Waiting is not fun and needs to go

[The Roofus]

TLDR but here's a gif of a cat

 

[Deleted member 182079]

TLDR but here's a gif of a cat

I'm gonna watch this for the next 80 seconds of another batch of data downloads at dial-up speeds in the same settlement (in Sol fwiw).

 

[Frop]

Waiting 300seconds doing nothing whatsoever is not gameplay. This is the kind of stuff we have in EDO. My max was 200+s, but someone had 300s. Doing nothing because you need to stay very close the data port.

I don't care if they remove it or replace it, but I'd like it gone.

Just 300? Those are rookie numbers.

 

[Lazerus Artificial]

Some of what you describe as 'waiting' are simply dynamics.

If everything was go-go-go - like most new games and media in general - with about 3 seconds at most of 'rest', then there'd be a lack of dynamics. Constant loudness is just as boring as constant silence.

Waiting to download things or scannings often can reduce monotony as fast move-click-move-click, or worse scanning things with one click while moving I'd argue are more tedious because games aren't in fact all exercises in pure efficiency and end-goal objectives. There is an important element to games called atmosphere or world building, and a crucial way of doing that is forcing the player to actully stop now and again to take a breath and take in the environment.

Now that's not true in something like Counterstrike or Fortnite. What irks me is how everyone seemingly thinks this kind of purely 'game' approach should extend to every genre.

Atmosphere or World Building...nothing of which is in Odyssey. We are not forced to stop to enjoy the environment. Most of the Rooms looks the same, the same few Lockers, the same positioning of Items, the same NPC Pathing, no way to interect with them, the same Audiolines over and over again...hell, even whole bases are just copy and paste, including the Terrain they are on! There is no "Atmosphere" to enjoy. You can see everything in just a few hours
Even Reactivating Settlements is boring as hell as nothing makes sense there. Workers are dead where they would have walked, no signs of combat, not a single dead Attacker, not a single sign that anyone in that Base reacted. So...where exactly is the World Building? Why is everything on fire? Why is there no Fire Extinguisher? Why is everyone dead? Why did no one try to escape? Its just an Arena with an Objective and a bit of Loot. Just like in Unreal Tournament those "Objects" have no Story to tell. They had no Life, they had no Daily Routine, they are simply just "Pickups" that will help me reach my Target.

Its the same with Combat Zones. Every single CZ works the same. Every single CZ is close ranged Combat and waiting at a Spot. What exactly is the Story here, why is Warfrare and Conflict in the future about who controls the most Points in a Base? There is no Worldbuilding. Its just a boring Arenashooter that was slapped into the World with no explanation at all. It doesnt fit into the World we know, where Empire and Federation have different Arsenals and different Strategies.

Remember the Trailer? Specifically this Scene?

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAb3nH5Eilo&t=65s
where is that? Why do they approach from such a long distance? There is no Weapon that can hit from there, there is no Tool like a Binocular to Scout from there, you cant even mark Enemies from there. There are no SRVs driving throug the Combat Area, you dont need a Rocket to take down a Skimmer, there is not even a Team-Mission!
"What new Dangers have yet to be faced?" Yeah...none really. There is no scary atmosphere when you enter an abandoned Settlement as you know exactly what is in there. Fire, Corpses, thats it.
Or the Reveal-Trailer:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nlemilLjQY&t=44s
there is no mixed-combat. There is no Dogfighting over a Base. There is no need for a tactical approach. There simply is not the same Sandbox as there is in Horizons. Its as if all Combat in Elite would be replaced by CQC.

Constant loudness is just as boring, yes, which is why i mentioned different Examples of how to improve them. Just after a few Hours im sick of the Combat. I played 10 CZ and i will never ever touch them again because i dont have any reason to do so. If there would be different Types of CZ, Deathmatch here, Capture the Sample there, Hold the Point, Defend / Attack a Base ... that would be fun. But this? No. There is no Skill needed, no Tactic.

