2.2 - Did we peek at the Christmas Presents too early?

[Jon flint]

Well it's only the start, I expect there would have been some clues injected via tip offs or galnet articles etc... the real Christmas presents come when somebody realises we are crawling all over their sacred site like a bunch of tourists and come to tear our collective faces off!

I can picture an angry insectoid chasing me down in a scout ship trying to recover the stuff I've pillaged from the site!

 

[Obsidian Ant]

No you haven't

Michael

Really looking forward to seeing where this all goes next!

 

[Siranui]

Hi Folks,

Got a bit of question for you all to consider. How much game play did we loose because 'xenohendge' was discovered?

I mean I am *seriously* impressed about the way that the new mystery was discovered, talk about out of the box thinking but consider this for a moment;-

FD know we pull this kind of thing. they would have expected it. If not, they'd have not had such obvious markers in the sky.

We didn't peek at our presents early. FD merely gave us a little extra one on Xmas eve to keep us happy.

I'd also disagree that we would not be looking for it. Players of this game have been looking for stuff in it since day 1, without knowledge it was there: Gen ships, Voyager, The Rift... People will always be looking in this game.

Heck, I did it myself back in the original: Chasing shadows because it is fun to do.

It's nice to be surprised and find them tangible at times.

[Less nice when they do 1d4 Str damage]


Additional content:


I suspect FD did have that feeling when Lave was found via the galactic map and nobody even noted the scrambled messages from it on the news boards, though.

 

[Andovar]

Because it's cool!
I take what happened as "good gameplay" and like it a lot, I really do!

Look at all the mysteries that have been discovered around the UA/UP and Barnacles.
If we were to strictly use only in game tools those riddles would have to be a good deal simpler.

Um, that's not any gameplay for the vast majority of the community, it's simply being handed an answer. For most of us it's just the same as if FD had published the location in a Galnet post.
Also, I don't see why riddles would have to be a good deal simpler to be implemented through in-game mechanics. And even if they were, so what, at least it's something.

 

[who?]

Well, if you will put the presents on the top shelf in full view of the kids...

More like..... "if you share a photo of the presents, with Mummy's smelly socks and Daddy's 'special' magazines in the background, you know to look under your parents' bed"!

 

[Momoka Azuka]

I don't know why FD continues to give clues in this manner. It's obvious that the Canonn will figure it out no matter how subtle, and usually they'll do it pretty damn quickly. Props to them.
But why not add some set of chained missions or something that players can use to "discover" these kinds of things for themselves? Yes, I know, within hours the Canonn community would have a step by step guide on exactly how to progress through the missions. But as a player you wouldn't have to follow it unless you wanted to (if you got stuck or hit a dead end). Right now it's very binary, you either look at the discovered answer or you don't.

It just seems to me that there's a potential for some good gameplay here that's being missed.

I agree with this. I've said it a few times now but the "gameplay" around all this alien content is not really set up in such a way that the bulk of the player base can even find this stuff. And once it is found, then what? It's nice that it's there but these thing usually have very little gameplay around them and we need to wait for frontier to act for this stuff to have any meaning at all.

It doesn't feel like someone like me even stands a chance at hunting down any of this content. Players on their own have little to no way of doing these things on our own. Honestly, the way these things happen right, for me, all they do is make me feel like I'm just a dumb smuggler in my own little corner that doesn't know how the universe works. Which is a horrible feeling. Especially because I bought into both Elite and Star Citizen for the exploration. And right now I feel like in both games, I'll never have what I'm looking for with with that.

Elite has the content there, we've all seen it, but a player like me can't even begin to interact with it until the geniuses with Canonn figure this stuff out. That feels wrong to me.

 

[Deadspin]

Did you guys forget about the notes?

"Added - Organics"

There's still stuff we haven't found.

 

[zzehirbazz]

Really looking forward to seeing where this all goes next!

Wherever this goes it would make me very happy and surprised if Thargoids or some other species could be included as a playable race along with humans. Everything up until now points us to :Why the hell not? situation with Aliens having similar technology such as access nodes. I can not think of a better improvement in means of gameplay than a secondary race with it`s own ships, own stations, own bubble, own technology and above all it`s own agenda!

Now we can side with Empire or Federation but in the future we might side with humans or aliens the same way, opening up more gameplay possibilities. Universe is a little bit too big for just humans, obviously, which is why they cant fill it up enough for us. Since this is a "reboot" Aliens doesnt necessarily have to be hostile completely at all.

