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Clipper is one of those edge cases where green shields aren't actually straight up better. Unlike the Courier, where green shields are insanely good.
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Sep 22, 2015 14:42
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Zaardvark posted:I may dabble with CQC, but the part of Horizons I'm most interested in will be driving a space buggy. Horizons will be the station walking (Eve Online) of Elite. It will be a one room tech demo with absolutely no reason to be there. The only content they should be adding is more co-op activities. CountingWizard fucked around with this message at 14:47 on Sep 22, 2015 |
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Sep 22, 2015 14:45
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CountingWizard posted:Horizons will be the station walking (Eve Online) of Elite. It will be a one room tech demo with absolutely no reason to be there. This is my biggest fear too. 
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Sep 22, 2015 15:28
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Let's make the choice to be glass-half-full people and dream up some cool ways that Horizons gameplay could be more than a pointless albeit flashy tech demo. Some gameplay ideas that would give weight to the experience: -Planetary mining. Give us a little land surveying mini game that we play while driving around to find rich ore deposits. -Tie into current missions. Plenty of opportunity for land-based fetch quests so long as driving around is as much fun as flying around and docking are in this game. -If there are ground vehicle weapons at play (think the Mako's awesome cannon from Mass Effect) then there's opportunity for NPC and player bounty hunting. I'm envisioning chasing an NPC from space down to the surface, they try to escape you on ground with the goal to rendezvous with another escape ship and you have to kill them in a limited time period before they get away. -This one is a long shot, but it would be awesome if we could place our own start line and finish line beacons, basically create our own race courses, then race each other. Maybe add in the ability to wager credits to the winner. Emergent gameplay ahoy!
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Sep 22, 2015 17:13
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tooterfish posted:Elite is currently 40% off on Steam. I'm aware of what they meant, being released at the same time makes them the same release, just because you don't have to pay for the ships if you own the base game doesn't mean you're playing a different version of the game somehow, you're just gated by not owning the ticket that lets you land on planets (or do other things that are arbitrarily branded as horizons content). What I'm annoyed about is that they keep going on about how there will be free content in season two for people who didn't buy horizons, being released with horizons essentially makes the ships into "free season two content" not season one, and that gives them free reign to be very wishy-washy with features being free or locked behind. Additionally being one release instead of two lets them skimp on the features in general; I get that they painted themselves into a corner with these release dates, but that doesn't mean I can't be annoyed by their mis-management. It's also very likely that we won't see 1.5/horizons till very, very end of december, or possibly even january, since their stated release is "Holiday Season" Also I'm going to put something in the OP about it, but it gets less and less intelligent to buy the base game instead of just Horizons as we approach the release date because you get the base game upon release if you own Horizons, the only incentive of any kind is that you'll get access to the Cobra MK4
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Sep 22, 2015 17:22
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AndroidHub posted:What I'm annoyed about is that they keep going on about how there will be free content in season two for people who didn't buy horizons, being released with horizons essentially makes the ships into "free season two content" not season one, and that gives them free reign to be very wishy-washy with features being free or locked behind. Additionally being one release instead of two lets them skimp on the features in general; I get that they painted themselves into a corner with these release dates, but that doesn't mean I can't be annoyed by their mis-management. As far as I remember they've said 1.5 is part of season 1, not 2.
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Sep 22, 2015 17:38
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If FDev had given any reason to expect anything other than the bare minimum in terms of what they plan to deliver I might feel differently, but everything points to them biting off more than they can chew. And you can parrot that it's season one all you want, but it's being released at the beginning of season two, not some indeterminate time before it like we had thought before the last newsletter, and they are calling all of the other planned features that you won't need to own horizons for to get "free season two content" so I don't see the difference. Look, I already own the expansion, I just don't like that they keep pushing back releases constantly, I'm sure(relatively) we'll have something or other come January, I'm just not getting my hopes up at this point that it's gonna feel like the content of two separate releases.
