This game is infuriating.

[Devolution]

No guide, literally no explanation of systems. Nothing. You merely cannot 'discover it on your own' - impossible - too many overlapping systems.

Only way to do it is to take an entire weekend going over a one hundred page encyclopedia on every system and how they interact with each other. Boring. If you don't though, the game is unplayable.

Don't get me started on keybindings. Horrendous and extremely unintuitive. Want to play on xbox controller? Sorry, no keybindings for 90% of whats required unless you pull out your 100 page encyclopedia and meticulously remap for half a day - even then you still need the keyboard. Okay, KB+M, keybindings don't make sense there either! Ship wobbles around like it has a neurological disease with the mouse and none of the keys make any logical sense as to why they are bound there in the first place. So once again, pull out the 100 page encyclopedia just to spend half a day rebinding everything.

The lack of an initial true tutorial is astoundingly bad. The starting tutorial is pathetically shallow given the games depth - and even broken. Why even bother with it? It explains 1% of the games systems.

It seems like this game is going to remain for a niche audience that is okay with taking a weekend reading about all the systems, how they interact with eachother, remapping keys, watching youtube tutorials, etc. This is bad game design - which is a bummer because I like depth, but I am here to play a game, not sit outside of the game trying to figure the game out.

/endrant

[Alchemy Of Seoul]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Devolution:

Alchemy Of Seoul: I played years ago, in VR. Tried to get back into it. Remembered the very steep learning curve from before - saw that nothing has changed with regards to the new player experience. Made post.

Back then, I had to look through youtube videos and guides to get me started and stuck to it patiently. Wasn't particularly willing to do it this time. And that is the fundamental problem - the first few dozen hours are trial and error with a huge part of it alt-tabing trying to read about systems and why certain things are happening.

My initial post wasn't necessarily a rant about the game itself, but just the new player experience over all. If anything it was a bit of a harsh constructive criticism. I see the fun in this game and I experienced it years ago.

Sadly, the devs won't listen. Which is either out of arrogance or they plan to sunset the game at some point down the road and have a date in mind. My bet is on arrogance. They have shown time after time a failure to communicate changes.

[Demon]

First thing you need to do is hit the settings and change those stupid key bindings to a normal flight sim.
Next run some missions to get ya a better ship. DO NOT LEAVE START AREA WITH SIDEWINDER. Very important. There are several types of options to choose to play in such as mining, trading, mission runner, illegal trade runner, Super Power supporter, or just a Faction supporter, explorer, evo collector, and or course surface missions. This title is huge and tons of things to do. Tutorials ♥♥♥♥ and do not help at all, so this is the best place for help.

NO questions are stupid questions here in forums...:)

I would stress the bindings to fly your ship and surface vehicle first then play around with planet maps just to get the hang of how it works. Then mess with playing around with system maps to get used to how they work. (Doing all of this while setting your key bindings to suit what you like as far as controls). then start hitting missions and go from there.

Hope this helps as a lot of people will help ya out.
Hang in there, it truly is complex but once ya learn the basics you'll love it....o7

[Hootman]

With the OP having further clarified that they are not a NEW player, but a RETURNING player, my original 2 points mostly do no apply. What I would say in that case is you are currently in the "Start/Stop" phase of the learning curve. I also was there. It took me a few years of starting and stopping, until one day it just "clicked", and I got it.

Saying that, the Dev has addressed this issue, and has mentioned making the game more "newbie-friendly" in some aspects. That being said, whether they actually go to the lengths you would like remains to be seen. I would like to see a simpler control setup myself, and some other things.

I am of the group that believes that this approach is in line with Braben's original vision decades ago. Give a pilot a small ship, a few bucks, and throw them into a galaxy filled with opportunities to become whatever sort of pilot they want to be. Provide basic information, and encourage the pilot to investigate and learn. I think it might have been Sighman who stated that everything you can find at third party sights can, one way or the other, be found / learned in game. I'm not sure that's true, as I've usually turned to third party apps/websites etc. when stumped on something.

I would also go as far as saying that even the most popular MMO's sort of fall into this category. I also play WoW, and while that game is much simpler in basic gameplay, to REALlY get everything out of it, requires 3rd party sites to learn things like Raid and Dungeon mechanics, ways to complete Achievements/quests, etc.

DCS also relies on third party info for a lot of basic things. They do a pretty good job of including some "mission tutorials" and Youtube "how tos" straight from the devs, more than FDev for sure.

All I can say is the OP is at that point in the learning curve many of us hit....the "Start/Stop" phase. And that is the point in the learning curve, where the decision is made......do I proceed and use the info and tools available, or do I just give it up. No one but the individual can make that decision. And that makes the question whether the end benefit is worth the time and effort. To me it was. To others, not so much.

I hope the OP survives this phase of the curve. Embrace the ♥♥♥♥, invest the time to at least become proficient enough at the basic gameplay to THEN decide if it's worth more effort. FDev still introduces things that change the way the game functions, and I haven't played much or gotten into the latest/greatest with the station buildng stuff. But I know that I'm going to be doing a lot of alt-tabbing and googling to figure out the basics so I can pick up the rest.

