Try Before you Cry...

[tengri]

Agree with OP for the most part.

I bought the game somewhat late (last summer) and played it religiously for about a month. Did everything it had to offer and even with lots and lots of "imagination" it got boring rather quickly. The one thing that I thought could keep me interested (Powerplay) was a complete failure because of the rank decay while not playing - I have a rather busy real life and therefore I can never seriously participate in that without huge sacrifices. Not gonna happen - for a game.

Then they came up with CQC... another design completely separate from the whole "immersion" experience I was hoping the get from elite... and I stopped playing.

Onwards to Horizons... which I bought a couple weeks back to give the game another try. After a few landings and planetary missions boredom came back with a vengeance. There is just nothing there - literally. Driving around on desolated rocks to collect some randomly generated, worthless loot is boring. Again.

On a technical level Elite is brilliant and everything I could ever dream about a space game. And I played a lot of them over the decades (yes, I am old enough to have played the original Elite, too). But on the content level there is just nothing there to keep me interested for long.
Miles wide and only an inch deep - nothing describes Elite more accurate. Which was perfectly fine three decades back with the original Elite; computer games were something new and shiny and interesting and back when we were easily satisfied with a lot less depth.
Unfortunately Elite stayed at that level; not acceptable any more for a modern game. Not even close.

Which makes me sad; really sad - I so want this game to be awesome and interesting. Maybe the upcoming mission system overhaul will help. Maybe a little. But I do not have high hopes here; from what I have experienced so far FD fails in the content/creative department so hard it's not even funny anymore. Unless they bring in fresh eyes - and quickly - I doubt they will get better.
And time is running out rather quickly (Star Citizen!)... which will blow them out of the water; out of the whole galaxy if nothing changes... soon.

 

[Bostlabs]

Yawn!
Is it that time again so soon?

I'm quite enjoying the game. My only gripe is that I can't find enough free time to play more than a couple of evenings in the week.
I like the direction the game is going.

Now, to do maintenance on my list...

 

[Time Streamer]

Sticking with a game to see where it goes and generally getting experienced with it gives you better tools to criticise the game with though. I appreciate the negative posts from an experienced player much more than I do from a player just started. One is probably speaking from experience but the other is either misunderstanding something or parrotting criticism they heard from some youtube video. It happens a lot, you can detect them by the exact phrases they use such as '1+ year after release such and such is still blah' or 'SC alpha has more content than ED'.

Well, ED has much more low level features than SC alpha which gives it a much more robust base to be built upon. These are not things you can easily see since most of them are related to the game engine and the algorithms that run it. SC uses the cryengine, which is a fantastic engine for FPS games but its capabilities for a space game are rather limited. The bulk of ED programming time goes into perfecting the cobra engine to incorporate all the future content FD is intending to add to the game.

This is exactly why SC has more top level content, aka stuff you do and interact with in the game but such terrible performance. It can't do a full size system. It has to be tiny. Planets can't be large, they are about a thousand kilometers accross. Its base structure is abysmal. That's the reason it's alpha with all that content and ED is in a much better working condition. So when you say SC has more features, you mean top level features. Under the hood though, ED has a lot more going on than SC as it currently is, which gives ED the advantage of being able to support whatever is being built upon it. SC is a flimsy aluminum frame under all the glass ceilings and tall windows with arches weighing two tons each, which CIG is trying to reinforce a little before they can release so it won't collapse immediately.

Only informed criticism from experience pushes things forward. Most criticism is a misleading waste of time. Fortunately, good game developers know how to distinguish between the two.

Pow. Headshot.

 

[Cynaqq]

Agree with OP for the most part.

I bought the game somewhat late (last summer) and played it religiously for about a month. Did everything it had to offer and even with lots and lots of "imagination" it got boring rather quickly. The one thing that I thought could keep me interested (Powerplay) was a complete failure because of the rank decay while not playing - I have a rather busy real life and therefore I can never seriously participate in that without huge sacrifices. Not gonna happen - for a game.

