Why did you stop playing Elite?

I fired up ED this weekend on my PS4 so I could examine the Krait Mk II in great detail. I'll give Frontier this tip of the hat, they have made some amazing spaceship models! My Krait Mk III is almost complete! #SpaceEngineers
 
Last project I had in Elite was making a speedy 800 m/s Viper to play with gankers, only to jump back and forth between popular systems and find maybe 2 in a couple of hours. I don't know how people can report this game being full of them, hyperbole aside.

All that engineering for barely any reward, made me take a timeout. I ended up checking out a game I played back in 2014 but quit due to burnout, and even though it's 13 years old the devs released an expansion in 2019 and have patches every month or so. Plus everything you do can be done with another player and the rewards shared, I really feel that lacking from Elite. Yeah there are Wing Missions, but only the supply ones are worth doing. Deliveries have too much tonnage (5k units really?), Wing Massacres are in the 30-60 range. And a maximum of four people, with black screening crashes.

I'd love Elite to have raid content and complete mission sharing, but the single-player intention lingers a little too much.
 
I stopped playing Elite because my mother lent my Commodore 64 to my cousin. And then a couple of years later, my aunt gave it away to a charity, without asking me for permision. And along with it, my games, and my saved games.

I picked it up again for PC a few years later, although I went with Elite+ that time. Wasn't quite the same, but at least the graphics had improved a bit. Reached Elite in that game, and got to see the pretty cool picture for that.

After that I took a break for a couple of years, being busy with life and other games. And then I found Frontier: Elite 2 in a bargain bin at a local store. Bought that, played it a lot, and then got Frontier: First Encounters on CD, with the little video sequences that were at the same time unsettling but also quite charming I guess.

Played FFE for a long time. Particularly after I got The Internet and thus access to the game's patches, and later user made fixes for the game.

I guess I stopped playing that game because I once again got busy with life and other things. I still checked the usenet group though. For a decade and a half or so there wasn't much going on there (except for some pretty epic flame wars, started by a certain "game dev" who at some point wanted to make a new Elite game. Thank goodness he never got that license.)

And then a few years after that I saw that Frontier had started a kickstarter for a new Elite game.

So I paid them some money and got the new game in 2015. For some reason I never really got into it then. 2 years later, I started playing it again for real. I play other games too though.

So I guess I stopped playing the game in 1989.

Or rather, I guess I never stopped playing it. Depending on whether you take the short or the long view on things.
 
I hope you kicked up a *#$%ing stink about this!

For some reason, I got so triggered by that I physically sat up in bed when I read it.

Oh, I wasn't happy about it at all. That computer and the box of 5.25" floppies and tapes that went with it held a lot of good memories.

I forgave my aunt though. She had no idea it meant that much to me.
 
I Stopped Elite when I realised how much potential this game had. And how it was used. So a bit after the FC release (yeah i know when i'll stop and wait :p )

This ^^^

I wouldn't go so far as to say it killed the game for me, but it sure took an gigantic chunk of my enthusiasm for the game away. Exploration, even in it's barebones state, was the one thing that could truly set this game apart. The irony, is that exploration is still just as barebones as before, just with added mandatory grind to achieve the same almost nothingness as before. You now spend more time pulling out the cork to peek inside the same empty bottle.

Well i can agree that at some point FSS is not "that" fun. If elite was way smaller. But given the size of the game, i cant imagine myself "looping" planet over and over again to spot surface structures , and sometime doing the 800KLy trip to see this rocky empty planet.

To be honest 2nd time i stopped the game . I was out in exploration . 72 planet system , with the old system , very afar from each others . tooks me days to find nothing. but i was ok. Then i jump again and ... 67 planet system. Nop. Was a bit to much. (It was during my 2nd return trip from colonia , with some detour). I agree that FSS can be boring and souless , but since we have planetary scan i like the new system way more than the old one. I can now sort which planet i'm going to explore/ probe. Yeah I may miss things , but it's my choice, that all fss give you : information to choose.
 
