All great points. I really really don't want this game to die, there's unlimited potential - but Frontier are really dropping the ball on so many aspects of this game.
He's right, to fix exploration, there needs to be something to find out there, or as he said, a puzzle to solve. Right now its all just the same old stuff we've seen 1000 times. You've seen 1 ringed earth-like, you've seen them all. I primarily love exploration, but to be honest, its just extremely boring at this point. I care nothing for the Thargoid stuff, though I did try to get myself interested in it. I've mined all I care to over these many years, and trading has lost any luster it once had. Sadly, I've moved on from the game, and am not likely to return. But, that's the way of things I guess.
I stopped playing before Christmas, right now I am still sitting in the bar at Jaques Station. And Thargoids can bite me, don't do it never will. I've explored to the rim and back several times, you've seen one planet you've seen them all. I want to find alien life and exploration opportunities!
Absolutely correct. The galaxy simulation is superb, but FDev have done nothing with it. An easy win wold be to make all these passive plants do something - e.g. when you get too close they spit poison, or lash out with tentacles (triffid?), or explode, or engulf you, or even wave about in a weird way. That way, every time you came across a new plant there would be the danger aspect because you wouldn't know what it might it might do...
I've always wanted the ability to find a nice empty system close to the bubble, convert an asteroid into a base and have the ability to upgrade it with automated base defenses etc. Have it as a home for storing materials and ships.
Imagine having a hangar with all your ship parked there, where you can walk through them and also board them. Base building would be so nice in this game, I know it's way to much effort for this devs but I would really like to have it.
I always imagined how it would have been like to be able to set up bases, mines, refineries, a whole industrial operation, connecting planets with automated transport routes even between different systems. Having your own base, with your garage, manufacts you have collected in your travels, enev the possibility to dock your fleet arrier to space stations. Being able to pilot your fleet carrier like Captain Picard with the enterprise.
Great suggestions. There are hundreds of billions of *procedurally generated* star systems to explore... and roughly 30 kinds of fauna to find. Your local garden centre has a better selection. So much untapped potential there.
- more interesting exploration - new ships - better FC jump mechanics Couldn't agree more But I would also add : - new equipment (ship hardpoints, new technologies, more internal slots) - more diverse and better paying missions - necessary eddb/inara features that some types of gameplay can't exist without (mining and trading notably)
FDEV: Why does a docking computer or supercruise assist take up an entire optional slot?? it's literally a digital file you download and store on a hard drive. Cars in 2023 are almost driving themselves and yet 1000 years in the future these ships can't do it without adding this gigantic module? c'mon
in my opinion exploration and higher atmosphere density (loose clouds and REAL atmospheric effects) is one thig, but the most important from their point of view would be interiors! Imagine all of customizable items you can use for your interiors. Imagine walking around your conda doing passanger mission with some simple NPC sitting in their chairs and looking out of window at planet you orbiting. this is missing part. This would be great with exploration. Also imagine exploration/tourism mission where you goal is visiting some geysers with your conda and passangers. Then walking to their ship part and seeing them watching the planet you landing. Of course you could abort that - but man! This would be thing to die for to me.
The exploration and schema presented by D2EA are right on point. I hope the Devs consider this well thought out and considered options. It would reinvigorate the game for us all.
The exploration is still boring in Elite. Why should i do this for hours and hours? To put my name on a total unimportant random generated planet that no one cares? Even the payout to find something is so little its not worth. I would be hyped when exploration would be in some way like in EvE Online. Finding things where you can get new technologies or Iitems no one have seen before or something like this.
@@frechesferkel2749 back in Horizons' day, there were occasionally anomalies discovered out there, planets with extreme geographies, interesting systems spit out by the stellar forge, that became points of interest for the community to visit. Distant Worlds 2 etc. There was really something meaningful to discover, a possibility to find something unique. And of course people still believed in Raxxla and were hunting for it enthusiastically. Now since Odyssey, the old planet generation system is gone and the new one makes everything so samey across the galaxy. People gave up on the idea of there being something hidden out there, waiting to be found. Whatever magic there was for explorers is gone. Fdev traded the incentive of finding interesting worlds for pretty sunsets and easy exobiology credits. Such a shame.
My biggest gripe with Elite, is the materials grind. I like the concept of materials, I actually enjoyed getting the guardian modules, and I don't mind that certain materials are "rare" - but you need to get the materials passively and gradually while doing things in Elite - with maybe having to deviate for one or two specific components NOT dedicate tens or hundreds hours of playtime to run around mindlessly grinding out materials doing things you hate doing, so you can actually outfit your ship to do the things you want to do with it.
Don't forget that nearly every mod is broken and flawed and only a select few are actually viable. The Devs KNOW this and just don;t care and will never EVER fix it.
Dude the materials grind is the LEAST gripey thing, there are guides for doing it really fast. I just did what they said and usually had to waste just a week of gameplay to get them all from zero to full. The biggest problem of the game is not grind, its stagnation. Nothing changes for endgame players ever. For 5 years straight now. Only this thargoid nonsense moves forward and I don't know for whom its meant.
@@the_algorithm yeah well, true. But thats not the point - the point is the game has much more serious problems than grind - it is stagnated af. The week of grind for materials is nothing, when compared to not having any changes in pvp meta for years, thus making that week an actual waste and not investment into future fun.
Yeah it would be really cool if they added more cosmic events that passengers want to see. Like 2 black holes colliding or a quasar imploding or a star going supernova.
I loved ED for the VR support. If they added VR to Odyssey, I’d come back. Hunting for mats is a huge pain. Fdev marketing mats as a thing you could get by doing what you are already doing, but that’s never been the reality. Mats take us out of game play. Allow mat collection to be passive, or better yet, get rid of mats and have us perform special missions for engineers. Missions that add depth to the game, not silly ones like bring me 50 slaves.
