Why can we only Land on Barren Planets after almost 5 years?

[777Driver]

Just as example:
At release rares were probably the most profitable thing in the game. Then they nerfed it and buffed trading and combat. They also added biowaste hauling which was the new most profitable thing. 6 different unbalanced additions later void opals make everyone a millionaire and most people only know rares from unlocking Engineers...

Just to clarify, rares was not the most profitable thing, was around 14-24k profit per tonne, however, you had to factor the 150+ LY trip, and spawn times. The issue was the early bugs in a few of the stations, spawning massive amounts or rare goods. Devs quickly sorted it out after a few days. I made around 40 million from that, a massive profit in those days.

Biowaste was only profitable from a handful of ports, all of those required long haul travel back to the bubble, and high rep, also Elite rank trade status for the high paying runs. Still, a good way to make credits, 120-200 million credits per round trip. Normally about an hour or so to complete the run to agricultural ports in the bubble.

Most of the others, blatent cheating by Cmdrs, devs let it ride for a while. The long haul pax runs & Seeking goods is the only other high profits I can think of that didn't involve some sort of cheating.

 

[Juniper]

Just to clarify, rares was not the most profitable thing, was around 14-24k profit per tonne, however, you had to factor the 150+ LY trip, and spawn times. The issue was the early bugs in a few of the stations, spawning massive amounts or rare goods. Devs quickly sorted it out after a few days. I made around 40 million from that, a massive profit in those days.

It was still how a lot of Cmdr's (including me) started out though - because you could do the "rares circuit" in a Cobra MKIII and make a whopping 1M credits per hour.

 

[777Driver]

It was still how a lot of Cmdr's (including me) started out though - because you could do the "rares circuit" in a Cobra MKIII and make a whopping 1M credits per hour.

True, was good for beginners, many of us where already flying big freighters at that point (trading since Gamma) Profits all around where rubbish, but you could pull in around 700,000cr every 15mins hauling average credit cargo on a A-B-A trip (500 tonnes)

Slave runners made a lot more per run..

 

[fu9ar]

I don't believe that Elite is a particularly buggy game and I disagree with your principles that every activity should pay out the same. Mining was made to be extremely lucrative. That is not a problem and I don't understand why you would say that it is.

 

[777Driver]

I don't believe that Elite is a particularly buggy game.

I don't think cmdrs here have played the X-series. After 10+ years playing the X3 series, ED might as well be classed as bug-free in my eyes.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

I think what's different this time though is the overall package is so crumbly from design and development skills, decisions to simply not fix bugs (it takes them 2 weeks + fix time allowance to patch elite if they raised their hands to do it).. the sum of the whole is looking pretty shabby at the moment. If only from lack of coverage, its never been so pockmarked before.

Design seems fine and especially 3.0 and 3.3.

Just keep in mind, on ps4, you can't even confirm changes to control settings because you're unable to highlight the dialog box option. You have to use the global shortcut, or turn off confirmation i assume. Frontier are completely fine with this since beyond dropped. Insert your favourite bug here. Can you still cheat?

Sounds like a minor bug. Hopefully it will be fixed in the next update. As to cheating I have no idea.

We all know about the fss. But they had to double smack us with a universally disliked 100% screen tint feature just to rub salt in. They actually sold this like its an exciting feature.. When you're just there for work its pretty telling in any industry and profession.

FSS is good and a major step in the right direction.

I like the new lighting update, much better then the last version, but has some minor issues which I can easily ignore. Hopefully they will be fixed soon.

I can't see any of that stopping people from coming back to the game at the next update.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

There are four active games that need updates, and DLC revenue.
Gee, I wonder why there's nothing major for ED until Q4 2020?

Maybe because what they are working on in the second half of 2020 needs a lot of time to get developed well.

Each game has their own teams. Planet Coaster and Jurassic World will likely have small teams to keep it ticking over. Planet zoo has a full team as does ED.

 

[Viajero]

There are four active games that need updates, and DLC revenue.
Gee, I wonder why there's nothing major for ED until Q4 2020?

What will really blow your mind with an ED update in Q4 2020 is that by then FDEV will not only be working in 4 active games that need updates but also will probably have dedicated resources working in 2 or 3 new upcoming franchises!

Spoiler

 

[askavir]

Say "thank you" to people that complained about the "Seasons" approach

View attachment 140892

On the other hand, better to wait longer for something actually good (*), than keep getting half-baked add-ons like in the past 4 years... Last time the game really took a leap forward was with 2.0, almost half a decade ago.

(*) Not that I actually believe whatever's coming in 2020 is good though... FD already realized they can make more money making park games (which they are actually good at doing).

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

On the other hand, better to wait longer for something actually good (*), than keep getting half-baked add-ons like in the past 4 years... Last time the game really took a leap forward was with 2.0, almost half a decade ago.

(*) Not that I actually believe whatever's coming in 2020 is good though... FD already realized they can make more money making park games (which they are actually good at doing).

