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timn posted:The thing to consider is that a lot of Elite's 'mile-wide inch-deep' design problems are more or less endemic to open world space games. We saw the same thing with No Man's Sky, and past cult favorites like the X series, Freelancer, etc. just obscured the issue by having a campaign of scripted missions bolted on top (something I predict Frontier is planning to do with Elite after seeing what they did with the revamped 2.2 training missions). Sure there are some obvious things Frontier could do to make the game more accessible and more respectful of the player's time, but those changes wouldn't make the gameplay any deeper. I think it's more an issue with procedural generation than open world. Nobody plays X for the campaign and freelancer, IWar, etc all had a lot of stuff to do outside the story. It's a pretty common occurrence in procedural generation games though, they spend so much time trying to get it right and fix little bugs you don't have time for anything else. See no man's sky. I'm actually drawing a blank for any good proc gen games besides a few casual and arcadey games.
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Dec 17, 2016 21:17
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All of the people who were like "what would we do with walking-in-ships? Stare at our space-toilets?" The true answer, of course, is that we would troll the ever living poo poo out of the SC thread. 
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Dec 17, 2016 21:23
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timn posted:The thing to consider is that a lot of Elite's 'mile-wide inch-deep' design problems are more or less endemic to open world space games. We saw the same thing with No Man's Sky, and past cult favorites like the X series, Freelancer, etc. just obscured the issue by having a campaign of scripted missions bolted on top (something I predict Frontier is planning to do with Elite after seeing what they did with the revamped 2.2 training missions). Sure there are some obvious things Frontier could do to make the game more accessible and more respectful of the player's time, but those changes wouldn't make the gameplay any deeper. X3 had some rad stuff in it even outside the story though, like managing an automated fleet of trading ships and building your own space stations. Speaking of which, apparently it's been confirmed that X4 is in the works, once they finish putting out X Rebirth VR.
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Dec 17, 2016 21:27
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that pic url absolutely hilarious, and still works
Hexenritter fucked around with this message at 21:33 on Dec 17, 2016 |
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Dec 17, 2016 21:28
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Toxic Fart Syndrome posted:All of the people who were like "what would we do with walking-in-ships? Stare at our space-toilets?" Anyone who posts in that thing is already punishing themselves. We should be more excited about the limited edition chrome toilets we can install into our iClippers etc.
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Dec 17, 2016 22:13
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Mr. Crow posted:
lol you're loving dumb 😂
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Dec 17, 2016 22:16
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Dec 17, 2016 22:23
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I must be doing something wrong, I still enjoy the game. *zooms away in his chrome Cutter*
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Dec 17, 2016 22:36
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Even though I have to work my freelance rear end off at the moment, 17 Draconis netted me 750 millions and the rank of Rear Admiral. And it is a testament to the stupid grind that I will not upgrade my 'Vette until after the new patch, when I don't have to do stupid missions to get some even more stupid 80 cr commodity.
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Dec 17, 2016 22:37
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Wolfechu posted:I must be doing something wrong, I still enjoy the game. Don't worry about broken people who can't stop playing or posting about a game they hate 
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Dec 17, 2016 22:43
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Einbauschrank posted:Even though I have to work my freelance rear end off at the moment, 17 Draconis netted me 750 millions and the rank of Rear Admiral. And it is a testament to the stupid grind that I will not upgrade my 'Vette until after the new patch, when I don't have to do stupid missions to get some even more stupid 80 cr commodity. What rank did you start at? Recruit?
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Dec 17, 2016 22:56
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Mr. Crow posted:I think it's more an issue with procedural generation than open world. Nobody plays X for the campaign and freelancer, IWar, etc all had a lot of stuff to do outside the story. I think there's definitely an issue with how Fdev is handling the nature of the game they've built. Things like Sothis/Ceos long-hauling and the 17 Drac spam were missed opportunities to build on player interaction with the universe, where they treated emergent gameplay as a bug or exploit. Sothis/Ceos long-hauling easily fits into the universe. 17 Drac could have easily been highlighted in the GalNet stuff: "Hostilities explode in 17 Draconis war as mercenary Commanders flood system". These sorts of things can act as hooks for building new mechanics and/or features, or act as barometers for your playerbase. A rare case where I'd say to take a page out of CCP's book and loosen the leash on the players a bit, and just roll with the flow. Game's still fun, though. 
