Motivation and Content in Elite: Dangerous

[CMDR Abil Midena]

I don't see how there's ever going to be 'persistence' in ED. If there was, everything within 200 LY from Sol would be destroyed by now.

[smartroad]

Things I would like to see to improve my enjoyment of the game (I can only speak for myself!).

Persistence. Sure there are some things you 'just find' on a planet - crashed ship, buoy or satellite. But when I come across a structure I kinda expect it to always be there - not there for this one time. The mechanic of finding surface stuff is just odd, fly around the surface of a planet at at least 2.5km altitude and magic blue rings appear. Because you can't fly at more than 782mph (max speed of a Viper according to Coriolis), and planets are, well, big, it means lots of blue circles have to appear to make it worth while doing. On Earth it would take almost 32 hours to circumnavigate the equator!

The orbital cruise is a wasted mechanic at the moment, just a tool for getting from one side of a planet to another. With the detailed surface scanner the orbital cruise could be used to scan the surface for interesting POI's. It could give you a set of coordinates that it has found, different things so could be 'distress beacon' (crashed ship, landed ship but no fuel), 'high powered signal' (Mining operations and larger unofficial settlements), 'Low powered signal' (small mining and settlements), 'beacon' (downed satellites etc). It could also point out what sort of minerals are present and maybe a broad idea of where you might find some (for synthesis etc.). Because this is done from orbit there can be fewer POI's as you can spin round the planet quite quickly but more meaningful POI's that can be persistent (even if they have to regenerate to deal with the point Abil makes). I also find it hard to believe that given the size of many of the planets there is only one or two settlements on it! Some of these planets will have been abused for centuries, some should be nothing but structures! (Thinking of the City world in Star Wars). At least the settlements should be much larger than they are currently.

There also needs to be more to in the SRV. If the settlements were much larger then there could be shops you could go to and get cheaper/more powerful/different weapons for your ship. Or you could get missions from them. I am so hoping that this is something that will happen with the Engineers etc and that they are not just another item in the space stations contact option. Landing pads could also be spread around - imagine being surrounded by buildings as you bring your Anaconda down on the large landing pad! Hit a building? Get fined for its repairs.

I would also like to be able to align with a minor power - but this is done by first doing missions for them off of the BB to gain trust and then able to find out individuals who you can then curate a more meaningful relationship. Personally this is how I would though PowerPlay was going, not massive powers like they have.

I'd like the stations and settlements to use more procedural generation for more variety, mainly for the inside dock area. This especially when you are able to walk about. At the moment I would love to have the ability to drive around the rings of stations - even if there is a cut scene like getting to the SRV at the moment.

A better description of how the BGS works. Properly stating how the states can be changed and what they are affected by. Personally I think the BGS is working, but it is surrounded by so much cloak and dagger that it is difficult to see if what you done had any real effect on it. When things happen it isn't easy to see what actually made it happen. Again at starports news sections there could be a PG report on the amount of piracy, trading, bounties (issued and handed in) etc. That would help in being able to decide what is going on.

Despite all this, I love playing the game. Sure I have time out with it occasionally (haven't played at all today). There is a diamond somewhere in there, I just hope FDev don't break it trying to chip away finding it

-edit-
OMG That is much more than I planned to write sorry

[Roger Wilco Jr]

I think this guy was pretty much spot on, but I think there may be more persistence in regards to POIs than he is saying. Anyway, I recall people complaining, me included, about a lack of depth, or a lack of depth of content - not that there wasn't stuff to do. I also think the game was more enjoyable in the early days when it took a lot more time to accumulate credits. Now you can easily have millions of credits and big new ships in a matter of days or weeks. IMO, that's stealing a lot of fun from the new players. And the AI is way to stupid and easy, at least in RES or interdictions if you are in a good combat ship. I still haven't died in combat, but I have been slaughtered as a trader half a dozen times (before I learned about high waking).

