do anything (they only appear when you first drop in, before you've mined anything, then they just moan that you're not carrying anything valuable and leave). Yes, they're poor for immersion, but they have no effect on play. I think they should be removed, but they don't do anything.

No. I think you misunderstand me.

You log out and there is nothing around you, when you log back in with a half full cargo of mined metals and minerals or whatever. The game spawn's pirates on top you and every time they just come for you and your mining craft isn't set up for combat, it's a fat unsightly mining vessel and so they just take you out along with hours of beautiful mining and the 2 hours it took you to jump to the middle of nowhere to avoid this. It's frustrating and awful.

It should simply not be spawning pirates at all unless you are in a marked Hi, med or Low risk mining zone. If you are outside the bubble or inside the bubble and in a very low populated system and in a random unmarked are of a planets ring, astroid field, then just don't spawn pirates, the chances of them bumping into you are so low, it isn't worth working out and putting in game.

So just stop it Fdev, just stop it... 8 years is more than enough of this garbage.

The same goes for the pirates that hassle during trade missions. If you escape them once, just stop it, there is nothing more annoying than being interdicted 20 times by the same ************ NPC, time and time again.

Just stop it, kill it with fire, whatever. Just stop it, it's so so so annoying.

As for PP, I you are right, it does need to be removed, but I think it needs to be redone as I described in previous posts, above.

Consequences of choice, when joining a faction.
Meaningful faction progression. That is not just delivering leaflets, but real military based missions like the stealth one I described above
Restrict it to Federation, Alliance, Imperial and Independant Systems.
Restrict engineers to their factions. Why on earth would an Alliance engineer work with and sort out a federation aligned player? Go away, it's utter garbage.
But most of all, keep it to the lore of Elite and make players feel that lore
And so much more.
This how Powerplay should have been, not some ill thought out random bolt on that is part of yet separate to the game and.... just stop, it is so annoying.

It's so sad, that all they have improved in 8 years of development is better mining. How the hell did they let that happen. What the hell went so wrong.

 

[Brrokk]

No. I think you misunderstand me.

You log out and there is nothing around you, when you log back in with a half full cargo of mined metals and minerals or whatever. The game spawn's pirates on top you and every time they just come for you and your mining craft isn't set up for combat, it's a fat unsightly mining vessel and so they just take you out along with hours of beautiful mining and the 2 hours it took you to jump to the middle of nowhere to avoid this. It's frustrating and awful.

It should simply not be spawning pirates at all unless you are in a marked Hi, med or Low risk mining zone. If you are outside the bubble or inside the bubble and in a very low populated system and in a random unmarked are of a planets ring, astroid field, then just don't spawn pirates, the chances of them bumping into you are so low, it isn't worth working out and putting in game.

So just stop it Fdev, just stop it... 8 years is more than enough of this garbage.

The same goes for the pirates that hassle during trade missions. If you escape them once, just stop it, there is nothing more annoying than being interdicted 20 times by the same ************ NPC, time and time again.

Just stop it, kill it with fire, whatever. Just stop it, it's so so so annoying.

As for PP, I you are right, it does need to be removed, but I think it needs to be redone as I described in previous posts, above.

Consequences of choice, when joining a faction.
Meaningful faction progression. That is not just delivering leaflets, but real military based missions like the stealth one I described above
Restrict it to Federation, Alliance, Imperial and Independant Systems.
Restrict engineers to their factions. Why on earth would an Alliance engineer with a federation aligned player? Go away, it's utter garbage.
But most of all, keep it to the lore of Elite and make players feel that lore
And so much more.
This how Powerplay should have been, not some ill thought out random bolt on that is part of yet separate to the game and.... just stop, it is so annoying.

It's so sad, that all they have improved in 8 years of development is better mining. How the hell did they let that happen. What the hell went so wrong.

Oh, OK, it's not ideal to log out in that situation, but if you have to, just throw them a couple of tons of gallium or suchlike. Then they still go away.

I'd say the pirates in trade missions are intended though, and I see them as a good source of G5 materials. I wouldn't want to lose them.

 

[Frankymole]

No. I think you misunderstand me.

You log out and there is nothing around you, when you log back in with a half full cargo of mined metals and minerals or whatever. The game spawn's pirates on top you and every time they just come for you and your mining craft isn't set up for combat, it's a fat unsightly mining vessel and so they just take you out along with hours of beautiful mining and the 2 hours it took you to jump to the middle of nowhere to avoid this. It's frustrating and awful.

It should simply not be spawning pirates at all unless you are in a marked Hi, med or Low risk mining zone. If you are outside the bubble or inside the bubble and in a very low populated system and in a random unmarked are of a planets ring, astroid field, then just don't spawn pirates, the chances of them bumping into you are so low, it isn't worth working out and putting in game.

