Why Elite's riddles and story do not work for me

[Bran Tse Mallory]

I'd like to try and come up with '2' in a less nebulous manner. A solution is desired: Let's get to specifics.

+Rep except I can't yet . If we can point out to Frontier a better system that engages the whole community as opposed to a select few as is the general feeling from this thread then maybe, just maybe they might listen and take note...

Going to give this a good think over and try to come up with some solutions, may take me a few days as I am quite busy but it will be fun.


Solutions are always better to read about than problems

 

[Jex =TE=]

Having been here fer several months now, I have to say the background story and content is weak as water here. Fer one thing, one seemingly needs genius level IQ and good reading ability to scan through reams of threads which are about 95% stuff and nonsense filler. It feels as though the lore caters fer only a very select group of players and thats being nice. I tried to get into it a while back until I saw what the content actually was in the formidine rift...a scripted event in open only with a couple devs doing a flyby...embarassingly fer them,they were ganked by SDC before they got to finish their flyby.

Put simply, its lame when compared to a great maqny other games...appeals to only a very select few and because the undiscovered secrets are nothing more than scripted events, they are nothing more than an elaborate con. The game is nothing more than a sandpit...there is no real backstory outside a select group of einstein intellect backers and the claim of undiscovered secrets they claim has been in the game fer ages is a lie...the secret being the time of evening that a pair of devs do a flyby in a freighter.

After that incident, I lost all interest in the background story...its as iinconsequential as the background lore of pacman and has becoke nothing more than fan fiction.

I think Dev injected content, realtime could make an MMO amazing IF IT'S DONE RIGHT. FDev of course, do it all wrong. I'm interested in a story to work out but I'm not interested knowing that whatever I discover, I have to wait for the "next part". It's boring and ungainly - if you're going to do a story, put the entire thing in and you know how to put in a pause? Get the players out searching for a specific relic or something so you can slow progression down if you need to. The way they're doing it makes it feel like work.

It's really aggravating too - we should be usi9ng our ships scanners for this. Had they put in working scanners instead of PP, Engineers, CQC, bobbleheads, we might actually have a universe with some meaningful content to discover.

 

[Muetdhiver]

I like the idea of randomised unique puzzles for each player. Stops people doing walk-throughs. Gives a sense of achievement.
The problem is: What if 30% of the player base cannot solve it? Is it still being 'exclusive'? I'm also not sure how we could avoid players skipping to the end by just looking up the 'prize' location or thing on the net. Essentially: Even if every puzzle is different, if we know the answers are at the end of the book, we can still just skip to it.

I was more thinking on the line of : each week, 100 systems or more get beacons/articles related to a special POI created for the occasion. The game generates an enigma/puzzle to find said POI.

Put good stuff at the POI, like high grade engineer stuff, alien ships, rank boosts with factions and other cold diamond cargo
(e.g. Anaconda wreck with 120t of cold diamonds, or military convoy crash site with a bunch of AI relics and so on...)
and FD will have rather nice stuff that 1) can be solved by most 2) give nice rewards 3) might bring people in places they would otherwise not visit 4) add in an expiration period ~few weeks on those POI's and the skipping to the end problem goes away.

 

[Theodrid]

I'm just pointing out that ongoing story missions which are not restricted to a single puzzle every point release will - if they are designed to include new in-game tools, mini-games and mechanics. Take a lot more developer time than knocking up a nonogram, for example. If these missions are to take less than the current amount of time to solve, then there will need to be a larger number, lest all the plot be solved within an hour of a patch drop and for us to be left twiddling our fingers.

What is more, this is not a one-shot resources use, like putting a new feature in the game. This is an ongoing use of resource, in every release.

That Dev time has to come from somewhere. Do FD hire more people (which means more costs for us) to do it, or do they do it at the cost of delaying other features continually through out the development cycle, or do they hire some extra guys and just give it to us for free?

