Excellent post, repped. My _only_ additional comment (for others new to the game) is that there is a link to the manual right at the top of the Elite: Dangerous launcher. I wouldn't blame anyone for missing it, a lot of people do, but it's right there.
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Newcomer / Intro What's your first impressions of Elite Dangerous? Post in here and tell us
- Thread starter Sir.Tj
- Start date
Excellent post, repped. My _only_ additional comment (for others new to the game) is that there is a link to the manual right at the top of the Elite: Dangerous launcher. I wouldn't blame anyone for missing it, a lot of people do, but it's right there.
Getting to know your ship whilst you're being slaughtered in combat just doesn't do it for me
No, I mean you learn (very quickly) that the first thing you do on leaving the no-fire zone after a visit to outfitting is to test fire your weaponry and check things out - so you check module priorities, see how quick your pips go down, etc. The next thing you learn is to remember to change your turret setting back to Target Only from Forward Fire - hopefully before you get an insurance screen.
First Impressions...
I really wanted to like and enjoy this game. I can't even get through the training missions. I can't seem to keep the targets in front of me to shoot at and when they get behind me, I suck so bad flying I can't get them in target area again...I simply either get killed or the targets fly away and are gone. Someone above said it took them 180 hours to get used to combat? I suspect I will simply move along to something else to play. Too bad, it looks great. Take care everyone...[blah][blah][blah]
I really wanted to like and enjoy this game. I can't even get through the training missions. I can't seem to keep the targets in front of me to shoot at and when they get behind me, I suck so bad flying I can't get them in target area again...I simply either get killed or the targets fly away and are gone. Someone above said it took them 180 hours to get used to combat? I suspect I will simply move along to something else to play. Too bad, it looks great. Take care everyone...[blah][blah][blah]
This is sadly quite a common thing. I have three friends that love sci-fi games but they either refuse outright to play a game "where you're just a spaceship" or two of them did try it and found the controls awkward to learn.
Although I'm not in favour of altering the flight controls (mastering them is part of the fun of the game) is does distress me that a lot of people have similar experiences to you. That's a big reason I'm really hoping for the "space legs" aspect to be added in sooner rather than later to give new players something to do in between bouts of frustrating flying practice.
This is, without a doubt, the single hardest game I've ever played in my entire life...
I'm making my way through the tutorial, the TUTORIAL, and I can't for the life of me get past advance combat training... If I'm VERY lucky I can get past the first opponent, but I'm yet to defeat the rest that follow!! I've made 9 attempts so far!
The best I've managed is somewhat of a stalemate, after some time something called a "system authority vessel" jumped in and saved my rear end!! WHY DO I NEED RESCUING IN THE TUTORIAL!! It shouldn't be this hard! D':
Quite clearly I'm missing something important here. It's more likely down to the portrayal of information, because I still don't have a clue what I'm doing...
I'm frustrated, tired, and angry on the TUTORIAL. Regardless of how obvious things may be to other players I have obviously missed something, and if a new player is suffering this much on the first level then clearly there's something wrong...
I'm making my way through the tutorial, the TUTORIAL, and I can't for the life of me get past advance combat training... If I'm VERY lucky I can get past the first opponent, but I'm yet to defeat the rest that follow!! I've made 9 attempts so far!
The best I've managed is somewhat of a stalemate, after some time something called a "system authority vessel" jumped in and saved my rear end!! WHY DO I NEED RESCUING IN THE TUTORIAL!! It shouldn't be this hard! D':
Quite clearly I'm missing something important here. It's more likely down to the portrayal of information, because I still don't have a clue what I'm doing...
I'm frustrated, tired, and angry on the TUTORIAL. Regardless of how obvious things may be to other players I have obviously missed something, and if a new player is suffering this much on the first level then clearly there's something wrong...
Yep....This is supposed to be FUN...not work. If I wanted to work I'd get a job at McDonalds. This is definately the hardest game I've tried to play too. I've been gaming since about 1987 and never been this disappointed. Also something else, when trying to start the live game, I have not once been able to connect to the game server. That is kinda wierd, everything else I do on the Net connects fine...[mad][mad][mad]
Agreed. This is supposed to be FUN not work. I've been gaming since 1987 and never been this disappointed. Also, when trying to start into the live game, I have never been able to connect to the master server. Very strange, it just keeps timing out...[mad][mad][mad]
I don't know if this will help at all, but I tried several different control methods before finding one that worked for me. IN all previous space/flying sims I've used a joystick, and that's really common for Elite players, but I was having issues with that, just didn't get on. I tried using Keyboard and mouse but that was clunky and I really struggled, in the end I tried an xbox pad and I found it much easier. After that one change I found that the frustrations I was having started to go away and I quickly improved. If you've not already, experiment with some alternative control methods. The game is fantastic once you get comfortable with it, but even though I'm a massive space-sim fan it took me three attempts over years to get into it.
