NO to "third party tools" for ED

[D'Kaeth]

I can't count how many services provide oppotunities to compare a flight to, let's say London. Or how many hotel comparing sites there are. The same applies for ED.

I don't mind the use of these tools for those who want to play that way, but I don't think the above logic is entirely irrefutable. In the real world, those sites aim to eliminate challenge as much as possible - hence the appeal. I am not looking to make an "adventure" out of booking a business trip. But the game needs to provide some challenge. Of course FD could make tools which make everything wonderfully easier. They could also make an auto-pilot. All these features would be very "realistic" for the year 3301. But they have to balance it.

---Edit

I'm not saying they have achieved that balance, yet. But that is what they are trying to do, I believe.

 

[Khelder]

FDEV didn't see fit to include a list of where all the rares are. They didn't include a crowdsourced trading tool. Therefore they aren't part of the game, and are akin to artificial performance enhancers and/or insider trading. Use of them can be regarded as metagaming/cheating.

The answers to an exam are posted (intentionally) on several readily-available bulletin boards throughout a school. Some on one board, others on another, etc. One student collects all of the answers and puts them onto one easy-to-read sheet and then distributes that sheet to others. If a student chooses to take that one sheet instead of looking at all of the bulletin boards himself, is he a cheat?

He is not accessing information that was not otherwise freely available to him. But he is being more efficient in using the collated version as opposed to the spread-out data. He would have to trust that the student that did the collating was accurate. But that is a risk he is willing to take.

 

[RMORTI]

yep, what askavir said. I read the OP a few times to make sure I got a feel for the root cause of the complaint. not sure, but don't think it's the tools.
I'm mean, hey call me stupid; but if you don't like the tools...........

So what's the pain point here? I've used the ship builder tools, yeah they are useful. I've even played around with Thruds a bit, although I have not traded since month 1.

If someone uses Thruds and makes 10,000,000,000 credits is my day going to end? No! More than likely that guy is going to be finished with the game and gone before I am.
So, I don't see the point really. It's all about choice, which after all is part of what sandbox is about. Don't like it - Don't use it.

 

[Khelder]

But the game needs to provide some challenge.

Obviously, finding the best deals is an enjoyable challenge to some. I, personally, find that to be the boring bit. The challenge, or enjoyment, to me in trading is the flight in between: Flying between systems with an expensive (and uninsurable) cargo. Will you be intercepted by pirates along the way? Will you be able to escape or defeat them? That sort of thing.

Which leads me to suggest that surely if there are specific trade routes available for good profit that everyone will start to use, then surely pirates should be flocking to those areas too?

 

[Pile_O_Gunz]

Elite in certain areas is really lacking. Trying to figure out trade routes from the clunky galaxy map is a nightmare and not displaying a mj value for shields is a big oversight. There's no way to know that your clippers expensive shields are terrible compared to a cheap vultures.

It's a sign of a bad design that ppl are relying on third party tools to plot trade routes the in game facilities need serious work IMO.

 

[Ben Ryder]

I'm so hard core I also play with the sound off and make my own sound effects!

And my HUD is black and white.

I fly a wire frame cobra as often as possible.

 

[Khelder]

Just thought I should add too (for those of the FD-didn't-build-it-so-it-ain't-legit crowd), FD have chosen to showcase a number of web-based tools in their Fansites gallery (including Thrudd's Elite Trading Tool).

Not saying you can't be against 3rd party tools. Just... perhaps not for that reason.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm so hard core I also play with the sound off and make my own sound effects!

Sometimes I consider doing this while flying my Asp!

 

[RMORTI]

I'm so hard core I also play with the sound off and make my own sound effects!

And my HUD is black and white.

I fly a wire frame cobra as often as possible.

You know, there is probably a video of that, with a guy sitting naked in a diaper playing the game. Should I begin my search now?

 

[Armour]

(Bad analogy snipped)

Trade data is not freely available. The pilot has to go to a market to discover the actual prices, with the associated costs and risks that such journeys might entail, or they have to purchase trade data and gamble on the prices being beneficial. It's not the same thing as walking around a building.

Crowdsourced prices remove (or at least heavily reduce) that initial risk and allow cheats to become a swarm of locusts consuming the margins, a swarm with a single telepathic hive-mind. Given that FTL data transmission is apparently highly-regulated in the world of ED, it's going outside the game to use such cheat tools.

Players that don't cheat just have to live with the fact that their diligent work in finding a succulent route is likely to be undone once the data gets posted online to be sucked dry by the cheatswarm.

We can all use bad analogies, here's one. Many sportsmen don't use PEDs. They know they're likely to be outperformed by a bunch of cheats, but they don't have to like it or pretend that the cheats don't exist or that it's not cheating.