I spent most of my time trading and exploring and came to combat late. Missions for me were just legal delivery missions. I never wanted to do anything illegal. That's why I finally took to bounty hunting, because I wanted to punish the pirates. But how stupid is it that there is an unlimited supply of them. So now I'm off exploring for 5-6 months and I hope that some of the crap will be fixed by the time I get back, but I'm not holding my breath.

And I still play it, exclusively, almost every day.

And another thing - I don't think of this so much as a game as a simulation of making a living in space. Just like making a living on Earth, it's not going to be fun or exciting all the time. That's why I'd like it to take a lot longer to work up the ranks and get bigger ships. I'm not saying you need to work 30 years to afford that fancy ship like you'd have to in real life, but a lot longer than you have to now would be nice. And for the really big ships, I think you should probably have to be in a Navy (and not both!).

If they ever get it figured out, I'll clear my save and start again. Hopefully, I won't worry about ranks and I can play in an open galaxy where criminals are caught & punished and held responsible for their actions, and people that collude and cheat are banned to a shadow galaxy. Then I'll just be able to have wonderful experiences doing whatever I want, and the depth will be there to allow me to do it.

[Dudley]

CMDR's - keep sending the crash reports, stick with it and keep supporting FD.. we'll get there, (eventually)

[LionWalker]

And unless fdev checks all our threads here, don't forget to send your suggestions to them as well.

[Avago-Earo]

And unless fdev checks all our threads here, don't forget to send your suggestions to them as well.

Agreed. It may feel dirty going over there but sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

[Falcon_D]

Hello,
Can't say I disagree with the OP.
The thing I would like to add is that persistence is very difficult to achieve in a multi-player game. It all comes back to the new player experience. If the older players change the game universe, what will the new players experience?
I've yet to play an MMO which has successfully implemented persistence. In WoW, everytime I created a new Elf character I would have to cure the same bunch of deer again and again. I come back after finding a cure for them and still see them running around diseased. In GW2, I gave up counting the number of times I've killed (chased away?) the same dragon. The only way these games have implemented persistence is to come up with a patch or version that updates the game universe. ESO (Elder Scrolls Online) came up with a way to add persistence. Each player has their own instance. If I save a town, that town stays saved. But only for me. If I group with a friend who has not saved the town and we both enter the same town together, we end up in different instances and I won't be able to see him. That was how it was when I started playing. But players complained about this and now I don't know how they sorted it out.
Player controlled markets were great in Eve. But also, the most potent tool to use to play EvE was MS Excel, imo. In Elite, I want to use a HOTAS.
I would really love to see varieties in star systems. SC has imo some of the best looking systems. Problem is, they have only about 100 of these. Compared to Elite's few billion. In fact, that is the biggest gripe I have with Elite. I can live with all the bugs, I can live with some of the balancing issues. But please, have some more variety in the systems we visit.
Right now I'd just settle for seeing humanoid characters (or even humanoid shadows) at stations and stations advertising stuff other than ship's manufacturers. Put in an add for Riff Raff's at Mobius. Put in advertising for a massage palour at the "Ramon's Pleasure Drome" (I think). Do some advertising for Apple (consumer goods), McDonalds (synthetic meat), Tiffany's (Gold), etc. Make the bubble feel a bit more alive.

Have fun, fly safe. o7

[Edit] PS: Just realized that Elite has more persistent content than nearly every other Multi-player game I've played. Hutton Orbital run creating a player asked for Hutton mug an in-game rare. Obsidian CG, creating player asked for Obsidian Orbital in Maia (ok, via patch.) The BGS. For all it's imperfections it is persistent. If a minor faction controls a system it controls the system in every CMDRs instance and until something or someone triggers a change.
[/Edit]

[Xariann]

I really like the idea of the game being a space simulation. There are other simulators where basically you do the same thing over and over.

In Microsoft Flight simulator for example you spend more time modding your plane, modding your environment etc., than flying. Yet people spend money building recreations of real cockpits in 1:1 scale and try to pilot the plane. You can actually pilot the plane in real time, or you can speed it up and if you pilot it in real time you can just take off, stick on the autopilot, go to sleep, let the game run and come back in the morning to land the plane.

