What's your beef with this sublime game?

[PrincessMinMin]

In no particular order:

• In-game world PvP is a thing by design (we can fire upon, interdict, hatch break each other, etc) but PvP is systematically disincentivized\discouraged and outright punished (i.e., instance blocking).
• Lack of stealth and stealth gameplay.
• Lack of balance, especially in engineering.
• NPCs can see us in silent running mode and seem to be impervious to many weapon experimental engineering mods.
• Bad networking model.
• No cross-play.
• Freely moving from Solo\PG to Open and back at any time thus encouraging combat avoidance, PMF\PP undermining from safety, etc.
• Shield cell banks should not stack.
• We can't join our PMFs. No territory warefare\PvP.
• Shields act as a second health bar and not a resistance (e.g., a shield at 85% strength would let 15% of incoming damage strike the hull).

 

[Exiledkhallisi]

IMO, This biggest problems we have is the very few devs who do work on the game, dont actually play the game as evidenced by the videos they show us of them playing/testing.

Watching a long time dev try to land a ship on a station with the skill and precision of someone whos played the game for maybe a week is just one of many reference points of evidence for this.

Massive lack of involvement in balance issues stemming from things as simple as a few number tweaks to particular ship stats all the way up to complex dilemmas like modification usefulness are completely ignored while they install/update things that, albeit however are great and wonderful. Are completely off base and out of touch from what the general census is looking for.

Example:

Fleet carriers are cool and all but we asked for ship/engineering mod balances first. Spacelegs look awesome! But we wanted more in depth missions and common sense reward for risk involvement way before spacelegs were even in the talks.

Common sense balance changes that appear to be so simple to implement seem to be completely brushed aside on the suggestion forums.

Arguably, i think one of the major issues is these devs do try to listen to some players in the community but some of these people i believe generally thwart progress within the existing problems by being naysayers because they are fanboys..

We others including myself are fan boys too.. but we can admit there are problems and talk about them without getting defensive like many i see on the forums especially the suggestion forum.

Other than this...

Elite will always have a special place at my table of entertainment.

 

[Brrokk]

The lack of an Open-PvE mode. Well, you did ask. The very first time I looked at the login screen I thought, "Hang on, one's missing". I still think there's one missing.

 

[Franc Kaos]

The economy is snafu
Proliferation of ship bits ensures small ships are worse than useless
No rear view camera (even Kirk had that one in the 60's as did Elite: First Encounters)
Pace of development is glacial
Should be far more planet types to land on by now
Navigating maps in VR is atrocious
The mats gathering

The worst sin in my eyes tho' is no player agency within the game - the galaxy is a beautiful, static marble that players cannot affect in any meaningful way.

 

[Paul Thomason]

IMO, This biggest problems we have is the very few devs who do work on the game, dont actually play the game as evidenced by the videos they show us of them playing/testing.

Watching a long time dev try to land a ship on a station with the skill and precision of someone whos played the game for maybe a week is just one of many reference points of evidence for this.

Massive lack of involvement in balance issues stemming from things as simple as a few number tweaks to particular ship stats all the way up to complex dilemmas like modification usefulness are completely ignored while they install/update things that, albeit however are great and wonderful. Are completely off base and out of touch from what the general census is looking for.

Example:

Fleet carriers are cool and all but we asked for ship/engineering mod balances first. Spacelegs look awesome! But we wanted more in depth missions and common sense reward for risk involvement way before spacelegs were even in the talks.

Common sense balance changes that appear to be so simple to implement seem to be completely brushed aside on the suggestion forums.

Arguably, i think one of the major issues is these devs do try to listen to some players in the community but some of these people i believe generally thwart progress within the existing problems by being naysayers because they are fanboys..

We others including myself are fan boys too.. but we can admit there are problems and talk about them without getting defensive like many i see on the forums especially the suggestion forum.

Other than this...

Elite will always have a special place at my table of entertainment.

dont actually play the game

Yep. That's ...a concern. It also explains a lot.

 

[CMDR Jago Kain]

What do I dislike about the game? The half-arsed and inconsistent approach to the UI across various menus, and some limpet behaviour.

• Squadrons - my only use for this panel is to see who else is online. Is 'currently online' the default sort? No. When I set it to sort that way can the game remember my preference? No, so I don't use it.
• Storage - No filter or sorting options at all! Really?!
• Exploration data - Why can't I check this from within my ship?
• Comms - If I look up a CMDR in the recent contacts can I send them a direct message from there? No. I can block them or send a friend request but those are extremes. Maybe I just want to say something to them but the game puts obstacles in the way of communication. (If you're reading this Leman Russ VI: "Good shot sir, you got me again.")
• I wish limpets could be ignored for the purposes of triggering the proximity alert and flashing red lights. Even better would be an option to recall unexpired limpets into the cargo hold.

 

[sirus66]

Can't agree with this. I feel the material traders are a perfect solution to the scarcity of high grade materials. Data is constantly picked up simply by targeting anything in sensor range. Wave data scanners can give plenty of data for trading and other sources abound. All of these can be traded across categories. Perhaps the ratios are a bit cruel when trading G5 data for that of another category but I'm content enough for it not to bug me.

Material trader is a crutch for a lazy and poorly thought out system. It's not a "solution". Not by a long shot.

A solution would be to use all those fancy missions on the mission board as vessels for consistent and SPECIFIC materials.

Data is constantly picked up simply by targeting anything in sensor range

You are joking right? So for a combat/pvp oriented player like me, if I plan to engineer a ship, how many months do I have to run around targeting ships mindlessly? Not to mention what an awesome gameplay ideea that sounds...

 

[Chrystoph]

You do realize that you can actively farm data in planet based installations, and Google (or equivelent) will even tell you what installation to go to to farm the material?

