News Chapter Four - Exploration Reveal

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

Describe the minigame for me, I've never played it.

It's in the OP.

 

[Spaceman Si]

I can't read page 91 either.

Must be where Raxxla is hiding.

 

[Skip Rockbounder]

I wish I could have what ever it is the majority of this thread are on, because sitting here sober as I am, the core changes to exploration look terrible.

As stated by the Devs, there's going to be no extra planetary information, so all they've done is stick two further time-walls in front of getting what we could already see (Initial honk, detailed surface scan) and called it content. From how I'm reading the thread, it's not really a new gameplay concept either, just a variation of the wave scanner-nose pointing found on the SRV. And they've also decided, now almost all the interesting locations in the galaxy have been reclaimed, to just allow a second wave of claiming over the first names and called that "mapping"...

Let me explain why these changes then are particularly depressing; the main frustration when flying huge distances across the galaxy is never knowing whether you've missed something special. Even now, you need to be on of E Ds Obsessives to want to sit there manually cross checking every variable on the planet's list just to see if it's beaten one of your records. But now, even finding a TYPE of planet is going to be a tedious search through all the hidden locations. Even knowing the habitable zone around each individual star class to try and narow down an ELW say is going to be a hideously boring endeavour when you can't possibly tell if one MIGHT be there now, and after scanning a hundred or more objects, finding there wasn't one and you have to do it all again in the next system.

Meanwhile if you did exploration under the current system, you've likely lodged all your discoveries with various player organisations; and I already had the miserable experience of discovering that my own posted forum names for what I'd found had been over-written in various tools because I wasn't aware of one particular mapping group. Now, there'll be another wave of explorers using the lists you contributed too to go out there and "map" your items in game too.

FDev have GOT to stop listening to the kind of MMO player that thinks grind is the same as achievement (usually because they're time rich and quality-unconcerned; just make stuff off putting and slow so they can power through it obsessively and then feel they've done something above average)... What makes the POI changes a genuine improvement is that it makes finding them both simpler and more fulfilling. The Exploration changes however go in the complete opposite direction, and that makes them slower, finicky and thus terrible.

And then you add ammunition on top of this?! Why? Just... why? Yes, to try and give more purpose to equally dull as dishwater gameplay, like SRV hunting for minerals... but you should be making the core content better; make mining more fun for miners, and improve exploration for explorers, don't make them have to break off travelling to land, and hunt for rocks just so they can do what they used to be able to do with a press of a button!


I could sit here and try to explain how it could have been done so much better; but what's the point? If we're at the feedback stage, the design work is almost certainly locked in stone now. Some variant of this terrible system is on the way. What a shame. Fortunately I've already been to Beagle, so I wasn't planning any new expeditions... and now I can see I likely would never have completed another one again with this system.

Nah... it ain't all bad, you see Exploration is optional!
as for more to do for the same result... that's exactly what Jesse Owens said at the 1936 Olympics when they asked "having won the 100 meters finals would you like to run the 100 meters hurdles?"

 

[Nimitz68]

Yeah, that's the forum for you. FD can't win, ever (though tbh most of the time they shouldn't). Even when they get it right, there will be salt. If they get it very right, there'll be almost as much salt as if they get it very wrong.

tl;dr No good deed goes unpunished.

You got that right.

 

[Randalph Roddleton]

Just one small request that I would like to make around the proposed changes.

I know a few players who have hearing difficulties, but get great enjoyment from the exploration and discovery aspect of Elite. It's not clear to me whether the interpretation of audio signals will be a key part of the new scanning mechanic. If this is the case, then it will significantly reduce the accessibility of Elite to these players. Could I therefore make the request that any new scanning mechanic is designed so that you can successfully identify any signals without reference to the audio? Thanks.

 

[Jenner]

Are pages 90 and 91 on this thread blank for anyone else? Just want to check there's nothing weird going on, on my end.

That's where /redacted/ is revealed. It's a major addition of /redacted/ to the game and is super exciting!

Spoiler

I may be full of /redacted/ though.

 

[Siobhan]

Just page 91 for me.

ditto

there must still be things we are not meant to see

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I think what really ticks you of is that no one actually cares about your playstyle.

I am someone. I care [sad]

 

[UmbraRex]

It's got nothing to do with credits.
It's about the value of the gameplay and how changing it affects our enjoyment of the game.

Can you imagine the salt if combat pilots had to play a minigame to decode a ship's IFF transponder to determine if it was wanted?

That's how it feels to some of us.

Unless something has changed over night you do have to scan a ship (IFF transponder or not) to see if its wanted.