 

[ImmerseMe]

I have never said anything about Twitch-Reaction. In fact, i said that there should not be the same mistake as there was with the Bioscanner. That Minigame was simply bad and not fun at all.

And no, i dont want instant gratification. But things like this:

Where you can boot up another Game and finish a whole Mission...thats simply bad design. This is not Gameplay, this is not a feature, and it is not even subjective. Most of that Data is not even particularly valuable. Forcing players to wait for no apparent reason is a big no-go in Gaming.

And if you dont want a minigame, thats fine, there are so many other way to fix this problem. Here is one that wasnt named yet: Access Level.
Hacking a Port with Access 0 only gives you access to the slowest speed and the lowest of Data.
Access 1 gives you a bit more Speed.
Access 2 gives you even more speed and increased Data amount
Access 3 gives you the high-speed connection and one guaranteed rare file.

The point about twitch gaming was a reversal of your point about waiting. It doesnt matter whether you've said anything about it, it was an analogy.

I agree that the difference between subjective and objective can get complicated, but this one is rather easy.

 

[ImmerseMe]

Some of what you describe as 'waiting' are simply dynamics.

If everything was go-go-go - like most new games and media in general - with about 3 seconds at most of 'rest', then there'd be a lack of dynamics. Constant loudness is just as boring as constant silence.

Waiting to download things or scannings often can reduce monotony as fast move-click-move-click, or worse scanning things with one click while moving I'd argue are more tedious because games aren't in fact all exercises in pure efficiency and end-goal objectives. There is an important element to games called atmosphere or world building, and a crucial way of doing that is forcing the player to actully stop now and again to take a breath and take in the environment.

Now that's not true in something like Counterstrike or Fortnite. What irks me is how everyone seemingly thinks this kind of purely 'game' approach should extend to every genre.

What? Delay my gratification?!? Crazy talk.

It's extremely interesting that many people, presumably mostly young people, literally cannot see this even as it's pointed out to them. Like a blind spot they cannot comprehend the existence of.

I finally know what okay Boomer means.

 

[Agrar Therenus]

What? Delay my gratification?!? Crazy talk.

It's extremely interesting that many people, presumably mostly young people, literally cannot see this even as it's pointed out to them. Like a blind spot they cannot comprehend the existence of.

I finally know what okay Boomer means.

It's hardly surprising in a world entirely obsessed with mobile phone games and Twitter.

The sudden exposion of the popularity of the internet has meant the world-at-large did not have time to mature or ease in to the technology. I'm quite confident this is the reason why everyone seems like addicts these days in how they consume media and even communication these days. Everything is seemingly about instant hits, and the only answer to the inevitably weak effects of it are to have hits literally every few minutes or even seconds.

 

[lysan]

Let us Hack Terminals too!

You can hack terminals, use the E-Breech

 

[Lazerus Artificial]

You can hack terminals, use the E-Breech

i meant without that. Turn e-breach into the lazy mode and allow us to manually hack stuff.

 

[lysan]

i meant without that. Turn e-breach into the lazy mode and allow us to manually hack stuff.

Ahh, yeah that mechanic is not in the game.

 

[Bigmaec]

They could always implement a reaction based minigame for hacking.

 

[fourrunes]

Waiting for Fdev to finish the game after buying it for 40$ as a complete product is extremely not fun for me.

 

[Mallchad]

Tbh I agree with most of this.

I feel like Frontier have really struggled with padding out gameplay related timers with actual game content.
I was pretty disappointed where I figured there was no hacking, or even semi-animated interactions like pulling a power regulator.
It would've been nice to have that kind of thing and have a small minigame to justify a dangerous, but faster way of getting data, for example.

Or forcefully pulling the power regulator at the cost of massive damage to your and the buildings.

The engagement range is horrifically small consideirng the size of the game...
Projects despawn at the length of a cutter...

