Echelon Zones and The Core Problems

[Mini Mald]

Echelon Zones are useless and bad and terrible and they stink.

They suck because:

-You cannot talk to anyone on that floor. Fine for investigations, terrible if you have the audacity of accepting a side-job that requires you talk to someone who lives there such as theft or infidelity jobs. Why do they even post them to the poors if they do not want poors accepting them?

-It is just a more restrictive trespass. the game already has trespassing systems in place that punish you for entering someones house or assaulting someone. These systems also suck, because unless you die you don't have to even acknowledge them. The punishment system doesn't exist, therefore this is a useless addition.

-they are easily bypassed by treating them the exact same as any other floor you want to break into, making them both irrelevant and useless. Just turn the lights off.

-You have no notoriety. If you get caught committing a crime, no one cares if you hide for five seconds. No one recognizes your face, no one uses your name. The building MIGHT go into shutdown if someone finds a body, but even then you can just hide and suddenly no one cares. your life is not impacted based on your decisions.

Suggestions for improvement:

-Allow Echelon-zone missions to give you a temporary pass, or just don't let them spawn until you hit a certain social level. This is not impossible, it is present in every other game that has these features, just implement them so I can stop looping between the notice boards looking for a mission I can actually do. It would also be more immersive; why would a rich person with high social standing post their personal concerns to random nobodies on the street? They would 100% just hire a private eye personally (You know, you, with a letter or email. Make the crunchers useful too.)

-Give the player notoriety. Make their actions matter. reduce social credit, add a second form of social credit called Notoriety, Make inverse echelon zones where you can't be allowed in if you are ABOVE a certain social ranking to force players to change up their methods, do ANYTHING to make my actions matter beyond where they are now.

The fan-base of this game seems content to accept whatever the devs throw at them with the excuse of "ItS eArLy AcCsEsS" being thrown around a lot. It does not matter if its early access, in-fact having gripes and concerns is GOOD for an early access game. Believe it or not, the game is not perfect and should not remain as it is until the end of time. Additionally, devs can and DO have bad ideas and SHOULD be called out for them. Arguing that 'If you don't like the game you can just not play it' Is not a valid point for a game that has ended several runs due EXCLUSIVELY to its horrendously buggy nature. If you cannot stop and think 'hey, maybe this game needs some work' then you shouldn't have an input. Echo-chambers are hot helpful for anybody and encourage stagnant, toxic ideals. Stop.

[Myst Leissa]

Origineel geplaatst door Mini Mald:

Echelon Zones are useless and bad and terrible and they stink.

They suck because:

-You cannot talk to anyone on that floor. Fine for investigations, terrible if you have the audacity of accepting a side-job that requires you talk to someone who lives there such as theft or infidelity jobs. Why do they even post them to the poors if they do not want poors accepting them?

-It is just a more restrictive trespass. the game already has trespassing systems in place that punish you for entering someones house or assaulting someone. These systems also suck, because unless you die you don't have to even acknowledge them. The punishment system doesn't exist, therefore this is a useless addition.

-they are easily bypassed by treating them the exact same as any other floor you want to break into, making them both irrelevant and useless. Just turn the lights off.

-You have no notoriety. If you get caught committing a crime, no one cares if you hide for five seconds. No one recognizes your face, no one uses your name. The building MIGHT go into shutdown if someone finds a body, but even then you can just hide and suddenly no one cares. your life is not impacted based on your decisions.

Suggestions for improvement:

-Allow Echelon-zone missions to give you a temporary pass, or just don't let them spawn until you hit a certain social level. This is not impossible, it is present in every other game that has these features, just implement them so I can stop looping between the notice boards looking for a mission I can actually do. It would also be more immersive; why would a rich person with high social standing post their personal concerns to random nobodies on the street? They would 100% just hire a private eye personally (You know, you, with a letter or email. Make the crunchers useful too.)

-Give the player notoriety. Make their actions matter. reduce social credit, add a second form of social credit called Notoriety, Make inverse echelon zones where you can't be allowed in if you are ABOVE a certain social ranking to force players to change up their methods, do ANYTHING to make my actions matter beyond where they are now.

The fan-base of this game seems content to accept whatever the devs throw at them with the excuse of "ItS eArLy AcCsEsS" being thrown around a lot. It does not matter if its early access, in-fact having gripes and concerns is GOOD for an early access game. Believe it or not, the game is not perfect and should not remain as it is until the end of time. Additionally, devs can and DO have bad ideas and SHOULD be called out for them. Arguing that 'If you don't like the game you can just not play it' Is not a valid point for a game that has ended several runs due EXCLUSIVELY to its horrendously buggy nature. If you cannot stop and think 'hey, maybe this game needs some work' then you shouldn't have an input. Echo-chambers are hot helpful for anybody and encourage stagnant, toxic ideals. Stop.

