That's pretty much these forums in a nutshell. Admittedly OP is not helping one bit.
Why FDev.. just why make this game so tedious on purpose?
- Thread starter Turric4n_ED
- Start date
It's a marketing technique - trailers are meant to grab attention, which is why they're often focused on fast paced combat, even if it is misrepresentative or misleading. Judging a game by its trailer (unless it's made with actual gameplay) is like judging a book by it's cover. If a trailer caught your eye, go and research the game further to make sure it's your thing; look at reviews, watch unedited gameplay, etc.., instead of just throwing away your money and regretting it after a few hours of gameplay.
I would never spend money on a game based on just one 2 minute teaser, and whoever does, sorry but it's your fault..
I've always felt that hyperspace travel as depicted in ED is a perfect dovetailing of the technical time requirements -- mapping the skybox, generating the system from the PG seed, loading relevant assets, communicating with the Stellar Forge -- with the fiction. I've played the game since alpha and in all the time I have never once -- literally not once -- felt as though the illusion of distance between star systems is compromised by my knowledge of what's going on "under the hood."
That's certainly not true for the rest of the game, where the illusion frequently breaks to one degree or another. But the actual jump mechanism, the fantasy of shoving vast energies into an exotic drive system and punching a shortcut across 80ly of space, is as close to perfect as I think it can be. It's one of the reasons why exploration works for so many people.
If someone wrote, say, a castle exploring game in which every room-to-room transition was a 10-15 second "magic portal" animation and every room was the same but with 1-100 PG items in it, it would be intolerably tedious. Fundamentally, this is ED exploration. And yet for some people it works... it's believable fiction perfectly masking technical realities. If you have the right mental wiring to accept it, the illusion is complete.
Supercruise I have more of a love/hate relationship with. It's much better than the micro-jumps proposal with which the game was originally designed, but some of the distances involved can become tedious. Not in terms of immersion, because in that regard it mostly works albeit not nearly as well as hyperspace, but in the time involved. When I'm escaping from reality by cruising zen-like towards an unimportant destination with music or a podcast on in the background, it's fine. Even occasional Hutton-like distances are tolerable. But when I'm pushed for time by real-world considerations, trying to complete a bunch of missions and one of them wrinkles me to an adjacent system with a 120,000ls run to the signal source, not so much. The sense of scale is still there, arguably even more than in hyperspace because you can "see" it, but sometimes it's not enough to mask the reality of the time-sink.
As for the OP's video, maybe there is something wrong with me because I quite enjoy collecting -- and yes, even watching short videos of other people collecting -- materials. Not because the gameplay is overwhelmingly engaging (it is very repetitive) or because the graphical fidelity of the game is so great (it's fine, but the Cobra engine is getting on in years and I've seen better).
It's more because of the PG nature, the fact that these sites aren't hand-crafted even though some of the individual assets are. The idea that a bunch of people have programmed everything they know about astronomy and astrophysics and chemistry and exogeology and theoretical xenobiology into a system, told it to use those rules to go render a galaxy with trillions of worlds, then invited us all to play in it.
To me that always was and remains absolutely incredible. And just because the only way we interact with most of it is to shoot bits off and collect them in a bucket, that doesn't take away any of the magic behind it. It would be great to have alternative tools, but for me their lack can never ruin the setting. FD took everything they knew (or could reasonably speculate) about a real galaxy, reduced it to a bunch of numbers and equations, and from those numbers and equations emerged a model of everything from the largest stars to the tiniest rocks. And we are free to go about our daily fictional lives, ever if some activities are a bit "grindy", inside that world.
I find that wonderous, and if that means there's something wrong with me then it's a badge I'm happy to wear.
Some people may not have replied because you are talking about things we haven't come across in game yet (that's me!
). Everything is still generally new and there seems a wealth of other things to do in game. Please try not to judge everyone because they didn't reply to your post - it could also be some were also very busy (I've only just come back to view the thread after dealing with some work).Regarding my situation, I did a lot of trading at the start, but I am now getting into engineering and the collections of Mats to accomplish this. I've googled, asked questions on the forums and gone to anarchy systems and SRV'd on planets to find the right materials. It's new and fun for me.
You mention the FDevs are looking at ways to make collecting Mats better, I've not really found it a chore, but communication between players and the Devs to improve the game is always good. <O
It's a marketing technique - trailers are meant to grab attention, which is why they're often focused on fast paced combat, even if it is misrepresentative or misleading. Judging a game by its trailer (unless it's made with actual gameplay) is like judging a book by it's cover. If a trailer caught your eye, go and research the game further to make sure it's your thing; look at reviews, watch unedited gameplay, etc.., instead of just throwing away your money and regretting it after a few hours of gameplay.
