What exactly is the purpose and future of on foot game play in ED?
- Thread starter Muzz UK
- Start date
I had a think about this and if you could raid settlements to obtain ship materials for example it would make it worthwhile. Raid a ground settlement ware house for grid resistors.
I mean getting out of your ship to engage with the station trader or mission board people in person would have been something sure it doesn't reward you anything but at least from an immersion or lore sense it works. Some people might actually enjoy doing this and living INSIDE Elite a bit more.
It is as if on-foot combat related activities must all be the same garbage the last 20 years of FPS games have pumped out, rather than something somewhat different.
I'm certain that, in their heads, their expectations appear perfectly realistic...
Conversely the existing station on-foot gameplay has a bunch of immersion problems for people that accessing it through an in-ship mission screen would have avoided.
- "I want to sell illegal goods" at the black market was always a bit weird to have on display, but it's not too big a deal to handwave it as your ship pulling together the results of various public and private comms channels. Loudly shouting "hey, are you up for a bit of crime?" in the concourse gets much more frequent "realism" complaints about the existing in-person mission givers.
- "We have no artificial gravity in this setting" was fine when we spent our time sitting in a ship and not doing the maths about the G-forces we (and our passengers) were experiencing, but actually stepping out onto an outpost set off a bunch of people's "wait, magnets don't actually work like that, do they..." senses.
- The bartender who is so busy being a fence for the mob that they forget to stock any actual drinks because they never expect legitimate customers does apparently have real-life equivalents but still feels weird to those of us who go to bars for things other than their connections to the criminal underworld.
Making the current "concourse" and "ship" services so far as possible accessible from both locations I'd agree was a good thing to do, though I do wonder how many people use a trip to Inter Astra rather than the Shipyard fade-to-black to switch between active ships. (It never even occurs to me that I could, though I don't change ships that often in the first place)
Do you know that Frontier are unable to do so? Perhaps Odyssey was hamstrung by the extended and unsuccessful attempt to put that release on console and the fallout from that.
Next time (if there is a next time) Frontier don't have to worry about the console version.
We know nothing for sure but if we look at the state of the game after powerplay 2.0 and Colonisation. There's unfortunate evidence that they're unable to do so. Neither feature has delivered a level of depth or stability that would indicate a capacity to do the far more complicated job of making the on foot stuff broadly fun.
Not holding out much hope for Vanguard then?
The lack of new/any on foot content is very sad and disappointing.
Would love to walk into something alien, doesn't even have to be combat based, maybe some sort of parkour element with immersion lighting or even pitch black.
The focus on making new ships and selling them for early access novelty wore off on me already.
Would love to walk into something alien, doesn't even have to be combat based, maybe some sort of parkour element with immersion lighting or even pitch black.
The focus on making new ships and selling them for early access novelty wore off on me already.
People wanted (demanded, complained for) "Space Legs". Now we have Space Legs and the question arises (to what end?)...
I'm glad that folks got what they asked for. However, I never understood why this game needed them. I only got off my ship once (on purpose) to see the bridge of my FC while transitioning hyperspace. Couldn't get back aboard my ship fast enough. Even now, if I exit my cockpit by mistake I break out in a cold sweat (in VR) and have to dig for the keyboard to get back aboard...
I don't expect I'll ever want to play this game on foot.
I'm glad that folks got what they asked for. However, I never understood why this game needed them. I only got off my ship once (on purpose) to see the bridge of my FC while transitioning hyperspace. Couldn't get back aboard my ship fast enough. Even now, if I exit my cockpit by mistake I break out in a cold sweat (in VR) and have to dig for the keyboard to get back aboard...
I don't expect I'll ever want to play this game on foot.
Not really but that's mostly because it's a multiplayer focussed update centred around people hanging around a single ship in a game where I tend to dive off into the black on my own. It's not targetted at me but if it can go without doing something like removing all on foot loot for 6 months like powerplay did to all non powerplay systems. It'll be OK. They'll get there eventually I just don't currently see a capacity for the scale of work a full on foot rework would be at this stage. They might get there in the future but I am judging them based on what they deliver.Not holding out much hope for Vanguard then?
The evidence suggests that Frontier think so, since they haven't released any significant on-foot content (other than the temporary Thargoid Spires) in the last three years and their "add more value to Odyssey" route recently has been "make it into a ship pack"
Since it primarily failed to get onto consoles because it also wouldn't run at anywhere near acceptable performance on a below-leading-edge PC of the time either, I don't think "spend more time on features, less time on optimisation" would have stood much chance of saving it.
But regardless of precisely why Odyssey released as a mess, and whether Frontier making different decisions on scope back in 2018 could theoretically have saved it, they still have to start with any further on-foot content from where they are now. Odyssey is what it is.
