The Galaxy - Is its size now considered to be a barrier to gameplay by the Developers?

[Sans Daring]

I still think there's too much binary here (as if you can have too much binary...). It's either Instant or delayed, but delayed can mean so many things, many of the shorter delay factors, that middleground would be VERY hard for Instant fans (or Sandro bar the work hours) to argue against. Even if it was 30minutes - something that, if you're appealing to various video gamers, is par for the course on mobile aps, especially those within in-game purchases. Delays are usual.

This is why I think Sandro's argument doesn't hold, because even a small delay would at least be a nod to the real. I can see why the dev think that they have to cut corners to move galaxy expansion along (and fast access to the mini-game/CG culture to motivate community interest without being walled by large distances) but there is NO excuse why there is no attempt for some in-game logistics here. We accept fueling is fast and repairs are very fast, unrealistically so, but we can accept that because we're forced to do them docked and not where we like. So with this we might be able to swallow a faster turnaround, if there was a semblence of Real to it.

I'd still say it screws with the game massively, the thought that ASPs have to travel for a long period to get somewhere, then a hauler brings a FDL faster than the Asp could seems to just utterly devalue the Asp to me. Built to make long distances, but would have had an easier time if it had joined a FDL on these very fast haulers.... but like I said, we're in middle-ground territory I suspect, unless the beta proves the mess that is predicted.

 

[stevesideas]

Just give everyone GOD mode. The ability to go anywhere in an instant, have as much money as you want, never be killed, always win fights against NPC's. Balancing a game this size between enjoyment and frustration (and all depending on the individual player's POV) is a job I certainly wouldn't want to do. I have to give credit to FD. They might not always get it right but this game is WIP. Many more years to come....just imagine what the final game will be like once development has concluded !

 

[Bacalao]

Quite honestly I think your one thread on that was enough.

And no, I don't think the size is an inconvenience.

Making players wait however is.

And since time cannot be simulated accurately due to the multi player nature (we have galaxy wide time, which is not physically correct), not making players wait on transfer actions in menus is absolutely okay.

You click and your ship is loaded up. You click and your ship is outfitted. You click and your ship/module is transferred. You click and you are logged into your friends ship (own commander location likely remaining unchanged).

It makes a whole lot of sense to do things that way. Actual travel (moving your own commander) still always takes time due to distances. Don't worry about that.

This is a pretty great summary. Well said.
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Hasn't Elite been making concessions in the name of gameplay against the size of the galaxy since 1984? I mean, you didn't really spend all that time waiting to get to your destination, did you? I feel like this instant ship transfer (was in the DDF) isn't out of line with anything Elite has ever done, for some reason it's just a large segment of the forums have finally opened their eyes to what Elite has always been because of it, and are feeling betrayed in their state of disillusionment, which is no ones fault but their own.

 

[Kellan Fell]

Giving all ships higher and equal jumprange would be much better, because then it would also mean you can go exploring with whatever Ship you like the look/sound/handling while having a good jumprange for sure.

So why even bother having different ships?just give everyone an equipped Cutter with a 50LY jump range...

 

[Bacalao]

Balancing a game this size between enjoyment and frustration (and all depending on the individual player's POV) is a job I certainly wouldn't want to do.

As long as FD continue to implement mechanics that allow players along the entire spectrum to tailor the experience for themselves, I don't see how this is such a monumental task. Instant ship transfers/cargo loading/repairs/refueling/rearm/outfitting means you can wait as long as you want for it to happen so that you're satisfied, I don't have to. We're both happy! Balance achieved. The only way an imbalance could be introduced is if they forced everyone to wait.

 

[stevesideas]

As long as FD continue to implement mechanics that allow players along the entire spectrum to tailor the experience for themselves, I don't see how this is such a monumental task. Instant ship transfers/cargo loading/repairs/refueling/rearm/outfitting means you can wait as long as you want for it to happen so that you're satisfied, I don't have to. We're both happy! Balance achieved. The only way an imbalance could be introduced is if they forced everyone to wait.

At the same time, I used to play X and that game had ship transfer. I used to enjoy watching my ship fly between systems and finally arrive. It was quite satisfying. I think instant transfer definitely does take something away from the game.

