What went wrong with Elite Dangerous

[Jack Schitt]

Absolutely everyone is equal. If people are complaining that they don't have expensive setups - it's quite simple to obtain expensive setups. They simply have to put the effort into doing so, which is going to be the exact same effort for every person on the planet. Some are just more willing than others.

You are Alan Duncan MP and I claim my tax-free £5

 

[TomP]

You would be perfectly correct if there were enough of us to actually drive an economy this large. There aren't. Seriously. A number of players "overfishing" one trade route CAN tank it, one can't unless the route is trading real close to margin at both ends with both low supply and low demand. It's just too big. It's like throwing a drop of ink into a gallon of water and wondering why when you fill your pen with the resulting mixture you can't read what you;re writing. I participated in a little "test" of this back in gamma, A dozen of us ground an A-B trade loop (that wasn't well-known so we were the only players hitting it) to death over the course of a weekend. On Monday, it was nearly impossible to break even on it and it took half the week to recover once we laid off.. But it did recover and the following weekend we could have done it again.

Quite so. When supply is low, for example, a trading Cutter will shift the buy price higher with each trip.

The BGS is much maligned but largely ignored by many players. When you start playing the BGS, not restricted to Power Play of course, there is an additional and quite fun layer of... dare I say it... depth....

You can cause wars to be fought, create anarchy or bring order into whole star systems. There was one poster on the Redditt thread who declared that the de facto "end game" is blowing up other players. That's not my experience. The end game is when you are established to the point of tackling the BGS.

 

[Kewpa Eurus]

I agree with you on your point according to the current model and value of the items, but when you add a value to the item that is more than monetary everything changes.

 

[xondk]

This is the problem. The fact that players need an incentive to join Open is just as greedy as you think of the people who want "victims" Right now Open is dominated by the "Bad Guys" because they are allowed to by the community. It seems that a majority of the Solo/Private players who post here think of one thing and one thing only. "I do not want to be blown up" They act like they won't have an impact in Open or are powerless to do anything about it. With this mindset, the community around here has already lost to the "Bad Guys" It's a defeated mentality that is encouraged around here.

Why can't joining Open and conducting operations at CG's or holding valuable trade routes be enough incentive for someone to play in Open? Imagine how hard it would be for a certain group of "Griefers" to operate if a certain group of 20k+ players started operating in Open? If those 20k+ players banded together in Open it would be quite a force to be reckoned with. That force could own and operate in territories due to sheer numbers alone. Again, THOUSANDS of players are allowing themselves to be defeated by literally a handful of players.

When a group of 15 or players are able to "drive players to Solo" and with a community that outnumbers a "Griefing" community so much, I do not see why the larger community can't band together in this "Sand Box Game"

I see many here who label themselves as "Bounty Hunters", "Mercenaries", etc. but they refuse to live up to the job that they claim to be. Open is rampant with "Bad Guys" because this community let's them.

The people who escape to private or solo have themselves to blame just as much as they blame the "Griefers" in Open.

You are entirely correct, joining open to interact with other people should on its own be its own incentive to actually join open.

However if people's experience with open is seal clubbing, and to note here I haven't really experienced it myself, but if that is people's experience, I can easily see why if what should be a part of open becomes a majority, that they would shy away from open.

Ultimately the community can come together and does some times, but the exact things that people complain about combat loggers and such in terms of PvP then are used by said griefers.
And the fact that right now, catching one specific person is significantly harder then one person targeting random weak person.

But yes you are right the community can and in my opinion does come together, and a lot of PvP'ers miss the fact that the exact things they complain about, also affects those that want to PvP the griefers.
With 2.1 we should be getting a proper consequence system to the game, and hopefully that will mean that griefers can't just keep on doing what they are doing while laughing at system forces response. Which is needed in a game with P2P nature, but it is not a bad thing in my book, it means that npc's will, as they should in lore, being people, protect those in their system, then the community can shift focus towards hunting down those that do those actions, and show them what they think about it, and no, hunting someone that has attacked others, is a reaction not griefing on its own, because said person being hunted can stop doing what they do and they won't get hunted for it.

 

[Asp Explorer]

You are Alan Duncan MP and I claim my tax-free £5

Actually I'm Alex Salmond

Sometimes

 

[Kewpa Eurus]

So you are saying FD hooked you in when you were a teen and you continued to be a customer up until your adulthood? Hmmmmmmmmm

 

[Boomer Kay]

A lot of companies target teens and want to hook them at an early age? Ever wonder why?