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Or rather, I guess I never stopped playing it. Depending on whether you take the short or the long view on things.

That speaks to me (more of an FE2 player though I did dabble in '84). For me you either get Elite or you don't but if you do then ED has everything you want from Elite and more. So the occasional break, sure, but once a Commander always a Commander.
 
This ^^^

I wouldn't go so far as to say it killed the game for me, but it sure took an gigantic chunk of my enthusiasm for the game away. Exploration, even in it's barebones state, was the one thing that could truly set this game apart. The irony, is that exploration is still just as barebones as before, just with added mandatory grind to achieve the same almost nothingness as before. You now spend more time pulling out the cork to peek inside the same empty bottle.

There are other things to do in the game sure, but they're all just so very "meh"... To give an idea, without exploration, my 2nd favorite activity is collecting engineer materials, this descibes how interesting I find the other activities.

I keep coming back every once and a while mostly because the game looks gorgeos and flying around is still quite pleasant. Perhaps the new era brings new, better things.
Pretty much the same here, since the introduction of the blob hunt and space golf mechanics my enthusiasm for ED has taken a massive hit. I still like the VR experience BUT perhaps the main reason I got into the game has been fundamentally destroyed because of the blob-hunt/space-golf update. I have never considered the exploration mechanics lacking in terms of content though - but blob hunt was the worst decision made by FD to date IMO. That is more to do with the implementation than the basic principle itself though.

As an LEP owner, I am also awaiting the announced major updates and while my playing time in ED is heavily reduced I have not stopped playing as such. It does not help the fact that the person that got me into ED is currently in a no-play hiatus due to various RL/RW reasons.
 
The lack of vision, the same useless grind loop, the lack of a game-player perception from Fd, is what has destroyed Elite
For me at least.
 
I set my goal to have 20b Cr in game, in preparation for the FCs, before we knew what their price would be. Meanwhile I'm sitting on 33b, as I milked it a bit more before the price "adjustment" hit in January.
I've played the beta 1 and 2, curious how they will implement things but I don't hold my breath.

Currently waiting for Cyberpunk, like many others, meanwhile I'm playing Minecraft with my kids.

The "new Era" remains a mystery so far and if they don't improve on content by adding depth to the game, then I'm much more likely to put it aside and come back for the "new and better era". I'm well aware of what Elite has to offer, and I've done my fair share of engaging gameplay grinding. Most of it involves do game loop, log off, log on, repeat. Sad but true. Or shoot a rock, repeat.

I really love this game, I just wish it would have more depth than it currently has. The missions are cookie-cutter based, the galaxy is full of admirals without a fleet and kings without kingdoms.
It could be so much more, and every time I see potential wasted. Sadly I'm just a player, not a designer, nor have I any influence on it.

PS: The paintjob design needs some serious overhaul. Over the past 18 month, FD released 2 sets of paint jobs that I liked. That's 2 out of 76 releases which were decent (and I purchased some).
Let the community design them and hand them over to FD. The community would pump out millions of paint jobs in a month, and I'm sure 90% of them would be liked and sold.
 
If you are a lapsed player (like me) trying to get back into the game - why did you stop playing?
For me I played rabidly for months and then got a bit bored. I had the big ship and didn't really want to grind endlessly at unfun things with it. So I reset my save intended to play through again making different choices. IE I might be a pirate or something. I played for a few hours, got bored, logged out. And never got around to playing again.
I've kept an eye on developments but for the most part they were things you'd need to grind for (engineered or AX modules etc) and if I wanted a second job, i'd pick one that actually paid real money. Station rescue missions are the last thing I recall be interested in.
Also. ED requires quite a committment in time. Whilst you're logged out mission timers continue to run, so if like me you tend to get GBH of the ears after a few minutes of playing a video game (take the bins out, watch "College/musical/vampire crap", etc) then the format of a game which basically insists on your spending at least an hour a session on it doesn't work for me.
SO. I stopped playing it.
I did everything that I wanted to do. Until they add new content, there is nothing left for me
 
I havent stopped I can see why people have though, I do BGS so I have stuff to so.