 

[Rob Galaxy]

Full agree, the wait times for those things should be reduced. OK, while waiting the power on or the shutdown of a PWR building you can view a educational YouTube video, take a shower or things like that. May be FDev wanted to break the gameplay from time to time for the education or the health of us gamers.

 

[Lazerus Artificial]

Tbh I agree with most of this.

I feel like Frontier have really struggled with padding out gameplay related timers with actual game content.
I was pretty disappointed where I figured there was no hacking, or even semi-animated interactions like pulling a power regulator.
It would've been nice to have that kind of thing and have a small minigame to justify a dangerous, but faster way of getting data, for example.

Or forcefully pulling the power regulator at the cost of massive damage to your and the buildings.

The engagement range is horrifically small consideirng the size of the game...
Projects despawn at the length of a cutter...

or simply shooting things until they explode.
shoot the powergen to kill everything unprotected inside and bring darkness and chaos over the base.
shoot terminals and computers to permanently deactivate them.
shoot glass to vent atmosphere in a more spectacular way.
(now i want remote explosives and tripwire mines...)

also towards the projectiles:
not only that, i also experienced weird hitbox issues. i have seen it several times now that the executioner projectiles just went straight through a target, as if the projectiles hitbox wouldnt match its visual size. could be ping related too, where the hitbox isnt where it is supposed to be.

 

[JonKar]

The only place where the Weapons fit are Combat Zones...aaaand they are mostly about Waiting. Run to Point Alfa and wait. Now to Beta and wait. Back to Gamma and WAIT. Even the Sharpshooters run into close range combat while you wait for them.

Ok, uh, in CZ i just kill everything. I don't even bother with the objective, you get more credits for kills than you do for actually winning (in the high intensity at least). In fact, it's better cash flow to lose the CZ because then you can get more kills. If you kill enough of them you win anyway. Going for objectives is objectively (hah!) a bad strategy.

• Assassination and Theft are about wait. You cant lure Enemies away. You cant Knock them out. You have to wait for them to move or gain a Bounty and Alert the whole Base.

That's kinda true. If you chuck a grenade sometimes they'll go to see what's going on where the boom was. Overcharge is silent and OK as long as you don't have a 'nonlethal' mission. You can turn off the alarms, you can overcharge / ebreach doors and walk in. it isn't well explained and this doesn't really detract from your main point about waiting.

• Scavenging is not fun due to waiting and pure grind. Download Data and wait. Deactivate Power and wait. Open a Machine and wait. Repeat that several hundred times to buy a pointless Mod or Upgrade.

agree about the wait times on the reactor and data download. Like, if you had to defend the terminal or reactor from enemies while it downloaded or shut down, that would be some engaging gameplay. But I'm just standing around / watching tv on my other screen at this point. It is pointless.

• Downloading Data. I think the longest i had to wait so far was 210s or so. 3.5minutes doing NOTHING because i am not even allowed to move away.

I've definitely seen 5 minute waits. 90s is pretty typical and still too long.

• Opening Material Samples. It takes how long until the Process finishes? 5minutes? Atleast here you can move away from them and come back later. And then you discover, that the Machine was empty the whole time.

basically forever, I don't even take these missions as they're too boring.

• Bioscanning becomes repetetive after the first few Plants because for me, they just dont feel special. There is no Armstrong Moment to enjoy. There is no Material for Upgrades. No Lore to enjoy. Just Plants to look at. Atleast there is not much waiting here...

agree, boring. give me some usable mats at least if that's what the entire game is based on.

What could be done instead?
A Hacking Minigame. Look for example at how Cyberpunk or Warframe did it. There is something to do. Something to interact with. Something you can learn and Master. Back when hacking was new in Warframe, i failed the High Difficulty once multiple Times. Now i finish them in less than 3s.
Such a minigame could either speed up the process, or increase the amount of data you receive.
Just do not repeat the Bioscanner mistake.
And lets not stop at Data-Ports. Let us Hack Terminals too!
And if you really want to do it fast, just use an E-Breach on it. Terminals are then unlocked like they are now, and Dataports breach the Protection and download instantly.
You could even turn this into a Scavenger "Hacker" Rank, because yeah, that one is completely Missing. The other two Suits have cosmetic Unlocks with their Ranks. Just the Maverick does not.