That's all you do in Flight simulator. Take off, fly, land. Yet you don't get the complaints that, "there's nothing to do."

Train simulator, you depart, stop at the next station, take on passengers, next station, you don't even get to steer.

Truck simulator, you get your load, drive to your destination, get the next load.

So why do people complain about Elite? There's definitely more to do in Elite compared to those games.

I think it's because of the lack of mods. In all of those games you can spend hours modding. In fact, I spent a good deal of time trying to configure GEMFX and textures so that Elite would look a tiny bit better and that alone made me want to play for about a week. And then nothing much to do, really, and no other mods.

This will sound contradictory but a good sim has very good mod support. Elite hasn't got any.

And as an arcade game it lacks some depth. As much as I like Elite, I can actually only play it in stints. But then again, since I got busy with work there have not been any games that have held my attention for long and Elite is one of few I definitely feel like getting back to and invest in future updates, even if I don't play it every day.

There is something in this game that doesn't make it THE game that is the end all and be all of space sims and for me it's what I said above.

[Schmobius]

As someone who has around 60 gigs of mods installed on various Fallout and Elder Scrolls games, I thoroughly enjoy modding the crap out of games, but that is nearly impossible to allow in a multiplayer game.

Next thing you know, you're getting killed by invincible pirates with infinite ammo INSIDE THE STATION who can magically warp to wherever another player is, and call in 8 capital ships. If you think FDev can open this game up very much to modding, and still stop that sort of thing... you haven't been paying much attention to the growing bug list and anemic patch releases, have you?

Single player allows you to do whatever the hell you want, really. You can do all that craziness, and more, without ruining anyone else's day. And turn dragons into Randy Savage or Thomas the Tank Engine.

FDev is trying to add some crafting and upgrades beyond the current outfitting this year, which may get at least a little closer to what you're describing with the other simulators though. I suppose we'll have to see how that turns out.

[Falcon_D]

As someone who has around 60 gigs of mods installed on various Fallout and Elder Scrolls games, I thoroughly enjoy modding the crap out of games, but that is nearly impossible to allow in a multiplayer game.

Next thing you know, you're getting killed by invincible pirates with infinite ammo INSIDE THE STATION who can magically warp to wherever another player is, and call in 8 capital ships. If you think FDev can open this game up very much to modding, and still stop that sort of thing... you haven't been paying much attention to the growing bug list and anemic patch releases, have you?

Single player allows you to do whatever the hell you want, really. You can do all that craziness, and more, without ruining anyone else's day. And turn dragons into Randy Savage or Thomas the Tank Engine.

FDev is trying to add some crafting and upgrades beyond the current outfitting this year, which may get at least a little closer to what you're describing with the other simulators though. I suppose we'll have to see how that turns out.

Hello,
You've brought up some really valid points about mods. Also as another poster as mentioned, mods seem to increase the longevity and entertainment value of a game.
To me, when talking about games like Elite which are more MMOesque I prefer the comparison to WoW (yes I know about all the hate surrounding it, but lets face it, in the MMO world it's the great huge elephant in the room.) I've know WoW players who can't play the game without their mods. These mods do not affect anything to do with actual gameplay, no instant travel, no one hit kills, no invisibility cloaks, etc. They just seem to give specs and stats that are readily available but now presented in a much nicer way. E.g. Crit damage stats, DPS stats, approximate NPC power usage timer (although this seems to me a bit of a cheat.)
I would really like a mod that would bring up my Inara Commander's log in the Left pane of my cockpit and allow me to type into it. Or a mod to the galaxy window that uses my flight log to place markers on places I've visited. Or a mod that allows me access to Hutton radio on my comms panel. Or better yet, a trade mod that in my right pane that allows me access to TradeDangerous or EDDB (I've read that according to lore that sharing a stations prices to others out of the current system is deemed illegal by system authorities and is actively discouraged in order to prevent "gaming" a system's prices.) I.e. mods in game that allow me to access Elite based content that is currently available on the web.

Have fun, fly safe. o7