Shame thargoids war or invasion had stopped. And the creepy guardian stuff ended going nowhere it seems.

I think we need more challenges in the core game, it all feels very safe. Even travelling into the black is all safe nothing fails therefore no challenge.

Even as you hit high ranks, NPCs dont really get more difficult and still only attack you one at a time.

Shame ED has so much potential and we need risk and reward. Make it challenging and make it harder, doing hard things should reward you.

I would like high rank missions from feds and imperial once you get there... they dont exist either
 
It's just too repetitive. This game could have been so much more than it is

There's lots of stuff that looks cool but offers little gameplay
 
Got bored, mostly.

I really enjoy the flight mechanics, but the lack of variation in means to grind credits or materials gets old pretty quick. I already have several G5 craft built for what I did enjoy, so anything else gets to feeling repetitive. I went on a small ship binge for a bit, but the supercruise grind and leaping to and fro for engineers gets old, fast. I've never been one for mindless grinding, so I've 'missed' (by choice) all of the huge credit grinds, which leaves me with a tidy 2bil in assets...too little for FCs, but plenty for future ships (I hope).

The game just isn't a game anymore (for me). I prefer flying alone, enjoy the occasional encounter in Open, but otherwise stick to myself. I've got my money's worth from the game, to be sure, but it just isn't all that fun anymore. I essentially hop in to fly a loop on the station, hit a Combat CZ or do some planetary work, then log. If it takes more than a few jumps or fifteen minutes in supercruise, I just log. Can't be bothered to stare at the screen (or stare at another screen waiting on the first, which is silly to me).

I'm hoping New Era has some new, strong gameplay loops. The problem with Elite (in my opinion) is that it is very much a grindy game, but the grind itself presents little in the way of challenge or variety. Looter Shooters are super grindy, too, but the content has more lifespan if only because the grind itself is a fleshed out gameplay loop. Elite's grind is not. If you've delivered one passenger, you've delivered thousands. If you've shot one anaconda, you've shot a thousand (and got half a rank for it). If you've seen twenty systems, you've seen thousands.

Mile wide. Inch Deep.

In some very odd ways, Elite (today) feels like NMS at launch...which is laughable, because NMS at launch was awful...but it had things to do, too. They were just very shallow. Like Elite feels now. I imagine a new player would think Elite very deep (if they avoid a credit grind and skip that depth instantly), but for anyone a few years in...the game offers very little beyond being a sandbox for content creators. Which isn't bad, it just isn't the game for me.

I'm just bored. I don't play boring games. So I don't play Elite.
When it doesn't look boring, I come back. Most times, I'm not back for long.
Hopefully with New Era, I'll be back for awhile.
 
Given what I've experienced in the game and from the developers in my three and a half years of playing, I think there are going to be a lot of disappointed people (including myself) when the New Era drops. If it ever does.

I made the 'mile wide, inch deep' comment shortly after starting the game (early '17?), and nothing I've seen since has changed my mind.

Maybe FD really doesn't know how to make a good game? Or maybe they are off chasing money in some other endeavor. I'll probably never know for sure.
 
FSS killed the game for me.

As well the UI needs a complete overhaul.

While I understand the FSS being boring at sometimes , what prevent you playing the old way for exploring ? ( appart for ofc the fact that FSS is 10 times faster for some system)
It is the fact that you cant miss anything in a system when you totaly could miss 3/4 of a system before ?

Can you explain a bit more ? :)
 
One has not stopped playing my dear Cmdr.

One simply does not buy into the fads and other nonsense, what what.

I Bally well love this simulation and it does well to make me believe i am there, what what.

I cannot envisage a reason not to engage.

Tatty bye
 
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