My last entry for a year... When are all these promises going to be Fulfilled?
07 Dec 2017MBaldelli
This was posted on Frontier's Forums here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/394000-When-are-all-these-promises-going-to-be-fulfilled?p=6193985#post6193985A copy is being kept here for security's sake...
I usually ignore walls of text… Something about them is very off-putting for the internal pointy-haired manager that I have become in my middle age. However, as things were slowing down for the Christmas Holidays, I decided to spend some time reading one that caught my eye…
Thanks to that inspiration, I decided to put in a me too on it. I'll try not to make walls of text either. But no promises there, I have had a lot of time to think about this.
The thing is, the OP on that post has a point. There are several problems with Elite: Dangerous that can be summed up as follows:
I. There is little to no player agency.
II. Grind and RNG is out of control.
III. Traditions are too strictly adhered to, and
IV. Hype coupled with Glacial Improvements
I know this has all been said before. I've been around for much of it since I started playing this game. And while I might not be saying it as uniquely as I had hoped, and lord knows I’m not covering half as much as I should -- I want to take the moment to make this post that a wakeup call for things to come. An omen for potentially more troublesome issues in the days ahead.
Player Agency
First and foremost there is little want for player investment. Having played this game for just over a year, I realize that the biggest feeling I get from Elite: Dangerous is, ooooh, look at how pretty the galaxy is! Look at all these planets and stars and moons and asteroids. Don't they look marvelous for that tourist/beauty shot you're thinking about? Take one, you have the ability to. But you can't touch!
While I understand that much of the universe at large is very much like this and I understand the want to keeping it at pristine as possible… this is a game and a toy and not the actual universe at large, but a microverse of human making. Massive in scale sure… But a microverse nonetheless. The current approach by Frontier Development -- the gatekeepers to the sandbox -- to the player base is much like telling a three year old, "Here's a massive bag of Legos. You can't build anything because I won't allow it. Instead, I'll give you things to play with." And then proceeds to control what is being built and ends up giving bare representations of human figures with piles of Legos sitting on the floor collecting dust.
Eventually even the 3 year old's going to go find something else to do. Even if that to do is to lick chalk.
Next, the entire menu system on a station or outpost is as archaic as MAPICS and just as old. While I understand that mission giving is set up so that the player can determine whether or not to support a faction in BGS, most times players aren't interested in the obscure and occult learning curve of that part of the game; so forcing them to that trough in this draconian method is both time consuming and patience draining. I won't use the business terms of counter-intuitive; I will say it is clearly antiquated and lacks the necessary adaptability of being able to sort not only legal/illegal/other -- but for the hardcore hauler -- by destination. Or even worth/net gain. Players are forced to read it section by section until the user is tired of reading.
This is further exacerbated by the outfitting sub-menus/screens where you're forcing the player to sit there and watch every single hardpoint retracting and replacing with the new weapon, ordinance or utility mount. Any sort of improvements to a ship through module, hardpoints and utility mounts feels like it's being done by a single asthmatic geriatric using a Zimmer frame and on an oxygen tank and not the sort of thing a ground crew team would be doing on a station or outpost.
Interaction within the Bubble of Elite: Dangerous is as personal and relatable as a mass email from the bank you do business with. The leaders of the minor factions are pictures -- that while their expressions might change based on player reputation increases -- have all the warmth of either a sycophant or in some cases a pederast. This approach connotes as much investment for the player as talking to those stock photos seen in picture frames at the local Hallmark Store.
Rankings within any of the big three (Federation, Empire and Alliance) -- while being nothing more than honorary and unlocking ships and permits to locations within the sandbox -- have the same value as a diploma from any of the papermill colleges in the world; including Trump University. If you didn't want these ranks to have any value -- you shouldn't have ever used them. Especially when you consider when people see getting a title, they expect to use it in some manner. And I'm not talking about unlocking permits to many useless (and traditional) systems but ships as well. I'm talking about seeing it being used in much the same manner retired Commissioned officers get on their postal mail. Lt. Col. Michael Andrew Baldelli, ret. Captain Michael Andrew Baldelli, ret. Not with the hug and kisses (in game) of, "well, we didn't find anything on you, this time…"
The bottom line on these player agencies is that we gamers have received better interaction as well as investment from games made with the SCUMM engine back in the late-80s to mid-90s than we do when we land on a station or outpost for mission giving and reward results. And those games had vocal dialog. Something horribly missing from a game that was programmed in 2010s. Especially when you consider that Perfect Worlds has been reinventing their written text to a combination of voice and text. Are we supposed to be waiting for Elite: Dangerous to do the same in 5 years? And all I can think to myself is, how sad is that?