I would never spend money on a game based on just one 2 minute teaser, and whoever does, sorry but it's your fault..
Not back in 2016. Elite was the first game on steam i saw where the trailer was nothing like the game itself. Sure its pretty common today.
Disclaimer, i mainly bought it because it was cheap and was interested from knowing about it beforehand, it didn't sell it to me, but i felt bad for new players.
I find the grind a bit annoying too, I'd maybe change the mechanism so you can collect materials to sell as you would if you were mining.
After the initial unlock of an engineer, a pay-per-grade upgrade route (perhaps a 25% increment each time per grade) without any material requirements.
Remote engineering could be done by simply paying the cost for the grade you want in your new ship.
Exploring is fun, but forced exploring is a pain in the posterior.
After the initial unlock of an engineer, a pay-per-grade upgrade route (perhaps a 25% increment each time per grade) without any material requirements.
Remote engineering could be done by simply paying the cost for the grade you want in your new ship.
Exploring is fun, but forced exploring is a pain in the posterior.
I wouldn't mind if Fdev introduced other ways to gather raw materials. Maybe we could also get some small amounts of them from destroyed ships - this would allow people interested in combat only to not mine anything.
But the problem would remain - some people would still complain that the game is tedious, because they don't like the idea behind it - they don't enjoy the genre - some want fast paced combat game, yet they play Elite - which is also about doing mundane things, like mining and scavenging, for a living. It's like playing city builder and complaining that you must first build that city you've imagined house by house, road by road.
This thread is actually about engineering being mandatory - and it's not. I'm really bored with people blaming game for their inability to use it properly.
But the problem would remain - some people would still complain that the game is tedious, because they don't like the idea behind it - they don't enjoy the genre - some want fast paced combat game, yet they play Elite - which is also about doing mundane things, like mining and scavenging, for a living. It's like playing city builder and complaining that you must first build that city you've imagined house by house, road by road.
This thread is actually about engineering being mandatory - and it's not. I'm really bored with people blaming game for their inability to use it properly.
In the weekly design meetings the FD lead designer asks the team for new ideas on annoying unenjoyable features they can add to the game. The idea came up they would secretly monitor @Turric4n_ED to determine specific things they could add to the game that the overall customer base would certainly not like.
This thread isn't even worth half a Bazmeson, unless the OP discussed it with his friend of course.
Old joke:
Patient - "Dr. Whenever I drink my coffee I get a sharp pain in my eye."
Dr - "Have you tried removing the spoon?"
ED version:
Commander - "Dr. Whenever I play Elite I get this grinding sensation."
Dr - "Have you tried not grinding?"
Patient - "Dr. Whenever I drink my coffee I get a sharp pain in my eye."
Dr - "Have you tried removing the spoon?"
ED version:
Commander - "Dr. Whenever I play Elite I get this grinding sensation."
Dr - "Have you tried not grinding?"
lol .. honestly gathering the RAW materials was one of the least boring things in the game.. So many ways to do it
a) Mining
b) Prospecting
c) A single visit to the Crystalline shards
I did all three and ended up with more materials I can spend. I went to the Crystalline shards just once. Not because I was in a hurry to get to grade 5 but because it sounded like a fun thing to explore. I did have fun for a few hours landing on 5 different planets and dealing with rough terrain.. Then I fully engineered an FDL, a Cutter and few other modules for the Asp Explorer and all my bins are still half full.. even after trading a lot of them for Selenium and even after synthesizing a lot of multi-cannon ammo.
Then after I did some mining unlocking an engineer I realized my Selenium was also half full.
The game is tedious only if you enjoy a small part of it (like PvP, Combat or owning half the fleet, engineered at G5) and consider everything else a grind to get you there. If you like the majority of the actions the game provides, then it just progresses organically.
a) Mining
b) Prospecting
c) A single visit to the Crystalline shards
I did all three and ended up with more materials I can spend. I went to the Crystalline shards just once. Not because I was in a hurry to get to grade 5 but because it sounded like a fun thing to explore. I did have fun for a few hours landing on 5 different planets and dealing with rough terrain.. Then I fully engineered an FDL, a Cutter and few other modules for the Asp Explorer and all my bins are still half full.. even after trading a lot of them for Selenium and even after synthesizing a lot of multi-cannon ammo.
Then after I did some mining unlocking an engineer I realized my Selenium was also half full.
