Elite Dangerous. Is there a point?

[Blind Owl]

I know the question of "why" has been raised for other games. We had a chat recently about No Man's Sky, and whether it has a purpose, a why? There is a vague purpose; get to the center of the universe. For a majority of sandbox games, there really isn't a why.

Elite is gorgeous. It's huge. But is there a point? I tried to get into it when it came out, and haven't played it since before the horizons expansion came out.

So, is there anything to do in ED aside from make money, buy better ships, rinse and repeat? I'd love to go exploring, but is there anything to find? This faction system, are there quests to do? Something to work towards?

TLDR; Is there anything to do in ED? Is there a point?

 

[EpilepticCricket]

I can't really answer if there is a definite "point" to ED. There are goals that involve reaching "Elite" rank in trading, combat, and/or exploration. (I don't know what you can do you in the new expacs as I only have the base game.)

Any game that has seemingly "pointless" features or things that are there "just because", when you start asking "why", you will often only receive an answer of "because it's fun to do".

The least monotonous feature of ED, in my opinion, is exploration and that's because the game is simply beautiful and the thrill of discovering a new system is simply incomparable. Knowing that you are the first human to ever lay eyes on a specific system gives a rush that few other games can provide. For many people, the goal is to discover something new. To be able to say "Yeah, that cool system you're visiting for the first time? I was the first guy to ever visit it.".

 

[Blind Owl]

I can't really answer if there is a definite "point" to ED. There are goals that involve reaching "Elite" rank in trading, combat, and/or exploration. (I don't know what you can do you in the new expacs as I only have the base game.)

Any game that has seemingly "pointless" features or things that are there "just because", when you start asking "why", you will often only receive an answer of "because it's fun to do".

The least monotonous feature of ED, in my opinion, is exploration and that's because the game is simply beautiful and the thrill of discovering a new system is simply incomparable. Knowing that you are the first human to ever lay eyes on a specific system gives a rush that few other games can provide. For many people, the goal is to discover something new. To be able to say "Yeah, that cool system you're visiting for the first time? I was the first guy to ever visit it.".

Yeah, I'm all about the "it's fun to do" factor. However, my experience in ED was not that fun. I found it mind numbing flying system to system for hours on end trying to make enough money to upgrade to an exploration ship, only making thousands of dollars at a time. I've heard that there have been significant changes, things added, etc. I'm just wondering if anyone else has found any satisfaction from this game. I don't relish the idea of spending hours alone in an empty universe trying to get by. There should be an endless cascade of stuff to do. I do believe that's the point of games, lol. Fun. If I wanted hours of tedious boredom I'd go to work. The army is full of mind numbing days. Ha

 

[Hadron Xon]

Put on some good trance or house music and play. ED is a great game , the problem is it does to good of a job providing the sense of what its like to travel in space. It vast , lonely and incredibly beautiful. All i do is smuggle drugs and slaves from port to port and run from law enforcement.Grab a Cobra and watch your bankroll snowball.

 

[WarrenPeace]

The Armed Forces are full of mind numbing days.

FTFY

 

[lex]

My in-game game time counter shows 3,5 weeks of playtime.
I still find this game pretty boring ("a mile wide and an inch deep", how redditors tends to say)
At the same time, i like this game.
My biggest complains:
Missions are all the same (and some of them aren't working right now). They are, uhh, how i can say this, faceless? You can't see how you're affecting certain system if you smuggle weapons here. Well there is tiny bar showing each faction influence but that's all.
Ships are all the same as well (with the exception of imperial ships by gutamaya, they are radically different) - their designs are very similar between manufacturers.
Ugly p2p multiplayer. Desyncs. Situations like "this NPC is alive for me, but dead for my wingmate" are very, very common. Situation tends to improve if you play with people from same country.
"Balance". Oh man. Missiles are completely useless (unless you want some planetary base assault). There is also "huge" hardpoints on ships (class 4) but you can only fit cannon or plasma accelerator here. Thanks to this "design decision" this huge hardpoints are only useful for destroying big ships (anaconda, t9, corvette) and most people just use class 3 weaponry in class 4 slots. Imagine you have 20mm cannon instead of GAU-8 on A-10. That's how it feels.

