Three things that make me hate this game.

[DangerousLarry]

Before I get into why i'm beginning to hate this game let me just say that I actually like the concept, the core gameplay and a lot that's there already but some design choices annoy me either due to hiding some basic game mechanics from new players or this chance upon style of missions the game forces you to into.

Three reasons I hate this game right now and would really like to see fixed in some shape or form:

First issue is docking; you can't queue at busy ports to dock so instead you have to spam docking permission which is incredibly frustrating. I can not fathom why a simple queue system isn't already in place. This should be standard regardless. "Requesting docking permission." -> "Docking permission granted. You are number X in queue for Dock 1/2/3/4." -> "Dock X is now available please proceed." It's just that simple or at least should be! Instead you can be waiting to chance up on a dock, spamming permission, for up to ten minutes. This should never have been okay for a release. It's frustrating, it's not realistic and it really makes you dread what was actually a pleasant treat in this game: Docking.

Second issue is the whole mission/bounty hunter/combat location system. It's a mess. It's totally random. It's just not working well at all. For instance I have a mission to kill six pirates in system X or Y. I go to said systems and spend the next three hours aimlessly zipping around the system and entering random "unidentified sources" in hopes of finding pirates. Turns out I find a bunch of traders and "clean" NPCs. Hell, I even came across a single federation ship with two NPCs who happened to be clean. Are either one of them pirates with outstanding warrants? Nope. Took a gamble, shot at them and incurred a 100Cr bounty for it. It's just a mess. I spent three hours roaming around trying to kill pirates and only happened upon three of them in that time. Three pirates in three hours. That's pathetic!

The only way I could see a potential fix to this serious design flaw that just straight out wastes your time is to either make it more worthwhile and boost the bounty you get per pirate plus the reward for doing so to make wasting three or six hours(Seemingly) worth your time. That or pinpoint where you should go in the system and have an area open specifically for your mission or increase the chance an unidentified source specific to your mission(s) will spawn near you by 90% as opposed to the absolute randomness of what is currently there.

The third issue is a how this game practically forces you to become a pirate. I never play as a pirate in games like this. It's simply not the role I choose to play but in this game I feel forced to be a pirate. Trading is terrible. It's completely broken with the current tools available to you and the only profits you make are in trading on courier missions for a bit of pocket money(1k CR is abysmal for 10minutes travelling and docking from one system to another). Bounty hunting blows as mentioned in my second point about how utterly random and low the chances are you can come across a bounty/pirate. So piracy is pretty much the way to go from the looks of things. Everyone's a target including other pirates, faction ships and haulers. After all "Clean" NPCs and faction NPCs are plentiful as well as every second source being a hauler or Type 6 transport to cash in on with their cargo. Why bother roaming in the off chance you can come across a bounty that will give you 5k credits when you can go into any source and blast whatever the hell it is to hell and make a profit?

So much is just poorly implemented. I want to like this game, I want to enjoy it and I really want to sink my teeth into it but I can't do that right now because 90% of what you do is a complete and utter waste of time with absolutely no payoff. This isn't like EVE Online where you can freely form groups, mine and pirate clear together with other players and enjoy their company. You just can't do that with this game so all of your time is spent being alone floating around wasting time and making very little cash or progression. It's so god damn boring because of these seriously bad design decisions. It's tedious, annoying and bland. Randomness in a game like this is not fun at least not in the way it's done here.

 

[anikaiful]

The game doesn't force you to be a pirate. If you can't make profit as a trader, you're playing it wrong.

 

[nexxo]

So if I understand you correctly, you're saying that you don't like it?

 

[Asp Explorer]

It may be a good idea for you to just try various things out, learn cause and effect, and grasp the basics.

Wipe your save, try again, and see how the experience changes. The game doesn't force you to do anything. You can even enjoy limited play by sitting in the stock ship, trading every few hours without ever leaving the station. You won't get rich quick, but the game doesn't force you not to.

 

[Dwemarek]

First issue - I just switch to solo for that and dock anywhere.

Third issue - trading rares is more profitable. I usually carry rares from Lave to Altair and vice versa.

 

[Luponator]

Welcome to the groups of unhappy platers, OP. Don't worry, there'll be loads of people popping in now telling you that the game works as designed. Including switching to solo mode to avoid a terrible design isue. How anyone can seriously think that in a game that sells a multiplayer vision switching to solo is anything but a crude fix is surprising me, and trading's annoying, yeah.

 

[Raf von Thorn]

Another "i dont know how to play the game, therefore its terrible" topic...

1. Never had docking issues. Maybe your ship is too big for the station? Maybe youre in a crowded area? Maybe you should try docking in "Solo" mode?

