*** The Official Elite: Dangerous Thread ***

Soldato
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Yep, it seems pretty obvious that the development direction has been to enable ARX sales for cosmetics, which to be fair I would not have an issue with if the base game actually worked as advertised.
 
Soldato
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Wow, as someone who had been playing elites since 1984 on a BBC model B this makes me really sad.

The game has needed a vision for a long time now. It seems increasingly likely that FDev simply won't or can't deliver it :(
 
Soldato
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I have thousands of hours under my belt in Elite: Dangerous and have played Elite since it's first iteration back on the BBC Model B, so this really ***** me off. FDev flat-out lied to their paying customers by promising something they knew they couldn't deliver and then had the gall to charge people full-price to beta test their unfinished software. And then, just to compound those acts of pure derision towards their customers, they flat-out broke the game for everyone - including those that didn't fall for the beta test con.
 
Soldato
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When your most popular and widely regarded YouTuber/steamer (obsidianant) is posting videos saying it's the end of the road, that they're no longer actively creating content for your game on a regular basis and only plan to issue a monthly update video that should send alarm bells ringing at Frontier management.

I can't say I blame him given the current Odyssey situation. They've literally ruined what was a once amazing and unique game.

ObsidianAnt is clearly hedging his bets by creating other content (fs2020, SC, etc) as it's looking far from certain that Frontier will actually be able to fix the game....:confused:
 
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Associate
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When your most popular and widely regarded YouTuber/steamer (obsidianant) is posting videos saying it's the end of the road, that they're no longer actively creating content for your game on a regular basis and only plan to issue a monthly update video that should send alarm bells ringing at Frontier management.

I can't say I blame him given the current Odyssey situation. They've literally ruined what was a once amazing and unique game.

ObsidianAnt is clearly hedging his bets by creating other content (fs2020, SC, etc) as it's looking far from certain that Frontier will actually be able to fix the game....:confused:

Its not just him either, Hawkes Gaming has recently done a video about how he has fallen out of love with the game and that he will also no longer be doing regular videos. D2EA is still doing content but i have noticed that recently it has been more SC centric.
 
Soldato
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He did not say he was stopping ED videos outside of the new monthly "state of the game" video series.

"of course, that doesn't mean I won't be making Elite dangerous video's in between, we will be doing exactly that"

He just wants to get all the negative stuff out the way in one video each month.

However, it is not looking great from the community side of things as it stands.
 
Soldato
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He did not say he was stopping ED videos outside of the new monthly "state of the game" video series.

"of course, that doesn't mean I won't be making Elite dangerous video's in between, we will be doing exactly that"

That's true acually but there's definitely an indication he's planning on winding down the content in favour of other games/topics. I certainly hope Odyssey isn't the end of the road for Elite Dangerous and that they can make good on their promise to "fix" things come the console launch later this year. Given the launch of Cyberpunk last year, and the ensuing fallout, I can see Sony/MS being far more stringent before games are allowed on their online stores and platforms. Safe to say I don't think Odyssey would make the grade in it's current PC guise between the performance issues and bugs.
 
Soldato
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Not defending FDev, but it can't help matters that they have had to gimp all the newly added tech. so it can run on the old last gen. consoles. To be honest, if they just ****** off console development and mate Elite a PC only game then things might have worked out differently.
 
Soldato
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I think all game devs are in the situation where they are being gimped by old gen. They really are showing their age and whilst it has not been a sudden thing, it has accelerated in the past 12 months.

However, that is not a defence to Fdev. They have released something nobody really wanted the truth to be known. Rather than a pew pew grind fest, with little or zero skill needed, so repetitive that it makes a round trip out to Colonia look exciting (and quicker), they should have found another creative path.
As I see it the game is on life support. There is no new content on the way for PC, what there is has been released as a paid-for beta with no direction.

I have held off buying it as the reviews were so bad, hopped in and realised there is nothing for me to do or achieve outside of that. Even if I did buy odyssey, it is entirely repetitive and without substance. Dropping VR and not allowing you to walk around inside the ship is just lazy.
So yeah, I am not sure where it goes from here. Then again I am not sure if there was ever anything outside of what the game is now.

