When can we actually expect some real gameplay content?

[Ian Skippy]

I rather have planets that do nothing than empty randomly generated landscapes that serve little purpose and have no meaningful content. And the Sudoku was an example to demonstrate the variety of things. But again, you only try to ridicule me, instead of discussing the issue. But this is a problem in the whole Forum if people say things that the hive mind does not like. You guys are trying to push out anyone that has criticism. Not sure why. But in the end, you will be a very small Community not worth developing for anymore since you lack the buying power of the mass.

Also, X has way better user and general review score than Elite. That says a lot.

Pushing out? Right...

Anyway, you prefer Sudoku, I prefer planets. To me, that is content. Exploring planets is difficult without, you know, planets. If you dont care for that cobtent, fair enough. But its not "criticism". Walking into a pizza place and stating you want pancakes isnt criticism.

Tl;dr there is content, you rather have different content. You cant accept that, so you pretend there is no content. When people point it out you pretend you are being persecuted by evil peopke trying to silence you.

Just deal with the idea your opinion is just that, your opinion.

 

[Sterling MH]

Hmm I feel like playing Soduko, I think I'll go and by X3 TC, or maybe I should just by a soduko book. Really is someone really putting forward Sudoku as an example of adding game play to a space sim?

The sudoku problem was necessary to hack the CPU mothership and stop an unstoppable Xenon fortress running rampant and potentially ending the entire gate network civilisations. It was good BECAUSE the stakes were high, and you only had to do this once (though many solved it with going to a soduko solver webpage and entering the numbers, so how good was it as gameplay, really?). But that wouldn't work in a mutliplayer game where everyone is in the same absolute universe (even if solo, it just means you always get your own instance, it's still in that online universe along with everyone else). How much fun would it be to be the second one to arrive at the CPU ship and find someone has already hacked it and saved the universe?

It really demonstrates why this thread is pretty pointless now: the complaints are that it doesn't have the gameplay of a standalone singleplayer.

Well, either does Battlefield1, thousands of hours playing it, though, even though there's naff all "gameplay", just the arena to play on and the game rules and engine.

Just like Elite.

 

[Cmdr Hobgoblin]

(though many solved it with going to a soduko solver webpage and entering the numbers, so how good was it as gameplay, really?)..

And in Elite people are watching "From Sidewinder to Anaconda in 24 hours" and then leave the game once they are done with the carrot that is a bigger ship.
To say it in those terms: We need more carrots.

 

[dayrth]

And in Elite people are watching "From Sidewinder to Anaconda in 24 hours" and then leave the game once they are done with the carrot that is a bigger ship.
To say it in those terms: We need more carrots.

Yes people do do this (although 24 hours may be a bit of an exaggeration), but those would be the people who want the same type of game you do. The people who want an Elite Dangerous type game don't do this, and there are plenty of them according to the latest FD financials and player figures released.

 

[Cmdr Hobgoblin]

Yes people do do this (although 24 hours may be a bit of an exaggeration), but those would be the people who want the same type of game you do. The people who want an Elite Dangerous type game don't do this, and there are plenty of them according to the latest FD financials and player figures released.

No, I want a diverse game with different things to do and actual deep gameplay. Not this shallow puddle with nothing to do except grinding money into your wallet and nothing to actually use it for. Something Elite does not have. But yeah, if everyone is fine with repeating the same missions all the time (and effectively lowering the bar, which led to No Man's Sky), then that is an uphill battle one cannot win.

Besides the content issues:
The design is extremely shallow. You only have brawls, no actual space combat. There is only a very limited amount of modules and without Engineers, they have great flaws, such as negative resistances, which is a stupid design choice in my book and makes Engineers kind of mandatory if you don't want to fly back to restock and repair all the time. All Weapons seem to be balanced around the amount of ammo, which makes things like Missile or Torpedo Boats not viable enough to be useful and everyone is basically using the same loadout.

