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

[jonneymendoza]

That makes sense though- nobody's got a PS5!

More people have ps5's then a current gen gaming GPU..

Credit balancing is the very least of the issues, it's more why players are forced to do things like mining or guardian structure grinding when all they want to do is shoot thargoids, there needs to be the ability to progress down a path by playing said path.

Yes and SC wil let u do that, If all you want to do is shoot bad guys or good guys, you can focus on just that in SC.

Right, what an original idea that is, rank up by playing the game loop, it gets progressively more difficult as you rank up.

I also get what @jonneymendoza is saying, in SC there are no go fetch / go grind game loops, you earn in game currency for doing whatever it is you chose to do and if you find that you need bigger guns / shield on your ship or FPS weapons you go to a shop and you buy them with the in game currency, earn your money playing space DPD or bounty hunting, it doesn't matter, a gun is just a gun, a shield is just a shield.

Yup and tehre is no leveling up your character or your ships and weapons. You just buy whatever you need for the job at hand.

on a side note, once SC has more features online and capital ships are flyable, those solo players who all dreaming of flying a idriss and tearing everyone apart is in for a very rude awakening.

Its why i aint bothered grabbing a capital ship at all because its gunna be very costly to run and maintain and you will need a crew.

Anyways there is a con for not having any level ups and everything bought with in game currency and that is that a player could in theory just buy in game currency with real money so they dont have to earn it in game.

I think some will do that but others will not and be happy to earn in game trying out various things like salvaging, mining etc etc

In ED, do you "level up" ?

 

[Screeeech]

I think the engineering grind is one of the worst grinds I've ever seen in a game, honestly - what a nightmare, getting the materials to make the high level stuff and getting the bits and pieces from the ancient sites - it's just mind numbing and it takes so ******* long...

At the same time - it has such a good combat loop, I spent ages mining and doing engineering to make an anti-thargoid ship and the first load of Thargoids I killed, the battles were incredible.. But.... over time I just got bored with it.

 

[humbug]

More people have ps5's then a current gen gaming GPU..



Yes and SC wil let u do that, If all you want to do is shoot bad guys or good guys, you can focus on just that in SC.



Yup and tehre is no leveling up your character or your ships and weapons. You just buy whatever you need for the job at hand.

on a side note, once SC has more features online and capital ships are flyable, those solo players who all dreaming of flying a idriss and tearing everyone apart is in for a very rude awakening.

Its why i aint bothered grabbing a capital ship at all because its gunna be very costly to run and maintain and you will need a crew.

Anyways there is a con for not having any level ups and everything bought with in game currency and that is that a player could in theory just buy in game currency with real money so they dont have to earn it in game.

I think some will do that but others will not and be happy to earn in game trying out various things like salvaging, mining etc etc

In ED, do you "level up" ?

In ED, do you "level up"

No, you're not an ED player are you? I'll tell you how it works.

You can buy ships, ship components and FPS items in ED/O with in game currency, just as you can in SC, however there is another level to it, lets say you have the best shields for your ship or in the example i'm going to use your FPS avatar, your personal shields are a part of your suit and it has a base line, even if you buy the best, to get the shield on that suit better first you have to play a load of game loops to get access to engineers, those engineers can increase the effectiveness of your shields, in 3 or 5 levels, but first you have to unlock those levels at the suit shops, the person in the shop wants rare materials and other items in return for unlocking those levels, you get them by looking for them or doing game loops, once you have everything the shop person wants they will unlock the suit, then you can go to an engineer, if you have unlocked access to them, so to add the actual upgrades in to those slots you have unlocked the engineer also wants a whole pile of items which you have to grind.

Ok, you do that for every suit, every FPS weapon, every ship component........................ everything that can be upgraded.

To put that in to perspective one ED Youtuber set about timing himself to upgrade one suit to maximum, he did it the fastest way possible using all the tricks available, it took him 27 in game hours to do it, just one suit.

He had something to say about that and its not pretty, also "The Armstrong Moment" thing he always does is because the game advertised EDO as "The Armstrong Moment" what it actually is is getting in and out of your ship in fade to black and teleport inside or out.