 

[Jukelo]

I don't mind the use of these tools for those who want to play that way, but I don't think the above logic is entirely irrefutable. In the real world, those sites aim to eliminate challenge as much as possible - hence the appeal. I am not looking to make an "adventure" out of booking a business trip. But the game needs to provide some challenge. Of course FD could make tools which make everything wonderfully easier. They could also make an auto-pilot. All these features would be very "realistic" for the year 3301. But they have to balance it.

---Edit

I'm not saying they have achieved that balance, yet. But that is what they are trying to do, I believe.

Hiding things from the player can be a way of adding challenge. Fog of war in various strategy games is a good example. Although it is kind of a cheap way of hiding the fact your game isn't chess and as such probably wouldn't be as interesting if the players knew exactly what the opponent is doing, in most cases it's good enough and even, for games which do it right, allows for more gameplay and meta gameplay via intelligence/counter intelligence and opens up the idea of braining your opponent. But contrary to ED, the specifics of every tool at the disposal of a Starcraft 2 player (or a EVE player) are thoroughly documented and you can learn everything there is to know about the gameplay mechanics themselves by reading a wiki without removing anything from the actual game. Because they are focused on depth of mechanics rather than fighting the game before you can play the game. Which can be skipped by a simple google search anyway. And they are designed well enough that even if you had perfect knowledge of the opponent's actions, there would still be a game to play.

In short, hiding things can be an element of your game, but it can't rely exclusively on that. The only ~challenge~ when trading in ED is finding a trade route, and considering it is extremely mundane and mostly down to luck (because although the archetype of the perfect trade route is known, you can not accurately, even with the best brain in the world, predict where it will be) I can't blame people for wanting to skip that part. And then I again can't blame them for complaining, after they have found a good trade route via a 3rd party tool and figure out there is barely a game left to play after that is done.

 

[OamodSias]

Trade data is not freely available. The pilot has to go to a market to discover the actual prices, with the associated costs and risks that such journeys might entail, or they have to purchase trade data and gamble on the prices being beneficial. It's not the same thing as walking around a building.

Crowdsourced prices remove (or at least heavily reduce) that initial risk and allow cheats to become a swarm of locusts consuming the margins, a swarm with a single telepathic hive-mind. Given that FTL data transmission is apparently highly-regulated in the world of ED, it's going outside the game to use such cheat tools.

Players that don't cheat just have to live with the fact that their diligent work in finding a succulent route is likely to be undone once the data gets posted online to be sucked dry by the cheatswarm.

We can all use bad analogies, here's one. Many sportsmen don't use PEDs. They know they're likely to be outperformed by a bunch of cheats, but they don't have to like it or pretend that the cheats don't exist or that it's not cheating.

Furthering your analogy, if nobody is penalised by using PED's and indeed, the organisational body encourage it's use .. is it cheating, or is it just a few people with an out-dated sense of right and wrong who are simply complaining because [reasons]?

That said, traders who use tools usually find their routes have dried up within a day or two because other traders have access to the same data. From my experience, the most successful traders use tools to get a lead but then find their own, untapped, route on their own.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

If someone uses Thruds and makes 10,000,000,000 credits is my day going to end? No! More than likely that guy is going to be finished with the game and gone before I am.
So, I don't see the point really. It's all about choice, which after all is part of what sandbox is about. Don't like it - Don't use it.

I agree in principle....... I could not care less what someone else does in their game..... and as I have said, i have used trading tools on occasion so no judgements from me BUT can you not see how it could be irritating for a person to spend hrs finding a good stable trade route, only for it to be destroyed in a few hrs after someone posts it up on the internet?.

100 players all hammering a trade route WILL affect your game, such is the nature of the BGS in elite

 

[Ben Ryder]

Ironman fans dont use tools.

 

[Armour]

Furthering your analogy, if nobody is penalised by using PED's and indeed, the organisational body encourage it's use .. is it cheating, or is it just a few people with an out-dated sense of right and wrong who are simply complaining because [reasons]

Are you asking if cheating is cheating? In my opinion yes, cheating is cheating, regardless of the date.

 

[Khelder]

Trade data is not freely available. The pilot has to go to a market to discover the actual prices, with the associated costs and risks that such journeys might entail, or they have to purchase trade data and gamble on the prices being beneficial. It's not the same thing as walking around a building.

Crowdsourced prices remove (or at least heavily reduce) that initial risk and allow cheats to become a swarm of locusts consuming the margins, a swarm with a single telepathic hive-mind. Given that FTL data transmission is apparently highly-regulated in the world of ED, it's going outside the game to use such cheat tools.

Players that don't cheat just have to live with the fact that their diligent work in finding a succulent route is likely to be undone once the data gets posted online to be sucked dry by the cheatswarm.

We can all use bad analogies, here's one. Many sportsmen don't use PEDs. They know they're likely to be outperformed by a bunch of cheats, but they don't have to like it or pretend that the cheats don't exist or that it's not cheating.

