Great video, good questions. One thing to consider medium term is the stuff said by Derin about how, as more maelstroms arrived, and as the Thargoid front line expands, so their strength weakens (i.e. it’s easier to retake systems further from the maelstroms). This will also work in reverse. So as and when we get the technology to penetrate and eventually defeat maelstroms in some way, so the contracting Thargoid occupation will strengthen again. My prediction for this is that we way be able to beat them back to just a few remaining maelstroms, but perhaps never be able to defeat the last one or two because they will be too strong. The Thargoid bubble will concentrate to a level that balances out.
That's interesting actually and a solid theory imho. I've barked on before about the goids turning into another power in the bubble and this would seem to serve that scenario well.
I had quite a similar thought, in fact; as we are already expecting new modules to allow carrying MORE AX weapons -- making player ships More Effective ("faster"?) against Thargoid(-tech, incl. Maelstroms?) -- _and_ upcoming Caustic Protection improvements -- allowing "deeper" progress toward the Maelstroms themselves -- it's increasingly likely, and would make sense, that FDev *_WILL_* make it possible to defeat, say, HALF of the 8 Maelstroms before they STOP advancing; and perhaps hitting one more will "push them back", and/or trigger some kind of "recall" of forward troops from their rather thinned "front lines" . . . In BGA terms, that'd be a "withdrawal" from a system (forward Tharg line systems), and a chance for Humans to Repair & Re-establish. IF there's ANY credence to the idea that Thargoids "grow" their ships, then there may well be a "medium to long term" time cycle before "new Maelstroms" are generated, to shore up their main front -- presuming here an equilibrium at 8, being very fitting with all things Tharg-Eight. :P That might well suggest that Humanity has SOME time in which to do EVEN MORE research, develop EVEN BETTER weapons, and/or LEARN EVEN MORE FROM infiltration & destruction of the first Maelstroms in order to make their dispatch less challenging (But not tooooo easy!), so that Humans can "keep the Thargoids back" by keeping their Maelstrom front line "weakened" (less than (half of) 8)... .. but that if Humanity gets complacent, the Maelstroms will be "replenished" and they will move forward once again at "full strength", and maybe more mercilessly, the next time around! O_O
@@TheBuurPit PERHAPS . . . the NEXT step forward ... will be to hunt down and attempt to destroy (after sampling & research of) the locations / "installations" (*plural!!) from which Maelstrom mother-ship-types are "birthed", in order to cut off the source of Thargoid warmongering... Cmdr Acen ONYX
One big unknown are the Guardians. If players can’t control the goids, FDev still has the opportunity to have the guardians to become the white knights. Either sooner or later. Or players can unearth more guardian tech, since they managed to repel the goids. I assume there will be some exploration gameplay in this direction SoonTM.
Guardians are dead in lore. The big question is whether the AI constructs of the Guardians still exists??? and I believe so because they are inorganic and eternal, whether they are hostile or allied in the fight against the thargoids. Now imagine the following situation: in the middle of the current war between Thargoids and Humans, the Constructs appear to burn down the galaxy and extinguish all organic life forms. Thargoids and Humans need to unite to fight this new threat, following the logic that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Maybe they mean the Guardian AI that took out the organic life forms. Apparently they were highly intelligent and didn’t like war because they took out their makers. Technically they are also guardians.
As PowerPlay player, I can attest that this kind of gameplay is taxing. The grind is real. What I think might be interesting is where we breach a maelstrom and actively take down the core. This leaves one maelstrom as just a husk, and halts the invasion that zone. Meanwhile, all the other invasions slow down considerably as the thargoids divert forces to defending the maelstrom systems. Eventually, the Thargoids are stuck on the defensive, but may withdraw to other sector like the nebulas.
The war almost certainly is a means to an end. What if uncovering the mystery in the maelstroms results in exposing once hidden ruins and relics, and locked systems become unlocked, which can include mysteries of their own. I am cautiously optimistic about what FDev is planning as our next phase in the game.
“Someday this war's gonna end.” That'd be just fine with the boys on the boat. They weren't looking for anything more than a way home. Trouble is, I'd been back there, and I knew that it just didn't exist anymore. Cpt. Benjamin L. Willard
Fighting Thargoids in the Salvation Saga was so Cool, 30 to 60 players in Open. Think I have seen 4 other players in Open in the Last two weeks. Fdev better do something soon.
Great video! I agree that it's a tough balancing act for sustaining player interest in the long term. I've long thought that it's hard to walk the line of giving players purpose in a game that's largely "make your own purpose" by definition. Especially because anything can become boring if we as players get bored easily - similar to how you mentioned apathy if we win the war. There's also the "grind" aspect of things becoming too repetitive. I think whatever things lurk in the heart of the Maelstroms (likely hive ships) will be key to turning the war around. And if we ever get to board them as teams, that would make for some fantastic Odyssey content! Another thought: the Thargoids' war goal remains unknown, but as far as I know FDev have said "they're looking for something". What is that thing, and why did they only start looking after the Proteus Wave was fired? Could it be something Salvation had stashed away? I guess time will tell.
As a member of AXI who has been dealing a large amount of the fighting, we are getting tired, we are getting bored. Unless a new aspect of this war opens we will drop off soon, we are already losing tons of active pilots every week.
I think the systems under attack should fight back regardless of player interaction, not be entirely dependent on the player base. This is currently pitched as the players vs the aliens...
I would like to see a Thargoid Home system war. We discover some technology (Guardian, Thargoid, etc..) that allows players to travel faster then light to Thargoid home system and we wage war with megaships/tech that we havn't. seen. I would imagine some kind of MASSIVE worm drive/portal, that would fold spacetime to another worm drive/portal on another end. Fly your ship through it, arrive in forward operating base area.
This seems like the next step post the stargoids - we keep hearing from fdev how we're doing such a poor job exploring the galaxy and how the thargoids are territorial which is why we're getting attacked, so it follows either there's some in-galaxy content that's far enough away that no one's stumbled on it and of such a large size that it would support this sort of invasion, or we're due for a wormhole style out of galaxy experience. Ditto the guardians.