2. Cant find pirates? Go to a nav beacon, if its in the system. Every one that says "what are you carrying" and such is a pirate. Pirate killing mission is usually 15-20 minutes for me.

3. Dude, since the release i made about 20 mil trading. 500 cr/unit routes are VERY common, which means a cobra can make 25k per run.

Its not EVE and im happy about it. Stop whinning, ask for advice. The game is a great container, only you can decide what will you fill it with... If you will fill it with bitter lemons, well... You will have a container filled with lemons...

 

[Tenshi]

1) I don't have a problem with the system as it is. But I can see where you are coming from on this one and wonder why this wasn't implemented myself.

2) That mission you speak of if it is in a Anarchy system then all pirates are going to be clean status you need a kill warrant scanner to uncover their wanted status and then they count towards the mission. I even had a defense force ship with a wanted bounty on it in a anarchy system. Head to a nav beacon or resource extraction site they are in most systems and pirates will hang around those with wanted on their scanned info.

3) I have made over 10 million credits since gamma was released and not once have I done any pirating nor rare trading. I know its not a lot of money but I don't play all day every day like some do. Last night I managed to pull in 1 million from missions and trade runs in a couple of hours in a type 6 with 100 cargo space which I am pleased about. So to say the game forces the player to become a pirate is a failing on your part not the game.

Opportunities are there you just need to look for them.

When I play Elite Dangerous I can not help but make money, I find it very difficult to play the game and not make a profit when I do play it.

 

[CmdrKull]

1) agreed that what you describe sounds like a "nice to have" feature, certainly not something I'd want them to stop wings development for, but it would smooth things out a bit.

2) I personally hate USS and dislike the randomness, but I've not had so much trouble finding pirates as you. The key is this: it seems you have to catch them in the act, ie they have to scan you. They'll message you about your cargo or lack there-of. Now you kill them, and get the points. Never. NEVER. Shoot at a clean target. And wanted ships are usually smugglers or have fines, and not pirates (read their messages when you attack, sometimes funny stuff about just trying to get ahead in life, or 'this is all I need!'.)

3) Piracy is certainly not forced, and in fact seems to be the least profitable way to play, only an option for the most dedicated/insane pilots.

Nothing wrong with blowing off a little steam after fighting with the missions system for a couple hours. Now get back in there and give-em hell!


Edit: oh, I missed that you said bounties were hard to find. Go to the nav beacon instead of random USS. Resource extraction sites as well, though they always seem a bit thin to me. Nav beacon definitely has plenty of wanted ships in every system I've tried recently. They range from unsheilded sidewinders to the occasional Competent Anaconda. You do have to work with the SysAuth ships though, so watch your fire!

 

[GT3000]

1) I don't have a problem with the system as it is. But I can see where you are coming from on this one and wonder why this wasn't implemented myself.

2) That mission you speak of if it is in a Anarchy system then all pirates are going to be clean status you need a kill warrant scanner to uncover their wanted status and then they count towards the mission. I even had a defense force ship with a wanted bounty on it in a anarchy system. Head to a nav beacon or resource extraction site they are in most systems and pirates will hang around those with wanted on their scanned info.

3) I have made over 10 million credits since gamma was released and not once have I done any pirating nor rare trading. I know its not a lot of money but I don't play all day every day like some do. Last night I managed to pull in 1 million from missions and trade runs in a couple of hours in a type 6 with 100 cargo space which I am pleased about. So to say the game forces the player to become a pirate is a failing on your part not the game.

Opportunities are there you just need to look for them.

When I play Elite Dangerous I can not help but make money, I find it very difficult to play the game and not make a profit when I do play it.

How did you get up to 100 Cargo in a Type-6? Can you please post your loadout, I'm really curious.

 

[Twex]

Second issue is the whole mission/bounty hunter/combat location system. It's a mess. It's totally random. It's just not working well at all. For instance I have a mission to kill six pirates in system X or Y. I go to said systems and spend the next three hours aimlessly zipping around the system and entering random "unidentified sources" in hopes of finding pirates. Turns out I find a bunch of traders and "clean" NPCs. Hell, I even came across a single federation ship with two NPCs who happened to be clean. Are either one of them pirates with outstanding warrants? Nope. Took a gamble, shot at them and incurred a 100Cr bounty for it. It's just a mess. I spent three hours roaming around trying to kill pirates and only happened upon three of them in that time. Three pirates in three hours. That's pathetic!

