Should ship transfers have a time delay or not?

[Ziljan]

Well just listened to Lave Radio.

Was a sensible discussion, the upshot seems to be that Sandi is stressing that the gameplay that it enables is worth the tradeoff.

He cited the example of Jaques and it was stated that they absolutely do want people to have the flexibility of swapping ships out at Jaques, that this is the point.

So while I wasn't keen, I think I'm happy to give it a go and see how it pans out. It's hand-wavium that can be potentially overlooked, and if it makes a whole bunch of gamplay available that wasn't before, then well maybe folk can look past the realism issue.

Would say though that it's worth trying to abuse this feature as much as possible during beta.

The handwavium part I could live with. It's how the the ships that were previously balanced around jump range, but are now just 100% imbalanced that bugs me. Not that they were every really balanced in any consistent or fair way, but now even the window dressing of range based balanced will be vaporized.

Now that range is meaningless, I wonder if they're planning on rebalancing the ships going forward? Giving the DBS extra compartments now that it's range is meaningless? Giving the FDL/Corvette similar range to the other two behemoth ships. Giving the DBE some much needed agility and speed. Giving the Viper, well, anything but the short end of every stick imaginable?

 

[hunvagy]

The handwavium part I could live with. It's how the the ships that were previously balanced around jump range, but are now just 100% imbalanced that bugs me. Not that they were every really balanced in any consistent or fair way, but now even the window dressing of range based balanced will be vaporized.

Now that range is meaningless, I wonder if they're planning on rebalancing the ships going forward? Giving the DBS extra compartments now that it's range is meaningless? Giving the FDL/Corvette similar range to the other two behemoth ships. Giving the DBE some much needed agility and speed. Giving the Viper, well, anything but the short end of every stick imaginable?

I would say that the best example of how annoying it is, is Jacques'. There is a reason the expedition ships were built as they were. And now you can just summon ships with          jump range instantly 22k away from the bubble? For me it kinda cheapens the achievment of the CMDRs who actually made it there. I know that you have to fly there with something, but seeing that ships that realistically would need to suffer a lot to make the trip, and certainly not instantly is just very very game-y.

 

[WR3ND]

This is a better poll... for the non-instant side who sees the wide disagreement on how long the ship transfer should take, and wants to hide this fact.

You must have missed my response to you previously, or just conveniently overlooked it. Either way, here's a link. https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...r-not/page10?p=4399652&viewfull=1#post4399652

 

[Yaffle]

This is a better poll... for the non-instant side who sees the wide disagreement on how long the ship transfer should take, and wants to hide this fact.

Not really. There is a binary choice of 'magic unicorn powered instant' or 'takes a finite amount of time'. Reading this those who want some form of time taken are reasonably relaxed about the amount of time, but happy opine on what principle it should take. There is a hard line between INSTANT and NOT INSTANT.

Those who propose Instant have:

Current situation - fine, but not ideal

Faster than current situation - NOT FINE, WORST CASE EVER

Instant - perfect

Those who want some form of delay are:

Current situation - fine, but not ideal

Finite amount of time - best

Instant - very silly, worst case ever.

You'll note there have been very few heated arguments about the 'length' of the delay, it's the line in the sand going from some form to insta-magic that's the issue.

This poll is better.

 

[WeirdWizard]

This poll is better.

It's still a duplicate thread/poll though Yaffle and the results are largely the same.

 

[WR3ND]

It's still a duplicate thread/poll though Yaffle and the results are largely the same.

Feel free to read the other moderator's posts in this thread regarding this as well. No need to single out any one mod, etc.

 

[WeirdWizard]

Feel free to read the other moderator's posts in this thread regarding this as well. No need to single out any one mod, etc.

I wasn't singling out Yaffle as a mod I was just replying to his comment as a discussion of this poll's validity over the other.

 

[WR3ND]

I wasn't singling out Yaffle as a mod I was just replying to his comment as a discussion of this poll's validity over the other.

Fair enough then. Others were however questioning the mods in this thread.

The trend I've noticed is that people bringing these things up are for instantaneous ship transfers. Maybe it's just a coincidence and I'm imagining things.

As you were...

 

[Yaffle]

I wasn't singling out Yaffle as a mod I was just replying to his comment as a discussion of this poll's validity over the other.

The mod team did discuss it, and we decided that having the two polls was the best way forward. Yes, it's a duplicate, and yes we could have closed the other one, but at the rate it moves closing it would annoy anyone half-way through writing a post to reply in there, and we'd lose a level of conversation continuity. The poll over there would also be lost then, which is a bit of a shame.

Sometimes dupes do happen and are allowed, whether via mod error or by decision. It's not quite random.

