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

[Winterwalker]

You missed my point entirely. The missions are currently random, you cannot plan. Given that, the option to react to the situation is a necessity. Thus, instant ship transfer.

I'm afraid this defies the logic of the game universe though and if I'm not elite status, I can't do elite missions!? Do I stop playing, or should Frontier nerf that too?

Say, if I want to increase Faction Rep. For a start I 'have' to do missions to get that rep up, no option ( MUST have fuel, I MUST request docking permission, these are all barriers .. as they are logical rules beyond which you cannot step). So, sometimes I don't have enough rep to be offered the mission (!?) but say maybe I do but need more cargo capacity or bigger guns to access more missions for that faction on that day .. The faction will still be there tomorrow and meanwhile I might try a new mission type, one I never tried before, while I wait for my comfort zone to arrive.

The famous example was the difficulty of getting into a dock, in the original Elite. While the game did stand out because of the trading / flight / no 3 lives model, in my opinion Elite would NEVER have achieved cult status if it hadn't had reputation for being extremely tough on you at times. It's OK, it outer space, it's dangerous and if you make a mistake, you implode. We don't see anything like that level of difficulty in ED already (and I don't mean PvP here, I mean the integrity of the game). Making it 'easier' all the time (with magic) erodes the difficulties of being in space and is simply going the wrong way if witnessed by the polls, showing people's ambivalence to magic and preference for something approaching realism in ED ship transfers.

 

[AnnuverScotinExile]

Also I would like to point out that we already have "instant transportation" situation with us in escape pods after ship gettng blown up. We bought that - we will buy ship hauling in mere seconds.

Additionally there's my lore explanation:

Each ship yard has these automated mechanism to deliver ships via huge jumps - process unsurvivable for living human beings. Engine is getting attached to ship, big or small, or they are even stacked together. Then off it goes. It ensures almost instant delivery (but that's why it costs considerably more than fuel used in such travel). If you ask why not cargo delivered that way? In fact it is! Big corps ship cargo automatically, via huge haulers, trough this mega jump system. Issue is it is very, very costly and cost can be only reimbursed if you do these huge trades (10k of tons). That leaves all surplus trading for regular pilots.

How about such explanation?

The 'instant transportation' of the escape capsule is not the same situation at all. It is not an in-game mechanic. It is an out-of-game mechanic because you actually died. Forcing iron man mode on people who do not want it is a bad game design, so there had to be a resurrection, but since that happens out of game, the mechanics do not matter. It is not a precedence for instant transfer of a ship.

As not just our ship but the player itself teleports there too that argument is in favour of player teleport just as much as Ship teleport.

Still waiting for Michael to reply to the question of what happens with multicrew. He must have seen the comments, so he clearly does not want to tell us yet.

 

[Privata]

You missed my point entirely. The missions are currently random, you cannot plan. Given that, the option to react to the situation is a necessity. Thus, instant ship transfer.

A system in a civil war has a higher chance to offer war missions than it does trade runs.

What this does is (ship transfer , not the BGS based mission board), bring elite even more down the road of predictability and offers less strategy.

All in all , it removes depth from those who used the chess like placement of ships and replaces it with an un lore friendly instant gratification system that on the best of cases is nothing more than a minor ship ballance disruption or on the worst case a complete killing of immersion , ballance and the need to think what so ever.

 

[AnnuverScotinExile]

Michael, I think I've said enough about why I don't like instant transfer.

If you insist on implementing it, could you just implement the option that doesn't require a transfer at all and is probably even less effort code-wise.
i.e. The Stored Ships tab at a Shipyard just becomes My Ships.

That is essentially what they are doing. It's why it is a pull not a push. The only difference between switching to a 'local' ship and a 'distant' ship is that one costs nothing and the other a nominal fee (effectively nothing for most players). Both happen instantly.

 

[Privata]

The 'instant transportation' of the escape capsule is not the same situation at all. It is not an in-game mechanic. It is an out-of-game mechanic because you actually died. Forcing iron man mode on people who do not want it is a bad game design, so there had to be a resurrection, but since that happens out of game, the mechanics do not matter. It is not a precedence for instant transfer of a ship.

Still waiting for Michael to reply to the question of what happens with multicrew. He must have seen the comments, so he clearly does not want to tell us yet.