The game is tedious only if you enjoy a small part of it (like PvP, Combat or owning half the fleet, engineered at G5) and consider everything else a grind to get you there. If you like the majority of the actions the game provides, then it just progresses organically.
God knows, maybe it's something to do with some clown telling a bunch of adults that they're 'wrong' for enjoying the things they do in their spare time or something.
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if you call him clown, i call you geezer
I'm sure I'd seen game trailers that used exaggerated imagery ("not in-game footage") prior to ED's, but what I and I suspect many other early backers had issue with was the wholesale misrepresentation of gameplay in that original 2014 trailer.
ED was unique in many ways from its (then) three decade legacy, to its unprecedented galaxy simulation, to its Kickstarter origins, to the fact that it already existed as a largely playable product by the time that trailer came out. FD had the perfect opportunity to present this unique game in an honest way, to use its own often stunning visuals to sell it for what it was -- a loose "simulation" of planetary travel, trade and exploration set against the most incredible example of procedural universe-building. A game that was generally sedate and experiential but with interludes of intense action.
Instead they chose to promote it as a fast-paced implied PVP shooter, exaggerating the movement of the ships to an impossible degree and ignoring pretty much every other aspect of the game except mining. And maybe piracy, if you look really closely. I know this is going to sound hyperbolic, especially to anyone who doesn't remember it first hand, but it actually felt like a betrayal. A betrayal not only of the people who'd been there since day one, watching the game develop into what it was and playing through the early builds, but a pre-emptive betrayal of new players who would be enticed by the trailer only to find out -- before or after purchase depending on how much research they did -- just how much it misrepresented the reality.
It was and remains one of FD's biggest missteps IMO; the first sign that there would be aspects of EDs future that would be decided more by marketing than by coding. An inevitability, perhaps, in the modern gaming landscape. But a disappointment nonetheless.
The Horizons trailer was much more honest in comparison. It still showed a lot more activity around bases than the game generally provides, and the graphics were all turned up to eleven as expected, but there was nothing in there that you couldn't actually do in game (except take the Kennedy voiceover literally and try to land on the Moon, I guess). It's almost as though FD learned a lesson after the reaction to the first trailer.
IMO FD's best promotional video was the teaser for Horizons. Aside from the clever camera work, which neither external camera system available to the player could replicate, there's next to nothing in there that you couldn't do in game. It's short, beautiful and to the point. And even though everyone knew Horizons was all about landing on airless worlds FD had done a sterling job of keeping the existence of the SRV under wraps, so those last three seconds were mind-blowing.
That is how you do a trailer.
They dont grind to get ships etc. Also the gold farming sales is a big issue. ! hr to reach Hutton Orbital is no longer funny. In JWE there are artificial delay counts just to make you wait.
You can call me anything you like mate, I'll be sure to add it to the list of things I don't give a crap about
Who don't grind to get ships? The people who enjoy the game? Some do, i'm pretty certain.
What gold farming sales?
Hutton Orbital is still mega funny when someone falls for it.
No idea about JWE since i haven't played it, but this might shock you, but its pretty normal practice to put timers into games to stop things happening too fast!
This.
I just did a little of everything and never had any more than maybe an hour or two of trading to eng. most of my ships. The OP can't understand that game like EURO TRUCK SIMULATOR are a thing and yes, some people do love just driving back and forth. The OP's condescing attitude to anyone who likes this slower gamestyle made this thread a joke.
With such a niche interest game like this, if you don't like it play something else is completely valid OP.
Instead of just complaining about it OP, what are you ideas to make the gameplay loops more fun that fits in a procedural generated universe of 4 billion planets so keep in mind there can be no narrative attached to these loops. Ok, GO
I just did a little of everything and never had any more than maybe an hour or two of trading to eng. most of my ships. The OP can't understand that game like EURO TRUCK SIMULATOR are a thing and yes, some people do love just driving back and forth. The OP's condescing attitude to anyone who likes this slower gamestyle made this thread a joke.
With such a niche interest game like this, if you don't like it play something else is completely valid OP.
Instead of just complaining about it OP, what are you ideas to make the gameplay loops more fun that fits in a procedural generated universe of 4 billion planets so keep in mind there can be no narrative attached to these loops. Ok, GO
Every single game has "grind" - a task or set of tasks that you need to repeat in order to get to an objective (earn money, get weapons, etc..) - are you saying that all ships in the game need to be made free, money needs to be removed and everyone should have access to everything without effort to avoid "grinding"? If a game doesn't have grind, it is known as a sandbox.
Also, gold farming? In Elite Dangerous? Sorry I'm not sure if you're sarcastic.
