Engineers Why is Elite Failing (in my opinion)? Negative Feedback Loops - An Analysis

[Ekar]

If having fun = doing repetitious things and there is no way around it .. I think their definition of fun is skewed. I want to have fun.. and as a BONUS there are good rewards on top of it. Sometimes rewards are fun. But the act itself of PLAYING a game needs to be FUN... NOT TEDIOUS.

Someone yesterday remarked how 'fun' it would be to take passengers in future missions to SagA. That's a lot of time spent staring at stars whizzing by (multiplying the 700 or so jumps to get there by the time it takes each hyperspace animation sequence to play). But some people like it.

Variety is the spice of life. To me the best things about the engineers update are the new voices at stations and the planet ground texture detailing. These weren't big ticket features but for me they help a lot because they inject detail and variety into the game. This is also the intention of the engineers themselves but I agree with others that the implementation is clunky and grindy at present, though I'm sure a lot of interesting things will come out of it (in regards to combat especially).

I kinda wish there was more an emphasis on tier 3 characters... the guys you meet day to day in the spacelanes. I imagine amost another tier of NPC (tier 2.5?) which acted more as characters in an Elder scrolls game. They'd have stories, tell jokes.. they'd want you to do things for them, they'd give you information or tip offs about the local system (alien artifact locations etc), places of interest, etc. Random encounters which just pop up every now and again, and then disappear. They could be really simple characters (Benny the Joker tells jokes. Another just rambles off conspiracy theories), or more complex, tying into the mission system and enabling various triggers elsewhere in the game. This kind of thing would go a long way to removing the tedious, cardboard nature of NPCs as targets or set dressing.

 

[Khelder]

Someone yesterday remarked how 'fun' it would be to take passengers in future missions to SagA. That's a lot of time spent staring at stars whizzing by (multiplying the 700 or so jumps to get there by the time it takes each hyperspace animation sequence to play). But some people like it.

But, you see, that would just be modifying (adding passengers) an activity (exploring/travel) that some already find interesting. Same way mods would be modifying other activities that some already find interesting (combat, trading, mining, exploring, whatever). Yet, it seems that actually just acquiring the mods has become the activity.

I kinda wish there was more an emphasis on tier 3 characters... the guys you meet day to day in the spacelanes. I imagine amost another tier of NPC (tier 2.5?) which acted more as characters in an Elder scrolls game. They'd have stories, tell jokes.. they'd want you to do things for them, they'd give you information or tip offs about the local system (alien artifact locations etc), places of interest, etc. Random encounters which just pop up every now and again, and then disappear. They could be really simple characters (Benny the Joker tells jokes. Another just rambles off conspiracy theories), or more complex, tying into the mission system and enabling various triggers elsewhere in the game. This kind of thing would go a long way to removing the tedious, cardboard nature of NPCs as targets or set dressing.

I would love this too.

 

[Cargobane]

It has nothing to do with Engineers, which are just a new bumper on the same car. Look at the Game. Since release, the most successful ongoing engagement as been the CG's.
They have driven the Game much more then either PP or DM/CQC. Albeit at the failing of the BGS to cater to the Player(s) because of Open/Solo Instance World Events (OSIWE).

And if you/ve been involved with any CG you can easily and painfully admit that the G means Grind as much as it means Goal. The Engineers is simply a personal CG to attend to without a Time limit to reach the next Level.

I pray only that any Aliens introduced into the Game will never be Player controlled.

 

[mojonaut]

......explore the ENTIRE UNIVERSE in NMS, and that planets rotated around its parent star, plus you could actually land on every planet to explore!
I tried to tell him that Elite Dangerous has been out for a year or more, but he had no idea what it was. Kinda frustrating tbh.

You forgot to mention Elite has no:

seamless transition from space to planet,
planets with atmosphere you can land on,
planets with weather,
planets with lifeforms that move and react to players
planets that you can interact with (creating caves etc.)
planets with water that you submerge into and explore
planets that don't all look the same.

But Elite does have:

a base game that is empty and lifeless
Powerplay - which is broken no one asked for
CQC - which is empty and no one asked for
Engineers - which RNG and no one asked for
Wings - which is almost impossible to meet up with your friends
AI - after engineers update now broken and over powered

yeah Elite is great, no wonder everyone is clamouring to get it.........oh wait!