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Dec 17, 2016 23:35
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sensitivepigeon posted:What rank did you start at? Recruit? I was Lieutenant last time 17 Draconis was bountiful. Went up to Post Commander and then nearly went insane trying to progress the normal way. Skimscumming gave me the last 75% progress I needed, together with donations after the skimmer missions waned away.
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Dec 17, 2016 23:40
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Einbauschrank posted:Even though I have to work my freelance rear end off at the moment, 17 Draconis netted me 750 millions and the rank of Rear Admiral. And it is a testament to the stupid grind that I will not upgrade my 'Vette until after the new patch, when I don't have to do stupid missions to get some even more stupid 80 cr commodity.  When is their patch coming out anyway?
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Dec 18, 2016 00:20
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Zest posted:I think there's definitely an issue with how Fdev is handling the nature of the game they've built. Things like Sothis/Ceos long-hauling and the 17 Drac spam were missed opportunities to build on player interaction with the universe, where they treated emergent gameplay as a bug or exploit. Sothis/Ceos long-hauling easily fits into the universe. 17 Drac could have easily been highlighted in the GalNet stuff: "Hostilities explode in 17 Draconis war as mercenary Commanders flood system". These sorts of things can act as hooks for building new mechanics and/or features, or act as barometers for your playerbase. A rare case where I'd say to take a page out of CCP's book and loosen the leash on the players a bit, and just roll with the flow. A Thousand times this. Wishing the game was better =/= hating the game
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Dec 18, 2016 05:08
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Zest posted:they treated emergent gameplay as a bug or exploit In both 17 Draconis and Sothis there were bugs submitted by the playerbase. The players, or at least the ones Fdev listens to, back the game's direction 100%. I would imagine they see the whole thing as a win/win - no need for more content and everyone loves them for increasing the grind.
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Dec 18, 2016 06:23
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Turn glitches into game elements, GunZ and Tribes wouldn't have existed without them 
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Dec 18, 2016 07:26
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Mailer posted:In both 17 Draconis and Sothis there were bugs submitted by the playerbase. The players, or at least the ones Fdev listens to, back the game's direction 100%. I would imagine they see the whole thing as a win/win - no need for more content and everyone loves them for increasing the grind. Which is sad  It's like a tabletop RPG where everything looks and feels great, but the GM is having a massive existential crisis over whether his campaign is grog-approved by his old friend from college whose sole contribution to the table is edition-warring and trying to recreate the game he played in his youth. While the players just want to get on with the game and actually go play. I don't think any reasonable players are going to crucify FDev for making the game MORE fun. i hope... 
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Dec 18, 2016 10:06
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Zest posted:I don't think any reasonable players are going to crucify FDev for making the game MORE fun. Yes, quite. That's also the key issue unfortunately. See: every thread where ship transfers or whatever are discussed, SEPP having a meltdown because they now have benevolent Russian overlords, etc. Today's paint job is a chromed.... Cobra Mk 4 
DancingShade fucked around with this message at 10:17 on Dec 18, 2016 |
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Dec 18, 2016 10:14
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DancingShade posted:Today's paint job is a chromed.... Cobra Mk 4
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Dec 18, 2016 10:29
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Pilchenstein posted:Wasn't that friday's? Oh I thought it was a Mk 3 that day. Whoops!
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Dec 18, 2016 10:32
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I cleaned a year of dust off my Cobra IV to see if it was worth making shiny and chrome but it's still a  fat rear end I guess.Is there anything left to take from 17 Drac, or is it well and truly over? e: Has the KWS been changed over the last year? When I use it, I hear a new negative-sounding tone and haven't seen any added value to bounties lately. Sard fucked around with this message at 15:50 on Dec 18, 2016 |
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Dec 18, 2016 12:44
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DancingShade posted:Oh I thought it was a Mk 3 that day. Whoops!
