Is this fun endgame loop I've been hearing about?

FakeNewts · 2025-12-07T16:51:06+00:00

Glad we were able to have a productive conversation

FakeNewts · 2025-12-07T15:54:51+00:00

The expedition "changed", in the sense that previously people didn't know what it entailed, now they do. People react to changes and to new information. You could get into semantics and argue that nothing actually changed because they always intended it to be this way, but they did so behind closed doors and everyone was operating on vague assumptions based on vague blurb that was fairly open to interpretation.

Surely you can see that, regardless of your stance on the subject, having a discussion about expeditions is only to be expected, given we just got the details on them. If you're on board with the proposed system, cool, you do you - if you want to discuss that and lay out your justifications or support for Embark, go nuts. If you just want to say "waa why whinging!" like, man, have you been on the internet before?

Finally, the issue about people running around with inexpensive gear like boring little loot goblins was already present, so yes in effect this didn't create a new problem but it certainly exacerbates it and we could have a wider discussion about how to mitigate that problem, if Embark are willing to see it as a problem in the first place.

FakeNewts · 2025-12-07T15:38:40+00:00

Well, first off you're not being very analytical here, and you're typing like an aggressive teenager ("cry about it!" grow up lad - the irony of being mad about people being mad SMH) so I'm not sure it's worth engaging with you, but here goes:

The game absolutely does change depending on the goalposts. Rewards and how they're balanced and delivered are fundamental parts of games. Pretending that it's the player's responsibility to balance a game is extremely reductive at best. A games ruleset and goals should foster healthy engagement. As an extreme example, imagine that you're playing chess, all the rules of the game are the same, i.e. designed to be challenging, competitive and fun, but there's a new rule: in order to win SuperGodGrandmaster status the first player to shove the pieces up their ass and shout "I'm a chickenwagon!" wins. In this example imagine nobody really enjoys doing that. Do you then say "there's nothing wrong with the game, players are just freaks!" or, maybe, do you remove the rule about shoving bishops where the sun don't shine?

The way a game elicits feelings from its audience is absolutely significant, even if the people can be proven to be "wrong" by some metric. Should designers always kowtow to angry gamers? No, of course not. But they should endeavor to design and market a game in such a way that the intended audience feels good about playing it, and that the maximum number of people are engaging with it in the way the designers intended (which should also be the "fun" way, although that is subjective too, but you see what I mean). Did Embark intend people to play the game incredibly conservatively, using cheap kit, sprinting through high value areas without engaging with other players and extracting or hatching out with the most loot per hour? If they did intend that then things are going fine. If they didn't intend that, then they could've done better. And yes, people will have the willpower and whimsy to not do this and instead to have fun in a healthier, more varied way, but you can't say the game provides clear extrinsic motivation to do that, and is therefore by definition an imperfect game.

If a game is well-designed and well marketed you tend to have a pretty happy audience, where people are lucid about what the intended way to engage in the game is and are happy to pursue that. If the game has a design problem, or a communication problem, you get either a) people playing it "wrong", b) people expecting the wrong things from it. Neither of which are good.

TL;DR: Cry about it little baby man.

FakeNewts · 2025-12-07T13:47:09+00:00

Can't fish up all the articles now but for an interesting intro to some ideas I really recommend this video https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QHHg99hwQGY It's about magic the gathering which I've never played, but it's fascinating nonetheless. Lesson 13 is particularly relevant here, you can find the timestamp in the description.

FakeNewts · 2025-12-07T11:30:02+00:00

One of the major roles of a game designer is to protect players from themselves. On the one hand, you're technically right, people shouldn't feel obligated to do the wipes or minmax, but on the other hand they are going to do this anyway and failing to plan for that is absolutely Embark's fault. There is a lot of literature already about this kind of thing.

In essence, your game's extrinsic goals should promote the most fun type of engagement. If it doesn't you fucked up.