The learning curve is real, and that actually draws me into sim/games like DCS and ED.
And to be frank, "back in the day" at first we had NO third party apps or websites to help. Right now, we're kind of in a Golden Age when it comes to playability and content offered by ED.
In the words of Bizzarro Superman,"Space am hard".....🚀 😄

[Stelar Seven]

What an interesting thread. OP starts frustrated but also dropping hyperbole. Gets indignant when folks who don't agree are also hyperbolic. Score one for self awareness.

The points.

Controlls are unintuative and hard to map to a controller.

How are you supposed to intuit space flight? I don't know that intuitive is reasonable, but they could probably offer a simple controll scheme, take out the vertical and horizontal thrusters...

After that it was complaints that ten years of evolving systems can't be learned in an hour. That's not a very fair complaint in my book, if you want complex systems, and I do, then they take a while to learn. That's part of the deal and it's a reason I don't buy football games, I dont care to learn them so I leave them to those who do.

Finally anger about out of game tools.

What, precisely, is the problem? A belief that games should be self contained? Why? What makes that better?

For me I think we get better tools the more folks work on them. It's a better game for tools like voice attack and innara.

Some folks object to 3rd party tools, cool, don't use them, you want a developer to code those tools into the game for you? What are you willing to give up for that? Devs don't code for freez enthusiasts do.

[Jeebs]

The thing is, if you simplify the controls, you're also taking a lot of the control out of the player's hands. I know this sounds paradoxical, but it is how it is.

Diposting pertama kali oleh Stelar Seven:

but they could probably offer a simple controll scheme, take out the vertical and horizontal thrusters...

For example, by doing this you would actually make the space-craft behave more like an airplane perhaps, but that's not a good thing. You would lose a lot of manoeuvrability in combat, and you wouldn't even be able to land your ship without vertical thrusters.

Those things are there for a reason. Whether you use flight assist or not, you need to line up with your pad, or the mail slot. You have to be able to manoeuvre in three dimensions. The control-scheme we have now is the simplest you can make it, as it happens. It just doesn't seem that way because so many space-flight sim games make their ships behave like planes. Elite's ships move like real space-craft would, or at least a compromise between realism and fun.

I get that it's a somewhat frustrating experience when you're a noob, and maybe they could improve the tutorial a little. I don't think they should make any changes beyond that though. It's been a few years now, admittedly, but the last time I played through the tutorial it quite clearly explained all of the basics you need to know to fly your ship around the galaxy. From there, you figure it out on your own or with the help of others.

A big part of Elite is figuring things out for yourself, and the very lack of objectives or a preset story-line makes it so that everyone's experience in the game will be somewhat unique. There's a steep learning curve, but this isn't a game for the feint of heart.

The thing is, this game requires a certain level of patience and determination. So, most of the veterans you'll see (myself included) will defend this because we went through the frustration. We pushed through it with determination to get better, and it was worth every minute of it. Why would I want to rob someone else of that journey?

Not everyone is going to enjoy the experience that Elite provides, and that's okay. There's tons of games out there, and most space-sims I've tried are far, far more simple than Elite is. In fact, that's what makes so many of them utterly boring to me in the long run. To each their own though.

[Quarren King of Q]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Devolution:

Redeemer:

Looks like you weren't reading. Saw 'hand held' and jumped on the bandwagon.

If it is a common thread, then there is a problem. Just because you took dozens of hours of reading/youtube videos outside of the game to learn the game doesn't mean that simulation type games should be like that. There is a difference between a guided, hand-held journey, and hand-holding to learn systems within the game. But it seems you are too focused on "handheld = bad in 100% of cases"

good point man, i talk about this alot. too many get caught up in the idea of something. versus the reality. like there should be an option to flip al lthe switches in the cockpit. and an option to hit engine on and the pilot who would reasonably be already trained to do this. does it.

[Quarren King of Q]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Alchemy Of Seoul:

I think part of the problem is, I don't think many people have played the tutorial in years. I have two accounts and the last time i did the tutorial, that was in 2019. I wonder if it has changed at all as far as being improved? I would have to buy another account to find out. If it is what I can remember, yeah, it is not good.

@devolution, are you a new player or a seasoned player starting a new account?

i think you can open a training menu to redo the tutorials i dont think you need to buy a new account

[Quarren King of Q]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Devolution:

Alchemy Of Seoul: I played years ago, in VR. Tried to get back into it. Remembered the very steep learning curve from before - saw that nothing has changed with regards to the new player experience. Made post.

Back then, I had to look through youtube videos and guides to get me started and stuck to it patiently. Wasn't particularly willing to do it this time. And that is the fundamental problem - the first few dozen hours are trial and error with a huge part of it alt-tabing trying to read about systems and why certain things are happening.

