I was looking at many reviews, read GameFAQs board and Elite subReddit and all I heard and read was praises for the game and truth be told, the parts of the game that were praised truly deserve it.
I haven't checked here, because from my experience, the official boards are often controlled and full of blind fanboys. Any and all realistic and negative posts that could potentionally turn customers away are deleted, even if they are completely truthful. For this wrong assumption, I owe all of you an apology. I have been here only for a few days and everyone I met and FDev people especially have been very kind to me.
It's a shame I didn't run into this thread before I bought Elite for PS4, because if I did, I wouldn't buy it, nor would I recommend it to my friends, who also bought it. As OP said, it's not a game for everyone. The game's original concept, the things you can do in it are actually perfect for me, however the ways developers decided to artificially stall player progression are the exact opposite. It is my understanding that Elite players accepted these mechanics and would even defend them, to my own surprise, because they ruin otherwise flawless game.
My friends dislike the freedom this game gives you (yet they love Skyrim, Fallout and GTA...). They want to be guided at least in some way.
My girlfriend dislikes that she can't exit the ship and walk around with her avatar. Walk around the stations, her ship (if the size allows it) and walk around the planets (if conditions allow it). She misses interactions with others, be it players or NPCs.
I can understand that.
As for me, it's the complete opposite. I love the ability to do whatever I want, go wherever I want and with no silly limits and I love how the game doesn't force some poorly written story and characters at me.
I love how user friendly the game is, especially the ability to completely customize the controls. The base game is excellent, the only bad thing about it is the camera. I hate to fly with first person view. I saw the gunner third person point of view in one of the YouTube reviews and assumed I can fly like this at any time. Some Google search showed third person camera options as well.
Alas, I'm stuck in the cockpit now and don't like it one bit, especially in fights.
Buying Horizons made things worse...surprisingly!
All the stupid development decisions in Horizons!
I can hire 3 AI crew members, yet can only take one with me. I have three seats on my ship, yet two remain constantly empty.
I have two fighters, but can have only one crew member for them.
My ship suddenly has a decently competent autopilot if I go out in a fighter or SRV, even without active crew, yet I still need a special module for docking.
My crew members can perma die, yet I am somehow immortal.
I cannot order other players in multicrew, nor limit their actions, so I'm subject to a lot of ***** behavior, like Gunner shooting inside a station or fighter attacking the system police, yet I am the one who faces the consequences and has to pay rebuy once their actions destroy my ship.
I can have two SRVs, yet in Multicrew I cannot use a single one and neither can others. I was really looking forward to doing some silly low gravity racing with my friend...
Even though we're all part of the same ship, we don't share missions, their rewards and exploration data, but AI crew gets a % cut from everything I do, even if they're not even on the ship.
However, my biggest issue with the game is the grind. I can hope the issues I have with the game will be patched or amended, even if some of the are intentional. The devs seem to be quite capable and listen to the community.
But the damned grind...
I am not the type that needs to see progress. I am the type that starts enjoying the game once he's got the best stuff.
To give at least somewhat relatable example: In your typical MMORPG, I will rush through the content, grind like crazy (as long as the grind is reasonable) to get to the best gear, spells, etc. Then and only than I focus on playing with others, helping newbies, co-op, PvP. It doesnt have to be the best stuff either in many cases. For example, in Destiny, all I wanted was the weapon called Hawkmoon. After I got it, I started enjoying the game a LOT more than before.
Every online game starts for me at this point, where I have nothing else to pursue. I did this MANY times in MANY games and I grew sick of all grinding and RNG to the point where I drop and often even refund games at the slightest glance of them.
However, Elite is not designed around grinding, it feels like it was added to the game later on...for whatever reason.
At first glance, all I need to achieve this state, where I would start to fully enjoy Elite, are Credits. With enough money, I can forget all the small fry ships that bore me to no end and hop to the big ones. I don't even need the money to properly outfit the said ship, I just want it ASAP so I can start having fun. Even if the ship barely flies, I have it and now I can take my time upgrading it. Fun.
So I went and got the money. Grinding some 150+ million actually wasn't that horrible at all!
But then I hit a wall. Ranks. Having money to buy a ship is not enough, I still need a rank. A rank, I might add, that holds no purpose to the game's design and Powerplay, thus I perceive it as something utterly pointless and simply refuse to have anything to do with it. Not only that, but it is one of the longest and most poorly designed grinds I have ever seen and I played both Destiny and Skyforge.
This one thing completely ruins the game for me to the point where I can honestly say that if I knew about it, I wouldn't buy the game. Heck, I was so depsparate to deal with this, to love the game, that I even came here, swallowed my pride and asked if the devs would kindly let me buy the ship I want without the required rank grind.
That's why I wish I would have read this thread, OP's post, because if I did, I would've saved myself some money.
Well, to be fair, my girlfriend likes it, so at least there's that.