It also makes no sense. I can scan a whole planet for it's contents remotely, but not an asteroid. I need extra Limpets for that. I can scan an entire solar system for it's celestial bodies, but I cannot detect a ship past 6 km. And everything is designed around waiting. Scanning, Kill Warrant Scanner. In Bounty Hunting you have to wait for the target to be identified, otherwise the Police will blow up your 200 Million ship for a 200 Cr. fine. Sorry, but his whole design makes no sense and does not follow a logical path at all. people call it a Simulator, yet there seems to be so much friction in Space that Bullets cannot fly past 3 km and Lasers magically stop at the same distance (albeit, this is an issue in all space games). Which makes bigger ships not really a variety in how you fly them, they are just slower.

 

[shadragon]

I am going to ignore the attempts to ridicule, but this is just plain wrong. Go play X3:TC

I didn't ridicule anyone. I stated my opinion as a reply to yours. However, if it offended you, I apologize.

X3 (and it's eight plots) is useless after finishing them. It's a limited game because of the story mode. After you finish, all you can do is reset for a new game to replay those plots, or wait for the next game (or DLC) to continue.

I've played Skyrim with 220 hours and two and a half playthroughs. That had lots of story, but is still finite. Skyrim sets a marker on the map and you have to go there and do something for the next marker, and the next, and the next until the quest is done. There are hundreds of quests, but once done, you still have the game world, but there is relatively nothing to do. It leads you by the hand, per my earlier point. Same with WatchDogs (42 hrs played according to Steam), The Division (54 Hrs), Dishonored (22 Hrs), FarCry (37 Hrs), GTA (67 Hrs), Fallout (124 Hrs.), and countless others I own, but no longer play.

Elite is endless. I have three accounts and thousands of hours invested with no end in sight. I might do a mission, or go mining, or explore, a CZ, a RES, an SRV scavenge on a planet, or just go to a star with a passenger to take a gander at what is there. In the middle of a mission, I might get interdicted by a pirate who runs and I end up pursuing then across two systems to get vengeance. I meet up with a random player and form a wing to help them out with an assassination mission. On the way back, I drop into a USS, find some illegal goods and do an unplanned smuggling run that leads to another mission from there.

Others sit on the launch pad, moaning there is nothing to do. One player having a blast and another complaining. Same game, just two different people with opposing perspectives. How is that the games fault? Elite is by no means perfect, but it is getting better all the time IMHO.

 

[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.

Fair enough. You're welcome to your opinion. You may be missing a lot of what's going on though. What we do DOES matter. I blow up a load of wanted NPCs and my rep with their faction goes down the toilet. I run missions for a faction and they like me. At the same time everything I do to their benefit boosts their BGS standing, what I do to harm them does the opposite. Just because I'm not the dragonborn or flash gordon or han solo or some other kind of chosen one in the universe doesn't mean I can't do stuff. I've fought in wars for factions I approved of. I've smuggled gear past the cops to support my "friends" and undermine my "enemies", I've hauled high-value cargo to where it was needed and evaded or outfought pirates along the way, I've looked on star systems nobody has visited before and made a handsome profit on selling their details. Along the way I've shot it out with other players, or dodged them or shown them a clean pair of heels when they found me, I've worked with others to make what we both wanted happen...

So don't you DARE tell me that what we do doesn't count. I've done it and I've seen it.

Now, maybe doing all this doesn't float your boat. Maybe you can't see that this is how this game is designed to be played. Maybe you want it to be different so that you can play it the same way you play all the others. Fair enough.

You may be a boss in those other games. In this one, if you can't get how to play it you're a scrub.

And all of this changes my game play in exactly No way whatsoever. I don't have to avoid systems..I don't have people hunting me, refusing to trade with me...It's all numbers in a meaningless spreadsheet somewhere that has zero visible effect on game play.

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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.

Being a lone bounty hunter isn't supposed to be bland.

It's supposed to be thrilling. I'm chasing a guy through outer space, picking up leads and trying to catch him before he takes off for good. He might send some goons to stop me. He might have contacts in the local police force who will try to arrest me. I might catch him taking a rest at a station and have to stalk him until he leaves the no fire zone, or he might be in the middle of a heist which means security forces might claim the bounty if I'm too slow. What if he dips into a canyon in a speedy little Eagle and I have to chase him? What if I'm competing against another bounty hunter who's after the same guy?

