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

[Ytheleus]

Michael, Thanks for answering questions about this. I'm against this feature as currently proposed, I'd prefer it dropped in fact, but I'm for a balanced ship/module transfer system in principle.
It seems to me that characterising this as a minor QoL matter is the basis of your defence of this feature and I think the scale of controversy can only be understood if it is defined as more than 'this little thing, let's throw it out there, nobody will notice much difference'.

You can also choose to look at it as a crucial matter of how players think about the ED galaxy and its scale. Long distance travel, arguably, should involve difficulties and compromises. That is, in part, how we humans have always judged space and time, by relative inconvenience. From that perspective this is absolutely a major issue, philosophically and practically. You are proposing to radically rescale the galaxy.

I feel like, as an analogy, you are saying something like 'The steam railways were a minor quality of life improvement and hardly anyone noticed at the time.'

May I humbly suggest that more attention, planning and consideration be given to introducing this so that fundamental questions about human perceptions of space and time are considered, and then if necessary more appropriate staff resourcing can be applied. A delay is better than introducing a revolutionary feature that can't be rolled back. I don't feel like this is a storm in a teacup. Essentially it offends my sense of what the ED galaxy is about.

 

[Slopey]

Or maybe you'll have more ships because you can actually make use of them.

Michael

Why would you have more ships given you can now summon them instantly wherever you need them? That would suggest the opposite - I won't need more ships as I don't need to place them around the galaxy where I need them. I can sell all of those ships, and just keep the optimal 3 or 4 builds for the 3 or 4 activities which are currently in the game: mining/trading/pew pew and a fast taxi.

 

[stooger]

I belive a feature that is unwanted by the game community is not good for the game. You make the game, but players play it. I know it will sound a little... unkindly, but the community that plays the game knows better. Noone can make you devs do anything but I think listening to your people is the way to go. Maybe instant tp will make the game faster and convinient and bring some new players, but making the game more accesible for new, more casual players at the expense of current playerbase probably won't bring you many benefits.
There are just too many downsides to instant ship transfers to justify just one benefit. Especially if there are solutions that could satisfy both sides. I know it would take time and resources but I bet players would gladly wait for a proper mechanic.
But whatever... just wanted to say that I think listening to the community is the way to go.

 

[asphaltpilot]

In this instance the convenience was the overriding factor.

I'm saddened that convenience is winning out on what is otherwise diluting the philosophy and principle of the game: make you feel you are in space (which many things are not convenient) and all its grandeur as realistic as possible. I can spend an hour traveling somewhere but summon a ship instantly? I just...don't understand. Instant ship transfer is a Pandora's box. It will also have a negative affect on Power Play, Outfitting (low rated fuel tanks and FSD on everythign but one AspX), and other features of the game.

With that said, thank you for coming here and commenting.

 

[Kled7]

We would have to see what the issues were.

Michael

Feeling vs Gameplay

So I have been reading the arguments for and against the instant teleportation ship transfer and it basically boils down to feelings vs gameplay. By game play, I mean the technical aspect of how you accomplish a task.

Instant transport improves an individual’s options when playing. It just does. They have more options available and they can just sit down and use the ship they want in that play session to do what they want (assuming they have the money). Just accept this as fact, it improves game play. There is not one argument on any thread that I have read that actually gives a good game play reason why this is bad.

Instant transport however feels wrong. Feeling is very subjective and for a lot of people their feelings about a game affect their gameplay. I think the reason there is a lot of misunderstanding of arguments concerning this issue is that people are using feeling arguments to counter technical arguments and vice versa.

So then it comes down to what more important? Feelings or gameplay? In my opinion, in a massive games like this, with no end, “feeling” trumps gameplay. For people to play and dump money into this game with no end, so it can be improved, they need to feel that things make sense. Game play is important, don’t get me wrong, but this is primarily a vast galactic spanning simulator and the feeling of the game needs to be maintained.