So just stop it Fdev, just stop it... 8 years is more than enough of this garbage.

Good grief. It took me considerably fewer than 8 years to figure this out. Pirates will drop in on any Low Wake, to see what ship has dropped out of SC and whether it has juicy cargo. This makes sense. As dropping from SC creates a new instance, it is identical to what happens when you log out of the game and back in.

There's no excuse for anyone to mine in the Bubble - pristine rings are much better anyway, and with Fleet Carriers everywhere it's not difficult to find and exploit a juicy site for literally billions in profit and no danger whatsoever.

 

[Frankymole]

I lean more towards Stanislaw Lem type of SciFi, not the space opera stuff. Never was in the singing so much.

OK, well Elite is based on Traveller which is based on Dumarest and the like. Maybe it's not your sort of game.

 

[SkipRat]

Oh, OK, it's not ideal to log out in that situation, but if you have to, just throw them a couple of tons of gallium or suchlike. Then they still go away.

I'd say the pirates in trade missions are intended though, and I see them as a good source of G5 materials. I wouldn't want to lose them.

I don't mind pirates in trading or in missions or in general, it's one of the risks of trading, this is not Elite: Carebear. It's when you escape from them and then you repeatedly interdict you time and time again. That is not game play, it just sloppy programming and development that is just utter frustration and unnecessary.

I am good enough to outrun you, not once, but twice... Why are you programmed to try and repeat the same interdiction another 20 times?

 

[SkipRat]

Good grief. It took me considerably fewer than 8 years to figure this out. Pirates will drop in on any Low Wake, to see what ship has dropped out of SC and whether it has juicy cargo. This makes sense. As dropping from SC creates a new instance, it is identical to what happens when you log out of the game and back in.

What, 2500 Ly away in some random system, where the chance of meeting someone is almost zero. That's my point, in the bubble with high traffic, then yeah, it makes sense. And that is why I always retruned to the station before logging off. As that is the sensible thing to do, but then I am not on about being in the bubble.

And they are just spawning because I have just logged back into the game and not because I have just dropped out of Super Cruise.

 

[Frankymole]

What, 2500 Ly away in some random system, where the chance of meeting someone is almost zero. That's my point, in the bubble with high traffic, then yeah, it makes sense. And that is why I always retruned to the station before logging off. As that is the sensible thing to do, but then I am not on about being in the bubble.

I mine outside the Bubble and get no pirates dropping in at all. Maybe you aren't far enough away.

And they are just spawning because I have just logged back into the game and not because I have just dropped out of Super Cruise.

As I explained to you, the game treats them the same - you are starting a new instance so you have just dropped in to the game (essentially from supercruise). That's how it uses low wakes for the player. Don't relog when you're mining.

 

[SkipRat]

I mine outside the Bubble and get no pirates dropping in at all. Maybe you aren't far enough away.

As I explained to you, the game treats them the same - you are starting a new instance so you have just dropped in to the game (essentially from supercruise). That's how it uses low wakes for the player. Don't relog when you're mining.

I think a few hundred light years is far enough.

Then it is simply sloppy programming, and it also sounds like something FDev would say to avoid dealing with the issue. Loging into the game is not the same as dropping out of super cruise. They are two entirely different things and should be treated as such.

 

[V'larr]

Thanks for letting us all know.
If you are a backer (as you say you are) you've had the game long enough to know that it's a watered down shadow of what it could have been & FD won't change it no matter how hard people moan.
Simply go quietly and play something else - FD don't care what you think and neither does anyone else.

This is certainly one way to ensure that they don't want to care....

 

[Frankymole]

I think a few hundred light years is far enough.

Then it is simply sloppy programming, and it also sounds like something FDev would say to avoid dealing with the issue. Loging into the game is not the same as dropping out of super cruise. They are two entirely different things and should be treated as such.

A few hundred light years takes minutes to travel, and if there's a juicy ring that close I'd want to be a pirate there, so NPCs will.
As to the low wake on logging in, well that's the way it is. Your ship has to "be" somewhere. I'd rather it wasn't left in the instance to be killed when I'm not playing.

It's easy when you get used to it.

 

[V'larr]

The game isn't the one the OP thought it was going to be. Common enough.

A bit like CP2077 for me, I guess. Pre-ordered, it changed from a RPG to a pile of dross in my opinion. (The only game I believe I wasted money buying)

I don't play it, simple... I don't frequent the game's forum either.

And yet, that game has massively improved from where it was on launch.

Could be there's a connection here.

