When can we actually expect some real gameplay content?

[Bounder]

...except the little sticker on the apple clearly reads "this is a box of pomegranates, for people who don't like apples".

 

[NVNM]

Playing the game you want to play is an easy exit, compared to trying to bludgeon a multi-million pound software house into changing their existing product into something vastly different, because you once gave them £20? I'd day that playing the game you want to play instead is the *sensible* option.

We're customers. If we don't like the product, we move on. Threads like these are not dissimilar to standing at a market stall, buying an apple and then spending an hour talking to someone a yard away saying loudly how the grocer should replace your apple with a crate of pomegranates, because nobody likes apples anyway.

No, it's like asking the local vendor to add certain items to his stock because there is interest for them in town and nobody else offers them.

e: Let's run this analogy into the ground! It's like living in a town with only a single merchant that sells exactly one type of apples, refuses to stock any other kind and anybody asking for a bit of variety is met with angry shouts from the old people in town who claim this one type of apple is what they had back in the day and they liked it and why would anyone ever need any other sort of apple anyway while the local policemen are in cahoots with the pensioners.

 

[Privata]

Elite has flaws , many flaws.
But I have been playing since launch (before that with beta but beta does not count) and have not got bored yet.

I agree that game has flaws. I agree that the game is too easy and very hand holdy and will never let something bad happen to you for the long term.

However elite offers the best galaxy , the best flight mechanics and the best combat.
The BGS is a bit wonkey but its better than the static universes we have in most other MMOs and Space games and like everything in the game its being worked on

The things I ''hate'' in elite currently are :
-Uss system (feels artificial)
-POI system (feels artificial and lacks logic in many cases)
-how easy the AI and combat in gernal is
-how handholdy the game gets at times
-how it never lets you just fail
-how most of the gameplay loop areas are semi static and dont change much (USS , NavBeacons and so on)

However , the game is IMHO the best space sim there is.
I love the combat
I love the exploration
I love the depth of some of the mechanics (power management , PiPs)
I love the BGS and how I have changed the world
I love the community , and I have had many encounters with players from being ''''''victim'''''' of a blockade to seasonal greetings by passing CMDRs
I love the planets and how real they feel (if a bit brown)

Its not a case ''oh we need to fight evil frontiere because if we dont they will never add gameplay !'' they are just doing there thing and are working on the game bit by bit.
Sometimes I do wonder why they dont just ''add more to do'' but the truth is that they are , its just a lot of it is not ready. thats why a lot of content is still placeholders.

And come on , you cant say elite is the worst with games like no man's sky or freelance or battlecruiser and so on

Elite dangerous is my top game of '14 , '15 and '16 nothing came even close to how much fun I have had with elite dangerous.
Not since X² -the treat have I loved a spacesim this much.

 

[Cosmo]

Dear Frontier.. when can we actually expect some real gameplay content?

In Elite Dangerous, everyone is hidden, it's a big but very empty universe and incredible boring, everyone I intruduce to the game, leaves after a week. You have a great piece of foundation that doesn't use it's fullest potential, and it breaks my heart, it really does.

Elite Dangerous, should be a hardcore game, when even the slightest NPC can be really dangerous and not behave so stupid. It should be a living universe that have a sense of danger in it. Im not talking about constant interdictions every second, thats boring and to predictable and too much. The game needs to be alive, a breathing living universe, and the only way to archive that, is to rethink how the game works right now. Everything should matter, and every NPC should act that they are affraid of dying and gives you the illusion that they care, but if you can catch an NPC and kill it, you should be rewarded, and killing an NPC that are not wanted, makes you wanted and that creates a lot of problems if you are in that system.

Animated portraits of NPCs thats randomly generated, actually talking to you, make the game feel alive, I know that you can do it. The NPC part was perfect a way back, exept when everyone boosted more than 500 as soon as they get their shields went down, thats just silly.

More interesting missions, escort missions and so on or maybe get hired by the military to join a war and other players might join the other side, so you can end up fighting other players and NPCs at the same time, if you just look at other games how living those games are, look at even Freelancer from way back, 20 years ago, even that Game is more alive, NPCs talking to each other, and even those aweful badly made stations are alive, you can "walk" to a bar and so on and when landing on planets, there are cities there. In Elite dangerous, you see a hologram screen, thats it... and it's 2017 now.