 

[Screeeech]

To put that in to perspective one ED Youtuber set about timing himself to upgrade one suit to maximum, he did it the fastest way possible using all the tricks available, it took him 27 in game hours to do it, just one suit.

I can't remember exactly how long it took to get my FDL to a G5 anti-thargoid spec, but it was probably 100 hours? maybe more? I remember spending entire days hunting signal sources, using the online tools - to find other G5 materials that I could trade for the other bits that I needed, honestly it was absolutely awful.

That said, the first time I took that ship up against a Thargoid for the first time and killing it in 35 mins, was probably one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had, just the damn grind.....

 

[Dano]

I think the engineering grind is one of the worst grinds I've ever seen in a game, honestly - what a nightmare, getting the materials to make the high level stuff and getting the bits and pieces from the ancient sites - it's just mind numbing and it takes so ******* long...

At the same time - it has such a good combat loop, I spent ages mining and doing engineering to make an anti-thargoid ship and the first load of Thargoids I killed, the battles were incredible.. But.... over time I just got bored with it.

I hope you're basing that off the original implementation of engineering which was an order of magnitude worse than what is in game now

 

[humbug]

I can't remember exactly how long it took to get my FDL to a G5 anti-thargoid spec, but it was probably 100 hours? maybe more? I remember spending entire days hunting signal sources, using the online tools - to find other G5 materials that I could trade for the other bits that I needed, honestly it was absolutely awful.

That said, the first time I took that ship up against a Thargoid for the first time and killing it in 35 mins, was probably one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had, just the damn grind.....

Imagine how popular the game would be if you could effectively fight a Thargoid after just 30 hours of gameplay, that is 30 hours of do what you like.

 

[Noakesy85]

I'm about 500 hours into EDH, I have had 1 encounter with a Thargoid to date... I haven't even attempted to fight one.

I've currently got a Type10 loaded out for AFK Pirate Massacre Missions. Easiest way of making money without too much input from myself. Only problem is finding the right systems to stack missions.

 

[Axil]

TBH - the Whole ED development process has always seemed non-focused to me. I was a Kickstarter backer and even back then they kept messing about with the game design (e.g. the having to be online all the time change and the killing off the promised offline mode)

I've taken a break from ED quite a few times during it's lifetime and then come back for a bit but the the playing periods have got shorter and shorter. The last break I took was during the ED:O alpha as it was clear to see it was a clusterf**k of a game and FDev had once again had no clear development plan and weren't listening to their own player base (though it didn't help that any critical comment myself and others made on the FDev forums were instantly attacked by the typical (and few) Elite Rabid fan-bois)

When even someone like Drew Wagar (every much a Elite fan) decides to take a break and stream something else (No Man's Sky which he appears to be having a lot of fun in) and the others that have stopped producing media (OA etc) its give a clear indication that the game has serious and possibly terminal issues

I hope FDev can pull the Cat out of the Bag ( like Hello Games di with NMS) and fix the issues to make ED once again enjoyable to play but with their current trajectory I can't see it happening which is sad.

 

[Dano]

Right, what an original idea that is, rank up by playing the game loop, it gets progressively more difficult as you rank up.

I know, it's just odd that FD went in a completely different direction.

I also get what @jonneymendoza is saying, in SC there are no go fetch / go grind game loops, you earn in game currency for doing whatever it is you chose to do and if you find that you need bigger guns / shield on your ship or FPS weapons you go to a shop and you buy them with the in game currency, earn your money playing space DPD or bounty hunting, it doesn't matter, a shield is just a shield, a gun is just a gun, some go pew pew, others go BRRRRRRRRRD.

Yes and SC wil let u do that, If all you want to do is shoot bad guys or good guys, you can focus on just that in SC.

I really don't want to get into a SC versus Elite discussion but like I said, credits are not really the issue in elite, sure they are ridiculously unbalanced in earning potential but it's the requirement for engineered modules and guardian tech and the way to get them that is the main blocking point.

 

[Screeeech]

I hope you're basing that off the original implementation of engineering which was an order of magnitude worse than what is in game now

Oh I know, I had a 2-3 year break from the game, when I came back they'd literally just changed the engineering to the current version, before then I believe you couldn't trade materials and it just looked like an absolute waste of time.. It's almost as though they have somebody who's specialist skill is 'create a poor player experience'

The part that made me laugh the most, was how you need to be allied to 'Aisling Duval' for 4x whole weeks, and do a bunch of other mundane stuff, before you can unlock prismatic shields...

