Bored and frustrated after only 6 hours

[Pragmatic Tornado]

First off, I searched for existing threads - found only old ones.

Struggled through the first few hours trying to learn the controls and figuring out how the hell you actually travel somewhere without messing it up. I think perhaps I've got it somewhat down now.. After that I struggled trying to make some cash - all the jobs I found paid piss and ♥♥♥♥. Finally got lucky today though with a simple courier job that took me to a few different systems and paid around 90k credits.

So I did some research and, considering how utterly boring everything but the combat is, I picked up an Eagle and outfitted it with a better power plant, a much better power distributor and an extra laser. Made sure I had enough in case I died. Which I promptly did afterwards (some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bandit in a bigger ship). So I went out again in search of whatever would give me some cash. Tried assassination missions, but never found my targets. Tried "kill x of these ships" and found some relevant ships, but I couldn't chase them for some reason.

I did find some escape pods in space which I picked up and thought I might be able to offload at the nearest station. Nope, I guess you can only sell them on the black market or whatever.

Finally, I gave up and quit. The game has some outstanding qualities, such as the sound, graphics (comparing it with my favourite space sims, X3 Terran Conflict and Freelancer) and the amount of control you have over your ship etc. But traveling anywhere is boring as hell (why do you ALWAYS jump right near a star when entering a new system, for example?) and nothing much ever seems to happen.

I'm using an X52 Pro stick / throttle, so the combat is fun and engaging at least. But that seems to be it, as far as I've seen.

I don't like multiplayer - is that the big draw in this game? Only played solo so far.

Think I'm just going to go back and work on my X3 Albion Prelude save some more instead. I sincerely hope Star Citizen isn't going to be as empty and boring as this. I only bought an X52 Pro for this game (had a regular X52 before) - I'm getting an Oculus for Star Citizen.

[-OrLoK- Слава Україн]

Hello there

Google and watch youtube videos for instruction on the parts you find confusing.

There is logic to the game, but you cannot expect it to be like other games if you follow my drift.

Rgds

LoK

[6000 Chipmunks]

Awesome potential, Awesome graphics and sound...the rest...crap, and doomed to stay that way. Devs are more interested in adding candy, and leaving the bugged, unfinished, shallow play as is. :(...oh, and money, tons of money to be made by them, selling "white elephants" to unsespecting buyers.

[Pragmatic Tornado]

Originally posted by -OrLoK-:

Hello there

Google and watch youtube videos for instruction on the parts you find confusing.

There is logic to the game, but you cannot expect it to be like other games if you follow my drift.

Rgds

LoK

Yeah, been watching quite a few videos, especially on how to start off the game.

Originally posted by Otterbear:

Awesome potential, Awesome graphics and sound...the rest...crap, and doomed to stay that way. Devs are more interested in adding candy, and leaving the bugged, unfinished, shallow play as is. :(...oh, and money, tons of money to be made by them, selling "white elephants" to unsespecting buyers.

Hehe, I guess you're referring to the expansion that just came out. That was a low blow indeed. I had bought the game like one week before that.

[Steve]

Originally posted by Viper:

First off, I searched for existing threads - found only old ones.

Struggled through the first few hours trying to learn the controls and figuring out how the hell you actually travel somewhere without messing it up. I think perhaps I've got it somewhat down now.. After that I struggled trying to make some cash - all the jobs I found paid ♥♥♥♥ and ♥♥♥♥. Finally got lucky today though with a simple courier job that took me to a few different systems and paid around 90k credits.

So I did some research and, considering how utterly boring everything but the combat is, I picked up an Eagle and outfitted it with a better power plant, a much better power distributor and an extra laser. Made sure I had enough in case I died. Which I promptly did afterwards (some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bandit in a bigger ship). So I went out again in search of whatever would give me some cash. Tried assassination missions, but never found my targets. Tried "kill x of these ships" and found some relevant ships, but I couldn't chase them for some reason.