Solve combat logging issue, make sure players are still in the game even if they logged out, unless they logging out at a station or in their sleeping quarters in the ship (cant go to sleep while in danger).

Multi jumping feature to relax at the "loading screen", able to check stuff in the game, and communicate while in a jump, looking markets and mission board at galnet and so on. Main chats not instanced ones, actually main chats, trading chats and group finding chats, and trading must be added to the game, so players can trade and buying and selling between each other, that will also make the game more alive. Trading is a very important aspect of many games to make them feel more alive.

Also allow people to build stations in space and settlements on planets, also mining facilities on planets, using the % that you already have on planets what they contain, then using prospector drones to shoot them down into the ground by survering the planet until you find a good yield. And constructing a base should not be instant, it will take time, you hire workers to work there, can you imagine how great that would be. Also connecting some kind of mobile service, so you can check progress of your base, and also chatting with people in game, so where ever you go, you have it in your pocket, mobile would only allow simple stuff, checking auctions and making changes to your base or what ever, also outfitting.

Auction houses should be in the game, which we can call Trade hubs, and should be located in just a few systems in the bubble which are connected with each other, allow people to travel easy and more comfortable. Imagine you can sit and be socialize with people and maybe making trade buisness while jumping, and im not talking about, select star, charge frame shift drive, align, jump, refuel, move away from star, and keep doing this, this is not a fun gameplay im talking about planning 50 or more economical jumps in one loading screen, and a progress bar and time until arrival. Each "jump" in the background, adds a set amount of seconds, so if you wana to do 100 jumps in one loading screen, sure you can do that if you want and that will take you about for an example 600 LY, but in this time, you can't really relax, never.

Make sure Elite dangerous have everything you need, you don't want to minize the game to check homepages to check where you can find stuff. There should be more detailed Engineering screen that shows what you need and what you can do at the moment with the materials you have.

There is sooooooooooooooooo much more fun stuff that you can do to improve the game. I can't be the only one here thinking about how much more this game could have been.

Seconded. This will make ED truly fun. The experience is still on the shallow side Frontier!

 

[DefiledDragon]

The same reason marketing for practically everything is different than reality since the beginning of marketing. Go read a book dust jacket and then ask yourself if the person who wrote it ever READ the book, or just summed up someone else's summary. Many MANY marketing teams do not have direct understanding of the things they are working to get you to buy.

FD has a very disconnected marketing team - I'd suggest that they are the failteam on this project the most consistently, faaar above any coding disasters.

That's true, but when people come here and complain that the game isn't the same game that the company who make it are telling them it is, the explanation of "that's just how elite is" doesn't cut it.

 

[Blackcompany]

I think the game you're looking for is EVE

As long as people here defend the grind and say that this is actual content and you have to make your own content, nothing will change.

But the problem with that engineer is that it may be Federal aligned, but any high ranking Imperial player can come along and get the upgrade, when in all realms of continuity and common sense the Federal engineer would tell him to get lost and maybe send some fireworks to see him off.

Of course, this will never happen, because the philosophy of what they are introducing is all wrong.

- - - Updated - - -



The freedom of allowing players to do what they want when they want with no consequences. Hence why you can pirate one second and bounty hunt the next with almost no consequence to your game. Hence why players pirating in systems have never been banned from docking at the stations.

And it's things like this that blow the whole "you create your own story" theory out of the water.

Hard to create a "story" WHEN NOTHING YOU Do has any consequence. Nothing matters. That's not a story; it's the same utterly juvenile, meaningless power fantasy most games emulate - and that lost all relevance to me around age 12.

 

[Crash1099]

Elite has flaws , many flaws.
But I have been playing since launch (before that with beta but beta does not count) and have not got bored yet.

I agree that game has flaws. I agree that the game is too easy and very hand holdy and will never let something bad happen to you for the long term.

