2.2's Instant Ship and Module Transport - Yay or Nay?

[Boomer Kay]

Presumably as a fundamental concession to continued gameplay - being "dead" is not gameplay.

There are some games which very successfully are designed around the idea of "permadeath".
Mostly those "arcade" games without savegame, that many elitist snobs here (<- jooooke ;P ) think are so "trivial" and "dumbed down".

Design decision here was different and funny enough, there are little forum battles over that. Players just got used to it.

 

[PavelKCZ]

Teleportation:.

1. Fly to Jaques in Anaconda
2. Sell exploration data.
3. Buy a Suicidewinder
4. Respawn at Eravate
5. Summon Anaconda

Bam. 22000 LY Teleportation.

But this is totally unrelated to ship transport and some players are already doing it.

Except it is a bit different:

1. Fly to Jaques in Anaconda
2. Sell exploration data.
3. Sell modules and Anconda
4. Buy a Suicidewinder
4. Respawn at Eravate
5. Buy Anaconda.

Probably it costs some credits (depends on exploring data value), but it works.

 

[Verax]

Yea, haha, so clever... sorry, but that argument is getting old, and it's still invalid in the context of this discussion.

Right like every one of the 3 circular arguments that the major opponents of this feature keep repeating aren't getting old... especially after they've been beaten down so many times by more logical and intelligent arguments.

 

[Ozram]

I never said that ... Did I ? You are twisting my words now. Simple fact is that people who don't have a massive amount of game time available will more likely go to a game which is more simplistic. That much is obvious. If I only had 2 hours a week to play a game I wouldn't choose Civilisation for example, I would more likely choose Call of Duty. Frontier are trying to make the game more palatable to people with less play time, there isnt anything wrong with that in a general sense.

Ironically the 'core' Elite players, or those who played the original games, are the very people that do have limited play time given their average ages I would imagine.

Certainly I fit that description of limited playtime and I am strongly against this ridiculous, balance shattering mechanic. I don't want an arcade game and this was not and is not advertised as such. I've got limited time to play but (shy of an accident or a heart attack) I do have a few more decades to meander about the game world. This Insta ship thing is ridiculous. Whoever designed it should be fired and whoever likes it should go play space invaders. The whole damned point is that DB continues to reafirm that he'd like to create a game that is scientifically plausible wherever possible (I mean he was literally bragging about it the other day!) and now we have this crap being proposed which caters to the impatient, attention deficit impaired, self entitled manbabies who are already sick of the games current travel mechanics which are a core attraction of the game. It's mildly infuriating!
Go and suckle on the Roberts teat with Star Citizen.

 

[Robert Maynard]

There are some games which very successfully are designed around the idea of "permadeath".
Mostly those "arcade" games without savegame, that many elitist snobs here (<- jooooke ;P ) think are so "trivial" and "dumbed down".

Design decision here was different and funny enough, there are little forum battles over that. Players just got used to it.

The original version of this game allowed a savegame - players could choose to play Ironman and start a new save every time or could keep as many saves of the same CMDR as they liked and revert to each as often as they wanted to....

 

[K M Butler]

I'm afraid my opinion on insta-transfers is that it's like preferring poo-flavored food pills to a fine steak dinner because their great time-savers, even when the pills cost more than the steak. The benefits the pills confer is much like steroid- poppers, in giving an edge against people who prefer too keep their style pure. Also, I simply do not comprehend why people play space games at all if they have a problem with travel. If one is unable or unwilling to spend the time to do ANYTHING properly, then don't bother. Otherwise it's just half-bowdlerized.

 

[Boomer Kay]

The original version of this game allowed a savegame - players could choose to play Ironman and start a new save every time or could keep as many saves of the same CMDR as they liked and revert to each as often as they wanted to....

Elite Dangerous? Or the previous Elites?
The previous elites also allowed you to hex-edit your savegame for infinite credits or just load a savegame from a friend. I don't see how that "destroyed" them.

 

[Verax]

That still is problematic in my opinion and it would be suitable solution,
if we were able to choose the actual delivery destination,
other than "call the ship" to our actual position.