Good stuff. I always have to listen multiple times since I can't maintain attention to a video that doesn't show video of the current spoken topic. I'm a visual learner, so that's also why I can't listen to podcasts or audiobooks. I love the information just can't absorb it well.
I think the war at this scale has to have an ending at some point, and that ultimately we're in the part of the story where the Thargoids utterly out-class us. Which is fine, we're not at the end of the movie yet. The playing field is tilted against us but constantly leveling in our favor with every update to our toolkit. Long term, I think this gameplay system could see use in an updated Power Play, revamped larger-scale BGS events, or even full scale warfare between superpowers. Stuff that wouldn't annihilate the bubble but would affect it in interesting ways. As well as ongoing Thargoid content if we go on offense against them in their backyard someday.
I wonder if the maelstroms are gates that the thargoids are coming through to attack the bubble, and getting through ourself will take us to the thargoid home systems which may be permit locked systems. Thats a complete out there guesd though, i havent been there myself ofc and i dont know how possible it is
One possibility is that the 8 Stargoids end up becoming the next power play faction that we could trade with, though with a lot of care. Bring chocolate. Lots of it. Ever see ants refuse chocolate?
I was well on my way to Colonia via Rohini on another exobiology trip when I saw this video, I had never heard of the Colonia Bridge. So when I got to Rohini and handed in my samples for a cool 1.7 billion I thought I'd look it up, got carried away and entered every system on the bridge into my bookmarks. But it didn't end there, I then found a page that lists every known nebula in the galaxy and entered those as well. It's now 4am and I'm planning off path routes to find even more exotic plants to make use of the current market price for first discovery. That'll give me a whopping float to cover my Krait insurance when I start PVP in open play, I'm already at 4.2 billion so I'll be like a persistent stain to gankers. I've only been playing since Halloween but I've already logged 2W 5D 11H 42 MINS (in game). I blame you, FDEV, myself and my estranged wife, but as the saying goes, if life gives you divorce, play Elite. o7.
Personally? This is just a theory. But I feel like the war may end at some point, however the system that FDev developed for the Invasion will instead become of use to the 3 superpowers. And maybe we could see an all out war between the Empire, Federation, or the Alliance. (That or something smaller in scale), while not completely eradicating Anti-Xeno gameplay. I also hope that more diplomatic options with our interstellar neighbors open up.
It's fun to speculate. Personally, I think the player base will be able to keep the Thargoids at bay until they fight back again harder and things change gear markedly as the Guardians return, and humanity finds itself caught in between. Maybe it will stimulate a broader expansion of the bubble toward the core.
I have given up at this point. I have killed more Thargoids in the past few months than I have in all my years playing Elite. Nothing really seems to matter. I have grown tired of doing so.
@Name5 Yup, it's not that these updates Frontier gives us are not interesting. The problem is that frontier takes too long to give us a new update. If I am not wrong. I believe the aftermath saga began almost a year ago. And nothing has really changed besides killing Thargoids for the past 3 months.
Although not directly related to the current war against the Thargoids, an idea I had regarding the sysdem Fdev developed that determines how the thargoids expand could be re-used later down the line for wars between the big three powers, allocating resources towards each power and seeing how they expand and conquer against one another. A far flung idea but one that could still be considered
If humanity wins I think they will open up the permit locked regions bit by bit and they will be Thargoid homeworlds. Players can then attack maelstrom's in order to open up new regions and Fdev can but new Alien content in there as they see fit. Kind of a reversal of the current situation but allowing discovery of new systems.
FDev seems to be setting the stage for some Maelstrom mysteries to be resolved soon. Aegis is whipping up this module that I assume will allow CMDRs to poke into the center of the Maelstroms.
before i want humanity to gain a victory, i want the thargs to attack more than just the outer edges of the bubble. No Core Systems have been attacked yet. Also this war is going only for 3 months now. i hope FDev let the goids cause chaos for at least another year, maybe two.
2:40 precisely this...iam simply bored of the thargoid combat already. It is time consuming, unrewarding(at least for me when i have 9 bil credits) and most of all, feels like its pointless. Since the beginning of the war i had a feeling that this is the FDEVs way of shutting down elite dangerous, just giving it some *lore* to make sense why it happened.
I personally am super interested in what this war could bring into the game content-wise. Just think of the possibilities, the long-dormant guardian AI resurfacing. The infamous Cone sector. New guardian tech and further integration of human ships with guardian equipment, perhaps even to the point of hybrid ships. The potential of Thargoid-based modules and equipment.
Didn’t Frontier confirm in their recent live stream that Update 15 & 16 they will be both narrative heavy? 15 is due in April, and 16 not even close, so doesn’t it look like we have 6-8 months of the Thargoid War before we can start to see an end to it? If that’s true, then I really think Frontier has miscalculated how much interest we players have…
New level of grind. Not days to collect mats but months to kill the same Thargoids in thousands and millions. FDev: "Hmm, let's see if they can grind something for... One year!"
@@Malthaelx1 agreed, and a slap in the face to everyone who did the grind before, right? But What else could they do if the devs don't intervene in some fashion? Interesting time to be playing
FDev won't let this stop, until they have another big story to expand in the future. I assume 1 more year of AX activities at least. If they stop this too early, then the game is, from my point of view, return to a few months ago, dying again. And i don't see they have the manpower, or willing, to make big new game content, unless they sell a new DLC. Tbh, they should use arx to earn more maintaining money from players. But what they've been doing didn't convince me. Also big agree on your idea, that the Xeno content finally will be limited in a place nearby, and this mechanism will become long term game content. But bubble will no longer be widely influence like current status. FDev need to find a new way to update the game content constantly.
The problem is that we don't have enough players coming together to fight the war. I've been getting massacred trying to hold them out of some of my favorite systems.