 

[frostypaw]

You forgot to mention Elite has no:

seamless transition from space to planet,

it's seamless - try slow flying from orbit to planet.

planets with atmosphere you can land on,

can land on lots of them actually, just only thin atmospheres - it's just different data, different rendering not an engineering challenge. we don't yet because

planets with weather,

We have realistically modeled weather systems that look amazing complete with icecaps and glaciers and mountain ranges and beaches - NMS the planets are identical all over with the same weather all over, just spherical levels

planets with lifeforms that move and react to players

NPCs? Very nice looking ones though but even through the trailers so far the patterns are visible

planets that you can interact with (creating caves etc.)

kinda. any form of persistence is unconfirmed so let's not count our chickens yet

planets with water that you submerge into and explore

just more data, we have water worlds it's just landscape and drawing a thicker atmosphere to the computer

planets that don't all look the same.

lol you've seen all the NMS ones then? A lot of what you list that's "amazing" about NMS is stuff that Elite's held back on so they can do it with the beauty and realism of the rest of the game with modelled plate tectonics and mountain building and weathering, which I'm very glad of - I want something "realistic" - I want the scale and wonder of space with the tiny specks of dust turning out to be giant planets, I want to go visit Rigel and appreciate the distance to Sag A*....

Meanwhile NMS's got super realistic red-yellow-green-blue stars and planets a quarter the size of Halley's Comet in an RNG galaxy with no resemblance to a real one. Don't forget the fun multiplayer action and missions.

These are very different games. With different aims that will appeal to different people - Elite will stand or fall by itself, and quite possibly gain new fans from NMS's release as it will draw people back to the space game genre but will not appeal to everyone. For me it looks like a fun short diversion, but I can imagine years of play left in Elite. Let's deal with it's problems rather than bashing it with other games - let it excel not rush to meet an imaginary par.

 

[EValve]

it's seamless - try slow flying from orbit to planet.

Unless someone's willing to record their flight from planet to orbital station this remains largely arguable.
Since there's an instance between the two it would be highly likely that it is as the case between Systems, flying there and never seeing it.

 

[CMDR RubberStig]

Someone yesterday remarked how 'fun' it would be to take passengers in future missions to SagA. That's a lot of time spent staring at stars whizzing by (multiplying the 700 or so jumps to get there by the time it takes each hyperspace animation sequence to play). But some people like it.

Variety is the spice of life. To me the best things about the engineers update are the new voices at stations and the planet ground texture detailing. These weren't big ticket features but for me they help a lot because they inject detail and variety into the game. This is also the intention of the engineers themselves but I agree with others that the implementation is clunky and grindy at present, though I'm sure a lot of interesting things will come out of it (in regards to combat especially).

I kinda wish there was more an emphasis on tier 3 characters... the guys you meet day to day in the spacelanes. I imagine amost another tier of NPC (tier 2.5?) which acted more as characters in an Elder scrolls game. They'd have stories, tell jokes.. they'd want you to do things for them, they'd give you information or tip offs about the local system (alien artifact locations etc), places of interest, etc. Random encounters which just pop up every now and again, and then disappear. They could be really simple characters (Benny the Joker tells jokes. Another just rambles off conspiracy theories), or more complex, tying into the mission system and enabling various triggers elsewhere in the game. This kind of thing would go a long way to removing the tedious, cardboard nature of NPCs as targets or set dressing.

In my mind, I see three types of passenger missions right of the bat:
1. Commuter services over varying distances, through safe areas of the bubble - the passengers themselves being the general (poor) public (ie not targets for robery or murder by pirates)
2. Tourist services where a flight is taken to a specific location and shown around certain spectacles, perhaps a stop-over at a tourist trap station / planet, and returned to their origin
3. taxi services for very small groups across small distances (perhaps suitable for beginning players in their starter system)

Game Characters - yes I also agree we are sorely missing the kinds of memorable characters who make us laugh or annoy us for fun. Even the characters that have been introduced are very thin from a personality standpoint - the Engineers have no personality and neither do any of the powerplayers. There is even potential for interaction with the pirates who interdict us! I can certainly understand why mission givers have very little personality - there are so many of them! What is it- 5 to 10 in every station in the game? No problem - I don't really want to talk with them anyway - but imagine if there was someone who was our liaison with the Empire who we could interact with? There are only 3 major factions!