100% true.

Instant respawn is okay , and it respawns us at the last docked station. its like loading a save.
Does it take you out of the game? a bit , but its never in your favour.

Instant ship transfer however is only in your favour , only serves to remove depth and decision making from the game.

Now I will say it offers a bonus , you can now bring your warships to places like the pleiades with zero effort... but IMHO thats terrible.
A timed system would be so much better , because a waiting for a timer may not be gameplay but adapting around it is

Here is what gets me the most.
It takes 10-20 seconds for your ship to get from the sky to the planet surface on ''auto-pilot'' yet , it takes no time for it to do 20000LYs?
If they rebuild the ship in the shipyard it must come out fixed , no wear and tear and minus all engineer upgrades

 

[Muetdhiver]

I think the OP is kind of trying to overstate the issues from ship transfer and overblow his case.

Exploration will still be the same, jump, honk, scan. The scale will not change. Going anywhere will still take time.
Then again, in the bubble it will cut the faffing arround to get the desired ship in the desired place a lot.

Navigating is part of what exploration is, and this is fine/should stay as is. Moving a viper/FDL/corvette arround
is a pain in the behind and provides \epsilon > 0 interesting gameplay.

Hell, I got stuff like vipers, eagles and vultures littering the bubble because it such a loss of time to move them.
When I face the choice between : spend an hour getting the vulture and do 30min of BH or pick the FAS that I got here and do
1h30 of BH, I go with the second option, even if the first one would be the one I'd like to do. But not as far as wasting
one hour of my gametime.

About 3D printing : I don't have any issues with it. I see it as a combination of prefab assembly and printing for the more
complicated / small pieces. Heck, when we die we get a new ship, with engies mods, instantly. I don't see anyway of that
happening except fast assembly. (Thinking of it, no one is asking for waiting till the escape pod is found and returned to
the bubble. I Wonder why... XD)

Concerning ship trivialization : it's already here. If I need to do > 100lyr I only ever use ships with 25+ lyr range. Engies help
a lot with this. It does mean that stuff like FDL, Corvette and my viper stay grounded in my homebase most of the time. Costs
too much time to move.

 

[Privata]

That is essentially what they are doing. It's why it is a pull not a push. The only difference between switching to a 'local' ship and a 'distant' ship is that one costs nothing and the other a nominal fee (effectively nothing for most players). Both happen instantly.

If they made it at least the price of a rebuy + say 100 credits per lightyear then it would be 100% fair and consistent with the current gameplay.
A timer would be a bonus for immersion

 

[Ayo]

So, I have always been an advocate of making gameplay consistent with lore. If the lore has to be changed to accommodate gameplay then consider the effect that change in lore would have on the rest of the game. The lore is what's most important to me. It's why I decide to play Elite instead of some other game that has more instant gratification.

I want the gameplay to make me believe that I am in this world.

Suggestions:
Make it take time, but have it so I can make a request to move a ship from anywhere, so that it can be where I want it to be by the time I arrive. Same for modules.
If we can 'print' fighters within our ships, then require us to have a bunch of components already stored in the hangar/cargo bay.
Maybe have a cheaper variant of the hanger that doesn't print ships, but instead has to be re-stocked with fighters at a shipyard.

Don't let "lower the barrier to game-play" mean "dumb down for instant gratification" please. Instead think more intelligently about ways to implement these features that puts some importance on consistent lore that is reflected in game-play.

 

[Privata]

I think the OP is kind of trying to overstate the issues from ship transfer and overblow his case.

Exploration will still be the same, jump, honk, scan. The scale will not change. Going anywhere will still take time.
Then again, in the bubble it will cut the faffing arround to get the desired ship in the desired place a lot.

Navigating is part of what exploration is, and this is fine/should stay as is. Moving a viper/FDL/corvette arround
is a pain in the behind and provides \epsilon > 0 interesting gameplay.

Hell, I got stuff like vipers, eagles and vultures littering the bubble because it such a loss of time to move them.
When I face the choice between : spend an hour getting the vulture and do 30min of BH or pick the FAS that I got here and do
1h30 of BH, I go with the second option, even if the first one would be the one I'd like to do. But not as far as wasting
one hour of my gametime.