However elite offers the best galaxy , the best flight mechanics and the best combat.
The BGS is a bit wonkey but its better than the static universes we have in most other MMOs and Space games and like everything in the game its being worked on

The things I ''hate'' in elite currently are :
-Uss system (feels artificial)
-POI system (feels artificial and lacks logic in many cases)
-how easy the AI and combat in gernal is
-how handholdy the game gets at times
-how it never lets you just fail
-how most of the gameplay loop areas are semi static and dont change much (USS , NavBeacons and so on)

However , the game is IMHO the best space sim there is.
I love the combat
I love the exploration
I love the depth of some of the mechanics (power management , PiPs)
I love the BGS and how I have changed the world
I love the community , and I have had many encounters with players from being ''''''victim'''''' of a blockade to seasonal greetings by passing CMDRs
I love the planets and how real they feel (if a bit brown)

Its not a case ''oh we need to fight evil frontiere because if we dont they will never add gameplay !'' they are just doing there thing and are working on the game bit by bit.
Sometimes I do wonder why they dont just ''add more to do'' but the truth is that they are , its just a lot of it is not ready. thats why a lot of content is still placeholders.

And come on , you cant say elite is the worst with games like no man's sky or freelance or battlecruiser and so on

Elite dangerous is my top game of '14 , '15 and '16 nothing came even close to how much fun I have had with elite dangerous.
Not since X² -the treat have I loved a spacesim this much.

I jumped in a uss with a capital ship and almost got killed trying to help it by 5 other npc ships. So some uss can surprise you.

 

[Blackcompany]

That's really all there is to say. The devs envision ED as an HD remake of Elite I and that's what it will always be. Many people expected a more modern design only to discover that they have no agency whatsoever.

And that isn't going to cut it. Period. Remaking 1984 with HD graphics won't keep you in business in 2017.

It might have worked for a small, offline single player game. But they CHOSE to make a game that would NEED the masses to sustain it. Now, they don't want to give those people anything to DO in that game.

If all they wanted was to remake a small, niche title on HD, they had that chance.

 

[Privata]

I jumped in a uss with a capital ship and almost got killed trying to help it by 5 other npc ships. So some uss can surprise you.

Of course USSs can be fun. I just think they need a lot of work.

I once had that encounter as well. I think it was a federal capital ship that had been taken over by pirates or something like that.

What I dont like is the lack of logic with most USSs (and POIs)

You jump into a convoy
You arrive first and then the convoy arrives (okay I understand the reason it works like that but it would be cool if the convoy loaded in and then you jumped)
But the convoy just fly in a line for no aparent reason and just wait for the mighty player to do something. they dont seem to be serving a role in the elite universe but rather serving a role towards the player.

Its just tones of small details that eat at my immersion like when you find a wreck of what looks like 20 ships yet there is only 4 units of cargo , all of them floating dead in the center of the event (makes it feel artificial)

I just want the NPCs and USS/POI to act with logic towards the elite universe and have gameplay spawn around that.
Its more fun to do something if it makes sense within the universe.

 

[Winterwalker]

I jumped in a uss with a capital ship and almost got killed trying to help it by 5 other npc ships. So some uss can surprise you.

USS got a bad reputation because they were an early mechanic with a limited number of scenarios at game launch. Fairly quickly you started seeing the same thing a couple or more times so it became like a magic trick when you've worked how it's done. It's definitely worth checking out a few USS after every update though because you're right, unexpected things do happen. If you assume more and more variations are added, over time to the point where you'll never know what you'll find, I like them as a mechanic personally. Random encounters, works for me.

 

[Blackcompany]

USS got a bad reputation because they were an early mechanic with a limited number of scenarios at game launch. Fairly quickly you started seeing the same thing a couple or more times so it became like a magic trick when you've worked how it's done. It's definitely worth checking out a few USS after every update though because you're right, unexpected things do happen. If you assume more and more variations are added, over time to the point where you'll never know what you'll find, I like them as a mechanic personally. Random encounters, works for me.

Except it doesn't "work" at all, in the context of this universe.

Why do groups of ships just hang out in normal space? They aren't doing anything meaningful. Just sitting there, nice and vulnerable. Waiting on the player.

It's the worst sort of On The Nose reminder that, hey, we had to implement some truly crap systems for the sake of the always online MP that no one wanted.

If this gets were offline single player, everything could be seamless. But nope. Had to find a way to include DRM, and USS is one of many compromise mechanics to support it.

