Don't buy Elite: Dangerous

[Dr Strangelove]

I tried the original Frontier: Elite two decades ago, then tried X3 5 years ago, both were huge disappointments.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

In comparison to Elite Dangerous, Civ series guides you - from a warrior to a phalang, to the next tech discovery and so on, even if you have no clue what you are doing in the game.

There is no guiding hand in this game, and I guess you have to find learning fun to enjoy it. This is why it was great for me during first 40-50hrs, finding and learning about different aspects of the game. That is not the problem (where you got stuck it seems), it is actually part of the appeal, as far as I am concerned. It lasted for a while for me. I was up to about 30-40M credits after that time as well, which is enough for more than half the ships available in the game.

The issue for me was that after the initial learning phase there was a plateau as I learned the main game mechanics, so took a break, but since 1.2 came out, community events became a thing, flying together as well which helped "what to do" in my case.

There is a lot left to learn and do though: Going through levelling up with the factions, learning to fly with FA off, trying to fly a number of different spaceships that I haven't tried yet as they all fly differently (even though I have the money, it is not on my priority list), help build a new station via a community goal (involves trading, but hey - enough of a goal for me), eventually go and visit Sagittarius A*, haven't even been to the Solar system yet , pirate, go fight in some systems which are controlled by particular player faction where they pirate everyone without mercy, and so on...

Main goal being - after 200/300M earned, to engage in piracy while having almost full ship selection available, the rest above and who knows what else - as I move along.

That will take a while, and in the meantime (may be even during this month) there will be another major update which is bound to bring some new aspects to the Milky Way.

[Hauldren Collider]

Look, OneFoot, if you derive some satisfaction out of discovering new systems that are functionally identical to every other system you've ever been in, doing the same repetitive docking task at one of the four or five different station models, futzing around with the incredibly wonky frameshift system, spending tens of hours of your life watching progress meters tick down to 0, and watching the little hyperdrive animation for the 4 billionth time while a female voice counts down from four, great. But anyone who's looking for some sort of variety or a game that actually has some gameplay depth or interesting setting will hate it.

It's not a matter of patience. It's a matter of what that patience nets you. In this case, shockingly little. I have spent hundreds of hours playing microsoft flight simulator--a game with absolutely no goals at all--simply for the reward of getting better at flying a (simulated) airplane. So this isn't a question of whether I'm unable to accept something that doesn't have instant gratification or find learning fun.

edit:
Also, there's a difference between not holding your hand and having to keep alt-tabbing out of the game to google search to figure out how to do something that should be obvious and intuitive. My occupation is computer programmer. I get paid to get a computer to do what I want it to do, investigate frustrating and annoying errors, figure out how to solve problems, and so on. Trying to play this video game was disturbingly reminiscent of trying to fix a computer bug: lots of google, and lots of frustration. I think you are confusing developer laziness and poor design for some sort of intentional depth.

[Jon Miller]

I am confused about why you are complaining about the prospect of spending 100s of hours (maybe it might be less? you haven't tried) getting good at docking while bragging about spending 100s of hours getting good at simulated flying.

JM

[Hauldren Collider]

I am confused about why you are complaining about the prospect of spending 100s of hours (maybe it might be less? you haven't tried) getting good at docking while bragging about spending 100s of hours getting good at simulated flying.

JM

That's a fair question. The answer is that flight sim is actually not a good game. It's a ****ing terrible game. It's boring as hell unless you specifically enjoy learning to fly planes. I wouldn't recommend it to a single one of my friends. It isn't even really a game.

If you find Elite: Dangerous fun because you enjoy practicing tedious things until you get good at them, that's great. But it's not functionally different from learning to juggle or solve a rubiks cube, except that you won't be able to impress people at parties with your Elite: Dangerous docking skills. Literally anything can be fun if judged by this standard. If we accept it, then there's no such thing as a bad game. I think most will agree that some games are good and some games are bad, and some games are better than other games. This is a bad game.

You can tell it's a bad game because if they actually implemented some of the things I pointed out, like reducing the frustration in travelling inside a system, providing tutorials that actually explain the core game mechanics, putting some actual variety in the different systems, making the interaction with the game more than just navigating totally sterile and bland menus, etc, no one, not even the people who like this game, would think the game had gotten worse.

[Sava]

Were people actually bashing instant gratification?

How long do you typically like to wait to have fun while doing something?

idiots

[Hauldren Collider]

That too. It's one thing to say that people should be willing to be patient in order to reap a greater reward. If you can get the same reward with less effort, isn't that better?

[Jon Miller]

How is it the same reward if it takes less effort?

JM

[onodera]

Elite: Dangerous
The Anal Frontier

http://i.imgur.com/cZuCF7V.jpg

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Meticulously planning out your trade routes and then hauling cargo for hours at a stretch has to be its own reward.

Jesus.

[Sava]

How is it the same reward if it takes less effort?

JM

How does delaying gratification make a reward better?

The value of a reward is not dependent on the effort required to attain it, imo.

[regexcellent]

Jesus.

If that reward isn't an hourly wage you can count me out.

[kentonio]

The value of a reward is not dependent on the effort required to attain it, imo.

Erm, it kind of is generally.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

That's a fair question. The answer is that flight sim is actually not a good game. It's a ****ing terrible game. It's boring as hell unless you specifically enjoy learning to fly planes. I wouldn't recommend it to a single one of my friends. It isn't even really a game.

If you find Elite: Dangerous fun because you enjoy practicing tedious things until you get good at them, that's great. But it's not functionally different from learning to juggle or solve a rubiks cube, except that you won't be able to impress people at parties with your Elite: Dangerous docking skills. Literally anything can be fun if judged by this standard. If we accept it, then there's no such thing as a bad game. I think most will agree that some games are good and some games are bad, and some games are better than other games. This is a bad game.

You can tell it's a bad game because if they actually implemented some of the things I pointed out, like reducing the frustration in travelling inside a system, providing tutorials that actually explain the core game mechanics, putting some actual variety in the different systems, making the interaction with the game more than just navigating totally sterile and bland menus, etc, no one, not even the people who like this game, would think the game had gotten worse.

Well, for some learning stuff is fun, for others it's teduim... I guess we are not all the same. If it feels like programming to you - why bother, but it certainly is not the case for a farily large number of people who actually enjoy what E : D has to offer. (flying around in space, doing stuff)

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Were people actually bashing instant gratification?

How long do you typically like to wait to have fun while doing something?

idiots

Two instances.