Months??! Try hours, a couple of days at most. With Horizons incorporated into the base game, you don't even have the excuse of "pay to win".

 

[Northpin]

I partly agree with you, but you also twist words - mine and the OP's. You should read a little more carefully and at least try to understand what we are getting at. In short: obstacles are necessary for a good game, but they are far from being confused with rich content or a convincing game mechanic. There is a lot more to it than that. Of course this will not change as long as most people are satisfied with this watery soup.

The reason that made me play for 7 years and 11000 hours has not much to do with it and would be a chapter in itself (or for my therapist perhaps)...

Engineers in ED are not meant to be a puzzle, rich content or convincing game mechanic.
They are a tool that may enrich the future sandbox experience. And they are also a mean to introduce the player to certain game features and mechanics.
If he wants puzzles he should get into Ram Tah quests.

But meh. Everyone is a game designer these days.

What a lot of people seem to be missing is this:
ED had a set of design goals, which were met, then the game launched, run for 6 years, produced more than 100 millions pounds in revenues and it may run for another 4-6 years.

It'd say it's quite a success story that i'm glad i can enjoy.

 

[amigacooke]

Asked for backing from macOS commanders, dropped them like a stone.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

I think the OP makes alot of assumptions about frontier and david braben which are incorrect. It makes a polite and acceptable facade, but if you've been following the development over the last 4 years, the reality of the situation is significantly different to the fawning from the first paragraph.

Having said, when frontier "do" the work, they always prove able as any professional developers in the non gaming industry would. The only issue is, other game developers have set the bar to place frontier as doing (what feels like) 20% compared to the rest.

If frontier typed their keys and filled the gaps, of course it would be perfect. But they dont. Hence we have elite.

They have a picked a niche genre that mainstream developers and publishers choose not to compete in, simulator + astronomy etc. The graphics and sound carry the game and play a huge part in covering over the skeleton though. Just don't confuse that as meat, even though in practice that's the only thing we have to bank on.

EDIT: What is my beef? Probably the disrespect someone inside frontier shows to elite the game. They just don't care. Its all about the numbers. Eg, the entire screen changes color when you drop out of supercruise. It didn't use to happen until the past patch. If you've ever worked with any kind of software the practices and culture that allow things like that to exist potentially are not positive, and at minimum are nothing to be inspired by from a customers perspective. The same defectiveness isn't a norm in their credit card processing systems to be consistent eg.

 

[Max_S]

After submitting exploration data the Universal Cartographic page fails to update properly.

That's it.

Doesn't sound like much, I know. But it used to work fine. Then sometime around the Fleet Carrier debut the Universal Cartographics got borked, and no-one's ever gotten around to repairing it. Uh-oh-spaghetti-(code)-oh. So careless. So lazy.

 

[Haradrim]

PVP balance is abysmal right now. All you really see are Fer-De-Lances and a limited set of weapons used, despite the large weapon list in the game. This leads into the topic of engineers breaking the balance with giant power divides, rather than offering sidegrades to make more options and add depth to the gameplay. Military capital ships are basically useless and are not even a threat to an engineered ship, which seems absurd. Imagine having a giant battlecruiser and focus firing on an npc takes a long time to even drop their shields. What is the point of a capital ship now? ED capital ships are stuck at 2015 power levels and drastically need a buff. I do still enjoy the game and am glad they buffed combat payouts recently. Just wish they would get around to weapon and engineer rebalancing, to make pvp more interesting.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I have no real beef with engineers, although i wish it was more deterministic in how to get certain materials. But ever since they added material/data traders i just gather whatever pops up on missions and then trade for what I need. So i accrue materials/data while i do other things.

Not so much a beef, but the thing i'd like to see FD do the most would be to have 2 separate game worlds. One with modes, one without (open only). Finally it would shut up all the open only proponents. They can all go play on the open only server... all 10 of them.

 

[Awesumnus Maximus]

I have no real beef with engineers, although i wish it was more deterministic in how to get certain materials. But ever since they added material/data traders i just gather whatever pops up on missions and then trade for what I need. So i accrue materials/data while i do other things.

I don't like being a back seat driver, but my contribution to the engineering paradox would be a system using (weighted, counteracting) sliders for each aspect of the engineered module, with cost in materials and credits for the required mod.

 

[ZAKALWEINC8876]

The lack of proper leadership and clear vision.
Too many half baked/left to rot on the vine features.
No crossplay.
No new AX features in years and no use of the great AXCZs, coz
o7

 

[Patrick_68000]

No Aisling Bobblehead, in Tahitian outfit.

 

[Awesumnus Maximus]

No Aisling Bobblehead, in Tahitian outfit.

Alright, yep. I'm on board with this. I'd buy that.
edit: you misogynist barsteward...

 

[Kastor]

My biggest grief is how much Engineering threw combat balance way out of wack. Now we've got frigates turning like fighters with nearly 4 times the original effective health pools.

Damn I wish they commited to making it side grades only like they promised.

Also damn there are a lot of terrible ships in this game, I'd love to fly what I want without feeling like I'm shooting myself in the foot.

 

[Haradrim]

My biggest grief is how much Engineering threw combat balance way out of wack. Now we've got frigates turning like fighters with nearly 4 times the original effective health pools.

Damn I wish they commited to making it side grades only like they promised.

Also damn there are a lot of terrible ships in this game, I'd love to fly what I want without feeling like I'm shooting myself in the foot.

This is a major problem with combat in the game and I really hope the devs are willing to change a lot of it still. I don't care if they nerf all the engineering I've unlocked and change them to sidegrades for everyone. I welcome it because it will provide deeper and more interesting gameplay options