I would like to see the Thargoids take over the bubble, and reset the BGS and PowerPlay. I would like to see Thargoids have their own faction and their own power play member. I would like to see Fdev put dangerous back in the game. Course the main thing I’d like to see, to make any contribution to the BGS or power-play you have to play in open only. Hallowed be the Far God!
I think a long term war will be good and realistic. No War ends quickly and I except this to go on for at least a year. Im ok with that, gives the war realism. I hope they have Thargoid Soldiers for odyssey content. I hope they give something like Ships that birth Thargoid ships in the maelstrom. That would be a great way to force the Thargoids back with your idea of them staying a the boarder attacking the bubble every now and then. It could start New Factions and squadrons as a dedicated xeno defense force mechanic. That would be cool.
All those questions are interesting and I have no doubt FDEV asked the same things for themselves. It doesn't mean I believe they have any answers at all. They can milk this for years. Come on if they wanted easy to do stuff, they'd have addressed the so many branches of low hanging fruit especially Engineers & resource gathering stuff.
I'm convince most of the new features will eventually be use in the powerplay overhaul, so most of the new code won't got to waste. Each power play will have it own seperate AI governing there actions. This will then give the choice of Frontier to end the war but not lose their work.
Thargoids and humans should be able to coexist since thargoids need ammonia bases worlds. I see a situation where factions of humanity and thargoids cooperate and live in peace. The alliance seems to be on that road
Whatever the plans for the future are there are things that could be done now. Lots of people are obsessing over the maelstroms as the be all and end all of winning but that doesn't mean they couldn't let us do more right now, to prevent reinvasions. The Frontline systems that have been introduced by the latest patch cannot be cleared in any reasonable time because they decided to raise the targets for Controlled Systems along with the release, so Controlled Systems are once again almost impossible to clear, with even dedicated AX groups saying they would be lucky to clear one a week. Yet from what Derin was saying this is what we have to do, attack the Frontline Controlled Systems, which are defined as those near human space with AX CZs in them. Rescuing escape pods and black boxes was also introduced but not with enough signal sources to make them viable and this is another example of telling us to do something then not giving us even adequate opportunities to do so. They want us to engage but then artificially increase the difficulty when we do. It's like using a hammer at work one day, then the next day when you go into work someone has removed the head but still expects you to do the same job with it. Without the ability to clear Controlled Systems in a reasonable time there is zero chance of preventing expansion and reinvasions. They don't need to give us any story led tools to get further than we are, they just need to fix the tools we have so they work properly and stop setting stupidly high targets for taking back what we can in the meantime.
I think part of the reason why the controlled systems are such a difficult target is that, aside from the 33% drop on the tick? Progress can carry over week to week without a time limit that full resets the system's progress back to 0%. You could technically keep hitting a controlled system for a month until it flips, as long as you get more than 33% every week. I understand this requires a lot of effort, but it's a factor nevertheless.
@@MarkZeroGaming Perhaps they thought that the 33% and no time limit thing would help but then they have gone from one extreme to the other again and used it to make the targets too high.
Why does Frontier think I’m going to convert my gameplay over to fighting Thargoids? The way I see it if the main path of this game is to only destroy Thargoids or be destroyed I’ll be moving on. I figure about the time the Thargoids get to my homebase system Starfield will be out.
It's not that simple, because there is a way to enjoy Elite without any of the thargoid war - it's called 'Legacy'. Frontier has to find a way to keep players involved when there is a simple way to opt out of the war
@@AndyFirebladeMuza For now, yes, it's easy to avoid the war in Odyssey. It still has an impact on systems in the bubble, and it will get worse as the goids spread.
the big big patch is going to bring back guardians, well their ai maybe. That guy did something with remnant guardian technology. We have no clue what happened, and the secret comunity goal is still going on. Ram Tah didn't even recieve enough green thargoid unknown relics to trigger it's first diolog regarding it's research. Although I'm only speculating too. But I believe that there are secret community goals. And we got the attention of all the thargoid fleets because we either triggered something with the guardian ai or thargoids are afraid that we might try something like that and bring that ai back for sure this time. But we, us humans won't be able to hold thargoids back no matter what I think. It will be the second war with guardians that will hold the line. Because guardian ai / ai's also might feel threathened by thargoids, what we did sent a huge pulse across milky way. Thargoids were closer and they arrived. Guardians might arrive soon too. I don't know. Just thoughts.
I loved the game up till this war i was upset when they killed of profit in mining as i wanted a fleet carrier . And now a war we can not win ,so i made a long-range anaconda and headed off into the black but after 2 mouth i am getting so bored i put the f56 away and i am enjoying all the games i never had time to play , will i ever play again i ask myself ...
I think a good idea would be to allow humanity to beat the Maelstroms out of the bubble and for FDev to open up previous permit locked areas of space that act as Thargoid bubbles we could choose to go visit or attempt to take over or at least wage war on.
I really don't like where the game is going. FDEV went with an easy scenario, because combat is the easiest thing to do. When I started playing Elite, it was still at least somewhat similar to a space simulator. Now it's a combat space simulator with a simple plot: kill everyone. It's sad. If you tell the developers what you would like to see in the game, they don't seem to listen. Now the game only meets the wishes of AXI. But I don't think even they will ever get bored of it. Where is our good old ED? Where are the new research ships with increased jump? Ships for trade? Why not set up transportation of goods and passengers from the bubble to the Colony? Why then did we build a bridge to the Colony?
Well, in my experience, i barely survive fighting thargoids. Without Engineering, you barely can kill one Interceptor... Its definitely not Casual friendly.. i even got Guardian Tech unlocked and i barely survive. Combat zones are a no go.. Defending the Station, oh boy, fighting 2 Basilisks is definitely Doable with No Engineering. (Sarcasm) Unless a player grinds and Engineers, this Thargoid gameplay is hard. No wonder there isnt much progress.