Who knows.
 
Caporegime
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I love ED but the thing with it is its quite limited in scope.

About 50 hours to go through all the game play loops and get bored with them. Ok so go out and explore, some interesting stuff out there to see, now the grind starts, grind for an Anaconda, get Anaconda, it needs upgrades, grind for those, it needs engineering, grind some more....

ED:O seems to have taken that to its most extreme, and you suspect its because the space legs potion of it there isn't actually much to do, so in FDev's mind to get you to spend the hours in the game is they make it very difficult for you if you encounter enemy on your settlement missions, its made very clear to you that you have to upgrade your gear, so make the grind for that extreme, and its backfired, people don't think "oh i'm going to spend the next 100 hours upgrading my crap so i can survive getting jump on by 12 NPC's with engineered shields and weapons" they think this is broken and they are not going to fix it.

I actually wrote on the ED forums that they need to look at their balancing with this, but its not that, its very deliberate, i once spent 2 hours on a roof with unengineered shields and weapons trying to fight 16 NPC's half on them with level 3 shields and weapons, an utter cluster #### i killed 7 in 2 hours before eventually the grenade spamming got me.

And the thing is if you're raiding or defending or repairing its really all the same thing on the same sometimes differently laid out settlement on the same sometimes different coloured moon. A lot of copy and paste going on.

So (That other space game) is also limited in that way, tho ironically despite still only having one system is still A LOT more varied. But once you've done all of the game play loops that other game has something ED:O doesn't, ships that are not on a rail closed off from anyone but you, i'm not talking about Instancing with your mate and becoming a disembodied camera on his ship, i'm talking about 10 of you piling in to a carrack, gallivanting around the verse boarding other peoples ships, its the mechanics that allow you to do that which adds a mile of depth to the games, its so off the rails and free it allows you to make your own gameplay loops without limit.

And Braben says this will never happen in ED because its boring, No Braben your game is boring and frustrating.
 

SPG

SPG

Soldato
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The ship upgrade path is and will always be part of Elite, it is not an issue at all and is probably the only thing that actually works well well after they adjusted engineers.

Its everything else that is wrong,

Thargoids...useless introduction into the universe and they made it so difficult to get involved many people have not bothered.
Powerplay...useless from day 1, the fact ob-ant referernced the devs picking this up again just goes to show how out of touch they are.
The new expansion... less said the better
Mission system, been tinkered with so many times and its still crap and disjointed.

The free elite is better in terms of everything than ED.
 
Soldato
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Ship Interiors, Braben, and here's why.

Go back to some of the original dev diaries with Braben and ship boarding was something he specifically mentioned he wanted or could be done, somewhere along the way they've given up on doing anything but peddling arx.
 
Caporegime
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Go back to some of the original dev diaries with Braben and ship boarding was something he specifically mentioned he wanted or could be done, somewhere along the way they've given up on doing anything but peddling arx.

You're right, its probably not easy and he doesn't think its worth the investment, he's wrong, without it Star Citizen would have been dead years ago.
 
Soldato
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You're right, its probably not easy and he doesn't think its worth the investment, he's wrong, without it Star Citizen would have been dead years ago.

Personally I think turning the game into an FPS was clearly a mistake. Being able to walk around on planets, inside stations and inside ships fair enough but even that I feel isn't really in keeping with the core experience people play elite for. I don't feel walking outside of the ship is a feature must players wanted.

Also is clear the tile based planet terrain generation (to facilitate has FPS gameplay) has take away the unique nature of many planets replacing them with cookie cutter versions.

That's the issue. They've added an sub-par FPS nobody asked for and spoiled many other aspects of the game to make way for it. Also, the new game engine has greatly increased the system requirements without markedly improving the visuals.

To me Frontier should have focused on adding atmospheric planets. Also the mission structure and number of available mission types and random events should have been greatly increased to make the game more varied.
 
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