What's your beef with this sublime game?
- Thread starter Paul Thomason
- Start date
NMS is pretty good with the mat stuff right now. It's a bit much in ingredients imo, but at least you know where to look and it doesnt feel like RNG fest so much. In other words I'm more busy planning where to go than wasting my time trying to roll for drops.
Cant say much about scaling. Its more or less easy, doesnt look like I'm pitted vs tryhard AI much and if I feel overwhelmed I dig tunnel and adios - boost away.
Then again there is no power creep as much. It's almost as if someone with a plan had sat down when planning and developing it.
The comparison with Long Dark is unfair, OP. While being an exceptional game it is a lot simpler.
Cant say much about scaling. Its more or less easy, doesnt look like I'm pitted vs tryhard AI much and if I feel overwhelmed I dig tunnel and adios - boost away.
Then again there is no power creep as much. It's almost as if someone with a plan had sat down when planning and developing it.
The comparison with Long Dark is unfair, OP. While being an exceptional game it is a lot simpler.
The longer you stay away from ED, the more busywork you have to do to keep up with the scaling of enemies in the very basic game features. Can't say that mitivates me much to reinstall.
Nice, did not even think of that...
Yup the Engineers, After I have done the grind to unlock them.
Just let me select G5 X mod with X experimental remotely and pay them for the completed module in one go. I dont even care if its more expensive in mats. Just stop making me go through g1,g2,g3,g4,g5 and then flying to each engineer for the experimental on each core module, hardpoint, utility and Optional internal. For every new ship I want to try.
I dont even care if it has a credit charge on top, per Item. Just stop please, for the love of all that is Braben make it stop........
Analogy time !!
I want a wall in my garden to protect my petunias. I employ Bob, hes a builder. I say "Oi bob build me a wall there" and point at the garden.
He says "sure Mr Bl1pington" and goes to his truck and gets a brick, walks back to the Garden and places brick number one.
He then comes over to me and says "50p please". I pay him.
He goes back to his his truck and gets brick number two......
4000 bricks later he says "if you want the fancy experimental cement for the bricks to work you need to goto my shop in Australia" - (Im in the UK).
That is how engineers work atm, after you have unlocked them. I unlocked Bob with a meat pie years ago. so its similar.
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Are you really that pedantic? Or am I not being clear enough in my criticism?
I'm talking about the excessive grind.
I'm talking about trying to find mats.
I'm talking about how mind numbingly, infuriatingly random the appearance of materials can be.
The process to unlock anti Thargoid weapons is EXACTLY the same as getting some super dooper, ultra Gucci mod for your pew pew stick of choice. To wit- go to farming zone, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic 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tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out...
But with the added bonus of needing additional human magic tokens as well, of a particularly obscure nature. There might not be an 'engineer' as such to go see, but you still have to take your magic tokens to a wizard, a 'Guardian Tech Broker', to cast the spell that grants you the new shiny thing.
I'm not objecting to gathering materials, I'm objecting to needing to play the game like a second job for an outrageous amount of time to get enough of the bloody things to unlock the activity that initially looked like it might be fun.
Top tip for any devs reading- it's not fun, it's not engaging, it's not whatever management buzz word is popular this month to force players into moronic, repetitive play loops for stupidly extended periods, just to get access to an activity which they're unlikely to appreciate after being bored to tears by the unlock process. It's really crap, lazy design.
The game could be improved immeasurably by removing the RNG, making more consistent spawn rates and reworking material traders- let them trade all the materials, allow a reasonable exchange rate.
Or just bin engineering and everything that looks remotely like it...
Stability issues.
I would give up my entire wish list of adjustments and balances if it meant that I could consistently play without COLOR, SNAKE.
I would give up my entire wish list of adjustments and balances if it meant that I could consistently play without COLOR, SNAKE.
Eh? You complained that you couldn't engage with Thargoid content without engineered weapons. I replied that, on the contrary, AX weapons cannot be engineered. It's not "pedantic" to point out that a completely false assertion is false.Are you really that pedantic? Or am I not being clear enough in my criticism?
I'm talking about the excessive grind.
I'm talking about trying to find mats.
I'm talking about how mind numbingly, infuriatingly random the appearance of materials can be.
The process to unlock anti Thargoid weapons is EXACTLY the same as getting some super dooper, ultra Gucci mod for your pew pew stick of choice. To wit- go to farming zone, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out, log in, gather magic tokens, log out...
But with the added bonus of needing additional human magic tokens as well, of a particularly obscure nature. There might not be an 'engineer' as such to go see, but you still have to take your magic tokens to a wizard, a 'Guardian Tech Broker', to cast the spell that grants you the new shiny thing.
I'm not objecting to gathering materials, I'm objecting to needing to play the game like a second job for an outrageous amount of time to get enough of the bloody things to unlock the activity that initially looked like it might be fun.