If humanity fares poorly against the perilous peonies then Fdev could decide they just need to teach us a lesson and stop the advance when the bubble is overrun completely. We would have to start again in a new bubble or expand Colonia massively. Or we begin a hunt for their, perhaps, less well-defended homeworld and turn the tables. They get the bubble, we get hive systems to terraform.
Maybe this is the endgame, instead of shutting down servers devs decided to make thargoids win and make the game unplayable, so they can shut down the servers like that
It's been a few weeks now that I feel a great weariness regarding this conflict, the triger was when we saw that Thargoid could reinvade previously saved system, that were I felt deeply mocked by FDev, all that time and effort reduced to ash with the game asking us to completely redo the work, to be then eventualy reduced to ash again... I can easely imagine that I'm far to be the only one thinking the same, this thargoid war need to get a conclusion FAST.
There's precious little organisation and motivation for individual pilots to defend systems they have no investment in. There is no need for an endpoint because thargoids are going to exist in the game and lore suggests they are always going to be around. You are guilty of tunnel vision. And the bubble isn't everything. There are many commanders (possibly thousands) out there who would participate if they thought it was worthwhile. but to be honest, I don't see it happening, given Frontiers lack of anything but crude storyline development, pathetic weapon development, and closed combat environment.
@@shitmandood I played it for Six years, beat the game on console. Achieved everything ingame, followed all the mysteries that led nowhere. The content besides ax combat isn’t and was never there. Raxxla is a myth.
The barriers to entry to the active storyline are pretty high. With a fleet carrier and dozens of fully engineered ships, I still don’t really have the time to engage meaningfully on the Thargoid war, chasing a new community goal AX module or weapon every few weeks. The war can continue as an element of the Elite Dangerous universe, but it can’t be the whole/only element. Playing in a complex self-consistent procedurally generated galaxy that obeyed astrophysical principles brought me to Elite Dangerous. Turning it into COD in space isn’t going to be a draw for new or established players.
The alternative to your "end game" would be retreating of the maelstroms slowly back towards their origin, with FDev opening up some of the locked systems with added content, such as Thargoid ground bases etc. There could be useful additional material at this point, such as ship-to-ground weapons and maybe the possibility of ground assault, based upon the current mercenary system but based on military megaships. Then again, this could be too ambitious for FDev, given how history has panned out.
I became disillusioned by this narrative just before Christmas. We, the players are just puppets to the big NPCs. The player base is always waiting on an NPC to discover some way to beat the goids and invent new weapons. I would like more input from the players to discover a way of defeating the goids rather than the current just along for the ride style gameplay we have. I am still playing the game but I have lost interest in the war as it's just rinse and repeat for me. I will jump back on the war once something new happens and will stick around until the novelty of that wears off.
just in case there was any doubt that Elite Odyssey has evolved into the ultimate endless grind... looks like fdev does not know how to create content... grind is not gameplay
When will you realise that you put more effort and enthusiasm in the game than Fdev as a whole? Maybe you know but anyway decide to lead and voice the fellings and hopes of the comunity. And we thank you for that, even though sometimes it can seem too naive seeing the minimum and bare bones updates of ED. Odyssey was a full scam (the price is too high for a product that is not there) and after the backlash the rest of updates have been nothing but fixes (that don't really fix but "improve" without ever reaching the goal) and now you can do the old missions but with thargoids in the background. Is the bubble safe? As safe as ever. Is there a posibility that the thargoids take Shinrarta and blow the 90% of the players fleet and make them abandon the game? Of course not. There is no gameplan for Fdev, just trial an error of minor tweaks. See what works. See what can the comunity accept as content. When you asked in a previous video what the players expected from the game and the comment section was floded with desires of more arx stuff to buy i saw the endgame indeed.
Great video, good questions. One thing to consider medium term is the stuff said by Derin about how, as more maelstroms arrived, and as the Thargoid front line expands, so their strength weakens (i.e. it’s easier to retake systems further from the maelstroms). This will also work in reverse. So as and when we get the technology to penetrate and eventually defeat maelstroms in some way, so the contracting Thargoid occupation will strengthen again. My prediction for this is that we way be able to beat them back to just a few remaining maelstroms, but perhaps never be able to defeat the last one or two because they will be too strong. The Thargoid bubble will concentrate to a level that balances out.
That's interesting actually and a solid theory imho. I've barked on before about the goids turning into another power in the bubble and this would seem to serve that scenario well.
I had quite a similar thought, in fact; as we are already expecting new modules to allow carrying MORE AX weapons -- making player ships More Effective ("faster"?) against Thargoid(-tech, incl. Maelstroms?) -- _and_ upcoming Caustic Protection improvements -- allowing "deeper" progress toward the Maelstroms themselves -- it's increasingly likely, and would make sense, that FDev *_WILL_* make it possible to defeat, say, HALF of the 8 Maelstroms before they STOP advancing; and perhaps hitting one more will "push them back", and/or trigger some kind of "recall" of forward troops from their rather thinned "front lines" . . .
In BGA terms, that'd be a "withdrawal" from a system (forward Tharg line systems), and a chance for Humans to Repair & Re-establish.
IF there's ANY credence to the idea that Thargoids "grow" their ships, then there may well be a "medium to long term" time cycle before "new Maelstroms" are generated, to shore up their main front -- presuming here an equilibrium at 8, being very fitting with all things Tharg-Eight. :P
That might well suggest that Humanity has SOME time in which to do EVEN MORE research, develop EVEN BETTER weapons, and/or LEARN EVEN MORE FROM infiltration & destruction of the first Maelstroms in order to make their dispatch less challenging (But not tooooo easy!), so that Humans can "keep the Thargoids back" by keeping their Maelstrom front line "weakened" (less than (half of) 8)...
.. but that if Humanity gets complacent, the Maelstroms will be "replenished" and they will move forward once again at "full strength", and maybe more mercilessly, the next time around! O_O
@@TheBuurPit
PERHAPS . . . the NEXT step forward ... will be to hunt down and attempt to destroy (after sampling & research of) the locations / "installations" (*plural!!) from which Maelstrom mother-ship-types are "birthed", in order to cut off the source of Thargoid warmongering...