Grind and RNG (especially in the game economy)
The in-game economy makes as much sense as an accountant with dementia. If the payouts aren't incredibly rich (as was a case delivering a courier data rush for 320K because the base in question was 318K LS from entry point) the payout so poor that one should be selling themselves off into slavery for the Empire to recoup the wear & tear costs (and yes, there are still 2,000 credit rewards for a run to Colonia on some of the missions boards).
The reward system also pushes arbitrary and draconian materials that 95% of the time, are nothing more than trinkets… Tchotchkes. Traders don't want them, and most gamers that are doing the missions for the credits find them utterly garbage.
Recently I found that the only purpose of their being on a ship is to attract NPCs in a RES site to threaten and attack players trying to do bounty runs. Then the NPC pirates in the RES sites go after players like a cat does catnip if players have so much as 4 tons of them in their cargo holds. I only recently discovered this when I kept seeing messages from the NPCs demanding I drop 2 tons (of the 4) in my cargo hold. I thought it a bug. Only when I returned to a base and did a quick double check of my cargo, I realized I forgot to dump them.
When there is fast money to be had; it's done in the form of Gold Fountains in some random system within the Bubble that comes off more like an exploit instead of a believable economy. This is reinforced because they only seem to hit during an upgrade rollout. And then are removed -- by you Frontier Developments -- after x amount of time when there are tons of videos giving detailed "how to" for those impatient players wanting to make money fast. Like it's some sort of big secret that you shouldn't be making videos for. Take a look through You Tube History to see how that plays out…
Chain Missions in this game are positively nonsensical. Follow up missions tend to be automatically ranked Elite (not that I usually allow rankings in this game to affect my decision, but I've learned that for new players do) and almost always involving skimmer runs and proof of this not being too well thought out, but instead a bone thrown out to the players that made the most amount of suggestions/complaints.
This ill-thought out approach was reinforced when I recently saw a mission show up in my inbox involving an assassination mission telling me -- in e-mail (see the bit above on player agency) -- that the target's not in the system I honked in and that I should go to another system, talk to this person and they'll give me a lead.. Except when I went to that system, the NPC was nowhere to be found, picked the wrong base to land at and no trigger could be caused to finding the assassination target. I abandoned the mission because truthfully, this didn't feel like an adventure, this felt like busy work on top of all the other busy work in the game. And believe me; as a story teller and occasional writer -- this game pushes the limit on my wanting to RP.
RNG for engineers makes this gap between fun, work, and addiction that much wider. I play games (video and tale top) because I don't like gambling. The toughest gambling I do in table-top is hoping to get the right roll of a 6 sided die. Video games? It's one of those depends… If this is supposed to be a strategy game one that involves skill and planning, I couldn't tell when I land at an Engineer I unlocked wanting to have something tweaked. It looks to me like a slot machine if ever I saw one. I know, it's been promised that this will be revamped in the future… But hold that thought when I get to the next sections…
The bottom line is that in-game economy should make it feasible for the end-user to be able to accomplish what they want and dream for in a reasonable amount of time… And while this is considered subjective based on patience, investment and application… Limits for accomplishing such things within Elite: Dangerous seems to be set almost like work instead of recreation. In fact, this is reinforced when you realize you have to spend significantly more time in the game to net the same result (6+ hours a sitting and I admit this is a rough estimate based on the 90 - 120 minutes a day I play the game).*
*I have spent a year comprising of a couple of hours a day to get only 1 elite rank (Exploration) 7 ships, a couple of fashion color kits and a whole lot of aggravation in a skinner box. I have been able to do projections and with the current model, it would take me another year to work back up to being able to purchase (with required rebuys for it) a Python if I were to follow the path of a bounty hunter. If anything, I would need to continue to work exploration or run for the various gold fountains to speed this up.
I wish I could remember the saying my grandmother used to tell me growing up… Something about "When play time is work, when do you have time to play?"
No matter how I try to remind myself this is a game, Elite: Dangerous definitely is not coming off that way. It's work… More work than what I used to do building ships in bottles or battle dioramas.