Any further on-foot content therefore either has to start with fixing Odyssey so it's got a decent foundation (which is not going to be a quick job), or to somehow be near-completely independent of the existing Odyssey content so that can be ignored (but then get all the disadvantages of having two completely disconnected bits of on-foot gameplay) - both of those are a problem for both free and paid-for content.
I don't think it's surprising, given that, that Frontier are focusing on producing more ship-based content. It's a safer bet and appears to be working for them.
It would be nice to have greater purpose for legs, but I doubt the mechanic will ever integrate properly unless FD decides to roll Odyssey into the base game, as they did with Horizons. They're always aware of the players on 4.0 without Odyssey. If the two games were properly integrated, the gated content would be hard to miss for those players.
I heard about this and every time I tried it, the Inter Astra office has nobody in there. It's always empty. So I just gave up.
This is the biggest problem for me with getting out of my ship on foot. There are so many situations where you almost feel stranded. Just yesterday doing the CG, I dismissed my ship and started fighting the ground CZ. Then my game crashed. When I logged back in I was onboard the Mictlan megaship. My ship wasn't in the hanger. There was NO way to recall it to my location. I literally had to take a stupid looonnnnngggg boring shuttle ride to the planet I was on, before I could recover my ship.
That's just such an unacceptable inconvenience. It's like they don't play-test their stuff before go live. There can't be a situation where you're somewhere without access to your ship. There just can't.
it's a still not fixed feature. If you log to main menu and use the stuck recovery option it'll put you back in your ship when the on foot mechanics strand you.
Purpose? Fun and variation, the spice of life.
Would help if they supported On-Foot with VR I suppose, but I think a minority of players use VR.
Since people are talking about their experiences and preferences, frankly the most boring content in Elite Dangerous for me is Exobiology. Looking for a stain on the ground especially when visibility is poor, just isn't fun. (The worst part is that Bacterium usually pays the least.)
I love the Odyssey combat, and I wish they would expand settlement features and NPC behavior.
I tried to assassinate a target by venting out the atmosphere of a settlement building but to my disappointment, noone died since they kept turning it on again from the inside.
What's the fun in that?
FDev should take a notes out of Hitman series' gameplay and let the player use those creative tools. I can't remember a way to start a fire either, would love to do that.
The future of On-Foot content is obviously to make more content that compliments the existing underutilized spaces like stations, planetary ports and other buildings we have access to, for new missions and combat-oriented gameloops.
Oh and EVA with Ship interiors and derelict ships.
Would help if they supported On-Foot with VR I suppose, but I think a minority of players use VR.
Since people are talking about their experiences and preferences, frankly the most boring content in Elite Dangerous for me is Exobiology. Looking for a stain on the ground especially when visibility is poor, just isn't fun. (The worst part is that Bacterium usually pays the least.)
I love the Odyssey combat, and I wish they would expand settlement features and NPC behavior.
I tried to assassinate a target by venting out the atmosphere of a settlement building but to my disappointment, noone died since they kept turning it on again from the inside.
What's the fun in that?
FDev should take a notes out of Hitman series' gameplay and let the player use those creative tools. I can't remember a way to start a fire either, would love to do that.
The future of On-Foot content is obviously to make more content that compliments the existing underutilized spaces like stations, planetary ports and other buildings we have access to, for new missions and combat-oriented gameloops.
Oh and EVA with Ship interiors and derelict ships.
I have got myself up to deadeye since April when I came back to Elite after almost 4 years away. with three sets of G5 armour... and let me tell you a secret... I have enjoyed every minute.
All I've had to do is take missions that offer all the materials.. and a dozen of them at the same time. I love ground CZs better than space based ones, NGL...
Yes, this game needs more weapons and suits and engineers for ground based activities and I'm hoping more will come later this year.
Oh, I agree that combat aspects and danger should be a part of ED and particularly on foot. What I wanted to express is that FDev emphasized too much FPS with its combat zones. And funnily, this aspect has zero risk because you respawn in the next dropship.
When I had to design on foot game play I'd keep the settlement missions but add risks when loading/unloading the ship in a port. There could be thieves and gangs who want to steal cargo. The odd 'hideouts' (I mean those 3 containers somewhere on planets) could have been fleshed out with adversaries - maybe build entire shanty towns? The plants on planets could have been more dangerous (electricae which may zap you?). Settlement constuction sites where the player needs to navigate through obstacles etc. Lots of rewarding risks and game play fun.
In short, there are so many more challenges for on foot game play but the focus was... combat zones.
Much more than just combat zones, perhaps you ought to check out the variety of missions available? (after all, Combat Zones require a war in the system, which will also spawn a heap of Space CZ, so I suppose the same metric could be applied to ships, the focus being CZ in war systems?)