I get the idea from listening to the people at ED talk, that they think everything is perfect, balanced and couldn't be made any better, a bit like those failing restaurants that Gordon Ramsay goes to, when the chefs complain that they can't understand why nobody eats there - turns out none of them have even tasted their own food... In the same way - it feels like ED have never actually sat down and played through their own game.

I think the thing I find so frustrating, is the core game is EXCELLENT the ships, the weapons, the flight mechanics and skill required to pilot them, they've essentially got the hardest part bang on, in my opinion. But it feels like the people who create the experience, in terms of missions, actual content, story, exploration etc are just from a different company who are making the bare minimum and don't care.

Imagine how popular the game would be if you could effectively fight a Thargoid after just 30 hours of gameplay, that is 30 hours of do what you like.

I can see that the Thargoids are meant to essentially be, absolute end game enemies that require the highest skill and best gear to kill, and even if it takes 200-300 hours to get enough experience and gear, that's fine with me. But if those 200-300 hours are utterly grim and consist of entire days spent mining, spent trawling through endless systems, or driving around on a planet trying to get 4x fragments of some sort of mineral, logging off - then back in again to respawn them, day after day, week after week... then yeah - the gateway to fighting things like Thargoids is so hard to get past, most players will never see that experience. And it's such a shame.

 

[ttaskmaster]

This is where SC will shine.
You are able to make money doing lots of different things

Like what?

Shooting stuff, mining stuff, moving cargo, bit of salvage, maybe going and looking for something....? It's not massively different from Elite. Just a bit prettier and with slightly more variety, where Elite makes things as generic as possible so it can slot in to anywhere in the galaxy.
I'm already finding SC a bit boring, as I've done everything several times over - The first couple of times was always amazing, as I was alone and it was all new... but now I just blaze through the Claimjumpers, cave evictions, 890 boarding and so on... and if I have anyone else with me, it's a five minute cakewalk that takes far longer to reach than to complete. You'd think we were in the SAS from how fast we go through these!

 

[jonneymendoza]

Like what?

Shooting stuff, mining stuff, moving cargo, bit of salvage, maybe going and looking for something....? It's not massively different from Elite. Just a bit prettier and with slightly more variety, where Elite makes things as generic as possible so it can slot in to anywhere in the galaxy.
I'm already finding SC a bit boring, as I've done everything several times over - The first couple of times was always amazing, as I was alone and it was all new... but now I just blaze through the Claimjumpers, cave evictions, 890 boarding and so on... and if I have anyone else with me, it's a five minute cakewalk that takes far longer to reach than to complete. You'd think we were in the SAS from how fast we go through these!

Well according to what others have said, no its way different to SC.

You dont need to grind for 27hours to max out a single fps armour...

In SC you just buy it....

Huge difference mate.

Also, you probably sifted what? 50 hours or more in SC now? Thats massive for a so called pre alpha game.

Thats more gameplay then most "finished" games out there.

But lets not derail this thread. Speak about ED here and SC in the SC thread.

I only compared SC to ED in terms of grinding etc

 

[ttaskmaster]

You dont need to grind for 27hours to max out a single fps armour...

You still gotta grind for hours to earn the money to buy stuff, though, and then the same for any add-ons or different components you want thereafter.
Fundamentally, it's the same stuff in a different skin.

 

[jonneymendoza]

You still gotta grind for hours to earn the money to buy stuff, though, and then the same for any add-ons or different components you want thereafter.
Fundamentally, it's the same stuff in a different skin.

and u still do that in ED plus grind again to get max armour?

So double the grind plus correct me if am wrong, you have to grind a specif gameplay loop in order to max your armour too!!!

In sc , you just grind for money and buy whatever you want.

Grind money by doing something you actually like to do, be in mining or bounty hunting etc

 

[Screeeech]

What's odyssey like? has anybody played it much?

I watched the videos and stuff but never bothered with it, it looked way too generic, I never really wanted an FPS in Elite.

 

[Dano]

What's odyssey like? has anybody played it much?