 

[Privata]

And that isn't going to cut it. Period. Remaking 1984 with HD graphics won't keep you in business in 2017.

It might have worked for a small, offline single player game. But they CHOSE to make a game that would NEED the masses to sustain it. Now, they don't want to give those people anything to DO in that game.

If all they wanted was to remake a small, niche title on HD, they had that chance.

Thats the plan , they have many things planned.

I am not saying they are doing it right , and I am not saying they failed. but they are working on it.
It seems that over time things build up to make a lot of content.

I think personally we need more dynamic content that changes all the time.

There is a lot of content in the game , tones of it. however for the most part its tones of mini game loops that all feel a bit like placeholders.

But to be honest elite dangerous is better , has more depth than any other AAA game at the moment.
Look at no mans'sky or ubisoft games they get by having zero content , yet we claim elite dangerous has none?

I love FPS , one of my top games I still play a lot of is UT99. but it has less content and less things to do than elite , I mean an FPS is a lot like CZs in elite. we run around shoot and then end. and then do it again , and again and again.
Now of course FPS have (in the case of UT) epic maps made to be played with skill

2017 is the year of nothing. same with 2016 , most games are shallow and just boring. catering to an audiance who want to be told they are the best for doing a QTE.
(not all games are like that but a lot are and its sad.)

 

[lokvette]

And it's things like this that blow the whole "you create your own story" theory out of the water.

Hard to create a "story" WHEN NOTHING YOU Do has any consequence. Nothing matters. That's not a story; it's the same utterly juvenile, meaningless power fantasy most games emulate - and that lost all relevance to me around age 12.

Even tho I still enjoy the game, its a space game and I fly space ships etc.. this is pretty much how I feel.

 

[Privata]

USS got a bad reputation because they were an early mechanic with a limited number of scenarios at game launch. Fairly quickly you started seeing the same thing a couple or more times so it became like a magic trick when you've worked how it's done. It's definitely worth checking out a few USS after every update though because you're right, unexpected things do happen. If you assume more and more variations are added, over time to the point where you'll never know what you'll find, I like them as a mechanic personally. Random encounters, works for me.

Its not the content that bothers me.

Its how its spawned in. how artificial it feels.
You find a fight between a cop and a raider and they just fly in formation with weapons closed for a few seconds before going ''ah ! there is the player , in charecter now ! lets fight !'' I wish they could give the ilusion that something was going on before we arrived.

But I think they will. FD have hinted at using glide so maybe they will use that for USSs have us glide in whiles everything loads or something

- - - Updated - - -

Even tho I still enjoy the game, its a space game and I fly space ships etc.. this is pretty much how I feel.

Most players will never get to change the world , but many of us have.

Many players have shaken the grounds of elites world.

Just compare a map of elite in 3301 to today in 3302 its just not the same.

I think the main issue however is : we can change the world , but the world cant change us.

Thats the thing that gets me , I have many stories to tell about elite , but I am never a victim in them.
I think if you anger a faction you should be hunted for months , if you help a faction you should get tones of support and things like that.

Have dreaded pirate players be feared by NPCs and have direct responce against them in systems
Have humble traders and explorers have escorts when they reach friendly space

We can shape the universe , but let it shape us is what I want.

Still , its more than in any other game. (apart from maybe EvE and X3 with tones of mods)

I love the elder scrolls but in TES its the same issue , you have no effect on the world outside of comments made by NPCs

 

[Cosmo]

And it's things like this that blow the whole "you create your own story" theory out of the water.

Hard to create a "story" WHEN NOTHING YOU Do has any consequence. Nothing matters. That's not a story; it's the same utterly juvenile, meaningless power fantasy most games emulate - and that lost all relevance to me around age 12.

Indeed, deep emergent gameplay is only possible when players are empowered with TOOLS to do it in a sandbox...

Like I said earlier... a sandbox with a little sand is a superficial gaming experience.

A deep sandbox has 1. chatrooms. 2. guilds. 3. base building 4. some form of management 5. territory control.

Eve Online has the deepest sandbox of any space sim and that has kept it alive for over 13 years.

 

[NVNM]

Indeed, deep emergent gameplay is only possible when players are empowered with TOOLS to do it in a sandbox...

