Does Frontier hate explorers?

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

Q4 is not going to save exploration. It will add many more hurdles though.

This, unfortunately, I agree with

 

[kofeyh]

Inara reports that of its 135,489 logged CMDRs:

• 9.9% have reached Combat Elite
• 23.1% have reached Exploration Elite
• 32.4% have reached Trade Elite
• The above percentages are not mutually exclusive, and contain many double and triple Elite CMDRs.

To reach Elite rank:

• Exploration: sell 318m+ credits worth of data.
• Trade: sell 1.05b+ credits worth of commodities.
• Combat: varies - it takes approximately 2225 experience points to go from Deadly to Elite combat ranking. This equals 1780 Elite kills, or approximately 2400 kills based on a more average distribution of ships.

This ignores that missions affect ranks. And that exploration was impact massively by passenger missions at one point.

As I said; statistics can tell you anything you want. And can support any argument at all. I have an inara profile that is out of date and hasn't been updated in years. How many other profiles are old as well?

I hit trade elite first (I was working for cutter) followed by combat and exploration.

If only it was that simple.

This, unfortunately, I agree with

My god Drew you are even agreeing with me now, crikey situation must be a bit serious.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

My god Drew you are even agreeing with me now, crikey situation must be a bit serious.

It's worse.
I was agreeing with Sole Hunter yesterday!

 

[Mengy]

Q4 is not going to save exploration. It will add many more hurdles though.

This is my fear as well. I'm hoping Frontier has listened to the suggestions over the years, but I'm not confident they've cared enough about exploration to bother trying.

 

[Ignition]

We're getting a massive makeover in Update 4, so I think not.

Yet we don't know nothing and only 3 months left for the end of the year.

And a "makeover" I think is too much.

I think FD doesn't know what to do with the game.

Not only exploration is neglected but also smuggling, piracy and trading. Everything is so... dull and simple.

 

[Faded Glory]

Q4 is not going to save exploration. It will add many more hurdles though.

Unfortunately that's probably true...

For exploration to become different / more fun, there has to be stuff to discover (there's plenty to explore after all). So what will FD do, put loads of 'artificial' stuff all over the place for players to discover and presumably do something with, other than just hand in the data for credits. Too little and no-one will ever find it, too much and it won't be worth discovering, after all, ELW's, while rare, are really all over the place, and finding one, while nice doesn't actually mean much.

If on the other hand they try to make exploration more involved, more scanning, different types of scanners, whatever, that will just slow things down, and since it's highly probable that most of the galaxy will never even be visited, let alone explored, how does that help? And it still doesn't solve the issue above, of what is actually there to find.

I've enjoyed exploring, it was my first Elite, and I did it by exploring, and turning in many, many first discovered systems. No exploits, and typically wouldn't even detail scan any part of a system where even one other body had already been discovered, just because that's how I wanted to do it.

I hope FD can pull something magical out of the bag, but I'm not really counting on it, as I'm truly not sure what they can do. Luckily I'm not the game designer...

 

[fu9ar]

So the surface scanning probes and space weather / anomalies coming down the development pipeline fall under "more hurdles" and "not even trying"?

Cool, cool. What will count as "trying" then?

I mean there is even different sounds for different planets on the system map so if you pay attention you can pick out the most valuable planets worth detailed scanning by ear... That isn't nothing, but people still say that it's "just jump honk scan" even though that isn't true.

I don't think exploration needs nothing, but I swear sometimes it's like you are FUD bots using obsolete talking points.

 

[Strangepork]

This isn't sarcasm, I honestly do wonder sometimes if Frontier despises their sizeable exploration community?

They seem to either willfully disregard explorers or simply don't consider them. One signals neglect while the other signifies a dislike of some kind. I'm just wondering which is it?