As mentioned elsewhere, ignore the Advanced Combat one, it is hard and it is not representative. You can survive in the game easily without being able to complete that.
Don't get put off, get used to your controls and get stuck into the game. If you die lots whist getting used to things, no problem - when you feel better-equipped, just "Clear Save" and start again without those annoying insurance claims in your stats.
Enjoy....
As mentioned elsewhere, ignore the Advanced Combat one, it is hard and it is not representative. You can survive in the game easily without being able to complete that.
Don't get put off, get used to your controls and get stuck into the game. If you die lots whist getting used to things, no problem - when you feel better-equipped, just "Clear Save" and start again without those annoying insurance claims in your stats.
Enjoy....
Never even bothered with the 'advanced combat training'. Did the initial training mission once, and left the nest so to speak.
Spent a month banging around against things, trying things, figuring out how orient properly to land at an outpost (took longer than you'd think...), etc., etc..
Tripped over this forum almost a month in, and started reading threads in (mostly) the beginners section. Asked a few questions of a regular who apparently no longer hangs out in the beginners forums, made a few stupid comments out of frustration, and reset my cmdr.
With a few stutter steps along the way, I've managed to figure out the parts of this game that interest me, and am enjoying myself. It's not the hardest game I've ever tried, but it ranks right up there from a difficulty perspective.
If it were not for this forum, this game would have hit the trash months ago.
Ow do you know he's a Commander...
My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen. I have something to say! I. AM. A. NEWCOMER!
Sorry, had to get that out of the way!
Bought Elite a few months back on Steam when it was on sale. Loved Frontier back on Amiga and PC (Still have the boxed PC copy!) Always wanted to try First Encounters but never found a copy. Played the original Elite but couldn't get into it. I may have just been a smidgeon too old. Anyway, I assembled a new(ish) machine the other day and loaded up Elite: Dangerous!
I went into the Tutorials and almost uninstalled the game after half an hour. Seriously! That Advanced Combat Trainer is insane! It took me a dozen tries to beat the first ship and I still haven't beaten any of the others.
I loved Frontier so I convinced myself to give it a go *Live* and loved the game. Thankfully! I've spent most of my free time on it since then. Made it up to a Cobra 3 so far and avoided trouble (Mostly).
My PC can't run Horizons so that'll have to wait until I get a better Graphics card, but until then I'm having a lot of fun.
Note to other players? Don't buy or haul weapons and be very careful when accepting missions that require you to deliver them. It's very easy to get stuck places with an expensive cargo of illegal materials that you then have to dump.
My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen. I have something to say! I. AM. A. NEWCOMER!
Sorry, had to get that out of the way!
Bought Elite a few months back on Steam when it was on sale. Loved Frontier back on Amiga and PC (Still have the boxed PC copy!) Always wanted to try First Encounters but never found a copy. Played the original Elite but couldn't get into it. I may have just been a smidgeon too old. Anyway, I assembled a new(ish) machine the other day and loaded up Elite: Dangerous!
I went into the Tutorials and almost uninstalled the game after half an hour. Seriously! That Advanced Combat Trainer is insane! It took me a dozen tries to beat the first ship and I still haven't beaten any of the others.
I loved Frontier so I convinced myself to give it a go *Live* and loved the game. Thankfully! I've spent most of my free time on it since then. Made it up to a Cobra 3 so far and avoided trouble (Mostly).
My PC can't run Horizons so that'll have to wait until I get a better Graphics card, but until then I'm having a lot of fun.
Note to other players? Don't buy or haul weapons and be very careful when accepting missions that require you to deliver them. It's very easy to get stuck places with an expensive cargo of illegal materials that you then have to dump.
It's great to know I'm not the only one who was really struggling with the advanced combat training.
I know not everyone plays tutorials, but I think the devs are really putting off those who do. It sounds to me like the advance combat section is way too difficult and should be called something more accurate other than "tutorial".
Anyways, I tried out an Xbox controller and I'm finding things a lot easier in the main game. I haven't crashed or hit anything Ince since I started, so that's always a plus.
I know not everyone plays tutorials, but I think the devs are really putting off those who do. It sounds to me like the advance combat section is way too difficult and should be called something more accurate other than "tutorial".
Anyways, I tried out an Xbox controller and I'm finding things a lot easier in the main game. I haven't crashed or hit anything Ince since I started, so that's always a plus.