Add variety to Combat, give us Weapons and Tools for more than just CZ and close Range. Add advantage Points like Watchtowers from where someone with a real ranged Weapon can provide Support Fire instead of running into close range fire. Add Drone-Strikes to mix things up a bit, like when one side dominates, the other side can call in Support once. Add tactical Objectives like "Hack this and activate Turrets", "Capture this to gain Security Access and reach something faster". There is so much that could be done to spice Combat up without the need to wait on a Spot.

Give us Tools for Stealth. Lures to manipulate AI Pathfinding. Make Sneakattack-Punches with your Fists or Weapon non-Lethal, so that you dont get a Bounty. Yes, sneaking is a lot of waiting, but also a lot of deception and manipulation. You dont just wait and hope that the AI Path leads away from where you have to go at one Point.

Reduce Material cost by a lot, remove the pointless Asset / Good separation when both are needed for Upgrades anyway. Move all Upgrade Materials into Goods, and all the Credit-Assets into Assets. Make Data tradeable. Or atleast mark the things that are needed in a Recipe. Just reduce the Grind, because Grind is just more waiting for the right RNG-Spawn.

Yes, Yes, Yes, yes to all this. Make it more fun, add the depth. I've been playing other games lately.

 

[Lazerus Artificial]

Ok, uh, in CZ i just kill everything. I don't even bother with the objective, you get more credits for kills than you do for actually winning (in the high intensity at least). In fact, it's better cash flow to lose the CZ because then you can get more kills. If you kill enough of them you win anyway. Going for objectives is objectively (hah!) a bad strategy.

That's kinda true. If you chuck a grenade sometimes they'll go to see what's going on where the boom was. Overcharge is silent and OK as long as you don't have a 'nonlethal' mission. You can turn off the alarms, you can overcharge / ebreach doors and walk in. it isn't well explained and this doesn't really detract from your main point about waiting.


agree about the wait times on the reactor and data download. Like, if you had to defend the terminal or reactor from enemies while it downloaded or shut down, that would be some engaging gameplay. But I'm just standing around / watching tv on my other screen at this point. It is pointless.

I've definitely seen 5 minute waits. 90s is pretty typical and still too long.

basically forever, I don't even take these missions as they're too boring.

agree, boring. give me some usable mats at least if that's what the entire game is based on.

Yes, Yes, Yes, yes to all this. Make it more fun, add the depth. I've been playing other games lately.

• yeah, thats just another issue.
• heard that earlier today too, but for me this just sounds like "abusing" the AI Code. Turning of Atmosphere is also a good way to hide your kills, as suddenly the Guards outside can no longer hear you, even without silent weapons. Did that while farmin the Genetic Repair Meds.
• defending wouldnt really fit for stealth missions though
• yeah, there are a few screenshots here. im kinda lucky that i never had those
• sadly, you need atleast 6 heists to unlock the nightvision engineer...
• would be fun if we could choose something like from a mission. yes, it would take longer to sell, but it would be more rewarding.
• yep, i started to play the Fallout 76 season instead of Odyssey. Even the repetetive daily missions there have more variety than exploring the same HAB with the same npc, same dialogue, same pathfinding, same items, same clutter, same lockers...

 

[Mallchad]

I do feel some of the way the settlements work is too rigid.
ie bases being "disabled" during a CZ... Like... what if I want to turn on the base defenses to stop reinforcements?
It annoys me that NPCs don't react to the atmosphere being vented, even when they don't have a backpack capable of supporting life for more than a few minutes.
I can accept glass being bullet-proof...

