No more high-range FSD buffs, thanks!

[Dommarraa]

Not sure what your gripe is here to be honest..

Is that people are now doing what it took you weeks to do?

Or are you just unhappy that players don't play the same as you?

Not bothered reading any of the thread I guess.
No, its not salt or jealousy, its that large jump ranges make the galaxy flat and monotonous, almost "beigification"
Where once there was a difference between the arms and the gaps between, where once you had to keep an eye on the local star populations to stay out of brown dwarf zones, where once you were wise to consider your height from the orbital plane, now its all irrelevant uniformity.
Might as well be an even distribution of stars in 10 kly x 10kly x 10kly cube.
Just plot your destination and do the thing that everyone agrees is tedious of honk scoop till you have arrived.

 

[TiberiusMaximus]

I do understand the whole “The journey adds to the experience and feeling of accomplishment angle”. I felt it last night on a little trip to the California Nebula. However the traveling in Elite is a barrier to actual gameplay, and bar a few different sun types to briefly stare at, is extremely boring.Elite already has a reputation for needing a second monitor, to entertain yourself while playing, which is not a good reputation for a game to have. Most of the time even just getting stuff done in the bubble takes hours, most of the time not being worth the effort and not interesting at all. It’s all about finding that sweet spot, that respects players time and also the vastness of the galaxy, and keeps the player hours up and stops us chewing through content too quickly - from Frontiers view point. Your opinion on this matter in very much in the minority, but all you have to do is not engineer your ship, job done. It’s all about options, you shouldn’t want to limit and restrict others gameplay times and experiences based on your opinion, especially when it has no effect on you, and you can just choose to not engage in Modifying your fsd, or simply weigh your ship down. All you points are subjective and based on your own circumstances . I’m sure you wouldn’t like it if they dropped the fsd range to 1ly? I propose that The same argument could be made for that, as you have here.

That’s my thoughts on the matter. I honestly think more travel time would be bad for the games popularity overall and therefore bad for its future (financially). I for one, would have stopped playing by now if it wasn’t for the Fsd upgrades, many of my friends have, citing the travel time as one of the main reasons they quit. I say no to space trucking! lol.

 

[Mengy]

Might as well be an even distribution of stars in 10 kly x 10kly x 10kly cube.
Just plot your destination and do the thing that everyone agrees is tedious of honk scoop till you have arrived.

Maybe I'm just not a skilled explorer, but even in my 58ly DBX I still have issues crossing between arms from time to time. I even need to use FSD boosts to cross when I'm out in the far reaches of the arms, tacking my way across the gaps.

I just don't feel this galaxy crunch that so many people keep complaining about.

 

[TiberiusMaximus]

Well, there was 6 or so pages before the morons arrived with...

Just don't do it
Fly a hobbled ship
There are different things you can do
Wah wah stop saying things I don't agree with

These are all valid counter points. I’m not even sure why you have posted this, if you don’t care about other peoples jump ranges. How does you retaining a lower jump range and others opting for the higher range, in any way effect your experience? I think you don’t like others getting around quickly. You feel that people shouldn’t be rewarded, for being what you view as lazy, and an affront to you, the purist, playing the game “the way it was intended”.

 

[Muetdhiver]

Maybe I'm just not a skilled explorer, but even in my 58ly DBX I still have issues crossing between arms from time to time. I even need to use FSD boosts to cross when I'm out in the far reaches of the arms, tacking my way across the gaps.

I just don't feel this galaxy crunch that so many people keep complaining about.

Me neither. Though I wish there were more hard to reach clusters out there, and stuff like the monoceros ring to provide high navigation challenges.

IMO, the best cure to making exploration actually a challenge (and I'm not counting being able to scoop, press J, wait, repeat for a thousand time as a show of skill) is :

• Stellar dangers, with high risk of getting into said danger when exiting in an unknown system.
• Introduce "terrain" to the galaxy. Places where navigation becomes difficult, maybe hyperspace troubles or whatnot. Terrain is usually what makes navigation a challenge*.

*Think of an expedition across a jungle : dangers and terrain is what makes it most challenging. Rivers, Cliffs, dense woods, dangerous animals, massive rains, etc...
ED exploration is a bit too much like "exploring" a neatly trimmed golf course at the moment.