• They implement geysers and fumeroles to find on planet surfaces but with no tools at all to find them, forcing explorers to scour planets with their eyeballs only which can take dozens of frustrating hours.
• They turn the galaxy beige for an entire year before finally fixing their mistake. (Admittedly with improvements too, though we did not regain the lost terrain details)
• They neglect improving exploration mechanics for four years, not since 1.0.
• After four years we still don't have any exploration missions in the game.
• Frontier removed Exploration CGs completely.
• Neutron Jumps were a dev mistake, and if not for the exploration community begging and pleading to keep it as a "feature" we wouldn't have them today. It never even occurred to Frontier that it might be a meaningful mechanic until then.
• They finally add heat sink synthesis, only to make it require manufactured materials, meaning you cannot replenish it at all out there on your own. They entirely forgot that heat sinks had uses beyond spamming them together with shield cells.
• They promise an Exploration Feedback Forum for the Q4 improvements but then delay it, then delay it again, and now it's postponed indefinitely with no new date at all.
• They "prioritized" the Ice Planet improvements out of 3.3 and won't answer the question if they are scheduled for a later date or completely cut from the roadmap.
• They implement Multicrew as combat only with no exploration use at all. They don't even make SRV's, a common exploration feature, compatible with Multicrew.
• Over half of the ships in Elite are combat oriented while only two are designed with exploration in mind, and ironically the most capable explorer is neither of them and is in fact a multirole ship.
• One of the "exploration" ships also has the slowest fuel scoop rate in the entire game, a key module for exploration.
• They agree to jump Jaques Station out to Beagle Point at the conclusion of the DWE, wait until lots of explorers fly there or wait around for him to arrive, but then instead jump him completely somewhere else.
• And the latest addition to the list, they have no problem usurping a Canonn exploration event into a combat only affair, at the expense of non combat explorer ships no less, while simultaneously negating any exploration gameplay from the event at all. Despite thousands of explorers flying to the Gnosis eager for a rare exploration event in the game.

As an explorer it often feels like Frontier doesn't consider the playstyle when developing the game, or when creating and managing events. It often feels like they vastly prefer the combat playstyle over exploration. I know Q4 is finally supposed to include major exploration improvements, but given Frontier's behavior regarding explorers I'm worried that their temperment will prevent them from moving this aspect of the game forward in a meaningful manner.

I really just wish Frontier was as thoughtful, considerate, and respectful towards explorers (and non combat players in general) as they were to the combat crowd. I really wish exploration would get half of the development focus and resources that combat gets.

There are three Elite ranks in the game, my hope is that someday Frontier develops with that triad in mind in a more balanced manner than they have up until now. Combat, Trading, and Exploration. The game could use a greater focus on the latter two than the former first from now on.

Pretty Please. With sugar on top. With Lavian Brandy icing smothered all around it too.

Gno.

 

[V'larr]

What really stings for me is how so much of the combat-oriented development has been off-target, misguided, and not what people wanted or expected.

And it still remains currently flawed, with big glaring power gaps, inconsistencies, practically everything about Engineers, just...ugh.

It's like, not only has most of the focus been pointed in this general direction - it's also been mismanaged and left a mess that it feels like is going to be swept under the rug and built upon instead of fixed & cleaned up.

That's a real dysfunctional household to keep.

So the surface scanning probes and space weather / anomalies coming down the development pipeline fall under "more hurdles" and "not even trying"?

Cool, cool. What will count as "trying" then?

I mean there is even different sounds for different planets on the system map so if you pay attention you can pick out the most valuable planets worth detailed scanning by ear... That isn't nothing, but people still say that it's "just jump honk scan" even though that isn't true.

I don't think exploration needs nothing, but I swear sometimes it's like you are FUD bots using obsolete talking points.

I've been hearing about things like this 'coming down the pipeline' since I started playing in 2015. Just throwing some perspective out for you.

 

[WR3ND]

...

I think the galaxy could still use a lot of fleshing out, and it's good to know that Frontier are working toward it to some degree here and there. That being said, I do think the galaxy does have a fair bit to offer. I don't think it gets the same sort of attention as the meta progression gameplay, unfortunately, but I guess that's to be expected. If there is elite gear to grind toward, people want their elite gear or feel disadvantaged for not having it. It seems to be the primary gameplay Frontier intend. That's not the main reason I play the game though. At best it's just a means to an end.

 

[Nic727]

This isn't sarcasm, I honestly do wonder sometimes if Frontier despises their sizeable exploration community?

They seem to either willfully disregard explorers or simply don't consider them. One signals neglect while the other signifies a dislike of some kind. I'm just wondering which is it?

