Frontier you talked about the "traveler" style of exploration and misunderstood one key thing

[Ziljan]

aw


Anyways I came back to say that after some people calmed me down and one in particular explained something:



That I am not AS worried as before. The person in question who told me this has the exact same exploration style as me and fully understands where I am coming from.

The context I was missing it seems, was that the filter system gives an overview of the entire system and allows you to briefly judge it based on that. It is NOT only a system to filter out things you want (though you can use it for that). Frontier went on about money and the people on the forums keep telling me if I only want earth likes I can do that. Neither was what I cared for.

However the knowledge that their is indeed a way to quickly judge binary/whatever orbits, proximity, and such even if it's in a way that does factually take longer does go a long way to mitigating my issues.

I only wish some people had taken the time to explain that. I still have some reseverations about time though, but I do know that FD is fully aware of exactly what this thread brings up and that also goes a long way to making me feel better.

Again, this does not negate my thread. But now more then ever I am still willing to wait for the beta to truly decide for myself.

Also a BIIIIIIG THANK YOU to everyone who kept it civil as well

Awesome, and glad you were able to resolve your concerns. I had thought that the snap interpretation of the spectrum would be obvious to most people once the mechanic had been used enough by more people. I know that some people are still in denial of the info given by the spectrum, temp, distance etc but that is likely because they haven't used it yet. I suspect that after a while, people will realize that the new snap judgement information is superior in useful ways.

 

[Thatchinho]

I do not agree with your assessment that the concerns you mentioned are actually problems, the new FSS mechanic may make them more obvious but it is the sledge hammer approach. There are other ways that such things can be made more obvious without turning even the most basic level of exploration into a total grind - which is what the FSS mechanic sounds like to me.

You talk about sheer difficulty in finding things but the FSS would seem to exasperate that and for lower level information too.

Overall, while I can see some positive aspects to the FSS mechanics, the honk should not have been (effectively) removed as it has been IMO.

Before I reply to the other points can I ask you about this one:

"You talk about sheer difficulty in finding things but the FSS would seem to exasperate that and for lower level information too."

Would you mind just running me through why you think it's the way?

Here's why I'm finding it difficult to see why you you would think that:

	Way to confirm whether there are significant POIs	Time taken
	FSS	Current	FSS	Current
Planetary	FSS Scan of body	Would require a full Mk I eyeball search of body	10s of seconds	10s of hours or more.
Space	Shows in Filtered Spectrum Bar	Fly to all major bodies in system as a minimum (and this still would not detect things which aren’t near major bodies – probes, gen ships, etc.)	10 seconds?	5 mins to several hours (for only checking near planetary bodies)

Are we possibly talking about different things when we're saying 'things'?

(Just to clarify when I was talking about the difficulty in finding things, I wasn't talking about the kind of things that OP was talking about, I was talking about POIs, surface features, and that kind of thing.)

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Ok, here's some of the problems:

• players not knowing there's things out there to find
• players thinking all there is to exploration is jumping and scanning
• players not knowing how to go about finding things
• the sheer difficulty in finding things which means:

• some will never be stumbled over by chance
• some will never be found by someone on their own, even if they know they're out there, and even if they know how to look

• knowledge of them depending on out-of-game sources
• how this all negatively impacts on people's knowledge of & involvement in the many story threads criss-crossing the game

In terms of what's out there to find (and it's currently found) I covered quite a bit of the surface stuff in this post

There's also the 'Tubeworms' which I mentioned somewhere - known of since the 2.2 Trailer, but not yet discovered (or at least not yet discovered and reported through any of the normal channels).

Then in the space there's all the usual stuff like CZz, RES's etc, but there's also UCB's, Listening Posts, other Beacons, Gen Ships, Installations, Capital Ships (working and wrecked), Probes, and so on. some of which people will stumble across quite easily but others which they won't, and probably never would without an out-of-game source of info.

The new FSS mechanic, will make these things a lot more obvious to people and allow them to discover them (in conjunction with other mechanics). This will open these things up to a lot of people. Some people might actually have no interest in them, which is up to them, but as it stands, a lot of the time people would not even know the things are there so wouldn't even have a choice as to whether it interests them.

