Nostalgia4Infinity posted:

Seriously, has anyone used the ship transfer system regularly since its implementation? Nothing like dropping a million credits for the pleasure of setting a timer on your phone to let you know when you can play again!

Mimesweeper posted:

We have come full circle...

Mike the TV posted:

Now newbies will have the opportunity to help crew large ships, and that's cool. It's too bad they won't make millions of credits for swiveling and clicking their mouse for the one turret their overseer allows them to use.

Mike the TV posted:

Back in my day!

Nostalgia4Infinity posted:

Seriously, has anyone used the ship transfer system regularly since its implementation? Nothing like dropping a million credits for the pleasure of setting a timer on your phone to let you know when you can play again!

Sard posted:

Seriously if it hasn't been spelled out enough yet, the fuckup here isn't having some noble goal of encouraging players to enjoy the whole game at some arbitrary pace, it's continually making proper progress the result of unfun bullshit by hamstringing anything that could have been fun and rewarding at the same time.

Trustworthy posted:

I use it regularly, mostly for getting ships with short jump ranges to engineers, or to community goals. I think the time and cost are both fairly well balanced; cheap enough to be viable, expensive enough to keep you from constantly juggling a dozen ships around willy-nilly.

Also there's literally nothing preventing you from playing the game while another ship heads toward its destination.

Also planning a few minutes or hours ahead isn't rocket science. If I know I'm going to want to do a specific task in a specific system in the near future, I'll pop in and put in an order for the appropriate ship, then get back to whatever I'm currently doing.

edit: Also remember that transfering smaller ships is quite cheap; it's not a newbie-unfriendly system. By the time you're paying a million credits for a transfer, you probably have the spare change to pay for it.

Nostalgia4Infinity posted:

Jesus Christ, this is so dumb.

First, combat rank is zero indication of skill it's a time sink, nothing more.

Second, people who want to power level ARE STILL GOING TO POWERLEVEL. The credit "exploits" that exist for months on end let you go from zero to billions in the span of a few days of grinding. You can currently (in the beta) wing up with someone in a god tier ship in your freewinder, tag the things they're about to explode and get 100% of the bounty. There is no risk in this and it frankly is not even that engaging.

Third, multicrew doesn't confer federation or imperial rank so the "best" ships are still locked behind an asinine grind.

Fourth, the mentality of "earning" the right to sit in an Anaconda is insane and cuts to what is toxic about this game's community. Someone else getting a big expensive ship doesn't diminish your enjoyment of the game in the slightest. There is no economy to tank, your interactions with other players are largely voluntary. Who the h*ck cares if someone who has "only" played 100 hours has an Anaconda? Seriously aside from some puffed up sense of entitlement, how does this diminish your game experience? Furthermore, having enough credits to do what you want really is where the game gets good. Have a large fund? Great, maybe you feel more comfortable engaging in PvP or playing in open because getting ganked by another player won't wipe you out financially.

Fifth, this is another decision in a long series of decisions where Frontier caves to a small but vocal minority of players -- "forum dads" as they are commonly called around here. I frankly cannot recommend this game to new players as long as Frontier continues to make the newbie experience a horrific slog to appease some entitled nerd.

Nostalgia4Infinity posted:

what the gently caress was the point of this post?

FDev posted:

Nostalgia4Infinity posted:

Jesus Christ, this is so dumb.

First, combat rank is zero indication of skill it's a time sink, nothing more.

Second, people who want to power level ARE STILL GOING TO POWERLEVEL. The credit "exploits" that exist for months on end let you go from zero to billions in the span of a few days of grinding. You can currently (in the beta) wing up with someone in a god tier ship in your freewinder, tag the things they're about to explode and get 100% of the bounty. There is no risk in this and it frankly is not even that engaging.

Third, multicrew doesn't confer federation or imperial rank so the "best" ships are still locked behind an asinine grind.

Fourth, the mentality of "earning" the right to sit in an Anaconda is insane and cuts to what is toxic about this game's community. Someone else getting a big expensive ship doesn't diminish your enjoyment of the game in the slightest. There is no economy to tank, your interactions with other players are largely voluntary. Who the h*ck cares if someone who has "only" played 100 hours has an Anaconda? Seriously aside from some puffed up sense of entitlement, how does this diminish your game experience? Furthermore, having enough credits to do what you want really is where the game gets good. Have a large fund? Great, maybe you feel more comfortable engaging in PvP or playing in open because getting ganked by another player won't wipe you out financially.