I can't accept trying to get around flechette launcher attacks and friendly fire on CZ teammates by doing janky things like nerfing their range and disabling
friendly fire.
Give us an actual punishment for abusing things, like causing the settlement to go up in flames and giving us an inflated warcrime bounty for recklessly killing
teammates for no good reason.

You can hack terminals, use the E-Breech

E-braches are not good gameplay and do not fit well into the game.
They work, good fine.
But offering a hand full of e-breaches do deal with sometimes an entire base, and using fully consumable thigns with no way to re-create them
in 3307 is... laughable... really..

 

[Lazerus Artificial]

I do feel some of the way the settlements work is too rigid.
ie bases being "disabled" during a CZ... Like... what if I want to turn on the base defenses to stop reinforcements?
It annoys me that NPCs don't react to the atmosphere being vented, even when they don't have a backpack capable of supporting life for more than a few minutes.
I can accept glass being bullet-proof...

I can't accept trying to get around flechette launcher attacks and friendly fire on CZ teammates by doing janky things like nerfing their range and disabling
friendly fire.
Give us an actual punishment for abusing things, like causing the settlement to go up in flames and giving us an inflated warcrime bounty for recklessly killing
teammates for no good reason.

E-braches are not good gameplay and do not fit well into the game.
They work, good fine.
But offering a hand full of e-breaches do deal with sometimes an entire base, and using fully consumable thigns with no way to re-create them
in 3307 is... laughable... really..

thats what i meant with "tactical objectives". enable turrets to create no-go zones, activate temporary AA to prevent respawns, gain Access-Codes to walk through buildings for shortcuts, activate Drone-Defense (in a way where you cant shoot them down with your pew pew Pistols but need something Heavy like Rockets or the Executioner).
Same with the Sniper-Stuff that was mentioned. Imagine having "Special Units" in a Base that do not spawn as part of the "Commando Group".

• Snipers on Roofs that behave like long range "Turrets" to counter Player-Snipers. Either you take them all out without getting noticed...or not. Its your choice. Take cover, sneak around corners, or just silently kill them.
• a Captain in each Base, not just a Guard with Access Level 3. An actual high level Captain. Take him out, and no one can call in reinforcement (aka respawn).
• Power Armor Units that behave like "Vehicles" that really take a few hits so you cant murderhobo everything on sight.

Things like that would add a "kick" to Bases. Level 0 Bases would have nothing like that. Level 5 Bases would have several Power Armor Units guarding entrances.

Treat it just like in a Conflict Zone. Shoot too many friendlies, and both sides turn hostile. Good luck.

I wish E-Breaches would be optional, not mandatory in some cases. Manually hack something but risk getting caught (like lockpicking in Skyrim). Some kind of Suit-Mod that allows to hide them from a Scan, or as you said, craft them yourself. We can synthesize Man-Sized Cannon Shells in our Ship...but not a slightly dangerous USB Stick?
I also wish there would be different Grades of E-Breaches. From Level 0 which just opens Locks, Level 1 which downloads X amount of Files from a basic Terminal, upd to Level 5 which spreads through the System to cause Malfunctions. Turrets start to shoot Guards, Atmosphere randomly Vents, charging Ports shock nearby People...

 

[Hydrino]

No, im not talking about Apex. In some cases i prefer to take a Taxi because i dont want to fly myself, so that i can do something else, like eat. This is not just a rant about why Odyssey is bad. I want to provide Feedback and Solutions. Anyway...

Waiting is not a good Design. You want Players to play, not wait. If i wanted to wait, i would play a Browser based Game like for example OGame or Stellaris: Galaxy Command.
Honestly, by now i stopped playing Odyssey Content entirely.

• Combat is not fun due to CZ Balance and almost no Variety in Weapon-Choice. I cant Snipe, i cant play Non-Lethal, i cant play Melee. We have 11 Weapons. Most of them Automatic, and all of them are made for Combat at <50m. What a Choice.
  The only place where the Weapons fit are Combat Zones...aaaand they are mostly about Waiting. Run to Point Alfa and wait. Now to Beta and wait. Back to Gamma and WAIT. Even the Sharpshooters run into close range combat while you wait for them.
• Assassination and Theft are about wait. You cant lure Enemies away. You cant Knock them out. You have to wait for them to move or gain a Bounty and Alert the whole Base.
• Scavenging is not fun due to waiting and pure grind. Download Data and wait. Deactivate Power and wait. Open a Machine and wait. Repeat that several hundred times to buy a pointless Mod or Upgrade.
• Downloading Data. I think the longest i had to wait so far was 210s or so. 3.5minutes doing NOTHING because i am not even allowed to move away.
• Opening Material Samples. It takes how long until the Process finishes? 5minutes? Atleast here you can move away from them and come back later. And then you discover, that the Machine was empty the whole time.
• Bioscanning becomes repetetive after the first few Plants because for me, they just dont feel special. There is no Armstrong Moment to enjoy. There is no Material for Upgrades. No Lore to enjoy. Just Plants to look at. Atleast there is not much waiting here...

What could be done instead?
A Hacking Minigame. Look for example at how Cyberpunk or Warframe did it. There is something to do. Something to interact with. Something you can learn and Master. Back when hacking was new in Warframe, i failed the High Difficulty once multiple Times. Now i finish them in less than 3s.
Such a minigame could either speed up the process, or increase the amount of data you receive.
Just do not repeat the Bioscanner mistake.
And lets not stop at Data-Ports. Let us Hack Terminals too!
And if you really want to do it fast, just use an E-Breach on it. Terminals are then unlocked like they are now, and Dataports breach the Protection and download instantly.
You could even turn this into a Scavenger "Hacker" Rank, because yeah, that one is completely Missing. The other two Suits have cosmetic Unlocks with their Ranks. Just the Maverick does not.

Add variety to Combat, give us Weapons and Tools for more than just CZ and close Range. Add advantage Points like Watchtowers from where someone with a real ranged Weapon can provide Support Fire instead of running into close range fire. Add Drone-Strikes to mix things up a bit, like when one side dominates, the other side can call in Support once. Add tactical Objectives like "Hack this and activate Turrets", "Capture this to gain Security Access and reach something faster". There is so much that could be done to spice Combat up without the need to wait on a Spot.

Give us Tools for Stealth. Lures to manipulate AI Pathfinding. Make Sneakattack-Punches with your Fists or Weapon non-Lethal, so that you dont get a Bounty. Yes, sneaking is a lot of waiting, but also a lot of deception and manipulation. You dont just wait and hope that the AI Path leads away from where you have to go at one Point.

Reduce Material cost by a lot, remove the pointless Asset / Good separation when both are needed for Upgrades anyway. Move all Upgrade Materials into Goods, and all the Credit-Assets into Assets. Make Data tradeable. Or atleast mark the things that are needed in a Recipe. Just reduce the Grind, because Grind is just more waiting for the right RNG-Spawn.

Obsidian Ant even made a video about how long travel times and other "countdown timer" pointless waiting was NOT good game design.

However, I do Not support adding mini-games as time wasters. That is not the answer. I don't want to play chess or the original Elite when on a long Apex Taxi ride or a trip to Hutton Orbital. What I do want is to see FD try things to improve this like adjusting "simple" numerical limits in the game to see how they feel, like increase the rate of acceleration and braking in SuperCruise. That alone could alleviate the worst travel times while still keeping some time investment to in-system travel.

I also support "micro-jumps" but only to actual Stars. There are systems near the core that could be traversed simply with Super-cruise just like a trip to Hutton, but you can jump to them (and have to as the game won't generate a new system without a jump, even though you can travel the full distance in Supercruise...

I don't think OP is advocating "mini games" however. This is more fleshing out of game-loops and mechanics and increasing interest such as through some 'hacker' rank or whatever (but not another Elite rank, plz!). That sounds good. Just the connotation of mini-games for time-killing sounds really bad.