Then they came up with CQC... another design completely separate from the whole "immersion" experience I was hoping the get from elite... and I stopped playing.

Onwards to Horizons... which I bought a couple weeks back to give the game another try. After a few landings and planetary missions boredom came back with a vengeance. There is just nothing there - literally. Driving around on desolated rocks to collect some randomly generated, worthless loot is boring. Again.

On a technical level Elite is brilliant and everything I could ever dream about a space game. And I played a lot of them over the decades (yes, I am old enough to have played the original Elite, too). But on the content level there is just nothing there to keep me interested for long.
Miles wide and only an inch deep - nothing describes Elite more accurate. Which was perfectly fine three decades back with the original Elite; computer games were something new and shiny and interesting and back when we were easily satisfied with a lot less depth.
Unfortunately Elite stayed at that level; not acceptable any more for a modern game. Not even close.

Which makes me sad; really sad - I so want this game to be awesome and interesting. Maybe the upcoming mission system overhaul will help. Maybe a little. But I do not have high hopes here; from what I have experienced so far FD fails in the content/creative department so hard it's not even funny anymore. Unless they bring in fresh eyes - and quickly - I doubt they will get better.
And time is running out rather quickly (Star Citizen!)... which will blow them out of the water; out of the whole galaxy if nothing changes... soon.

I am rather sure I've seen this exact comment many many times before. Must be deja vu.

Just in case it's not deja vu though, I have to add. Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen are very different games with an overlapping demographic. They will only help each other. There is simply no way existence of one will be harmful to the other one.

The same argument, albeit wrong, can be made the other way round. 'ED has already blown Star Citizen out of the water in many areas. It has it's own engine specifically optimized to run simulation games in space. It can create and render full scale systems with full sized planets, tens of thousands of kilometers across as opposed to the tiny systems and tiny planets of Star Citizen. It has a realistically simulated galaxy of four hundred billion systems to a hundred systems of Star Citizen. It has a solid, running base while Star Citizen struggles miserably even with extremely high performance computers. ED can sync fights with up to 32 players in an instance but Star Citizen currently struggles with less than ten players walking around each other. The most important is, Elite Dangerous has a fantastic flight model with two flight modes where as Star Citizen has a sliding turret simulator.'

None of this makes any sense or is any of it relevant. Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous are different approaches to the genre. They complement each other in many ways. They are both expensive games most of the audience of which is more than capable of paying for and playing both. The communities and the developers of these games have everything to gain from supporting each other and nothing to lose. Both games have a long way to go before they are considered done. They have different marketing models and that's the only real difference between them. Otherwise, they are both works in progress with a different development approach, one depending on slow progress from bottom up but reliable base structure while other feeds off of initial hype and flashy content while the money from that is and will be spent trying to stabilize the core which will hopefully support whatever is on top of it one day.

See? It's not all black and white. It's not doom and gloom vs. fairyland. It's just humans being humans and coming up with human productions which have, as all human creations do, pros and cons, advantages and drawbacks, successes and failures, victories and defeats.

 

[sewerratuk]

More strawman please.

There are parts I hate, which really I shouldn't since I love trading simulations and the kind of detective work that should be required of a bounty hunter, alas ED is too simplistic for that, which is a shame.

I still enjoy space sight-seeing, which doesn't require much complexity to be interesting, and pirating other players which brings it own challenges.

Why straw man? I don't see that you have put forward an argument, just statements based on your own experience.
Anyway I was just highlighting the fact that every post I see you write is negative and generally non-constructive. It is nice to see that you have put something up that you feel is positive about the game, at least it shows some balance and will disarm anyone trying the 'don't play it then' comments.

 

[Shanaeri]

while I don't agree with everything this guy says, it's a good answer for many of the complaints raised on here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwk-GB1r7B0

 

[Sergio Smegolia]

What exactly would you expect space mining to be?

If you want it to be more of a test of skill, you could not use a prospector or a collector, and zip around with your ship at full speed all the time.