Describe the minigame for me, I've never played it.

It's in the OP.

What I bolded is the minigame I'm referring to. One that doesn't exist.

 

[Siobhan]

I am someone. I care [sad]

But we only have your word for that... And how can we know that you're not a thargoid in disguise?

 

[UmbraRex]

duplicate post. srry.

 

[gooddoc]

"Originally Posted by Angus (Source)
I think this maybe a case of you can't have your cake and eat it it too. The current 'honk and see all' method is the problem. We need to rethink and adapt. If we want meaningful exploration and the rewards that brings, then I think we have to view the 'one honk see all' as a fast food, place-holder, overdue for development, and embrace a slower and less convenient, chunkier and ultimately more satisfying gameplay structure.
Perhaps a very basic and fallible indication of system value could be included in the honk so a fast moving pilot could decide further examination was worthwhile?"


I don't think the 'one honk see all' method is the problem at all here. The problem is how players percieve how others should be playing.

Should a cmdr not wish to 'see all' by the ADS, they then have aways had the option of NOT BUYING ONE & discovering a system via the parallax method or a lesser scanner.

This new system isn't an opt out for those who don't want to spend minutes instead of seconds, looking at what Planets are in a system. They will have no choice but to use this 'longer winded' method of system mapping.

Whether the 'trade off' between this method & not then having to travel to each Planet instead, as we do now, well! that will be determined when we start testing in Beta!

 

[HotCellar]

Since comments are starting to swing towards the negative again, I just want to throw in that I am excited for these changes, and love the idea of developing more "skills" that don't involve quickly pushing buttons, but rather in interpreting and analyzing data. It makes me think that I'll feel more like a deep-space researcher, rather than just an intern cataloguing systems.

 

[Zaphod Beeblebrox IV]

Vastly disappointed. The job that the ADS did automatically is now done manually, this will become dreadfully tedious on long exploration missions.
Ammo for the DDS also a retrograde move. Exploration trips limited by the material you can carry or you will have to equip an SRV thus limiting the number of ships that can be out fitted for exploration.
Launching probes at stellar bodies that take as long or longer to collect data is not an improvement either especially that reference to lobbing the probe to examine the far side. Can you imagine how long that is going to take in a 50 body plus system (assuming you are a scan it all type of explorer)
My opinion. Keep exploration mechanic as it is and improve exploration by introducing optional micro probes that help locate POI on planets. We use technology to do the repetitive and or tedious tasks for us and much of this update is going back wards on that.
Also it would seem that I will need a DSS on my miner now. If so then it is high time the ADS and DSS should be combined into one module or we get the ability to fit them into the same size2 or larger slot.

 

[znôrt]

I am someone. I care [sad]

stop spreading fake news. only a 2.8% of daily online someones care.

besides, we can hear what you are thinking.

anyway i do expect that the scanner does give an overview of the system somehow, in some form. sadly frontier only gave us a shabby (and reused) mock up screenshot which gives very little clues as to how that's going to work. which brings me to my point: wait & scan!

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

But we only have your word for that... And how can we know that you're not a thargoid in disguise?

Ziggy Stardust, more than meets the eye
Ziggy Stardust, Thargoid in disguise.

Oh great, now I'll get sued by an 80s cartoon series. [mad]

 

[Skip Rockbounder]

This thread is too busy to cope... it's really laggy to a crash

 

[Ralph Vargr]

As far as I can tell SRV is an instance unlike SLF. SLF uses the same instance as your ship whereas SRV has it's own. That is why you are not allowed to multicrew on wheels yet. They may have to move the ship instance to a more seamless single instance with SRV to achieve that but it alone may put heavy hindrance on the servers and gameplay performance.

That is one of the problems that they are trying to figure out for all these years I reckon while working on space legs. Best course of action would've been to program the game in a seamless universe to begin with like NMS. All they would have to do would be to add props,etc on an already set up seamless universe.

Thank You, Sir!

You have identified one of the things that Frontier will not talk about.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Yeah, I remember... I'm not that old yet. [noob]

Unfortunately, I am.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

As far as I can tell SRV is an instance unlike SLF. SLF uses the same instance as your ship whereas SRV has it's own. That is why you are not allowed to multicrew on wheels yet. They may have to move the ship instance to a more seamless single instance with SRV to achieve that but it alone may put heavy hindrance on the servers and gameplay performance.

That is one of the problems that they are trying to figure out for all these years I reckon while working on space legs. Best course of action would've been to program the game in a seamless universe to begin with like NMS. All they would have to do would be to add props,etc on an already set up seamless universe.

There is nothing seamless about the NMS universe.