Hello, CMDRs! I’ve been playing ED for approximately 2 months now and during that time I’ve put more hours into this game than I care to admit. Consequently, I finally decided to get off my <Ahem> and contribute something to the community. Here are my observations, opinions and suggestions as a new player to Elite Dangerous (PC).
1. Community. This is the absolute best, most dynamic and passionate gaming community I have encountered in my 25+ years of gaming. I’ve never seen anything like it. This thread illustrates my point perfectly: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/308075-End-of-the-Road. Just wow…
2. Learning Curve. Countless forums, posts and game reviews warned me about this and they were 100% spot on. The learning curve is WICKED. Devs, please don’t change this. If you absolutely have to, overhaul/improve the tutorial system, but leave the gameplay alone. I see a lot of other newbies get frustrated and <Ahem> up a storm because the learning curve is so high. I noticed most of these people never bothered to watch the tutorials, complete the training missions or do any reading about the game whatsoever. I suspect this is because ED appears to require a substantial time investment before playing the actual game and some people simply don’t have the patience. In my humble opinion, <Ahem>! If they are too lazy to “git gud” then they shouldn’t be. They can go load up <Ahem> Citizen and buy the best ships in the game without actually having to play the game itself.
3. Grinding. There is a big difference between productively working towards something and enduring gameplay mechanics that are, inadvertently or purposefully, designed to stifle players. In most cases, I find grinding to be very rewarding. It adds an immersive component to the game and helps flesh out my own personal story and sense of self as a space pilot. But in some cases, grinding feels like someone is jamming a pinecone up my <Ahem>. It completely breaks immersion to the point where I end up mumbling “?!?” to myself over and over again. The Marco Qwent situation is the first thing that comes to mind. Devs, please fix some of these confusingly long-winded and pointless grinds for the sake of grinding, for the sake of grinding, for the sake of grinding, for the sake of grinding. Yeah… how do you like it?!?
4. Griefers. You people suck so incredibly hard. Stream snipers, PG infiltrators, <Ahem> that gank explorers 20kly from the bubble with 50 mil in scans and pretty much everyone in the Smiling Dog Crew fall into this category. You know who you are. Now that you do, let me say that I love you. You make so many under-appreciated and valuable contributions to the community and the game as a whole. You steal galactic innocence. You teach painful life lessons. You scare people into solo, etc. etc. Ultimately you help balance good and evil and the game wouldn't be the same without you. Sincerely, thank you so much for playing <Ahem>
5. Gameplay Suggestions. Overall gameplay is very rewarding, but seems a bit light on content. Which is odd because there is so much to do. I think a lot of this could be solved by adding more variance in the way users experience existing gameplay.
TL/DR - This is easily one of the top 5 best games I’ve ever played. I’m hooked. Big time. It’s a game I never knew existed and never expected to love, but the devs have created something very special here. Speaking of the devs, thank you so much for all your hard work! I really appreciate all the enjoyment and entertainment you’ve given me!
Lastly, supreme thanks to everyone in the ED community. All the YouTubers, Frontier forum posters, Reddit rats, etc. have made such an enormous contribution to this game and subsequently made my life SO MUCH easier. You guys are the real tutorial and I simply can’t thank you enough. A very big o7 to you all.
CMDR JuHsTaN
1. Community. This is the absolute best, most dynamic and passionate gaming community I have encountered in my 25+ years of gaming. I’ve never seen anything like it. This thread illustrates my point perfectly: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/308075-End-of-the-Road. Just wow…
2. Learning Curve. Countless forums, posts and game reviews warned me about this and they were 100% spot on. The learning curve is WICKED. Devs, please don’t change this. If you absolutely have to, overhaul/improve the tutorial system, but leave the gameplay alone. I see a lot of other newbies get frustrated and <Ahem> up a storm because the learning curve is so high. I noticed most of these people never bothered to watch the tutorials, complete the training missions or do any reading about the game whatsoever. I suspect this is because ED appears to require a substantial time investment before playing the actual game and some people simply don’t have the patience. In my humble opinion, <Ahem>! If they are too lazy to “git gud” then they shouldn’t be. They can go load up <Ahem> Citizen and buy the best ships in the game without actually having to play the game itself.
