Elite: Dangerous

[Blaine]

 

[J_C]

you won't be. the whole game is a huge grindfest, 'cause (as Mortmal mentioned) there is no ship balance in the game so bigger=better up until the Asp... then skip everything up to the Python and bam, game over. the more i play, the more boring it is

the Viper is good, better than the eagle with a few upgrades. i've been messing around with it (Viper, mostly A upgrades, 4 multicannons [E2+F1]) for the past 2-3h and i have no idea how you can screw up so badly that you're running away from a sidewinder. i had no problems with asps, clippers, cobras etc.. even managed to take down 2 condas and a python. anyway, a cobra with gimballed 2 laz0rs and 2 railguns/cannons/multicannons is a much much better combat craft in every conceivable way.

Yeah, I was a bit hasty with the judgement of the Viper. I got used to it, and I was just on a huge hunting rampage, killing every type of ship (even 3 anacondas) with shitty pulse lazers and multicannons. Now this was exciting, but I really don't like all that grinding. I imagine I will be bored with the game in a few weeks at max.

 

[Blaine]

Getting a whole month out of any game is a feat in itself. Almost every indie game ever released can be completed in a day or a weekend. It's rare to get a whole week of enjoyment out of one, let alone a month or more.

Of course, I tend to play games either in marathons or not at all, which is why I'll go all week without playing anything. It's also why I've been playing simple platformers and Pac-Man Championship Edition during the holidays. I don't have time for anything else. One hour left before I need to sleep and get up the next morning? I ain't playing shit.

 

[Bradylama]

This is a modular system to begin with, and additional content will be added in the future so it's always something you can come back to. People are going to be playing this game for a long time, just like the original. They got the core space flight gameplay wonderfully, it's a joy even to fly a ship that you know is inferior just because of the way it handles. If they do planetary exploration right, this game will be on a whole new level.

 

[Crispy]

Agreed.

 

[praetor]

This is a modular system to begin with, and additional content will be added in the future so it's always something you can come back to. People are going to be playing this game for a long time, just like the original. They got the core space flight gameplay wonderfully, it's a joy even to fly a ship that you know is inferior just because of the way it handles. If they do planetary exploration right, this game will be on a whole new level.

yup, but that's the only thing they got right. trading is incredibly boring and tedious, mining the same, exploring a bit less but still dull, combat gets stale cause it's always the same shit, there's no interesting missions, there's no interesting reasons to join factions (weee.. you can get the clipper or the dropship after a while... so awesome! really looking forward to insanely expensive shit-tier ships that are outclassed by the asp at a 10th of the price!), no unique upgrades tied to factions or whatever, no cool faction events (so a minor faction got 100% influence in a system out of a bazillion. that's so cool. not. they really really need to start an empire-federation war and expand the ship roster [both flyable and non] asap), there's no cool NPCs or groups of them flying around (playing the "spot the pop culture reference" game stops being funny after the 2nd), the USSes are all the fucking same (if i see another funeral barge or that shitty lone type9 i'm gonna send braben some rape threats), and the ship balance is very very bad so everybody will eventually fly the same 2-3 ships (just looking at the traffic reports it's already that way... at first it used to be all over the place with mostly sidewinders, now the vast majority are cobra/t6/asp, and in a couple of weeks/a month when everybody who'll get bored of the inane grind will leave, it'll be asp/t7/python), it's just get money money money so that you can earn more money. there's a good core for a game hidden here, but it'll need a lot of work to be an actual game worth playing

yeah, i played it more than most games, but all i got is a bigger ship out of it... fan fucking tastic

 

[Bradylama]

This is a story in screenshots.

http://imgur.com/a/PNRzb

Popped into this system on a trade run and stopped to do a bit of exploring when I noticed all these conflict zones. I look at the map and there's only one station. Then I look at my systems panel and there's only one faction. Then I go to the conflict zone and all of the ships are either faction allied or system authority, and none of them are fighting each other.

 

[Morkar Left]

I don't know what people are pissed about that trading is the main gameplay in ELITE? Every fucking free open space sim is like that. The only difference is that you have no single player campaign integrated like in Privateer. Elite is a game that you play from time to time over years and NOT like an MMO where you rush to level cap and start screaming "Where'e ma content?". The game doesn't work like this.

Offline mode and the ability to mod would have made the game a completely different experience. The problem I see is that with the skipping of the offline mode the game will vanish when people lose interest for a period of time. It will only run as long as it generates money and I doubt that it will generate enough of it on a constant basis to make it worthwhile for Frontier. Wrong strategic decision imho which will backfire. Nobody can tell me that you NEED to have a server for the gameplay to work.

Btw. selling one paintjob for one specific ship for 12,50 € is ridiculous...

Let's see how they can improve the game and keeping it alive.