I agree to this. If they added VR for odyssey I’d be back. The only time you can get 360 in on foot content is during fleet carrier jumps (literally while you are in the jump and then it goes back to the 2D bullshit). At least make the imax theater a 3D experience… SOMETHING!
This is SO TRUE! Elite is why i also even got into VR in the first place. My first 500hrs was literally me just flying around and visiting new stars and planets. That's how long the wonderstruck lasted for me. It was Glorious!
The point about fleet carriers: These should not just be mobile bases. You should be forced to plan your trip, have enough tritium, or explore the perimeter for mining spots. But I like your idea about refueling: We should be able to employ NPC specialists, e.g. someone for mining who also has their own ship docked on your fleet carrier, and depending on expertise of the NPC and their ship equipment, and depending on the resources of the system, they should be able to slowly refuel your carrier, maybe over the course of a few days. And yes, in this case it should go directly to the fuel tank, otherwise we would offer AFK money generation which I think should not be in the game: It would leave to even fewer players online. And anyways: I think we should really have NPC hiring for fleet carriers which affects more aspects of the carrier than just offered services, e.g. how fast the jump can be charged, or trading bonus for player-to-player trade, or how many landing pads can be operated. This would be one step forward in having more individual carriers.
They need to employ their greatest critics and listen carefully to what they say, following this with action based on this feedback. - Yamiks, Obsidian Ant and the likes. 😮
Totally on point. I haven't wanted to have anything to do with the Tharg storyline. Instead I am wandering the Galaxy in my Fleet Carrier with some friends, racking up Exos and Exploration, with repeated stops in Colonia for suit/weapon upgrading. Wishlist: Longer range Fleet Carrier Jumps. I can get 300ly jumps supercharged out of my Conda, so, yeah. 18 minutes total delay between FC jumps = horrible. New Ships. Walk around inside ships. More varieties of life, fauna and flora. Other alien races; a galaxy with such limited sentient life is ridiculous. No real developments for a long time.
For more hours than the hours spent to develop it or less? That's the true question. For a healthy economical perspective of game continuation on long therm may be not worth bringing you back.
@rafaelgoncalvesdias7459 That's true, but these are all features that were promised. To be fair though, the engineering requirements for ship interiors plus seamless boarding DO look like a nightmare.
WOOT ?!?!? Are you serious? Two mechanics that have ZERO effect on actual gameplay, the latter one pretty much impossible to implement without rewrite of the ENTIRE games code (basically rewrite the entire game) base. Just so your epen can compete with SC epen ........ lol This is the point where I realise I am more in support of Frontiers goofy decisions than I thought ...... if it means saying NOPE to idiotic, me too, nonsense mechanics like this suggestion.
@@AndScrambledEggs there was companies ho promised to deliver a game in 3 years. 13 years ago. And still don't have a release date. It justify Frontier not delivering it's promises? Absolutely not. But I guess that's on us consumers to blame ho peacefully allow them to steal our money peacefully. Maybe those studios deserve to "die".
ship interiors would need a purpose; decorating, crafting, repairs, interacting with passengers and/or crew, etc. all of that would require several months (millions of dollars) of coding, modelling, testing, fixing, reworking, marketing, etc. atmospheric landings are a non-starter. in this future almost any planet with an atmosphere is covered in cities that they wouldn't realistically let you be able to visit. they'd have to scale back the fidelity so much it'd look like a ps1 game on the surface with the scale they are currently working in.
Imagine if they let players build colonies on other planets if they wished to do it. and were able to upgrade them how they wanted to like the star ships. being able to create needed missions for other players or their teams.
Spot on, home run Astro. As we have seen the the Bethesda Studios videos, all of the development staff, marketing to graphics, are playing Starfield. I don’t think anyone at FDev is really playing Elite, otherwise they would have recognized the flaws.
It's to late for ED, FD have had multiple chances to make the game better but they seem to have no idea what actual people want in a game and just carry on with their grand idea about multiple year long stories about some irrelevant aliens which almost no one cares about. New ships, customisable interiors and less grind would have been a good start.
When FD introduced the factions, it felt kinda grindy. The modules were alright but to me not really worth it. With the introduction of engineers, the grind got real for me. I took a break for a few months, came back and grinded for the FSD upgrade. Then decided to leave the bubble. I explored, visited the variousnebulae, visited the far reaches of the arm. Went back to the bubble to restock, visited sagitarius a*, went to the other extrem of the galaxy. I travelled part back. I found a nice system, with an M-Class planet. That FD won't let me land or a built a base on. I bookmarked it and traveled on, but the passion was gone, when i realised i could never "live" in ED, because FD would never let me. I've been taking a break now for many years. I'm still out there somewhere in my ship. I doubt I will ever get back to the bubble or even log in again.
@Saltfanatic484No Man's Sky is even less of a game than Elite. And Elite is awful. In NMS you have the same 3 planet design and same 3 creature design in every solar system, and there is no goal whatsoever. It's Roblox in space. Star Citizen is amazing but is too buggy and will never be finished. This only leaves one good space game: X4 Foundations. It's incredibly good.
Great suggestions. I haven't played a lot recently as I mostly ran out of things I enjoyed doing. I've never been particularly interested in the thargoid gameplay, or FPS. But I think my main issue is with how much grind there is collecting materials for engineering - I got to the point where I was thinking of ship ideas, planning them in one of the shipyard tools, and then realising how much effort would be required to engineer all the modules....and I just couldn't face it anymore. Being able to freely trade materials would be the one thing that would probably bring me back - could be a whole new economy and open up different play styles for players farming and then selling mats.