My initial post wasn't necessarily a rant about the game itself, but just the new player experience over all. If anything it was a bit of a harsh constructive criticism. I see the fun in this game and I experienced it years ago.

it can be a bummer for alot of poeple to miss out on the events and stuff as well

[Quarren King of Q]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Copenboro:

No, hand holding and explaining how things work in the game are different. ED doesn't explain anything. Go ahead and figure out how to do guardian crap without youtube or looking up some stuff- You cant.
Every thread on here also lists 3rd party websites like Inara to determine where to go for literally everything- Trade goods, commodities,parts,conflict zones- everything. OR blindly jump around wasting your time on a wild goose chase across 400 billion star systems. So the utter lack of transparent information available in game has actually spurred numerous websites to pop up to bridge that very gap? You don't see the problem in having to leave the game to get information for the game?
Either way this is absolutely not a good game- its just big and wins 'oh my nostalgia' points with older folks. Mile wide and a inch deep. All there is "Press J" into eternity until your ears bleed from "Frameshift drive charging".
I recommend Star citizen, No mans sky and even astroneers BEFORE this game.

ever tried starship evo, parkan 2 avorion, discovery free lancer free project. there are several other games as well i cant recall names of. executive assault 2. X4

[Jackofallgods]

If you research games before you buy them then id say its well known that this game requires quite a bit of self teaching before becoming enjoyable. I read that it took about 30 hours of playing before becoming enjoyable due to unclear directions and flying being unforgiving.

And I waited til I was in the mood for a game that required that kind of effort. And I gotta say it honestly took me about 30 or so hours and I finally had a grasp on what I wanted to do where I wanted to go and how to fly there safely. Lots of internet research, lots of 3rd party tools installed and a non serious discord guild really helped.

So next time do a little research before a purchase.

[Sighman]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Devolution:

It seems like this game is going to remain for a niche audience that is okay with taking a weekend reading about all the systems, how they interact with eachother, remapping keys, watching youtube tutorials, etc. This is bad game design - which is a bummer because I like depth, but I am here to play a game, not sit outside of the game trying to figure the game out.

Luckily there are about 500,000 other games on steam where you just have to press buttons and flashing lights and things happen. No hard thinking involved.

[Firehawke]

Just going to say the bit about NEEDING to rebind an Xbox controller is full of crap. I went through my first.. what, two years? Maybe three?.. using stock binds, no problems. I only added to the binds once I wanted to get a bit more complicated (faster access to giving SLF orders, for instance).

It's not nearly as bad as it looks, and the ability to hold a button to get a quick look at what chords are available on that button speeds up learning those combinations.

[Agony_Aunt]

The game has a lot of systems and a lot of complexity. Its not an easy game to jump into and just start playing.

Fortunately there are:

1) A manual/the codex - read it.
2) Tutorals - play them.
3) FD provided YouTube tutorials - watch them.
4) Player made tutorials on youtube and elsewhere - watch them.

Not necessarily all at once. I would recommend the manual (or the game guide in the Codex, which i believe is more up to date) and at least give the tutorials a go.

After that, start playing, and when you a hit a "How do i do X?" moment, go look up a tutorial.

[frumple]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Devolution:

No guide, literally no explanation of systems. Nothing. You merely cannot 'discover it on your own' - impossible - too many overlapping systems.

Only way to do it is to take an entire weekend going over a one hundred page encyclopedia on every system and how they interact with each other. Boring. If you don't though, the game is unplayable.

I read your post but i snipped the rest.

I agree with you. It is more than infuriating. It is one of the worst initial impressions i have ever experienced in a complete game.
It took me at least 5 hours to find a "game" inside this alledged game.

However, i come from 16 bit Elite and Frontier Elite II, and countless other Elite-likes.
So i was going to find it eventually no matter what as long as it existed. And it does exist.


Have spaceship, will travel. And run away after stealing stuff and possibly murdering someone.
Lots of ships, good sim, huge universe and a realistic one (as much as possible). The combat is kinda dog poo but it was in previous games too. Original Elite had basic but good combat but all sequels make it ...mush. I don't even know what it is but it is bad. Not as bad as og Privateer but worse than X-Wing or X-Com Interceptor.

The controls are awful. The worst, most mindless and insane i have come across. French game designers make more sensible games and controls. And they are all mad geniuses who CANNOT make anything sensible.

But at the same time, the controls are extremly configurable. I'll be damned if i can name one game that allows for so many controls to be mapped and configured. No game comes close to Elite Dangerous.


There is good game in there. With complete freedom to go in any direction and seamless transitions between space, orbit, planets and ports + driving and walking.
Explore, trade, shoot, get shot, participate in community events, construct colonies.
Not all of these features are developed to perfection. They don't have to be.

But...

They are wrapped in old socks soaked in urine.
The stuff that annoyed you and you've been banging your head against? We've all been there. Some of us had the sense to walk away. The others took the socks off, washed their hands, and got down to playing the game.

And we kept finding more socks. Some sitting near dog poop.

I get you.


Is the game good?
I don't know. It is for me.

[Will]

The game is hard, but it's perfectly doable to learn it yourself a bit at a time. It's much easier now than it used to be to get started that's for sure.