Is Exploration too easy? Galactic center reached already before launch

[Oppenheimer]

Well, the reality is that the DDA is a wishlist. Let's be realists - not everything on these lists will be done. I suppose it is quite possible that Frontier might surprise us by adding more functionality down the line that isn't mentioned in the DDA.

In terms of achieving DDA goals Frontier are playing the long game and we better get used to that. Realising this might help some people avoid the crushing disappointment and subsequent anger that is evident on the forums. Of course that doesn't mean that I'm no longer concerned for the game. Some days I think it's on a knife edge while other days I'm happy to trust in their skill.

I actually came on board because of the DDA as I thought it was the design of the game. Better be well informed before backing something like x-rebirth meets mechwarriors online, I thought. After reading the DDA I was sure. Now I am happy I did not pay to have access to the design discussions as when what you say is true, they were/are irrelevant at best. The only thing from the DDA that is in the game is super cruise.

 

[Ki55a]

I agree that exploration could be much more interesting. But all the doom and gloom about fast exploration of interesting places is little too much.

Biggest achievement is that we players explore all star systems. As there are 400 billion of them, then if we could explore ten million new systems every day, it would mean that exploration of whole galaxy would take over 109 YEARS! Not gonna happen.

If we limit the targets only to more interesting as mentioned (e.g. nebulae), then it still means a lot of 'dragons be here'-country to go through as conservative estimates say that there 2 000-25 000 H II nebulae in Milky Way and that is only one type of nebulae.

In any case, exploration should be more challenging and the examples in this thread and DDA are really good but even if we still are left with gamma version, it is going to take time to find out everything.

 

[Eidolon]

Wow! A very determined CMDR indeed to beeline it all the way to the center of the galaxy.
I guess the 1st Great Expedition will now be the 2nd or 3rd etc?......

 

[Gibbonici]

Wow! A very determined CMDR indeed to beeline it all the way to the center of the galaxy.
I guess the 1st Great Expedition will now be the 2nd or 3rd etc?......

No, he's one of us

 

[talshiarr]

The exploration aspect of the game is the part of the DDA I am most saddened to see has been all but ignored. Of all the non-combat activities in the game, it could have created the most truly innovative gameplay. Trading is just looking for low prices and then hauling things to high prices. Combat is what it is. Exploration mechanics could have set Elite apart from Star Citizen and other space games with their hand-crafted systems for all time.

 

[Philip Coutts]

No, he's one of us

Eh??? Wasn't the point of the first great expedition to work as a team or am I missing something?

 

[nexxo]

Eh??? Wasn't the point of the first great expedition to work as a team or am I missing something?

Advanced scout. Needed to check that there was at least one complete sequential chain of within jump range stars and that a ship could withstand the increased radiation. There was also telemetry gear to drop off to record long-term data that will be collected later and telemetry to collect on FTL engine performance in a impacted gravitational field. So far the team has been taking a great interest in unusual temporal stuttering that has been picked up.

And anyway, he'd been bragging that he could do the Kessel run in less than twelve Parsecs so his mates challenged him to fly as good as he could talk.

 

[Cosmo]

Why is there a lame NPC fighter in the center of the galaxy! The black hole effect is underwhelming compared to Space Engine.

Elite Dangerous is being rushed out the door with minimal content. It's evident in all important places like the center of the galaxy and absence social tools for multiplayer. They didn't turn off the auto NPC Spawn and there's no aliens.

 

[Lister_of_Smeg]

They really should just rename this game Elite:Moan

 

[OrientalHero]

From reading the whole thread so far, it appears that a lot of responders are posting quickly and trivializing the achievement of reaching the core.
Worst yet, they are then generically applying this to the entire exploration theme saying it's broke or needs balancing.
40 plus hours of
determining the best route (backtracking from a dead end must have occurred several times!)
choosing a navigable star (who hasn't picked the wrong star to jump to and there are lots of very similar star names!)
fuel scooping without any heat damage (don't forget, no stations to repair at for 35 plus hours)
avoiding/surviving any hostile interdictions (again... don't get damaged)
again and again, hour after hour with the increasing pressure that every bit of damage brings you closer to failure.

Yes there is auto repair but some sub systems can't be repaired by it.... The cracked canopy is a fine example!

TBH I'd like to know all these people making suggestions about balance/nerf/it's broke statements to post how far they've gone into non-populated space.
Otherwise I'll suspect you of suffering from Dunning Kruger bias

As for myself, I'm dabbling a little of each (explore, mine, bounty, pirate, trade). Perhaps just enough to appreciate the nuances of how much each area offers.

Perhaps the OP should have post a less SUN or Daily Mail oriented thread title (ie tabloid/gutter press for those non UK).
Something more like
"Galactic Core finally reached after arduous marathon effort"
Otherwise, we'd be reading about things like "Everest. Yet another summit by yet another climber." Perhaps posters would like to chip in on how to make that
more of an event!

 

[Toscaner]

They really should just rename this game Elite:Moan

so far the people in this thread have shown constructive insights, manners and a heart for the game. thanks everybody for that.
sorry you didn't like it.

 

[talshiarr]

We're not trivializing the achievement, such as it is, we're trivializing the mechanics of doing so. Jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, fuel scoop, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, fuel scoop, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, fuel scoop, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, fuel scoop, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, fuel scoop.... The stars get so dense toward the core that I doubt very seriously any backtracking was needed and you can plot out 50-60+ light year chunks beforehand anyway. I haven't suffered heat damage while scooping in days now that I know the drill, and being interdicted over and over 10,000+ ly away from populated areas just points out other weak mechanics.