Cmdr Acen ONYX
Are they related to ufos around colonia
The real Endgame is in HIP 22460. The Maelstroms are only protection walls for this system. The key to protect the bubble is in HIP 22460.
[desire to know more intensifies]
@@xcloudspace7812Salvation sabotaged aegis…
If the Thargoids, with their unlimited resources, let me buy ship upgrade materials from them I’ll join their forces.
One big unknown are the Guardians. If players can’t control the goids, FDev still has the opportunity to have the guardians to become the white knights. Either sooner or later.
Or players can unearth more guardian tech, since they managed to repel the goids. I assume there will be some exploration gameplay in this direction SoonTM.
Guardians are dead in lore. The big question is whether the AI constructs of the Guardians still exists??? and I believe so because they are inorganic and eternal, whether they are hostile or allied in the fight against the thargoids. Now imagine the following situation: in the middle of the current war between Thargoids and Humans, the Constructs appear to burn down the galaxy and extinguish all organic life forms. Thargoids and Humans need to unite to fight this new threat, following the logic that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Agree. I think they left it open that the AI could still be ot there somewhere...
Maybe they mean the Guardian AI that took out the organic life forms. Apparently they were highly intelligent and didn’t like war because they took out their makers. Technically they are also guardians.
Thargoids win, game over!!!
Maybe Frontier wants to put their resources into a new venture.
As PowerPlay player, I can attest that this kind of gameplay is taxing. The grind is real. What I think might be interesting is where we breach a maelstrom and actively take down the core. This leaves one maelstrom as just a husk, and halts the invasion that zone. Meanwhile, all the other invasions slow down considerably as the thargoids divert forces to defending the maelstrom systems. Eventually, the Thargoids are stuck on the defensive, but may withdraw to other sector like the nebulas.
'Thargoid War becomes a Grind!'
Now who would have thunk THAT!?
🤨
The war almost certainly is a means to an end. What if uncovering the mystery in the maelstroms results in exposing once hidden ruins and relics, and locked systems become unlocked, which can include mysteries of their own. I am cautiously optimistic about what FDev is planning as our next phase in the game.
It's endgame will come with update 16. Update 14 was the start, 15 will be its midpoint. 16 will be the finale
“Someday this war's gonna end.” That'd be just fine with the boys on the boat. They weren't looking for anything more than a way home. Trouble is, I'd been back there, and I knew that it just didn't exist anymore.
Cpt. Benjamin L. Willard
Thargoids Don't Surf, Captain Kilgore lol
Fighting Thargoids in the Salvation Saga was so Cool, 30 to 60 players in Open. Think I have seen 4 other players in Open in the Last two weeks. Fdev better do something soon.
There were 10-12 CMDRs with me in a AX CZ the other day.
There are so many CZs at the moment, it easy to end up at one where nobody else is though.
it been 3 months already! time goes way to quick now adays
Great video!
I agree that it's a tough balancing act for sustaining player interest in the long term. I've long thought that it's hard to walk the line of giving players purpose in a game that's largely "make your own purpose" by definition. Especially because anything can become boring if we as players get bored easily - similar to how you mentioned apathy if we win the war. There's also the "grind" aspect of things becoming too repetitive.
I think whatever things lurk in the heart of the Maelstroms (likely hive ships) will be key to turning the war around. And if we ever get to board them as teams, that would make for some fantastic Odyssey content!
Another thought: the Thargoids' war goal remains unknown, but as far as I know FDev have said "they're looking for something". What is that thing, and why did they only start looking after the Proteus Wave was fired? Could it be something Salvation had stashed away? I guess time will tell.
I;m guessing they don't think us primitive humans could build the proteus wave ourselves and they are looking for the Guardian Ai that helped us.
Good questions. Maybe something like Romulans & neutral zone with the occasional skirmish.
The endgame is going to be the Maelstroms. No idea how that will manifest, but that's my theory.
As a member of AXI who has been dealing a large amount of the fighting, we are getting tired, we are getting bored. Unless a new aspect of this war opens we will drop off soon, we are already losing tons of active pilots every week.
"weeds at the end of the garden" Flobadob....weeeeedddd! Bill and Ben the Spaceship Men! (I feel the new name for a ship coming on)
Got my first shard cannons last week. Super fun AX battles now.
I think the systems under attack should fight back regardless of player interaction, not be entirely dependent on the player base.
This is currently pitched as the players vs the aliens...
what if we could *join* them? I want a Medusa of my own
I would like to see a Thargoid Home system war.
We discover some technology (Guardian, Thargoid, etc..) that allows players to travel faster then light to Thargoid home system and we wage war with megaships/tech that we havn't. seen.
I would imagine some kind of MASSIVE worm drive/portal, that would fold spacetime to another worm drive/portal on another end. Fly your ship through it, arrive in forward operating base area.
This seems like the next step post the stargoids - we keep hearing from fdev how we're doing such a poor job exploring the galaxy and how the thargoids are territorial which is why we're getting attacked, so it follows either there's some in-galaxy content that's far enough away that no one's stumbled on it and of such a large size that it would support this sort of invasion, or we're due for a wormhole style out of galaxy experience. Ditto the guardians.
Good stuff. I always have to listen multiple times since I can't maintain attention to a video that doesn't show video of the current spoken topic. I'm a visual learner, so that's also why I can't listen to podcasts or audiobooks. I love the information just can't absorb it well.
As I gave up months ago,Im gussing my ships are now overun. Fantastic...
I’m going to go with “planning an extinction level event” for 500 Alex.
I think the war at this scale has to have an ending at some point, and that ultimately we're in the part of the story where the Thargoids utterly out-class us. Which is fine, we're not at the end of the movie yet. The playing field is tilted against us but constantly leveling in our favor with every update to our toolkit. Long term, I think this gameplay system could see use in an updated Power Play, revamped larger-scale BGS events, or even full scale warfare between superpowers. Stuff that wouldn't annihilate the bubble but would affect it in interesting ways. As well as ongoing Thargoid content if we go on offense against them in their backyard someday.