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Dec 18, 2016 12:44
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Zest posted:I think there's definitely an issue with how Fdev is handling the nature of the game they've built. Things like Sothis/Ceos long-hauling and the 17 Drac spam were missed opportunities to build on player interaction with the universe, where they treated emergent gameplay as a bug or exploit. Sothis/Ceos long-hauling easily fits into the universe. 17 Drac could have easily been highlighted in the GalNet stuff: "Hostilities explode in 17 Draconis war as mercenary Commanders flood system". These sorts of things can act as hooks for building new mechanics and/or features, or act as barometers for your playerbase. A rare case where I'd say to take a page out of CCP's book and loosen the leash on the players a bit, and just roll with the flow. Patching these money-making tricks is fine if the rest of the game provides enough progress -- or enough other distractions. Nobody should need a Cutter on day one, but it should also not take multiple years of tedium to earn. On the other hand, I think having more of a "story" layer would go a long way toward distracting people who obsess over buying ships. They look at the missions, see that nothing pays well, and assume, "If I just had a better ship, this would all be easy and fun." But diminishing rewards just make the larger ships equally frustrating for ten times the cost. In other games, you play for the story, the missions, the camaraderie, the boss fights, the exploration... Elite needs those elements so you don't focus on the grind(s). I've been whining for ages about how even a veneer of plot threads can go a long way in these games, and Frontier should just hire a writer to churn out silly mission text and templates for them to plug into the mission board. Stellaris did that recently, too. But at this point, when they have to issue a patch just to nerf Sothis/Ceos/17Drac type payouts, I'm wondering if the code can't even support modular adjustments like that.
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Dec 18, 2016 16:06
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Herb Dington posted:Wishing the game was better =/= hating the game I agree with this. I think it's also important to keep in mind that the 80s/90s Elite and Frontier weren't actually very good games. They were amazing tech demos, and way ahead of their time in their use of procedural generation and 3D vector projection, but especially Elite was really frustrating to play. If you ever had ships spawn right in your face while trying to dock, you know what I mean. Or when your ship went blammo because the mail slot covered the entire screen on the last few frames and you mis-guesstimated the rotation rate. Or the sucker punch it gave you when you'd finally ground out the credits for your first military laser and took the Trumbles bait instead because it sounded interesting, and those things wobbled around in your view until you could think of the one way to get rid of them. And Frontier... I loved that game, but I mostly just did things like sitting in my Eagle listening to the wind while looking at the stars and day/night cycle, flying through the shadow of Jupiter, etc. I never got myself a Clipper, because the core game mechanic was just too monotonous. It was nice having the expensive ships there for scale though, and knowing that it was theoretically possible to get one, just like you could theoretically travel to the other side of the galaxy if you really felt like it. Now. E:D is vastly better in almost every way. The graphics is good, it has an amazing galaxy map/route planner, the sound design and voice acting is on point, and the cockpit controls hit the immersion vs. learning curve sweet spot IMO. Dogfighting is fun, and the AI is decent. There's lots of attention to detail, apparent in the fits and starts of the hangar hydraulics, traffic control advisory, voice comms filter, etc. There are more things to do than in any of the previous games. FD went extra miles with joystick and VR support. It even has multiplayer, so you can play with friendly goons. The networking issues will hopefully be fixed, and there are more expansions coming. So: Life is pretty good. It could've been another Kickstarter nostalgia boondoggle, but FD actually delivered. If you're getting frustrated trying to grind out ranks and ships and stuff, consider playing the game differently, or even just less until the urge comes back. FronzelNeekburm posted:I've been whining for ages about how even a veneer of plot threads can go a long way in these games, and Frontier should just hire a writer to churn out silly mission text and templates for them to plug into the mission board. Stellaris did that recently, too. But at this point, when they have to issue a patch just to nerf Sothis/Ceos/17Drac type payouts, I'm wondering if the code can't even support modular adjustments like that. Yeah, a bit more plot, or the illusion of plot even, would help. '84 Elite came with a nice, thick manual full of lore, and joked about selling wristwatches to insectoid hive colonies, generation ships sent out hundreds of years ago with which contact was forbidden ('cause learning about the subsequent invention of FTL travel would break them, I guess), etc. Some of the things might''ve been in the game, but most probably weren't. Your imagination did the work anyway. Manuals aren't really a thing anymore, but I could definitely see long, multi-step quests, potentially with branches triggered by various game events, culminating in some kind of reward like a tricked-out ship. And less contrived fetch quests, i.e. time-limited contract work with scaled payout/varied tasks instead of one-off "fetch 1 + random() % 20 sprockets".