In ED, there's no thrill. I go to a location marked blue, kill the NPC marked blue, then go to collect my reward. There's zero variation, I can't prep because I get no intel about the guy's ship or his connections or wingmates, and there's not even a way to bring him in alive for a bonus or anything. It's just. ****ing. Bland.

Agreed. Bounty Hunting as a profession in this game is PATHETIC. Arcades REA spawn points. Meaningless encounters.

Bounty Hunting needsore Hitman in space, with Intel, scouting and prep, and less Arcade Blaster.

Elite is the land of placeholder mechanics...

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

No, I want a diverse game with different things to do and actual deep gameplay. Not this shallow puddle with nothing to do except grinding money into your wallet and nothing to actually use it for. Something Elite does not have. But yeah, if everyone is fine with repeating the same missions all the time (and effectively lowering the bar, which led to No Man's Sky), then that is an uphill battle one cannot win.

Thats funny. I don't grind for credits and been playing since gamma (over 2 years now), probable the reason I only have 30m credits to my name after all that time. And there is loads that I haven't done yet.

I think most people agree that we need more diverse missions and hopefully chained missions in the future. But the game is far from shallow, you just haven't found the depth yet.

Saying that though it does need more depth in the BGS and hopefully that will be on the way.

There are plenty of different types of missions, we just need more compelling reasons to do them which isn't just credits, influence and Reputation. The content is there, it just needs good reasons for doing the content, which again is related to an updated BGS.

 

[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.

Then apply for a job there.



It only lacks content if you aren't making it. Playing cops and robbers when you were 5 didn't require anything more than a hat and some fingers to point and a mouth to go "PEW! PEW!" with. Nobody made content for you when you played.

Why do you need someone to give you game here? You bought the framework. Just like buying the rulebooks for D&D. You got the framework, you gotta supply the game.

If FD supplied the gameplay like you want it, it would be like Freelancer or WC1-4, and over in, say 20 hours per game. Supplying your own game in a framework you get 1000+ hours.

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No, but if you're saying that there needs to be changes, and you don't say that the changes need to be good ones, then presuming you mean "my changes are good" is what EVERYONE not a mindreader has to do.

Can you mindread?

Yes, I'm not surprised this reminds you of conversations between conservatives and liberals. You playing Trump, me playing Al Gore. You don't come off well.

In fact you DO come off as Gore: lots of Bluster, zero proof or substance.

When I was 5 and played cops and robbers, I received feedback. From others playing withe. From the makeshift rules we established. It was a feedback loop.

Elite lacks that. You can't make your own story when nothing you do, elicits a reaction from the world in which you do it. Kind of like you can't keep pushing an agenda like Gore after literally ALL your predictions fall through.

Go watch Westworld and get back to me.

 

[Sterling MH]

In fact you DO come off as Gore: lots of Bluster, zero proof or substance.

Yup, thought you'd be ignorant of reality there too.

A *successful* businessman. Zero proof of what? AIT was upheld as accurate by the court but they advised that instead of saying "When the Greenland ice sheet melts", put in the teacher notes the timescale expected. That was all. Now GGWS was lots of bluster, faked graphs, lies and zero proof.

But your politics won't let you investigate, you will have to go into the echo chamber to hear how bad Al Gore is.

When you were five you had imagination. Now you're older and you don't want to use it. You want it imagined for you, and if it doesn't it isn't allowed to be your problem because you're just not going to imagine that is possible!

You find the game boring, but you get out what you put in. Therefore you're making it boring. Go out and do something less boring instead.

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X3 (and it's eight plots) is useless after finishing them. It's a limited game because of the story mode. After you finish, all you can do is reset for a new game to replay those plots, or wait for the next game (or DLC) to continue.

Actually, that's false. Either after the mission or instead of it (you don't have to do the missions, except the first one in X3R), you can do exactly what Elite lets you do.

And there is no gameplay in X3 outside the main quest, just buy and sell, pewpew baddies, upgrade, and so on. And, oddly enoug, that is still gameplay that made someone complaining about how Elite had no gameplay, put it forward as something that had gameplay!

80% or more of it (I've logged 1000 hours, and you can do the entire storyline in X3R which didn't require any grind like the one in X2 did) in 15 hours easy, not rushing. Fast play under 10 easy. 980+ hours without storyline or missions other than BBS missions, exactly like Elite.