 

[warlock]

Are they going to implement ship transfers???? Cant seem to find much mention of it on the forums.

 

[Patrick_68000]

This poll is without appeal. David must reconsider his position

 

[Leo Sagan]

Also did you actually list any downsides that couldn't be balanced out if need be?

This could be a good way to reassure some people, if only FD had the guts to step in and explain how they intend to prevent their 'Hocus Pocus Phun Phun Phun' from being exploited to death.

But it seems they decided to courageously stay silent, except for a few good laughs with their LR buddies.

 

[Moesis]

I'm not too phased either way but prefer instant for one reason only and that is because if there is a time delay I'd want to be able to plan ahead (i.e. order another ship to go to the location I'm currently headed to). Instant negates the need for extra development time to allow for this feature (which I, suspect many people will start wanting if a time delay was to be used and also suspect wouldn't be an option). It's the lesser of two evils.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

I am in the pro realism camp here but it is worth remembering we are more likely to be hardcore fans here. The average gamer who does not use social media or forums may not care. Now personalky I do not think that matters. ED has been promoted as a game where science or the pretense of science is key and so that is imo paramount. And further more the CEO is still selling that story

Now maybe I was stupid but I genuinely thought a lot of the fake stuff in the game on launch was placeholder pending being fleshed out.

But my point is we may have 80% for no magic here but perhaps the silent majority WOULD choose CQC XL. TBH if the game is failing and FD are doing what needs to be done for the game to survive personally I would appreciate a frank and honest admission from the devs that it is needed for the game to remain viable. But I guess that is not a realistic expectation when shares etc are in the line and games are always sold as doing well till the moment the lights go out.

TLDR I want realistic but I do want a profitable game with active support and development more

 

[Patrick_68000]

What that also does is nullify any of the balancing mechanics of your combat ship. Quite simply, its travel restrictions (a core element of the games balancing design) is 100% thrown in the bin. If that's the case, then why have different ships bother with different jump ranges in the first place?

Yes this is a heresy, a sacrilege

 

[hunvagy]

I am in the pro realism camp here but it is worth remembering we are more likely to be hardcore fans here. The average gamer who does not use social media or forums may not care. Now personalky I do not think that matters. ED has been promoted as a game where science or the pretense of science is key and so that is imo paramount. And further more the CEO is still selling that story

Now maybe I was stupid but I genuinely thought a lot of the fake stuff in the game on launch was placeholder pending being fleshed out.

But my point is we may have 80% for no magic here but perhaps the silent majority WOULD choose CQC XL. TBH if the game is failing and FD are doing what needs to be done for the game to survive personally I would appreciate a frank and honest admission from the devs that it is needed for the game to remain viable. But I guess that is not a realistic expectation when shares etc are in the line and games are always sold as doing well till the moment the lights go out.

Mike, if the game is failing because of travel times, then it was probably advertised to the wrong people. It's pretty hillarious to think that in a game about space travel, the biggest detractor is .. space travel. Freelancer had lot of travel time, even in a limited space, yet I don't recall people revolting because of it. NMS is pretty much all flying and walking around, and some people put it on a pedestal. So what is wrong with realistic travel times in ED then? It really boggles my mind. But if it indeed is what drives sales down, then I guess they won't change their minds.

 

[Patrick_68000]

In the case of instant transfer, I propose to limit the jump distance during the transfer, at the real maximal distance of jump of each ship. This would require to pay several times to reach the final destination and would oblige several transfer requests, with time that would imply

 

[Ziljan]

So I listened to the radio excerpt with Sandro, he admits that the reason for the change was to make it easier to get around the galaxy. So he believes that short jump ranges are holding back the game. Instead of addressing this problem directly, he thinks the "best mistake" they make right now is to make Anacondas into high speed space taxis.

Ok Sandro. Make your mistake. Blow up the whole shebang of ship balance. I look forward to seeing your solution for this new problem you are going to create. No seriously, I mean it. The ships were overdue for a rebalance anyway.


Right now people are worried about the loss of immersion but that isn't even remotely the biggest can of worms Frontier is about to open up. Not sure why this stuff needs to be tested in game for everyone to finally realize this. But I look forward to the time when we are on the same page.


Get ready for the next question people are going to ask (especially people new to game after 2.2): Why do ships have different jump ranges?

 

[WR3ND]

This poll is without appeal. David must reconsider his position

It would be interesting to hear from David Braben about these issues specifically, now that you mention it.

 

[Patrick_68000]

It would be interesting to hear from David Braben about these issues specifically, now that you mention it.

If the controversy continues, I think that David will intervene, like during the abandonment of the offline mode