On the positive side, 2.1 update should completely overhaul mission system, or at least FD says so, and give us ability to fit more different weapons on class 4 hardpoints

And if you haven't played it yet? Well, go buy it. It will surely hold you for couple of weeks. And right now, without horizons, it costs like what, 10$?

Point of playing? None. Sandox as it is. I got my elite rank, got admiral in federation, got every ship in this game and still play sometimes with friends.

 

[EpilepticCricket]

Yeah, it's still pretty slow going, but the pace is somewhat intended. The biggest problem is how limited your options are to becoming effective at what you want to do. You have to kill pirates until get enough money to do what you want. Missions are a waste of time when it comes to any sort of real progress (both for faction rep and cash flow). Haulers running trade routes makes the best money, but it's a lot of research and logistics planning to perform better than killing 'rats and the best haulers cost far too much to get into by just doing trade runs in a cheap ship. Exploration can be a lot of fun, but it's a painfully slow, arduous thing if you don't really enjoy it and again, the problem is getting into a ship that will get you into deep space effectively. There is a nearly complete wall around faction space that you simply cannot cross without a certain size jump drive and fuel tank. Additionally, scanning planets and exploring as a beginner is a total waste of your time as the cash payouts are almost nill.

If you like the idea of spending the time doing deep space exploration AND don't mind spending a lot of time building the cash reserves to do it effectively, then ED is the perfect game, but if that's not your thing the whole experience falls very short of "fun".

 

[Feral Oxide]

EDs purpose is to be an almost a good game with little purpose and yucky flying to fill time until SC gets finished.

 

[GrammarGestapo]

Short answer, no.

Long answer, there are short term and long term goals. The systems are fun to use, ships are fun to fly, combat is great, and exploration is breathtaking and awesome. It's fun. there is no goal. You are meaningless in the galaxy, and cannot form large enough alliances with other players to become meaningful. It's a true space sim and nothing more.

 

[Blind Owl]

I reinstalled, got voice attack all set up, and immediately starting crashing (TESTing) because the yaw/roll is the opposite of SC. It's hard to get used to again, haha.

So I'm sitting over at Lave, I have my Lakon with a hold full of rare, and about 3 million in the bank. What next?

I own a Cobra mk III, I can buy a IV.
I have a Viper parked, as well as the Sidewinder. I was working towards an Asp originally, back when I played. I intended to fly off into the unknown and see if there was anything to discover.

Looks like there are some new(er) ships, like the Diamondback Explorer. So what now?

Power play? Pick a faction? Go fight and make myself useful?
Or go explore?

Is there anything resembling a story out there to link into? Even a faction storyline? Anything?

 

[lex]

No storyline apart from some news in galnet.
Do what you want. That's all.

 

[Han Burgundy]

I got it back when I got my Rift DK2. I was HOOKED on Elite for quite a while, but i think that was more to do with a fascination of the rift instead of the game itself. Combat got surprisingly boring, and horizons was underwhelming. Thats part of the reason I came to SC. There's a lot to be said for Getting out of your ship. "Spacelegs", as they would call it, are vitally important to the immersion of games like these. (Especially a sim; which I think ED tries to lean more towards) IT has potential, and they always talk about it, but so far they really haven't made any good fixes or implementations. Just band-aids and more bugs. The mile-wide & inch deep analogy is spot on. They have the bones for an AWESOME experience. They just need more imagination on their Dev team. I'm approaching it with a wait and see mentality. If it sucks and dies; Whatever. I have SC. If it ends up being a cool game in and of itself; Awesome. I have both. *shrug* $0.02

 

[vindslav]

I know the question of "why" has been raised for other games. We had a chat recently about No Man's Sky, and whether it has a purpose, a why? There is a vague purpose; get to the center of the universe. For a majority of sandbox games, there really isn't a why.

Elite is gorgeous. It's huge. But is there a point? I tried to get into it when it came out, and haven't played it since before the horizons expansion came out.

So, is there anything to do in ED aside from make money, buy better ships, rinse and repeat? I'd love to go exploring, but is there anything to find? This faction system, are there quests to do? Something to work towards?

