*Warning* Wall text ahead, TL;DR ver is down the bottom of this post.
I'll start form my experience in another great space sim game: X3 Albion Prelude. Although very different in nature form Elite, it dose serve a great example about automation and large-scale management. I'll skip explanation of game mechanism, and purely speak form a player's point of view.
Albion Prelude is a game for single player I understand. The life cycle of each game is very different from a MMO game like Elite. However, what I want to point out is that: automation in this game doesn't obliterate player interaction in anyway. It enhances instead, by lifting repetitive actions players will have do to achieve what they desire, thus allowing players to spend more time and energy for those they care about most: decision making and experiencing the result of their choice. It is part of the game. It is designed so.
And here comes my suggestion(finally):
Autopilot, of course. There are many requests already so I will skip the detail. I personally prefer destinations with nav beacon only or even limited to stations and outposts. It can be combined with RPG-style npc crew to give us more control and interaction of its efficiency.
The autopilot itself is, like many past debate, probably going to greatly increase the AFK rate when travelling. I personally think it is already high enough for long distance stations. What we need now is mechanisms to support it.
Like I mentioned earlier, players are willing to perform activities that takes them to their desired outcome. As far as I understand in my point of view, in Elite some of these activities are as following:
Player interaction are excluded from this discussion, everyone has their own reason to do so. Some specific activities are also excluded for now. We are talking about gameplay-wise general cases.
Why are players sometimes complaining about grinding for something? Most of the case it is because in their point of view, what they desire to achieve doesn't match the cost they have to pay - time and energy spent in doing such activities.
And what is fun, engaging gameplay? In my opinion, it's about creating our own story, even from random events the game throws at us, and to have a sense of achievement at the cost we deem as acceptable, not too heavy and not too small. This really differs from person to person. But overall, its about cost and reward, cause and effect, labor and fruit. It's about the balance between them.
I've read a book written by Tynan Sylvester, creator of RimWorld, called "Designing Games", though not yet finish reading. In the book he emphasis a lot about player imagination and creating story on their own. The game isn't necessarily to provide a plot. When there's none, players will rationalize random events that comes from a reasonable rule to create their own plot.
For instance a player may have such experience: "I took out a pirate lord for a faction, and they consider me an ally now and give me many support when bounty hunting. But in the meantime, the pirates are angry and hunt me down wherever I go for a few days." Such personal experience can simply be achieved by set rules and predifined events trigger from player action. This book is very helpful in my opinion.
Now let's get back to our topic. So after all these wall text, I will conclude my points as following: If we are going to do automation, we do it thoroughly, with different mechanisms supporting each other. It is to provide players comprehensive tools to create the experience they desire, without asking players to do something they don't want to get what they want. It's about more options, more choices, and more possibility, to achieve the same goal.
How to accomplish this or even whether to do it or not is really up to you, you're the dev anyway
I look forward to future development of Elite as always.
TL;DR
Give players something to do while autopilot or auto travel, like managing fleet and business, or joining a remote CQC session, or anything that requires players attention. AFK will be history if players are kept busy all the time.
I'll start form my experience in another great space sim game: X3 Albion Prelude. Although very different in nature form Elite, it dose serve a great example about automation and large-scale management. I'll skip explanation of game mechanism, and purely speak form a player's point of view.
Albion Prelude is a game for single player I understand. The life cycle of each game is very different from a MMO game like Elite. However, what I want to point out is that: automation in this game doesn't obliterate player interaction in anyway. It enhances instead, by lifting repetitive actions players will have do to achieve what they desire, thus allowing players to spend more time and energy for those they care about most: decision making and experiencing the result of their choice. It is part of the game. It is designed so.
And here comes my suggestion(finally):
Autopilot, of course. There are many requests already so I will skip the detail. I personally prefer destinations with nav beacon only or even limited to stations and outposts. It can be combined with RPG-style npc crew to give us more control and interaction of its efficiency.
The autopilot itself is, like many past debate, probably going to greatly increase the AFK rate when travelling. I personally think it is already high enough for long distance stations. What we need now is mechanisms to support it.
Like I mentioned earlier, players are willing to perform activities that takes them to their desired outcome. As far as I understand in my point of view, in Elite some of these activities are as following:
- Earning credits. To buy bigger ships and better modules. To pay bounty, fines, and occasionally rebuy cost if any.
- Collecting materials. To do engineering stuff. To synthesis supplies.
- Completing missions. To earn credits. To increase faction relationship and navel rank.
- Earning merits. To get power specific modules. To maintain rating and its benefit.
Player interaction are excluded from this discussion, everyone has their own reason to do so. Some specific activities are also excluded for now. We are talking about gameplay-wise general cases.
Why are players sometimes complaining about grinding for something? Most of the case it is because in their point of view, what they desire to achieve doesn't match the cost they have to pay - time and energy spent in doing such activities.
And what is fun, engaging gameplay? In my opinion, it's about creating our own story, even from random events the game throws at us, and to have a sense of achievement at the cost we deem as acceptable, not too heavy and not too small. This really differs from person to person. But overall, its about cost and reward, cause and effect, labor and fruit. It's about the balance between them.
I've read a book written by Tynan Sylvester, creator of RimWorld, called "Designing Games", though not yet finish reading. In the book he emphasis a lot about player imagination and creating story on their own. The game isn't necessarily to provide a plot. When there's none, players will rationalize random events that comes from a reasonable rule to create their own plot.
For instance a player may have such experience: "I took out a pirate lord for a faction, and they consider me an ally now and give me many support when bounty hunting. But in the meantime, the pirates are angry and hunt me down wherever I go for a few days." Such personal experience can simply be achieved by set rules and predifined events trigger from player action. This book is very helpful in my opinion.
Now let's get back to our topic. So after all these wall text, I will conclude my points as following: If we are going to do automation, we do it thoroughly, with different mechanisms supporting each other. It is to provide players comprehensive tools to create the experience they desire, without asking players to do something they don't want to get what they want. It's about more options, more choices, and more possibility, to achieve the same goal.
How to accomplish this or even whether to do it or not is really up to you, you're the dev anyway
I look forward to future development of Elite as always.TL;DR
Give players something to do while autopilot or auto travel, like managing fleet and business, or joining a remote CQC session, or anything that requires players attention. AFK will be history if players are kept busy all the time.