The collectors were introduced as a direct result of people moaning about individually collecting fragments. Now there's people moaning that the collectors make mining too easy. Give me a break already.

My Father had a saying, "Some people would moan to be hung". You know, "That noose is a bit dirty" and "the trapdoor needs a bit of a polish" etc. I don't know who he was referring to when he said it but if they were here today, they'd be gamers

 

[SnowyNI]

Elite Dangerous is a complex game in that everything one does has repercussions. Yes, it challenges a player with every decision they make and can often be a severe loss when one makes the wrong ones. But there are multiple paths to succeed very well in this game.

You must have a different game version to me?

 

[Lianachan]

What exactly would you expect space mining to be?

If you want it to be more of a test of skill, you could not use a prospector or a collector, and zip around with your ship at full speed all the time.

The collectors were introduced as a direct result of people moaning about individually collecting fragments. Now there's people moaning that the collectors make mining too easy. Give me a break already.

That's a problem for games which say people can do whatever they like. People will want to do all sorts of things, and in all sorts of different ways.

 

[Ian Skippy]

'm going to compare this game that has been released for at least a year now to a game that isn't even out yet: Star Citizen; it blows it out of the water in every way and it's only in closed alpha. Hell, from what I've seen it has more now than what Elite has. .

I actually play it occassionally and your statement is clearly based on absolutely nothing. Star Citizen has no trading, exploration, mining, essentially no missions, no criminal system, no rare commodities, no BGS, pretty much nothing at all except for PvP or PvE for literally no reason at all in a mini 'universe' much smaller than our own solar system. Its rare for most to play for longer than 20 min without crashing, the performance is atrocious and pretty much everything is bugged. The latest version not even walking around the ship in the hangar worked properly: my ship started moving around randomly and then fell through the floor and dissapeared. The tutorials are bugged and have massive FPS stuttering every 5 sec and don't start about the PU. Beyond that only a few ships can be flown (but you can buy those you cant fly all the same), and the flight model is still heavily WIP. All the complaining about ED's flaws pale in comparison with what SC currently is. I hope SC improves, but they're going to need at least two more years to come up with something even remotely resembling a game. Which is why you're here, and not playing SC A2.1. Thrust me, you want to tone your expectations down. If you're going to ditch ED because 'SC is so awesome' there's a good chance you'll end up in the best period for computer space-games without any game at all.

 

[xondk]

.

This comic page sums it up nicely, since it isn't something isolated to Elite, not one bit.
http://darklegacycomics.com/525

So frustrating :/

 

[shadragon]

I disagree with most of this. Elite Dangerous isn't a complex game and people critiquing the game by comparing it to similar games is perfectly valid.

There is no released game anything similar to the scale of Elite: Dangerous so any comparisons are nebulous. Besides the OP's post said nothing about other games. His point was about the impatient knee jerk responses when people try features of the game and they don't work the way they expect. Cobra MK IV, for example. The first hate posts for that ship showed up within twenty minutes of the Beta patch being released. You're telling me they did a complete flight test under multiple configurations and in different circumstances in that time? The number of negative Steam game reviews that have less than three hours played is also telling. There's opinion and informed opinion. I'll listen to the latter, but shall ignore the former.

OP - repped. In today's instant gratification society where you can send your words globally in a second, people need to slow way the heck down before pressing the send button with their opinion attached.

BTW, for the best search results on Google use the format:

type things you are looking for here site:forums.frontier.co.uk

That will search the forums only.

So yes, this game sucks and I've been around long enough to realize it sucks.

I see this all the time. Elite: Dangerous is so bad, you feel obliged to spend your day on the forums trying to warn people off. I must commend your zeal as I hated Resident Evil 4, but never felt the need to do what you are doing. I just deleted it and moved on with my life.

 

[Arindor]

I gave FD my saved up pennies and took a risk buying into ED knowing that it may not get developed. Thankfully FD have stuck to their guns and, even though I feel disenchanted with a few things from time to time, I try to remember why I signed up in the first place. So I intend to enjoy this crazy ride of a work-in-progress as long as it lasts.

 

[xondk]

I'm not even going to mention the fact that they're selling an unfinished patch for 40 dollars that adds no conceivable value to the game. Features, mind you, that were sold to people who were around in the beta like myself. So yes, this game sucks and I've been around long enough to realize it sucks. Stop defending a game that has gotten all the second chances it deserves.

I have to reply to this.

Why are you still here? if the game sucks so badly, why are you still here? heck why are you still playing it? this as mentioned is seen often people coming to 'warn' other people. Stop spending time, maybe make one post, and then leave, why would you come back? It really seems like nothing more then trolling or raging, if you've played the game for more then, I say 25 hours or so, then you've gotten your money's worth, if not, guess the game wasn't for you, but people keep running around going "this game sucks" kinda makes me wonder if people have even played or are just here to troll and annoy people.

As for saying Elite Dangerous isn't complex.....hah, there's nothing else on this scale where it affects each other, it is vast, and complex. Now, you not liking the way it is made complex, that is perfectly valid, but then maybe you should give examples of what you want from the game?
As for trading and fighting only way to get rich? really? is the game about getting rich? do you need to be earning the top credit only for it to "be worth it" then how did people like the fuel rats ever come to be? maybe just maybe some of the problems you have with the game comes from you, not just the game, but I know that is hard to admit, people would rather blame the game, then their attitude and expectations being off.

 

[Arithon]

I disagree with most of this. Elite Dangerous isn't a complex game and people critiquing the game by comparing it to similar games is perfectly valid. As it stands right now there are basically only 2 ways to get rich in an interesting way: trading and fighting. The former is incredibly boring now since, as I've heard, rare trading is borked. The latter isn't really too much fun when most are forced into solo play against predictable AI. Mining isn't viable and most of the missions involve one or two of the aspects previously mentioned. I'm going to compare this game that has been released for at least a year now to a game that isn't even out yet: Star Citizen; it blows it out of the water in every way and it's only in closed alpha. Hell, from what I've seen it has more now than what Elite has.
I'm not even going to mention the fact that they're selling an unfinished patch for 40 dollars that adds no conceivable value to the game. Features, mind you, that were sold to people who were around in the beta like myself. So yes, this game sucks and I've been around long enough to realize it sucks. Stop defending a game that has gotten all the second chances it deserves.

Elite is a fantastic game with lots of content and a massive scale.

Horizons is not an "unfinished patch" since it is neither a patch nor unfinished. It's a years-worth of content.

The source of your complaints about Elite and praise for Star Citizen are all, by your own admission, second hand accounts. You are very much out of touch.

Don't try and start a Star Citizen flame-war to support your negative opinion. That kind of trolling has no place here.

I'm frankly stunned that someone who has "been around since the beta" (which was July two years ago) knows so little about the game, as "the game sucks" is not much of a critique or even remotely accurate.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

You must have a different game version to me?

They're is right, it does have repercussions in the BGS etc, its just extremely difficult to see. Hopefully that will be changing in the next update.

 

[Jukelo]

Why straw man? I don't see that you have put forward an argument, just statements based on your own experience.
Anyway I was just highlighting the fact that every post I see you write is negative and generally non-constructive. It is nice to see that you have put something up that you feel is positive about the game, at least it shows some balance and will disarm anyone trying the 'don't play it then' comments.

I'm not in the habit of praising games on their own forums, it always felt kinda pointless to me: I already bought the game, that should be endorsement enough. If I really want to give the game some credit I'll write a positive review on Steam or something. But frankly, if I'm enjoying the game I'll be busy playing it rather than talking about it on forums. If I spend time talking about it that's going to be either to answer somebody's questions or to express criticism of specific aspects of the game. And if you really read all my posts you'll me doing both.