TLDR; Is there anything to do in ED? Is there a point?

You can increase the scope of your question to that of the validity of all games. The answer is, entertainment. Now, if a game does not take your fancy, and leaves a desiring sense of justification, then I suggest moving on. There is a chance the game might click for you and you may come to love it, however there is a better possibility that another game out there, among the plathora, will truly consume your attention.

Games like Elite and No Man's Sky have no inheirent story, you make it. Just as you will in Star Citizen. Though, there is an overarching plot that unravels itself within the galaxy that Elite Dangerous emulates. As it stands, the current chapter revolves around the emergance of alien technology, and the aquisition and research of said technology. This, of course, is occurring along side the constant power struggles, notably within the Empire.

 

[Blind Owl]

You can increase the scope of your question to that of the validity of all games. The answer is, entertainment. Now, if a game does not take your fancy, and leaves a desiring sense of justification, then I suggest moving on. There is a chance the game might click for you and you may come to love it, however there is a better possibility that another game out there, among the plathora, will truly consume your attention.

Games like Elite and No Man's Sky have no inheirent story, you make it. Just as you will in Star Citizen. Though, there is an overarching plot that unravels itself within the galaxy that Elite Dangerous emulates. As it stands, the current chapter revolves around the emergance of alien technology, and the aquisition and research of said technology. This, of course, is occurring along side the constant power struggles, notably within the Empire.

Emergence of alien tech. Awesome. See that's something. Now are there missions that revolve around that plot? Where would one go to start delving into that?

I'm all about forging your own destiny. I love that idea. But is there reward for doing so?

Edit: I realize that SC will also be a forge your own destiny situation. However, there is meat to SC. There's lore, there's aliens, there's population, places to see. Shit, Privateer felt like it had more meat then ED does at this time.

 

[vindslav]

There is quite alot of lore in Elite, most of which is broadcasted through the news posts when you are at stations. There are missions for the alien pods, but you are best looking it up, as I can not remember the systems and station entailed. I will state though, that it does require you to go planet side, so the Lakon would not be the best of choice, specially if you are not used to going planetside.

As for reward. Reward on forging your own destiny.
There was a time when the reward of a game was the game itself. Over time, cliches were added to games, mainly due to the mass aceptance of RPGs, which lead to an expectance of reward after action. If you are expecting such things, do not bother. The same will possibly be present with Star Citizen, the game itself is the reward, the story you create is your reward, and the action itself is entertainment.

Elite Dangerous by no means holds the hands of its players. Almost every event in the game is found by a core group of the community which expends copious amount of effort to find, decipher and pass on knowledge of such events. That is what Elite aims towards. The emergence of alien species is the perfect example of this. While you still blaze your own trail, Star Citizen is going for more the "space opera" route, so aspects of lore and story are thrown at you, which in itself can cause problems, specially if you are unable to see what interests you through the thick of it.

When I get out of this seminar, if I remember I will add a link to this (in regards to the alien pods), if I do not, feel free to fling shitin my general direction.

 

[vindslav]

A couple of videos which explain them. I am pretty sure these are the right ones, looked at them without sound, but I think these are the ones I saw before.

 

[Blind Owl]

Cool. Thanks man. I just spent the last couple evenings getting voice attack and my HOTAS set up the way I like. I'll probably drop into the game and give it the old college try again. See about finding things to do, rather than grind and grind. Perhaps go explore. See of there's anything out there.

I really like having goals, and I like enjoying getting to them.

 

[W-T-Riker]

Dont know, dont tryed it yet but in the end i cant play Star Trek Online , Elite Dangerus and Star Citizen at the same time, so i better dont start with Elite Dangerus.

 

[Mettan]

I still love Elite Dangerous, even though I have not been playing it much. Though I suppose I put enough time into it to get to Duke rank and get my Imperial Clipper . . . . I probably will play more when engineers comes out and I can make my pvp tank even more tanky.

 

[Riekopo]

Elite is what is was supposed to be. A remake of the old Elite games. However, now that people have it they want it to be more. I will continue to support ED because I think it's a good game and has great potential and it's steadily being improved. It certainly gets boring though. The main issue with the game I think is the lack of player agency.