3. Grinding. There is a big difference between productively working towards something and enduring gameplay mechanics that are, inadvertently or purposefully, designed to stifle players. In most cases, I find grinding to be very rewarding. It adds an immersive component to the game and helps flesh out my own personal story and sense of self as a space pilot. But in some cases, grinding feels like someone is jamming a pinecone up my <Ahem>. It completely breaks immersion to the point where I end up mumbling “?!?” to myself over and over again. The Marco Qwent situation is the first thing that comes to mind. Devs, please fix some of these confusingly long-winded and pointless grinds for the sake of grinding, for the sake of grinding, for the sake of grinding, for the sake of grinding. Yeah… how do you like it?!?
4. Griefers. You people suck so incredibly hard. Stream snipers, PG infiltrators, <Ahem> that gank explorers 20kly from the bubble with 50 mil in scans and pretty much everyone in the Smiling Dog Crew fall into this category. You know who you are. Now that you do, let me say that I love you. You make so many under-appreciated and valuable contributions to the community and the game as a whole. You steal galactic innocence. You teach painful life lessons. You scare people into solo, etc. etc. Ultimately you help balance good and evil and the game wouldn't be the same without you. Sincerely, thank you so much for playing <Ahem>
5. Gameplay Suggestions. Overall gameplay is very rewarding, but seems a bit light on content. Which is odd because there is so much to do. I think a lot of this could be solved by adding more variance in the way users experience existing gameplay.
- Add More RNG to Missions (shudder… vomit… cry…). Adding some “anything can happen” elements to missions would make gameplay much more immersive, infinitely more exciting and feel far less grindy -even if it’s the same basic task over and over again. Devs, you procedurally generated a pseudo-random version of the Milky Way galaxy (amazing work btw). Please add the same rewarding mechanics to the missions within it.
- RNGineers. I hate them far less than most folks, but one thing is clear: there is too much RNG in engineering. A Level 5 upgrade should not turn out the same or worse as a level 4. That’s not engineering, it’s a snuff film. The RNG concept is good, but the implementation is decidedly less good. RNG should stay in engineering, but should be limited to secondary modifiers or special enhancements (e.g. chance to discover new exceptionally rare thruster capability). Please fix this, I beg you. Otherwise engineering will continue to feel like an unsatisfyingly random game mechanic that arbitrarily <Ahem>
- Make Planetary Landing More Rewarding. This really needs to be a thing. Scanning planetary surfaces in SRVs should yield more information and provide greater payouts than planet scans or honking. Value should scale thusly: honk>planet scan>surface scan. I realize this might be a little tricky to implement, but it still needs to happen.
- Revamp SRVs. Add different types and sizes of SRVs, then take 75% of your ship component outfitting system and slap it on them. Done. Better weapons would give us “Moar pew pew” to turn planetary canyons into SRV thunderdomes! Also, who wouldn't want to see a<Ahem> tourist beacon named after the supremely stupid <Ahem>who tried using 1A thrusters to jump a canyon and ended up forever floating in orbital space.
- Add SRV Mode to Arena. Maybe this should be a thing, I dunno. Probably not. <Ahem>
- Add Atmospheric Landings. This really, really, really needs to be a thing. Space legs aren’t nearly as important as this. You’ve created an unbelievably amazing and beautiful galaxy. Please give us the mechanics we need to explore it! Maybe add a species discovery/cataloging system to go along with it? Roaming around earth-like worlds in my SRV discovering new species sounds pretty damn sweet.
- Add Player Directed Political Systems. Add proper player controlled factions, superpowers, etc. -not just player supported/affected systems! This absolutely needs to be a thing. Who wouldn't want a unified pirate faction to stage a coup and take over part of the bubble? Good times…
- Revamp Piracy. Expand piracy into a legit roll similar to exploration. Add full ranking systems, factions and superpowers. There is SO much potential for fun here and right now piracy seems like a bit of a poorly implemented afterthought.
- Elite Rewards. MOAR GRIND! Instead of relying solely on credit walls, engineers and superpower rep to upgrade ships, weapons, etc., implement some role-based rank rewards (e.g. unlock a marginally better version of the ASPX/DBX with a special paint job when you hit elite explorer rank). This would make ranking up roles infinitely more rewarding and give players more tangible benefits for doing so. “Bleached Bones” Vulture edition ftw!
TL/DR - This is easily one of the top 5 best games I’ve ever played. I’m hooked. Big time. It’s a game I never knew existed and never expected to love, but the devs have created something very special here. Speaking of the devs, thank you so much for all your hard work! I really appreciate all the enjoyment and entertainment you’ve given me!
Lastly, supreme thanks to everyone in the ED community. All the YouTubers, Frontier forum posters, Reddit rats, etc. have made such an enormous contribution to this game and subsequently made my life SO MUCH easier. You guys are the real tutorial and I simply can’t thank you enough. A very big o7 to you all.