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Dec 18, 2016 16:31
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http://plays.tv/video/5855d3bfbe438b1b89/i-want-to-get-off-mr-pythons-wild-ride
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Dec 18, 2016 18:46
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Nostalgia4Infinity posted:http://plays.tv/video/5855d3bfbe438b1b89/i-want-to-get-off-mr-pythons-wild-ride Dear god it's beautiful. The last bit is perfect  *Sees Python lazily scoot out of what's left of a Conda it rammed* "... Did you just..?"Smitty: "Hmm?" 
Zest fucked around with this message at 19:13 on Dec 18, 2016 |
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Dec 18, 2016 19:05
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Lol, I started doing the same thing in my corvette the past few weeks. It's very effective and not that hard to steer once you've made contact.
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Dec 18, 2016 20:26
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Sard posted:
I can confirm Drac is STILL giving $$$ despite the rumors. I went from 20k last night to 158k this morning and it's absolutely ridiculous edit: Also if you take an anaconda and skip the "kill yourself" you can get nice engineer rewards! sensitivepigeon fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Dec 18, 2016 |
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Dec 18, 2016 20:30
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It was kind of a pain in the rear end but gotta say grinding out R5 Dirty Drives was so worth it Also heavily modded powerplant means I can use an A-rated KWS for the first time like ever. Nostalgia4Infinity fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Dec 18, 2016 |
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Dec 18, 2016 20:37
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sensitivepigeon posted:I can confirm Drac is STILL giving $$$ despite the rumors. I went from 20k last night to 158k this morning and it's absolutely ridiculous I was still getting the missions yesterday, but had to go hang out in the RES to find mission targets and that took a while. The skimmers on the planet was replaced with a sole Viper.
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Dec 18, 2016 21:21
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17 Draconis e: 17 Draconis Alliance is at Civil War with The Order. While you will not get Federation rank, you can still make a lot of credits. Take missions from the order, go to the base and kill skimmers just like before. 
Apple Craft fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Dec 18, 2016 |
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Dec 18, 2016 22:01
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Gaile Gray Gaile Gray Gaile Gray Gaile Gray Gaile Gray Gaile Gray Gaile Gray Gaile Gray Gaile Gray Gaile Gray Gaile Gray Gaile Gray Gaile Gray
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Nostalgia4Infinity posted:It was kind of a pain in the rear end but gotta say grinding out R5 Dirty Drives was so worth it Why bother with an A-rated KWS ?, I like getting really close (spitting distance) before I pick a fight so range isn't a factor (for me).
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Dec 18, 2016 23:12
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Quick question on engineer crap: do modifications stack or does each mod start from the baseline stats?
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Dec 18, 2016 23:31
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Hexenritter posted:Quick question on engineer crap: do modifications stack or does each mod start from the baseline stats? They go off of baseline, basically overwriting any previous modification you had.
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Dec 18, 2016 23:33
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Natsuumi posted:They go off of baseline, basically overwriting any previous modification you had. If you die, does the mod go away when you re-buy?
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Dec 18, 2016 23:54
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Turmoil posted:If you die, does the mod go away when you re-buy? Delete that post before Frontier sees it and likes it.
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Dec 18, 2016 23:56
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Morningwoodpecker posted:Why bother with an A-rated KWS ?, I like getting really close (spitting distance) before I pick a fight so range isn't a factor (for me). Because it's something to do whilst getting in range?
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Dec 19, 2016 00:11
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Turmoil posted:If you die, does the mod go away when you re-buy? If you just re-buy the ship at the regular insurance price, the mods are included. If you buy a new ship and new modules, those come without modifications.
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Dec 19, 2016 00:16
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Nostalgia4Infinity posted:Because it's something to do whilst getting in range? just get in range and kill them, why are you waiting. feel the ship spin, watch their lights go out as the hull rips apart, it's not like you do a RES for money or is this the immersion thing I keep hearing about
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Dec 19, 2016 00:39
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