 

[TiberiusMaximus]

This would be great. Not just taking longer to get to a set location.

 

[Dommarraa]

These are all valid counter points. I’m not even sure why you have posted this, if you don’t care about other peoples jump ranges. How does you retaining a lower jump range and others opting for the higher range, in any way effect your experience? I think you don’t like others getting around quickly. You feel that people shouldn’t be rewarded, for being what you view as lazy, and an affront to you, the purist, playing the game “the way it was intended”.

So people are allowed to complain about combat power creep, clinically obsessive engineer freaks have every whim catered for, but explorers are supposed to just suck it up?

 

[Han Zulu]

Maybe I'm just not a skilled explorer, but even in my 58ly DBX I still have issues crossing between arms from time to time. I even need to use FSD boosts to cross when I'm out in the far reaches of the arms, tacking my way across the gaps.

I just don't feel this galaxy crunch that so many people keep complaining about.

Same.

 

[Han Zulu]

Me neither. Though I wish there were more hard to reach clusters out there, and stuff like the monoceros ring to provide high navigation challenges.

Yup. Agree.

IMO, the best cure to making exploration actually a challenge (and I'm not counting being able to scoop, press J, wait, repeat for a thousand time as a show of skill) is :

• Stellar dangers, with high risk of getting into said danger when exiting in an unknown system.
• Introduce "terrain" to the galaxy. Places where navigation becomes difficult, maybe hyperspace troubles or whatnot. Terrain is usually what makes navigation a challenge*.

There are a couple of permit locked sections of the galaxy. It could be done there.

Besides, I actually thought the heat-danger hitting a binary was part of the fun. I know some ships couldn't take it very well, but that was part of the challenge though, to be alert.

*Think of an expedition across a jungle : dangers and terrain is what makes it most challenging. Rivers, Cliffs, dense woods, dangerous animals, massive rains, etc...
ED exploration is a bit too much like "exploring" a neatly trimmed golf course at the moment.

True.

And more to see like I wish there were accretion disks and roche-lobe overflow. And why not see some aurora borealis on some atmospheric planets. Meteors, and more. Perhaps solar flares/storms shouldn't be without consequence. Being hit by one resetting the system temporarily or something.

 

[Cold Earth]

So people are allowed to complain about combat power creep, clinically obsessive engineer freaks have every whim catered for, but explorers are supposed to just suck it up?

Calling people who have a different opinion to you “morons” isn’t a good way to make a point. If anything it just shows you don’t have a valid point to make. Having to jump more times or having to manually navigate more doesn’t make you more of an explorer than anyone else. Exploring uncharted territory makes you more of an explorer, however a larger jump range doesn’t affect this negatively, if anything it gives explorers more places to explore as you weren’t able to reach them before. It’s not as if the whole galaxy will ever be charted anyway.

There is absolutely nothing stopping you personally playing the game the way you did before the jump range increases. How does other people having larger jump ranges and easier route plotting negatively impact your personal playing experience?

 

[NW3]

I do understand the whole “The journey adds to the experience and feeling of accomplishment angle”. I felt it last night on a little trip to the California Nebula. However the traveling in Elite is a barrier to actual gameplay...

I think this is why there are such polarized opinions on jumps and supercruise: Traveling in Elite is a big part of the actual gameplay. If you don't like the "travel experience", you aren't going to like ED very much.

 

[crushdepth]

Maybe I'm just not a skilled explorer, but even in my 58ly DBX I still have issues crossing between arms from time to time. I even need to use FSD boosts to cross when I'm out in the far reaches of the arms, tacking my way across the gaps.

I just don't feel this galaxy crunch that so many people keep complaining about.

I don't know either. I just came back from the Formidine Rift / Zurara, and with a 60LY anaconda I could not brute force my way across the gap in the arms (although probably you could on the inner arms). For one thing the route plotter dies, and you just have no choice but to pick out a route manually. I have previously made it across without stopping in a 40 LY asp by eyeballing higher density clusters of stars and rolling with them, rather than trying to follow a straight line. Neither way was actually difficult. The only real danger was forgetting about the fuel gauge during 'highway hypnosis' of too many load screens.