About 3D printing : I don't have any issues with it. I see it as a combination of prefab assembly and printing for the more
complicated / small pieces. Heck, when we die we get a new ship, with engies mods, instantly. I don't see anyway of that
happening except fast assembly. (Thinking of it, no one is asking for waiting till the escape pod is found and returned to
the bubble. I Wonder why... XD)

Concerning ship trivialization : it's already here. If I need to do > 100lyr I only ever use ships with 25+ lyr range. Engies help
a lot with this. It does mean that stuff like FDL, Corvette and my viper stay grounded in my homebase most of the time. Costs
too much time to move.

If they are 3D printed (and they can not be , unless they are the smaller fighters) how do they have bolt marks on the ships and come out all dirty?

The game universe is a mix of high tech and low tech. if they want to push for the 3D printed stuff they need to remodel a lot of the tech in the game to reflect this.

Unless the idea is that they 3D print major parts of the ship and then just assemble them afterwards , but it begs the question : if we can just print everything , why trade? why do anything

 

[rivimey]

Adding my 2p:

I am fully against instant ship or module transfer, for the same reasons : no believable reason for it and detrimental effect on in game behaviour.

I would however love to see some transport mechanism: both ships and people - we now have VIP transports, can I not pay another ship to take me somewhere? Perhaps even hitch a ride on an AI ship?

The transfer should not be instant and "magical": it should take as long as the (well-equipped) transport ship takes. Assume a Type-9 or even larger ship doing the business, well specced with drives etc, or as an in-game alternative mechanism, you could visit a starport and pay someone else to courier it to you (probably an AI player, but could it be a real player - interesting mission ops here too).

Finally, to those complaining we have "instant" things already: outfitting etc - well, I would favour more realism there as well. Take ship replacement: I was in the outer limits of the bubble recently, at a station where only Sidewinder and Eagles were available and almost no modules. and my mostly A rated AspE came off second best to an FDL. I was reinstated at the same port -- how? I couldn't even get a new Hauler there... IMO requiring that reinstatement took some time - even 30 mins - would bring some much-needed sense of danger. There would be real-world consequences for getting blown up.

Lets make it explicit, for example, that a Sidey can be replaced quickly because it can be "printed" as a unit, but Medium ships can only be printed slowly (in sections) and Large/Huge ships need an assembly factory...

 

[Privata]

So, I have always been an advocate of making gameplay consistent with lore. If the lore has to be changed to accommodate gameplay then consider the effect that change in lore would have on the rest of the game. The lore is what's most important to me. It's why I decide to play Elite instead of some other game that has more instant gratification.

I want the gameplay to make me believe that I am in this world.

Suggestions:
Make it take time, but have it so I can make a request to move a ship from anywhere, so that it can be where I want it to be by the time I arrive. Same for modules.
If we can 'print' fighters within our ships, then require us to have a bunch of components already stored in the hangar/cargo bay.

Don't let "lower the barrier to game-play" mean "dumb down for instant gratification" please.

I agree.
The Lore is Law. The Law is Sacred

 

[knowles2]

Heya Mike,

I assume by the current 'fiction construct' we're thinking about '3d printing' our ships in their hangers or some such. I have to admit that I liked the idea of NPCs transporting our ships in say Lynx Bulk Carriers. Give them an 'advanced' (and crazy large) drive which explains why they can jump so far, so fast. (Possibly the same drive that Capital Ships have, since we see their jump is is incredibly different from our own.) This doesn't fully explain why it is instant, since even if the jump itself was instant the ship being transported would need to undock, fly to the Carrier (parked up near the station), land and then the same in reverse. I recon that'd take me 5 mins easy to do, but frankly I am happy to call 5 minutes 'instant' for the sake of gameplay. Even if we just keep it fiction with no in game representation, having a theoretical carrier would let me pretend that it is still MY ship. Possibly more importantly down the line, it is still my dirty underwear in my cabin in my ship! This is why she has all the bangs and dents she has and she isn't some pristine freshly printed anonymous and replaceable component. Naturally later down the line we could see Bulk Carriers at stations with ships flying to them which would give more life to the space around stations and potentially it could add even more gameplay down the line.

Sincerely, Ben - aka Cmdr Eid LeWeise

This is how it should be done.