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Sep 22, 2015 17:59
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Siets posted:Let's make the choice to be glass-half-full people and dream up some cool ways that Horizons gameplay could be more than a pointless albeit flashy tech demo. Some gameplay ideas that would give weight to the experience: Plow the bow of a buddy's Anaconda into the moondust, ramp a buddy on top of 'Conda, signal for take off, wait until upper atmosphere then drive off and sky-dive that motherfucker
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Sep 22, 2015 18:03
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AndroidHub posted:If FDev had given any reason to expect anything other than the bare minimum in terms of what they plan to deliver I might feel differently, but everything points to them biting off more than they can chew. And you can parrot that it's season one all you want, but it's being released at the beginning of season two, not some indeterminate time before it like we had thought before the last newsletter, and they are calling all of the other planned features that you won't need to own horizons for to get "free season two content" so I don't see the difference. There's no way I can affect the outcome here, so I'd rather wait and see what happens than wind myself up over what might happen. You're obviously of a different school of thought.
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Sep 22, 2015 18:31
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tooterfish posted:I'd rather wait and see what happens than wind myself up over what might happen. 
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Sep 22, 2015 21:44
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CountingWizard posted:Horizons will be the station walking (Eve Online) of Elite. It will be a one room tech demo with absolutely no reason to be there. I just remembered that the super-fast moon orbiting New Africa in Epsilon Indi is a rocky, airless planet. I bet it should be cool enough to attract people in open, who could then engage in frolicking and blowing each other up if they actually put proper weapons on ground vehicles like they hinted. Also they will put bases and stuff on planets (maybe procedurally?) and related co-op base assaults also with air to ground, so I'm actually optimistic - it could even be fun!
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Sep 22, 2015 22:26
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TorakFade posted:Also they will put bases and stuff on planets (maybe procedurally?) and related co-op base assaults also with air to ground, so I'm actually optimistic - it could even be fun!
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Sep 22, 2015 22:44
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Mercurius posted:Not to mention they already said that the larger ships are like flying bricks in the atmosphere so that could be another niche for the smaller and more nimble ships that were added for CQC but will make their way to the main game like the Imperial Eagle. Note that Horizons starts with landing on airless bodies only, it's hinted at/presumed that atmosphere and weather come with Horizons but later. When they've talked about ships handling badly with Horizons so far they've only talked about gravity of the bodies themselves, larger and more dense bodies presumably loving with ships even more because they have 'more' gravity. With atmosphere and weather we should get even more effects on how our ship handles. I'm personally looking forward to *hear* what atmospheric flight in a rainstorm sounds like. You know how when you dock in a station how there is a distinct change in acoustics when you slide though the mail slot? And how there is sound and echos all over because you are in air?  As far as airless planets you can land on some have permits that prevent this otherwise they are all out there. Many interviews about this have people at Frontier talking about how they've had the data for planetary surfaces this whole time from Stellar Forge but they haven't needed it. With Horizons they do so now they will pull that generated data and use it to give us (maybe) billions of airless planets to land on, made out of metals, rocks, and ices. Life bearing planets are an entire other paid expansion that is NOT Horizons.
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Sep 22, 2015 23:23
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KakerMix posted:Life bearing planets are an entire other paid expansion that is NOT Horizons. I think they moved away entirely from the paid expansion model. If I understand what Fdev is saying correctly, Horizons is a season of expansions, and the first expansion in it is planetary landings. You are correct in your assertion that we may see life bearing planetary content on another season, after Horizons. I don't think they can make it inside 2016.
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Sep 22, 2015 23:28
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After the blows of a thousand slaps, I have no face left to be slapped.