I really do not think that some of the proposals in this thread require extra developers, some time, yes, but extra developers no. My proposal, (have you seen it?), involves the current mission system and a number of POI's, USS's and the like, using assets and framework currently in game and the Cobra engine would not require anywhere near the time or effort you seem to suggest, (though I understand some proposals in this thread would require more). Also, some of these proposals could trigger other phases during the hops between major releases, for example, if there was a 3 month delay between lets say 3.1 and 3.2 then missions and associated assets could be dropped in 2 or 3 times during that period, each triggering 'phases' that do not necessarily need to be so mind numbing that they are '1 hour' of story.

I understand what the problem is. I understand what the goal is. I'd just like to hear a concrete solution. We've had some good ideas, but it's still very nebulous:

1) People are [for a variety of reasons] feeling excluded from the story and want to be involved.
2) Somethingsomething mini game, new in game mechanics something
3) Everyone feels included in storyline.

I'd like to try and come up with '2' in a less nebulous manner. A solution is desired: Let's get to specifics.

Your point 2 has been fleshed out a bit in various posts but it is virtually impossible to go into extreme detail because we do not know:-

Where Frontier is going exactly with the story,
What assets and game mechanics are in the pipeline and/or possible.
Whether Frontier gives a flying

Onto your point three, I am realistic enough to realise that the nirvana of 'everyone feeling included' is impossible, a few, some or 1% more is better than currently and that is all I ask.

 

[Ben_BigBen]

Not really mini game but depends on your definition; once you've been playing long enough you get to recognise everything in the game; noises like ship creaking, super cruise, etc. how about slightly different sound "returns" on the honk for starters, or maybe not even as obvious as that, changes in the background "radiation" noise - give brute force discovery a chance. Even a slight echo, or a pin drop could take a sharp pair of ears to notice the difference, still be challenging but not 100% academic and cerebral. Or how about visual clues of some kind, something reflecting light for a split second (yes, I've chased dust motes thinking I was on to something before) there are different ways of being challenging than a crossword or sudoku.

 

[Jex =TE=]

I think puzzles like in Toomraider would be more appropriate. Maybe somebody finds something unusual somewhere, and then somebody else finds something else, which is related to the first item. Then you know that you need other items or activities to complete the puzzle, so everybody can go and look for them or participate in the activities. The puzzles we've had so far have been too complicated for the average guy, who can only sit back and wait to see what the selected few can do.

Maybe even make it that there are several pieces but you can only find one and need other players help to unlock something.

 

[Drelthar]

Personally, I couldn't care less if I'm the first to solve it.

I just want to feel as though I can solve it, without massive leaps of faith like "oh it must be braille. "

Put puzzles in game that lead you to things. (these exist, and more mechanics to make them better exist) and link them to the big ones.

This gives people a starting point, and engages them in the process.

I've never had a tip off, and never had anything guide me to anything.

 

[Siranui]

It's a fact that not everyone can actively participate in the vanguard of the discovery process - and that many may have no interest in it. While Canonn and the Rift people are busy following their breadcrumb trails, lots of players are happily (yes, I know, YMMV!) mining, pirating, bounty hunting, exploring, trading or powerplaying. It would be good to see each career direction have a little more influence on the overall picture than they do right now, but they are all valid and enjoyable ways of playing the game. Mystery hunting is just another career choice.

True. It's time consuming, too. I think that needs to be remembered. Players are still going to actively have to put down what they are doing.

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Maybe even make it that there are several pieces but you can only find one and need other players help to unlock something.

Any solution which requires players to participate in Open or Group play is a bit of a non-starter.

 

[danteuk]

The big issue is the galaxy. It's big - it's also the SAME for every player - regardless of if they cower in Solo to avoid the griefers or only play in private groups ( again mainly to avoid griefers and to try and work around the instancing / wing issues that make it so hard to meet up with friends in game ).
So any puzzle where the answer is some in game location is going to be find-able by ANY player - at any time. Which in turn means a post on here or reddit or youtube or discord - so within minutes everyone that enjoys the community in some way will get to know the system, planet and lat/long and can go visit to see the 'mystery'.
Does it matter to the multitude of players that flock to see the latest crash site how someone else managed to find it ?

