Still as Inconvenient as Possible to Play

[MrFailfactory]

Did you REALLY just tell people to "do your ingame research at work, in your lunchbreak, so you can take that information home to play a game"

You are advocating (presumably in all seriousness) that a player uses thier lunch break to do thier homework***, so they don't have have an issue while using a VR headset, because the game they are playing with VR headset has ​

NO MECHANISMS TO DELIVER SUCH DATA IN GAME.​

I might be wrong, and not to put words in his mouth, but it seemed to me that he was simply offering up a valid solution to a problem. There are people in the world who just complain, and there are those who roll up their sleeves, get to work, and solve the problem. Even if the solution isn't necessarily optimal, a workable solution is better than none.

This is not true everywhere, but it is reasonable to assume that someone is not paid for their lunch break, ergo, they can use that time however they wish. It is also reasonable to assume that anyone capable of posting on this forum is also likely to have a mobile device that is Internet-capable.

I don't have VR myself, but I'm pretty sure data delivery limitations have more to do with the individual headgear, and less to do with Frontier. As I understand it, neither Oculus nor Vive had this capability out of the box, and both require some added extra (hardware or software) to make that kind of thing work. I'm not really sure how that would be Frontier's fault, but you seem really certain that it is.

Riôt

​

 

[piercehead]

3) They are not needed. They are useful. There is a difference. This is my point. Someone said they are required. I maintain they are not required but very useful. There is a difference. Required would mean its impossible to find stuff without the sites. Useful means it helps, quite a lot.

I remember playing an old game called Firelord:

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/LV6NuszNvjI/hqdefault.jpg

Completely agree. While some people maintain it's pretty much impossible to trade without 3rd party assistance, it's already pretty simple (though admittedly requires more time and effort) to find decent routes, but the next patch will definitely make it much easier to stay in game. The more recent changes (e.g. taking food for famine) have already made it more realistic and profitable, as well as improving gameplay; I'm sure we'll only get more of this, and maybe even a way for people who can't be bothered to explore a bit further than 1 system for everything they want

As for Firelord, I can hear the walking audio just from looking at that pic

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I agree with a fair bit of your post, but i do disagree with this. darnielle's progress as the source of meta alloys is surely impossible to find without stepping out of the game, and in a scale sim of the galaxy, it's basically infinite grains of sand all the way or getting very, very lucky. same for guardians and other related content. i honestly can't think of any game where paid add ons are not referenced with regards how to get things started, and it's pretty unusual to not have *some* sort of indicator for base content too. it almost feels like they put up artificial barriers in place to deliberately never have you find it *unless* you step out of the gameworld.

I noted in an earlier post they could do with getting more info into the game, especially lore related stuff to help people get started with that stuff. Maybe a lore archive section to Galnet where important info is stored, like where meta alloys are found, where thatgoid and guardian stuff can be found/triggered.

However, was mainly talking about things the third party tools covered.

Looks like for the Q4 update some of the features of EDSM will no longer be "required" either.

 

[Avago Earo]

IN A GAME THAT WAS ONE OF THE FIRST TO BE DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY AROUND VR!!!!!!!!!

No, It wasn't

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Max....... this has to be your best one yet....

Did you REALLY just tell people to "do your ingame research at work, in your lunchbreak, so you can take that information home to play a game"

You are advocating (presumably in all seriousness) that a player uses thier lunch break to do thier homework***, so they don't have have an issue while using a VR headset, because the game they are playing with VR headset has NO MECHANISMS TO DELIVER SUCH DATA IN GAME.

and just to hammer the point home - IN A GAME THAT WAS ONE OF THE FIRST TO BE DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY AROUND VR!!!!!!!!! holy mother of deus.......

Not allowed to state what I think of such nonsensical statements, or I'll get another timeout.

***You are also making the monumentally naive assumption that they even have access to a computer in their lunchbreak, because everyone uses a computer for work.... or works where there is an internet connection... right?

(Plumber - "'scuse me love - I've not finished fixing your washing machine, but I'm just gonna take a quick break to eat my Panini (he's a posh plumber) - can I have your wi-fi password so I can look up some information about a game I play?"