Traditions too strongly adhered to and
Hype coupled with Glacial Improvements
Someone far wiser than me once said, "…Do not believe in anything (simply) because you have heard it; do not believe in traditions, because have been handed down for many generations. Do not believe in anything because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it…"
It's good that some incarnation of this game has survived 33 years. It is good that there are elements that can date back to the original game. However it is catastrophic when application of these "traditions" coupled with a business model that is not only long in the tooth but seems to be stuck in the past. And there is more than adequate proof between Frontier's game forums and the e-market presence online that are most definitely stuck in the past. The early-90s if I were to wager a guess based on the cuss/swear filters on the Forums and within the game along with the mid 90s in archaic methods for delivering sales information from the website. Couple this with an underperforming method apply fixes and rollouts to the point where things are being stifled.
I'm rather surprised on this, and it raises a question what Frontier's priorities are when it comes to a game they're lovingly trying to resurrect and keep alive in the 21st century. Unless of course, I suspect something for more common of companies that deal with Science-Fiction. That this is nothing more than a 2nd class attempt and the true money maker is Planet Coaster. In which case, heaven help you when the Elite: Dangerous fans realize their love is second fiddle.
I've learned through 4¾ years with Warframe that the PC Player community can be extremely forgiving when problems are being fixed in a routine manner and promised -- both implied and enacted -- are fulfilled (and the one and only reason I am bringing this up in comparison is because I know from experience that everything I've brought up to them has been fixed and/or implemented; which is more than I can say about things here). There will always be people that are never satisfied, that’s the occupational hazard of working in the gaming industry. But at least in DE's actions of fixing things and rolling out improvements -- DE doesn't need to be passive aggressive with the community. AS passive-aggressive from Frontier Developments did not too long ago with their update calling out just how salty their community is.
Yes, I remember this, it's part of the reason why I've stayed quiet up until Frontier Expo has passed. People still think it amusing and get a chuckle out of it. I didn't. Then again I was learned to have manners when faced with harsh criticism and not lash out in a passive-aggressive way when dealing with it. Maybe it's time you folk talk with some external sources -- like Gabe Newell for example -- to re-learn how to make this game have the thing it seems to be barren of: fun.
To continue with my finishing points..
We gamers have been promised many things in the year I've been here..
1. The ability to land on all planets, atmospheric and hard vacuum
2. It was hinted that there would be more types of SRVs to choose from
3. Thargoids.
4. An Explorer mission type revamp
5. Sensible Crime & Punishment…
Landings on ice planets is promised for 2018 which is almost 3 years after the Horizons Season Pass has been released. And that is most assuredly not Earth-Like Worlds/Ammonia Worlds which would be easier than a volcanic/atmospheric Metal Rich. Especially when you consider that ED uses the same engine as Planet Coaster and ELWs are assuredly possible given that game.
SRVs has been backed out and we have only one.
Thargoids are nothing more than a recurring kiddie ride -- like a carousel -- that most adult players can completely avoid and those that have done it are disappointed it's not more.
The explorer revamp -- like landing on atmospheric planets -- is schedule for some time next year as well.
And Crime and Punishment is to be coming out around Christmas time.
Wait… Wait… Wait… Things are changing… You just have to wait.
This seems to be a recurring song with Elite: Dangerous. A song many people are getting tired of hearing when you consider the suggestions forum is reading like a broken record with the amount of suggestions that keep recurring and how little have been added from them. Or worse how long it takes for both suggestions and updates to be incorporated into the game.
What if we're tired of waiting? What then?
This won't be the sort of swan song that the OP in the original link that inspired me to this. I've invested a year into both my character and this game and that's usually a sign I see promise in something to want to stick around. No, instead consider this a wake-up call. The sort of snap out of it message sent before more dire and more direct methods of handling issues done in the business world. I'll be back in a year to see whether you kept promised and added better content as well as better balance. Because if 28 years of being a political activist and lobbyist has taught me anything - sometimes a cooling off period is required before more appropriate action.
Finally like all suggestions I have posted here, I invite the nay-sayers, the devoted acolytes, the contrarians and anyone willing to share their opinion to pick it apart for the benefit of making themselves feel accomplished and you -- Frontier Development -- to poo poo away accordingly. Whatever happens, keep in mind I will honor my promise, like the gentleman I try to project.