So Mr. FD, when looking at game play mechanics ask yourself “does this feel right?” stop looking at it on its technical merits. Believe me, I understand, this is a good decision based up on the technical merits of the change, however it feels all wrong for the game.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

But whatever... just wanted to say that I think listening to the community is the way to go.

Consider forums is very small part of community and that FD have full feedback from all kinds of players.

 

[Vorxian]

people won't realize the ramifications until the feature goes live that includes the whole playerbase and even you guys.

Now as a player who sinked more than 3200 hours in this game i like to believe i have some grip on how the gameplay will turn out. So for the last time i implore you devs to reconsider the magic teleport.

Sorry MK, don't mean to single you out specifically but help me out - what exactly is it that will break with this, and what negative ramifications this feature will bring?

I don't understand magic teleport any more than i understand ship health potions to describe shield cells. How it is moved from one point to another is no more strange than trying to work out the physics of how FSD works. It just ​is.

 

[CapitanAceRimmer]

Surely if you don't like the facility, just don't use it.

 

[mossfoot]

From a game standpoint I understand instant transfers even though I'd prefer some kind of delay (or even an option - expensive instant or cheap overnight delivery)

From a fiction standpoint I'd say please don't make it a matter of disassembly and reassembly via 3D printing. It just raises too many questions of other uses of that tech and why it's not used in other ways (ie why not duplicate my sweet engineer shield booster upgrade that went over the max predicted specs 10 times for all my utility slots and ships?). It also cheapens the sense of it being "your" ship. It's just a copy. Sure that effectively happens when our ship blows up, but many of us take that as a new ship, not the same one (or that the wreck was salvaged and repaired) - and we try not to blow up in the first place

Just like we accept instant eject into our new ships or instant cargo transfer, we can assume the proper time passed in game to transfer it by valet/taxi driver.


(Oh, and for fighters in fighter bays, might I suggest a combination of printing and parts? Like the printer creates the shell, but certain components like fuel, weapons, engine, etc are there already made and added in? Would still cut down on the space requirements and make it feel a bit less like magic?)

 

[Theodrid]

That's a very unlikely situation give the fact that people that never visit the CG system count as contributors. Also, exactly how long are you planning on waiting that it would have that significant an effect on your CG standing regardless of contributors?!
-
Or is this one of those posts that should be depicted as being written on a cardboard sign held by a man screaming "the end is nigh!"?

Not at all but apparently your position, (and others), is to bury your heads in the sand and say 'la, la, la, la' as loudly as you can, seriously, you must be blind not being able to see the effects of this.

 

[mossfoot]

I can sell all of those ships, and just keep the optimal 3 or 4 builds for the 3 or 4 activities which are currently in the game: mining/trading/pew pew and a fast taxi.

It does feel like it's encouraging the creation of a Swiss Army Fleet, I'll grant you that.

 

[Jukelo]

It is a bit satirical to see a detail get so much attention,
and the main feature gets ignored on a broad basis.
Yet this feature has apparently a larger impact on the game,
than launching a fighter to assist you in combat.

It will have a much larger impact on the game. Launching a fighter only helps you in combat. Combat which is already so easy I think only a fraction of the players on the lowest tier on the skill ladder will trully benefit from it. When was the last time you thought 'man, I wish I had a small fighter assisting me!', even in a trade ship while high waking?
Ship trasnfer, however, will affect everyone. If there's one thing you never have enough of, it's jump range. Just look around the forums and Reddit, drade 5 FSD upgrades are the most sought after. Travelling has always been tedious since release, and the interdiction spam since 2.1, with its chances of spawning a pursuer being rolled per FSD transition, has further increased the value of high jump range.
clearly ship transfer is going to be the most significant gameplay change of the update.

 

[Ziljan]

Why would you have more ships given you can now summon them instantly wherever you need them? That would suggest the opposite - I won't need more ships as I don't need to place them around the galaxy where I need them. I can sell all of those ships, and just keep the optimal 3 or 4 builds for the 3 or 4 activities which are currently in the game: mining/trading/pew pew and a fast taxi.