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Sep 23, 2015 00:19
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It's a "season of updates", in that they are counting patches 1.0-1.4 as "Season 1". As far as I know, they have said nothing regarding what you get in this "Season 2: Horizons" aside from the first patch adding lifeless, airless surface landing options and some sort of rover. I guess if you want to get really technical about it, they did not indicate exactly what would be available at the launch of Horizons either. It's entirely possible the rovers don't show up until the second patch, or there are rovers but no surface features on the planets until a later update. I don't recall seeing anything about how many patches would be released or what their content would be, just more of a big picture of what they were doing with Season 2 in general. About the only solid thing is the small 1.5 patch "Ships", which was billed as an update to prepare for Horizons, will be launched at the same time as Horizons itself. You won't need Horizons to get the things added in 1.5, though it was originally supposed to come out a couple weeks before Horizons anyway. Additionally, with Horizons being a series of patches rather than a packaged expansion, they could be using the term launch in a more nebulous way, perhaps just an indication of when people who purchase Horizons would actually be able to log in to E:D. This is my biggest complaint against Frontier, everything they do has this awful "black box" feel to it as it's either unexplained or explained in such a poor way that nobody can be quite sure what they're being told. It sounded like their goal was to get you to buy a new "season" every year for $60 unless you call in the next ten minutes!! You could save ten whole bucks on our mystery box!!!
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Sep 23, 2015 00:39
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Dante80 posted:I think they moved away entirely from the paid expansion model. If I understand what Fdev is saying correctly, Horizons is a season of expansions, and the first expansion in it is planetary landings. Where is your source on this? As far as I can see this is still their model and Horizons is a big underline on the 'paid expansion' model. GaylordButts posted:It's a "season of updates", in that they are counting patches 1.0-1.4 as "Season 1". As far as I know, they have said nothing regarding what you get in this "Season 2: Horizons" aside from the first patch adding lifeless, airless surface landing options and some sort of rover. I guess if you want to get really technical about it, they did not indicate exactly what would be available at the launch of Horizons either. It's entirely possible the rovers don't show up until the second patch, or there are rovers but no surface features on the planets until a later update. I don't recall seeing anything about how many patches would be released or what their content would be, just more of a big picture of what they were doing with Season 2 in general. About the only solid thing is the small 1.5 patch "Ships", which was billed as an update to prepare for Horizons, will be launched at the same time as Horizons itself. You won't need Horizons to get the things added in 1.5, though it was originally supposed to come out a couple weeks before Horizons anyway. Additionally, with Horizons being a series of patches rather than a packaged expansion, they could be using the term launch in a more nebulous way, perhaps just an indication of when people who purchase Horizons would actually be able to log in to E:D. This is my biggest complaint against Frontier, everything they do has this awful "black box" feel to it as it's either unexplained or explained in such a poor way that nobody can be quite sure what they're being told. While I think your negativity is justified here is how I see it based on all the stuff they've said: Horizons is 'the game' going forward and this whole next year is Horizons. Since launch we've had community goals, wings, powerplay, and ships peppered throughout. That was the base game and it's year of updates. Horizons is supposed to get the same treatment, which means airless planets, the SRV, planetside bases and the weird drone/control station game they've mentioned including wings made up of ships and SRVs. The number of airless planets to land on is in the billions with some around human space locked off with a permit (probably because some are supposed to be more city or whatever like Earth's moon), and missions that take place with these new things on Horizons launch. As the year goes on we get Horizons updates, opening up planets with atmospheres, weather, more SRVs, and some other things they probably haven't mentioned. They specifically called life bearing planets 'a future expansion' which makes me think they expect to have an expansion out in the future focused specifically on life bearing planets. I'm convinced that the $60 dollars a year for a new season of expansions is what they are going for based on how they talk, history and the pricing on the lifetime expansion pass. Other people aren't so sure it's a whole year worth of expansions and that's just as valid a guess too.
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Sep 23, 2015 01:13
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Literally Kermit posted:Plow the bow of a buddy's Anaconda into the moondust, ramp a buddy on top of 'Conda, signal for take off, wait until upper atmosphere then drive off and sky-dive that motherfucker Finally, some emergent gameplay!
