Sole Hunter
Banned
I must have missed it what is he complaining about, exploration?
I just don't get it - baffled and on the verge of uninstall - Yes I said it!
- Thread starter Nutter
- Start date
Exactly my point really .. kickstart backer too .. at game release EVERYTHING was an exploration.
Genuinely feel here that 2.3 was a much more serious update than it appeared. It even sent the station flight controllers into a spin (welcoming you when you were leaving) work THAT one out! I've no doubt Frontier are well aware of areas that took a hit when avatar creation added another level of networking though. (Or even material compositions, generating planet surfaces? That's AWESOME! Seriously, I can live with a little medium term beige for that upgrade, too). But if it helps, I truly don't think we'll ever see another update again, as deeply fundamental and backend heavy, as 2.3 was.
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I agree, it winds me up too, my post was for the old school backers (Alpha) and I apologise for not thinking of the newer customers by dragging nearly three years of evidence to the OP - that said I did edit and give a few links to the facts.
You've given links to forum polls, which are neither FACTS nor evidence.
Less than 10% of the player base visits the forums (so we were told some time back), so forum polls do not represent the view of the player base at all and are not facts.
And the poll on professions allowed people to pick 2 options, so it's not an accurate poll for even the forum users - as you do not know how many people picked exploration as a 2nd job or part time job within the game.
The OP contains NO FACTS or NO EVIDENCE whatsoever. Just personal opinions and links to irrelevant data.
Err, I wasn't replying to you if you bothered to check the quote.
I agree it's long been obvious that the biggest untapped potential of the game has been in Exploration of a 400-Billion-star galaxy, and I firmly belief that delaying that development has cost Frontier a significant amount of unrealized income, by failing to give Exploration enough depth to attract a wider audience. I mean, Ziggy said "exploration used to be good" but tbh, for most players, Exploration has always been at best a placeholder mechanic, and not ready for prime time, and certainly not good enough to be showcased at places like PAX, GAMESCOM, or E3. And word-of-mouth advertising for Exploration has been abysmal as well, since the vast majority of people go maybe 2000 LY out, get instantly bored by honk+point-&-wait mechanics, and then go back to the bubble to wait for Exploration to "get good".
That fact that Sandro has verbally and publicly recognized the need for reform is a GREAT and positive sign! Once they can actually showcase a solid Exploration mechanic (especially with atmospheres/gas giants), then they will be able to leverage their 400 Billion stars and have a solid rebuttal to the looming Star Citizen player-drain that is getting closer every month.
Huge respect for you, whether you stay or go(a song in that?
)Just so you know, right at the start of this marvelous journey,you helped lots of us,and we appreciated it(even if some of us never told you) !!! Remember ?
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=81653
We all know the OP was really a subjective assessment, not hard fact. We also know that everyone (including me) has an opinion about the game.
That being said, let's be honest here, who really believes that exploration hasn't been neglected? Can we at least agree that, for a game that proudly claims to be a sandbox based on the Milky Way galaxy with over 400 billion stars, exploration lacks substance and majorly needs love and attention? By all means, argue about the detail 'til you're horse, but not that the OP is wrong about his criticism of exploration. I have read numerous threads on this forum complaining about the very things he mentions. Hell, the beige planet thing was a bushfire in its own right and is still going.
That being said, let's be honest here, who really believes that exploration hasn't been neglected? Can we at least agree that, for a game that proudly claims to be a sandbox based on the Milky Way galaxy with over 400 billion stars, exploration lacks substance and majorly needs love and attention? By all means, argue about the detail 'til you're horse, but not that the OP is wrong about his criticism of exploration. I have read numerous threads on this forum complaining about the very things he mentions. Hell, the beige planet thing was a bushfire in its own right and is still going.
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Exploration in this game could be ground braking, magnificent, trully something else. I mean everyone can see the potential right? The most sad thing is that they will add some bits and pieces which is nice, but they will never do the magic. Dont know whats holding them back, but thats how it is.
this wall of text was rly menacing... like a teeth armed elite corvette... DANG!
Ah shucks, it looks like I took a wrong turn and found myself in one of those threads again... Don't mind me, I'll just quietly leave again...
Well, the game is already pretty damned good for what it is, it just needs some more work here and there. I doubt they're holding off just to mess with us, they're probably working through a long list of things needing time and resources spent on them.
Hello Nutter,
I've always respected your point of view and enjoyed your posts, you were one of the early ones to take time out to help others and I for one will not forget that.
However, I don't fully agree with some of your points, although i do agree on some points:
Beige Bug
Its pink for a reason, its iron, one of the most abundant elements in the galaxy
Terrain Nerf
I point to the moon, gentle hummocks (if you get my drift) with large amounts of rigolith caused by solar radiation and cosmic bombardment over the eons
Adding eye candy but no tools to find it
In game tools are lacking, agreed.
Not adding any new exploring tools
What tools are required? Databases, different scanning methods? Personally I think its all moot, certain groups are given a heads up on new stuff anyway (and we got that from the "almost" horses mouth, wizard that he is) and many dig into the file data. Without a complete re-write of code/software, its not going to change. It's put me off exploring TBH and it was a part of the game I really enjoyed.
System Map degraded
Not so sure about this, i find it useful and I like the rotating planets. I do not like the lack of trade data.
Galaxy map degraded, verging on broken
Agreed. I can't select systems and trade routes etc are broken.
Sky Map Degraded with 'dust'
Do you mean zoom out on galaxy map or the horrible flash by dust in super-cruise? Either way I agree.
Total lack of love for explorers.
No one "loved" Scott or Oates til they died...
I've always respected your point of view and enjoyed your posts, you were one of the early ones to take time out to help others and I for one will not forget that.
