Ya I have no idea if that example has a payout appropriate for it's time. I just made it up as a template example of how the game could give us an actual reason to explore. Like the OP I dont really care about sightseeing. It's all art and I appreciate the effort it took to create but I'd rather read an atlas than look at purple renders of planets. If on the other hand, I had a clear set of objectives and time frame, now it's a game again and I'm ready to strap in.
Exploration lets be honest, there's still not much to do
- Thread starter Jabezz
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And after that mission has been completed (perhaps by 20 or 30 different commanders) the system could generate new missions (or perhaps even a community goal) to expand the faction into one of those newly discovered systems.
Sterling MH
Banned
The bubble needs to have money making from exploring otherwise how does a noob get into it? Keep the bubble taggable and the scanning of every planet, whether inhabited or not, open for the noobs. Or just never sell a new copy of the new game, ensuring that there will be no more noobs needing an introduction to any of the gameplay loops currently extant. I don't think FD will like the latter option because money, but it does stop my issue against nerfing bubble exploration being a thing.
The same as explorers did before, but with more to it.
btw, I found an abondoned human settlement with info about some secret experiments going horribly wrong. Absolutely. Would be great and seems relatively trivial to add.
You could locate sureface POIs under the old system and many did. I think perhaps op has worked out that the new system is exactly the same as the old one. The only real differences are the FSS grind and the fact that players are going to burn thru content at about 50 times the speed they did before (short sighted by fdev)
Its badly designed and pointless. Who ever thought that design up was either completely ignorant of explorers or hated them. IMO
Its badly designed and pointless. Who ever thought that design up was either completely ignorant of explorers or hated them. IMO
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Of course Columbus would never have found America without his TomTom programmed by Leif Eriksson
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Sadly the vast majority of space is both uninhabited and devoid of anything interesting. Just like in Elite, which has tried to keep some measure of realism.
Sounds like you need to visit a different region of space.
Sounds like you need to visit a different region of space.
I disagree that spending dozens of hours eyeballing a lifeless planet is more exciting than find a wide variety of biological, geological, and technological POI's. I love the new scanning tools.
Furthermore, these POI's are great sources of materials with nowhere near as much RNG as previously. And the addition of the Codex shows you what can be found, and under what circumstances.
What, exactly, would help improve exploration for you?
I think its fair to say that exploration is intended for those obsessives who play Elite for its Simulation aspect, rather than its gameplay aspect.
Exploration is boring as hell. Exploration is about getting excited because you are the first person to discover and take a screenshot of a light green cloud floating next to a planet, and then you made it into Obsidian Ant's youtube vid with said screenshot.
Exploration is boring as hell. Exploration is about getting excited because you are the first person to discover and take a screenshot of a light green cloud floating next to a planet, and then you made it into Obsidian Ant's youtube vid with said screenshot.
The overwhelmingly huge majority of players never ever found anything like that anyway, not once. In the last few days I found most (known) geysers, fumeroles, some lagrange clounds, alien lifeforms and an abandoned base with a small and creepy background story. The last few days have been more interesting, diverse and involved than the last four years combined. Which doesn't mean the new system is perfect, far from it. But the old system was 99% 'loading screen, straight-flying in SC, straight flying above planets with graphics turned to ultra-low to increase the odds of finding something.' And it was terrible.
Fortunately, people like Burke can actually do what they want to do by simply not probing the planets. There, done, you can now fly upside down for many more years.
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Putting it back how it was but seeding all the new things to find. Of course the landable atmospheres but look at NMS (yeah im sorry to bring it up again) they got archaeology in that, base building would be nice altho i guess technically not exploration but it would be the number and variety of things to find. Now giving the player quick and sure way to find stuff just makes fdevs job that much more difficult cause its too easy to find stuff, but i always liked to imagine that the onus was completely on the player to go find this stuff but there would be things that were more easy than others. Like caves or full size volcanic cones, yeah any explorer could find that stuff. But turning over a rock and finding microbial life.. maybe for that you needed to think about things like dry methane river beds, or sheltered environments or whatever. The posibilitys were as infinite as the galaxy itself.
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Lol, I take mild offense at that but have to admit you've got a point. [haha]
Yeah cause it was "too hard" and they refused to knuckle down to it. It was good that way, if you wanted it enough you went out and did it.
now you know how that lone pilot feels in voyager 1.
Merry Christmas Mr(s) Voyager 1 Pilot where ever yo may be.
Merry Christmas Mr(s) Voyager 1 Pilot where ever yo may be.
No, it wasn't too hard. It was too boring. There was no challenge of any kind in any way, no risk, nothing. So it wasn't 'hard'. And yes, I absolutely refuse to 'knuckle down'. I have a job for that, and play games for entertainment. I dont get a sense of pride when realizing I spend 500 hours of my life looking at a dot slowly getting bigger, and another 500 looking at the same loading screen, and another 500 flying upside down slowly looking at the ground. It isn't an accomplishment, it isn't something your proudly share with friends and family members.
If you enjoy doing that; hey have at it. But lets not pretend it was any accomplishment. It was the ED equivalence of 'counting to the biggest number you can.' If you like doing that, fine. But the reason other people dont sit at home counting is not because it is 'too hard'.
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Was it any more boring than say, metal detecting? Sure the thing beeps inside of a bout a meter but apart from that you are on your own. Most metal detectorists never hit big i dont think, so why do people even do it?
It's only good if you have enormous amounts of free time. Many of us don't.
If the idea of spending hours, or even days, eyeballing a single lifeless planet on the off chance that there *may* be something there (but most likely wouldn't be) is your idea of good gameplay, then I'm very glad you're not a game designer.
I have a family, friends, a full time job, and other interests outside of Elite Dangerous. Your preferred system would make the game unplayable for me.
sleutelbos's comment below sums up the new system perfectly for me:
The new system allows me to do everything I previously did in exploration, only much more quickly, allowing for more diversity and more time spent enjoying the variety of the galaxy.