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Sep 23, 2015 01:37
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I think you're absolutely right, I just wish they were more upfront about it. I'd love a rough roadmap like "Here is Season 2 - Horizons: 1.5 - Ships, 1.6 - xxxxxxxx, 1.7 -xxxxxxxx, etc." and a very brief outline of whatever the key focus of each will be. I thoroughly expect these to come out annually and be around 3-4 patches each. The "loyalty discount" just sounds skeezy.
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Sep 23, 2015 01:40
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GaylordButts posted:I think you're absolutely right, I just wish they were more upfront about it. I'd love a rough roadmap like "Here is Season 2 - Horizons: 1.5 - Ships, 1.6 - xxxxxxxx, 1.7 -xxxxxxxx, etc." and a very brief outline of whatever the key focus of each will be. I thoroughly expect these to come out annually and be around 3-4 patches each. Yeah I expect each year to be a 'major' expansion. I'm guessing after Horizons we'll get walking around and maybe then combat? I don't really think that's a good idea to do on-foot combat but Braben always brings up how he wants to hunt alien animals on alien planets and you'd need to be on foot with a weapon so that expansion has to come out before the life one. I still feel Frontier is ignorant, not malicious.
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Sep 23, 2015 01:53
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KakerMix posted:Where is your source on this? As far as I can see this is still their model and Horizons is a big underline on the 'paid expansion' model. I think we are talking about the same thing though. Before release, the model was big paid expansions around a certain theme (thargoids, fps gameplay, planetary interaction) and continued free patches (1.1, 1.2 etc) of the base game. The expansion frequency was not on a seasonal basis (actually, the word season was never uttered as far as I remember), and was presumed to be based strictly on content delivery (with the caveat that planetary interaction was from the start poised to be released on stages). The difference now (which is subtle) seems to be that they have moved into a "season of expansions" style. I presume (and I might be wrong on this) that a season will span a year and will encompass 3 things. a. The overarching feature at launch b. continued free updates for the base game c. feature updates for the paywalled content. Something that we will have to see is how will they manage to enhance the base game with the expansion content without dividing the playerbase (due to having to pay for the expansion) or diluting the content so as to not make the base game..baseless. From the start of the project, Fdev is saying that expansion content is not mandatory for the base game, and you wont have to buy it to keep playing. Btw, there is nothing malicious on this really (especially if you have been following the project since the kickstarter). It could become a little weird though. Dante80 fucked around with this message at 02:02 on Sep 23, 2015 |
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Sep 23, 2015 02:00
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I guess I sounded a lot angrier in those posts earlier than I was, it really started with the semantics of "releasing at the same time" as opposed to "being the same release" (it's the same thing with different words in this case). My biggest apprehension with the payment model they're going with is that as far as I know they haven't said each season will be a year, in-fact it seems like they have intentionally avoided saying such. I guess it's really a wait and see and try to have faith that they aren't going to skimp on the content. At this point having faith in FDev is pretty difficult just because of how they have managed the game, they pile broken features on, then just keep piling instead of fixing what's broken along the way. If you don't fix what's broken your players will go insane. E: Also the idea that players with the base game won't keep access to the loyalty discount if they wait too long is lovely as hell, they could have also stood to make the loyalty discount a bit bigger but I digress. AndroidHub fucked around with this message at 02:05 on Sep 23, 2015 |
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Sep 23, 2015 02:01
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AndroidHub posted:At this point having faith in FDev is pretty difficult just because of how they have managed the game, they pile broken features on, then just keep piling instead of fixing what's broken along the way. Its a simple problem of overextension at this point. When the game was in development (especially in the DDF days), the perception was that FDEV would deliver a base space game, and then work on thematic content to augment it. They ran out of time/money, thus releasing the base game with a lot of things oversimplified or missing. To keep development running, they have to churn up expansions so that the game remains alive. This starts and fuels a positive feedback loop, where moving back and fixing your existing features takes away time from your expansion timetable that will help keep you afloat long enough to move back and fix existing/future features etc etc. This circle can be broken btw, have in mind that a lot of development resources this year were used for Xbox and Mac launches. Also, FDEV is learning from this as we move along (they had 0 MMO experience before ED). I am optimistic. Dante80 fucked around with this message at 02:12 on Sep 23, 2015 |
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Sep 23, 2015 02:09
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They really need to add more cosmetic poo poo if it's a matter of cashflow, I would spend another $30-$40 easy on paintjobs and stuff if they had colors for all the ships and cool emblems They need to take a page from Warframe where you could even upload custom emblems for your clan if you felt like forking over the cash.