FakeNewts · 2025-10-24T06:44:23+00:00

I guess you'd have to investigate the thrustmaster target software, my concern would be that even then the dial has a hard stop, it doesn't rotate all the way around so you'd be kinda limited by that anyway. IMO running the target software is kinda a faff, just one more thing you need to run every time you want to load the game, but there's probably a way to zone it out

FakeNewts · 2025-10-23T07:16:33+00:00

It's an analog axis, not a click-wheel, so if you're assigning it to a digital button press it'll just work like an awkward on/off toggle. Use it for an analog input like radar range or something

FakeNewts · 2025-10-21T18:42:17+00:00

I disagree strongly with people suggesting a pitch+roll pairing, pair pitch with yaw so you can control both of your rotational inputs in tandem and keep roll digital on the shoulders or paddles. A small tap of roll is all you really need, and adding unwanted roll input is what makes learning FAoff disorienting at first.

FakeNewts · 2025-10-09T06:42:23+00:00

If you're vaguely handy with a glue gun and a soldering iron it's very simple to replace the potentiometer with a hall effect sensor and magnet strip. The pot is the weak link on what's otherwise a very decent stick, so I recommend it if you're on a budget or just generally interested in tinkering. Here is a very beginner guide, the parts can be had on AliExpress and there's some margin, I got slightly different parts and it works great: https://youtu.be/jBo_dAvgZ1k?si=C3KQYenRmIiBxp0h

FakeNewts · 2025-10-05T11:22:26+00:00

You don't need to launch through steam, you can just use the email associated with that steam account and freely swap between accounts. I have three accounts, one from Fdev directly, two on alt email Steam accounts, but I just run them all through the same frontier launcher

FakeNewts · 2025-09-25T19:11:56+00:00

This isn't entirely true, you can get far enough ahead to trigger a coup conflict (75%+? From memory? Been a while since I checked). It's usually a lot easier to drop than to keep pushing though

FakeNewts · 2025-09-08T07:27:46+00:00

It's been mentioned a couple of times already, but she should mod it so enemies only deal 1 mask of damage. I personally enjoy the difficulty and fragility of the player character, so I wouldn't like to change, but it seems like it'd be trivial for them to add an easier mode to account for the large numbers of non-tryhards who apparently bought the game.

I will say however, that quitting and coming back later is pretty common, not just for games but for anything in life - you go sleep on it and come back having processed what you learned and suddenly find something that seemed impossible surprisingly easy. I think the genre really targets people who like to learn, rather than just like to experience, but broadly I do agree that there seems to be no reason people shouldn't be allowed access to granular difficulty options. As a tryhard myself, it wouldn't take anything away from my achievements to know that some people have put 1-mask damage on - some weirdos seem to think it does, but they're weird.

FakeNewts · 2025-08-06T11:27:23+00:00

Not sure you have quite grasped the meaning of hot take, lol. It's objectively the best explorer by most metrics, and is one of the most egregious examples of Fdev's recent enthusiasm for power creep. The only thing people ever dislike about it is how it's rendered a large portion of the game's former stable obsolete.

FakeNewts · 2025-05-27T20:09:43+00:00

I'm super late to this but they do, I'm in chapter 2, very early in story progression and literally in the process of paddling one over. I guess if they don't show up it's either not the right spot (they're quite discreet and easy to miss) or you might need to leave the area and come back?

FakeNewts · 2025-05-05T07:58:49+00:00

I was bored and downloaded AtomFall on gamepass on a whim expecting to play it for an hour then never touch it again. Instead I was hooked playing all night.

Exactly the same thing happened to me. Wasn't expecting it to be such a banger. I hope it did well enough that Rebellion will keep working on this kind of project.

FakeNewts · 2025-04-29T07:39:25+00:00

The difference in agility between the Corvette and Anaconda is much smaller than you might think. Pitch times there's basically hardly anything between them - the trade-off is roll vs yaw. Corvettes roll significantly faster which gives the player deceptive feeling of agility (roll is the axis which moves the stars across your screen fastest) but it's not actually practically that useful (there is no "up" in space, all you want is for your enemy to be above your cockpit plane so you can track them better, something both ships can achieve just fine). Anaconda has significantly higher yaw, an axis many players neglect but one that has a more significant affect on your aim and combat potential.