Bottom line is that exploration has been pitifully neglected since launch, and waiting another year for some "improvements"...yeah nah I don't think so.

 

[Cmdr Aeries Hunter]

Maybe to offset this increased jump range, there could be a certain amount of danger added. For example, any FSD that can get over 42Ly has a higher and higher chance (the closer you get to 70Ly range) of a mis-jump, or other malfunction, or damage to the FSD or ending up lost in witchspace. Something to make those bigger jumps risky. It would be capped at a certain level once it hits the 70LY range. Just a thought.

 

[Kaltern]

How about 'The way I play, the distance I jump and the money I make, has absolutely no bearing on OP's or anyone elses game, in any way whatsoever.'

I fail to see what distance one person can jump is of anyone elses concern.

 

[TiberiusMaximus]

So people are allowed to complain about combat power creep, clinically obsessive engineer freaks have every whim catered for, but explorers are supposed to just suck it up?

I don’t know what a power creep is, but it sounds rather unpleasant. I personally don’t think any of these suggestions are any good, and poorly thought out, or just null. It’s fine to make constructive suggestions and even complain in a certain manner. Exploration is terribly underwhelming in ED, as with many of elements of the game,to be honest I think Frontier took on way too much. I think the help and guidance of a publisher was much needed and of course, more funding,skills and experience would have been nice. I fear the galaxy that they created will only be done Justice toward the end of the games lifecycle. Hopefully for the next Elite game Frontier will be better funded and more mature (for lack if a better word).

Not to say it’s all doom and gloom. ED is just hitting its stride (FINALLY). I’m sure theres lots of good stuff coming in the near future.

 

[kofeyh]

There are several billion stars, with an almost infinitely large number of bodies contained. Pretending there is an issue to solve -- that holy wow we might be able to visit just a few more of them, in any given time period -- is a bit like complaining that how dare someone use a shovel to collect sand to measure by volume, when someone else is measuring the same beach with a spoon.

Neither of those people are going to empty a beach of sand; even thousands of people with shovels would not be able to impact the Elite 'beach'.

What are people trying to solve here? Is it this notion that exploration maybe should be some noble, exclusive occupation, that only very few people should do because they are rare and special; or are people genuinely terrified we'll somehow discover it all; as if that's even plausible?

We can't discover it all. We will never discover it all. We won't even discover a statistically relevant percentage, that isn't simply in a margin of error, in even a 10 year life-cycle. Whether or not one can make it across the galaxy in a day or so, or a week or so, doesn't really actually matter in the cosmological scale of things.

It matters little, if I run barefoot across the beach, or zip across it in a land-yacht; the beach is still the same beach, with endless grains of sand.

 

[Surprised Brony]

There are several billion stars, with an almost infinitely large number of bodies contained. Pretending there is an issue to solve -- that holy wow we might be able to visit just a few more of them, in any given time period -- is a bit like complaining that how dare someone use a shovel to collect sand to measure by volume, when someone else is measuring the same beach with a spoon.

Neither of those people are going to empty a beach of sand; even thousands of people with shovels would not be able to impact the Elite 'beach'.

What are people trying to solve here? Is it this notion that exploration maybe should be some noble, exclusive occupation, that only very few people should do because they are rare and special; or are people genuinely terrified we'll somehow discover it all; as if that's even plausible?

We can't discover it all. We will never discover it all. We won't even discover a statistically relevant percentage, that isn't simply in a margin of error, in even a 10 year life-cycle. Whether or not one can make it across the galaxy in a day or so, or a week or so, doesn't really actually matter in the cosmological scale of things.

It matters little, if I run barefoot across the beach, or zip across it in a land-yacht; the beach is still the same beach, with endless grains of sand.

This is true. That people consider navigating (AKA sitting in galmap looking for a path) one of the only challenging and fun activities for explorers shows that exploration needs improvement. Navigation is kind of a staple of exploring, but it gets easier as tech advances. This galaxy isn't ever going to be fully explored. Most other sandbox games take 30 minutes to an hour to cross the map. This one still beats that by a long shot.

I didn't particularly want huge jump range increases past the 60-70 we have now, but it's not going to hurt a thing if it happens anyway.