They do not give a shit. They won't listen to complaints or suggestions for improvements and they won't do anything. They know, just as well as everyone else who is paying attention, that these are Elite's lowest numbers historically and they are not even doing anything about it. Last year they assembled a huge collection of opinions about one of the main problems of the game that is pushing players away - the grind and they haven't done absolutely anything about it. They have done two things that inspired players on a large scale, as you said over the last year and a half: 1. Suggested changes to the grind, which was a dangling carrot to fool people that they are planning a change. 2. Promised Feature Overhaul - which they lied about and now have delayed indefinitely. They just don't care, simple as that. Their caring extends only as far as lying to retain player interest.
Because they have given up on elite and are focused on other games and areas. I suppose they are planning to shut down the servers at some point soon as ED has been going for some time now and only costing them money with a decline in player base and lack of funding
Sadly, ED is the game that never was what could have been. Beautiful graphical representations of planets, which the players never will be able to go visit or explore. A 1:1 representation of the Milky Way but with one inch depth of interesting gameplay and functional,, satisfactory game mechanics. Frontier could’ve solved or at least mended this after the launch of Horizons, with w focus on building interesting gameplay and functional, interesting game mechanics that rewarded the players. Frontier had their chance in developing ED into a truly fantastic game exploration-wise. Instead they squandered that possibility, that vision, away, by the introduction of the Engineers and the meaningless repetitive grind. What a truly vaste, Frontier.
I stopped playing Elite a while ago. I enjoyed exploration a lot. While it may be an unpopular opinion to the masses that still currently play the game, one of the biggest things that caused me to stop playing was being able to find earth like words and not be able to enter them. To be able to fly your ship above lakes or through clouds on different planets in space is one of the things people would expect in a space simulation game (and before you nay sayers complain about this, I wanted this way before I knew about SC). Instead, you just had to sit there and imagine what it could look like… that’s what made me switch to a game that might or might not eventually release. Ship interiors would be another key feature to have for immersion. Elite dangerous has an unbelievable amount of potential, but they have to go above and beyond to bring the majority of the player base back, if not, this game can and will eventually die, especially now that Starfield is releasing so soon.
I agree, the imagining part really gets to me after a while. Imagine what’s on the earth-like world, imagine the passengers/cargo you are transporting, imagine you get out of your seat and walk out of the ship really fast that you arrive in a black blink. BGS? Right, after you read the long text you just have to imagine it. It’s like more than half of the game i’m playing it out only in my brain and dreams, so why bother to play the game?
Very well said. Elite has a whole galaxy of potential waiting to be tapped. I really hope FDev appreciate that the recent focus on space combat isn't sitting well with many of the core players.
I think fleet building, as in having AI (or even players), pilot your ships alongside you would be cool. Another thing would be planetary base building. I wanna go 5k light years out and build a lonely outpost on a moon, and advertise it as a fuel and repair stop for travelers.
I've seen a thousand good ideas over the years in forums, on RU-vid, in comments sections. Rarely will any of it get acknowledged or picked up and used by Frontier. I think the last thing I saw get into the game that was suggested by a player was percentage numbers on shields and that was proposed two years or so before it went into the game. What ever they do is entirely what ever they want to do. If there's anyone there who cares about the game I can see them routinely being squashed by the corporate boot of the accountants. Minimal viable product is the order of business at Frontier and expectation is the mother of disappointment, so I stopped expecting anything different from this company. It's the only way to not become further disappointed with this game.
unfortunately it's not accountants because the game is failing. It's more like executives who just see this as an old game they don't want to manage or pay someone else to manage.
@@Mr.Free2Play ^^ THIS - Unfortunately ^^ -> Drew Wagar experience with FDev is a cautionary tale. They had him "on board" for some time, collaborating on interactive content, then FDev just canned that and carried on doing SFA
I agree with your comments on FC navigation. I'd be happy to have them allow longer plotted routes so you don't have to rinse and repeat, even if they did extend the times for cooldown
Lush planets with random generated plant life and alien lifeforms (animals) would make a HUGE difference. With certain common traits for the "mutations" on hotter and colder planets, and different gravities. Frontier have been very scientific when creating certain aspects of this game, and i really hope they will continue this trend.
Everything you said is in place. However I'd like to see: - Beacon with flight path settings for landings on your special spots - Ability to make a base - As you said, ore hotspots, but then, why not mining equipment? - Blueprints for production of rare stuff engineers want as well as complete part production for both bases and ship modules etc + machinery for it. - Mobile orbiting transfer/cargo/refuel/whatever station where you can transfer whatever you are doing on surface, with automatic selling broadcast or something like that ... oh there is a lot that can be done here.
If there can't be new ships, how about ship interiors, make the ships more interactable and more liveable. I'd like the idea of bedding down at night on a strange planet or having a galley to eat in etc etc. Fleet carriers also need the ability to move Tritium from storage to FC fuel remotely, that way I can jump it as far as I like whilst out exploring in my ExploraConda.
This exactly! Doing ship repairs by hand, managing ship supplies, loading cargo. I’d like to walk from my pilots chair to my science station to scan things. I want to live on my ship. And maybe install a taco bar 😉
This sums it up. The reason I left was because I couldn’t just chill on my ship, go orbit next to a sick planet and kick back while I wait for some cool new flora I found to grow in a botany station on the ship or something like that. I’m just stuck in my chair. I’ve never felt more claustrophobic in a game so big
Spot on Astro! I got to elite shortly before Odyssey and it's always felt strange that there were never further iterations on practically anything except thargoids. I liked the mineral hunting in horizons more than the blind roll we have now. That and seeing more done with planet surfaces, maybe, dare I say it, small amounts of water we could scan for exobio? Or maybe some light weather on thin atmo planets? Long term, I would hope that a zoologist CEO would want to implement some fauna to go with the flora as well.
