Why is this game so unneccesarily inconvenient?

I suspect that FDev does not actually "play" Elite. Oh sure they may fly a ship once in a while and get rammed to death by a griefer in an Orca (lol)... but I doubt that any of them log any real time into the game.
 
actually, there is

when you visit a station, all the data is stored and can be displayed as nearly useless animated vector on the galmap. i have yet to find out how to use this information for anything but working on the background simulation (aka as to make money)

Yeah...

I was thinking more along the lines of, for example, you deliberately visiting a bunch of systems surrounding one which has pristine metallic rings.
You could then do a bunch of mining, pull up your "ship's log" and be able to search for the station (within, say, 15Ly) where each commodity has the highest value so you can sell it there.
And if it turns out that the market has crashed in one place, cest la vie.
That'd retain a bit of the uncertainty without being willfully awkward.

Seems a bit silly that your ship has access to the astronomical data from all the places you've ever visited but doesn't have similar access to data about markets and supplies at stations you've visited.
 
WHAT??

You dont think a game dev should respect the time of its player base? WOW. Im beside myself here.

Im not even going to bother explaining it to you because its obvious you dont get it. Try getting a wife, a job and a few kids. Then maybe we can have this discussion. SMH

Thanks for that. You told me precisely nothing, while making unsubstantiated assumptions about my life. I'm sure your wife and kids are proud of you.

Since we're assuming: I assume you also feel that the FA doesn't respect the fans time by making football matches 90 minutes long. They could be done in 30 minutes, the extra 60 is just a time-gate.
 
Hopefully they'll get rid of rngineers before too long. Who thought that was a good idea? Whoever it was needs sitting down and talking to.
 
Last edited:
I suspect that FDev does not actually "play" Elite. Oh sure they may fly a ship once in a while and get rammed to death by a griefer in an Orca (lol)... but I doubt that any of them log any real time into the game.

They do play the game. Although, for quite obvious reasons, they can never get the amount of flytime as any random player, because coding is a full time job, literally. I know, because I code a lot myself. We sit and code a specific sequence, debug, testing it out fast, then back to coding. Almost never do we just sit a whole day testing every feature out in a row. There just isn't enough time to do that. But sometimes we are forced to, when reproducing a bug gets really nasty.

That is why FD have testers, like you, in beta.
 
eddb.io and inara are fan made bandaids for what should be in the game.

You can change the "laws of physics" in a simulated reality. Not to mention the properties of an alcubierre warp drive are mostly unknown to us at this time.

He was "crapping" for a change to make a game more enjoyable, nothing wrong with that. Some people play games for relaxation, not to get snide comments that they should "tale a breath, relax"

The info is in the game. It's just not convenient. You can look at the trade routes and at the import/export lists in the system editor. If you don't like it, just use the fan-based tools, like everyone else. What "should be in the game" is decided by the developers. If you don't like it, Elite is probably not a game you will enjoy.

This game is mostly an "Easter egg hunt". If you don't like searching for stuff, Elite is not for you. Elite is also a game which involves traveling from one place to another. If you don't like flying a spaceship, a spaceship flying game won't be enjoyable.

Not every game is suited for every player. Some of us like to fly a spaceship and hunt for stuff. If you don't, find another game; otherwise, you'll just be frustrated.
 
Yeah...

I was thinking more along the lines of, for example, you deliberately visiting a bunch of systems surrounding one which has pristine metallic rings.
You could then do a bunch of mining, pull up your "ship's log" and be able to search for the station (within, say, 15Ly) where each commodity has the highest value so you can sell it there.
And if it turns out that the market has crashed in one place, cest la vie.
That'd retain a bit of the uncertainty without being willfully awkward.

Seems a bit silly that your ship has access to the astronomical data from all the places you've ever visited but doesn't have similar access to data about markets and supplies at stations you've visited.

i know what you are talking about. it would already help if the market interface would not only have that "exportet to" and "imported from" info, but would also allow to display ship-stored data like actual price difference,
comparing with the current locked destination.

I suspect that FDev does not actually "play" Elite. Oh sure they may fly a ship once in a while and get rammed to death by a griefer in an Orca (lol)... but I doubt that any of them log any real time into the game.

FDEVs play, i and i feel the majority is playing it on Xbox..., and the GUI designer is a veteran on handheld systems
 
Taking a deep breath and pausing before posting fixes most things. However, No.5 Engineer crap I agree with. It's not necessarily the time taken to find the mats. It's the endless driving around barren landscapes poking rocks that's taxing.

I believe its like that because why should it be easy to build an overpowered player killing machine.
 