 

[relayer]

There are players who would like to travel long distances, with the knowledge that there is a certain minimum of effort required to get there. Each update to Elite seems bent on reducing that effort more and more, devaluing the efforts of those who had gone before, and I like to see that stop.

We [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September"]said the same thing about the Internet in 1993[/URL].

 

[Jack Schitt]

I fail to see what distance one person can jump is of anyone elses concern.

It isn't, at least not directly. But the distance I could jump, even if I choose not to, is of concern to me for reasons already discussed. When I'm out in the black and the display tells me it's 12,000 light years to Sol the illusion works for me, and it works in part because I know that if I wanted to get back to the bubble it'd involve a considerable investment in time. And yes, it would be monotonous and repetitive and even a bit boring. But that's why the illusion works.

If I knew that drives existed that could move a ship 12,000 light years in, say, ten minutes, that illusion would be gone even if I didn't have one of those drives fitted. The game would still be just as pretty when sitting out in the void, but the numbers wouldn't mean anything. There is a risk that one of the aspects of the 1:1 galaxy, that feeling of isolation that some players experience but others don't, could be lost to all players.

(Analogies rarely work, but what the hell: it's a bit like when people say, "the world got a lot smaller after the age of jet airliners." The globe didn't physically shrink, but accessibility between locations became easier. The East Coast of the USA used to be three days away from the UK by steamer. Now it's six hours by aircraft. It feels closer somehow, even if you're not on the aircraft. It's all about perception).
​

Spoiler

[...] the core of this disagreement can't be solved with code because it isn't a technical problem, it's a perceptual problem.

When I perform a hyperspace jump in ED it's enough to convince me, in that moment, that I've just ripped a hole in spacetime and sent thousands of tonnes of hardware multiple light-years across the galaxy. Even though I know what the code is doing underneath, loading assets and setting up instances. Even though I know the distances are just numbers on a screen. Even though I know it's going to take me ten minutes of real time to get the ship to where I want it in the game. The illusion that I choose to buy into is enough to overcome those things. The simulation that isn't a simulation works, and the choices imposed by the range limitations make sense in the fantasy world FD have created for me to play in. Even though I know.

Other players see nothing but loading screens and wasted time, and would happily sacrifice any of the things that make the simulation work for players like me in order to minimise or even eliminate them. They just want their ship to be where they need it ASAP, with a minimum of barriers.

[...]

A single set of rules that would keep all of those players happy at the same time is impossible, even if the code could support it.

And I realise that a lot, possibly the majority, of players either don't understand that or do understand but would happily remove it anyway in favour of ever longer jump ranges. That's fine. But what you can't do is act like there's no logical argument for it. There is. It's very subjective, but it's still a valid reason.

The problem with blanket range creep is that it can only ever get bigger or stay the same. Nothing will ever reduce it again, because players would rightfully revolt. It might stop at an arbitrary point, or it might keep going until the galaxy feels tiny. We just don't know. That's why some of us are concerned.

What's needed is a way to allow increases, even continuous increases over time, of jump range within occupied space but not in the wider galaxy. One way to achieve this might be MadDogMurdock's suggestion, although I'd remove the nerf to exploration ranges and just keep the buff for the bubble. I advise anyone who joined the thread late or otherwise skipped it to have a read and give it some consideration as a starting point. I honestly think it might be the answer to what a lot of people are asking for, without stepping on other players' enjoyment of the game.

 

[Rock-Hermit]

What are people trying to solve here? Is it this notion that exploration maybe should be some noble, exclusive occupation, that only very few people should do because they are rare and special; or are people genuinely terrified we'll somehow discover it all; as if that's even plausible?

Neither.

The issue is exploration and traveling the galaxy was already simplistic to begin with. It did have some regions and far off places that challenged the player and gave the galaxy character very early on. Those few strands of challenge and stories of mysterious far off places, like the Abyss and Tenebris, gave the galaxy some character at one point, and gave rise to famous routes and stories of pioneering trips etc. Now things like the 20K ly plotter makes pathfinding mute, star filters make discovery of interesting non-sequence stars mute as now with a click of a button we can at a glance highlight all the juicy targets, and engineered ships have made long distance journeys a walk in the park. There are no more pioneers because the landscape has been shrunk and been homogenised with the power creep and qol additions. And yes, no one is forced to use them, but that's not the point and those that use it as one are clueless to the underlying issues.