"what do you mean GET OUT!!!!!? I just want to look up the trade data for Tionisla? " *shrill shouting in the background*

It might be news to you but there are a lot of places of work where there is a HARDLINE internet connection for business purposes, but NO WI-FI, and NO HARDLINE CONNECTION TO THE INTERNET FOR STAFF USAGE- for security reasons, and to prevent staff "lounging about" using their phones to browse crap instead of working.

Maxfactor - living in the modern world since.. err never.

Grow up. It's a game. Big deal. I have stated again and again that information should be available to you within the game in some form. But if you do not know where stuff is as the game doesn't tell you, do your research before you start playing, so you do not need to interrupt your play time especially when in VR.

Is it really that difficult for you guys to get your head around this pretty simple idea.

No, It wasn't

Actually it was designed with VR in mind.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

please tell me, if i'm trying to do the farseer mission with a headset on, how to randomly discover that meta alloys are sold in darnielle's progress without the chance happening of me landing there in a replica of the known galaxy, when the game does not tell you where to obtain said alloys?

you're telling me to not actively perform a game task, in game, that i'm trying to do while in the game, but instead wait till i'm not playing it on a lunch break of all things, to start digging around on forums or reddit to discover how to obtain something to start a set of ingame objectives when i'm back in the game?

wouldn't it be easier to literally put one line of text on the requirements page that says "buy these at darnielle's progress" instead of performing the utterly surreal "play but not really play until you're out of the game and can look it up on some website" routine you're suggesting as a better alternative?

If you can't find out the knowledge or it isnt in the game, find it however you want to. You can do it while playing with VR which is a massive inconvenience or do it before. Obviously in game is preferable for all of us if possible.

 

[Ydiss]

High tech filters (with large population) is the best option in game, OP got unlucky. The shipyard side of things has always been about experience (knowing the area) Or just simply asking another cmdr or heading to a third party site.

Below are the well known stations, known to anyone with experience in the game. Do your homework guys..

Empire space

Faust 68 -
Beta-1 Tucanae,
Beta-2 Tucanae,
CD-54 9671

Fed Space

Bhritzameno
EZ AQUARII
GRoombridge 34


Guaranteed every ship

Shinrarta Dezhra
Isola-Prospect


Would definitely recommend Inara with ED market connector installed, tracks everything for you, amazing tool.

I think his point was he found himself outside of the game doing exactly what you're suggesting, realised he wasn't playing the game and stopped playing because of the absurdity of it.

He has a point.

I spent a huge amount of my time playing this game with it minimised while I updated spreadsheets, browsed inara for help with engineers or used trade search engines.

At least now it seems like the latter will be less required soon. But, for the most part, the ideology that good game play is to be had from travelling for up to several hours scouring high tech systems for the specific ships and parts is tenuous, at best.

I just put up with it. I never felt it added anything to the game though. It just felt like a forced mechanic to ensure that we spent a lot of time travelling and taking notes (lots and lots and lots of notes all outside of the game). Most of those notes are completely obsolete now, by the way. Both because I don't stay in one region forever and also because they're outdated. As soon as I realised I could use a third party search engine (which was not that long after the game launched) I never did this "fun" search again in game. Third party tool, every time, all the time. And it must have saved me days of mindless guesswork in total. Huge improvement to my enjoyment of the game.

The thing that's a bit contradictory here is these arguments have been made time immemorial against people saying it should be possible to access trade data remotely. The exact same arguments.

Yet, here we are getting those remote tools. And it's about time.

But, if someone dares asks for the ability to remotely view shipyard information... Best get that flame proof suit on, boyo!

As someone who played this game and spent time here since launch, yet has been away for around a year, returning to these threads again really does remind me how resistant to QoL this community can be. Just for the sake of "not having it handed on a plate".

As if this particular "feature" requires some kind of skill they've honed over years of practice. Nope, you just did what I did. Guessed dozens of times and remembered the best spots or wrote them all down. And now most of us just minimise, search, off you go...