Like I said earlier... a sandbox with a little sand is a superficial gaming experience.

A deep sandbox has 1. chatrooms. 2. guilds. 3. base building 4. some form of management 5. territory control.

Eve Online has the deepest sandbox of any space sim.

Most people around here hate EvE and I doubt whether it's even possible to implement a simulation as complex as EvEs with the server structure Frontier chose.

 

[Blackcompany]

Its not the content that bothers me.

Its how its spawned in. how artificial it feels.
You find a fight between a cop and a raider and they just fly in formation with weapons closed for a few seconds before going ''ah ! there is the player , in charecter now ! lets fight !'' I wish they could give the ilusion that something was going on before we arrived.

But I think they will. FD have hinted at using glide so maybe they will use that for USSs have us glide in whiles everything loads or something

- - - Updated - - -


Most players will never get to change the world , but many of us have.

Many players have shaken the grounds of elites world.

Just compare a map of elite in 3301 to today in 3302 its just not the same.

I think the main issue however is : we can change the world , but the world cant change us.

Thats the thing that gets me , I have many stories to tell about elite , but I am never a victim in them.
I think if you anger a faction you should be hunted for months , if you help a faction you should get tones of support and things like that.

Have dreaded pirate players be feared by NPCs and have direct responce against them in systems
Have humble traders and explorers have escorts when they reach friendly space

We can shape the universe , but let it shape us is what I want.

Still , its more than in any other game. (apart from maybe EvE and X3 with tones of mods)

I love the elder scrolls but in TES its the same issue , you have no effect on the world outside of comments made by NPCs

But that's just it: other devs were making these SAME MISTAKES with open world games ten years ago. More even.

And yet here's FDev, reinventing the same incredibly flawed (square shaped) wheel all over again. Seemingly having learned NOTHING from the last 10-20 years of game development.

That's pretty inexcusable.

 

[Privata]

Indeed, deep emergent gameplay is only possible when players are empowered with TOOLS to do it in a sandbox...

Like I said earlier... a sandbox with a little sand is a superficial gaming experience.

A deep sandbox has 1. chatrooms. 2. guilds. 3. base building 4. some form of management 5. territory control.

Eve Online has the deepest sandbox of any space sim.

EvE would be the best game in the universe for me , if only you could play the game... you know fly the ship , instead of point and click adventure style.

I love the ballance in EvE , the economics , the map , the style , the lack of handholding... yet it all leads to flight mechanics I dont like. but that being said it should never change as its fans love it , and it should not change to fit my needs. that would just be hypocritical of me

- - - Updated - - -

But that's just it: other devs were making these SAME MISTAKES with open world games ten years ago. More even.

And yet here's FDev, reinventing the same incredibly flawed (square shaped) wheel all over again. Seemingly having learned NOTHING from the last 10-20 years of game development.

That's pretty inexcusable.

Its not perfect I agree.
But its not finished and they have plans. I am not using that as an excuse because its just what they have said.
I hope they manage , and I wish they told us what they had planned and when.

But until it happens we can only wait.

However the big issue is the longer they take , the more negative press serounds them.

But I disagree that they make more mistakes I think they go in a lot of intresting and unique positions that no other game offers. I have more fun in elite than any other game in the last 7-8 years

 

[Luponator]

I jumped in a uss with a capital ship and almost got killed trying to help it by 5 other npc ships. So some uss can surprise you.

Wait. The fact that once you were nearly killed by the make & type of NPCs in an otherwise entirely predictable, rinse & repeat type of things counts as 'surprise'? That's setting the bar very low. USS is a terrible attempt at adding 'content' to the galaxy simply because of the limitations imposed upon the game by instancing and lack of other player-NPC interaction elements sans interdiction.

Of course USSs can be fun. I just think they need a lot of work.

I once had that encounter as well. I think it was a federal capital ship that had been taken over by pirates or something like that.

What I dont like is the lack of logic with most USSs (and POIs)

You jump into a convoy
You arrive first and then the convoy arrives (okay I understand the reason it works like that but it would be cool if the convoy loaded in and then you jumped)
But the convoy just fly in a line for no aparent reason and just wait for the mighty player to do something. they dont seem to be serving a role in the elite universe but rather serving a role towards the player.