 

[frostypaw]

Unless someone's willing to record their flight from planet to orbital station this remains largely arguable.
Since there's an instance between the two it would be highly likely that it is as the case between Systems, flying there and never seeing it.

it's been done, and posted. But I CBA to find it.

Hopefully they'll get it working between systems at some point, considering how much more complex ours are and how far apart (most) systems are this doesn't bother me

 

[Colonel Kenney]

You forgot to mention Elite has no:

seamless transition from space to planet,
planets with atmosphere you can land on,
planets with weather,
planets with lifeforms that move and react to players
planets that you can interact with (creating caves etc.)
planets with water that you submerge into and explore
planets that don't all look the same.

But Elite does have:

a base game that is empty and lifeless
Powerplay - which is broken no one asked for
CQC - which is empty and no one asked for
Engineers - which RNG and no one asked for
Wings - which is almost impossible to meet up with your friends
AI - after engineers update now broken and over powered

yeah Elite is great, no wonder everyone is clamouring to get it.........oh wait!

This is why I think they should hire Josh Parnell and use hit Procedural ship system - and create other "races" and beings out there that are procedural. Make them so that you can interact with them like other ships but you could never fly their ships. You could only fly human ships. This would add life to the galaxy. Make jumping an supercruise the same thing. Make cargo scanning and the like the same thing but make their ships and people different. Make it difficult to communicate because you don't know their language. Make your actions affect your rep with those races and small factions similar to the way humans do it. Its the exact same system. But for you to communicate witih them you need to acquire a " language pack" somehow from outside their system to put into your computer before you can actually dock with any of their procedural stations/habitats .

Procedural could help them make infinite amounts of alien races, ships, stations. I don't know why they are takign YEARS to even release a SINGLE thargoid race.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Unless someone's willing to record their flight from planet to orbital station this remains largely arguable.
Since there's an instance between the two it would be highly likely that it is as the case between Systems, flying there and never seeing it.

Each solar system is a whole seperate instance. You can travel from a station on one side of the solar system to the another station on the other side seamlessly. It may take you years though. You can go from station to planet using normal space (they are not seperate instances), it has been done. It just takes a long time, so why would you. The only reason why you get a pause when you drop from supercruise, it is so your computer can sync with other players. The more players the longer the sync. If you are playing solo or in a solar system with zero player the drop is generally instant (thats has been how it is for me). All the assets have already been created when you jump into the system from another (that is the only true loading screen).

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This is why I think they should hire Josh Parnell and use hit Procedural ship system - and create other "races" and beings out there that are procedural. Make them so that you can interact with them like other ships but you could never fly their ships. You could only fly human ships. This would add life to the galaxy. Make jumping an supercruise the same thing. Make cargo scanning and the like the same thing but make their ships and people different. Make it difficult to communicate because you don't know their language. Make your actions affect your rep with those races and small factions similar to the way humans do it. Its the exact same system. But for you to communicate witih them you need to acquire a " language pack" somehow from outside their system to put into your computer before you can actually dock with any of their procedural stations/habitats .

Procedural could help them make infinite amounts of alien races, ships, stations. I don't know why they are takign YEARS to even release a SINGLE thargoid race.

There are certain alien races that are part of the lore, so I would imagine that they would want to put these in first in a good way, before they start seeding PG aliens all over the galaxy. They may also only want a certain amount of different aliens with a dinstinct flavour for each.

Also what do you mean make jump and Supercruise the same?

 

[frostypaw]

This is why I think they should hire Josh Parnell and use hit Procedural ship system - and create other "races" and beings out there that are procedural. Make them so that you can interact with them like other ships but you could never fly their ships. You could only fly human ships. This would add life to the galaxy. Make jumping an supercruise the same thing. Make cargo scanning and the like the same thing but make their ships and people different. Make it difficult to communicate because you don't know their language. Make your actions affect your rep with those races and small factions similar to the way humans do it. Its the exact same system. But for you to communicate witih them you need to acquire a " language pack" somehow from outside their system to put into your computer before you can actually dock with any of their procedural stations/habitats .