Fifth, this is another decision in a long series of decisions where Frontier caves to a small but vocal minority of players -- "forum dads" as they are commonly called around here. I frankly cannot recommend this game to new players as long as Frontier continues to make the newbie experience a horrific slog to appease some entitled nerd.

Mike the TV posted:

Actually, despite the regular weird design choices Frontier uses, the newbie experience is probably better than ever. There were a few hickups at the start of 2.0 that made the newbie areas barren, but they have mostly been resolved.

When I started, it cost more to refuel and restock your ship than what you could possibly make in bounty hunting, so that was an impossible way to make money unless you only ran lasers (the common advice back then). Bounty hunting was considered a fun activity, but only if your trading job could pay for it.

Additionally when I started, exploration was extremely limited. My first trip was in a hauler, and I made it as far as Coalsack before going insane. Now I can get there in just a few jumps thanks to engineers. The payouts are also better and newbies can even do sightseeing tours in the smallest of ships that can get them millions of credits.

Also, while missions are a bit of a joke now, back when I started they were a loving laugh riot. You straight up did not do missions, unless you were a miner looking to get a better payday for your Painite. Now there are data delivery missions and other newbie friendly delivery missions that actually pay pretty decently (sometimes).

When I started, the only way to possibly get a big ship was to do rare trade runs until your eyes bled, then switch to regular trading in the T-ships until you had no soul left. That's why all the forum dads are upset btw- they are now soulless husks after thousands of hours of undock-supercruise-dock-repeat forever.

Now newbies will have the opportunity to help crew large ships, and that's cool. It's too bad they won't make millions of credits for swiveling and clicking their mouse for the one turret their overseer allows them to use.

Gort posted:

I'd say it's definitely the best "Be a guy in space" simulator I've seen so far, but it's definitely a game where you have to make your own fun - if you follow the most rewarding pathways the game lays out you'll generally not have a great time.

Kilravock posted:

This is exactly my current experience. I played the game at launch but quit after doing a horrible trade grind in the T-6 to get to an ASPX because that was the only way to make money at the time.

I just started to play this game again and between the ASPX with the new delivery/passenger missions, better bounty payouts and the CG events, I have been able to outfit a couple ships in A grade gear in only three weeks and have fun doing what i feel like. Still the grind is real, which is why I am at Quince now before I lose out on some easy money and Empire ranks.

CountingWizard posted:

I haven't played Elite since a year after it came out, but I just read the past two pages of this thread and it looks like all the gameplay systems are still broken shallow unfun grind fests. Have they made the game fun yet?

My friend is getting a new computer soon and I'd like to play coop space mans, but I'm not sure if this game has made coop fun.

Boogalo posted:

Coming back to an AspX is a far far cry from the newbie experience of a sidewinder with nothing and no knowledge of how the game works. Yes payouts across the board have been increased, but to get to those nice things there's quite a lot of twiddling around accomplishing very little unless you have close guidance. The help channel is probably the most active one in frog discord.

Boogalo posted:

Coming back to an AspX is a far far cry from the newbie experience of a sidewinder with nothing and no knowledge of how the game works. Yes payouts across the board have been increased, but to get to those nice things there's quite a lot of twiddling around accomplishing very little unless you have close guidance. The help channel is probably the most active one in frog discord.

Boogalo posted:

Coming back to an AspX is a far far cry from the newbie experience of a sidewinder with nothing and no knowledge of how the game works. Yes payouts across the board have been increased, but to get to those nice things there's quite a lot of twiddling around accomplishing very little unless you have close guidance. The help channel is probably the most active one in frog discord.

Mike the TV posted:

The Asp price-range to large ship hurdle is still the largest jump in the game, so I think it's fair. That said, the payouts haven't just increased. Compared to release, it's like winning the lottery every time you blow up a ship.

Akion posted:

Every so often I grind a bit.

Then I remember I already have a job and go do whatever sounds fun for a bit. Then when I get bored, I go play something else because this single video game isn't my life like some of the fish in the brown sea, apparently.