Heck, Elite has more mission (there's no planetary landing missions, and nobody bothers with a TP for passenger missions).

Still someone put it forward as better than Elite.

 

[Cmdr Hobgoblin]

80% or more of it (I've logged 1000 hours, and you can do the entire storyline in X3R which didn't require any grind like the one in X2 did) in 15 hours easy, not rushing. Fast play under 10 easy. 980+ hours without storyline or missions other than BBS missions, exactly like Elite.

You obviously skipped most plots. Otherwise I dare you to make a video how you do the Hub Plot in less than 10 hours.

 

[Sasquatch_Punter]

Agreed. Bounty Hunting as a profession in this game is PATHETIC. Arcades REA spawn points. Meaningless encounters.

Bounty Hunting needsore Hitman in space, with Intel, scouting and prep, and less Arcade Blaster.

Elite is the land of placeholder mechanics...

I would even settle for some pre-mission Intel or variable objectives, ANYTHING really.

"Target is rated Deadly. He is currently flying a stolen combat-fitted Viper. Bounty specifies that the Viper must be disabled but not destroyed so that local authorities can be called in to impound it. Return the target alive for a credit and rep bonus." There you go, some variables and info that could add a layer or two to bounty missions. For this FDev could add an ejection mechanic that would have a chance of transferring the NPC to an escape pod upon destruction or disablement of his ship. They could even extend this to the RES's or the Nav Beacons: NPCs with a cargo hold will try to pick up their bounties, otherwise they'll shoot the escape pods. Players can try to steal these escape pods and risk being attacked by slighted bounty hunters. There's another layer.

If that's too difficult for FDev, they could just give us some info in the mission panel. Bounty is rated Elite, he's known to fly a combat-fitted Anaconda. Instead of giving us a vague, ambiguous mission rating that rarely reflects the actual mission difficulty. That would be much better than what we've got.

 

[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.

Yup, thought you'd be ignorant of reality there too.

A *successful* businessman. Zero proof of what? AIT was upheld as accurate by the court but they advised that instead of saying "When the Greenland ice sheet melts", put in the teacher notes the timescale expected. That was all. Now GGWS was lots of bluster, faked graphs, lies and zero proof.

But your politics won't let you investigate, you will have to go into the echo chamber to hear how bad Al Gore is.

When you were five you had imagination. Now you're older and you don't want to use it. You want it imagined for you, and if it doesn't it isn't allowed to be your problem because you're just not going to imagine that is possible!

You find the game boring, but you get out what you put in. Therefore you're making it boring. Go out and do something less boring instead.

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Actually, that's false. Either after the mission or instead of it (you don't have to do the missions, except the first one in X3R), you can do exactly what Elite lets you do.

And there is no gameplay in X3 outside the main quest, just buy and sell, pewpew baddies, upgrade, and so on. And, oddly enoug, that is still gameplay that made someone complaining about how Elite had no gameplay, put it forward as something that had gameplay!

80% or more of it (I've logged 1000 hours, and you can do the entire storyline in X3R which didn't require any grind like the one in X2 did) in 15 hours easy, not rushing. Fast play under 10 easy. 980+ hours without storyline or missions other than BBS missions, exactly like Elite.

Heck, Elite has more mission (there's no planetary landing missions, and nobody bothers with a TP for passenger missions).

Still someone put it forward as better than Elite.

Do I need to highlight how absurd it is to suggest that I should IMAGINE my interactions with a video game and it's universe? Not to mention borderline unhealthy?

Bout as realistic as those two dates by which all the arctic I've was supposed to have melted and most of Florida be underwater...Or the suggestion that 56° as an average global is dangerous for a planet that spent 75 million years at a global average of 75° despite a lack ofan made pollution, I guess.

 

[Sir.Tj]

Let's put the handbags down and step away please.

 

[Sterling MH]

Do I need to highlight how absurd it is to suggest that I should IMAGINE my interactions with a video game and it's universe? Not to mention borderline unhealthy?

No. Because it isn't absurd.

Pen and paper RPGs don't come with gameplay, you add it with your imagination.

Doom comes with ONLY gameplay, you don't engage your imagination to play, but you can if you want.