 

[Monk]

Did you guys forget about the notes?

"Added - Organics"

There's still stuff we haven't found.

Those are the weird plants and crystals, right?

 

[Pennacchi]

Does it not mean - while we congratulate ourselves on humanity' ingenious discovery of these -the coming darkness continues to gather at our gates?

*dramatic fanfare*

 

[ph1Lt0r]

I think we are still in for a surprise this December...could be 2.3 or it could be a patch that...turns "them" on.

Patience, this is all leading to something

I think Monk hit the nail on the head. I doubt we've scratched the surface of what FDev has in store for us!

 

[who?]

I think we are still in for a surprise this December...could be 2.3 or it could be a patch that...turns "them" on.

Patience, this is all leading to something

Oooeerrr missus. That's my kind of patch!

 

[ShadowWolf Kell]

I think Monk hit the nail on the head. I doubt we've scratched the surface of what FDev has in store for us!

There's still a lot from the trailer we haven't discovered yet. Was out looking for some of it earlier but had no luck. Was impressed with some of the changes for rocky ice worlds. The few I visited look 500 times better.


The Guardian ruins aren't the only mysterious thing added. I'm also willing to bet there is another type of ruins, possibly with an engineer at it.

 

[Ignition]

I don't know why FD continues to give clues in this manner. It's obvious that the Canonn will figure it out no matter how subtle, and usually they'll do it pretty damn quickly. Props to them.
But why not add some set of chained missions or something that players can use to "discover" these kinds of things for themselves? Yes, I know, within hours the Canonn community would have a step by step guide on exactly how to progress through the missions. But as a player you wouldn't have to follow it unless you wanted to (if you got stuck or hit a dead end). Right now it's very binary, you either look at the discovered answer or you don't.

It just seems to me that there's a potential for some good gameplay here that's being missed.

Exploration is based on out of game sources because there're NO exploration mechanics.

Exploration mechanics consist of:
-Honk (see all the system map with 1 button)
-tip off (go x y z to fin A)
-random blue circles on surface map(RNG and luck)
-telling the players hints in patch notes
-forums
-wave scanner (the only good exploration mechanic so far and the most developed, intelligent and fun) This is the only mechanic where you are actually doing something.

As you can see Frontier has probably the biggest map to play in any game but its dull and uninteresting gameplay.

We don't have tools to play. I want to say I FIND THIS because I used equipment, tools, different scanners and probes on my ship in the correct way and I achieved it.

Honking all over the place is really stupid and the RNG sites without any tools to find them from distance and classify them is also very stupid.
This game has too many placeholders.

 

[irongut]

Got a bit of question for you all to consider. How much game play did we loose because 'xenohendge' was discovered?

Good god, people need to make their minds up. Is the UA / UP / barnacle mystery going to slow and you want clues from the devs or is it gone too fast and you've somehow lost gameplay? What does that even mean anyway? If the site hadn't been found hundreds of people would not have spent hours examining it. Is that not gameplay they have gained?

As an old DM there never was an exploit which ruined my games. Many times players did the unexpected but these were usually the best sessions because I had to improvise more. They never ruined the game because they didn't contribute towards the eventual goals of that story but instead were fun diversions, like the time the whole party nearly drowned trying to cross a river.

 

[Ian Skippy]

I agree with this. I've said it a few times now but the "gameplay" around all this alien content is not really set up in such a way that the bulk of the player base can even find this stuff. And once it is found, then what? It's nice that it's there but these thing usually have very little gameplay around them and we need to wait for frontier to act for this stuff to have any meaning at all.

It doesn't feel like someone like me even stands a chance at hunting down any of this content. Players on their own have little to no way of doing these things on our own. Honestly, the way these things happen right, for me, all they do is make me feel like I'm just a dumb smuggler in my own little corner that doesn't know how the universe works. Which is a horrible feeling. Especially because I bought into both Elite and Star Citizen for the exploration. And right now I feel like in both games, I'll never have what I'm looking for with with that.

Elite has the content there, we've all seen it, but a player like me can't even begin to interact with it until the geniuses with Canonn figure this stuff out. That feels wrong to me.

The base was found by one guy on his own, so thats a start. But why not join the fun at canonn? Read what people suggest, think of possible flaws, come up with your own ideas, test them etc. The overwhelming majority of the canonn members will never be the Special One that found something. But its the collaboration that counts. Ofcourse, if you want to be on your own and independently figure out this stuff before everyone else does: yes, you have to be very dedicated and fairly intelligent.