Even add a bit of story do it. Something like these drives can't be use in ships that contains humans because radiation levels are to high.

But a "Mr Entrepreneur" figure that failed new engine technology could be use to transport ships quickly around space. Limited space on these ships could be the reason why pilots are only allowed to transport one ship at a time.

Also you could add a schedule to these ships movements, so there won't always be ship heaving to your location. Stations on lockdown should mean you can't move your ship out of that station, giving players an intensive to go there and end the lockdown.

 

[Muetdhiver]

I love selective reading :

What I said was "I see it as a combination of prefab assembly and printing for the more
complicated / small pieces."

You obviously skiped the whole reading part and headed straight to the conveniant conclusion part. Sloppy.

To make it extra clear : Prefab assembly + printing of the more complicated / small pieces. You know, like what
we are doing right now in year 2016. I guess 3302 must be like the dark ages or something.

 

[Leper Messiah]

How others can play the game effects EVERYONE which is why people complain..

Then THAT is the area FD needs to concentrate on for balance.

Perfectly fine if you're playing Solo. But what about cooperative or competitive play. This was supposed to be a multiplayer game after all.

From your example, 2 people are doing a trip across America, but not just for the sake of doing a trip. They need to meet at the destination. In this case, meeting (cooperative play) is the end goal. The person talking the plane looks at the guy talking the car and says: "Am I supposed to wait months in an airport just so you can see some pretty mountains? Get your butt over here!"

Then that's the fault of 2 people with completely disparate play methods teaming up really isn't it?



Either way I still think making Elite MP/MMO was a crock of brown stuff and has made the game worse with wishy washy compromises to try and appease the extremely disparate player bases....which has lead to the exact opposite with the disparate player bases constantly moaning at whatever FD do.

 

[Michael Brookes]

Michael, I think I've said enough about why I don't like instant transfer.

If you insist on implementing it, could you just implement the option that doesn't require a transfer at all and is probably even less effort code-wise.
i.e. The Stored Ships tab at a Shipyard just becomes My Ships.

That isn't the same thing at all - there is a cost (and perhaps other limitations) to transferring ships, having them follow you automatically is very different.

Michael

 

[Miklos Atreides]

The best technology isn't necessarily the cheapest technology, building things with conventional methods is cheaper, especially considering that energy is relatively cheap in the Elite: Dangerous universe.

Michael

Deriving a conclusion from this statement: There is to be a distance where traditional buying and outfitting a new ship is cheaper than its instant transport. Can be limiting for transfer to Jaques.

 

[Deadspin]

Classy response mate. I've looked again at the 50 or so words I wrote. I can't find a single reference to 'breaks game' or 'breaks immersion'. I've tried three or four times with no luck. Closest I can find is 'affect gameplay'. Is this what you're referring to? I'm almost quoting Mr Brooks when I said that.

I have to apologize then. I apparently quoted the wrong post. My bad.

 

[Robert Maynard]

That isn't the same thing at all - there is a cost (and perhaps other limitations) to transferring ships, having them follow you automatically is very different.

Michael

For players with balances in the billions, cost is meaningless.

If cost is too high, some players still have an insurmountable barrier to immediate gameplay.

 

[Lobstris]

Way to prove something isn't a particular fallacy by committing the same fallacy not once but, what 3 times if counted that right. Nice one...

This post is brilliant. It could very well be put into books as an example under the definition of slippery slope argument.

It was unfortunate, yes. If Yaffle had said 'this might lead to FDev adding space dragons in the future, or could increase the possibility of adding space dragons, but probably won't' everything would be fine. Ooops.

 

[Dipso]

With all the attempts at handwaiving the instant deliveries away, i'm starting to feel i would be more comfortable with the idea of "we skipped showin the waiting time" and just have a dialog say "Your ship was delivered, x hours later...."

The whole 3d printing or other elaborate ways to try to explain away a gameplay choice / technical shortcut just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It would have been better to not explain it at all, i feel.

With the ship launched fighters an "ikea-flatpack" explanation sort of works. But this is just hand-waving on a level that just raises 1000x questions. If they transport them on huge carriers, then why not do the same with cargo? If they are 3d printed, then why do stations have different ships you can buy.... Its a formidable pandoras box of stupid contradicting tech that is going to just get more convoluted as more stuff gets added to the game.