 

[Kellan Fell]

As long as FD continue to implement mechanics that allow players along the entire spectrum to tailor the experience for themselves, I don't see how this is such a monumental task. Instant ship transfers/cargo loading/repairs/refueling/rearm/outfitting means you can wait as long as you want for it to happen so that you're satisfied, I don't have to. We're both happy! Balance achieved. The only way an imbalance could be introduced is if they forced everyone to wait.

Whereas what they are doing is forcing everyone who doesn't want to be massively disadvantaged by this (or who has invested months of now wasted play in upgrading favourite ships to have the range to make long journeys) to drop down and play in Solo mode. This could be an overall ploy to get rid of Open mode since they are having so much trouble with the instancing mechanic anyway.

 

[Bomba Luigi]

So why even bother having different ships?just give everyone an equipped Cutter with a 50LY jump range...

I don't want a dirty Imp ship! (well, no, I do... kinda... I think)

Jumprange has been erase as balance reason anway, so just give every ship high jumprange seems a logical step and would help keep up diversity of ships outside of hotspots where the people settle to summon there ships like CGs.

 

[Bacalao]

So why even bother having different ships?just give everyone an equipped Cutter with a 50LY jump range...

I don't like flying the Cutter.

 

[stevesideas]

Whereas what they are doing is forcing everyone who doesn't want to be massively disadvantaged by this (or who has invested months of now wasted play in upgrading favourite ships to have the range to make long journeys) to drop down and play in Solo mode. This could be an overall ploy to get rid of Open mode since they are having so much trouble with the instancing mechanic anyway.

I doubt open play will ever go. I'd be more inclined to think solo might though.

Additional: I hope they do sort out the network code though. It really sucks at the moment.

 

[Kellan Fell]

I don't like flying the Cutter.

It was just randomly picked. They might as well create a new, generic ship with the handling of a Vulture and the sounds of an FdL with the cargo os a Cutter and the firepower of a Corvette and give everyone one of those. When they start destroying the internal logic of the game to "aid gameplay" where do you draw the line?

 

[Bacalao]

Whereas what they are doing is forcing everyone who doesn't want to be massively disadvantaged by this (or who has invested months of now wasted play in upgrading favourite ships to have the range to make long journeys) to drop down and play in Solo mode. This could be an overall ploy to get rid of Open mode since they are having so much trouble with the instancing mechanic anyway.

What? No. First of all, there will be a cost associated with it, now I'm sure many of the people crying for an arbitrary delivery time will also cry it's that it's too expensive, but lets wait till that particular quart of milk actually spills before we go there.
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Second, WHAT? What on earth does this have to do with Solo or Open mode, this has got to be the strangest argument I've ever heard. And how does this remove getting FSD upgrades (I worked damn hard to get my class 7 FSD a good roll before the patch that made it easier), I'm not going to transfer my 55Ly Annie all the time to go a couple jumps and then get back in my corvette, the loading screen to change ships wouldn't' save me any time and it'd be expensive and my Corvette has the upgraded FSD so it's just as convenient to do it my Vette now, thank you very much Felicity.
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It will be nice however to be able to just follow missions wherever they take me with access to any of the ships I own to be able to complete them instead of doing what I do now, ignore them, because the right ship is 150Ly away and by the time I get it and get back, the mission is gone, by the time my ship arrives by jumping at the same rate I do, the mission is gone, by the time I can find a ship near there to buy and outfit, the mission is gone. It will be nice to hop in my asp and jump a couple hundred LY to a CG and call in my Corvette and immediately wing up with my friends to go into a CZ instead of just waiting or rather, logging off and hoping we're all on the next night. It will be nice to just play the game, in whatever mode, with the convenience of being able to use all of the assets I've earned in the game.
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I can't possibly see how you're at a disadvantage living in your little immersive world waiting for your ship to arrive because I just order mine and get in. I guess if you think those 20 minutes or whatever are going to make or break a CG or the BGS....but that seems unlikely. What they will make or break, is my ability to just play the game while I have time to play the game.

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It was just randomly picked. They might as well create a new, generic ship with the handling of a Vulture and the sounds of an FdL with the cargo os a Cutter and the firepower of a Corvette and give everyone one of those. When they start destroying the internal logic of the game to "aid gameplay" where do you draw the line?

The internal logic of the game always has been to have the tedious things that would make us wait, be instantaneous. Cargo, repair, rearm, refuel, outfit are all instantaneous. System to system travel is instantaneous, communication is instantaneous. To put a delay on ship transfer would destroy the internal consistency of how Elite actually works.