Here's how it will do that:

Things in space - these will show in the new interface in the Filtered Signal Bar - you'll get used to the signals for the usual bodies quite quickly, and then at some point you're going to jump into a system, fire up the FSS and see a signal on there that you've never seen before. Some people are going to at some point see signals that no one (outside of FD) has seen before.

Things on planets - these will be indicated when you scan planets in with the FSS. At this point you'll know somethings there and can choose whether to go and investigate further. As part of the scanning bodies/systems people are going to be finding that there are things on the planets that they would never have known were there in the current system, and may never have known even existed.

Ok, so that covers the problems and how the new FSS mechanic helps fix them.

So why would retaining the current honk mechanism alongside the new FSS mechanic be detrimental to the fixing of the problems?

Well a key reason is that is a lot of people are creatures of habit. Some would just continue with the existing mechanic. Some would try the new mechanic but unless they find something unusual and interesting in the first couple of uses they will just go 'well that's pointless, it's just a longer way of getting the same thing' and will go back to using the existing mechanism. All the problems above are going to remain, or at least be less well addressed for all those people. Now as forumites who watched the livestream, read the summary, participate in the discussions, etc. it might seem like I'm how much that would happen because we all know the reasons to use the FSS, but thing is that there also all the people who don't participate in the forums, don't watch the streams, etc. and just play the game and won't know as well as we do why they should use the FSS, and they need to be taken into account.

Long explanation, but there we go.

(I feel I'd better just clarify that I'm not claiming to know FD's thoughts on all this, but I do know all the problems I talked about exist, and how the new mechanics are going help to help fix them, whether that's by FD's intent or not.)

What I proposed was to keep the honk mostly intact & then have this new FSS mechanic to look for USSs, POIs & more information about the planet in question. I'm sure people would still use the FSS for that at least, in either case, it's not my job to design the game and I very much doubt it was impossible for them to create a system without throwing some people under the bus in the process.

 

[Crusina Luachra]

(Just to clarify when I was talking about the difficulty in finding things, I wasn't talking about the kind of things that OP was talking about, I was talking about POIs, surface features, and that kind of thing.)

Yes because none of us think that the changes to things like poi's is worse/will take longer. This is talking a bout the detail we get from current ads.

 

[c00ky1970]

All I can say is that in 11 days we (ok PC players) can try it out and see what it’s like.

I am looking forward to learning something new in this game, but I think the beta is more important for those who have concerns, so they can see if it is a real issue for them or something they can adapt to.

 

[jasonbarron]

Frontier took away my ability to blow up player ships with absolute impunity, and I managed to get over it. I think the sub-set of explorers who need the information yielded by that first honk will get over it, too. We all learn to adjust our playstyles.

 

[Ebel]

Frontier took away my ability to blow up player ships with absolute impunity, and I managed to get over it. I think the sub-set of explorers who need the information yielded by that first honk will get over it, too. We all learn to adjust our playstyles.

Hahaha yeah, okay

 

[Quantis Trap]

Before seeing the live stream I was worry about the extra time this new exploration ui would take. Now that I've seen it, I'm not worried about that any more!

----

On the contrary, for those who want to speed through the UI, I think it will be much faster in some cases and almost as fast in most others.

On the money and rank side of things, I think this may create the first bonafide exploration gold rush greater than the existing Road 2 Riches and almost instant Elite ranking in exploration. I hope the instant ranking will be nerfed somehow.

 

[M00ka]

Before seeing the live stream I was worry about the extra time this new exploration ui would take. Now that I've seen it, I'm not worried about that any more!

Oh I know I am going to take more time now. I can see it as clear as day: I see from the scan that a planet has eight geological anomalies, I will just have to go and check them out, I just know it lol

 

[Quantis Trap]

Oh I know I am going to take more time now. I can see it as clear as day: I see from the scan that a planet has eight geological anomalies, I will just have to go and check them out, I just know it lol

Yes, this could be very fun and I hope it's fun for more than a couple hours!

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

Oh I know I am going to take more time now. I can see it as clear as day: I see from the scan that a planet has eight geological anomalies, I will just have to go and check them out, I just know it lol

I fear the same thing will happen to me.