I wonder if the maelstroms are gates that the thargoids are coming through to attack the bubble, and getting through ourself will take us to the thargoid home systems which may be permit locked systems. Thats a complete out there guesd though, i havent been there myself ofc and i dont know how possible it is
One possibility is that the 8 Stargoids end up becoming the next power play faction that we could trade with, though with a lot of care. Bring chocolate. Lots of it. Ever see ants refuse chocolate?
Endpoint? After talking out the maelstroms... we head into taking out the Thargoid homeworlds?
I was well on my way to Colonia via Rohini on another exobiology trip when I saw this video, I had never heard of the Colonia Bridge. So when I got to Rohini and handed in my samples for a cool 1.7 billion I thought I'd look it up, got carried away and entered every system on the bridge into my bookmarks. But it didn't end there, I then found a page that lists every known nebula in the galaxy and entered those as well. It's now 4am and I'm planning off path routes to find even more exotic plants to make use of the current market price for first discovery. That'll give me a whopping float to cover my Krait insurance when I start PVP in open play, I'm already at 4.2 billion so I'll be like a persistent stain to gankers.
I've only been playing since Halloween but I've already logged 2W 5D 11H 42 MINS (in game). I blame you, FDEV, myself and my estranged wife, but as the saying goes, if life gives you divorce, play Elite. o7.
Personally? This is just a theory. But I feel like the war may end at some point, however the system that FDev developed for the Invasion will instead become of use to the 3 superpowers. And maybe we could see an all out war between the Empire, Federation, or the Alliance. (That or something smaller in scale), while not completely eradicating Anti-Xeno gameplay. I also hope that more diplomatic options with our interstellar neighbors open up.
I think you're on to something there with the war system being applied to the Superpowers.
At this rate 3 years the entire bubble will be gone we will be like battle star G living on carriers
I just hope the war lasts until I can grind out combat elite.
It's fun to speculate. Personally, I think the player base will be able to keep the Thargoids at bay until they fight back again harder and things change gear markedly as the Guardians return, and humanity finds itself caught in between. Maybe it will stimulate a broader expansion of the bubble toward the core.
I have given up at this point. I have killed more Thargoids in the past few months than I have in all my years playing Elite. Nothing really seems to matter. I have grown tired of doing so.
That is how I feel as well.
@Name5 Yup, it's not that these updates Frontier gives us are not interesting. The problem is that frontier takes too long to give us a new update. If I am not wrong. I believe the aftermath saga began almost a year ago. And nothing has really changed besides killing Thargoids for the past 3 months.
@@Joseph-wh5of Pretty much, they are to slow to get anything done.
They want to end the game, bro
I object to the term, "limited attention ... " .... Squirrel !
Although not directly related to the current war against the Thargoids, an idea I had regarding the sysdem Fdev developed that determines how the thargoids expand could be re-used later down the line for wars between the big three powers, allocating resources towards each power and seeing how they expand and conquer against one another. A far flung idea but one that could still be considered
If humanity wins I think they will open up the permit locked regions bit by bit and they will be Thargoid homeworlds. Players can then attack maelstrom's in order to open up new regions and Fdev can but new Alien content in there as they see fit. Kind of a reversal of the current situation but allowing discovery of new systems.
FDev seems to be setting the stage for some Maelstrom mysteries to be resolved soon.
Aegis is whipping up this module that I assume will allow CMDRs to poke into the center of the Maelstroms.
Biggest question is why are there thargoid sensors in systems tens of thousands of lightyears from the Bubble?
before i want humanity to gain a victory, i want the thargs to attack more than just the outer edges of the bubble. No Core Systems have been attacked yet. Also this war is going only for 3 months now. i hope FDev let the goids cause chaos for at least another year, maybe two.
2:40 precisely this...iam simply bored of the thargoid combat already. It is time consuming, unrewarding(at least for me when i have 9 bil credits) and most of all, feels like its pointless. Since the beginning of the war i had a feeling that this is the FDEVs way of shutting down elite dangerous, just giving it some *lore* to make sense why it happened.
If they were going to shut it down they wouldn't spend money to develop a war, and they wouldn't still be selling Arx.
@@Sighman >develop a war for shutdown is just another word for PeRsOnAl NaRrAtIvE
>who said they cant squeeze more money from E:D before shutdown?
Finally, the reality.. They even said it's on us. Either we win, or the game dies
I can see us taking out several of the maelstroms, and then they eventually end up as another powerplay faction
I personally am super interested in what this war could bring into the game content-wise. Just think of the possibilities, the long-dormant guardian AI resurfacing. The infamous Cone sector. New guardian tech and further integration of human ships with guardian equipment, perhaps even to the point of hybrid ships. The potential of Thargoid-based modules and equipment.
Didn’t Frontier confirm in their recent live stream that Update 15 & 16 they will be both narrative heavy? 15 is due in April, and 16 not even close, so doesn’t it look like we have 6-8 months of the Thargoid War before we can start to see an end to it? If that’s true, then I really think Frontier has miscalculated how much interest we players have…
New level of grind. Not days to collect mats but months to kill the same Thargoids in thousands and millions.
FDev: "Hmm, let's see if they can grind something for... One year!"
The last community event to help the Kumo Crew was Frontiers way of gauging players capable of killing Thargoids
We didn't complete the event
@@KIL0 Not going to lie, that kind of sucks haha
@@Malthaelx1 agreed, and a slap in the face to everyone who did the grind before, right?
But
What else could they do if the devs don't intervene in some fashion?