Planning ahead is a key element of E: D and should stick with it,
just having the basic "summon" option is bland, and with a timer
a waste of time.

Surely you could do something in that system, but if you have to travel to the system you
want to mine in, and are not in the mood to fight with your combat ship,
it just is another waiting timer, like waiting on missions to refresh.

It is just unnecessary to blow up the balloon of wasted time so much.
I like the transfer as a feature, and i love to use it to consolidate my "fleet"/collection at my homebase.
If i can't order my ship there, without actually being docked at the destination,
why would i want another waiting time?
This is stuff that simply gets you out of the game.

Sure travelling long distances and summoning your battleboat to jaques is something
people can exploit, but don't forget it always happens by CHOICE.
I am sure FD can limit the maximum range to ferry your ships to,
if stuff gets out of hand, but then again why should we bother with a QOL feature,
if we again cut it down to uselesness.

Example:
My Gunship has no scoop, so maximum range is 60 Ly with one tank,
if the ship would be limited to be transported that range, i could faster fly there, grab it myself
and do the trip manually.
A feature that is cut too much could be simply completely left out.

Exactly.

 

[MahdDogg]

I'm simply saying it's a game, lot's of argument over "realism" and "simulation" but complete acceptance of another similar mechanic for purely gameplay reasons. I don't have a horse in the race because I choose to only ever have one ship at a time in game. I just want to point out the disconnect in this debate.

 

[MyHammer]

The thing which is going on here is pretty serious imho. Look at the amazing commotion this "little" feature (which is having it's impact on the whole gameplay way too underestimated by the Frontier imho) raised.

This game is to be played for years. Meaning it's solid gamers' base isnt a casual, lazy gamers who come and go. I still think the developer did not fully understood yet the totally unique devotion of it's major fan base to the game's concept, the devotion not to be seen anywhere else. Imho, they should definitely re-cap the case and adjust it's actions bit more properly, as messing up with their most devoted fans is a really slippery thing to do. And actions/decisions like that are simply shooting in their own feet.

I still have the impression it's all going on without David Braben's authorisation, or..., simply lack of understanding of the case fully. Whatever it is, as many said before my here - it's very, very disturbing...

Cant rep you more! We are at the crossroads where ED is going to head in future. A serious Space Sim (with obvious compromises but as much as possible ingame consistancy) or just an insta gratification based space fighting arcade style game. And I definitly vote for the first sort of game.

 

[warbaby2]

Right like every one of the 3 circular arguments that the major opponents of this feature keep repeating aren't getting old... especially after they've been beaten down so many times by more logical and intelligent arguments.

If that really was the case, the discussion would be over... I have yet to see an argument pro instant transfer that amounts to anything more then "it's just as all the other instant game system" or "it's FDs design decision, so don't argue".

 

[CMDR Robyn Highart]

Elite Dangerous? Or the previous Elites?
The previous elites also allowed you to hex-edit your savegame for infinite credits or just load a savegame from a friend. I don't see how that "destroyed" them.

What is your deal dude? You seem to be hellbent on destroying this game. Are you a NMS shareholder or something?

 

[Robert Maynard]

Elite Dangerous? Or the previous Elites?
The previous elites also allowed you to hex-edit your savegame for infinite credits or just load a savegame from a friend. I don't see how that "destroyed" them.

The original (and, presumably, the later two versions). Indeed they did - and the ability to choose to revert was probably removed as soon as it was decided that we all affect the same galaxy state.

 

[Verax]

What makes you say that about your e-peen expertise? Go by the weight of the ships. Drop it bellow a certain threshold and the performance increases noticeably. ICourier is a great example of where this is really obvious, but works generally on most ships. On the more expensive ones there is also the aspect of a cheaper rebuy price. Please stop talking nonsense and making assumptions about others you couldn't possibly know.

You clearly don't know as much about combat fitting as you claim to. You can gain some marginal maneuverability and top speed but not enough from just dropping FSD class. Stop pretending to know more about something than you do. This is not game breaking destruction of balance at all, and there's no guarantee everyone wants to downgrade their jump ranges on their non taxi ships just because a new, more convenient form of taxiing will exist. If just traveling around a small local cluster, there is no reason to taxi but downgrading FSD would be severely detrimental for that. I for one will be keeping my jump ranges because I don't need such a marginal increase to be viable in combat. It's ridiculous.