And I don't think I need to make a list of everything I enjoy about the game to shield myself from those "why you still here then if you hate the game so much" accusations. Such puerile comments don't need answering, anybody wanting to have a discussion in all good faith will realize that if you're ready to spend time providing criticism of the product you bought instead of just moving on with your life, it means there are aspects of it you like and you just want the whole thing to become better.

As for my posts not being constructive, I disagree strongly. Point in case, that initial post of mine you quoted mentioned how I find it laughable that one would call ED a complex game when the economy is so simplistic and provided pointers at the fact the price and supply values are so limited and the game's complete lack of an actual production chain that could allow supply and demand values to change much more dynamically. Negative? Sure, it's criticism. Non-constructive? How so?

 

[lysan]

I only stick around because I bought into this game with the expectation that it could be so much more than it is at this point. OP is criticizing people for pointing out that the game isn't hard (though maybe it's artificially hard) it's just boring. You can grind up to the next ship and the next rank but then what?
Try and reply without straw manning me to the hayloft. I have no stake in Star Citizen, simply pointing out that the game, as I said, has more in it in closed alpha than this game does 1+ year after release.
This game doesn't even reward or encourage people to participate in one of it's most marketable features: Exploration. In the past there have been a number of bugs disincentivizing people from doing it and it certainly isn't a good way of making credits. You could almost mine for more money per hour.

Utterly rubbish and not true. I assume this is just to make the thread burst into flames you're writing this kind of nonsense.

 

[Kapow]

Elite is a fantastic game with lots of content and a massive scale.

Horizons is not an "unfinished patch" since it is neither a patch nor unfinished. It's a years-worth of content.

The source of your complaints about Elite and praise for Star Citizen are all, by your own admission, second hand accounts. You are very much out of touch.

Don't try and start a Star Citizen flame-war to support your negative opinion. That kind of trolling has no place here.

I'm frankly stunned that someone who has "been around since the beta" (which was July two years ago) knows so little about the game, as "the game sucks" is not much of a critique or even remotely accurate.

I'm sorry but Elite is large I give you that, but by no means Complex (unless you take the galaxy into it) As a game it is very much a random number generator without any depth. It is as shallow as puddle on my street after 5 mins of rain. It is empty and void of meaningful content unless you are an explorer... Sorry to disagree like this, but the people are criticizing this game because it really needs to improve. The really funny thing is that the people who criticize the game as I do now are the people who also happen to care about what will happen to it and we don't want to see it die, but if FDs leave the game on the same path it is on now it will die. If you can point me to any long standing successful multiplayer game with Meta Critic of 3.4 I will stand corrected, but all games with average score of less then 5 die within a year. Year one of Elite Dangerous lived on promise of evolution and Year 2 won't have the same power any more. If you add that this year might see launch of 2 other MMOish Space games you get to a point where elite is on a really thin Ice hence the negative critiques are louder as we don't want the game to die. Just my 2 cents

 

[Ian Skippy]

I'm sorry but Elite is large I give you that, but by no means Complex (unless you take the galaxy into it) As a game it is very much a random number generator without any depth. It is as shallow as puddle on my street after 5 mins of rain. It is empty and void of meaningful content unless you are an explorer... Sorry to disagree like this, but the people are criticizing this game because it really needs to improve. The really funny thing is that the people who criticize the game as I do now are the people who also happen to care about what will happen to it and we don't want to see it die, but if FDs leave the game on the same path it is on now it will die. If you can point me to any long standing successful multiplayer game with Meta Critic of 3.4 I will stand corrected, but all games with average score of less then 5 die within a year. Year one of Elite Dangerous lived on promise of evolution and Year 2 won't have the same power any more. If you add that this year might see launch of 2 other MMOish Space games you get to a point where elite is on a really thin Ice hence the negative critiques are louder as we don't want the game to die. Just my 2 cents

Thats what they said last year. And before that. The 'ED will die this year' stuff is getting old. Btw, SC will not release this year. The first episode of the single player game S42 might be released at the end of the year, but that would be the first deadline they'll actually be able to keep...