• They implement geysers and fumeroles to find on planet surfaces but with no tools at all to find them, forcing explorers to scour planets with their eyeballs only which can take dozens of frustrating hours.
• They turn the galaxy beige for an entire year before finally fixing their mistake. (Admittedly with improvements too, though we did not regain the lost terrain details)
• They neglect improving exploration mechanics for four years, not since 1.0.
• After four years we still don't have any exploration missions in the game.
• Frontier removed Exploration CGs completely.
• Neutron Jumps were a dev mistake, and if not for the exploration community begging and pleading to keep it as a "feature" we wouldn't have them today. It never even occurred to Frontier that it might be a meaningful mechanic until then.
• They finally add heat sink synthesis, only to make it require manufactured materials, meaning you cannot replenish it at all out there on your own. They entirely forgot that heat sinks had uses beyond spamming them together with shield cells.
• They promise an Exploration Feedback Forum for the Q4 improvements but then delay it, then delay it again, and now it's postponed indefinitely with no new date at all.
• They "prioritized" the Ice Planet improvements out of 3.3 and won't answer the question if they are scheduled for a later date or completely cut from the roadmap.
• They implement Multicrew as combat only with no exploration use at all. They don't even make SRV's, a common exploration feature, compatible with Multicrew.
• Over half of the ships in Elite are combat oriented while only two are designed with exploration in mind, and ironically the most capable explorer is neither of them and is in fact a multirole ship.
• One of the "exploration" ships also has the slowest fuel scoop rate in the entire game, a key module for exploration.
• They agree to jump Jaques Station out to Beagle Point at the conclusion of the DWE, wait until lots of explorers fly there or wait around for him to arrive, but then instead jump him completely somewhere else.
• And the latest addition to the list, they have no problem usurping a Canonn exploration event into a combat only affair, at the expense of non combat explorer ships no less, while simultaneously negating any exploration gameplay from the event at all. Despite thousands of explorers flying to the Gnosis eager for a rare exploration event in the game.

As an explorer it often feels like Frontier doesn't consider the playstyle when developing the game, or when creating and managing events. It often feels like they vastly prefer the combat playstyle over exploration. I know Q4 is finally supposed to include major exploration improvements, but given Frontier's behavior regarding explorers I'm worried that their temperment will prevent them from moving this aspect of the game forward in a meaningful manner.

I really just wish Frontier was as thoughtful, considerate, and respectful towards explorers (and non combat players in general) as they were to the combat crowd. I really wish exploration would get half of the development focus and resources that combat gets.

There are three Elite ranks in the game, my hope is that someday Frontier develops with that triad in mind in a more balanced manner than they have up until now. Combat, Trading, and Exploration. The game could use a greater focus on the latter two than the former first from now on.

Pretty Please. With sugar on top. With Lavian Brandy icing smothered all around it too.

+1000

 

[jasonbarron]

They don't hate explorers, Mengy, just you. Sorry buddy.

 

[Mengy]

They don't hate explorers, Mengy, just you. Sorry buddy.

I'm willing to admit this is possible.


I just hate seeing all of the other explorers suffer because of me. [sad]

 

[Marc_Hicks]

This isn't sarcasm, I honestly do wonder sometimes if Frontier despises their sizeable exploration community?

They seem to either willfully disregard explorers or simply don't consider them. One signals neglect while the other signifies a dislike of some kind. I'm just wondering which is it?

• They implement geysers and fumeroles to find on planet surfaces but with no tools at all to find them, forcing explorers to scour planets with their eyeballs only which can take dozens of frustrating hours.
• They turn the galaxy beige for an entire year before finally fixing their mistake. (Admittedly with improvements too, though we did not regain the lost terrain details)
• They neglect improving exploration mechanics for four years, not since 1.0.
• After four years we still don't have any exploration missions in the game.
• Frontier removed Exploration CGs completely.
• Neutron Jumps were a dev mistake, and if not for the exploration community begging and pleading to keep it as a "feature" we wouldn't have them today. It never even occurred to Frontier that it might be a meaningful mechanic until then.
• They finally add heat sink synthesis, only to make it require manufactured materials, meaning you cannot replenish it at all out there on your own. They entirely forgot that heat sinks had uses beyond spamming them together with shield cells.
• They promise an Exploration Feedback Forum for the Q4 improvements but then delay it, then delay it again, and now it's postponed indefinitely with no new date at all.
• They "prioritized" the Ice Planet improvements out of 3.3 and won't answer the question if they are scheduled for a later date or completely cut from the roadmap.
• They implement Multicrew as combat only with no exploration use at all. They don't even make SRV's, a common exploration feature, compatible with Multicrew.
• Over half of the ships in Elite are combat oriented while only two are designed with exploration in mind, and ironically the most capable explorer is neither of them and is in fact a multirole ship.
• One of the "exploration" ships also has the slowest fuel scoop rate in the entire game, a key module for exploration.
• They agree to jump Jaques Station out to Beagle Point at the conclusion of the DWE, wait until lots of explorers fly there or wait around for him to arrive, but then instead jump him completely somewhere else.
• And the latest addition to the list, they have no problem usurping a Canonn exploration event into a combat only affair, at the expense of non combat explorer ships no less, while simultaneously negating any exploration gameplay from the event at all. Despite thousands of explorers flying to the Gnosis eager for a rare exploration event in the game.