I think nothing changes in the end. Horizons lasted 3 years... doesn't matter if contents came in little by little or all at once after 3 years. The final quality would have been the same

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

I think you’ve highlighted the main issue,i’d consider mining feature complete you are using it as an example of how broken the game is.

Mining isn't broken but what it is is insanely unbalanced both the different parts within mining and then also compared to the rest of the game.
Look at it this way, in the universe of elite why would anyone do anything other than mining? It is safe and can be a mega millionaire in a handful of hrs.
A game like elite works best when you have different paths to choose and if you manage to Excell in any one path you can be sucessfull..... But to excel should take time. And each path should be essentially equivalent
In ED however that does not work well. I hope 2020 fixes it.
I would say elite dangerous is worse in that aspect than any of the 3 games before it

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

What will really blow your mind with an ED update in Q4 2020 is that by then FDEV will not only be working in 4 active games that need updates but also will probably have dedicated resources working in 2 or 3 new upcoming franchises!

Spoiler

I’d like to suggest, well I’m personally not encouraged by that.

So frontier are turning into a huge game development organisation... given they haven’t kept the heart or allowed for iteration or bug fixes when required...

Well yeah lower expectations to what we’be actually been receiving over the last few years. There’s no room for hope anymore

 

[Han Zulu]

I’d like to suggest, well I’m personally not encouraged by that.

So frontier are turning into a huge game development organisation... given they haven’t kept the heart or allowed for iteration or bug fixes when required...

Well yeah lower expectations to what we’be actually been receiving over the last few years. There’s no room for hope anymore

Also read "Sustain" for Elite as "maintenance mode."

 

[Dutchman141]

Ugh, I just got another bugpatch for NMS, it feels like rubbing it in by now.
Since the release of Beyond for NMS a week ago this was the third patch I believe.
Why can't Fdev be more on top of bug fixing after each update like that?
Everytime we get an update for ED we get only a handfull of bugs fixed, then we need to wait untill the next update that will deliver more new bugs then old ones getting fixed.

 

[SpaceInvader]

Elite Dangerous launched in December 2014. It had many major free and paid updates that exponentially improved the base game. However, aside from the desired space legs, there's one aspect that disappoints the most. We can only land on desolate, barren planets. We've waited almost 5 years for more lively planet types.

A certain other game launched 1 1/3rd years after ED and has 10000 times more variety in land-able planets. It has many different kinds of alien creatures, vegetation, you can even travel underwater in a submarine. The procedural generation of planets in ED is very basic comparatively.

We want more than simplistic planets covered with monotonous dirt and rocks! ED's planets have endless sand, dirt and rocks as far as the eye can see. Sometimes, if we're lucky, we find a little primitive flora. We want more natural features, explore alien forests, jungles teeming with life. If Frontier plans to take another 10 years to release more land-able planet types, that's too slow.

So why is ED very primitive with procedural planets? Why aren't there more terrains, creatures, plants etc? It seems that Frontier is focusing too much of their resources on other IPs (Planet Zoo, PC and JWE).

There are lots of games on Steam now with procedurally generated terran-like planets that you can build bases on or whatever. I guess ED is just special.

 

[Han Zulu]

Ugh, I just got another bugpatch for NMS, it feels like rubbing it in by now.
Since the release of Beyond for NMS a week ago this was the third patch I believe.
Why can't Fdev be more on top of bug fixing after each update like that?
Everytime we get an update for ED we get only a handfull of bugs fixed, then we need to wait untill the next update that will deliver more new bugs then old ones getting fixed.

HG has done more than three patches. There are 12 patches with notes on their website. That's average 2/day.
https://www.nomanssky.com/release-log/

But then again, there's a lot of bugs in it currently.

 

[Dutchman141]

HG has done more than three patches. There are 12 patches with notes on their website. That's average 2/day.
https://www.nomanssky.com/release-log/

But then again, there's a lot of bugs in it currently.

There might be a lot of bugs, although I haven't encountered many of them yet, but at least they're doing something about it, they even released one on a Sunday for crying out loud.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

Also read "Sustain" for Elite as "maintenance mode."

Interesting how its been assigned to sustain since 15/16. Given how long it took them to come up with the content of beyond, the actual output + that chart seems more convincing that some urban myth they have 100 people assigned to work on elite dangerous.

100 people should be able to manage bug fixes. If you've ever worked in software, ~30 !?? (no idea how they manage qa) developers is still quite a strong team. In other games at least its skeleton crews that permit bugs as elite has for so long.

 

[Bounder]

Well i for one only want to be able to land on barren planets, and if it had atmospheres at launch i would never have bought it.

Barren planets, lame action, zero physics, no gravity, no ability to control one's own ship, a catastrophically unnavigable GUI and having every single star, planet and station repeatedly rammed in my face without choice - THAT's the game I bought into. And what a corker it is.

 

[Han Zulu]

There might be a lot of bugs, although I haven't encountered many of them yet, but at least they're doing something about it, they even released one on a Sunday for crying out loud.

I've encountered a bunch, some of the annoying, but nothing that stopped me from playing.