A Very long, bias gripe, for a very real problem. Except I would like to say: it's not the etchleon zones that bug me, it's the blue walls of death that they contain that do.

[Akicma]

I mostly agree with the original poster, except for the last part. I think it's better if a player's misdeeds aren't easily forgotten. Additionally, in the Echelon area, I'd be happy to see security guards with a flashlight or cameras with night vision.

This excellent game is noticeably missing some mechanics that increase the difficulty as you progress. Thanks to Sync disks and memory system, it gets easier and easier as days pass in-game. It's the complete opposite of a typical game.

[Myst Leissa]

Origineel geplaatst door Akicma:

I mostly agree with the original poster, except for the last part. I think it's better if a player's misdeeds aren't easily forgotten. Additionally, in the Echelon area, I'd be happy to see security guards with a flashlight or cameras with night vision.

This excellent game is noticeably missing some mechanics that increase the difficulty as you progress. Thanks to Sync disks and memory system, it gets easier and easier as days pass in-game. It's the complete opposite of a typical game.

I think this was designed as one of those kinda games you can "Login, Play 5 minutes for fun, then go play something a little more serious" until it got so popular because it is so well made (or simply because all the other games are not exactly games, you know what I mean...) that the dev decided "Well it's making money, maybe it wouldn't be so bad an idea to make it a real game". Niche games tend to be that way now that I think on it.

[schwarzrotes]

Origineel geplaatst door Mini Mald:

Echelon Zones are useless and bad and terrible and they stink.

They suck because:

-You cannot talk to anyone on that floor. Fine for investigations, terrible if you have the audacity of accepting a side-job that requires you talk to someone who lives there such as theft or infidelity jobs. Why do they even post them to the poors if they do not want poors accepting them?

-It is just a more restrictive trespass. the game already has trespassing systems in place that punish you for entering someones house or assaulting someone. These systems also suck, because unless you die you don't have to even acknowledge them. The punishment system doesn't exist, therefore this is a useless addition.

-they are easily bypassed by treating them the exact same as any other floor you want to break into, making them both irrelevant and useless. Just turn the lights off.

-You have no notoriety. If you get caught committing a crime, no one cares if you hide for five seconds. No one recognizes your face, no one uses your name. The building MIGHT go into shutdown if someone finds a body, but even then you can just hide and suddenly no one cares. your life is not impacted based on your decisions.

Suggestions for improvement:

-Allow Echelon-zone missions to give you a temporary pass, or just don't let them spawn until you hit a certain social level. This is not impossible, it is present in every other game that has these features, just implement them so I can stop looping between the notice boards looking for a mission I can actually do. It would also be more immersive; why would a rich person with high social standing post their personal concerns to random nobodies on the street? They would 100% just hire a private eye personally (You know, you, with a letter or email. Make the crunchers useful too.)

-Give the player notoriety. Make their actions matter. reduce social credit, add a second form of social credit called Notoriety, Make inverse echelon zones where you can't be allowed in if you are ABOVE a certain social ranking to force players to change up their methods, do ANYTHING to make my actions matter beyond where they are now.

The fan-base of this game seems content to accept whatever the devs throw at them with the excuse of "ItS eArLy AcCsEsS" being thrown around a lot. It does not matter if its early access, in-fact having gripes and concerns is GOOD for an early access game. Believe it or not, the game is not perfect and should not remain as it is until the end of time. Additionally, devs can and DO have bad ideas and SHOULD be called out for them. Arguing that 'If you don't like the game you can just not play it' Is not a valid point for a game that has ended several runs due EXCLUSIVELY to its horrendously buggy nature. If you cannot stop and think 'hey, maybe this game needs some work' then you shouldn't have an input. Echo-chambers are hot helpful for anybody and encourage stagnant, toxic ideals. Stop.

i think you dont understand the point of the Echolonzone
you are not suposted to be there until a certain social credit lvl
and when they so easyly bypassed then why remove them?
they are new in the game and maybe sidemission there should be mared as that
but if there is a murder and you are not the right social credit lvl than use ure brain to solve the problem
it is suposted to be an obstackle, lear to deal with it

[Mini Mald]

Origineel geplaatst door schwarzrotes:

i think you dont understand the point of the Echolonzone
you are not suposted to be there until a certain social credit lvl
and when they so easyly bypassed then why remove them?
they are new in the game and maybe sidemission there should be mared as that
but if there is a murder and you are not the right social credit lvl than use ure brain to solve the problem
it is suposted to be an obstackle, lear to deal with it

Please re-read my post. You have ignored every gripe I have with the system and replied with what is essentially 'if you don't like it, don't play it'.
If a murder takes place in an echelon zone, nothing happens. You sneak past the police and walk around the apartment just the same. They are redundant.
If they are meant for when you are a specific level then they should only spawn when you're at that level. Poor design.
I do not need to "use my brain" to bypass them. I can walk in the front door. Again, redundant.