 

[praetor]

I don't know what people are pissed about that trading is the main gameplay in ELITE? Every fucking free open space sim is like that. The only difference is that you have no single player campaign integrated like in Privateer. Elite is a game that you play from time to time over years and NOT like an MMO where you rush to level cap and start screaming "Where'e ma content?". The game doesn't work like this.

the problem is that this is a 90ies game (although technically the first 2 Frontiers are a bit more advanced than this) with 2014 graphics:

• the "missions" are barely more complicated than what Freelancer had more than a decade ago (they should've implemented some cool multi-stage missions, essentially sidequests, for the "naval progression" stuff, but all we got is just another generic "fetch quest")
• the background "simulation" is essentially meaningless (yay, a faction now has 100% influence in a system! what does that mean? only that now there's only one faction in the system and that number reads 100%. you're friendly with a faction? awesome, now the ships belonging to that faction will be all green so bounty hunting at nav beacons/extraction zones will be a bit less tedious. oh, you wanted some faction exclusive goodies? haha.. no. well, there's 2 ships that are very bad for how much you pay for them [although they do look sexy, but considering you'll only ever see them while outfitting...], but that's it) and has more in common with biowarian fake choices than anything else
• trading is boring 'cause it's actually really shallow and the "dynamic" part is also essentially meaningless, so all you do is find a high tech and an extraction base and ferry the most profitable goods until it dries up and you find the next same thing until your eyes bleed and your brain melts because everything is insanely expensive and there's literally no reason to not go for the bigger ships since they're simply better (as Mortmal said, there is no ship specialization so, for example, it's pointless to stick with a less expensive combat ship when a mid-range multipurpose will be just as good if not better at combat, but will also offer other options to make money).

and that's imho the biggest flaw with the game because the ship progression is so linear that it essentially encourages (demands, even) the grind, and by far the most time efficient way to grind is the superboring trading. there's a great game waiting to happen in this engine, but right now i have my doubts FD have the skills to bring it out

Btw. selling one paintjob for one specific ship for 12,50 € is ridiculous...

nah, it's what will pay for the servers in the long run... if there'll be enough people playing in a month or two. plus, it's better than paying for weapons and ships

 

[Bradylama]

That 12.50 € paintjob is gold for gold class suckers.

 

[Mortmal]

I have my doubts like praetor too, reading forums it seems people have many issues with disconnections, losing their hard earned cargo and such. You cant force an all online client then have such a poor server performance after, its similar to sim city debacle.I've seen lone indies devs doing a lot better than this. Hazeron for exemple if you remember it, had a whole living galaxy , with planets and critters and you could build your own ships . Graphics were not nearly as good as elite dangerous of course but there was many more features and gameplay.

 

[Bradylama]

The ability to finance the servers is a concern that I have too. They haven't made any announcements on the timeframe for the first expansion, so until then all of their income is going to come from new sales or paintjobs. A real fingers crossed model, but I'm hoping it pans out.

 

[J_C]

I have my doubts like praetor too, reading forums it seems people have many issues with disconnections, losing their hard earned cargo and such. You cant force an all online client then have such a poor server performance after, its similar to sim city debacle.I've seen lone indies devs doing a lot better than this. Hazeron for exemple if you remember it, had a whole living galaxy , with planets and critters and you could build your own ships . Graphics were not nearly as good as elite dangerous of course but there was many more features and gameplay.

I feel for the people who have disconnection problems, but I really don't see this. Since the launch of Elite, I only had 2 disconnections. I was angry when it happened, but I think there servers are pretty stable.

On another note, I was annoyed buy the bounty system today a lot. So, I was going pirate hunting, and made a lot of money. Obviously some of this money was from federation money, some from alliance and some from empire. Now I spent 1 boring, and I mean boooooring hour with travelling to empire space and back, which means around 30 jumps. You can imagine how fun it was. I don't understand why can't you turn in bounties at other stations than the faction's station. It is the 34th century dammit, I assume they can verify you bounty account or whatever and can pay you.

I was thinking maybe I should get a ship just for travelling long distances. Strip out everything which is not needed and put a huge ass fuel tank and FSD in it. What do you guys think which ship would do the best in this regard?

 

[praetor]

I feel for the people who have disconnection problems, but I really don't see this. Since the launch of Elite, I only had 2 disconnections. I was angry when it happened, but I think there servers are pretty stable.

i only had one since lunch, but a quick look at hugbox central the official forums and reddit will show you that shitloads of players have lots of connection problems (and usually roughly at the same time so it's pretty clear the problem is on FD's end)

I was thinking maybe I should get a ship just for travelling long distances. Strip out everything which is not needed and put a huge ass fuel tank and FSD in it. What do you guys think which ship would do the best in this regard?

a cheap ass hauler with everything stripped, all d class and best fsd should get you near 30ly jump range unladen and should be less than 150k

 

[Morkar Left]

the problem is that this is a 90ies game (although technically the first 2 Frontiers are a bit more advanced than this) with 2014 graphics:

• the "missions" are barely more complicated than what Freelancer had more than a decade ago (they should've implemented some cool multi-stage missions, essentially sidequests, for the "naval progression" stuff, but all we got is just another generic "fetch quest")

Sure, Missions with multiple choice sections would be cool but I wouldn't really expect them in a space sim.