It was fun for about 5 seconds. For someone who just wants to play the game (which, even if outfitting was removed entirely from the game, would still require a huge time investment) this is not an enjoyable experience. Which is exactly the reason the vast majority of us do use third party tools to find literally everything we need in the game without the dire requirement of guesswork.

Having access to information in game would be an enhancement because we use third party tools to get that information quickly. It's patently false when some people say "you want it handed to you on a plate" when it literally is handed to us on a plate by crowd sourced third party tools.

 

[lokvette]

Actually it was designed with VR in mind.

When I think about this I look at the game its what coming into its 4th year now and then scratch my head at what is missing, Not that I have VR, but isnt VR all about the imersion. I know people can look stuff up when not in game but then the game is becoming more like a job or I guess you could say hobby, If or when I ever get VR I dont want to have to do pre flight checks on stuff or take the thing off just because I want to check the price of bio waste at the station I have a mission to.

This is game time 3304, aka a 1000 years from now and we can jump from one ship to a ship 65k light years away but cant get data for mats 4 ly away..I know its coming but even though its somthing I want to look at and even going to go into beta to do so, I do wonder how long it will be before I start useing EDDB again.

 

[acg515]

Shinrahrta Dezhra, loser!

 

[Anachronda]

Two car dealerships on opposite sides of the world are still orders of magnitude closer to each other than any two stations in Elite. It may not be good game design but from a scenario standpoint it's not at all implausible.

Uh, no it is completely implausible. In-universe galaxy-wide communications are a thing. Look at Galnet. The warrant system. And the fact you can get system data that includes all services offered among other things. There's no way people would not be able to find out what ships are commonly offered at a dealership, much like today. Hell they'd probably have commercials!

 

[Anachronda]

Yeah, no logic in having an absolute baseline game mechanic - where to buy ships or modules - available in game, right? Better to fly aimlessly from station to station across endless systems or start digging through a bunch of 3rd party websites instead.

Do you think it makes sense for the devs to have spent so much time and effort making this game work amazingly in vr, only to completely ruin the experience due to having to remove the helmet every 10 minutes to find out from a website where an item/ship/module is located?

If you want an even slightly less "you gotta be kidding me" experience, you have to buy ovrdrop for vive or make use of the recent oculus additions.

Hardly the "I want it now" crowd, unless you mean "I want the absolute bare minimum feature in a game about spaceships to allow me to modify my spaceship to exist" crowd.

Interesting point about the VR, there. I don't have it myself, but I wonder about one thing - I noticed in looking into Oculus Rift that it apparently has a facility to show any application in a VR setting, like the future and all. Check out the videos on their site. It makes me wonder if there is some kind of workaround where you can switch applications in-game, since it seems to let you see all the windows and pick them by touch?

 

[Ydiss]

Uh, no it is completely implausible. In-universe galaxy-wide communications are a thing. Look at Galnet. The warrant system. And the fact you can get system data that includes all services offered among other things. There's no way people would not be able to find out what ships are commonly offered at a dealership, much like today. Hell they'd probably have commercials!

It's one of the "reasons" some people said trade data wasn't available remotely. FD obviously disagree with this reason.

I'm 99% sure that the reason we don't have these features is because they're low priority (that it took FD over four years to introduce trade tools confirms that, for me). And the main reason they're low priority is because we have third party tools.

I've never let that bother me like it bothers the OP. I've just used the third party tools. Like the vast majority of people in this thread do, most likely.

It just comes across so disingenuous when they say "it's realistic" or "you just want it handed to you on a plate" or whatever flimsy excuse they trot out to justify the current design.

It's a self confirming circle... We have limited information in game for a number of mechanics. Most of us use third party tools to get that information freely and quickly. It's therefore a truism to say the game would be improved with enhanced tools to get that information. To claim otherwise is only valid if we assume no one uses the third party tools.

The only valid argument against the OP is to say FD shouldn't prioritise in game tools because we have third party tools. But there is no valid argument against the OP's opinion that it's counter intuitive to their enjoyment of the game that they use third party tools.

