I've been saying fo a while that the game has loads of content, its just the delivery of the content that is lacking. It now looks like some of this is being addressed, and hope it continues to be improved.
Problem is we are continually getting, I know what''s wrong with ED threads and this is what needs to be done to fix it, that they are becoming like newspaper headlines that have more than run their course.
No matter how good some ones presentation is about the subject it seems, in my opinion the majority of players never visit the forums, and just carry on with whatever they are doing.
I cannot see the Devs ever departing from how they think the game should go despite suggestions on the forums, reddit, DDF or in Rupert Bears latest manual, so in the end all these threads do is allow a player to air their frustration.
But if FD leave things out that were promised, add things that were not and pretty much totally ignore the forums and players suggestions unless it fits in with something they already planned to instigate then I really no longer see any reason for these threads to continue unless as I suggested it is just for individual players to air their frustrations.![]()
You are on a gaming forum..how precious is your time, really?
Seriously though, I kind of agree, when it comes to a serious critique on complex, multiple issues within the game..but vids should be far more prevalent in these forums when asking a question, demonstrating an issue or explaining how something should be done..also 'nothing worse than those Walter Mitty muppets who post on here, explaining how awesome they are at everything - yeah? is that right? well, let's see you in action then!
Here you go. This is the comment I wrote originally that I decided to make into a video.
https://reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous...ngerous_lack_of_content_gameplay_what/cypceod
Here's another that covers the same stuff plus some extra.
https://reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous...and_its_included_expansions_the_known/cys5rxx
Just the ability to discuss something like this so calmly while fighting Pythons from the cockpit of an Exploration focused ship speaks volumes for Elite and not in a good way.
Winging up and splitting of rewards I think is off base. A well oiled wing can kill MUCH faster than 4 guys all by themselves,
This really ought to be something that the BGS handles (but AFAIK currently it does not).if player action is to count for anything then killing pirates in these systems ought to matter.
This is the common rebuttal to my concerns about income splitting, but it misses a very important fact: The bottleneck is not your killing power, it's the instance's spawn rate.
Let's say that when you play alone you are killing ~75% of the pirates that spawn. The other 25% die to each other or police or wake-out or whatever. Now you get into a wing with a friend and you're now killing 85% of the ships - a 10% increase - while taking a 50% pay cut. So instead of making 3 Million Credits per hour by yourself, you're now making 3.3M / 2 = 1.65M per hour.
Obviously I just pulled these numbers out of my ass, but here's the crux of the issue: In order for winging up with a friend to be *at least as profitable* as playing alone you would need to be killing *double* the number of ships. That means so many pirates are spawning that you're barely able to kill half of them, and once your friend shows up you guys are *so efficient* that you kill every single ship *and* manage to both tag them all to split the bounty.
That's a tall order.
Now imagine it with a wing of 4. It can only cut into your profits unless the spawn rate is high enough for you guys to kill 4x as many ships as you would solo and that just doesn't happen, even in HazRES.
I've previously made my own proposals on how to make ED more engaging, and part of that was a kind of Agency + Persistence, but on a smaller more personal scale (and so more achievable) - what I called (Semi) Permanent effects on the world:What I question is when Agency gets presented as essential to any and every computer game. Agency is an incredibly common game hook, but it isn't the only one. It's essential to make the game compelling to certain players, but it’s not essential to a compelling game.
I think imbuing ED with the kind of Agency you feel in most games is a bit of a pipe dream. How do you bring Agency to a life size galaxy? It either happens on a galactic scale, and you don't feel any Cohesion with it, or it happens on a local scale, which as soon as you multiply it out 100bn times rapidly becomes just another type of instance pushing another meaningless slider.
(a) The mission you complete (or fail) turns out to be part of a larger story, and so leads to another mission (and perhaps another after that). Procedural generation will still mean repetition after a while, but this would still be far better than what we currently have. Basically chained missions (and possibly multi-path missions).
Plots twists would be possible: Just imagine completing an illegal mission, and then being asked to do another mission which turns out to be your employer trying to silence you! You might then get an offer from the cops to testify, if you will fly to a particular space station (resulting in a dangerous trip, but success would prevent your employer coming after you any further).
(b) Missions giving you a rare item, such as a special weapon or equipment, or even (in very rare cases) an entirely new ship! Maybe we will finally get the Mirage ;-)
(c) Missions or events might lead you to get to know a particular NPC, who then offers you certain kinds of (better) missions. Basically Tier 2 characters from the DDF.
(d) As you gain reputation with a particular major/minor faction, they start to offer you new TYPES of missions. Think of military missions from Elite 2, where they'd eventually offer you spy/photo missions, then assassination missions, then finally bombing missions. ED probably has a LITTLE of this kind of progression, but it needs much more.
(e) Successfully performing a particular chain of difficult missions results in a certain minor faction becoming SIGNIFICANTLY more (or less) influential. This would obviously have to be limited so that a player can only do such a mission chain (say) once a week, and ensure it's a different minor faction for every player. If influence was increased, it could lead to a higher chance of special missions from that faction. If influence was decreased, it could lead to a higher chance of being bounty-hunted in that system, or of missions which turn out to be a trap for you. The CMDR's name should appear in GalNet of that system (GalNet already shows local news).