The only way I could see a potential fix to this serious design flaw that just straight out wastes your time is to either make it more worthwhile and boost the bounty you get per pirate plus the reward for doing so to make wasting three or six hours(Seemingly) worth your time. That or pinpoint where you should go in the system and have an area open specifically for your mission or increase the chance an unidentified source specific to your mission(s) will spawn near you by 90% as opposed to the absolute randomness of what is currently there.

Yeh, the hunting pirates/bounty hunter thing seems pretty messed up to me too. You visit an anarchy system, and when on this mission you can't find any priates, almost like the game makes it harder to find these when you're looking for them. Should be the opposite, or even better, throw one of those 'incursion/dispute area markers' or whatever they used to call i,t within the systems.
Even as it is right now, I had one to hunt 3 pirates, my first find told me they'd pay me more to kill system police. I ignored that and killed him, then killed another 2 ships that had bounties on their heads, figured that was now 3, docked at the originating station, and the mission was still not complete. So I abandoned it. Just not working right at all IMO too.

 

[DangerousLarry]

Another "i dont know how to play the game, therefore its terrible" topic...

1. Never had docking issues. Maybe your ship is too big for the station? Maybe youre in a crowded area? Maybe you should try docking in "Solo" mode?

That's not a fix. That's a work around for a glaring issue here.

2. Cant find pirates? Go to a nav beacon, if its in the system. Every one that says "what are you carrying" and such is a pirate. Pirate killing mission is usually 15-20 minutes for me.

Have done that. Found nothing except a Nav Beacon. Waited for 5minutes some NPCs spawned in... Haulers, Type 6 Transports and no pirates. No "What are you carrying" comments, nothing.

3. Dude, since the release i made about 20 mil trading. 500 cr/unit routes are VERY common, which means a cobra can make 25k per run.

That's debatable. In one system making 500Cr could simply be down to luck re. "randomness." The game seems totally random. Where you can easily make 500Cr per unit most systems have you making 180Cr if you're lucky. Most people seem to think making 1k per run is "good." It's terrible in the scale of things.

 

[Feldspar]

The first issue is too much player traffic, you either have to move outside the starting systems or switch to solo play to avoid it.

Many people seem to be struggling with your second issue, I did at first, but there are tips and tactics to circumvent this, like putting valuable cargo in your hold as a lure, or visiting nav points and resource extraction sites. It really is easy enough most of the time.

There are some problems with the trading, but I manage just fine by working out what kind of station will want what kind of cargo, I'm no big-shot trader but it is enough to be profitable.

There seem to be many players having trouble making money, but there are many threads on here explaining how to make cash easily.

 

[TannakaObi]

1. Never had docking issues. Maybe your ship is too big for the station? Maybe youre in a crowded area? Maybe you should try docking in "Solo" mode?

Did you even read what was put?

I agree with point one, it's irritating, and the go to solo mode argument just annoys me, why should I have to? (however, it's minor. I think 'hate' is a little strong)

Points two and three are pretty much because of the way you are playing, pirates tend to hang in area's like Nav beacons, mining area's... you may want to do a bit of research with trading, youtube will help you out.

 

[Macgyver]

The game doesn't force you to be a pirate. If you can't make profit as a trader, you're playing it wrong.

Actually the game kind of does.
i have to agree with OP.
Any loot is flagged as stolen, you are forced to sell in black market.... You are a pirate.
bounty hunting is incredibly tiring for the profit unless you supplement with looted cargo ( that is stolen ) forcing you to be a criminal.

combat, NPC flies in front of you and accidental fire = $600-1000 fine, you are a wanted criminal....

The only thing worth doing is rares, and a loop run like that costs a bit of money to set up and incredibly boring flying in a ship with no shields or guns, one intradiction and you either lose your cargo, or get shot and pay insurance.
* Insurance is ridiculous,why am I being punished for playing this game, I thought designers dropped that rubbish when they made EQ back in the day.
* if you die enough times ( and yes it is possible, you can actually lose 100's of hours of game play, this is just not appealing to me and the biggest reason why I have never played multi player, which is a shame .... Another terrible game mechanic )

The most fun I have had is with bounty hunting, but I can only earn around $100k in an hour if I am lucky.

Rare trading is about $350K an hour, which at this rate for my casual play schedule will take me about 3 years to get the Lekon 9 I want....
i just don't have the time for this game.

 

[DragonIV]

How did you get up to 100 Cargo in a Type-6? Can you please post your loadout, I'm really curious.

You can actually get them to 112 sans shields, scoop, or disco scanner.