CMDR JuHsTaN
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Loving it so far
As a player of the original Elite back in the day on the spectrum 128 the very title "Elite" brings back really emotional memories. The original was played with a cheap joystick and the little spectrum keyboard, and after hundreds of hours play you were able to get seriously good at controlling the ship.
Played one of the follow up games when it came out, might have been frontier, but never got along with it. Not so immersive and I never got to grips with it. I would hit someone with multiple missiles, drain the most powerful laser on them and not even get their shields down. They would hit me with one missile in a fully decked out python and bang ... game over. Like I say, never got to grips with it.
I saw this game available for the PC years back and didn't even consider it. But that changed when I considered buying and PS4 pro a few weeks back and checked out the games recommended for it. Found ED and watch some youtube videos, that drew me in thanks to Obsidan Ant and his enjoyable vids.
Playing it now on a decent gaming laptop using keyboard and mouse and absolutely loving it. Got myself a fully kitted out Cobra Mk III for doing missions and very close to getting the Sol permit. The immersion level is brilliant. Finally getting reasonable at docking and starting to work my way through things like scanning planets and tapping nav beacons for information.
Not been out on the planet surface yet or got any idea what 80% of the game is even about yet but really looking forward to finding out.
Combat will have to wait until I have a better control system, will look at a HOTAS setup next week. Managed to get through the tutorials with the keyboard and mouse without any major issues (finally understanding that keeping the speed in the blue section is really important and the importance of targeting) but I don't feel at all comfortable enough to go into combat with the keyboard and mouse yet.
This game is clearly massive and, from what I can see, it has some really great depth to it if you are a patient kind of player like me who gets enjoyment out of the immersion factor. Love the music as well, really excellent sound effects add to this game in a huge way.
Looking forward to seeing how this pans out in the coming months. Certainly loving the first 30 hours or so.
As a player of the original Elite back in the day on the spectrum 128 the very title "Elite" brings back really emotional memories. The original was played with a cheap joystick and the little spectrum keyboard, and after hundreds of hours play you were able to get seriously good at controlling the ship.
Played one of the follow up games when it came out, might have been frontier, but never got along with it. Not so immersive and I never got to grips with it. I would hit someone with multiple missiles, drain the most powerful laser on them and not even get their shields down. They would hit me with one missile in a fully decked out python and bang ... game over. Like I say, never got to grips with it.
I saw this game available for the PC years back and didn't even consider it. But that changed when I considered buying and PS4 pro a few weeks back and checked out the games recommended for it. Found ED and watch some youtube videos, that drew me in thanks to Obsidan Ant and his enjoyable vids.
Playing it now on a decent gaming laptop using keyboard and mouse and absolutely loving it. Got myself a fully kitted out Cobra Mk III for doing missions and very close to getting the Sol permit. The immersion level is brilliant. Finally getting reasonable at docking and starting to work my way through things like scanning planets and tapping nav beacons for information.
Not been out on the planet surface yet or got any idea what 80% of the game is even about yet but really looking forward to finding out.
Combat will have to wait until I have a better control system, will look at a HOTAS setup next week. Managed to get through the tutorials with the keyboard and mouse without any major issues (finally understanding that keeping the speed in the blue section is really important and the importance of targeting) but I don't feel at all comfortable enough to go into combat with the keyboard and mouse yet.
This game is clearly massive and, from what I can see, it has some really great depth to it if you are a patient kind of player like me who gets enjoyment out of the immersion factor. Love the music as well, really excellent sound effects add to this game in a huge way.
Looking forward to seeing how this pans out in the coming months. Certainly loving the first 30 hours or so.
This guy for president. I want him in charge of the dev teams. +1 rep.
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Well that had me laughing out loud ... several times! Welcome to the forums, I predict you will either:
a) go far
b) get banned
c) both (which is the option I took)
o7
P.S. click my signature (if you haven't already)
Hi Alec! Nice to meet you, thanks for the warm welcome and the "best of the forum" link!
Lastly, thanks for the tip. Guess I better tone it down. Partying through the front is the easiest way to get kicked out the back...
o7
Hi Alec! Nice to meet you, thanks for the warm welcome and the "best of the forum" link!
Lastly, thanks for the tip. Guess I better tone it down. Partying through the front is the easiest way to get kicked out the back...
o7
Not a problem!
Also, your reminder about Macedonica's "End of the road" thread inspried me to create a brand new "Best of forum" section - "Epic tales of daring do".
Pssst - I think there's a forum rule somewhere about wilfully circumventing the profanity filter. You can get away with a little bit occasionally, in appropriate context, but don't overdo it!