Why not let players play the way they want?

BlackSpaceCowboy

BlackSpaceCowboy
If you're a bounty hunter, you like bounty hunting. If you're a pirate, you like pirating. If you're a miner, you like mining. If you're an explorer you like exploring.

Upgrading your ship should happen naturally as a consequence of playing your role.

You should never be forced to change the way you play to achieve some specific objective.

I spent a few hours yesterday scanning wakes at a distribution center and shooting rocks looking for Arsenic on a planet. It was immersion breaking because my activity didn't fit my role (bounty hunter). Why am I scanning wakes or shooting rocks when I'm a bounty hunter?

I think we all want to be immersed in our respective roles. The activities we engage in should make sense based on our role.

Do you feel the game, as it is, allows you to remain immersed in your role? Do your actions feel convincing and believable based on your role?
 

Ian Skippy

Ian Skippy
You seem to really be asking if every choice shoukd lead to every desirable reward. While I dont feel the current way is particularly excellent, I dont feel what you want is good either. Playing your own way doesnt mean there shouldnt be consequences in terms of rewards.

Having said that, scanning wakes is pants because it isnt integrated into anything. Ideally youd be doing it anyway to actually hunt your bounty. :p
 
Last edited:

SMcA

SMcA
BlackSpaceCowboy said:
If you're a bounty hunter, you like bounty hunting. If you're a pirate, you like pirating. If you're a miner, you like mining. If you're an explorer you like exploring.

Upgrading your ship should happen naturally as a consequence of playing your role.

You should never be forced to change the way you play to achieve some specific objective.

I spent a few hours yesterday scanning wakes at a distribution center and shooting rocks looking for Arsenic on a planet. It was immersion breaking because my activity didn't fit my role (bounty hunter). Why am I scanning wakes or shooting rocks when I'm a bounty hunter?

I think we all want to be immersed in our respective roles. The activities we engage in should make sense based on our role.

Do you feel the game, as it is, allows you to remain immersed in your role? Do your actions feel convincing and believable based on your role?
Click to expand...

If you think about it, you can play the way you want. You may not get what you want, though.
In real life the rules keep changing nothing is static. I couldn't count all the changes in the way we live, in my life.
Flexibility is paramount always.
 

BlackSpaceCowboy

BlackSpaceCowboy
sleutelbos said:
You seem to really be asking if every choice shoukd lead to every desirable reward. While I dont feel the current way is particularly excellent, I dont feel what you want is good either. Playing your own way doesnt mean there shouldnt be consequences in terms of rewards.

Having said that, scanning wakes is pants. :p
Click to expand...

No, I'm saying that you should be rewarded for playing the role you enjoy. I'm saying that should be a core ideal of the game.

You should never be forced to do anything just to obtain some reward. Whatever that thing you have to do will be fun for some but tedious for others. Instead, players should choose what they want to do and be rewarded as they progress.

Most games reward you with experience points which the player can spend on upgrades. But the player is free to gain experience by playing the game any way they want.
 

BlackSpaceCowboy

BlackSpaceCowboy
SMcA said:
If you think about it, you can play the way you want. You may not get what you want, though.
In real life the rules keep changing nothing is static. I couldn't count all the changes in the way we live, in my life.
Flexibility is paramount always.
Click to expand...

Can I fully upgrade my ship by bounty hunting alone?

But real life is a grind. You're often forced to play life in ways you don't want to obtain a reward (money). We don't want to bring the grind of real life into a game.
 

lefty1117

L
So essentially what you are saying is, if you're going to be forced to scan wakes, it should be for gaining data to build a better wake scanner, or to track a target. If you want to build a better mining laser, you should do that by gaining rewards from mining missions, or mining rocks, or building rep with a mining faction. etc. I get it. I think it makes a lot of sense.

I think what FD was trying to do was give players an incentive to engage in areas where they may not normally play. The best example I can think of is in World of Warcraft, where to craft a high end armor there may be a mining component needed, even though the gathering profession that best lines up with Tailoring might be herbalism. It's supposed to incent you to either go learn mining, or engage with players. It's in this second part where FD's approach falls over, because player engagement options are VERY limited, and there's no player trade house, galactic trade market, etc.

Now the material traders are a tentative step towards remedying this, but they wouldn't even make it so that we didn't have to "discover" them in their home systems. Which goes back to the sort of punishing grind that FD embeds into every part of the game. It sucks joy out of the gameplay at times.

BTW I really pity the person that clears their saves at this point, since everything has to be "discovered" even in populated space a thousand years in the future.
 

SushiCW

SushiCW
I actually really like that the game forces me out of my comfort zone to do a variety of things.