As an explorer it often feels like Frontier doesn't consider the playstyle when developing the game, or when creating and managing events. It often feels like they vastly prefer the combat playstyle over exploration. I know Q4 is finally supposed to include major exploration improvements, but given Frontier's behavior regarding explorers I'm worried that their temperment will prevent them from moving this aspect of the game forward in a meaningful manner.

I really just wish Frontier was as thoughtful, considerate, and respectful towards explorers (and non combat players in general) as they were to the combat crowd. I really wish exploration would get half of the development focus and resources that combat gets.

There are three Elite ranks in the game, my hope is that someday Frontier develops with that triad in mind in a more balanced manner than they have up until now. Combat, Trading, and Exploration. The game could use a greater focus on the latter two than the former first from now on.

Pretty Please. With sugar on top. With Lavian Brandy icing smothered all around it too.

I think "hate" is too strong a word, but I agree that Exploration has long been the "poor cousin" of Elite Dangerous......followed closely behind by mining. Lets just hope that Q4 marks the beginning of a brand new age where Exploration & Mining are as valued a career choice as combat & trade!

 

[fu9ar]

What really stings for me is how so much of the combat-oriented development has been off-target, misguided, and not what people wanted or expected.

And it still remains currently flawed, with big glaring power gaps, inconsistencies, practically everything about Engineers, just...ugh.

It's like, not only has most of the focus been pointed in this general direction - it's also been mismanaged and left a mess that it feels like is going to be swept under the rug and built upon instead of fixed & cleaned up.

That's a real dysfunctional household to keep.



I've been hearing about things like this 'coming down the pipeline' since I started playing in 2015. Just throwing some perspective out for you.

Idk what you mean by "power gaps" or "inconsistencies". Can you keep your criticism specific rather than spouting off vague profound-seeming nonsense?

I also like Engineers, but I started in 2016 without spoiling my experience by reading metagame / quickstart / spoiler guides and was collecting materials the whole time even though I didn't know what they were for at first, so by the time I unlocked Engineers, I had more than enough materials to G3 and G4 a lot of stuff, which is more than enough for most purposes. From what I could tell, the only people screaming about the engineering "grind" were those who were mad that they weren't THE BEST and someone else had a G5 "god roll" and they didn't, but FDev decided to turn engineering into something progress-based rather than random because that subset of bawling malcontents wouldn't shut up about it.

 

[RymdLazer]

What I actually think bothers FDev is specialisation. Players who don't engage in all activities and demand their niche playstyle to be catered to become a fulltime experience.
I believe their ideal player enjoys all aspects of it and rotates activities as one becomes stale. I know I switch gears whenever anything gets too repetitive. Granted I don't have the playtime you veterans have. And I wasn't here in the skeleton crew days. But I've reached 1k hours which is extraordinary for me. I am a fresh cookie and haven't become jaded
And I think new players come in at such a steady pace and that the amount of dedicated players outweigh the drop off rate of burnouts. And indeed that a high percentage of newcomers bounce off after the first hours.
Elite feels natural to me, but I am aware of its niche nature and high difficulty level of learning for anyone without prior experience in sims and the like. It sure is special and to me it does seem it is constantly bettered in all areas of playstyle. And we all know there is new stuff on the way.
Whether it's enough to appease the needs of a specialist?
Doubtful. Not after 4k hours of it at least

 

[RamirezKurita]

Unfortunately that's probably true...