IF you want puzzles to remain puzzles you have solve them yourself, by learning how to decode morse, or solve a nonogram, or de-crypt a simple letter substitution code. ( or maybe team up with a friend in a private chat ). All the puzzles are solved by human players - even if it meant they had to use google to help. Just like in real life.
Adding an in game button to 'Translate encoded signal' doesn't help make the puzzle a puzzle - it's just like a chess game with a 'hint' button, if you need to use it, then you're playing the game at the wrong level!!

I don't know about other online only games with a persistent world but in single player games locations are 'unlocked' by solving puzzles, you can't just walk around and find some wonderful location - you HAVE to solve the puzzles to unlock the doors or portals or whatever. FD can't do that because it breaks the game world.

IF you only played solo they could do it I guess - so if you don't solve the puzzle ( a randomly generated one unique to your client, so you can't just look on a forum for the solution ) so you don't trigger an 'unlock' event then the site will be empty, then you can't just fly there based on the location details someone else gave you. How would you feel about that ? all these in game sites to explore and you can't see them because you can't solve a 'unique randomly generated puzzle' - instead you have to just watch the youtube videos of other players flying around the sites.

 

[Siranui]

I think Dev injected content, realtime could make an MMO amazing IF IT'S DONE RIGHT.

Me too.
Would love it.
Except we're not really paying for that right now. I would be happy to put 25% of all new features on hold for it, but I suspect I am in the minority.

FDev of course, do it all wrong. I'm interested in a story to work out but I'm not interested knowing that whatever I discover, I have to wait for the "next part". It's boring and ungainly - if you're going to do a story, put the entire thing in and you know how to put in a pause? Get the players out searching for a specific relic or something so you can slow progression down if you need to. The way they're doing it makes it feel like work.

Pauses?
Aside the between-season 'cliffhanger' have we had FD created pauses in mysteries?
I'm not sure we have, significantly. The pauses have been either due to people being busy working out things, or us not figuring out what the next step is, or not stumbling on a new mystery.

We've been told a lot is already in game. We haven't found it. Should we be spoon-fed where to look? Or is it better to allow explorers and the inquisitive to find these things? I think the later, and you also dislike the former.

It's really aggravating too - we should be usi9ng our ships scanners for this. Had they put in working scanners instead of PP, Engineers, CQC, bobbleheads, we might actually have a universe with some meaningful content to discover.

Instead they have to rely on us looking a bit deeper and using our eyes, instead of pressing buttons.
Instead of the first person to find something out in the black having done so with his eyes, he did so with a scanner. I'm not sure how that improves things or makes them more inclusive. And if someone finds it first, that is not inclusive either: One person found it, without even needing to brainstorm and share with others, which is an even narrower scope than present.

 

[Stryka Choon]

Both your posts hit the nail almost squarely on the head for me. I want to play the game IN the game not having to do all this other nonsense. The other thing I don't want is the story "piecemeal" - I want to whole thing there and ready to find not this little bit here and a little bit there because between waiting, you have to put up with shallow gameplay and massively bugged code.

That sounds to me like what you're after is a pre-programmed game with an endplay, and there are plenty of those. Elite is a developing story, with episodes and mini-plots within it - like a TV soap, if you like. Not only that, but the plots are influenced by players' actions. I agree about the bugs, but having to wait for dev injects is part of the genre and isn't likely to change. That doesn't mean there can't be self-contained sub-plots that can be followed to completion in a shortish time, which could be available to every player, but fairly obviously they can't be part of the story. But there's no reason why some missions couldn't be more complex and with a range of outcomes which can influence your own story within the game.

 

[Ben_BigBen]

I'm not an Xbox player, but how does the Xbox community install Sonic Visualiser on their console exactly? tbh I think the "hidden messages in the audio" is becoming a bit clichéd so probably not necessary for future puzzles.

 

[danteuk]

Personally I like Elite because it's not a game where I can be playing one night and suddenly hit - Game Completed - Story Finished - Well done - now watch this list of names of people that worked on this game for 2-4 years and now all working on something completely different.
If you want that there are 1000s of on-rails games that will spoon feed you a story over 4-8 hours of game play - then finish.
( like binge watching a boxset rather than enjoying a series with a new episode each week ).