 

[Matt]

It will be interesting to see what further concessions to convenience we are given in future releases that will facilitate the multi-player aspect of the game.

Fingers crossed for autopilot!

 

[CMDR Aengus]

Fingers crossed for autopilot!

And anti interdiction modules. No more stupid Pirate delays on my tourist bus.

 

[lysan]

AutoPilot will be,

A) according to the lore
B) according to previous games
C) The game more fun
D) Remove repetitive tasks
E) Introduce tactical planning (when to stop for fuel etc.)
F) More SIM like, instead of Arcady.

 

[Zambrick]

Lets say you fly out to Jacques station which has limited resources and mods available and you drop off your long range anaconda. Now you need to get your mining ship out there.

The very limited mod selection for your ship and or ship availability and now instead of the normal 8 to 9 hours RL time it takes to get out to Jacques it will take you about 15 to 20 to get back to the bubble because of the terrible mods and cobra MKIII that you had to temporarily buy just so you could leave your anaconda behind.

Tell me the benefit of spending around 20 to 30 hours flying the same exact route through unoccupied space of which you have no intention of exploring? Are you saying that because you did it that others must share in the same sense of boredom and tedious fuel scoop and jump routine that you did? It would be like blaming children of today for using the Internet for a school report when we had to use the Library growing up. Data is Data regardless to its source.

What about people who only have one monitor and cant catch up on shows in Hulu or Netflix while they are system jumping for countless hours. I think 9 hours of just jumping and scooping should be enough time spent. Making a person have to spend many hundreds of hours just to get a few more ships out to the same location is a waste of time.

You can either have every single station in the whole game have access to all ships and all modules at all times with remote selling option or you can allow ship transfers. The vast majority of the player base hasn't even gone more that 2k LY away from the bubble. You think those people will ever fly out to remote locations let alone spend hundreds of hours doing it?

You will have to make some concessions here. You can either get over the fact that you Choose to do that on your own does not mean others have to do the same thing. I for one do not have the next 100 thousand years of vacation saved up in order to help you keep things the way they used to be. The game is less than 1/3 of the way completed. More things will change and things will never be like your good old days.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Click on a system in the galaxy map. Menu pops up listing your ships. Choose ship. Warp to system in your ship.

No more boring travel. Casual players can now visit Beagle Point. Piracy was non-existent anyway, so status quo maintained.

 

[CmdrKull]

There is no delay on insurance rebuys, and to me this doesn't sound so different as that. Transferring ships won't aide traders doing trader things because you can't store a ship full of cargo. Transferring ships won't aide explorers doing explorer stuff because you need a dock to initiate a transfer, and what are you going to do, move to Joques in an explorer and trade it out for a Viper? Why?
It sounds like they're taking some of the tedium out of the game. "I just did 30 trade runs and I'd like to hunt a few pirates to liven things up but I left my vulture 40 jumps away. Oh well, maybe another time." The idea that they would implement a fix for that but put an arbitrary delay on it is silly. No honestly guys, that would be silly! "You can have your other ship but you have to wait 8 minutes because that's how long it would take you to get here in real life."

Ok, maybe you need some hand-wavium and can't come up with it on your own (really guys, I thought you immersion lot were the imaginative type). It's all a conspiracy! You ever notice that when you do an insurance rebuy it's instant and the ship has all the same scuffs and scratches it had when you bought it? It's the same ship, man. They're fabricating these things on the station. They haven't made a new ship in years but it's all hushed up by the ship builders and the fat cats at the pilots federation. When they "transfer" your ship, they're fabricating a new one on the spot and atomizing your old one. Not that they'll ever admit it, oh no they're making a killing off insurance and selling you a "new" ship that they don't have to build. They even create artificial shortages and only sell some ships in some locations. Conspiracy, man!

 

[Ignition]

Well, if it takes no time to summon ships its going to like you will always travel with a great jump range ship so you arrive fast to the location. Then Summon that fat and slow combat ship instantaneously.

First of all it has no sense.

And second it looses the meaning of having a slow combat ship. You will always be traveling super fast.

I'm not against this feature but needs a lot of balance and tweaks, maybe the cost will be big enough to think it twice.

 

[fennster]

What about people who only have one monitor and cant catch up on shows in Hulu or Netflix

Yes, won't you just all think of the people that need to catch up on their boxsets, have mercy.