They're absolutely correct. The tools make the game easier to enjoy (in the context of someone who doesn't mind minimising the game to get information). For anyone who doesn't want to use third party tools, their enjoyment can be significantly reduced.

If it was fun trawling through systems to get what we need via educated guesswork, then no one would use third party tools to circumnavigate this "game play".

 

[Rafe Zetter]

Completely agree. While some people maintain it's pretty much impossible to trade without 3rd party assistance, it's already pretty simple (though admittedly requires more time and effort) to find decent routes, but the next patch will definitely make it much easier to stay in game. The more recent changes (e.g. taking food for famine) have already made it more realistic and profitable, as well as improving gameplay; [snip]

I do take your point, and I do agree to some extent - I don't think it's impossible to trade without this information, and I'm also not advocating that it's mandatory either.... confused?

My whole problem with this topic is posters who are continually saying that stations would not talk to each other, they would not exchange data of any kind and that doing so would lead to "can see the whole galaxy at the touch of a button" equivalent to an iWIN button - even to the extent of stations only a few jumps from each other being totally blind to each other status / market details and shipyard information.

All the while fully accepting the ability for station requirements on CG's to be broadcast to all inhabitants within the bubble via Galnet - and I'm assuming we can all agree that Galnet (for the purposes of ingame events and lore) is the equivalent of a galaxy wide news service, yes?

The two situations are so diamentrically opposed, that the possibility of both existing in a vacuum (not the vacuum of space) without crossover AT ANY POINT is frankly one of the most absurd hypothesis I've ever come across on the internet.

There have been so many suggestions of how the trade and station data will migrate between stations - all of which, of the ones I've read in this thread and ALL THE OTHERS on this particular topic, which is quite a few - have REAL TIME, REAL WORLD ANALOGUES EXISTING, RIGHT NOW.

And yet some people keep rejecting these suggestions with : "no, coz reasons" time and time and time again, with no hint of irony or sarcasm to be found.

Throughout human history, your species has found ways to transmit data from one group to another; sometimes in the most ingenious of ways, and have been doing so for millenia and yet at presumably the pinnacle of human technological development - they can't do it anymore.

Staggering the lengths some people will go to to try and support an unsupportable argument.

The data is IN THE GAME - it's there, somewhere, all we are asking for is a way to access it remotely WITHOUT, having to fly to every system to get a "copy" of it - even if only to a 5j limit; and if that isn't possible for reasons to do with the P2P system or FDevs coding, then we'd like to know, so we can stop arguing over this topic for the 50th time, and just accept that that is a limitation of the game that cannot be surmounted.

There's nothing wrong with "can't do it, now or the forseeable future", everything has limits, but it's the lack (again) of honesty and frankness by FDev that continues to irritate (alongside the cret.... players who try to dream up reasons other than real world realities of delivering such a system, as to why it shouldn't exist.)

Edit: OK... Darkfyre99 - just gave a good answer below VVV - that makes ingame sense, so some of what I said is now defunct, but I'm too tired to edit it out.

 

[Darkfyre99]

When I think about this I look at the game its what coming into its 4th year now and then scratch my head at what is missing, Not that I have VR, but isnt VR all about the imersion. I know people can look stuff up when not in game but then the game is becoming more like a job or I guess you could say hobby, If or when I ever get VR I dont want to have to do pre flight checks on stuff or take the thing off just because I want to check the price of bio waste at the station I have a mission to.

You don't have to. It says right in the game that biowaste is consumed by Agricultural economies, and produced by everyone else. If you're not traveling to an Agricultural economy, then don't bring the biowaste. If there's a reason beyond trading biowaste to travel to that system, then the exact price isn't important.

You can do this with every commodity in the game. The basic principle is easy enough to understand. The fun part is how multiple economies, plus government types, affect what is produced or demanded. Once you've mastered this skill, the only surprises left is player activity.

If you don't find that kind of thing fun, Frontier has kindly provided support to 3rd party sites to make it easy to crowd source that information for you. Personally, I've found those 3rd party sites to be only slightly better than my own skills at everyday trading. I don't mind not making an extra 5% in profits if I have fun doing so, and the time I save by not consulting those websites for the "perfect" trade more than makes up the difference.