For exploration to become different / more fun, there has to be stuff to discover (there's plenty to explore after all). So what will FD do, put loads of 'artificial' stuff all over the place for players to discover and presumably do something with, other than just hand in the data for credits. Too little and no-one will ever find it, too much and it won't be worth discovering, after all, ELW's, while rare, are really all over the place, and finding one, while nice doesn't actually mean much.

If on the other hand they try to make exploration more involved, more scanning, different types of scanners, whatever, that will just slow things down, and since it's highly probable that most of the galaxy will never even be visited, let alone explored, how does that help? And it still doesn't solve the issue above, of what is actually there to find.

I've enjoyed exploring, it was my first Elite, and I did it by exploring, and turning in many, many first discovered systems. No exploits, and typically wouldn't even detail scan any part of a system where even one other body had already been discovered, just because that's how I wanted to do it.

I hope FD can pull something magical out of the bag, but I'm not really counting on it, as I'm truly not sure what they can do. Luckily I'm not the game designer...

Seeing your comment regarding exploring being more involved reminded me of one of my main issues regarding exploring and potential for future content - the DSS and ADS are simply too good at their jobs and strangle so much potential for gameplay and additional modules for use in exploration.

Honking to reveal everything in an entire system prevents any active searching mechanisms such as observing parallax, searching in Lagrange points for smaller bodies and considering overall mass and element distributions to estimate planet sizes, numbers and compositions. There's zero gameplay in actually finding planets and other celestial bodies, and as long as the ADS has its current functionality it never will have.

The DSS just lets a single scan identify practically everything about a planet. There's no collecting of surface samples, no checking gravity at a variety of locations to get a gravity distribution of the planet, no sampling of the rings, no collecting of dust clouds - just point at a celestial body and let a 2 tonne module do all the work that could basically ever be done.

 

[V'larr]

Idk what you mean by "power gaps" or "inconsistencies". Can you keep your criticism specific rather than spouting off vague profound-seeming nonsense?

I would, except that A. it's been documented and covered in detail elsewhere on the forums by multiple people already and B. you very clearly aren't interested in having a conversation when you try to dismiss everything I said as "vague-profound-seeming nonsense", which I find to be somewhat comically ironic.

Also from the gist of the rest of your post it's apparent to me you care little to search and find out for yourself what exactly it is people have a problem with when it comes to Engineers (and combat issues in general).

I'll offer a hint for Engineers, at least: it has to do with the multiple layers of RNGs (and the everpresent grrrriiiiinnnddd) that inflect multiple avenues of power gaps and gimmicks, causing a thoroughly unbalanced and uneven playing field for all concerned.

 

[WR3ND]

...

I'm still fairly happy to just muck around in the black from time to time and still have things I want to do in that regard. I've been playing since early 2015 after the game's release when I found it on Steam and looked into it a bit more.

The game and gameplay progression has changed a fair bit since then. For a while back then I even had fun in a very viable rum running Cobra trading rares. Only the best of player pirates had a chance of catching me. The Engineers did throw a bit of a monkey wrench into the works and made the game feel more based on the meta progression. Playing as an independent Commander as I happen to prefer to, this did rub me the wrong way.

Fortunately, for me at least, the game still does have a lot to offer me beyond that. 2015 was also the year I went on my first real exploration trek, going out to Sgr A in a Diamondback Scout. Beyond learning to dread its slow fuel scoop, I had a lot of fun, and was able to design and pay for my hybrid exploration Vulture which I still use as my main ship to this day. It's just a lot of fun to muck around in.

 

[fu9ar]

I would, except that A. it's been documented and covered in detail elsewhere on the forums by multiple people already and B. you very clearly aren't interested in having a conversation when you try to dismiss everything I said as "vague-profound-seeming nonsense", which I find to be somewhat comically ironic.

Also from the gist of the rest of your post it's apparent to me you care little to search and find out for yourself what exactly it is people have a problem with when it comes to Engineers (and combat issues in general).

I'll offer a hint for Engineers, at least: it has to do with the multiple layers of RNGs (and the everpresent grrrriiiiinnnddd) that inflect multiple avenues of power gaps and gimmicks, causing a thoroughly unbalanced and uneven playing field for all concerned.

So the fact that someone else is more powerful than you in a video game is intolerable and you require an A to B guide on how to be exactly as powerful as they are in exactly the same amount of time. Got it.