 

[DOCa Cola]

For me the gaming aspect outweights the realism. Some kind of time delay would have been realistic, but it would have no justification for that from a gaming perspective. I will play ED actually way more with that feature in place. It will drastically reduce the time needed for me and my friends to meet up somewhere and actually have fun in the game.

However i have some concerns how that will affect the way people travel the galaxy. Hopefully it will be balanced alright with the credits.

 

[CMDR Robyn Highart]

I'm simply saying it's a game, lot's of argument over "realism" and "simulation" but complete acceptance of another similar mechanic for purely gameplay reasons. I don't have a horse in the race because I choose to only ever have one ship at a time in game. I just want to point out the disconnect in this debate.

The argument that "other things are not realistic so why should anything have to" has been covered. I don't think it is the same in this case. This feature has much greater ramification for the BGS, by a giant stretch.

 

[Gimi]

But this is totally unrelated to ship transport and some players are already doing it.

Except it is a bit different:

1. Fly to Jaques in Anaconda
2. Sell exploration data.
3. Sell modules and Anconda
4. Buy a Suicidewinder
4. Respawn at Eravate
5. Buy Anaconda.

Probably it costs some credits (depends on exploring data value), but it works.

All true, but in the latter case you present you would loose any engineering upgrades. But, yes, this is a possible exploit that is currently in the game.

 

[kofeyh]

Not at all. 20 minutes to an hour is often what it takes, depending on how efficient you are and of course the distance.

For a single ship, sure. Although we are now not constrained to compromise for any ship, so that 20-40 minutes jumping FDL like 100 ly (sandro!) is now maybe 5 minutes or less in an Asp, Anaconda or DBX, for example.

Then I can transfer the FDL. Maybe a couple other ships as well. Sweet. Five minutes, 4 ships later, done deal. Why would anyone use any other method? If I can schlep FDL in 5 minutes flat across say 180ly for about 75k credits or something, why would I ever fly it between systems instead?

If you honestly can't see how that might dramatically change how commanders conduct travel, and how people might build ships, it beggars belief. Because it absolutely will; no-one would argue for it if it didn't actually massively, massively shrink space and time and effort.

Frontier clearly understand what the impact is; this is probably the single easiest feature sell, ever.

 

[OriginalBadBoy]

Lol sorry but most aspects of this game are extremely simplistic.

So whats the issue then? Whats wrong with adding another ''simplistic' mechanic into the game. If you want a hardcore space sim then go play the X series or EM, FD are not trying to make ED a hardcore sim, that much was obvious from the start, and I applaud them for that to be honest. ED shouldn't be some vast complicated space sim.

 

[Boomer Kay]

What is your deal dude? You seem to be hellbent on destroying this game. Are you a NMS shareholder or something?

You're talking to the guy who spent 40 hours going to jaque's in an unmodded T-6 just because he considered it fun.
While having a fully equipped and modded Vette and an ASP (and just to add insult to injury.. not only did I get a perfect 50% roll on my first G5 FSD upgrade, I also got a special effect with an additional 2% optimized mass ;P ) in the drydock.

Are you sure you're not just randomly attacking anyone who doesn't agree with you because ... stuff?
"Destroying the game" .. he he.

The original (and, presumably, the later two versions). Indeed they did - and the ability to choose to revert was probably removed as soon as it was decided that we all affect the same galaxy state.

With vastly varying playtimes.
That's the sad thing about this discussion. Spending 2-3 hours color-sorting my in-game socks is not really an issue (it's also not the deep and complex gameplay some fellow players want it to be - imo), even with the 10-15 hours total time I play a week.
I see how that is an issue for someone who plays even less than that - maybe gets 5 hours a weekend and will end up with a nice fleet sooner or later anyway, that he then has to spend time on managing.
For me it's really less about the "instant vs. delayed" and more about the "I need to shove my ideas down FDs and my fellow player's throat".