I did find some escape pods in space which I picked up and thought I might be able to offload at the nearest station. Nope, I guess you can only sell them on the black market or whatever.

Finally, I gave up and quit. The game has some outstanding qualities, such as the sound, graphics (comparing it with my favourite space sims, X3 Terran Conflict and Freelancer) and the amount of control you have over your ship etc. But traveling anywhere is boring as hell (why do you ALWAYS jump right near a star when entering a new system, for example?) and nothing much ever seems to happen.

I'm using an X52 Pro stick / throttle, so the combat is fun and engaging at least. But that seems to be it, as far as I've seen.

I don't like multiplayer - is that the big draw in this game? Only played solo so far.

Think I'm just going to go back and work on my X3 Albion Prelude save some more instead. I sincerely hope Star Citizen isn't going to be as empty and boring as this. I only bought an X52 Pro for this game (had a regular X52 before) - I'm getting an Oculus for Star Citizen.

I had the same issues, man. Same background too. This game just doesn't have the meat on it Freelancer and X3 did at launch. (And X3's launch was horrible. Not as bad as 4, but still.)

And that's the biggest issue. There's no content yet. Gameplay features we take for granted are instead being sold by Frontier as "expansions" and "innovations". Crafting and looting? Not in yet, but it's a major feature of this expansion! Kinda! ("Looting" and "crafting" entail "shooting rocks on the ground" and "you can only craft instant-use heals/fuel/ammo - forget about building a ship, or even a ship component".

Save your money, dude. It's not worth it. It won't be until Season 10.

[Pragmatic Tornado]

Originally posted by paonebp:

I had the same issues, man. Same background too. This game just doesn't have the meat on it Freelancer and X3 did at launch. (And X3's launch was horrible. Not as bad as 4, but still.)

And that's the biggest issue. There's no content yet. Gameplay features we take for granted are instead being sold by Frontier as "expansions" and "innovations". Crafting and looting? Not in yet, but it's a major feature of this expansion! Kinda! ("Looting" and "crafting" entail "shooting rocks on the ground" and "you can only craft instant-use heals/fuel/ammo - forget about building a ship, or even a ship component".

Save your money, dude. It's not worth it. It won't be until Season 10.

Yeah thankfully I only discovered X3: TC a few years after it launched. Took me a while, but I fell in love with it slowly but surely. Over 700 hours played now; I treated it like a religion after I really got into it, hehe. I have yet to finish the AP campaign, so I might try and continue where I left off!

Yeah you're right - there seems to be no content at all. More of a fantastic shell with nothing inside.

If it had the amount of content X3 does, and if they removed the ridiculously large procedurally generated universe in favour of a smaller, but carefully constructed one - it might have topped X3 (for me).

I'll keep an eye on the game though, for sure. See how it develops.

[Chaunsey]

x3 is great but is an economy sim, not a space sim as much, the combat is nowhere near as satisfying.

i also cant begin to udnerstand how you think trading, smuggling, and mining is boring but want to play X3.

the X series (expect for rebirth... though they may yet make something of it) is great, and ive played it a ton, since X2, but despite being technically the same genre its not the same kind of game elite is, and thats perfectly fine if what you're interested is building an empire, the X series is fantastic, and if thats what you like, you should be playing that for sure, though its sad there isnt a newer game to look to than X3 to get the same style of gameplay.

elite however is all about you, as a pilot, your ship and your personal experience, its a much more immersive experience and no one player can effect the galaxy much, it takes whole groups, but the galaxy is an evolving place, not static. elite is also a much much better exploration game, but not everyone finds that intersting.

also to answer your question about why you always start near the star in a system, it is about the science of the faster than light travel in the game.

basically when you travel in hyperspace, your drive locks onto the largest mass and travels there, the game uses mass in relation to your drives in various ways, for example that is why you go incredibly fast across empty space while supercruising, crossing a whole system in a minute or 2, but then when flying around close to a planet, you move comparatively much slower, and even still, get too close to a planet and your masslocked and cannot use the FSD at all.

i think the whole system is awesome, elite has fantastic "science" to it.