 

[Toscaner]

From reading the whole thread so far, it appears that a lot of responders are posting quickly and trivializing the achievement of reaching the core.
Worst yet, they are then generically applying this to the entire exploration theme saying it's broke or needs balancing.
40 plus hours of
determining the best route (backtracking from a dead end must have occurred several times!)
choosing a navigable star (who hasn't picked the wrong star to jump to and there are lots of very similar star names!)
fuel scooping without any heat damage (don't forget, no stations to repair at for 35 plus hours)
avoiding/surviving any hostile interdictions (again... don't get damaged)
again and again, hour after hour with the increasing pressure that every bit of damage brings you closer to failure.

Yes there is auto repair but some sub systems can't be repaired by it.... The cracked canopy is a fine example!

TBH I'd like to know all these people making suggestions about balance/nerf/it's broke statements to post how far they've gone into non-populated space.
Otherwise I'll suspect you of suffering from Dunning Kruger bias

As for myself, I'm dabbling a little of each (explore, mine, bounty, pirate, trade). Perhaps just enough to appreciate the nuances of how much each area offers.

Perhaps the OP should have post a less SUN or Daily Mail oriented thread title (ie tabloid/gutter press for those non UK).
Something more like
"Galactic Core finally reached after arduous marathon effort"
Otherwise, we'd be reading about things like "Everest. Yet another summit by yet another climber." Perhaps posters would like to chip in on how to make that
more of an event!

as you have read the whole thread, you must have seen that i repeatedly highlighted that it is still a great achievment and i showed my respect.
the thread title, yea, that was a bit too quick maybe

edit: and i don't know if you 've seen the interviews with David and Micheal, when they describe how difficult such an endeavour would be, if at all possible. that's basically the point where i'm coming from.

 

[Cosmo]

avoiding/surviving any hostile interdictions (again... don't get damaged)
again and again, hour after hour with the increasing pressure that every bit of damage brings you closer to failure.

It's the same NPC encounter scenario with different ships: you're being interdicted, defend yourself, kill them or escape. ED lacks of variation and random events. Such as NPCs who demand your cargo or request your protection and support. Players can't negotiate with NPCs.

The NPC fighter shouldn't be in the galactic center. Where are the Thargoids?

As for myself, I'm dabbling a little of each (explore, mine, bounty, pirate, trade). Perhaps just enough to appreciate the nuances of how much each area offers.

When you dig deep into each different aspect of ED you will find a lack of variation and content, loneliness that comes from lack of social multiplayer tools like chat rooms and group missions.

 

[Gibbonici]

Eh??? Wasn't the point of the first great expedition to work as a team or am I missing something?

It started out as a test run to see how far he could get, and what we would need to do as a team once things started to break. As it turned out nothing broke and there's nothing we need to do as a team, which is why I've been posting on this thread with suggestions to improve the situation.

Regardless of who got there (someone was going to, if not in gamma certainly in the first week of release), it's shown that there are potentially game-breaking problems with the exploration game that wouldn't otherwise have been known about until it was too late. In many ways it's a shame that the exploration game hasn't been properly testable until gamma.

 

[Lanciarii90]

In year 3300 center of this Galaxy is probably their Mount Everest.

This guy must be hardcore gamer with no daily duties/job so why make game harder because of him?

 

[Zvanya]

Well, the reality is that the DDA is a wishlist. Let's be realists - not everything on these lists will be done. I suppose it is quite possible that Frontier might surprise us by adding more functionality down the line that isn't mentioned in the DDA.

In terms of achieving DDA goals Frontier are playing the long game and we better get used to that. Realising this might help some people avoid the crushing disappointment and subsequent anger that is evident on the forums. Of course that doesn't mean that I'm no longer concerned for the game. Some days I think it's on a knife edge while other days I'm happy to trust in their skill.

The community has been quite vocal about referring to the DDA as a planned feature list and FD never made any effort to dissuade us from that. This makes the DDA, IMO, an implied promise to at least try to realize everything there.

Expecting every single thing to be in at release is unrealistic, lots of stuff can be added later and some planned features probably will turn out to be impractical to implement. I'm fine with all that. But some cool stuff is already irretrievably lost. My concern is how much more of the game I've been excited about (the fascinating intricate game described in the DDA) will be lost.

 

[talshiarr]

The problem post-release is that how would some things like a player reaching the galaxy core be rolled back if they later implemented the interesting parts of the exploration DDA without a wipe. Once the game goes live and people disperse, the potential for exploration mechanics being added without essentially "retconning" the galaxy goes out the window.

 

[nexxo]

Why is there a lame NPC fighter in the center of the galaxy! The black hole effect is underwhelming compared to Space Engine.

I disagree. In both Elite Dangerous and Space Engine it's a black sphere with lensing effect. Nothing more, nothing less.

Elite Dangerous is being rushed out the door with minimal content. It's evident in all important places like the center of the galaxy and absence social tools for multiplayer. They didn't turn off the auto NPC Spawn and there's no aliens.

It has always been quite clear that the gamma is about stability improvements. Game dynamic adjustments will follow once a stable code base is in place. Else you get people moaning: "sure, we have all these features, but they don't mean anything if the game isn't stable enough to be playable!". I mean, it's good to have wishes, suggestions for improvement and constructive critique, but please adjust your expectations to what is possible within a given timeframe.

 

[Gibbonici]

The problem post-release is that how would some things like a player reaching the galaxy core be rolled back if they later implemented the interesting parts of the exploration DDA without a wipe. Once the game goes live and people disperse, the potential for exploration mechanics being added without essentially "retconning" the galaxy goes out the window.

Yeah, for sure. Maybe they'll introduce a soft cap on exploration at release by having our engines degrade a little bit with each jump. At least that way they can keep us from going so far out that any additions to exploring would force us to wipe saves.