• the background "simulation" is essentially meaningless (yay, a faction now has 100% influence in a system! what does that mean? only that now there's only one faction in the system and that number reads 100%. you're friendly with a faction? awesome, now the ships belonging to that faction will be all green so bounty hunting at nav beacons/extraction zones will be a bit less tedious. oh, you wanted some faction exclusive goodies? haha.. no. well, there's 2 ships that are very bad for how much you pay for them [although they do look sexy, but considering you'll only ever see them while outfitting...], but that's it) and has more in common with biowarian fake choices than anything else

I think that is actually a really cool system because it allows infinite possible and makes the universe really changing. Of course the outcome is in the end still numbers and nameshifting but I'm sure there can be more difference put into it like getting special missions from a faction when you associate with them to fight against another faction they are in conflict with. Maybe getting outlawed by a rivaling faction and ambushed by assasins etc. But factions need to get a bit more fleshed out (personal).

But for the persistent online universe it creates great possibilities for rp and allows larping to actually have a noticable effect. It gets even better when/if more and more people start to create fancontent outside of the game which affects ingame with it. E.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goF-9ZmeOkk isa fan made news channel which not only picks up the official news but news of fan events, too.

• trading is boring 'cause it's actually really shallow and the "dynamic" part is also essentially meaningless, so all you do is find a high tech and an extraction base and ferry the most profitable goods until it dries up and you find the next same thing until your eyes bleed and your brain melts because everything is insanely expensive and there's literally no reason to not go for the bigger ships since they're simply better (as Mortmal said, there is no ship specialization so, for example, it's pointless to stick with a less expensive combat ship when a mid-range multipurpose will be just as good if not better at combat, but will also offer other options to make money).

I was never expecting anything other from such a game. In the end trading is always buy low sell high.

and that's imho the biggest flaw with the game because the ship progression is so linear ...

I agree wit the ships progression somewhat. There should be more specialised ships (with a clear focus on cargo hauling, trading, combat, exploration) with the cobra as the median as a multi-purpose vessel.

... that it essentially encourages (demands, even) the grind, and by far the most time efficient way to grind is the superboring trading.

What you call grinding is the basic game concept of all such games. But missions and the like could use some tweaking in money.

there's a great game waiting to happen in this engine, but right now i have my doubts FD have the skills to bring it out

I have more concerns about them having not enough time and money to make it happen. I don't agree with a bunch of design decisions but overall the game is very well and competently done (minus server problems).

nah, it's what will pay for the servers in the long run... if there'll be enough people playing in a month or two. plus, it's better than paying for weapons and ships

I think they would actually sell a lot more when the pricetag would be 3 € and a released paintjob would be available for all existing ships. A lot more people would buy them which would even encourage players to buy newly released ones as "their" paintjob becomes too common (similar to fashion). And being able to actually freely look a your ship would be a huge encouragement to buy actually buy such paintjobs.

 

[Blaine]

"Bigger is better" is a pretty massive flaw, yes.

 

[Sinatar]

I think some people forget that this was a kickstarter that earned $2.4 million, and not some massive triple AAA title. Yea it's a bit barebones, but given the team size and budget that should have been expected by anyone whose IQ exceeds their shoe size.

 

[bonescraper]

The Kickstarter was just a cherry on top to be honest. Elite's total budget is at least 15 million $.

 

[Crispy]

Yeah a AAA AAA AAA game would've been...

 

[Sinatar]

The Kickstarter was just a cherry on top to be honest. Elite's total budget is at least 15 million $.

This could be, according to wikipedia the last known budget was 8 million pounds (12 million $) and had grown since then, so it's much bigger then I thought. I stand corrected.

I guess it's barebones cause they are a bunch of lazy wankers after all. :p

 

[Blaine]

I think some people forget that this was a kickstarter that earned $2.4 million

How many millions of dollars are needed to sit down with a graph paper pad and a pencil and suss out ship role diversity? We're talking about tweaking variables and hardpoints here, not hiring Arnold Schwarzenegger to voice mission descriptions.

 

[Sinatar]

I think the ship balance is reasonable at the moment, especially given that only half the planned ships are in the game.

 

[Bradylama]

Shield Cell Banks are in serious need of a nerf to balance out the disparity between ships, and to make combat actually dangerous. As it is, the ship that can fit the most cell banks will always be king. If I can only fit one fuel scoop, there's no good reason I can fit four cell banks.

 

[Sinatar]

Yea I think there should be both a limit of 1 bank per ship and have a cooldown on deploying the cells themselves, as it is it's a bit diablo health potion spam like.

 

[shihonage]

http://massively.joystiq.com/2015/0...rver-goes-haywire-creates-instant-billionair/

These events have naturally prompted a resurgence of complaints about Elite's always-online gameplay, as players have found themselves unable to play without problem even in solo mode.

My predictions are starting to come true. It has begun.