Because you can sell them any junk. They know nothing about quality or value, just about status and consumerism.
Easier to target. Listen to the charts.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

I'm as old as any here. Age has nothing to do with understanding and appreciating the evolving expectations of modern games or the value of purpose and player agency in gaming. But this kind of discussion takes this sort of course when people admittedly play only one game and own no other games. They have no perspective on modern games to offer a well-rounded opinion and their ideas are likely to lead to a premature death of ED more than anything else. I'd prefer if they simply kept their mouthes shut and expand their experiences with modern games before resuming being opinionated.

Not sure who this is aimed at and certainly I agree with some of your wants esp npc persistence and wingmen... But just to put it out there I have 200 games in steam (more in other clients and drm free titles) over 100 Xbox 360 games 20 ps3 games and a mame arcade cab with full romset as well as almost complete SNES megadrive Amiga speccy and c64 collections on plus more ohh and a wii.
I am the wrong side of 40 however consider my gaming tastes fairly eclectic and yet I still do not think FD should go down player controlled guilds systems and stations outside of those in DDF. My dad always asked me when I would out grow computer games. I asked him when he would outgrow killing things with a shotgun. The answer to both is likely never

 

[Kristov]

Ironically, it's exactly the same people copy&pasting the same things.
Some might use different accounts to add to the perceived diversity, but all in all, there's nothing new here and after a year or more, one does have to wonder what they're still doing here
Eve not that great? Doing all wrong? SC still a tech demo alpha pre-everything? Doing all wrong?

EvE, not that great..the answer would be...*consults magic 8 ball* YES! Since they peaked at 500,000 accounts in 2012 and haven't released any new subscriber counts since that time, not that great would definitely be the proper answer. EvE's user numbers have actually been dropping since 2012, something they don't like to talk about, but it's enough to keep them going and they are hoping Valkyrie brings in more money. It probably will to, really cool looking game, but, just like Dust, doesn't tie into EvE, so like Dust, it's appeal will be limited to those who just want pew pew in real time from the cockpit. EvE's version of CQC really, better designed I think, storyline and such, better balance since it's designed around a PvP experience from the ground up, but still, just EvE's version of CQC.

SC isn't a tech demo anymore, it's now an actual alpha, fairly good one at that, but if you don't know what alpha testing is like, avoid it! MOST of the systems they have talked about and hyped, not in the build yet, most are still in the design phase. Funny seeing the pew pew folks constantly complaining that they need to balance Arena Commander, which is something CIG keeps saying isn't a priority anymore, it was simply a proof of concept deal, and now all their work is on the Persistent Universe and Squadron 42(the single player game) and AC will get updated as they find the time. Star Marine, which was going to be their proof of concept FPS deal, has been placed on hold until after the PU is finished, they have the FPS in the PU, no reason to design and build a separate program JUST for that anymore. And the whining about THAT is never ending, same folks, pew pew players who still don't get that SC is not a pew pew game, it's like E: D in that respect. You CAN do PvP, it's allowed, but it's not the basis for the game and it's actually rather discouraged by the simple fact that SC has permadeath.

Wonder how many times Kewpa has died doing PvP in E: D? It's one thing to have that rebuy, it's another thing totally to have permadeath and the resultant loss of things you've earned through playing.... Which is why Arena Commander and Star Marine will be finished up and included with the PU, they are the CQCs of SC, one for ship to ship dogfighting and the other for FPS, simulations that you can play without putting your assets on the line.

 

[Scoopy Doopy]

Solid post, I agree completely.


I'm as old as any here. Age has nothing to do with understanding and appreciating the evolving expectations of modern games or the value of purpose and player agency in gaming. But this kind of discussion takes this sort of course when people admittedly play only one game and own no other games. They have no perspective on modern games to offer a well-rounded opinion and their ideas are likely to lead to a premature death of ED more than anything else. I'd prefer if they simply kept their mouthes shut and expand their experiences with modern games before resuming being opinionated.

Interesting comment that would carry real weight if we weren't discussing this game and not all games.

 

[Heavenly-Hammer]

Ironically, it's exactly the same people copy&pasting the same things.
Some might use different accounts to add to the perceived diversity, but all in all, there's nothing new here and after a year or more, one does have to wonder what they're still doing here
Eve not that great? Doing all wrong? SC still a tech demo alpha pre-everything? Doing all wrong?

So your argument is now that all these people with the same complaints are all the same account? lol. Proceed, Govenor. I'll take my 1100 hours against whatever it is you claim to have put into this game. I will speak my goddamn mind. If so many people seem to have the same idea, maybe those ideas are pretty basic ones that should have been implemented long ago. I'll challenge you to explain to me what say...PowerPlay gave us for the development time spent on it compared to what anything on my list would have provided. Don't worry; I'll wait.