Top tip for any devs reading- it's not fun, it's not engaging, it's not whatever management buzz word is popular this month to force players into moronic, repetitive play loops for stupidly extended periods, just to get access to an activity which they're unlikely to appreciate after being bored to tears by the unlock process. It's really crap, lazy design.
The game could be improved immeasurably by removing the RNG, making more consistent spawn rates and reworking material traders- let them trade all the materials, allow a reasonable exchange rate.
Or just bin engineering and everything that looks remotely like it...
Now you seem to have shifted ground to make a generalized complaint about grind. I'm just going to make my usual reply to that: in an optional leisure activity, grind is just something you do to yourself.
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Have you read the whole thread, Brrokk? It's an ongoing conversation. You responded to my response to Paul Thompson (posts 79 and 34), who responded to my post 23. I'm not 'shifting ground', I'm reiterating what I originally posted, repeated in full below.
Ya pedant!
Engineering. Specifically how insanely random and 'gamey' gathering materials is. Chasing some bizarre combination of circumstances to get a percentage chance of the magic token you need appearing is insanely frustrating. Having to repeat the whole dull, irritating process numerous times to get enough magic tokens to achieve the desired end result is soul crushing. Having a stupidly large number of magic tokens to try and accumulate adds to the misery. Material traders were a decent idea, but they only take one sub species of magic tokens and their exchange rate is beyond ridiculous.
The whole thing is utterly bone. There's no need for any of this, the mechanisms to make material gathering a fun and immersive process are already in the game. One raid on a surface facility, one visit to a crashed ship, one rendezvous with a suitable salvage site in the deepest dark makes perfect sense. Having to log in and out and run the scenario literally hundreds of times is pathetic! It ruins the efforts of the team creating these wonderful side quests, turning them from a beautifully rendered challenge to a dull, repetitive chore to be completed as quickly and often as possible.
What really hacks me off is that engineering is no longer optional. Every activity in game is balanced around using engineered ships. To fight Thargoids you even need a specific type of engineering. It's not possible to 'blaze your own trail' if you spend the bulk of your time grinding out tokens to bring your equipment up to the minimum standard needed for even low level activities in game.
The game went from 'sublime' to 'ridiculous' when FD introduced grind activity in lieu of new game play.
The whole thing is utterly bone. There's no need for any of this, the mechanisms to make material gathering a fun and immersive process are already in the game. One raid on a surface facility, one visit to a crashed ship, one rendezvous with a suitable salvage site in the deepest dark makes perfect sense. Having to log in and out and run the scenario literally hundreds of times is pathetic! It ruins the efforts of the team creating these wonderful side quests, turning them from a beautifully rendered challenge to a dull, repetitive chore to be completed as quickly and often as possible.
What really hacks me off is that engineering is no longer optional. Every activity in game is balanced around using engineered ships. To fight Thargoids you even need a specific type of engineering. It's not possible to 'blaze your own trail' if you spend the bulk of your time grinding out tokens to bring your equipment up to the minimum standard needed for even low level activities in game.
The game went from 'sublime' to 'ridiculous' when FD introduced grind activity in lieu of new game play.
I might be wrong here but did you post this in reply to what I wrote? (post #2)
NMS is, by all accounts, a good game. It's just not for me. I've kept up with it nonetheless just to see what direction they are taking. I do like the on foot mining and their proc gen is capable of some stunning vistas. They went through numerous iterations to improve these and other aspects even when they where at a "good enough" level. That is something i can (and do) appreciate. Doesn't change the fact that reaching the center of the galaxy was utterly pointless and disheartening, but the way Hello Games is going about their post launch support is top notch.
It's for that same reason that I mentioned Hinterland Games: The developer felt that their story mode could be better and instead of just doing more for the upcoming chapters they actually went back and did a full rework of the already released first two. They as well iterated through various other aspects of their game beyond "good enough".
The only reason I mentioned the games at all was me being unsure whether their developer names are easily recognizable. I agree that ED is way more complex than Long Dark (or NMS for that matter) but my comparison wasn't on the games, it was on the development processes of these games. Well, at least that was my intention
Stellar Forge, the BGS and the infrastructure needed to make it all work are impressive achievements and mind bogglingly complex, intertwined systems. Balancing/tweaking/reworking pretty much anything in this game is a delicate matter because of it and will result in unintended consequences aka bugs. Doesn't mean the devs are incompetent or a lack of good will and I certainly don't fault them for those. What I do fault them for are all those smaller bugs and all the underdeveloped features that fall by the side of the road.
FWIW during the first AMA I asked about this and got this in response:
NMS is, by all accounts, a good game. It's just not for me. I've kept up with it nonetheless just to see what direction they are taking. I do like the on foot mining and their proc gen is capable of some stunning vistas. They went through numerous iterations to improve these and other aspects even when they where at a "good enough" level. That is something i can (and do) appreciate. Doesn't change the fact that reaching the center of the galaxy was utterly pointless and disheartening, but the way Hello Games is going about their post launch support is top notch.