If the galaxy had real character and hazardous regions and no-go areas to begin with, like regions of high danger or navigational issues to overcome where the power creep and quality of life additions would eventually make it at least possible to attempt to travel to and explore, I don't think there'd be an issue like this raised by the OP. But exploring and travelling was already simple and dangerless from the day the game was released. The only frontier left now are the outer rim stars or those high above or below the plane, and even that's a bit of a fallacy when you can take a 60 or 70 ly ship and buckyball out to them in a few hours just to jump a little further than the last guy.

A 1:1 scale galaxy they gave us, and its furthest places have been tamed within 3 years of release. The gameworld Frontier Devs created could have been something unique, not just in the number of locations it has, but how the galaxy itself could have been seeded with a variety of vast regions that challenged the player to conquer for years and years to come. In reality its now, barely 3 years in, a trivialized and homogeneous blob, but some people like that simplicity and love all the new changes that make the game more and more casual and things like exploration and travel even more trivial, some people don't and instead see the missed potential for a deeper experience if a semblance of thought in the beginning had been put into the background world we were given. At this point the discussions are often about how many loading screens someone can bare when traveling somewhere, and no longer about what the best ship to use or what loadout to fit, and what path to take to reach region X. Some people won't be happy until beagles point is 200 loading screens away from Sol, then someone else will then moan that it should be no more than 100. I think that's the argument as far as I can see, or at least that's where it'll eventually head someday as everyone has a different line in the sand that's acceptable to them and their style of play. Frontier constantly side with the easy mode folks, always have and always will. They're the developers and know what sells, and that's the bottom line.

The argument isn't about making exploration exclusive to the few masochists out there that still appreciate the sense of scale, or about the instant-gratification crowd who want to discover it all asap. It's about finding a balance between constant qol additions and power creep, and keeping things a challenging experience by adding more varied environments and content to overcome, or even better- adding travel and navigational mechanics that are actually enjoyable to use and cut down the monotony by stimulating the mind, not skipping as much of it as possible by ever increasing jump ranges. We keep getting the qol stuff, but nothing else. That's exactly what earns a game the 'a mile wide but an inch deep' tag.

It isn't, at least not directly. But the distance I could jump, even if I choose not to, is of concern to me for reasons already discussed. When I'm out in the black and the display tells me it's 12,000 light years to Sol the illusion works for me, and it works in part because I know that if I wanted to get back to the bubble it'd involve a considerable investment in time. And yes, it would be monotonous and repetitive and even a bit boring. But that's why the illusion works.

If I knew that drives existed that could move a ship 12,000 light years in, say, ten minutes, that illusion would be gone even if I didn't have one of those drives fitted. The game would still be just as pretty when sitting out in the void, but the numbers wouldn't mean anything. There is a risk that one of the aspects of the 1:1 galaxy, that feeling of isolation that some players experience but others don't, could be lost to all players.

(Analogies rarely work, but what the hell: it's a bit like when people say, "the world got a lot smaller after the age of jet airliners." The globe didn't physically shrink, but accessibility between locations became easier. The East Coast of the USA used to be three days away from the UK by steamer. Now it's six hours by aircraft. It feels closer somehow, even if you're not on the aircraft. It's all about perception).
​And I realise that a lot, possibly the majority, of players either don't understand that or do understand but would happily remove it anyway in favour of ever longer jump ranges. That's fine. But what you can't do is act like there's no logical argument for it. There is. It's very subjective, but it's still a valid reason.

The problem with blanket range creep is that it can only ever get bigger or stay the same. Nothing will ever reduce it again, because players would rightfully revolt. It might stop at an arbitrary point, or it might keep going until the galaxy feels tiny. We just don't know. That's why some of us are concerned.

What's needed is a way to allow increases, even continuous increases over time, of jump range within occupied space but not in the wider galaxy. One way to achieve this might be MadDogMurdock's suggestion, although I'd remove the nerf to exploration ranges and just keep the buff for the bubble. I advise anyone who joined the thread late or otherwise skipped it to have a read and give it some consideration as a starting point. I honestly think it might be the answer to what a lot of people are asking for, without stepping on other players' enjoyment of the game.

Also this