Boogalo posted:

Coming back to an AspX is a far far cry from the newbie experience of a sidewinder with nothing and no knowledge of how the game works. Yes payouts across the board have been increased, but to get to those nice things there's quite a lot of twiddling around accomplishing very little unless you have close guidance. The help channel is probably the most active one in frog discord.

Gort posted:

It would be cool if they could make the bits of the game that are really fun (for me it's flying a ship dangerously, but for others it's going thousands of lightyears into deep space alone) more rewarding than the grind though. Best of both worlds and that.

Gort posted:

It does kinda need some kind of "end game" content after you've gotten past the "make enough money/rank to get the ships you want" stuff. A game like EVE has virtually endless money sinks in place thanks to megaships like Titans, and the constant losses that meaningful PVP incurs. I get that Frontier don't want to be Eve - they want a player to be able to play the new game like the old ones, as an independent space person with a ship, doing a variety odd jobs, rather than a soldier in a navy of thousands of ships, and that's fair enough.

The trouble is, if they're not going to have the endgame Eve has, they need to have a different endgame. As it is, a player might say "I want an Anaconda", set themselves that goal for the game, and then once they have their anaconda there isn't really anything to achieve with it. Money, military rank and pilot federation rank are all grinds with nothing at the end of them. The flying is pretty enjoyable, the production values of the game are good, and I'd say it's definitely the best "Be a guy in space" simulator I've seen so far, but it's definitely a game where you have to make your own fun - if you follow the most rewarding pathways the game lays out you'll generally not have a great time.

Nostalgia4Infinity posted:

Seriously, has anyone used the ship transfer system regularly since its implementation? Nothing like dropping a million credits for the pleasure of setting a timer on your phone to let you know when you can play again!

Toxic Fart Syndrome posted:

FDev and the grognards admit this when they spell out how you literally have to earn the right to have fun (which can only be done in an Anaconda).

Gort posted:

They're still kinda meaningless compared to the flavour-of-the-week scam, though. A decent bounty on a big enemy ship might be 100,000 credits, with a non-zero chance of losing your ship, or incurring enough damage to make the fight not worthwhile. I just made 13,000,000 for flying from a station to the surface of a planet and back again, completely risk-free.

I can't think of a time when it's been a big money-maker to do combat in this game.

They could fix a lot of the scams and make the game much more interesting by:

1. Only allowing you to take one mission at a time
2. Ensuring that that mission has a reward that makes sense compared to the time and risk required
3. Ensuring that almost every mission has some kind of interesting wrinkle - like your pay is stolen by a pirate that you have to track down, or maybe you get an offer to sell your cargo for double the reward but it'll annoy your employer. The featureless "take this from A to B and get paid with no hitches" should be extremely rare.

Trustworthy posted:

I've put hundreds of hours into Elite, and I've had a blast fighting, exploring, mining, trading, etc., both by myself and in wings. And I've never once flown an Anaconda, on the principle of it being space-basic as poo poo.

I mean seriously, if you literally can't have fun with Elite unless you're in the cockpit of one specific end-game ship--and that bothers you--then maybe find a different game that you enjoy more...?

Toxic Fart Syndrome posted:

Just to be clear: I'm not saying this is true, just that is is their design philosophy and the Brown Sea's raison d'etre...

Knifegrab posted:

Lol if you did that people in this thread would lose their poo poo, people like the scams.

Gort posted:

I'm sure there would be different scams. It'd actually be kind of fascinating to list all of the scams we've seen since the start of the game.

Asproigerosis posted:

Is there supposed to be some sort of inside joke with regards to all the npc portraits having derpy dreamworks face?

Nostalgia4Infinity posted:

Seriously, has anyone used the ship transfer system regularly since its implementation? Nothing like dropping a million credits for the pleasure of setting a timer on your phone to let you know when you can play again!

vorebane posted:

Ship transfers let me engineer about in my asp, and summon a vulture when I want to engineer it or get down to hunt bounties. The timer is a bitch, but the price is reasonable imo.

Toxic Fart Syndrome posted:

I'm sorry, but 3M to move an Anaconda/Corvette 6 jumps while also waiting half an hour is stupid and unfun.

At the very least it should be faster than moving it myself OR be free.

wargames posted:

but my immersion?

Plek posted:

My immersion requires that in-system transfers follow relativistic rules and each separate system has its own independent time frame. Why the gently caress isn't everyone I left behind old and dead Frontier?!