Thank you for suggesting my analogy was bad. I tend to think that trade data is freely available and that having to manually collect it yourself isn't too far off walking around a building. Another one could be that prices in a supermarket or store are freely available to anyone who cares to drop in and look at the tags. But it's a lot more efficient to do research via the internet first.

I agree that it does take a certain element out of the game. I wouldn't call it cheating. I also agree that it is going on outside the game. But I don't really see a problem in that. If I wanted to call a Fuel Rat, I would use IRC outside of the game. There are elements in the game that I personally do not agree with. Spamming shield potions *cough* I mean SCBs takes the risk out of engaging in battle, yet many defend it as a valid combat option.

Each to their own I guess.

 

[Ian Skippy]

WHy should third party tools be forbidden? Or atleast disliked? They enable passivecommunication between players and there is no difference to the real world. I can't count how many services provide oppotunities to compare a flight to, let's say London. Or how many hotel comparing sites there are. The same applies for ED. On a market, you want to get the most for the cheapest price. Other commanders may have found the best offer and decide to share it. The only difference without third party tools would be that a small player base would hear about the offer first, but long term, everyone knows where to find the best price for palladium.

I think the point of the OP was that trading in ED could be even more fun than booking a flight in real-life, though people that like booking flights can continue doing so.

 

[Jukelo]

Trade data is not freely available. The pilot has to go to a market to discover the actual prices, with the associated costs and risks that such journeys might entail, or they have to purchase trade data and gamble on the prices being beneficial. It's not the same thing as walking around a building.

Crowdsourced prices remove (or at least heavily reduce) that initial risk and allow cheats to become a swarm of locusts consuming the margins, a swarm with a single telepathic hive-mind.

There is barely any risk or cost associated with doing that. The fuel cost, the risk of being attacked, the risk of being destroyed when you can so easily high wake, and the potential insurance cost are so anecdotical there is no harm in skipping it entirely.

Given that FTL data transmission is apparently highly-regulated in the world of ED, it's going outside the game to use such cheat tools.

Please don't use lore to justify bad game design

Players that don't cheat just have to live with the fact that their diligent work in finding a succulent route is likely to be undone once the data gets posted online to be sucked dry by the cheatswarm.

That is kinda the only good argument against 3rd party tools. Prospecting and potentially selling trade data about really good routes should be a possible player occupation. I can imagine a situation where, given the proper in-game feature, buying trade data from players in-game became more convenient than browsing, for free, a 3rd party website/tool.

We can all use bad analogies, here's one. Many sportsmen don't use PEDs. They know they're likely to be outperformed by a bunch of cheats, but they don't have to like it or pretend that the cheats don't exist or that it's not cheating.

The physical performance of sportsmen is the focus of sports. If we assumed it was impossible to remove doping from sports through tougher regulations and stricter corruption laws, it would still make no sense to shift the focus away from the physical performance. Either you would have to accept that the new norm for this sport is to take PEDs, or just stop calling it a sport at all.
Now, banning 3rd party tools is absolutely impossible, contrary to doping in sports, but luckily no game has to force the player to clumsily look for trade routes using badly designed tools. For a start, as I said above, you can (and should) design your game so that its focus isn't on hiding things and wasting the player's time, and instead follow the good old easy to learn, hard to master scheme. Atm ED is on the other end of the scale, it's doing its best to keep the player in the dark, to hide the fact there is hardly anything to master.

 

[Khelder]

I think the point of the OP was that trading in ED could be even more fun than booking a flight in real-life, though people that like booking flights can continue doing so.

But is booking the flight the fun bit, or is it actually going on the flight? If people enjoy booking flights, that's great I guess. I just don't see the fun part of it.

 

[D'Kaeth]

...BUT can you not see how it could be irritating for a person to spend hrs finding a good stable trade route, only for it to be destroyed in a few hrs after someone posts it up on the internet?.

I think I agree with everything you say there. In answer to the above point of how someone else might find that irritating, I'd suggest that that is part of the game, too. You find a good route and then hold onto it until the masses flood in and ruin it. It cannot last forever and that is a pretty realistic thing to eventually happen. Move on and find another one. Keep playing.

 

[Monk]

Just popping back in to summarize my thoughts...should not post when so tired

• Markets should be MORE volatile
• NPCs should be driving market shifts, not the minuscule number of players
• Players should learn how to analyze market trends and make rational decisions
• The game should have tools to aid in analysis and give you the opportunity to pay for market insights, if you don't want to do the research (research is fun, though!)

Add these together and 3rd party tools, specifically crowd sourced commodity prices, would become irrelevant and the trade track would become more challenging (and personally rewarding).

Currently, my only enjoyment in trading is landing better, faster and harder with the most unwieldy ship I can afford. I want trade to make me think!