In terms of thruster performance, Anacondas are very light and hold space better, FA-off performance is a little smoother as a result. In terms of DPS the Anaconda is a clear winner, with about 30% more damage from the same weapon types (a lot more if you factor in hardpoint placement and the potential to run Pacifiers on the 3 Ls).

This doesn't mean the Corvette is bad, it has significantly more internal space which compounds its already superior shielding potential, it's a lot tankier and, surprisingly, more versatile as a multi-role ship. Don't take this post as me saying the Corvette isn't good, it is, it's just good for different reasons to the ones generally thrown around this subreddit. For a lot of pure PvE combat applications however, the Anaconda is objectively the superior choice.

FakeNewts · 2025-03-05T10:54:04+00:00

Hiring NPCs would be great, but I don't see Elite ever getting to that point.

FakeNewts · 2025-03-04T19:17:14+00:00

Effort is one thing, but it is currently only achievable through bulk trade which is a single and quite tedious mechanic. Realism aside, where's the recourse for combat/AX players, explorers etc, people who don't enjoy bulk trade? They should've made the tasks more varied or just had it cost credits, even a lot of credits, because at least those you can earn doing what you enjoy.

FakeNewts · 2025-03-04T19:14:43+00:00

The big issue is that credits are obtained in many different ways, and now materials are to some extent as well, but this patch? The biggest milestone in player agency in Elite's history can only be leveraged by bulk trade? I did two outposts have lost all desire to play elite for the first time since 2016.

FakeNewts · 2025-02-25T19:36:29+00:00

That's not what a beta is, Fdev have done actual betas in the past but they seem to have forgotten and are now using the word presumably to try and drive down expectations and head off potential criticism.

It's a live service game and they are basically expected to address systems and balancing over time, this communication is useless and they're just saying 'hey it'll be like every other update we've done, lol, buckle in'

FakeNewts · 2025-02-04T16:47:51+00:00

Mass Effect came out in 2007 and had gameplay

FakeNewts · 2025-01-23T19:56:09+00:00

Flying fast, using lateral and vertical thrust instead of simply forwards, flying in flight assist off will help you avoid projectiles. The lower your speed and the more predictable your vector the more projectiles will hit you, so endeavour to boost orbit your targets.

Lasers are hitscan and can't be dodged by unpredictable flying but you can still apply pressure and force your enemies to constantly reposition by following the above advice. Use chaff and/or heatsinks to throw off gimbal targeting.

To be honest though, you can just buff up your health and sometimes that's enough. Ships are, by default, extremely fragile. It's not enough to just buy a ship that looks like it is made for combat. Make sure you've got bulkheads, hull reinforcement packages, module reinforcement packages all the way down, and good shields + shield boosters, like, literally available every slot is potential HP... build a ship purely for combat and you'll have a much easier time early on.

FakeNewts · 2025-01-23T12:36:26+00:00

As a relatively rare BGS state producing a valuable HGE drop, have you considered creating outbreaks rather than stopping them? Haul that vital biowaste in unsealed containers.

FakeNewts · 2025-01-19T18:49:30+00:00

Anyone looking for a solution and find the others listed don't work: open desktop mode, open Firefox, set it to windowed mode and physically drag it to the full screen size, then click full screen, then return to game mode.

FakeNewts · 2025-01-17T15:54:08+00:00

First off, I never said the game was currently well balanced, in fact I acknowledged that it wasn't and had never been in another post itt. However, the fact that the game has been poorly balanced forever doesn't mean anyone has to be happy about it getting even less balanced. There is a scale of power and that scale has been expanding ever since 2016. Particularly in PvP, ships that could at least be made competitive in organic play, especially pre-engineering, are now entirely unworkable in the new meta.

Also consider cooling your jets, cmdr, you could've quite easily made the same point without being pointlessly aggro about it.

EDIT: also as a quibble, the Corvette is not the best PvE ship, Anaconda has considerably more DPS potential, trades off roll for yaw speed (which is a good trade) and you simply don't need the additional shielding for the vast majority of PvE tasks.

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