Find placed that sell cargo upgrades--then upgrade your existing cargo containers until you max out at class 4 (think they are size 32). Max out / purchase cargo containers for your other utility slots, until you have a cargo container in each slot (unless you want to keep your shields, or scoop, or disco). Even keeping all three of those, you can still carry 96 cargo maxed out--but obviously, keep upgrading your FSD and power else you won't be able to take that cargo anywhere.

 

[rmhepton]

Point 1 easily solved by going into solo mode and only necessary in very few systems.

Point 2 Purchase a Kill Warrant Scanner it's really invaluable if your doing those missions, clean ships are suddenly not so clean.

Point 3 Trading is constantly evolving and changing you will eventually find a good route, once you do stick to it and also look into trading rares.

 

[starry]

2) I personally hate USS and dislike the randomness...

+1, as they say. The random USS aren't very good at all. I love popping those 'condas pirates and the odd military officer, but the random USS machanic just isn't fun. In fact, the USS should probably just go away.

e.g.

Dread Pirate Bob known to be operating in system X at this time, or seen leaving station Y. Go to system X and you'll find him either in super cruise looking for a mark, or the player can drop into low-energy FSD wakes and find him cutting open a trader. In the old games, you used to get a time and place and then have to follow and intercept the target. No reason that couldn't be done here, with the target spawning at a station if not already in super cruise in the system.

Word on the street is that rebel faction X is using a dead-drop near the forest moon of Endor. A USS might be positioned near that point for you to find, but it's placed and not random the way they are now. Just give the player a more specific location to search. Alternatively (or in addition to), look for super-cruising ships carrying rebel plans who are going to and comeing from the dead-drop point and interdict them, or use their low-energy wakes to find the dead-drop and pick up the canisters.

I guess the reason that we have USS is that a USS can be generated for the player and aren't globally visible, so fair enough, but for missions please just give the player a specific location to search and put it there.

 

[Foreverowned]

hello, i'm a noob trader but i made quite a bit of credits in a Hauler. What i did was i moved away from the main areas where i expected real players to be, so i went away from Sol and the Federation area, and i went up to the Alliance systems which frankly, are rather lonely. I do a mixture of missions and normal trading, for example i may take a one-way journey that pays 4k credits, but i'll also look at my destination, and then try to stock up on anything they may buy off me there as well. The ones i really like are the missions that offer me about 20-40k for going out and returning with an item they wanted, again i look at my destination always and stock up on anything ithink would sell there.

I felt that as i became allied with corporations, they started offering me much nicer jobs, not always, sometimes it's hard to find something good at a station and i move on, but generally i try to find jobs at stations where i have a good rep, as i see much better opportunities on the bulletin board.

I made 800k in one day in my hauler, however i really do mean the whole day, i played abouy 14 hours, i was tired but i wanted a Lakon 6, and i'm glad i got it, i now have 50 cargo space, and i regularly make 8-12k per journey, just by stocking up, some missions once handed in have given me 60k profit in one journey, they are rare, but i see them sometimes, also, i'm not proud to say it but i have delivered slaves, 2 of them from one small station to another small station means no police scans, and usually about 30k profit.

I don't know if any of this would be any use to you, but my best tip for trading is, get away from the big player crowds, and get used to an empty-ish area of 20 or so systems that you can shuttle around in, and try to get allied with corps, i'm 90% certain they will offer you nicer bulletin missions.

Edit* oh also this helped me a lot when scouting around the map to see where i want to go, and carrying what: http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Goods

 

[Iskariot]

Before I get into why i'm beginning to hate this game let me just say that I actually like the concept, the core gameplay and a lot that's there already but some design choices annoy me either due to hiding some basic game mechanics from new players or this chance upon style of missions the game forces you to into.

Three reasons I hate this game right now and would really like to see fixed in some shape or form.... etc ....

First issue.
Never encountered docking issues, but I can understand it might be annoying. Which stations have these problems?
If this is a big issue then a queuing system might indeed be of help.

Second issue.
I do not agree that the whole bounty hunt system is a mess.
I did run into problems myself however, when I took missions to find pirates in certain systems.
The problem is that these kind of missions very often automatically direct you to neighboring systems and if these systems happen to be 'dead' systems, with for example only two suns and nothing else happening there (not even a nav beacon), it can be almost impossible to find the required targets.
I stopped taking these missions, because it took too much of my time with too little profit anyway. I can go hunt at resource extraction sites for ten times the profit in the same amount of time and much less frustration.
I feel FD should look into this.

Third issue.
I have no idea what you are talking about. I don't feel forced to be a pirate at all. Currently I do mostly bounty hunting and smuggling. I plan to do trading, but from what I have seen the profits are not that high, so I will only do trading in a ship with a bigger hold. I need more credits to buy the ship I want.