Good Ideas! I personally always wanted a sort of "exploration fighter" that I can launch on planets and that I can use to zip around the surface at low altitude looking for biological features. Sort of like a flying SRV, but without weapons and instead with a bioscanner. And if I could leave my ship in orbit and come down to the planet in it, like a little runabout, that would be awesome! I think this could be easily achieved with what is already there.
This is exactly what I've been thinking! Fdev do NOT Know who their target market is! Most people who really love Elite are late-20s to middle aged, and are in it for the SIMULATION. There is probably a huge intersection in the venn diagram of elite and flight/racing sim players. We want DEEP mechanics. And we would gladly pay for them! My dream feature is a solid Piracy/Smuggling/Black market economy. The current barebone system can be expanded so much with assets and code logic mostly already in the game! 1. Add in a basic menu-based multi-tiered system to communicate with NPCs. We have glimpses of that with how we interact with ship passengers who make requests, or those ships you sometimes find stranded in supercruise. 2. Make black markets actually exciting by being a bit rare, and giving much better prices. But you only gain access to the best prices, or even get to sell certain high value items by being allied with a specific system faction which gives increasingly tough missions. A glimpse of this is what "rares trading" used to be. There was a whole community center around that. 3. Please add a new function to one of the limpet types that allow them to bring a disabled ship to a stop. For balance, they will only work on a disabled ship, and require multiple placements on the ship... Like we do with deep core mining. "Bump stopping" is NOT a feature. 4. Refine NPC AI a bit more so the way they react to piracy aggression is logical. Eg, a T6 should not even attempt to fight back against a fully armed Conda and should always try to evade, or have some serious challenging escorts.
New ships, hell ya. Also, a thargoid frame shift drive: in a single (long) jump: hypercruise to ANY system you've already visited. This way you could play around in Colonia, "hypercruise" to the bubble in a few minutes (say 1000LY per minute) , get into combat, xeno hunting or whatever, then hypercruise back to Colonia... Then hypercuise to a far far remote place you already explored, and explore around more. Then hypercruise back to Colonia, Sag A*, the bubble, or wherever. That would be so great. "Hypercruise to visited systems". Does anyone agree?
@@Kilanov Naah. It's just to revisit places you've already seen. I know a few cmdrs who have two accounts. One for combat, and one for explo. Because switching from one to the other takes forever. Or at least have your FC crew actually do some work, and fly a course, not just a single jump.
At this point, ED is Abandonware. Will Fortier ever return to work on serious bugs and bad game design elements? Or to add needed content? Probably not. For me personally, I'd be happy if they just made it possible to park my ship on one planet (or one system), and focus almost entirely on careers on land. Starfield will have a lot of things to do on land; for players who prefer it.
i love mining and trading. they are the reason i log onto the game and i have so much fun with it. my big gripe is a feature where if you are out mining and you logout and log back in, a pirate spawns to scan you and you have to run. you cant jump back in because jumping in also spawns a pirate. it sucks being forced to basically have to devote enough time to mine my entire cargo and go someplace to sell or go through the anxiety of losing all my stuff because i gotta do something irl. all this to say this is another example i feel like that wouldnt take alot of man power and effort to fix but it would make me go back to the game knowing i can chill out after a day's work and just mine some asteroids.
As a part time explorer and merchant I agree wholeheartedly. We've been forgotten! And damn, that thing you said about the Mamba made me really realise how negelcted new content has been. Spot on dude!
The fact that an Elite Partner, long-time and passionate content creator, tool creator and inspiration for the whole ED community has to speak to FDev through his videos says everything. And he's still playing Elite. If at least they'd consider the idea of something like a player-led representation like the CSM in Eve Online, we'd be better off, imagine the potential this game has. #sad (and yes, I know, the CSM is not everything, but hey)
Yeah, play your way would have a different ring to it. The developers simply have to look at what the community want and "poof" like magic they would make money.... I don't understand why they don't want to make money... Who ever is CO is literally stupid...
Some great ideas there to be sure. Would love to see some analysis on the age demographic. How many middle age folks with small kids have 8 hours a day for material grinding for example. Elite needs more enjoyable things to do for those with one hour a night available. Probably most of all Frontier need to listen to the many people who enjoy Elite 'warts and all', and would love to see it grow into the future.
Probably not many. I'm just a middle age uncle so I have lots of time. My brother with the kids? Not so much. We still game but we play stuff that we can do pretty quickly, like coop shooters. There's no way I'd try to talk him into playing ED. For every hour I'd like to play with him, he'd have to spend 4 on his own just to grind shit out.
It's so cool that many players passionately care - Lots of engagement on this, and we're finding that exploration is really popular of late. We haven't touched on Thargoids yet, but will be thoroughly investigating the experience to see if there's something cool we can add. These monsters just scare Mr Watson - He hates losing his ships… It's last on the list.
One thing I wouldn't mind would be base building. Like not nms level obviously but making a settlement out in the black with its own kind of upkeep and things to consider such as whether it's close enough to recieve and export resources from and to other systems or if it is self sustaining. There could be squadron wide events for bringing in materials for building said settlement. It would have to be limited to outside the bubble but it'd be so cool.
Agreed. What the game is missing is manifest destiny. What's the point of a massive galaxy if you can't fill it? Base building, on the ground and in space, would have gone a long way towards tying all the other game elements together and filling the void. Explorers would find new things to exploit. Which then prompts a 'gold rush' bringing traders, haulers, miners, and possibly even some new professions like plumbers, electricians, and farmers. At that point it becomes attractive to combat ships for piracy, defense missions, or area denial as a factional thing. Merchant ships or fighters could receive shares in the base as a reward for participation in creation or defense. These shares could be sold outright for quick money or held to collect dividends on the bases profits, generating passive income over time. If they also created a way to build jump gates as a base type, it could create an Oregon trail effect. So the bubble expands organically, pushing the edges of the frontier outward. You could make the jump gates hideously expensive, requiring a community effort. And set a minimum spacing and maximum jump distance so people didn't spam them all over. Frontier kinda dropped the ball here imo...