I also consider those sites less than reliable when it comes to trade CGs. Those sites require constant updating from players, and the type of player who relies on those sites always goes for the low hanging fruit. Every trade CG I've participated in, I'm constantly amused by the complaints about how all the highly-profitable commodity sources have "dried up," and they have to travel three or four jumps away. Meanwhile, I'm still a jump away from the CG system, raking in the profits from sources those sites always miss.

I look forward to seeing how the new in game trading tools will affect this.

This is game time 3304, aka a 1000 years from now and we can jump from one ship to a ship 65k light years away but cant get data for mats 4 ly away..I know its coming but even though its somthing I want to look at and even going to go into beta to do so, I do wonder how long it will be before I start useing EDDB again.

There are two reasons why this is so.

In the game's universe itself, the Pilots' Federation has a virtual monopoly on information travelling between the stars. If you ignore Telepresence as the anomaly it is, all of the game's mechanics are based upon large amounts of data travelling faster aboard ships than they do by whatever FTL communications the Pilots' Federation uses for Galnet. Furthermore, the PF's wealth and power, equal to that of the Empire and Federation themselves (sorry Alliance), are derived from using that monopoly to maximize their profits, and an efficiently running economy isn't a very profitable one.

It always amuses me that in the sea of grey and gray morality that is the Elite Universe, one of the darkest shades of grey is the Pilots' Federation: aka the players. The Pilots' Federation acts as if the rest of the galaxy exists solely for our own amusement and profits.

The out of universe explanation is that many players find exploration fun. Exploration of in game locations, of in game mechanics, or even player activity. Frontier Developments has designed a game that they want to play, and they also apparently find that kind of exploration fun as well. They have designed a game where you have to go exploring, even in inhabited space, to learn what's out there. Even the new trade tools makes this a requirement to maximize their use.

For the players who don't enjoy this kind of exploration, Frontier has kindly provided support for 3rd party sites to make the game easier for them.

edit:

8< snip >8

My whole problem with this topic is posters who are continually saying that stations would not talk to each other, they would not exchange data of any kind and that doing so would lead to "can see the whole galaxy at the touch of a button" equivalent to an iWIN button - even to the extent of stations only a few jumps from each other being totally blind to each other status / market details and shipyard information.

8< snip >8

see above

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

When I think about this I look at the game its what coming into its 4th year now and then scratch my head at what is missing, Not that I have VR, but isnt VR all about the imersion. I know people can look stuff up when not in game but then the game is becoming more like a job or I guess you could say hobby, If or when I ever get VR I dont want to have to do pre flight checks on stuff or take the thing off just because I want to check the price of bio waste at the station I have a mission to.

This is game time 3304, aka a 1000 years from now and we can jump from one ship to a ship 65k light years away but cant get data for mats 4 ly away..I know its coming but even though its somthing I want to look at and even going to go into beta to do so, I do wonder how long it will be before I start useing EDDB again.

When I play in VR I don't look at any other out of game tools as they normally are not needed. Generally if there is a mission to take certain commodities to a system, it is highly likely that you can trade with the same commodity in that system with a profit. I also look up system state and economy type which is readily available in game to get a good idea on what is profitable or not.

But saying that the new trade data is going to be a massive improvement and I will use it as the tools look fun and interesting to use.

As to the jump to another ship 65k ly away, well I hate that mechanic (galaxy wide instant telepresence). It makes parts of the game make little to no sense, so I ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist within the ED lore.

 

[Rafe Zetter]

see above

Yeah I did - I added an edit to mine saying as such.

A well thought out explanation of the possible ingame realities.

The bit about "FDev designed this so people can explore to get that data" while quite possibly being the truth, only works for the first time, after that it's an unwarranted or desired shlep.

The current system they are proposing is your ship* only stores data of places you've visited - so lets hope that two things occurr:

1 - that station information is retained regardless of ship loss (wow, that's a whole new fight right there). PLEASE DO NOT GIVE US ANOTHER EXPLORATION DATA scenario.
2 - this information is held in perpituity.

should #3 happen at some point in the distant future - the bubbles economy goes "live" - that system data will ALSO become "live access" because anything else will be utterly pointless. (zero reason to store trading data that can change the very second you undock).