Elite has mysteries that have been in the game for years and no one has found them, and other content that's found within days of it being added, the mix of levels of depth are there, and guess what, a large percentage of players ignore all the mysteries and just do their own thing, I'm sure most of them would hate to have some story line rammed down there throat while there are busy living their own in-game lives. ED is about choosing your own goals and your own paths to follow.

So expand you brain and learn new things while solving mysteries ( rather than staring at a screen and pressing a button on a controller to reveal the secret ) or not, just do other things in game and then read about all the gaming Sherlock Holmes wannabe's enjoying the puzzles on the threads in here. The choice is yours.

 

[Siranui]

The other thing I don't want is the story "piecemeal" - I want to whole thing there and ready to find not this little bit here and a little bit there because between waiting, you have to put up with shallow gameplay and massively bugged code.

You are not going to get the story in anything but pieces, as it emerges, due to the nature of the game.

 

[Jex =TE=]

True. It's time consuming, too. I think that needs to be remembered. Players are still going to actively have to put down what they are doing.

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Any solution which requires players to participate in Open or Group play is a bit of a non-starter.

I don't see how. If I was making a space game, there wouldn't even be a question of group or solo play - it would all be MP. There would be enough players that want to cooperate and if they didn't - Dev injected content to either move the story on or put brakes on it.

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You are not going to get the story in anything but pieces, as it emerges, due to the nature of the game.

Then I'm not interested in it. If I'm waiting for the devs to put the next part in place then I don't feel progress can be made at the pace I want to play it at. This is why early access games with a story suck.

 

[Drelthar]

we should be usi9ng our ships scanners for this. Had they put in working scanners instead of PP, Engineers, CQC, bobbleheads, we might actually have a universe with some meaningful content to discover.

Yeah. I couldn't agree more, and this is probably what has me so involved in this thread, because it's so intrinsically linked to adding in the mechanics that are so bizzarely absent from the game.

 

[sorcer3r]

Remember the time when we thought that USS, conflicht zones, missions etc. were just placeholders for better gameplay mechanics?
And then powerplay and some "mission system updates" happened. [haha]

 

[akaliel]

Personally I like Elite because it's not a game where I can be playing one night and suddenly hit - Game Completed - Story Finished - Well done - now watch this list of names of people that worked on this game for 2-4 years and now all working on something completely different.
If you want that there are 1000s of on-rails games that will spoon feed you a story over 4-8 hours of game play - then finish.
( like binge watching a boxset rather than enjoying a series with a new episode each week ).

Elite has mysteries that have been in the game for years and no one has found them, and other content that's found within days of it being added, the mix of levels of depth are there, and guess what, a large percentage of players ignore all the mysteries and just do their own thing, I'm sure most of them would hate to have some story line rammed down there throat while there are busy living their own in-game lives. ED is about choosing your own goals and your own paths to follow.

So expand you brain and learn new things while solving mysteries ( rather than staring at a screen and pressing a button on a controller to reveal the secret ) or not, just do other things in game and then read about all the gaming Sherlock Holmes wannabe's enjoying the puzzles on the threads in here. The choice is yours.

You're kinda missing the whole point. How is an Xbox player supposed to install the tools needed to do any of this stuff. How is a 13 year old going to know, oh it's a nongram! The solution to the problem so many people have with the current system isn't "learn more and be smarter". Nobody is asking that these advanced Easter egg hunts be taken out. We're asking for FD to add something for the rest of us to do along these same mystery hunt lines.

Elite isn't about choosing your own path, because there aren't any paths. There are a small handful of ways you can make money, and an even smaller handful of things to spend it on. Once players grind up to a good ship there are very few compelling reasons to keep playing.

We shouldn't have to invent our own imaginary goals. Frontier should be providing us goals in the game, and be honest, the only real goal is to upgrade your ship.

I know I won't convince you, but you have to realize that the vast majority of players aren't contributing to the mystery. The fault is not theirs, it's up to Frontier to make it more inclusive.

 

[Siranui]

I really do not think that some of the proposals in this thread require extra developers, some time, yes, but extra developers no. My proposal, (have you seen it?), involves the current mission system and a number of POI's, USS's and the like, using assets and framework currently in game and the Cobra engine would not require anywhere near the time or effort you seem to suggest, (though I understand some proposals in this thread would require more).