 

[V'larr]

No, that doesn't work like that. Mass Effect and Halo didn't have "well-developed" lore. They were just stories in an interesting setting. Elite 1984 had nothing about Feds and Imperials. Not that I remember.

Weird take. Mass Effect 1 was chock-full of incredibly detailed lore that was fun to collect and read. And then ME2 happened, and ME3 kind of sort of patched it all up. I haven't gotten into Adromeda yet, but at some point I will, just because I do enjoy the lore.

Halo displayed its lore very well in narrative form and expanded it in a few ways that departed from the games fairly well. And then, like, Halo 5 happened but now everyone wants to forget it. But Infinite seems to be OK.

 

[V'larr]

And that's the problem, they spent too much focusing on combat.

But I love combat in the smaller ships, the eagles, mark three's etc.

One of the biggest mistake they did was when the python came out. It was an expensive repair bill if you went out in one of them. So they changed it and made it very cheap. Taking away consequence, cost and choice.

As before then,. We don't have ranks of shield generators, replenishing ever 5 seconds. We flew our little medium ships, actually dog fighting and making that choice to run away, as you couldn't recharge ya shield.

It was great fun, short fun battles that you came back for more. Then the shield recharges came out, loads and loads of them and the big ships and combat became along and boring chore devoid of fun.

It also made traders defending themselves much harder, as you would need to take down a 1000 shields before the pirates took damage, therefore cost to repair. Where as before with a single shield, turreted weapons had a chance of taking down the shields, doing damage and cause the pirate to think. Is this worth it? Am I going to get enough goods to cover the cost of damage received. There were choices the player had to make.

Then FDev made it super safe and cheap to pirate in the biggest ships in the game with zero consequence.

P.S. I think mining is the best too, great fun, but spoiled by randomly spawning pirates when your really are in the middle of no where. Like, light years away from the bubble and yet they find you 100% of the time. Awful mechanic.

Repair/rearm/refuel costs certainly are of exactly zero consideration, as the game currently stands. That could change.

But piracy as a whole is one of the most neglected and downplayed aspects of the game.

And there's easy solutions to your mining-pirate problem...like having shielding and weaponry aboard. I agree that, as with most NPC interactions, it's very jarring and immersion-breaking. There's many things I would like overhauled regarding NPC behavior.

 

[V'larr]

I love the idea of blazing your own trail. Where have I said I didn't? I just want that blazing to be meaningful. The choices I make and the actions I take to have real consequences. Like if joined the Federation, there will be real in game consequences from the Alliance, the Imperial's and Independent systems. This may be in the form of buying products at high price in opposing faction systems, more expensive repair costs, outright refusing to allow you to dock on stations. Alliance engineers for example, would tell a Federation aligned to player to sod off. Each faction would specialise in certain area's regarding engineering.

Then if you get fed up playing for the Federation, you can go to a fixer so can work your way into the Alliance or someone else. This is without consequence, once the Federation figures out you have been working against them. Thus the consequences of the choices and actions kick in, start to kick in. They see you as traitor, stations shun you... In some systems they may actively be hostile against you, especially in military systems.

That is more akin to blazing your own trail, not jumping from job to job at willy-nilly, with zero consequences or thought.

I love mining, can't do it though, why? Because of the frustrating game mechanics that spawns random pirates into your instance for no reason no logical reason other than sloppy and poorly thought-out development.

This is well and good, I just want to preserve the option of also being both King and Admiral, though ostensibly it would require striking a careful balance between the two career paths.

 

[V'larr]

Nothing wrong with that.

And nothing wrong with wanting to make the game much much better than it is, bringing players back and getting Fdev to some hard-earned cash to hire some more peoples.

Really a game like elite, should be lasting like;
WoW
Eve Online.
FFIV Online

As well as many other great games. Despite being old now, these games have big big communities still, far bigger than Elite's. Eve online came out in 2003 and it's still bigger than elite. Why? Becasue the game mechanics, depth of gameplay and consequences of your action are there. Do I play it? No. Do I want too? No. Do I want Elite to as big as with it's 400 billion star system universe? Hell yeah

Elite dangerous, could have been one of these games, it still can be, but FDev are to scared to do anything about it.
Get consequence in the game, get the lore into the game, get a proper crime and punish mechanic that both rewards and punishes the player. It's valid play style, why can't player be pirates? Proper bounty hunter mechanics, career paths, faction progression, exploring, lets get some viable alien races in the galaxy, hostile and friendly.

Damn, this game had so potential.

Oof, I can't agree with wishing the game to be more like the highly-flawed MMORPG model of game design. There are at least long-lasting MMORPGs, but that doesn't redeem their qualities or lack there-of in my view. The biggest reason they have lasted that long and have more active communities is simply having better ingame socialization infrastructure.