Interesting time to be playing
FDev won't let this stop, until they have another big story to expand in the future. I assume 1 more year of AX activities at least. If they stop this too early, then the game is, from my point of view, return to a few months ago, dying again. And i don't see they have the manpower, or willing, to make big new game content, unless they sell a new DLC. Tbh, they should use arx to earn more maintaining money from players. But what they've been doing didn't convince me. Also big agree on your idea, that the Xeno content finally will be limited in a place nearby, and this mechanism will become long term game content. But bubble will no longer be widely influence like current status. FDev need to find a new way to update the game content constantly.
The problem is that we don't have enough players coming together to fight the war. I've been getting massacred trying to hold them out of some of my favorite systems.
FDev has said on record that some systems that the Thargoids have taken will never be retake less and will always be under Thargoid control.
I would like to see the Thargoids take over the bubble, and reset the BGS and PowerPlay. I would like to see Thargoids have their own faction and their own power play member. I would like to see Fdev put dangerous back in the game.
Course the main thing I’d like to see, to make any contribution to the BGS or power-play you have to play in open only.
Hallowed be the Far God!
I think a long term war will be good and realistic. No War ends quickly and I except this to go on for at least a year. Im ok with that, gives the war realism. I hope they have Thargoid Soldiers for odyssey content. I hope they give something like Ships that birth Thargoid ships in the maelstrom. That would be a great way to force the Thargoids back with your idea of them staying a the boarder attacking the bubble every now and then. It could start New Factions and squadrons as a dedicated xeno defense force mechanic. That would be cool.
All those questions are interesting and I have no doubt FDEV asked the same things for themselves. It doesn't mean I believe they have any answers at all. They can milk this for years. Come on if they wanted easy to do stuff, they'd have addressed the so many branches of low hanging fruit especially Engineers & resource gathering stuff.
I'm convince most of the new features will eventually be use in the powerplay overhaul, so most of the new code won't got to waste. Each power play will have it own seperate AI governing there actions. This will then give the choice of Frontier to end the war but not lose their work.
Thargoids and humans should be able to coexist since thargoids need ammonia bases worlds. I see a situation where factions of humanity and thargoids cooperate and live in peace. The alliance seems to be on that road
Whatever the plans for the future are there are things that could be done now. Lots of people are obsessing over the maelstroms as the be all and end all of winning but that doesn't mean they couldn't let us do more right now, to prevent reinvasions.
The Frontline systems that have been introduced by the latest patch cannot be cleared in any reasonable time because they decided to raise the targets for Controlled Systems along with the release, so Controlled Systems are once again almost impossible to clear, with even dedicated AX groups saying they would be lucky to clear one a week. Yet from what Derin was saying this is what we have to do, attack the Frontline Controlled Systems, which are defined as those near human space with AX CZs in them.
Rescuing escape pods and black boxes was also introduced but not with enough signal sources to make them viable and this is another example of telling us to do something then not giving us even adequate opportunities to do so.
They want us to engage but then artificially increase the difficulty when we do. It's like using a hammer at work one day, then the next day when you go into work someone has removed the head but still expects you to do the same job with it.
Without the ability to clear Controlled Systems in a reasonable time there is zero chance of preventing expansion and reinvasions. They don't need to give us any story led tools to get further than we are, they just need to fix the tools we have so they work properly and stop setting stupidly high targets for taking back what we can in the meantime.
I think part of the reason why the controlled systems are such a difficult target is that, aside from the 33% drop on the tick? Progress can carry over week to week without a time limit that full resets the system's progress back to 0%. You could technically keep hitting a controlled system for a month until it flips, as long as you get more than 33% every week.
I understand this requires a lot of effort, but it's a factor nevertheless.
@@MarkZeroGaming Perhaps they thought that the 33% and no time limit thing would help but then they have gone from one extreme to the other again and used it to make the targets too high.
Why does Frontier think I’m going to convert my gameplay over to fighting Thargoids? The way I see it if the main path of this game is to only destroy Thargoids or be destroyed I’ll be moving on. I figure about the time the Thargoids get to my homebase system Starfield will be out.
It's not that simple, because there is a way to enjoy Elite without any of the thargoid war - it's called 'Legacy'. Frontier has to find a way to keep players involved when there is a simple way to opt out of the war
Don't need legacy to opt out of the war. Don't have to go too far to avoid the war in Odyssey.
@@AndyFirebladeMuza For now, yes, it's easy to avoid the war in Odyssey. It still has an impact on systems in the bubble, and it will get worse as the goids spread.
the big big patch is going to bring back guardians, well their ai maybe. That guy did something with remnant guardian technology. We have no clue what happened, and the secret comunity goal is still going on. Ram Tah didn't even recieve enough green thargoid unknown relics to trigger it's first diolog regarding it's research.
Although I'm only speculating too. But I believe that there are secret community goals. And we got the attention of all the thargoid fleets because we either triggered something with the guardian ai or thargoids are afraid that we might try something like that and bring that ai back for sure this time.
But we, us humans won't be able to hold thargoids back no matter what I think. It will be the second war with guardians that will hold the line.
Because guardian ai / ai's also might feel threathened by thargoids, what we did sent a huge pulse across milky way. Thargoids were closer and they arrived. Guardians might arrive soon too.
I don't know. Just thoughts.
I loved the game up till this war i was upset when they killed of profit in mining as i wanted a fleet carrier . And now a war we can not win ,so i made a long-range anaconda and headed off into the black but after 2 mouth i am getting so bored i put the f56 away and i am enjoying all the games i never had time to play , will i ever play again i ask myself ...
I for one salute our new octagonal overlords.
They just "develop new tech"
Equipable by new players,
no guardian or mod grind, Thargoid hunting will eventually become as easy as mining
I think a good idea would be to allow humanity to beat the Maelstroms out of the bubble and for FDev to open up previous permit locked areas of space that act as Thargoid bubbles we could choose to go visit or attempt to take over or at least wage war on.
I think that we will be able to destroy the Maelstroms and then track them to source where we can take on the originating system!
I really don't like where the game is going. FDEV went with an easy scenario, because combat is the easiest thing to do.
When I started playing Elite, it was still at least somewhat similar to a space simulator. Now it's a combat space simulator with a simple plot: kill everyone. It's sad.
If you tell the developers what you would like to see in the game, they don't seem to listen.
Now the game only meets the wishes of AXI. But I don't think even they will ever get bored of it. Where is our good old ED? Where are the new research ships with increased jump? Ships for trade?
Why not set up transportation of goods and passengers from the bubble to the Colony? Why then did we build a bridge to the Colony?
Well, in my experience, i barely survive fighting thargoids.
Without Engineering, you barely can kill one Interceptor...
Its definitely not Casual friendly.. i even got Guardian Tech unlocked and i barely survive. Combat zones are a no go..
Defending the Station, oh boy, fighting 2 Basilisks is definitely Doable with No Engineering. (Sarcasm)
Unless a player grinds and Engineers, this Thargoid gameplay is hard.
No wonder there isnt much progress.
I'm fully engineered and its still hard. Huge skill cap on fighting goids, would require tens or hundreds of hours of practice.
Right, they introduced a war, but they did not decrease the grind.
What's the paintjob on the Cutter in the video?
twitter.com/EliteDangerous/status/1627350564630679565?t=LtZQJI7d-w73f1K3boUk_A&s=19
0:11 This video is sponsored by... Monster Energy!
It sounds that Fdev has a strategic problem to hold the casual players in the game.
If humanity fares poorly against the perilous peonies then Fdev could decide they just need to teach us a lesson and stop the advance when the bubble is overrun completely. We would have to start again in a new bubble or expand Colonia massively. Or we begin a hunt for their, perhaps, less well-defended homeworld and turn the tables. They get the bubble, we get hive systems to terraform.
I think they will come back or send another one if we destroy 1
Maybe this is the endgame, instead of shutting down servers devs decided to make thargoids win and make the game unplayable, so they can shut down the servers like that
It's been a few weeks now that I feel a great weariness regarding this conflict, the triger was when we saw that Thargoid could reinvade previously saved system, that were I felt deeply mocked by FDev, all that time and effort reduced to ash with the game asking us to completely redo the work, to be then eventualy reduced to ash again...
I can easely imagine that I'm far to be the only one thinking the same, this thargoid war need to get a conclusion FAST.
There's precious little organisation and motivation for individual pilots to defend systems they have no investment in. There is no need for an endpoint because thargoids are going to exist in the game and lore suggests they are always going to be around. You are guilty of tunnel vision. And the bubble isn't everything.
There are many commanders (possibly thousands) out there who would participate if they thought it was worthwhile. but to be honest, I don't see it happening, given Frontiers lack of anything but crude storyline development, pathetic weapon development, and closed combat environment.
Hope not. But it would be cool if we just let them run in and that triggers a video.
Doubtful it will ever end, after all isnt ax combat the only thing fdev can give it’s starved community?
"Starved??" I'm only over 6 months in and barely felt like I've dented what I know about this game.
@@shitmandood I played it for Six years, beat the game on console. Achieved everything ingame, followed all the mysteries that led nowhere. The content besides ax combat isn’t and was never there. Raxxla is a myth.
If guardians use thargoid origin material that means thargoid was rebeld by sensor Shell in plaides & whale likes are guardian gagoon.
The barriers to entry to the active storyline are pretty high. With a fleet carrier and dozens of fully engineered ships, I still don’t really have the time to engage meaningfully on the Thargoid war, chasing a new community goal AX module or weapon every few weeks. The war can continue as an element of the Elite Dangerous universe, but it can’t be the whole/only element. Playing in a complex self-consistent procedurally generated galaxy that obeyed astrophysical principles brought me to Elite Dangerous. Turning it into COD in space isn’t going to be a draw for new or established players.
Allow it systems of a kick we're attacking the wrong ones we need to stop them spreading
Ive been trying hard to kill these bugs. I bet you I made almost a billion so far minus the rebuys haha
The alternative to your "end game" would be retreating of the maelstroms slowly back towards their origin, with FDev opening up some of the locked systems with added content, such as Thargoid ground bases etc.
There could be useful additional material at this point, such as ship-to-ground weapons and maybe the possibility of ground assault, based upon the current mercenary system but based on military megaships.
Then again, this could be too ambitious for FDev, given how history has panned out.
I became disillusioned by this narrative just before Christmas. We, the players are just puppets to the big NPCs. The player base is always waiting on an NPC to discover some way to beat the goids and invent new weapons. I would like more input from the players to discover a way of defeating the goids rather than the current just along for the ride style gameplay we have. I am still playing the game but I have lost interest in the war as it's just rinse and repeat for me. I will jump back on the war once something new happens and will stick around until the novelty of that wears off.
the Game is just boring yet...
I want the bubble to burn, and for fdev to add player-made colonies for all the refugees
this game has died
just in case there was any doubt that Elite Odyssey has evolved into the ultimate endless grind... looks like fdev does not know how to create content... grind is not gameplay
👃
When will you realise that you put more effort and enthusiasm in the game than Fdev as a whole? Maybe you know but anyway decide to lead and voice the fellings and hopes of the comunity. And we thank you for that, even though sometimes it can seem too naive seeing the minimum and bare bones updates of ED. Odyssey was a full scam (the price is too high for a product that is not there) and after the backlash the rest of updates have been nothing but fixes (that don't really fix but "improve" without ever reaching the goal) and now you can do the old missions but with thargoids in the background. Is the bubble safe? As safe as ever. Is there a posibility that the thargoids take Shinrarta and blow the 90% of the players fleet and make them abandon the game? Of course not. There is no gameplan for Fdev, just trial an error of minor tweaks. See what works. See what can the comunity accept as content. When you asked in a previous video what the players expected from the game and the comment section was floded with desires of more arx stuff to buy i saw the endgame indeed.
Thanks for not saying “normalcy”. It takes a Brit to speak proper English, I guess.
Any chance you could put the system locations you use for your videos in the video or description?