There is? Hidden? Why having a story line if you dont know you are in one or there is one.
Probably thats what could motivate players (me) too.
Yes a storyline you could play and experience is a very motivating aspect in games. Unfortunatly does ED only have a live-story. That means the developers tell the story by putting stuff into the game and hope that eventually a player discovers that stuff. Then a newsletter or galnet news appears that something has been discovered. OR there are community events (e.g. building a station) which represent a story element.
The problem is... if you dont know that an event is running or if you are not aware that there is a story at all... or if you are on holidays... or... if there are other reasons.... then you never will experience that story.
It is not possible for a player to really experience it from the beginning to the end. Very often you just can read that others experienced something (if you read about it at all).
QuoteWell as it was already pointed out: Its terrible if i have to switch from the game to a 3rd party side just to read some info that has to be in the game. Havent done this and i dont think that belongs to gaming.
Also some of the infos are "hidden" in to long fact or story sheets. I dont want to read books in a game. It should be short with all info that are necessary.
There is lots of text to read... too much... with too little useful information.
And all that text leaves alot room for interpretations.
There are missions where you can read lots of totally unimportant text and at the end you still dont know what to do. I think the developers expect that every player has at least 10 years of experience with the game and knows the meaning of every detail in the text.
QuoteI also dont like to invest more money to get horizons or engineers just to find myself again in a game where npcs just rip me apart although i dont like fighting and with one of the previous update this got worst.
The game lacks intuitivism, which did bother me alot and is another reason why i stopped. What a bummer.
You dont have to buy horizons to get ripped apart. You have the main game and everything that happens in space belongs to the main game. Horizons (and engineers as part of Horizons) is just what happens on planets (and there doesnt really happen much).
Without joystick its hard, it works quite different as CF/FL
... myself hope for hotas later this year, throttle control is quite important if you like fight and want use more fa-off (flight assistant) maneuvers.
Playing without joystick most likely is a nightmare.
Do you need a professional joystick or hotas?
Probably not.
You can buy joysticks already for 10-20 €. The costs are not high... just make sure it fits to your hand and that it has a good amount of buttons that you can reach.
Then you can play the game with joystick and keyboard. Thats good enough to feel comfortable with the game.
If feel like you need more control you have 2 options.
1. voice control (which works pretty well if you have a headset -> dont use a desktop microphone as the background noice from your speakers will be a massive disturbance to the voice recognition)
2. try a HOTAS (Hands on throttle and stick).
I used for many years a microsoft force feedback joystick (which probably after all the time is still one of the best joysticks you can buy). But due to the very excessive use during my time as Starlancer player some of the buttons didnt work reliable anymore.
So I decided to buy a HOTAS for Elite.
I got a thrustmaster t-flight hotas which you can get new for 40€ (which is pretty cheap). I got it 2nd hand for 25€ (which is a very appropriate expression for a stick). It works perfect with elite because you simply dont need anything better. There are hotas for 150,-€ or more... but thats something you only need when you really play professional flight simulators.
40,-€ for a hotas (or 25€ for an already used one) is ok... I use my keyboard only for one thing now: typing "hi".
The only thing that bothered me about the hotas was that the stick on the right side was too light. I am used to the heavy rock solid microsoft stick.... so I removed the screws from the bottom of the stick, took longer screws and mounted everything on a metal plate. But thats probably just a matter of taste.
QuoteBtw, as I have read STO and watched discussions, it looks (from outside) quite difficult game. When I started with ED, it also looked difficult (very). But it's some time already I play and I need to say that 2.1 added rly alot details and user 'friendly' things to game engine. Play is much more smooth going (from my view).
Well, STO is complex but not difficult.
There are hundreds of ships and thousands of different items.... that makes this game complex.
Difficulty however is something that players must decide on their own.
You can start the game right away without any knowledge. You get introduced into it by tutorial missions and you can play all of the +150 story missions without any deep knowledge.
And if you feel like it you can go from normal difficulty to advanced difficulty and eventually also to elite difficulty (which then allow better rewards).
Point is that you dont need to worry about anything... and if you start a new game you probably will enjoy multiple weeks of story content.
And still if you run into problems at a point you still could simply ask someone for help. It is possible to invite other players to your missions and do them as a team. Its pretty easy to do that actually.
Difficulty only comes from own decision.
You probably have read my tutorials about how to improve ships and damages.
What I wrote only aims to show players how to squeeze more performance out of their ships.
The majority of the STO player base does not care about such stuff... they play the game just to have fun.
But long term players eventually will try to improve their ships... more and more.... because they want to see how far they can get.
When I started to play the game I used to do around 6000 DPS (damage per second). For me that was ok... it was absolutely sufficient to play through all the missions. There wasnt any specical knowledge involved back then.
But when you already played every mission you seek for other goals.
One might be the DPS race.... the try to improve your own damage output. And that is a long term motivation at the end game.
I was happy when I reached 10k dps... I improved the ship more and more... I reached 25k dps and got stuck there for a good while.... and then crossed the 30k line... the 75k line months later which got me invited to the groups of the best players.... and today I could easily do somewhat between 110k and 150k DPS.
The thing is... I only needed 6k DPS to play the game and have fun.... everything above that is just a matter of personal goals and motivation. It does not have anything to do with what you can play and what you can not play.
If you do that DPS race is your own decision.
To get to the +100k DPS... THAT is the difficult part.... but its a part that you by default dont have to do.
I did that because I wanted to know how far I could get with my most favorite ship. There are better ships in the game and there are also better players out there. I never aimed to be better than other people or to show that I am the best. I just wanted to know how far I can get with the ship that I really love to use.
STO is not difficult... but it can provide a motivation to do difficult things.
Quote
@Huor it's only my observation so far that if you don't trade (smuggle) and are not involved in powerplay, NPCs tends to ignore you. But it's a fact that last update made ed space dangerous, it for sure is discussable if too much or not good optimized but imo it was needed, they (FDev) needed make strong point (skilled npcs) which can be further optimized/tweaked etc.
my observation is different.
I was attacked multiple times with empty cargo. I also dont see the point getting attacked everytime I would have cargo. In a universe where every trading ship by default gets attacked on every run the whole economy of that universe would collapse. Traders need to be able to trade... they need to be able to do their job. When you accept a trade mission you should be allowed to do what the mission is about.... not to end in a combat scenario each time.
I dont think that it was needed to make the game so difficult. It would have been enough provide an increased difficulty to those that are ready for it and those that want it. It doesnt make sense to increase the difficulty to absurd levels just to see that the players are leaving the game.
And the difficulty is at absurd levels.
The way I see it the NPCs can do stuff that no player can do.
They always have an advantage with interdiction.... up to the point where you can read anywhere "dont even try to fight against it".
They can interdict you instantly after jumping into a system (this was confirmed by many players).
They attack you for no reason... even if your cargo hold is empty.... they demand you to drop your cargo and instantly attack.
No NPC python would die in 3-4 seconds... my python did eventhough I had strong shields, armor and lots of good defense internals.
NPCs have unlimited ammo (which the devs confirmed).
NPC ships can turn faster than player ships.
Fair and fun is different.