*I am saying your SHIP stores the data and not some personal device, because if that were possible, they would have done that for exploration data rather than subject players to losing hundred of millions of credits worth of data just yards away from delivering it because of A-hole griefers.

 

[hookandsling]

OH! See the entire galaxy at the click of a button. The I want it now crowd. Hope it never happens.

Dude. We already have that. It's called Inara and for a lot of people it kinda breaks the immersion (me included).

 

[ChrisF0001]

Okay, so I've skipped reading a couple of pages of this, but I still find it faintly amusing that some people seem to be outraged at the idea that Elite is a setting where all interstellar communication is done by courier ships when the mission boards are often full of data delivery missions. At least some of the time it's us, the pilots, who are doing that data transfer. I don't understand why people have a problem with that part of the lore.

...Particularly as it isn't really a problem for any other point that anyone seems to be trying to make. FTL communications, courier ships, whatever, the information gets around by whatever means. The issue here seems to be that in-game, for whatever reason, it's not freely available, but that has nothing to do with the medium. All it means is that it's not free, as in beer. Someone paid for the data to be moved and either they charge for it (I have after all paid for 'trade' / exploration data for systems I haven't been to) or keep it to themselves. Exact price lists I'd always assumed were unavailable for the second of those reasons, that in the lore there was some nonsense reason about keeping exact profit margins secret, causing a bit more randomness in the economy or something, I don't know. I thought I read it somewhere, I don't remember. It might have been in 1984 or another game even. I'm not sure it matters.

Anyway, my point is, FTL Comms or Courier Ships is irrelevant. What is relevant, lore-wise as it were, is that the people who control the information moving around don't just give it out for free to anyone who asks, and it certainly seems to me that we are now so used to it in real life that some people seem to find that idea outrageous. It doesn't mean that the fictional civilisation of Elite cannot function!

Personally, I don't know what these new trade tools are going to look like, but I wouldn't object to being able to add data for systems I've never been to, for a modest fee, if I was in a nearby system. That would seem pretty reasonable. But I'd still use EDDB, because I've come to expect to look things up about games on the internet ever since I started playing Final Fantasy in the 90's...

 

[Lucifera Danzig]

What is relevant, lore-wise as it were, is that the people who control the information moving around don't just give it out for free to anyone who asks, and it certainly seems to me that we are now so used to it in real life that some people seem to find that idea outrageous.

Indeed.

*cough**Net Neutrality Repealed**cough*...

 

[Alodia]

If you can't find out the knowledge or it isnt in the game, find it however you want to. You can do it while playing with VR which is a massive inconvenience or do it before. Obviously in game is preferable for all of us if possible.

right, so again: at this point we're not even talking about a system to tell you where to buy modules or ships. we're simply talking about an engineer requirement - alloys - in terms of where to obtain them. or how to start the engineer quest. you admit yourself it's an inconvenience - there's no logical reason why we have these paid content fetch quests, with no way to begin the fetching without leaving the game.

if a player doesn't want to dig around on a bunch of random forums, or search posts on here, or reddit, or fly around aimlessly forever until they hit darnielle or the guardian quest station, or if they have no idea the game doesn't include this stuff but don't know about third party website tools or where to find them - and i regularly see people who land on some of those sites and then clog up forums still further with "how do i use the thing" alongside the endless stream of "where's the alloy" posts - their only available option is "stop looking and probably play something else".

and when it gets to the point of "download this program, plug this tool into that website and use the data to..." my goodness, no. ask fdev why they won't put one line of text on the requirements page that says "available from this port, or go hunt bug bases", or flag the starbase for guardian missions on the map instead.

as i said earlier, there seem to be two stances on this. "just use the tools", or "tools aren't needed".

if you're in the middle and think the tools *are* needed because you don't want to fly around hunting for a class 3 cargo rack, but you also object to having to break immersion from the gameworld to do so, there's no room at the inn.