It's for that same reason that I mentioned Hinterland Games: The developer felt that their story mode could be better and instead of just doing more for the upcoming chapters they actually went back and did a full rework of the already released first two. They as well iterated through various other aspects of their game beyond "good enough".
The only reason I mentioned the games at all was me being unsure whether their developer names are easily recognizable. I agree that ED is way more complex than Long Dark (or NMS for that matter) but my comparison wasn't on the games, it was on the development processes of these games. Well, at least that was my intention
Stellar Forge, the BGS and the infrastructure needed to make it all work are impressive achievements and mind bogglingly complex, intertwined systems. Balancing/tweaking/reworking pretty much anything in this game is a delicate matter because of it and will result in unintended consequences aka bugs. Doesn't mean the devs are incompetent or a lack of good will and I certainly don't fault them for those. What I do fault them for are all those smaller bugs and all the underdeveloped features that fall by the side of the road.
FWIW during the first AMA I asked about this and got this in response:
And half the playerbase disappear in an instant... good plan.
Why do so many people care about 'offline' anyway? This isn't the 90s, most games are online in some way, this is just how it is now.
Well, for me, this would actually fix the colourful ship errors and lag and few other online related issues... Maybe it is not bad idea. I support it anyway...
It would be too much of a massive change in direction for the game... would please a small vocal group of complainers and alienate everyone who enjoys the game being MMO.
Half the features they've already built would have to be binned too - Community Goals, CQC, Powerplay, Multicrew, probably half the new features going into Odyssey... very unlikely to happen really.
It's the same gameplay loop, get RNG materials to build the AX weapons by specialised sellers, get RNG materials to engineer human tech by specialised sellers...
Compared to - buy ships and A rated modules with credits from any shipyards.
It's not hard to understand even if English isn't ones first language.
The playerbase is 'disappearing' anyway. Besides, I don't play with them, and don't ever want to.
NPCs used to have some fairly low res but awesome skins.
They'd make a great 'advert' for the shop if we could see NPCs with paints & ship kits
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I've enjoyed my time in Elite and gotten my money's worth out of the number of hours I've dumped into it. But it does have so much wrong with it. My gripes, in no particular order:
- Bugs. Mostly the various crashes. A single 1 or 2 hour wing session will invariably result in people crashing out maybe a dozen times. It gets old, especially with having to reform wings and resend missions etc over and over and over again.
- Mat grinding is, in concept, pretty ridiculous. We have simulated economies with massive refinery operations where I can buy gold and silver and platinum by the ton-full, but have to land on an alien world just so I can collect a few handfuls of iron. Why can't I just ... buy some iron on the market? Is it so rare in the future? It feels weird. Ditto on just about most raw/manufactured mats. Whenever I need to change a headlight on my car I don't have to go out and blow up someone else's car and hope it drops a replacement headlight. I just go to Walmart and buy a replacement headlight.
- This is all the more aggravating because I have billions of credits lying around doing nothing, but I can't use it to buy iron or whatever. But to add to that, at this point I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with credits in general. My Fleet Carrier is fully financed for 3 years and I pretty much have all the ships I want.
- Engineering is so poorly balanced that most modules have only one acceptable upgrade path.
- Human experimental weapons cannot be engineered and as such are abandoned by the meta. Shock cannons and flechette launchers are pretty awesome but severely underpowered.
- Despite the obnoxious grind to get it, most guardian tech is worthless.
- Many of the experimental effects on weapons are pretty ridiculous. I really hate scramble spectrum.
- Most of the ships in this game have no purpose beyond being a stepping stone to the end-game ships.
- Some the ships are so sub-par at their intended purpose(s) that they don't even serve well as stepping stones. Lookin' at you, Type 7. Or Asp Scout.
- (We're now earning credits so damn fast that the concept of stepping stones is becoming obsolete anyway, since you can get into a conda in a matter of hours)
- Getting Elite in Trade/Explo is stupidly easy.
- You can't modify your HUD colors without going into game files. Even then, getting the scheme you want usually involves weird sacrifices on things like NPC portraits or radar colors, because everything is tied together to 3 color values.
- I can't buy specific ship-kit pieces, but am forced to buy a whole pack at a dumb price if I want just one piece. They thankfully abandoned the old ship skin packs but kept this bad system for ship kits.
- Serious PvP currently boils down to one or two ships, neither or which really clicked with me. Welp.
- The netcode in PvP is atrocious. I've had fights where both me and my opponent managed to be behind each other. At the same time. The instancing is horrible too.
- PvP piracy is in a very bad state.
- Combat logging.