And even standard travel to the region I intend to explore will probably now take much longer since "surface scanning" is so quick now that there is no reason not to scan everything.

 

[M00ka]

Yes, this could be very fun and I hope it's fun for more than a couple hours!

I fear the same thing will happen to me.

And even standard travel to the region I intend to explore will probably now take much longer since "surface scanning" is so quick now that there is no reason not to scan everything.

Yep, what I am now worried about is thinking what have I missed already, how many of those icy bodies and rocky moons had some weird and/or interesting thing just sitting on the surface than I never found. Oh I am going to so enjoy this aspect of the game, it opens up so many possibilities of discovery

 

[Thatchinho]

Yes because none of us think that the changes to things like poi's is worse/will take longer. This is talking a bout the detail we get from current ads.

Not sure if that was to me, or more just agreeing with the point. Assuming it was to me then:

Yeah, I do understand, and I know your concern is around the negative impact of the move away from it on your style of exploration. My point with regard to the POIs etc. is that there is potential gain as well as loss for you, and that given how drastic the improvement in the POI side of things is, it might well outweigh the loss.

If it helps, there's actually a bit of loss/gain for me too, but on a completely different front.

 

[ReggieN0ble]

i am totally agree with the OP.
my opinion: when fdev remove the system map after the honk and give me only this "spectral analysis", then i think this is bad for me.
The other things like probes sounds interesting for exploration. But this would be a major issue for my playstyle and experience with the game.
i cant quick overview all the systems that i visited(honked) during my journey through the galaxy in an "optical way" (complete system map) anymore. i only would get the quick spectral analysis? thats bad i think.

but we will see in the beta.

 

[Oopsie Daisy]

OP, I suggest you learn a new style of exploration instead of insisting your way of doing must be preserved.

It means you cannot just honk your way across the galaxy like you used to without a penalty. This is a very good thing. Deal with it. Adapt.

 

[Crusina Luachra]

Frontier took away my ability to blow up player ships with absolute impunity, and I managed to get over it. I think the sub-set of explorers who need the information yielded by that first honk will get over it, too. We all learn to adjust our playstyles.

Are you all capable of actually reading?

OP, I suggest you learn a new style of exploration instead of insisting your way of doing must be preserved.

It means you cannot just honk your way across the galaxy like you used to without a penalty. This is a very good thing. Deal with it. Adapt.

I guess not.

 

[jasonbarron]

are yall actually capable of reading?



I guess not.

How about you?

 

[Ebel]

Are you all capable of actually reading?



I guess not.

You will note that while I generally agree with you, Jason was being sympathetic. Relax. You will not win allies like that.

 

[ShimEnki]

Tbh i think Frontier would of been dammed if they did this change or left or slightly modified the old method.

No method will please everyone but had Frontier NOT changed it then they'd of been people complaining that they just ignore explorers like they have in the past.

I also think that had it just been a long range DSS that lets you know of PoIs then people would of been complaining even more then they are now as they'd of been called lazy.

I agree.

I kept thinking while watching it, sheesh, now "that had to take some doing"

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

I think you and others are forgetting that exploration is more than just finding planets/moons. FD could have built a layer on top that allows for new discoveries using the new system.

Ere, no I haven't forgotten. Yes they could have kept the original vapid honk in. But I am half they didn't. Horrible mechanic.

I have been dead against campaign of the parallax search brigade (and signal search brigade) to rework exploration and I am not convinced that the orrery approach is a good one either. What FD have done is IMO not what they should have done BUT I am reserving judgement till I get to play with it personally.

I like parallax less then the current honk, so put up with the all seeing God mode honk for a long time. I am happy it's going the way of the dodo to be replaced with some actual gameplay. I really like the look of the new mechanic, but the proof is in the pudding, I will need for try it out first.

What I really cannot understand is people defending the old mechanic. Its one of the worst in the game. I know people have based their playstyle off this dreadful mechanic, but that is not a good enough reason to keep it. We will all have to adapt to the new way. I have no issues with it taking longer as long as it is fun and engaging.

It's funny how people keep calling gameplay walls as time walls when it suits their agenda (not saying your are).