I watched the videos and stuff but never bothered with it, it looked way too generic, I never really wanted an FPS in Elite.

Awful, it has the odd good moment but overall it's a complete and utter waste of time and effort.

 

[humbug]

I can see that the Thargoids are meant to essentially be, absolute end game enemies that require the highest skill and best gear to kill, and even if it takes 200-300 hours to get enough experience and gear, that's fine with me. But if those 200-300 hours are utterly grim and consist of entire days spent mining, spent trawling through endless systems, or driving around on a planet trying to get 4x fragments of some sort of mineral, logging off - then back in again to respawn them, day after day, week after week... then yeah - the gateway to fighting things like Thargoids is so hard to get past, most players will never see that experience. And it's such a shame.

Yeah, fair enough, and having done the main loops the game has at this point i just have no interest in rinse and repeating it for 300 hours to get in to the real nitty-gritty, realising that now... erm? No, for me the game is done.

 

[Screeeech]

Awful, it has the odd good moment but overall it's a complete and utter waste of time and effort.

rofl

Honestly, when I saw the first videos of it, my immediate thoughts were "whhhyyyyy??..."

This was hot off the disappointment of 'multicrew' myself and a friend were really excited about trying it, so we jumped into multicrew and discovered that it was just such a wasted opportunity which could have been awesome.. One of my favorite activities is to go to a system, interdict police anacondas and kill as many as I can before those practically invincible elite response units turn up . It would be really cool if the multicrew allowed a second pilot to repair stuff, synthesise more ammo - get up and physically run around the ship and do stuff in the middle of a fight, fix modules, put out fires - whatever.. but instead... he sits there and gets to use the bloody useless turreted weapons.

I remember thinking - why do Odyssey?? We don't need or want a damn FPS game, fix the actual things which people want!

Yeah, fair enough, and having done the main loops the game has at this point i just have no interest in rinse and repeating it for 300 hours to get in to the real nitty-gritty, realising that now... erm? No, for me the game is done.

Yeah this is basically where I'm at with it...

I keep getting the urge to jump in and go and hunt more Thargoids again, but then I remember the reason I stopped - I got so fed up, of having to spend 4x hours trying to find materials to synthesise ammo for my remote flak cannon and guardian gauss cannons, as I tend to run out of ammo in some of the longer battles... and I spent so long doing that already, that I just can't be arsed to do any more driving around trying to scoop chunks of minerals.

 

[ttaskmaster]

and u still do that in ED plus grind again to get max armour?

But the point was that "You are able to make money doing lots of different things", which is the same in both games... Difference is that Elite has certain things that (in-game) money alone can't buy, whereas SC has yet to reach that point.
However, if all goes well and SC finally gets released with all that they promised, there will still come a time in the not too later future that players will have done everything, gotten bored and found nothing left to spend their stacks of money on..... and at that point, I fully expect SC to then start introducing things that (in-game) money alone cannot buy, just to give them something else to do and keep them playing.

Don't get me wrong, Elite has gone seriously downhill... but having played both ED and Freelancer to death already, I'm starting to notice similar fatiguing telltales in SC, even though I've not even gotten to the point of buying a Connie yet. Elite took months of grinding on the missions to hit this point. SC has taken only a few goes on each.

One of my favorite activities is to go to a system, interdict police anacondas and kill as many as I can before those practically invincible elite response units turn up .

I remember those days, gunning them up in a Python (pre-Nerf), then a Vulture, then a FdL, until Engineering became a necessity if you wanted to simply survive... Nowadays, there isn't a single ship I own that doesn't risk serious death if it merely tangles with an NPC Cobra!

 

[Dano]

The problem with Odyssey is there was a contingent of very vocal people on the forums asking for space legs (which they definitely did not get lmao!) and FPS games are very popular so the board obviously thought it was a great idea to get in on the action without giving any consideration to if they could actually do it justice or not, elite is literally a game of missed opportunities and minimum viable product to appease the masses, the classic line of, 'if people play it we'll develop it further' which is a complete nonsense as people tend not to play unfinished, unpolished and broken content.

I honestly am not sure what else they could have done to have made the game any more of a mess at this point in time, it's like they actively make an effort to ruin it.