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Sep 23, 2015 02:16
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Custom ship voices because I want something stupid like a pirate
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Sep 23, 2015 02:18
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AndroidHub posted:They really need to add more cosmetic poo poo if it's a matter of cashflow, I would spend another $30-$40 easy on paintjobs and stuff if they had colors for all the ships and cool emblems Agreed. They have been a little half-assed on this. I mean, the first picture we ever saw about customization (after the kickstarter) was this:  They have a long way to go still. Dante80 fucked around with this message at 02:31 on Sep 23, 2015 |
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Sep 23, 2015 02:29
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Adult Sword Owner posted:Custom ship voices because I want something stupid like a pirate HCS Voice Packs have custom ship voices, as well as some other features.
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Sep 23, 2015 02:40
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The lack of cosmetics is baffling. Absolutely baffling. We should be buying internal paintjobs, mugs and bobble heads, stupid tacky poo poo for the insides of our ships. I should be able to buy different colored lights for inside my ship or turn some off. Interior finishes, maybe even tinted glass? Fuzzy joysticks, leopard print seat covers, all that stupid poo poo. And that's just the inside, we should have stick on vents and chrome strips and all that poo poo on the outsides of our ships. Light kits, police lights, etc. I'd spend so much money. I have to imagine that it's a problem with their workflow, whatever system they have and what procedure it takes to bake a new paintjob in the game because that's the only thing that makes sense to me.
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Sep 23, 2015 02:52
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KakerMix posted:The lack of cosmetics is baffling. Absolutely baffling. The thing is, I don't think the state of the game and the resulting features are really due to time/money constraints. I'm not saying FD are rolling in money, but I'm convinced that their design process is just... not good. Their approach to the game has been consistent at least as far as back as when I got involved with it, which is probably about 6 months prior to release. It feels like they focus on technical aspects of the game over actual gameplay, balance and content design, either because they don't have the talent and capability to do those things well or because they honestly don't realize how important they are. Look at how good the more technical things are in the game. Flight model? Great. Probably the best space sim flight model in a decade or more. Game universe? Boring as hell, but pretty and technically impressive in terms of size and variety. Things don't start to come apart until you get to the more game-y aspects or, god forbid, actual content. Mining is pretty much the least interesting, least inspired implementation of that kind of gameplay imaginable. "Bounty hunting" is literally Everquest-era MMORPG grinding. NPC traffic is so lifeless that I'd be criticizing it in a $5 indie space sim. Same goes for missions. Ship and loadout balance is a joke. It sucks because I know I'm going to end up buying Horizons around release, but I also know I'm going to regret it and never really feel good about the purchase.
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Sep 23, 2015 03:31
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Harmburger posted:HCS Voice Packs have custom ship voices, as well as some other features. Huh, interesting Yet none of these voicepacks replace "Deploying hardpoints" with "YARR, MAN THE CANNONS" or "Friendship drive charging" with "DROP THE HEAVY CANVAS" E: Basically I am a giant idiot and want something that makes me laugh every time, the Brian Blessed pack is close though Adult Sword Owner fucked around with this message at 04:51 on Sep 23, 2015 |
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Sep 23, 2015 04:49
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Is Frontier owned by the game's designer? Elite strikes me as a singular-vision type project where one person has complete creative control over the design and development of the game. That would explain why some aspects of the game are neglected while others are so refined you could snort them off a credit card.