 

[Mersozz]

For all it's shortcomings, Elite Dangerous is a game I can't seem to put down.

I've played well over a hundred titles over the years. Many of them are considered all time classics. But this is the game I keep playing.

If there is better space flight simulator out there, I'd love to check it out.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

I think a few hundred light years is far enough.

Then it is simply sloppy programming, and it also sounds like something FDev would say to avoid dealing with the issue. Loging into the game is not the same as dropping out of super cruise. They are two entirely different things and should be treated as such.

I get what you mean.... I agree even but imo it's not the worst issue in the word ... (the game has far more difficult issues to get around). at least with the mining one you can get around it by either paying them off or by ignoring if you hold is empty. personally I just arm my miners and give them a size 11 boot but it isn't essential to do that.
over all I agree the game has many flaws and is a shadow of the game we were teased back in the day (what saddens me most as many of the playerbase.dont even WANT the kind of things I was expecting because it would affect their efficiency etc and they want shallow simplistic stuff in places rather than a more plausible system with challenges and consequences.
IF a large percentage don't even want X Y Z feature flashing out it is kind of easy to see why FD don't really want to invest significant time and money doing it.
bottom line... do you enjoy it despite these flaws? I do which is why I play on despite complaining a fair bit about it and lamenting what could have been. If you do great... if not we'll , I would say at this point it is unlikely to change direction massively. if you don't really enjoy it now I fear you may never

 

[TiberiusDuval]

Unfortunately, that is a consequence I do agree. But one if I was working Fdev would be making. It doesn't mean I would enjoy it, but I would be doing it because if the game is struggling as some people have suggested. I would be doing it to bring players back to the game, get it firing on all cylinders again.

Still, I don't get how your are forced to socialise with other players, if you play in solo.

Consequence is basically locking away big parts of galaxy, unless somebodies would really like throwing trade runs to middle of nowhere with either a carrier or some tradetub (slowly jumping there when loaded with much of unobtanium.) And for explorer mandatory stops for frequent "full service). Plus probability of those deep space stations getting replenished by players is not very good either. Even bubble there are systems that are scarcely visited by anybody.

 

[Rat Catcher]

do you think Odyssey was a success?

EDO is an expansion to the original game - not a game in its own right, which I am sure you are perfectly aware of.

a game that loses players,

ED does lose players, and gain them, doesn't it?

has dwindling sales,

The expansion had poor sales - Frontier made that point quite clear. Do you have figures for sales of ED base game?

and a lack of meaningful content, shallow repetive gameplay....

Sounds like the whole game to me

is how one would define a success?

Successful enough even for those who obviously dislike either the game or its expansion to continue to discuss it, for sure!

It has, the dev's have completely failed to achieve what they set out to do.

Have they? Were you there during planning and creation of that which we now have?
Of course not!

lol...no time for semantics my friend. nice try tho.

Semantics? How about reading comprehension?

Well.........I'm still having fun!

I know, I'm subscribed to your youtube channel!

Damn, this game had so potential.

A common fall-back phrase used by those for whom their own wishes were not met.

The game spawn's pirates on top you and every time

It doesn't - I've been mining in a couple of very interesting rings, not seen a pirate for weeks.

And yet, that game has massively improved from where it was on launch.

It doesn't make it any more interesting for me though - it is still a heap of dross, in my opinion.
Did they remove Johnny and make it a RPG? Of course not - so still a pile of garbage, for me!

Could be there's a connection here.

I think not, old bean... I don't wear blinkers.

This has been a fun thread to follow, keep it up!

 

[Brrokk]

I don't mind pirates in trading or in missions or in general, it's one of the risks of trading, this is not Elite: Carebear. It's when you escape from them and then you repeatedly interdict you time and time again. That is not game play, it just sloppy programming and development that is just utter frustration and unnecessary.

I am good enough to outrun you, not once, but twice... Why are you programmed to try and repeat the same interdiction another 20 times?

Sorry, but this is wrong. It can be very good gameplay. "My nemesis pirate is repeatedly stopping me in my desperate run to the station, taking a bit more off my shields each time. Can I make it? Should I divert to a nearer place or jump out to repair elsewhere? Is there any hope if I decide to stand and fight? Will the police turn up in time to save me?"

A mission which told me that pirates would try to stop me but they'd evaporate after only one encounter would be daft.

And there's your answer. If those single-minded pirates annoy you, read the mission descriptions. Don't try to suggest making high-threat missions even more safe for everyone.

You mentioned lore. Flying through thickly pirate-infested space is the most fundamental Elite lore there is. It's almost a complete description of the original game.

BTW those mission-related pirates are one of the best sources of G5 materials. They often drop Core Dynamics or Imperial Shielding.