Both games. Some require imagination and some don't. If you don't want to use imagination, then we're back at This game is boring you because you made it boring. The game is fine, your choice to refuse to play it in its actual design wasn't.

Either play a different came or play this game the way it was intended to be played. By using your imagination. Forget you're sitting in your y fronts snacking with your VR helmet on your head. Imagine you're actually a pilot. And that you're doing a job as your own entrepreneur. If you sit there in the hangar waiting for your boss to come and tell you where to go next, you're not going to get anywhere.

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You obviously skipped most plots. Otherwise I dare you to make a video how you do the Hub Plot in less than 10 hours.

Nah, that was X3:TC, cheated that out to 1/100th the size, but that really isn't a plot, and remember ow many people complained how big a horrible grind it was?

For those unfamiliar with the Hub you had to collect in order and serially, thousands (25 at one point, IIRC) of microchips, where demand meant you had to make your own, at 10 per hour per station. Work out how ling that takes. And that was 1 part of about 6.

If you built a complex big enough to finish it in 100 hours you had so much production you didn't need the HQ to make ships, you made more per hour than a capship cost.

It was super-dumb.

X3R was a lot easier and simpler, one of the complaints at the time was it gave too much for too little effort.

They were silent on their complaints when TC's version came out...

 

[Sasquatch_Punter]

Let's put the handbags down and step away please.

Can we also stop it with the lowbrow philosophy?

Games are designed to entertain. Pen and Paper RPGs are about as comparable to Elite as a choose-your-own-adventure book is to Charles ens.

 

[Enderby]

We should...imagine the 'gameplay'? Is that right? I may imagine S3 too and save myself a few quid.

 

[Sterling MH]

Can we also stop it with the lowbrow philosophy?

More handbags...

 

[Cobra1984]

And all of this changes my game play in exactly No way whatsoever. I don't have to avoid systems..I don't have people hunting me, refusing to trade with me...It's all numbers in a meaningless spreadsheet somewhere that has zero visible effect on game play.

This is actually my only beef with the game (bugs aside).

I watched the Dav Stott (BGS engineer) video only very recently and was amazed and blown away when he started describing all the systems and rulesets and simulations happening behind the scenes. The only way a player could ever appreciate any of this would be to track it all in a spreadsheet.

Dav Stott was quite rightly passionate and excited by all of this, because he's the only guy who gets to see it all happening. Imagine playing the game with the same insight and appreciation that Dav Stott has... best game ever. Look how excited he was. Look at his little face.


- To a player, it always looks STATIC because the client does not communicate what has changed, what might change or what you can do to sway the odds one way or another

- Nothing UNIQUE comes out of these states (no unique opportunities, goods, missions, just increased/decreased odds)

- There are no extremes in the factions, there is nothing unique or memorable about any of them, and this is a direct result of the sheer number of them. There's no need to look beyond numbers in a spreadsheet, the factions don't engage the player in a visceral, satisfying way. No heroes, no notoriety with any of these groups.



Now - you can find the depth in the BGS, it is there. It's just that it's there in an abstract way that is impenetrable on an intuitive, natural, satisfying way. I think this is perhaps the greatest challenge for the lads and lasses in Frontier, how to get the game to utilise that BGS data (and how it is CHANGING) in a way that leads to a natural flow of gameplay and storytelling.


Powerplay on the other hand - I spent a month with it when it was added and it seems to be trying to provide a huge overarching meta using tiny, trivial, ultra-abstract delivery missions. It's honestly terrible and does a great disservice to what we now know exists in BGS but isn't being utilised to anywhere near its potential.

In fact Powerplay as it sits right now is exactly like the final, aimless and meandering moments of a game of Civilisation when the map is already filled, the exciting expansions and wars are already over, all the resources are available to everyone, and there's really nothing more to do other than start over on a new map.

 

[Ian Skippy]

I like apples. Bananas are stupid, they dont taste like apples. I am not going to eat an apple. I want farmers to make apples be like bananas. Everyone who likes bananas is stupid. Bananas are shallow, I had way more fun with apples. All fruit should be like apples. I really like apples a lot. People who dont agree arent rational. Its a fact that bananas are dumb, not like apples which are awesome."