I think that things take an inconveniently long time because FD are spinning out the game as much as they can. That's it.
 
Last edited:
1: Finding crap.
Want a specific module? Well go ahead and visit a dozen stations. Your ship is useless without the modules. Yet you have to go spend hours to collect everything you need.
How hard can it be to make a module finder, huh? Why can't I just do a search? Does it make things too easy? Screw you. I was killed by a goddamn NPC and I could not fight back reliably and I was dead before I knew it. Why? Because my ship did not have the goddamn shield I wanted, and I was searching for the shield for the past 2 hours already. Seriously, go screw yourselves.
I get this for the most part but getting killed by an NPC I don’t. Two words… High Wake. Issue solved.

I do hate the fact that I have to travel to a system to purchase a ship and they didn’t have even a decent enough FSD to jump to the next system where I could buy the parts I want. Live and learn there… ALWAYS look for a ship in a system that has lots of stations or very good outfitting at the station you are at.

2: Trading crap.
But noooo, you would rather spend months on developing a fancy face generator instead of developing practical stuff. And then there's idiot players who encourage that kind of development. The hell is wrong with you?
Two words… Screen shots. We must have faces for selfies… It’s very important you know, brings in the younger crowd and all.

In all seriousness… I find it somewhat amusing that 2 of the 3 main features were not really gameplay items. The camera is not gameplay at all and isn't even in their marketing so I guess it’s down to 1 out of 2 items. Hollow me is not a gameplay item and because you can't have multiple commanders saved it is pretty much a do it and done kinda thing.

So that leaves the mutli-screw... AKA “Gank ME”. I do like some of the QOL improvements, but beyond multi-screw there was little added to the game. I'm still befuddled by the ED smiling and claiming the above were not even the best stuff of 2.3… Really. WOW. When is the rest of the stuff coming?

3: Planetary crap.
Why, oh why, do we even have surface installations? I find that those are the most worthless timewasters and I just want to get on with my day.
I love the “Scan the terminal” missions. Go ahead.. Scan that terminal. Like a fool, I did it once. Had a ship flying around who went nuclear as soon as I finished the scan. I ran, for 45 KILOMETERS! I used like 10 repairs and still it came after me… Just what is the point? I finally gave up, blew up and flew home to collect my reward. Beyond that, it cleaned out my mats storage for the next time I went mining.

I don’t mind the whole takeoff and landing thing, but most of the surface installations sell nothing and are just there to be mission givers. When Horizions first dropped, surface installation had various items that they made. Not so much anymore. It’s getting to be boring… How many skimmer missions can you do before you bored with them. Other missions depend on the “moving” mission target… Which I found to be a very lame mechanic about the second time I did one of these missions.

4: Travel crap.
Seriously the whole idea that celestial objects slow you down in supercruise is nonsense and the only reason why this mechanic is there is to slow you down.
Except when you want to slow down… Fly by a planet and you slow down. Overshoot a station, fly by a planet and suddenly it takes a lot longer to slow down.

The whole thing doesn’t make sense… I can accelerate and decelerate quickly in deep space. Get near a planet and I can’t accelerate very quickly due to the gravity well of a planet. ok, I understand that. I can’t decelerate very well either… Why does the planet extend length of both the acceleration phase and deceleration?

5: Engineer crap.
"This planet has like, 5% germanium yo"
Cool, so 1 in 20 chance to find it?

No. I went to a moon with 1.3% Niobium… Shot rocks. Niobium fell from the sky! 4 or 5 pieces from every other rock! Every rock type as well! Go to a planet with 2.9% arsenic… Find one piece in 45 minutes of looking. Something else, that was like 1.2%, found tons of that. Another thing, the wave scanner was broken for the whole 2.2 update. Why? One of the essential pieces of equipment for finding engineers mats and it works horribly. Great gameplay there!

It seems like a vast amount gameplay that is in the engineers update is flying/driving around, waiting for POIs or rocks to pop up and hoping they have the right kind of mats in them to further your gameplay. Not overly engaging. Then you go to the engineers and roll your dice. Nothing enhances or influences your mods, it just is what it is... Accept it or roll again.

As you can see, I’m getting tired of ED. Again. I did this before Christmas and left for a while to play other games. I had hoped ED would step up in 2.3 and flesh out some of the place holders… But, alas, they introduce even more. Mega Ships… Maybe someday they will add something other than another backdrop to a screen shot.