I dislike when it forces me out of my ship, ​though.
 

seko

seko
BlackSpaceCowboy said:
If you're a bounty hunter, you like bounty hunting. If you're a pirate, you like pirating. If you're a miner, you like mining. If you're an explorer you like exploring.

Upgrading your ship should happen naturally as a consequence of playing your role.

You should never be forced to change the way you play to achieve some specific objective.

I spent a few hours yesterday scanning wakes at a distribution center and shooting rocks looking for Arsenic on a planet. It was immersion breaking because my activity didn't fit my role (bounty hunter). Why am I scanning wakes or shooting rocks when I'm a bounty hunter?

I think we all want to be immersed in our respective roles. The activities we engage in should make sense based on our role.

Do you feel the game, as it is, allows you to remain immersed in your role? Do your actions feel convincing and believable based on your role?
Click to expand...

DWE are given out as mission rewards now
 

BlackSpaceCowboy

BlackSpaceCowboy
lefty1117 said:
So essentially what you are saying is, if you're going to be forced to scan wakes, it should be for gaining data to build a better wake scanner, or to track a target.
Click to expand...

I would say that if you're scanning wakes it's because you're bounty hunting and tracking ships. You should be able to trade your wake scans for materials you need for engineering a butter wake scanner or any other ship component.

In other words, wake scans and materials drops from destroyed ships work like experience points. You can then convert your experience points (wake scans and materials) into materials needed for upgrades.

I don't even even mind FD trying to give players incentive to try different parts of the game. The problem is that forcing players to spend a lot of time scanning wakes or shooting rocks is not giving them a taste of different parts of the game. And there's a difference between an incentive and forcing players.

I was really enjoying this game when I was just bounty hunting. It's only when I was forced to do other things for progression that things became less enjoyable.
 

KellyR

KellyR
BlackSpaceCowboy said:
Can I fully upgrade my ship by bounty hunting alone?

But real life is a grind. You're often forced to play life in ways you don't want to obtain a reward (money). We don't want to bring the grind of real life into a game.
Click to expand...

The game simulates what FD thinks life will be like in 3304. So yes, there's going to be grind, like there is in real life. Like it or not (and I don't much care for it), that's what simulate means; to be like something else.
 

PigKiller

PigKiller
Even the bounty hunter needs to buy and maintain guns. A pirate needs to repair his ship. A miner needs tools. A explorer needs, well, everything.
These things don't just come to them; they make an effort to obtain them. And that can be a chore in itself.
 

Gun Star

Gun Star
BlackSpaceCowboy said:
I would say that if you're scanning wakes it's because you're bounty hunting and tracking ships. You should be able to trade your wake scans for materials you need for engineering a butter wake scanner or any other ship component.

In other words, wake scans and materials drops from destroyed ships work like experience points. You can then convert your experience points (wake scans and materials) into materials needed for upgrades.

I don't even even mind FD trying to give players incentive to try different parts of the game. The problem is that forcing players to spend a lot of time scanning wakes or shooting rocks is not giving them a taste of different parts of the game. And there's a difference between an incentive and forcing players.

I was really enjoying this game when I was just bounty hunting. It's only when I was forced to do other things for progression that things became less enjoyable.
Click to expand...

Well Wake scanners are BH tools.

You dont have to collect all those things. Engineers is completely elective. I know a lot of people that BH in unengineered ships.
 

BlackSpaceCowboy

BlackSpaceCowboy
KellyR said:
The game simulates what FD thinks life will be like in 3304. So yes, there's going to be grind, like there is in real life. Like it or not (and I don't much care for it), that's what simulate means; to be like something else.
Click to expand...

I would love if it were a simulator. But I'm pretty sure that in 3304 you can just buy arsenic like you can do today. In real life you don't go mining the raw materials you need to upgrade your car's exhaust system. And I doubt we would reintroduce bartering in 3304.

I think it would be great if it did stick to being a simulator. And that's essentially what I'm advocating.

In real life, you don't have to be a gold prospector to obtain gold. You can be a doctor and earn money and convert that money into gold. I'm just suggesting that whatever role you take in the game, you should be able to convert your experience in that role into upgrades you want.
 

babelfisch

babelfisch
I think every activity should offer every material but certain activities should be way faster than others. That would still encourage people to take a look at the other professions without forcing them if they don't want to.

Let's say you need a specific material that can be mined and you would find it pretty quick after 5-15 minutes. Sometimes you could also find it in the cargo hold of a pirate/trader/power play agent but given the amount of materials and commodities that would only be 1/100. Or you get it as mission reward or find it in the USS. That would be ideal but isn't that already the case for most stuff?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom