TL;DR why are we making a lackluster addition to a game that still needs improvement
The alpha is fine. Some jank, some wild AI behaviors, some really weak firearms, but one thought comes up above all others
"What is this doing in Elite?"
Odyssey was a waste of time from conception, and this game needs a lot of work but not on a half-baked sideshow. Elite needs to see its instancing redone. It needs PvE overhauled with more scenarios, options and encounters because you've seen all there is to see within the first 72 hours of being a combat pilot. Multicrew is a functionally worthless concept but wings have their fair share of jank that can be removed.
Right now there are exactly four types of mission. Go here and kill a group, go here and kill an individual, go here and deliver this thing / person, and collect thing to bring back here.
That is pitiful, and there's a hell of a lot more that could be done there. Mission variety and unpredictability are not what has put my ass back in that pilot seats for a thousand hours.
There are plenty more ships and ship roles to explore. There used to be a narrative of the Thargoid war that really relied on player discovery and interaction, where did that go? How have the Thargoids been allowed to become boring with the repetition? Where's the evolving narrative?
Why waste that kind of time trying to add a second game when the first game could have really used that kind of polish? It's too early in the alpha to tell but there's a hell of a lot to address there to make it an adequate FPS experience, before we even touch making it one that feels like the right use of developer time and resources.