[Heathy]

I think its simply deducible that with x3, that came out almost a decade ago and is still currently a deeper sim, more sandboxy.

where as elite is like a step back in terms of innovation. at least at this stage. what is always a burning part of my consciousness is what is elite going to be like in 5 years, still held back by notions of insignificance i mean i don't know what the background economy simulation is like but surely there are ppl already with so many funds they have no real progression left.

if they ever open up the freedom in this game it might become great but so long as there is that leash and unbreakable barrier keeping your from any semblance of sandbox then its just going to stay mediocre. as other more sandboxier games come along and strip away everyone who wants more freedom.

[SuCu]

Am I the only one who enjoys the game since I bought?

[Chaunsey]

Originally posted by Heathy:

I think its simply deducible that with x3, that came out almost a decade ago and is still currently a deeper sim, more sandboxy.

where as elite is like a step back in terms of innovation. at least at this stage. what is always a burning part of my consciousness is what is elite going to be like in 5 years, still held back by notions of insignificance i mean i don't know what the background economy simulation is like but surely there are ppl already with so many funds they have no real progression left.

if they ever open up the freedom in this game it might become great but so long as there is that leash and unbreakable barrier keeping your from any semblance of sandbox then its just going to stay mediocre. as other more sandboxier games come along and strip away everyone who wants more freedom.

what leash are you refering to?

elite is the ultimate sandbox.

im not sure i get what you seem to think its missing? more station types? more goods types?

X3 certainly has more ships, but i dont get the feeling you're talking about elite needing more ship types.

if you're talking about things like personal space stations or capital ships, elite is not meant to be that type of game.


elite is a much deeper game in many ways, but perhaps not in the ways that you want.

for example the stellar forge system is incredible, the faction and powers systems are far more complex than the simple strategy game like faction system in elite.

the flight model and combat system is far more deep.

[Pragmatic Tornado]

Originally posted by Chaunsey:

x3 is great but is an economy sim, not a space sim as much, the combat is nowhere near as satisfying.

i also cant begin to udnerstand how you think trading, smuggling, and mining is boring but want to play X3.

the X series (expect for rebirth... though they may yet make something of it) is great, and ive played it a ton, since X2, but despite being technically the same genre its not the same kind of game elite is, and thats perfectly fine if what you're interested is building an empire, the X series is fantastic, and if thats what you like, you should be playing that for sure, though its sad there isnt a newer game to look to than X3 to get the same style of gameplay.

elite however is all about you, as a pilot, your ship and your personal experience, its a much more immersive experience and no one player can effect the galaxy much, it takes whole groups, but the galaxy is an evolving place, not static. elite is also a much much better exploration game, but not everyone finds that intersting.

also to answer your question about why you always start near the star in a system, it is about the science of the faster than light travel in the game.

basically when you travel in hyperspace, your drive locks onto the largest mass and travels there, the game uses mass in relation to your drives in various ways, for example that is why you go incredibly fast across empty space while supercruising, crossing a whole system in a minute or 2, but then when flying around close to a planet, you move comparatively much slower, and even still, get too close to a planet and your masslocked and cannot use the FSD at all.

i think the whole system is awesome, elite has fantastic "science" to it.

Trading and mining in X3 is boring too - until you have large automated trading / mining fleets with capitals patrolling danger zones. X3 doesn't really start to open up until you've played 40 or 50 hours+, unless you cheat. Once you have your headquarters, every single capital ship in the game including the Aran, a humongous factory network including missile production and an M7M - the possibilities for fun are nigh endless. If there was such an end game in Elite, I'd be able to stomach tens of hours of trading and mining.

Rebirth doesn't even deserve the X name. It's an abomination. How they managed to ♥♥♥♥ it up so badly beyond repair is infuriating. Hell, it even lagged at max settings on my computer last time I ran it (had the best single GPU card available at that time and an i7 4790K).