Echelon zones are redundant, bloat the game with needless mechanics, and fail to even be an obstacle in any sense of the word. Your ignoring of my entire argument only further proves my point in the last paragraph. You don't understand what I am saying nor do you choose to try.

[Mini Mald]

Origineel geplaatst door Myst Leissa:

A Very long, bias gripe, for a very real problem. Except I would like to say: it's not the etchleon zones that bug me, it's the blue walls of death that they contain that do.

May I ask how it's bias?

[Mini Mald]

Origineel geplaatst door Myst Leissa:

Origineel geplaatst door Akicma:

I mostly agree with the original poster, except for the last part. I think it's better if a player's misdeeds aren't easily forgotten. Additionally, in the Echelon area, I'd be happy to see security guards with a flashlight or cameras with night vision.

This excellent game is noticeably missing some mechanics that increase the difficulty as you progress. Thanks to Sync disks and memory system, it gets easier and easier as days pass in-game. It's the complete opposite of a typical game.

I think this was designed as one of those kinda games you can "Login, Play 5 minutes for fun, then go play something a little more serious" until it got so popular because it is so well made (or simply because all the other games are not exactly games, you know what I mean...) that the dev decided "Well it's making money, maybe it wouldn't be so bad an idea to make it a real game". Niche games tend to be that way now that I think on it.

I agree completely, I feel like Echelon zones could be awesome, but right now they suck ass. The game as a whole has a very grindy game-play loop in general, so I can see where you're coming from in terms of it being made to play in short bursts.

Also did you mean to say "its better if a players' misdeeds are easily forgotten"? Not trying to nitpick just making sure we're on the same page.

[StaticR]

I kinda feel like the echelon zones aren't really the issue themselves but rather put a spotlight on other preexisting issues related to it.

The way the game is played, the actions you can do and the way you interact with your surrounding implies the affect of a sort of reputation system, but the game does not actually have any such mechanic so it gets very jarring when your social standing should reasonably affect the situation you're in but it doesn't because there just isn't such a thing in the game.


The social credit system is kinda just a glorified exp and level bar, which honestly I think is fine that one doesn't really need to have much depth to it. What the game really needs is a more general reputation system that affects how the people around you act and react to your actions and presence. It's ok to have certain things sort of like the echelon system be affected by the social credit system, like laws, restrictions and expectations you have to follow to underline the class divide but there should be a separate reputation and NPC personality system that affects how much the individuals around you actually care about upholding the status quo or whether they turn a blind eye for you.
Maybe social credit should have a small effect on people's initial impressions and how easy it is to improve your relationship to them, but it should be more focusing about the laws and rules of the ingame society rather than your interactions with individuals. Those two need to be two separate systems with only a small overlap.


Also kinda extra side note, I feel like the early game social credit stuff is kinda lacking. Like the first thing you get is the ability to rent an apartment, but you wouldn't even have the money to buy one before that anyways so its completely redundant. I feel like buying an apartment should be more like the third perk you get, with the first one being the ability to rent a hotel instead.

[Maya-Neko]

When taking on a side mission like a theft case, where you're invited to an apartment, then the echelon zone should allow you to be there at least for this kind of cases or at least not trigger the quest giver.

However, the other way around, you being forced to go to a specific area without an invitation (for example to attack someone or investigate a murder), then being allowed there would be nonsense. Just imagine you're investigating a case on floor 19, then you go down the stairs and suddenly be allowed on floor 17, telling you directly, that this is the floor where the thing or person is you're searching for. Since many cases play within the same house, that would become an easily exploitable solution.

[Loonessia]

I've had my first dealing with Echelon Zones and their problems. It was actually the mission where I got the achievement for doing a mission without violence.

For one, when a murder happens, you just have a slightly bigger "zone" where everyone is suddenly a cop now. It's negligible and as long as nobody's walking by nobody will care. Just gotta find the right time. I think something like a thing that speeds time up a bit while waiting for ♥♥♥♥ to clear out would be nice. Maybe like some pills or a cigar perhaps? Also reading your point, you not being able to talk to a client to turn in can be heartbreaking, but I would wait them out for them to go to work, or drop the case.

but for now yeah, I can kinda see making echelon zones easier by things such as talking to a citizen that you are running an errand or you're a friend of this person and they'll ignore you being there for the purposes of the zone, or allowing the people you need to talk to you to talk to you.

I see it as a nice challenge. Cuz keep in mind, you're just some regular old dude and the beat cops are corporation employed rather than government like it used to. Detectives like you are supposed to be "not required." so seeing you up near the doors on the 9th story of a building is considered taboo against the hierarchy.

tl;dr "Echelon Zones" are just one small area of an area where you're no longer allowed until you're good enough. You didn't know and neither did your client. I personally like it a bit because it adds into the counter for making the game unfun for yourself.