Personally what I want is one massive ship. Like so big it plugs into stations because it cant fit in them. I still want to fly that thing around though, fly it into deep space, scoop fuel, fly into a ring, park and take out a little mining or exploration ship. I havent played since shortly after odyssey launched. I hate on foot gameplay and badly want more ships. Even as little as new cockpits to freshen things up a bit. The only on foot gameplay I want is to manually load and unload cargo for space trucking. Some silly little thing driving around a forklift for a percent bonus. At this rate thought I doubt the game will last much longer.
I really appreciate all your comments and I totally agree with them! I love Elite because of the 1:1 galaxy and the accurate design of the planets and stars. The distances between them make sense and you see the correct temperatures and experience the correct gravity. The feeling of loneliness when you are out in the dark, the changing star densities, the colourful nebulae and the amazing view of the galaxy when you are thousands of light years away from the galactic plane is unbeatable! I started playing Elite as a young teenager in the 1980s and loved the Elite series for the ability to fly anywhere and to discover new worlds. I also loved the mysteries and puzzles introduced in Elite Dangerous - Guardians and Thargoids, how great it was to experience their bases and settlements for the first time! I would really like to see Frontier develop the game more towards a simulation with a "playable story" and not just focus on the shooter gameplay as they do at the moment!
Im a new player, only about 150h played over last 2 months. I decided to jump in finally with my Oculus Quest 2, still havent set up that yet :D I stayed for the feeling of being in realistic space with things looking very unique and beautiful almost every time I go somewhere, with kind of in depth flying model and combat systems with that intention of simulator feel. To my surprise simulators dont look so scary and discouraging as they seemed to me like 5 years ago. Seeing you guys on reddit and sometimes still on youtube almost mourning on this game, I wanted to say I dont understand it really. Compared to me, most of you probably have played over 2000 hours, are Elite in everything, seen most of the interesting things and mastered every art and gameplay loop in the game, with billions to your account, unlimited engineering materials and a majestic fleetcarrier. You've earned it, you basically finished the game. Who would expect to keep almost 10-year-old game updated with high end content that isnt WoW? With today's standard of game lifespan being 1-3 years? Like, I dont quite grasp that thing that ED is MMO. From what people say I deducted that without really proper high end ship there is no point playing in Open, because most of the time you wont be given a chance to talk yourself out of being completely destroyed. I see Open as a giant arena of PVP players, so maybe I will try once I have PVP ship. But for me ED is a singleplayer game with multiplayer-based interactions, like Live markets, Exploration data - mostly like NMS. As a singleplayer game - you have finished it in my opinion. Im having a ton of fun rediscovering every gameplay loop, figuring things out of tutorials (that Im so thankful for), planning my next steps, balancing between various activities. Im playing the game through, but you are done. You should just move on to other games, maybe play older Elite games? Because there is no other game like Elite Dangerous... niche of a niche, simulator in space, with flying the ship being the basic tool, and Milky Way recreated 1:1 as of modern knowledge as playground. Nothing else (as far as I know) has realistically looking Milky Way as its playground. And I keep saying to myself that this game is finished and you can just play it through, but the fact is that small team still works for their small audience. I totally agree - exploration gameplay is one of the strongest sides of Elite and it should be continued to work on. Just yesterday I started my first real trip into Deep Dark after visiting Guardian space. Like suggested, I set the course of 500 ly above galactic plane in search of new discoveries on the way to Crystal Shard Forests in HIP36601. Apart from some unmapped HMCs, no joy. Maybe it's better further from the Sol, but thats the thing - we have to travel hundreds of lightyears first to even start exploring. Im not really aware yet how fleetcarriers work, but from your quick explanation I understand now, why on one of the exploration expeditions' page there was said that the travel on FC will take 3 to 4 weeks... that's horrendously long time of not playing a game you wanted to play! It should be changed, because on this pace people will keep burning out of exploration. I wont say I really want this game to keep going, because there is so much for me to chase up :D But I wish for the game and its community the best /o7
Fighting Thargoids does nothing for me. If I could fight them with my normal ship, that may change my mind. I don't want to build a new ship who's sole purpose is to kill one specific type of alien creature. I enjoyed walking around on foot, but don't participate in the item gathering grind they introduced in order to upgrade my suit. I just avoid on foot missions all together. We want more ships and ship interiors. I'm not holding my breath for that content though. There's a lot less people playing. I check Inara for equipment, resources, etc and see far fewer recent updates to inventory.
I bought the game and worked my way to a Vulture through combat missions. I lost a few ships but felt like I was learning to fly, and I loved my Vulture. I was SO excited to start engineering it as my main ship, and then I discovered that I had to get exploration rank, trade in 50 markets, rank up with the empire, mine and refine 500 tons of ore...etc. All just to be able to do combat? It's easier to uninstall and look for another space game. I almost bought Arx and cosmetics for my Vulture. The devs hate money.
And thanks Dave, it's been like visiting an old friend, I've watched so many of your instruction videos, it's been good to hear and see you again. I hope Frontier listen to your very good ideas but if past form is anything to go by, they won't. We need to buy the game off the slackers.
I was thinking this too. I would pay 500-1000 towards purchasing it from Frontier any day. Mutualiize the game ownership or opensource it and allow the community to take over. Surely there are people out there that would be qualified and interested?
Great suggestions Astro. I particularly liked the idea of prospecting for mineral hotpots on a body. It is so incredibly stupid. That more ships have not been added....