Typical Pubbie fucked around with this message at 06:20 on Sep 23, 2015 |
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Sep 23, 2015 06:18
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Yes. Braben has been making Elite games for 31 years now.
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Sep 23, 2015 06:23
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Paradoxish posted:It feels like they focus on technical aspects of the game over actual gameplay, balance and content design, either because they don't have the talent and capability to do those things well or because they honestly don't realize how important they are. I think the bolded bit is the truth. It's criminal to not have some of the QoL things people have come to expect standard in their multiplayer games. Goes double if you think about them calling this game an MMO. Someone at that company doesn't seem to understand what a game is, or that it's 2015 and not 1993 and people have come to expect much more out of their games. Paradoxish posted:"Bounty hunting" is literally Everquest-era MMORPG grinding. For me at least, the fact that the flight model is so good makes the grind tolerable, and the whole concept good enough. The problem starts to become evident when you think about things historically. At first killing an NPC anaconda gave you 400 credits. Fighting was supported by trading. This whole idea is absurd and the fix, which they came around to, was to literally multiply by a factor of 500-1000 all the rewards. Still took months to do. Then they give us more RES. Supposedly for harder AI NPCs, in tougher, larger ships. Instead, we get the dreaded pirate lord in a beam turret sidewinder (each of which costs 50 times the base ship's cost). Sometimes if you're lucky, you get a wing of these. People eventually learn to game the system and just quit to menu until you get a spawn table that's actually not completely stupid and pays more than 500k an hour. People start asking for either a fix for HiRES, that only spawns the good stuff, or a new RES that achieves the same. What do they do? New RES that has no cops (?) and still needs resetting to be good. Combat Zones are worse still. Their only purpose is for you to help your chosen minor faction that happens to be in a war, and get a tiny bit of money while doing it. As in, I 100% believe the rewards are so absurdly low for the difficulty and effort involved that the actual reward in FDev's mind is propping up your faction. Fixing this would be trivial and something you'd expect to see in a weekly patch. But it's been literal months of complaints with no solution. There is also no concept of late game money or activities, although I'm not sure this isn't by design. But after you get a vulture, your earning power tanks since it stops growing past that point. Getting to a python takes an incredibly long amount of time. Chrysophylax fucked around with this message at 10:33 on Sep 23, 2015 |
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Sep 23, 2015 10:18
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Chrysophylax posted:Combat Zones are worse still. Their only purpose is for you to help your chosen minor faction that happens to be in a war, and get a tiny bit of money while doing it. As in, I 100% believe the rewards are so absurdly low for the difficulty and effort involved that the actual reward in FDev's mind is propping up your faction.
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Sep 23, 2015 10:52
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AndroidHub posted:They really need to add more cosmetic poo poo if it's a matter of cashflow, I would spend another $30-$40 easy on paintjobs and stuff if they had colors for all the ships and cool emblems Toplowtech fucked around with this message at 11:00 on Sep 23, 2015 |
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Sep 23, 2015 10:58
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some pretty good control in FA OFF. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d3zfPoB0oM
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Sep 23, 2015 12:50
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Paradoxish posted:It feels like they focus on technical aspects of the game over actual gameplay, balance and content design, either because they don't have the talent and capability to do those things well or because they honestly don't realize how important they are. I look at "realizing how important [game design things] are" as integral to the "talent and capability" part of game design.
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Sep 23, 2015 14:10
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Dante80 posted:some pretty good control in FA OFF. Puttin that in the OP because 
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Sep 23, 2015 14:49
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I want to remind everyone that Frontier didn't have a route planner in the original design of Elite Dangerous. It wasn't there and people defended this. 300 billion stars and no route planning. This is, to me, the crowning 
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double riveting posted:I look at "realizing how important [game design things] are" as integral to the "talent and capability" part of game design. More a failure of planning. Having the most talented designers in the world won't help you if your project managers are pushing aside content work in favor of meeting minimum requirements for feature implementation.
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Sep 23, 2015 17:52
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