Yes, ED can do all of those things on that list better. If you actually care about the game and its future, you'd want to see it get better. It has to. Because it's not going to be the only player in the market for much longer. Comparing it to Eve (which I've never played and don't give a damn about) and Star Citizen (which isn't even out of Alpha) is just sort of disingenuous, don't you think?

That is already a market advantage you have over them.
Your boss is not going to tell you what you do with your disposable income.
If you decide you want to spend all of it on games, that's up to you.

On the contrary, how you spend your advantage is of major consequence. Leaving fans dissatisfied leaves them ripe for poaching by competitors. Maybe you're okay with everyone but a handful jumping ship to SC, NMS and other competitors when they launch. I am not. I'd like to see my 1,100 hours become 2,000 hours. I am, in effect, fighting for my own life as an ED player who has spent more than most to enjoy the game and genre to its fullest.

If anything FDev has squandered its lead, alienated huge portions of the player base that has bought it (as evidenced by the steam reviews and daily posts here and elsewhere), and struggled to inspire confidence or faith in 2016. At some point, people like yourself have to decide if you want the game to still be here come 2020 and think about what revisions and changes are going to be needed to compete in this market segment at the end of 2016, then in 2017, 2018, and start making those desires known. As one that grew up on Falcon 2.0, 3.0, X-Wing and Tie Fighter I'm still baffled that I can't control NPC wingmen in a 2016 space combat game. Whew.

 

[Asp Explorer]

So you are saying FD hooked you in when you were a teen and you continued to be a customer up until your adulthood? Hmmmmmmmmm

Kind of. Elite on 8bit was awesome. Frontier on 16bit was awesome. People actually bought 68020 CPU's and 6881 FPU's to make it run smoother. FFE was a mess. Elite 4 never happened. ED is, well it's ED and we can only see how it develops.

80's games and gamers do tend to like their nostalgia - you are right there. You only have to look at the list of 80's games to be remade recently. There is money in that market - because as soon as you hit 30+ and have made sensible decisions, free spending cash is really the least of your worries

 

[MottiKhan]

Absolutely everyone is equal. If people are complaining that they don't have expensive setups - it's quite simple to obtain expensive setups. They simply have to put the effort into doing so, which is going to be the exact same effort for every person on the planet. Some are just more willing than others.

Not all of us are so equal. I've talked my wife into the possibility of a Maserati. But a Rift or Titan card? Nope. "Disposable income" is a moving target. Maybe I need to start hiding 20s here and there.

 

[Asp Explorer]

Not all of us are so equal. I've talked my wife into the possibility of a Maserati. But a Rift or Titan card? Nope. "Disposable income" is a moving target. Maybe I need to start hiding 20s here and there.

Your wife is right - go with the Maserati

Rift and Titan can wait

 

[DaveB]

I agree with you on your point according to the current model and value of the items, but when you add a value to the item that is more than monetary everything changes.

In an economy this large, there is no value other than monetary. It doesn't matter if one system jacks up its prices for medical supplies because their neighbors are fighting a plague, there are enough other systems, hundreds of light years away where a shipment can arrive in a couple of hours that isn't going to have jacked the prices. Traders will trade from those far systems and make bigger profits, the ones that jacked their prices will fall back in line with the galactic average or starve. And since 90% of the trade that actually affects markets is simulated NPCs that we never see in flight there's nothing the little percentage of the 10% of players contributing to that economy can do to change that.

Yes, we actually ARE that small compared to even the inhabited universe. Even if you recruited ALL of us to that one it wouldnt change the BGSs progression in any area larger than a system or two, and as soon as we stopped it would go back to the "average" We're not just that big of an impulse to a really large rock. It's not going to move far or quickly.

 

[Heavenly-Hammer]

Not all of us are so equal. I've talked my wife into the possibility of a Maserati. But a Rift or Titan card? Nope. "Disposable income" is a moving target. Maybe I need to start hiding 20s here and there.

I must say, it was far easier to get my Vive in my office than it was to the the Phantom in my garage. But I do appreciate both. Cheers.[big grin]

 

[Asp Explorer]

I must say, it was far easier to get my Vive in my office than it was to the the Phantom in my garage. But I do appreciate both. Cheers.[big grin]

Got to be careful here - soon you'll have minimum wage tweenie gamers demanding you give them your Phantom because "We are the money earning demographic and we wants it!"