Its just tones of small details that eat at my immersion like when you find a wreck of what looks like 20 ships yet there is only 4 units of cargo , all of them floating dead in the center of the event (makes it feel artificial)

I just want the NPCs and USS/POI to act with logic towards the elite universe and have gameplay spawn around that.
Its more fun to do something if it makes sense within the universe.

Here's the rub. Your pirates that took over a federal capital ship didn't take over anything. There's no backdrop event in the particular system to that, there's no further consequence to that. All that changed in that particular random-generated out of context event, ie an USS, was a line of text for two. That's it. You've just described the mediocrity of the whole concept: Once inside an USS, there's no rhyme or reason as to the why, where, and how. This extends to a lot of other things, too- look at the madness of resource extraction sites, which are nothing but NPC bounty hunting grounds.
The overall delivery toolset to add flavour to an empty galaxy is deeply flawed.

USS got a bad reputation because they were an early mechanic with a limited number of scenarios at game launch. Fairly quickly you started seeing the same thing a couple or more times so it became like a magic trick when you've worked how it's done. It's definitely worth checking out a few USS after every update though because you're right, unexpected things do happen. If you assume more and more variations are added, over time to the point where you'll never know what you'll find, I like them as a mechanic personally. Random encounters, works for me.

USS still are a placeholder with a limited number of scenarios, two years in. The problem with the USS vehicle is not so much what's inside of them, the problem is more with how they're delivered, so to speak.

The USS concept is a fine example of the placeholder mentality that was brought up in an earlier thread. The idea was poor but needed at launch, to provide at least some hint of interaction with the wider universe per se. By now, the concept of events in space should have evolved. Not the labeling of events with repetitive concept. Would 'Alien Signal Source' (I dont want to acronym this, heh) with Thargoids in them be acceptable? Is that how 'content' should be delivered, by things that spawn around you if you just sit tight for a while and watch them pop up? It's poor.

 

[Blackcompany]

Wait. The fact that once you were nearly killed by the make & type of NPCs in an otherwise entirely predictable, rinse & repeat type of things counts as 'surprise'? That's setting the bar very low. USS is a terrible attempt at adding 'content' to the galaxy simply because of the limitations imposed upon the game by instancing and lack of other player-NPC interaction elements sans interdiction.


Here's the rub. Your pirates that took over a federal capital ship didn't take over anything. There's no backdrop event in the particular system to that, there's no further consequence to that. All that changed in that particular random-generated out of context event, ie an USS, was a line of text for two. That's it. You've just described the mediocrity of the whole concept: Once inside an USS, there's no rhyme or reason as to the why, where, and how. This extends to a lot of other things, too- look at the madness of resource extraction sites, which are nothing but NPC bounty hunting grounds.
The overall delivery toolset to add flavour to an empty galaxy is deeply flawed.



USS still are a placeholder with a limited number of scenarios, two years in. The problem with the USS vehicle is not so much what's inside of them, the problem is more with how they're delivered, so to speak.

The USS concept is a fine example of the placeholder mentality that was brought up in an earlier thread. The idea was poor but needed at launch, to provide at least some hint of interaction with the wider universe per se. By now, the concept of events in space should have evolved. Not the labeling of events with repetitive concept. Would 'Alien Signal Source' (I dont want to acronym this, heh) with Thargoids in them be acceptable? Is that how 'content' should be delivered, by things that spawn around you if you just sit tight for a while and watch them pop up? It's poor.

Exactly. The placeholders have to go. It's time to flesh out the universe and connect all these disparate mechanics into a coherent Sim.

Exploration data should lead to scientific ventures paid for by goverwnts or better still corporations. Too much piracy should see you banned from a system.on pain of being hunted there. Hauling reliably should lead to corporations seeking your services as a contractor.

Events need to happen regularly. Not the one off, dev injected CG, but random happenings, all over the galaxy. And these need to be visible in a system. This will be hard, thanks to MP ensuring the separation of SC from real space. But it needs to happen.

Stuff like USS and the severely under developed piracy, crime and punishment and Exploring mechanics NEED attention. Far more than we need useless stuff like multi crew and legs.