I'd like the ability to 'make my mark' somehow in exploration. ie; if I had to stay in a system for a while, perhaps I need to create a small settlement on a moon. Perhaps I can write my own logs that people can discover later. Something like 'I'll be leaving on this-certain-stardate heading for whatever-nebula'. Or document interesting aspects of that particular system and leave tips for other players. It'd be such amazing role playing.
Things I would love to see in adition to what you mentioned: * On foot scanner like in the SRV * multiple bio sampling in progress at a time. I hate passing by one plant i need to scan because im hunting for the 3rd scan of another plant. This could even be a engineering on the sampler. be able to have multiple concurrent equal to the grade. * Auto jump (non FC) eg. 10 jumps or until low on fuel. So you can spend time in map and do planning, looking in the system map and so on, instead of jump scoop point jump, again and again and again. I love the travel time in SC where you can spend the time chatting, organising things in the ship, walking around the ship, looking at map and missions for planning instead of busy jumping fuel jump. Even if the auto jump is without scooping it would be great. * SLF with no or retractable weapons which is not remote piloted so you could take it down to the surface and get out. Leave the mothership in orbit and fly down in the shuttle ;) * player build bases to extend the bubble, tied to a faction. Set up a base which can mine, but needs other material not found on the moon to grow so it drives trade. ic can either be directly player based (hard) og more indirect where so set a focus for the base and if it has enough material it wil grow over time, and if not building will have to be shut down.
As a huge fan of Cyan's games (Myst series, Obduction and Firmament) I love the idea of more intricate puzzle solving type of activity to do bio scanning.
All great points.... I nearly grumbled that your ideas were all focused to Fleet Carriers, but then you explained why. My fear... that this game is on an irreversible trip to life support.
My brother and I were talking about this a few minutes ago. As of this writing, the video is 2 months old, but I understand where you're coming from. I want customizable interiors, the ability to walk around my ship would be nice, less grind, and give me at least one new ship from each manufacturer.
I just started playing this game a couple of months ago. My first goal was to explore, so I did everything to prep a good ship for this mission from day 1. I'm exploring past Sag A* right now, and I keep trying to find interesting things to find on this side, aside from Beagle Point. I am floored that there hasn't been more surprises put into the galaxy. I know others might like the more elaborate worlds other games may create, but I feel like in Elite, you are seeing a more realistic example of planets we'd really be landing on if we could travel like this. I agree with your take on how to expand exploration to make it more fascinating. That feels like a realistic way we'd really explore if humans could space travel like this. I hope Frontier doesn't let this game slip. I really love it.
As someone who likes the Thargoid component, I wish they would accelerate the invasion storyline. The thargoid base is incredible, but im over mining it now. Pickup the pace of the Thargoid story to hold our interest. I agree with all the other points too about expanding on ships and exploration.
Everything that's happening to Elite Dangerous can be explained by the movement of personnel. When the VR programmers were reassigned to other games, or left Frontier, support for VR evaporated! Why no new ships? The ship modelers and texture designers have done the same. This same Personnel reshuffling or lack of Human Resources being put toward, I believe, is also a large part of the reason of the loss of console support. You need look no further than Frontier Foundry to see where these resources went, instead of Elite Dangerous. o7
Hey Astro, I hate that you have absolutely nailed my feelings on this amazing game... your finger is right on the pulse as expected. I really wish that there would be a little discussion, focus group element to Frontier dev plans...
Great points. You are reading my mind. Talking about exploration. I spend max 1-2 weeks in the Bubble and Colonia combined in 3-4 year long flying around Milky Way. ;) So refuelling FC even slow, like 2-3 days by crew is good enough. Also, it will be fine when you need to dedicate ship from your hangar, equiped with ML's and refinery to do the task.
Suggestions; when Fleet carriers were first introduced, Frontier developments said there would be multiple different variants. We got only one. We want them. I especially want the explanation variant. They have not come out with new ships. It would be nice to finally get an entire Guardian hybrid line of them for fighting Thargoids. When space legs were introduced, they promised us ship Interiors. We want those and the ability to walk around, on and off of them. We want the maintenance game play that was to come with that. I wish Frontier developments would listen to the fan base for once. However, I feel like they are too busy being stuck in their echo chamber and think they know what we want more than we do. I loved Elite Dangerous. I used to bragg about what a great game it is. There politics have broken my love of this fantastic game and reduced it to a shell of its former self. I would like to believe the Frontier developments would wake up. Unfortunately, I am realizing this is a pipe dream. Prove me wrong, Frontier. prove me wrong, please 🙏
I completely agree with updating exploration as one of Elite's core strengths. I'm mainly an explorer who got found and got into elite from watching Erimus 1's exploration videos back in the day and jumped started Xbox but migrated to PC to continue my journey on Odyssey but since i've been playing, it feels like Frontier have gone silent on anything coming to the game but remember that the Thargoids are in the bubble but i'm around Colonia trying to find cool locations for new explorers who move to Colonia and want to find some places of interest. I love the atmospheric planets and have seen amazing sights but ultimately the game just 'feels' dead. Distant Worlds was the single best couple months i've ever had playing this game. The thoughts of thousands of players with different ships and loadouts from re-fuel ships to repair ships all exploring to the opposite edge of the galaxy to see what amazing things the stellar forge has produced was a different type of Pioneering i've never gotten from any other game. Judging by how many players signed up for those Expeditions just shows the mass interest behind exploration in elite and that REALLY SHOULDN'T be overlooked by FDev like it currently is right now. Edit: Also, the fact that the codex has a rumoured section that has never been touched just feels so wasted. Imagine if Distant Worlds 3 had the many players sign up again and FDev added new rumoured objects or phenomena around and between waypoints and base camps. It seems like such and easy goal.