 

[Momoka Azuka]

The base was found by one guy on his own, so thats a start. But why not join the fun at canonn? Read what people suggest, think of possible flaws, come up with your own ideas, test them etc. The overwhelming majority of the canonn members will never be the Special One that found something. But its the collaboration that counts. Ofcourse, if you want to be on your own and independently figure out this stuff before everyone else does: yes, you have to be very dedicated and fairly intelligent.

Don't get me wrong, what Canonn do is actually really cool and I have a lot of respect for them. But the way they find things, I actually need to be part of Canonn to even be in the loop on finding these things. I have a thing of wanting to be on my own a good deal of the time. I have no knowledge to do a lot of the things those guys and gals do. The UAs for example. They needed to know Morse code and couldn't find out it was scanning ships in game. That's not anything I can do or would even think to do. I don't have the tools in game to do anything.

I want to be able to find this stuff and study it. Like with the ruins, I'd love it if I could take a ship there and scan everything and decode everything in the game. I wouldn't care if it took me weeks and my ship didn't move while I did so. But I can't because the game itself doesn't have the tools for me to do so. That's my real issue.

I actually don't want Frontier to remove all these methods they have in place now. It's a really cool thing. But it's all over my head. I just want some of this content in the game to be accessible for someone like me that wants to be a pretend scientist. Just give me tools to I can join in on all this without feeling like I'm just on the outside looking in

 

[Ignition]

The base was found by one guy on his own, so thats a start. But why not join the fun at canonn? Read what people suggest, think of possible flaws, come up with your own ideas, test them etc. The overwhelming majority of the canonn members will never be the Special One that found something. But its the collaboration that counts. Ofcourse, if you want to be on your own and independently figure out this stuff before everyone else does: yes, you have to be very dedicated and fairly intelligent.

Well I think Cannon is hurting Elite in its development as a GAME. They are ok and have fun with "wooden sticks and rocks" and FD see this as a way to not develop exploration as a in game career and keep it out of game and generate "mysteries" outside of the game to give an impression of an elaborated conspiracy. The problem is 2 years have passed and the gameplay is exactly the same boring thing and I think Cannon is in part responsible of this.

But FD is the real problem here. If you want to EXPLORE you need to read patch notes, look trailes, analyse sounds and puzzles, and do all of those stupid out of game nonsense because its cheaper than develop a core mechanic system that works in game to make in game exploration fun because of course the HONK is not enough.

I think even Kerbal Space Program has much more developed exploration mechanics with satellites and surface imagening and experiments. Its a shame.

 

[CMDR-AD]

I don't know why FD continues to give clues in this manner. It's obvious that the Canonn will figure it out no matter how subtle, and usually they'll do it pretty damn quickly. Props to them.
But why not add some set of chained missions or something that players can use to "discover" these kinds of things for themselves? Yes, I know, within hours the Canonn community would have a step by step guide on exactly how to progress through the missions. But as a player you wouldn't have to follow it unless you wanted to (if you got stuck or hit a dead end). Right now it's very binary, you either look at the discovered answer or you don't.

It just seems to me that there's a potential for some good gameplay here that's being missed.

I too would love a basic mission chain to lead to discoveries.

Something like a Data Transfer mission to some contact to be met at some specified system. The contact takes the data, and leaves some mysterious item behind. Take clues from this item to locate a data beacon with the SRV. Then maybe have a final step where you need to put together bits of clues from each step of the way, which points to something bigger for the player to discover.

I have had mixed feelings as to whether I should just "peek" at the already discovered location and head out there for a look, or wait to see if there were any story/connecting elements still inbound from the wings that I might prefer to follow to this site.

Thanks Michael Brookes for posting, a big help in my decision on how to play forward.

 

[Besensec]

We didn't lose much, if any at all. There are many things that are not exactly hidden, they are just there in the galaxy waiting to be found. I think FD expects players to find them, regardless of a scripted narrative. I think they write the story as thing goes, following a general line. What gives the feeling of being in a living universe, in part, is knowing that there are things out there that no one has found yet, giving exploration a real purpose (and not just your name tagged on a planet). Also, when FD challenged us with our hawk eyes when they released the teaser, they were challenging us to do exactly what we did.

Probably they didn't expected it to be that fast, but for sure it was not supposed to take more than a month. Now they have to fill in into the narrative a new event to keep things busy until Christmas, because this one happened to soon. So, to answer your question, I would guess we might get eve more gameplay given the early discovery.