- Powerplay modules ... shouldn't be powerplay modules. They should just be available for purchase. Having to go through literal years of allegiance-flipping to get modules is dumb 'gameplay', and brings a lot of people to powerplay who really don't want to be there if not for the modules.
- I feel like Fleet Carriers missed the mark on a lot of things. I use mine as a bounty hunting anchor and it does well with that. Black market services are kind of useless unless you're doing BGS - would have been nice in non-BGS scenarios to, I dunno, 'clean' the items for various purposes? For outfitting/shipyard, ship packs are mostly awful, and most equipment packs are kinda bad too. I wish there were ways to sell pre-customized ships, or rent ships or ... well I'm digressing now.
- Mining missions continue to be a joke.
- Multicrew still sucks.
- Turrets are garbage.
- We will forever only have one SRV type.
- NPC-piloted SLFs continue to have significant netcode problems.
I could go on but I'm tired now.
- Bugs. Mostly the various crashes. A single 1 or 2 hour wing session will invariably result in people crashing out maybe a dozen times. It gets old, especially with having to reform wings and resend missions etc over and over and over again.
- Mat grinding is, in concept, pretty ridiculous. We have simulated economies with massive refinery operations where I can buy gold and silver and platinum by the ton-full, but have to land on an alien world just so I can collect a few handfuls of iron. Why can't I just ... buy some iron on the market? Is it so rare in the future? It feels weird. Ditto on just about most raw/manufactured mats. Whenever I need to change a headlight on my car I don't have to go out and blow up someone else's car and hope it drops a replacement headlight. I just go to Walmart and buy a replacement headlight.
- This is all the more aggravating because I have billions of credits lying around doing nothing, but I can't use it to buy iron or whatever. But to add to that, at this point I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with credits in general. My Fleet Carrier is fully financed for 3 years and I pretty much have all the ships I want.
- Engineering is so poorly balanced that most modules have only one acceptable upgrade path.
- Human experimental weapons cannot be engineered and as such are abandoned by the meta. Shock cannons and flechette launchers are pretty awesome but severely underpowered.
- Despite the obnoxious grind to get it, most guardian tech is worthless.
- Many of the experimental effects on weapons are pretty ridiculous. I really hate scramble spectrum.
- Most of the ships in this game have no purpose beyond being a stepping stone to the end-game ships.
- Some the ships are so sub-par at their intended purpose(s) that they don't even serve well as stepping stones. Lookin' at you, Type 7. Or Asp Scout.
- (We're now earning credits so damn fast that the concept of stepping stones is becoming obsolete anyway, since you can get into a conda in a matter of hours)
- Getting Elite in Trade/Explo is stupidly easy.
- You can't modify your HUD colors without going into game files. Even then, getting the scheme you want usually involves weird sacrifices on things like NPC portraits or radar colors, because everything is tied together to 3 color values.
- I can't buy specific ship-kit pieces, but am forced to buy a whole pack at a dumb price if I want just one piece. They thankfully abandoned the old ship skin packs but kept this bad system for ship kits.
- Serious PvP currently boils down to one or two ships, neither or which really clicked with me. Welp.
- The netcode in PvP is atrocious. I've had fights where both me and my opponent managed to be behind each other. At the same time. The instancing is horrible too.
- PvP piracy is in a very bad state.
- Combat logging.
- Powerplay modules ... shouldn't be powerplay modules. They should just be available for purchase. Having to go through literal years of allegiance-flipping to get modules is dumb 'gameplay', and brings a lot of people to powerplay who really don't want to be there if not for the modules.
- I feel like Fleet Carriers missed the mark on a lot of things. I use mine as a bounty hunting anchor and it does well with that. Black market services are kind of useless unless you're doing BGS - would have been nice in non-BGS scenarios to, I dunno, 'clean' the items for various purposes? For outfitting/shipyard, ship packs are mostly awful, and most equipment packs are kinda bad too. I wish there were ways to sell pre-customized ships, or rent ships or ... well I'm digressing now.
- Mining missions continue to be a joke.
- Multicrew still sucks.
- Turrets are garbage.
- We will forever only have one SRV type.
- NPC-piloted SLFs continue to have significant netcode problems.
I could go on but I'm tired now.
I think the main reason for that is the fact that ED is unnecessarily overcomplicated, dull at times and punishing. People expect to be rewarded for time and effort - YES, GAMES SUPPOSED TO BE REWARDING PLAYERS, IT IS CALLED FUN (something FDev forgot about). Some will jump on me saying that game must be challenging to be a game... Most of the new players leave after initial good impression in the starter zone and when they get to certain point and see what is involved in the gameplay they just say "frack it, I have a life"... I've seen this very often here, other forums, reddit etc. It is a main complaint. Even here in this very topic, most of players complain about exact same issues. Grind and receptiveness, broken mechanics, punishing game play etc...