As someone who enjoys exploration, I agree with you 100%. I also enjoy astronomy and astrophotography so I am currently enjoying travelling to nebulae that I have imaged and seeing what that looks like in the game.
ED has a huge galaxy but it is literaly empty right now, give us possibility to build our own stations, buildings, settlements on far away planets, thats all you had to do long time ago...
We (the userbase), been giving lots of similar feedback since open beta has ended so lets be real, FD will do FD and maybe, MAYBE, tweak a thing or two. I share similar sentiments but Your video is just like any "open letter" on the ED forum ;)
I am afraid that this will go unheard :( For me what killed Elite was the lack of VR support after Odyssey. I mean, once I played ED in VR for the first time, I never went back to flat. It was just incredible. Spend thousands of hours in it and loved every single second of it. Flying in Achelous 8A canyons was also one of my favourite things to do...and now that planet is flat like a pancake. All the performance issues, shitty lighting, terrible AA were even exacerbated after Odyssey launch...and we are still waiting for a proper solution. And what about the engineering rework that they promised and never delivered? It is clear now that Frontier has abandoned the game. I think we just need to move on and play somehting else. Hopefully some other company will make a space sim of elite's caliber and will be able to bring it at it's full potential. One can dream...
Thank you Dave for this video... right on point. I would add two aspect of the game that could benefit for a shift in concept as you describe. The carrier guest issues could be addressed with an option for the ship owner to either stay on board when carrier jumps or to be automatically reassigned and parked to the closest station. (same as when a ship is transferred to another location.) First is the community goals... there's nothing community related in those, actually these goals are individualistic achievement, more like glorified missions with a carrot at the end. What a missed opportunity to foster team and faction play, have these goals achievements scaled according to a group or faction participation. Make those goals achievable on longer time frames like months or quarters. When player enter as a faction make the rewards significantly multiply and cumulate and payable to the faction which then can distribute to the participating players. The thought is that a player going solo vs a as a team on a CG would have like a 1:50 or 1:100 ratio or include PP rewards or materials, etc... Second is the team activity concept, more needs to be be done with BGS and PP. Integrate better activities in each skill area to benefit and promote all the groups and communities that are playing the game. There is a lot there but is poorly optimized and integrated, Elite still has a lot to give but the grind need to be killed once and for all and replaced with mind stimulating and team based activates.
Walk around inside ships: -fight off space pirates in boarded combat -Repair damaged modules inside your ship by hand -customize interior of ship and fleet carrier ($$ gen opp for Frontier) -Large SRV to carry 4 players (wing) on surface raids or exploration -walk around all over inside Space stations fight off attackers, do in-station missions, buy and customize apartments, ranks in Empire or Federation give access to secured areas, pirate missions to sneak into secured areas and steal items, weapons etc. There’s all kinds of cool gameplay that can be done with Odyssey content that hasn’t been done that would appeal to all players.
Great work Astro👍 New ships is the way to go. Still, I'm almost certain that there are assets lying around and that they are aware that this is the solution. Frontier is probably waiting for a catastrophic moment to add something useful to the game. The Huge Targoid ships where already in game. Translating their way of acting brings, for me, only one conclusion. Financial issues. Still, if you don't invest you won't get results. Crossing my fingers for better time's. It's also possible that they just are missing inspiration 🤔
It's not just financials. You're talking about a game engine that has a pile of technical debt & can't scale to add the necessary content or game loops that are needed. Yes, you need the financials/funding to even create a new Game engine. Something FDev, def doesn't have.
I said this last year, if they tunnel focused on xenothreat fighters whch is a small percentage of the already smaller percentage of people who do PVE fighting then the playerbase would decrease. And thats what happened. I wish I could get back into Elite after 1000s of hours playing it but i've basically done it all, not interested in fighting thargoids and outside of buying a fleet carrier thats it left to do. Was hoping Odyssey would rekindle my love for it, after it dropped I still stayed in horizons content because the onfoot content was just dire.
Finally got to the end of the video and realised what you said about Odyssey. I completely forgot they only implemented 3 types of suits, I think thats hilarious.
A few thoughts i've had while watching (thank you so much for the video and your ideas). 1 - I love the ideas you presented about exploration changes; I first got into Elite Dangerous years ago because of being able to go amongst the stars and see other worlds and planets. Making updates / additions to this is a no brainer in my opinion. 2 - I very much like your ideas about soil and additional plant sampling. I was envisioning a handheld, manually deployed and calibrated mini-drill / collector. Perhaps this would be accompanied with a larger unit that you deploy from your ship that these mini collectors interface with to deposit the samples for analysis. This machine could possibly need its own calibration as well. The great thing with things like this is that engineering can be used to further enhance the capabilities to more easily identify, calibrate or detect variability in samples collected. The calibration and to some degree the choice of location for sample collection is where the player skill can be more involved. The better the location and/or the better the calibration of the equipment that was done = better results (and better credit payout as a result). 3 - to add on top of the surface mining ideas, I was thinking what if it got a rework? I have never been a big fan of the SRV's scanner or shooting rocks and collecting mineral chunks. What about dedicated mining SRVs? Or mobile mining platforms that could be deployed from a ship or SRV? Perhaps a combination so as to provide access across varying player experience and resource availability levels? I'd personally love to see an SRV that you can outfit like you can your ship. Different hardpoints, utility mounts, turret variations, mining lasers, etc. (all with engineering options of course) 4 - your ideas on how to better use carriers with deep space exploration is genius! I think the route planning and execution with the options for dynamically adjusted cooldowns is awesome. Bubble and shorter jumps = short cooldown vs. automated and longer jumps for the deep space = longer cooldown is a perfect balance I think.