Screenshots seems to be the main focus of the game. You can make millions an hour… To buy ships… or upgrade ships. The missions are repetitive. There is very little difference doing one to the other. “To Be or Not to Be”… Interdicted… About the only variation I’ve seen. Except for “hey, we need this junk over here, you know, a system that you have no information about. Don’t worry, it’s only about 200,000 Ls into the system and we’ll give you about 2% for your extra time”. So glad they finally gave you the option to refuse…
While I have said that there are lots to do and mixing up the missions and such helps to keep it fresh, there are only so many missions to run and they are all the same.

I used to love to explore moons and such. But then they broke the scanner and made driving on icy planets a real pain. Now it’s fixed… Will 2.4 break it again? After doing a lot of exploring planets since Horizons dropped, I’m getting bored with it. I have no interest in “real” exploration. 500 hundred loading screens for a nice screen shot or 2 does not make up for the tedium of jumping, fueling, scanning, repeat. Neither does making more credits for it. Even some of the stuff they have been finding in the rift doesn’t add to the game. Looking for a needle in a hay stack is tedious. Even with a magnet… It’s still a lot of hay to comb thru.

I don’t see much hope for the future either… I have no idea where this “evolving” game is going. But with DLC like the guardians and commanders I have little hope for it as well.

So, I will take another break… Then I will come back to do what I love, which is flying the ships. And the game will seem fresher for a time…
 
Last edited:
Please retitle each paragraph to use the correct term for the current century, that should be bio-waste you're referring to, surely?!:cool:
 
  • Like (+1)
Reactions: NW3
Thanks for that. You told me precisely nothing, while making unsubstantiated assumptions about my life. I'm sure your wife and kids are proud of you.

Since we're assuming: I assume you also feel that the FA doesn't respect the fans time by making football matches 90 minutes long. They could be done in 30 minutes, the extra 60 is just a time-gate.

Ok. Hows this.

Fd doesnt respect your time because they artificiall inflate the time it takes to do EVERYTHING.. though im sure you would like me to cite specific examples. How many would you like?

I will start with these 2.

Supercruise accelleration- WAY to slow and time wastey for long trips. The amount of time it takes to travel places in supercruise is an arbitrary choice by the devs. It isnt based on anything. How long it takes to escape the gravity of an object- OR how far away an objects gravity slows you down.........both are arbitrary choices made by the devs. I personally like the supercruise mechanic as a whole. I just feel it could have been streamlined. But it never will be because it is an (intended) artificial time sink in a lot of ways.

And now for a less subjective example.

Naval ranks, Engineer invites and permit missions- instead of triggering once the player meets the criteria they rely on RNG. Players spends tons of time to meet the requirements- then they have to spend tons more time waiting for RNGesus to bestow the mission upon them.......

As a freeby.... i will toss in one more. Gathering engineer materials. But i dont feel like wrighting an essay on all the artificial time sinks you will find doing that.

If you need dozens of other examples...... Read the forums. Many others have stated them more eloquently than I ever could. Unless of course you are just being contrary for the sake of being contrary.

P.s. i noticed you said "unsubstantiated". Not "incorrect"
 
I broadly agree with the OP, and I strongly disagree with those that glibly say simply that the game isn't for those that don't like these things. It's none of their damn business to dictate whether the game is for people or not, and in fact, I'd argue that the people that can be 4rsed to play it for long enough to form an opinion and then take the trouble to express that opinion here are very much part of the set of people the game is 'for'.

I do think there should be in-game tools for things like module search and looking up trade prices - or at the very least as has been suggested, an in-game log that lets you check all the prices at places you've visited.

FWIW, I bought the Lifetime Expansion Pass in September 2015, as I thought the game had a fantastic future. I still do, generally, but a lot of the gameplay is immensely tedious and lacking in credibility.

Planetary landings would be a lot more bearable if the next target system was above the horizon about half the time (which you'd expect, on average), rather than about 5% of the time (which you wouldn't). It's hard to avoid the conclusion that they've just added that little inconvenience deliberately to slow you down, as it's just not credible that it would be that way.

Similarly engineer mods. It's just not credible that 34th century spaceship engineers would be so e that whether they achieve anything is a dice roll.

Similarly FSD jumping ... the interminable charging and countdown, as well as the entirely unpredictable time taken in the actual jump, which sometimes takes minutes. And then, coming out of hyperspace and having virtually no time whatsoever to avoid diving into the star. It's just not credible that it would be like that.

I do think that the priorities are wrong... there's so much immersion and interesting game-play that they could have worked on instead of the pointless 'playing with dollies and dressing them up', which is all that Holo-me boils down to.
 
Back
Top Bottom