I think he means you'll have more ship types at each station you visit. Not that you'll have more ships in total. This is a valid point and will actually increase the use of some marginal ships like Vipers that are an "interesting challenge" to fly but are otherwise fairly useless.

 

[OriginalBadBoy]

Why would you have more ships given you can now summon them instantly wherever you need them? That would suggest the opposite - I won't need more ships as I don't need to place them around the galaxy where I need them. I can sell all of those ships, and just keep the optimal 3 or 4 builds for the 3 or 4 activities which are currently in the game: mining/trading/pew pew and a fast taxi.

To be fair though (and I have said this before), most players I would wager only use 3 or 4 ships (or at least types of ships) anyway even if they have 10's of them.

So its a mute point in reality and doesn't change much. People tend to stick with what works, and that will be small subset of ships.

 

[Vorxian]

trumps gameplay.

You know it!

 

[Julio Montega]

It will have a much larger impact on the game. Launching a fighter only helps you in combat. Combat which is already so I think guess only a fraction of the players on the lowest tier on the skill ladder will trully benefit from it. When was the last time you thought 'man, I wish I had a small fighter assisting me!', even in a trade ship while high waking?

When i was sitting hatch to hatch to my prey draining it of all the sweet cargo,
while the police swarmed in.

Ship trasnfer, however, will affect everyone. If there's one thing you never have enough of, it's jump range. Just look around the forums and Reddit, drade 5 FSD upgrades are the most sought after. Travelling has always been tedious since release, and the interdiction spam since 2.1, with its chances of spawning a pursuer being rolled per FSD transition, has further increased the value of high jump range.
clearly ship transfer is going to be the most significant gameplay change of the update.

Jumprange is no issue to me,
i can manage with it.
It was glory days for me to have 21 Ly on my combat DBS,
now i attuned to 13 Ly FGS without a scoop.

I simply choose a smaller space of operation.

 

[rootsrat]

What happens to the original ship when the new one is "printed" at the destination station? Do they just destroy it?

 

[Arubeto]

It has been thought out, and discussed at length, and we believe that it provides more benefit to the game in its current form - it will certainly be interesting to see how things progress in beta

Michael

I don't doubt that this has been discussed at length at FD, but having so many dedicated players voicing their concerns about this design decision should not be dismissed easily. Even if you decided convenience is so important here, please consider going for a compromise (time-consuming ship transfer, that is still reasonable convenient compared to the current situation while still keeping some plausibility that quite a few people obviously value very highly) if there are so many players who don't seem to agree with the decision.

 

[TheSisko]

Thanks for replying Michael.

You mentioned that the current method of ship transfer means you can get this feature into 2.2. Well, why not delay it and do more work on it until its truly ready?

I haven't seen any requests in recent months from players asking for ship transfer, nothing compared to requests for module and commodity storage. If FD need more time to develop Ship Transfer, then please by all means, take that time and put it into 2.2.1 or 2.3 if need be.

I'm firmly in the no-to-instant camp for the many reasons already discussed, but if you do decide to proceed with instant transfer for 2.2, then please at least, put a cap on the distance of transfer. Don't short-change this wonderful, scaled galaxy your team have created and that we (most of the time ) enjoy playing in, and even travelling in. That is one the reasons I and many others love playing this game.

Ship Transfer, as it stands, is far beyond one of the recent and upcoming Quality of Life improvements you have created. This is a game-changer, and at the moment, I'm not convinced its a game-changer in a good way.

Don't rush this for 2.2. There's really no need. Everything else about 2.2 sounds great, and it says a lot that all the post GamesCon talk on these forums is about one aspect of one improvement, rather than NPC Crews (thank you) or Fighters (thanks again).

 

[OriginalBadBoy]

Consider forums is very small part of community and that FD have full feedback from all kinds of players.

Virtual rep given.