 

[Kewpa Eurus]

EvE, not that great..the answer would be...*consults magic 8 ball* YES! Since they peaked at 500,000 accounts in 2012 and haven't released any new subscriber counts since that time, not that great would definitely be the proper answer. EvE's user numbers have actually been dropping since 2012, something they don't like to talk about, but it's enough to keep them going and they are hoping Valkyrie brings in more money. It probably will to, really cool looking game, but, just like Dust, doesn't tie into EvE, so like Dust, it's appeal will be limited to those who just want pew pew in real time from the cockpit. EvE's version of CQC really, better designed I think, storyline and such, better balance since it's designed around a PvP experience from the ground up, but still, just EvE's version of CQC.

SC isn't a tech demo anymore, it's now an actual alpha, fairly good one at that, but if you don't know what alpha testing is like, avoid it! MOST of the systems they have talked about and hyped, not in the build yet, most are still in the design phase. Funny seeing the pew pew folks constantly complaining that they need to balance Arena Commander, which is something CIG keeps saying isn't a priority anymore, it was simply a proof of concept deal, and now all their work is on the Persistent Universe and Squadron 42(the single player game) and AC will get updated as they find the time. Star Marine, which was going to be their proof of concept FPS deal, has been placed on hold until after the PU is finished, they have the FPS in the PU, no reason to design and build a separate program JUST for that anymore. And the whining about THAT is never ending, same folks, pew pew players who still don't get that SC is not a pew pew game, it's like E: D in that respect. You CAN do PvP, it's allowed, but it's not the basis for the game and it's actually rather discouraged by the simple fact that SC has permadeath.

Wonder how many times Kewpa has died doing PvP in E: D? It's one thing to have that rebuy, it's another thing totally to have permadeath and the resultant loss of things you've earned through playing.... Which is why Arena Commander and Star Marine will be finished up and included with the PU, they are the CQCs of SC, one for ship to ship dogfighting and the other for FPS, simulations that you can play without putting your assets on the line.

Which brings up another good point. Having some sort of credit sink in this game that is meaningful. I'm sitting at 2 billion in assest, 1 billion which is liquidable. I've stopped caring about my deaths a long time ago as I can afford enough rebuys to die 100's of times over. I have no need to fill my time with a pointless AB trade route, personally am satisfied with my exploration trips, and I don't have anything worthwhile in game for me to care about the factions in game. When I got to enough credits to constantly rebuy and not have to worry about farming credits for months the only thing that keeps my interest is the PvP and player interactions. The game itself is not enough to keep my interest, only the human element was able to do so. Even small time PvP got boring to where only large scale wing battles were fun. Once you reach a certain amount of credits in this game, you can safely fly around doing whatever you want whether you blow up or not, sadly what the game has to offer outside of the human element is not enough to hold interest.

PP, BGS, Factions. It's all a facade. Reputation aside from needing rank for certain ships is not important. All of this is sand that I can make into a mound, but it'd be cool if I had tools to make my mound into a castle.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

So in essence, DavidB admitted to creating a stale economy and we are satisfied with this answer? Perhaps a more creative process would have gotten around this problem of being "too big to effect"

 

[Y'Berion]

Kind of. Elite on 8bit was awesome. Frontier on 16bit was awesome. People actually bought 68020 CPU's and 6881 FPU's to make it run smoother. FFE was a mess. Elite 4 never happened.

Got to agree on this. Braben dropped the ball with FFE and ever since then Elite can't get back on track. ED, which came along instead of Elite IV, is a proof. It seems to me that the Frontier: Elite II was his pinnacle when it comes to this franchise.

(played original on C64, FE2 on A500, and FFE was among my first PC games)

 

[Scoopy Doopy]

Which brings up another good point. Having some sort of credit sink in this game that is meaningful. I'm sitting at 2 billion in assest, 1 billion which is liquidable. I've stopped caring about my deaths a long time ago as I can afford enough rebuys to die 100's of times over. I have no need to fill my time with a pointless AB trade route, personally am satisfied with my exploration trips, and I don't have anything worthwhile in game for me to care about the factions in game. When I got to enough credits to constantly rebuy and not have to worry about farming credits for months the only thing that keeps my interest is the PvP and player interactions. The game itself is not enough to keep my interest, only the human element was able to do so. Even small time PvP got boring to where only large scale wing battles were fun. Once you reach a certain amount of credits in this game, you can safely fly around doing whatever you want whether you blow up or not, sadly what the game has to offer outside of the human element is not enough to hold interest.

PP, BGS, Factions. It's all a facade. Reputation aside from needing rank for certain ships is not important. All of this is sand that I can make into a mound, but it'd be cool if I had tools to make my mound into a castle.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

So in essence, DavidB admitted to creating a stale economy and we are satisfied with this answer? Perhaps a more creative process would have gotten around this problem of being "too big to effect"

Have you considered re-setting? I did that by accident a while back. It was fun just having a sidey again!