Your proposal is indeed fairly modest as resources go (though still requiring some resource, of course), but we have to face that it falls way short of what many people on this thread want. Where do they see the extra time coming from for their own ideas? Are those ideas still reasonable enough to consider - in which case the question 'what gives?' stands - or we write them off as impractical, and all those people are still going to feel left out.

Also, some of these proposals could trigger other phases during the hops between major releases, for example, if there was a 3 month delay between lets say 3.1 and 3.2 then missions and associated assets could be dropped in 2 or 3 times during that period, each triggering 'phases' that do not necessarily need to be so mind numbing that they are '1 hour' of story.

Ok, but how does that face up to the repeated criticism that we have to wait around, twiddling thumbs, waiting for FD to drop the next morsel of plot on us?

Your point 2 has been fleshed out a bit in various posts but it is virtually impossible to go into extreme detail because we do not know:-

Where Frontier is going exactly with the story,
What assets and game mechanics are in the pipeline and/or possible.

Honestly, it doesn't feel that fleshed out. Like I say: *mumblemumble mini game scanners*. That has not sold a solution to me. Stories have a beginning, middle and end. How does the story start for the player? What are the types of challenges, and how many stages. Are the puzzles unique to the player? How long do they take? How is success counted? What are the results? Is 'the end' a place, or is it some information on lore, or is it a +5 vorpal lazz0r, or does it spawn a thargoid invasion?

I'm genuinely interested in figuring out the best thing to put in the black box between 'problem' and 'solution'.

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Not really mini game but depends on your definition; once you've been playing long enough you get to recognise everything in the game; noises like ship creaking, super cruise, etc. how about slightly different sound "returns" on the honk for starters, or maybe not even as obvious as that, changes in the background "radiation" noise - give brute force discovery a chance. Even a slight echo, or a pin drop could take a sharp pair of ears to notice the difference, still be challenging but not 100% academic and cerebral. Or how about visual clues of some kind, something reflecting light for a split second (yes, I've chased dust motes thinking I was on to something before) there are different ways of being challenging than a crossword or sudoku.

How about a big, USS in three very well visited systems with suspicious names like 'Unregistered Comms Beacon'?
Because - being slightly cynical towards the player base, not yourself here - we just did that, and a lot of people seemed to take issue with it, because they could not be involved in that.

And if we take a glance at the Rift mystery, a good deal of people searching there are frustrated with the idea that it might be something subtle hidden in the skybox.

My concern - in short - is that these clues you mention are simply going to meet more complaint for not being inclusive, because they should have just showed up on a scan, or because you have to be in a certain place, or because you have to have played long enough to recognise 'oddities'. those excluded will simply see it as moving the price of admission from an intellectual one or one requiring external tools to one requiring 'hawk eyes' or 'a really good monitor and speakers'.

 

[Siranui]

How is a 13 year old going to know, oh it's a nongram!

I didn't either. But I bet any 13 year old into Japanese culture is. And anyone playing in Japan.

It's a crowd source solution, relying on community. We were never all intended to each be able to solve every mystery.

Elite isn't about choosing your own path, because there aren't any paths. There are a small handful of ways you can make money, and an even smaller handful of things to spend it on. Once players grind up to a good ship there are very few compelling reasons to keep playing.

We shouldn't have to invent our own imaginary goals. Frontier should be providing us goals in the game, and be honest, the only real goal is to upgrade your ship.

I know I won't convince you, but you have to realize that the vast majority of players aren't contributing to the mystery. The fault is not theirs, it's up to Frontier to make it more inclusive.

No, you won't convince me, I'm afraid. As a player who doesn't seem to like the idea of making your own goals, and consider 'grinding to a good ship' the only real objective to the game - with little reason to play after that - I'm not convinced that you are the type of player who can be catered with via story that the nature of Elite can deliver. I don't mean that in a derogatory way, it is simply that Elite was never envisaged or designed to be the game that you want it to be. You are asking it to be something it is not.