It's because of people like you that I still enjoy the game. I'm surprised they don't even reply to you as you have millions of views and bring so much to the game. Hell if I was fdev I'd pay you to be a consultant !
Would love to see Fdev move on and make ED2. Think of the work that could be done with new code and a focus on live services. A rebirth on both Console and PC.
i gave up on Elite when realising the Thargoid addition is just another way to force you to collect materials. Boring. Definitely negative. But its old now - its had its time and i ve played a ton. Elite Lethal is needed a follow up, a new team.. a new dawn. With D2E Astro on board.
Yup, i uninstalled the game after seeing the farming requirements for one of the new thargoid modules. It's too tedious for how difficult it is and the reward of it. You'd just slap into another content wall anyway. Waiting for the devs to release the next steps in the story.
So... I farmed materials for a caustic sink launcher; which allowed me to reach the massive energy surge; which allows me to get the pulse neutralizer... which allows me to go get materials for the ...next unannounced thing.
@@perilousrange and its off to external sites for 2 hours to figure out the materials to get and what loops you repeat. Since nothing is mentioned in the actual game.
@@reyzer733 It's the future... but I can't check commodify prices or book missions by email... gotta show up each time in person. Can auto-dock, but can't auto-scoop fuel. Without Inara (and re-log farming), it would be truly unplayable.
Let's be honest: ED needs to make decent money, so maybe they should make and sell an expansion with less groundbreaking stuff but many small things, like a bunch of new ships, new exploration mechanics, base building of some sort, better missions etc
I really like the idea of Geology being implemented into exploration. Right now, beyond just landing on a planet for raw materials and sightseeing, there's nothing worth exploring planets that have no volcanism or biological signals. Having some form of geology game loop would allow just about every other planet to offer something interesting.
Excellent idea, love the FC part. Too bad frontier never listens to the player base. Even if you'd play it to them 50 million times, and forced them to watch it, they'd still brush it aside and ignore all of it. And that's why the game gets abandoned by the players.
NMS has plenty of unpopulated systems (at least half of them actually) but people don't visit a system unless it has a space station that they can dock at. Go off piste and you will find plenty of uninhabitable planets.
You're spot on. As "alive" as the background sim makes Elite appear on paper, the game is still incredibly shallow in terms of things you can do as a player. New ships, adding the right kind of content to augment existing playstyles, not forcing a particular playstyle on the player - all great things that Frontier could do to help provide better experiences. I'd add that racing content is a part of the game that is noticeably absent. I'd love to see canyon runs, overland tracks in SRVs, or time trial scavenger hunts, as well as some tuning adjustments for some more fine-grained balancing for smaller race craft around maneuverability vs top speed vs acceleration specifically in this race content.
Thank you Astro. I admire your dedication to the game. I completely agree with your opinion, that there is no Space Game and there hasn't been any for years, that has as much potential for exploration as Elite does, and while the Thargoid content seemed okay for me (didn't play it myself), it shouldn't be the only thing that is worked on. I can only hope, that there still is someone at FDEV who tries to listen to the community. Beating a dead horse won't resurrect it, but perhaps it isn't dead yet? Keeping the metaphor, FDEV should really hurry and get some meds, if they don't want to let it die, as the blacksmith has already moved town, and the vet is reeducating.
Frontier lied for years about Everything, where are the ship interiors? where's the "Armstrong" moment, why discontinue support for VR? Why say that "Everything is too hard" (That's a direct quote from a ED Dev by the way) they Lied about consoles, they lie, lie, and lie some more. The Grind is a freakin Joke in ED, drains ALL the fun out of playing it. No new ships for yrs and a Alien threat that look like flowers, sooooo scary. ED has a 1:1 Giant Galaxy and killer flowers is all Frontier can dream up. I have moved on to StarCitizen and it blows EliteDangerous out of space and its only an Alpha. I will NEVER go back to ED, I will be playing Star Field when its released, ON CONSOLE. Bye Bye, ~ED rest in pieces!
So many good suggestions!, my two additional cents would be: - Allow P2P commerce, let players sell things to other Cmdr's, or even just give them credits. If a Cmdr is next to another allow them to provide access to the backpack and trade items. - Rework Release and Horizons assets to work with Odyssey, so many things the previous editions provided are left ignored, I must use an SRV scanner on planets but not my handheld scanner?, I can't access INRA sites to find out more story, so many opportunities ignored.
To be the PvPers advocate, in order to engineer up a solid FDL one will spend many hours going to the crystal shards or searching signal sources for upgrade materials. They've always had gameplay loops within loops... I love Elite for its fun *combination* of exploration, ship combat, and FPS gameplay with Odyssey. There are games that do each single category better, but no other game combines all of these gameplay options into a 1:1 sim of the Milky Way. No other game gives that sense of immersion when you're alone in deep space, or when you travel a long distance to complete the Assassinate mission etc.
All I know is that Larian proved that even small companies can define a genre standart with Baldurs gate 3. Wich is death sentence to others like Frontier, and (Scam citizen) developers. That's Anarcho capitalism for you. Deliver or die. No one cares about your effort, passions and motivation, problems. All what matter is the final product.
He has never done anything but leach off the hard work of many dedicated and talented artists and engineers who put this game together. But he knows better than all of them how the game should move forward. How humble of you.
More guardian based tech/settlements would be a good addition to counter the thargoids. Something to search for in the galaxy while adding something like more guardian based weapons / ships(One engineer npc in a system that produces guardian based ships using material players trade in(3 new ships would be nice)) including odyssey weapons(Or guardian based mods for existing weapons). A easy add would be for a ballistic pump shotgun (rate of fire dependent on gravity would be interesting). If they could expand the guardians angle and update the means of acquiring materials(On foot abandoned Guardian base/bases would be cool) it would be a quick solution to add a bit of game play and verity to equipment.