However, I don't fully agree with some of your points, although i do agree on some points:
Beige Bug
Its pink for a reason, its iron, one of the most abundant elements in the galaxy
Terrain Nerf
I point to the moon, gentle hummocks (if you get my drift) with large amounts of rigolith caused by solar radiation and cosmic bombardment over the eons
Adding eye candy but no tools to find it
In game tools are lacking, agreed.
Not adding any new exploring tools
What tools are required? Databases, different scanning methods? Personally I think its all moot, certain groups are given a heads up on new stuff anyway (and we got that from the "almost" horses mouth, wizard that he is) and many dig into the file data. Without a complete re-write of code/software, its not going to change. It's put me off exploring TBH and it was a part of the game I really enjoyed.
System Map degraded
Not so sure about this, i find it useful and I like the rotating planets. I do not like the lack of trade data.
Galaxy map degraded, verging on broken
Agreed. I can't select systems and trade routes etc are broken.
Sky Map Degraded with 'dust'
Do you mean zoom out on galaxy map or the horrible flash by dust in super-cruise? Either way I agree.
Total lack of love for explorers.
No one "loved" Scott or Oates til they died...
Yep. Choose more than one, the percentages don't add up, the top half is all Combat activities that could be rolled into an aggregate...that pink bar really means nothing by itself, OP.
Also, looking at Sandro's quotes posted earlier in this thead, it's starting to look like Frontier might be looking to cater to the can't-be-bothered's of Exploration, and that concerns me deeply.
Riôt
I wantz betta splorin' noaw
Hey Nutter, Ziggy, Ziljan !
I used to be an explorer like you guys, then I took .....
You know the rest
Hey Nutter, Ziggy, Ziljan !
I used to be an explorer like you guys, then I took .....
You know the rest
Perhaps more people would be aware of that if he'd started a thread called something like, oh I dunno, 'Let's talk about exploration gameplay' instead of passing comment on about page 65 of a thread which I dismissed over a week ago after reading the first couple of pages. Who knows, perhaps he will at the point some of this stuff ceases being filed under 'stuff I/we would like to maybe think about possibly doing, NO ETA NO GUARANTEES, I DIDN'T SAY THIS, YOU AIN'T SEEN ME, RIGHT?!' and actually turns into planned content. Probably just after the public beta test of the 118th iteration of shield balancing.
Don't get me wrong, it's great that he's replying and engaging in discusion and even better that he's talking about exploration mechanics - I mean just one thing that infuriates me at the moment is that despite having travelled over 120K LY and landed on countless planets since surface features such as fumeroles, geysers, odd fungi and vegitation etc were introduced, I have seen any of them exactly once when I took some tourists out to a lava location. That's because I really don't see flying fruitlessly down endless canyons and riverbeds at 2km altitude for three to four hours at a time as being especially thrilling gameplay - we're in the 3300s and the only reliable way we have of spotting these things is flying about 2000m above a planet and looking out of the window, what the actual frak is that all about?
Ultimately though, talk is cheap. I'm looking forward to action.
No Nutter you are in very numerous company. I know many explorers who have shelved the game due to the worsening of exploration, and many others who are playing less and less, and my galaxy map which used to be filled with green player icons is usually mostly empty nowadays. I am not far from putting the game away myself until exploration gets fixed / improved. Exploring has gotten worse since 1.0 for the reasons you've stated, and yeah it's a tragedy that the game's greatest asset, the galaxy, gets so incredibly little development priority.
You are not alone.
I do have some hope finally that Frontier might actually be waking up to this issue, but it's tepid hope at best. The neglected beige issue shows how little Frontier thinks of exploration, but Sandro has been talking about exploration more lately than he has in the past two and a half years combined, so I have a small spark of some hope that things might get better for explorers next year, for 2018. I don't expect anything for 2017 anymore though, they are on full Thargoid work detail, and that most likely means more combat content (sigh).
Not much we can do except for wait. I'll be mostly playing other games from here on out until exploration gets some honest to God development, if/when that comes to pass. Hopefully someday.
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I always shake my head when I see the lamentations of the dedicated explorer crowd. Don't get me wrong, as I said earlier, enhancements to the exploration aspect of the game certainly would not be a benefit to just the explorers but indeed all of the players in the game, even those who could care less about traveling from the bubble.
But I can't shake the feeling that you guys are missing out on so much of the rest of the game. Exploring the vastness of the galaxy is compelling stuff, but it's only a fraction of 1% of the actual gameplay and you guys are really missing out due to such a narrow focus. I want to see a deepening of the scientific aspect of the game, but in the meantime, there is the rest of the game to play.
But I can't shake the feeling that you guys are missing out on so much of the rest of the game. Exploring the vastness of the galaxy is compelling stuff, but it's only a fraction of 1% of the actual gameplay and you guys are really missing out due to such a narrow focus. I want to see a deepening of the scientific aspect of the game, but in the meantime, there is the rest of the game to play.
I can only speak for myself, but I've played pretty much every facet of the game, and exploration is the most compelling reason to keep playing for me. At least it was before 2.2, now I don't even have that really. Combat is fun in short spurts but it's not my cup of tea. Trading can be fun for a week or so but it's so uninteractive, it bores me to tears. Pirating needs development love too, but I am not that kind of player anyway. Mining I actually enjoy greatly, but again only in short spurts. Passenger missions are fun too, but it's basically sightseeing where others have explored before, and while I find it fun now and then it's not enough to keep me playing.
For me, Elite Dangerous is about exploring the galaxy, and if I can't enjoy that then I'd rather play something else. The other aspects to the game, while neat, are not enough to keep me interested and buying expansions + DLC.