That's very interesting though about the ftl travel - but couldn't they stretch it a bit and have you drop off at any planetary body? Seeing a sun up close for the first time was awesome. Seeing it every single time you jump however, is not.

The combat in Elite is very good fun though. Dogfighting in X3 isn't too bad, but it's nowhere near in this game. However, you can't commandeer huge capital ships, fold your hands and watch it wreak havoc. Maybe they'll add capitals in the future.. As well as a way to actually get one without grinding for 500 hours

[Heathy]

there is no sandbox man, its open ended but sandbox it is most definitely not.

combat and flight are better, trading isn't. the game has infinite amounts of everything stocked nearly everywhere. theres no simulation to the goods in this game, they go from place to place while doing inherently nothing.

for combat in x3 i had more fun simply sitting back and watching the big cap fights, i dunno x3 its a different beast, it requires insane amounts of grinding aswell and the losses can be crushing.. the time it takes to fit ships and then the time it takes to lose one. don't get me wrong that game has its fair share of issues.

in terms of player freedom, if you can't say we haven't taken a step BACK in the space sim innovation then your blind, sorry blind.

but don't let my opinion irritate you its not like i don't think the game could get much better over the next decade, i just hope it does, a lot can happen in 10 years. be that good or bad for elite.

[Chaunsey]

Originally posted by SuCu:

Am I the only one who enjoys the game since I bought?

no, plenty of people are enjoying it.

despite the vocal minority elite is doing quite well.

there are over 9300 people playing right now on steam between ED and EDH, and despite the 2 "versions" they're all playing on the same server.

that also doesnt include everyone who plays without using steam, elite sold over a half million copies before it was released on steam.

[Pragmatic Tornado]

Originally posted by Heathy:

for combat in x3 i had more fun simply sitting back and watching the big cap fights, i dunno x3 its a different beast, it requires insane amounts of grinding aswell and the losses can be crushing.. the time it takes to fit ships and then the time it takes to lose one. don't get me wrong that game has its fair share of issues.

Oh yeah, so much fun. Last night I played it a bit for the first time in a couple years or so. Jumped various M1 / M2 ships into the Kha'ak sectors and started blasting.

Or if you want to be more hands-on - use a fully stocked M7M to level an entire sector.

If Elite had all that, I'd probably lose my job, lol.

[Heathy]

it just sucks that 9000 ppl in a galaxy of 400 billion stars is like a drop of píss in the oceans of a million planets.

[Heathy]

Originally posted by Viper:

Oh yeah, so much fun. Last night I played it a bit for the first time in a couple years or so. Jumped various M1 / M2 ships into the Kha'ak sectors and started blasting.

Or if you want to be more hands-on - use a fully stocked M7M to level an entire sector.

If Elite had all that, I'd probably lose my job, lol.

I wanted elite to take some pages from x3, i don't see why it would have hurt the overall enjoyability of the game.

its like exploring, the part of the game i can sit down and at times really enjoy doing, watch some tv show or something on the second monitor and jump around, the only problem is that there is no emergent game play whatsoever outside the populated bubble. no evil aliens no rare finds, no nothing.. its just all a little, mixed on me, it looks great, sounds great, but it still bland.

i know your supposed to set your own goals and such, and for the most part i hope FD do really well, but for those of us that wanted more sandbox, elite isn't really delivering yet anyway. maybe in the future, the way i see it is that the x series simply plans for the inevitability of you ending up being a zillionaire. elite doesn't, you might have enough funds to, i dunno, feed the population of a planet for the next few centuries but the game doesn't recognize that potential.

what this boils down to for me is not completely a criticism of elite I don't take pleasure in berating games on their lack of features, the thing i'm curious to see is how they plan on creating meaningful money sinks as this game progresses without giving the players more sandbox freedom like you get in x3.