Procedural could help them make infinite amounts of alien races, ships, stations. I don't know why they are takign YEARS to even release a SINGLE thargoid race.

Because that wouldn't be as fun, as good or at all realistic.

There could be around 25 odd other intelligent species around in the Milky Way according to a huge bunch of theorising by minds far greater than you or I - we already know of a fair number of restricted areas of space containing areas far larger than our own bubble - and with a relatively sane number in mind these can each be crafted into something special and unique as if each evolved entirely separately from the others. We have a chance for really interesting and complex encounters with properly structured lore and stories rather than it being on a (guided) dice roll

Otherwise that's all the kinda alien stuff I hope for - peace or war to make, trade to begin and reputation to earn - whole new career options or expansions of existing ones into archaeology or diplomacy - so much is doable. This game's been out for no time really for all they've done - I can wait until Winter.

 

[Colonel Kenney]

Because that wouldn't be as fun, as good or at all realistic.

There could be around 25 odd other intelligent species around in the Milky Way according to a huge bunch of theorising by minds far greater than you or I - we already know of a fair number of restricted areas of space containing areas far larger than our own bubble - and with a relatively sane number in mind these can each be crafted into something special and unique as if each evolved entirely separately from the others. We have a chance for really interesting and complex encounters with properly structured lore and stories rather than it being on a (guided) dice roll

Otherwise that's all the kinda alien stuff I hope for - peace or war to make, trade to begin and reputation to earn - whole new career options or expansions of existing ones into archaeology or diplomacy - so much is doable. This game's been out for no time really for all they've done - I can wait until Winter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation


= Millions of races out there living right now traveling in space.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation


= Millions of races out there living right now traveling in space.

It says anywhere between 1000-100,000,000 civilisations in the milky way. A lot wont be space faring or even techonologically advanced civilisations either. We have found loads of earthlikes with life, there you have your civilisations. The chances of life evoloving and becoming technologically advanced at a similar rate to us is very slim.

 

[Colonel Kenney]

It says anywhere between 1000-100,000,000 civilisations in the milky way. A lot wont be space faring or even techonologically advanced civilisations either. We have found loads of earthlikes with life, there you have your civilisations. The chances of life evoloving and becoming technologically advanced at a similar rate to us is very slim.

That is for debate. Personally I'm of the belief there is far more life in the galaxy than we think and we are visited regularly - there is ample proof of that. Just whether or not we are to be "contacted" is a whole other story. Prime directive and all that. I subscribe to the zoo theory.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

That is for debate. Personally I'm of the belief there is far more life in the galaxy than we think and we are visited regularly - there is ample proof of that. Just whether or not we are to be "contacted" is a whole other story. Prime directive and all that. I subscribe to the zoo theory.

It's all up for debate and nobody knows for sure, and if we are visited on a regular basis, then FTL travel hopefully is a possibility (I know the current research on warp engines means that it may be). But I do certainly believe that we are not alone in our galaxy.

I'm sure we will find out soon as long as we don't destroy ourselves first.

 

[Colonel Kenney]

It's all up for debate and nobody knows for sure, and if we are visited on a regular basis, then FTL travel hopefully is a possibility (I know the current research on warp engines means that it may be). But I do certainly believe that we are not alone in our galaxy.

I'm sure we will find out soon as long as we don't destroy ourselves first.

Amen to that brother.

 

[frostypaw]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation


= Millions of races out there living right now traveling in space.

That's at the maximum possible values though - at minimums it's 20.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Edited thread title for clarity.

 

[Colonel Kenney]

It is implied for brevity and had a question mark? What rule is broken with the original title?
Its ok I'll take it to private message. I've got about a dozen other titles I need to report to you to make sure you edit their titles as well.

 

[Colonel Kenney]

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131494/behavioral_game_design.php

Found another good article.

I've got one astounding one on game theory that could apply to all games and shows exactly why this is failing. Why the frequency of discontent will rise until there is nothing left but the dying heartbeat of a few fanboys.