I feel that the 'mechanics' used to present these or seemingly any other Phenomena is immersion breaking really, where you have to select the USS and activate it otherwise you never see it, I don't know of another way of presenting stuff in the USS's because I'm just a decorator not a game designer... but to me, if I fly toward a USS I would like to see the stuff in it when I slow down without having to select it so I can enter that little private world it's kept in... murshun.
Could Frontier please demonstrate how to use the FSS enjoyably?
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I feel that the 'mechanics' used to present these or seemingly any other Phenomena is immersion breaking really, where you have to select the USS and activate it otherwise you never see it, I don't know of another way of presenting stuff in the USS's because I'm just a decorator not a game designer... but to me, if I fly toward a USS I would like to see the stuff in it when I slow down without having to select it so I can enter that little private world it's kept in... murshun.
Sure, that sounds good at first, but once again, reality intrudes. Explorers on the well-trodden routes that DW2 went through have produced several million new systems. Funny how that works.
Besides, let's say that an explorer travels 1,000 ly to reach undiscovered systems. Which is much more than they have to, but hey, maybe they are heading in a popular direction. With today's jump ranges (let's go with 50 ly), that's twenty jumps or less. Hopefully, our example explorer will then go on to explore for far more than just twenty jumps. If they explore, say, a thousand systems, then it hardly matters if they had to jump twenty or forty systems before they found any new ones. Unless they gave up fifty systems in, of course - but if for nothing else, then they'll do it for the 5,000 ly requirement for Palin (and now Chloe, who's totally not copy-pasted from the Professor) anyway.
Except 2017. April to 2018. January saw an increasing trend. Then there was a slower but steady decrease, followed by four months of stagnation, until 2018. October. That was when the FSS was announced and later demoed, and exploration activity saw its largest drop to that date, setting all-time lows in November. (I'm saying "to that date" because the drop from that was smaller than the drop after DW2 was.) If we say that the "FSS came out", and not that it went live, then the decrease started when it did.
However, there is something else notable. This was only true for systems: when we look at bodies scanned per system, and ELWs per system, then neither ever had a downward trend, right until after DW2 reached the core. So even during the times when less systems were added, people still were slowly more and more interested in scanning the contents of said systems. Obviously, when the FSS went live, the bodies scanned per system went through the roof. On the other hand, the ELWs / systems ratio actually peaked in 2018 December, and started decreasing afterwards. That's also an interesting question: when it became much quicker to scan them, why did the ratio go down immediately?
Hm... Perhaps for new players, it's actually more difficult to recognize an ELW on the barcode than it was on the system map? After all, they are right next to the common Rocky Ice Worlds there. I did say in the past that the FSS is good for ELWs, because I meant that for body types in general - which the developers specifically highlighted - but now I wonder if it's only better for WWs and AWs instead. (Speaking of the latter, no questions there: the AW / systems ratio kept increasing until it peaked this March.)
Anyway, this is more than enough describing data. I'll publish them all once I compile a few more things that I want to check - although most of the above is readily available to everyone (without needing to work on the EDSM database dumps, that is), so if you care, you can see for yourself already. Only the parts about ELWs and AWs aren't, for those, you'd need to run your own counts.
Interesting if true!
Quick abandonment due to the boring pan click twiddle mechanic. How could anyone deny this. I think enderby had an animated gif to demonstrate the metaphor.
Its the same effect as people leaving behind lollies they don't like from a variety bag. Nothing more sinister.
Click click?
You could make a new one this time around too. The difference would be that instead of the system map, you call up the FSS to see the barcode, and then move on. Honk-scoop-FSS-jump.
That's true. Money-making exploits popped up shortly after the game launched, and from the first instance when FD decided not to roll back the credits thus gained (as MMOs tend to do), credits became more and more meaningless.
The difference this time with void opals (and others) was that Frontier deliberately made them sell for this much under special circumstances. So it wasn't unintended.
With exploration, you could say that reaching Elite in exploration was made so quick unintendedly, as they didn't touch the rank requirements while the payouts went through the roof.
Unfortunately for you, assuming it's not reworked, then that's likely where the FSS will be headed. The current stated goals are making the game more accessible to new players, so QoL updates to exploration would make the FSS easier / faster. As the data shows, players are scanning less and less per system, so Frontier might think there's a need to make them scan more. The easiest way to do that will be to automate it more. The game does know everything that we have to use the FSS to force it to reveal, after all, with the sole exception of the exact locations and numbers of POI on a given landable body.
Also, you specifically might hope that such things would come via optional modules so they don't spoil your personal gameplay, but Frontier would likely be reluctant to do it that way with the FSS, as I don't think they'd like to add new internal slots yet again, nor risk some player displeasure by adding "mandatory" modules now, after they made D-scanners built-in.
Hm? NSPs do show up on the bar, but they can be difficult to spot, as they are the smallest squiggly line, far enough on the left side of the bar where explorers don't tend to look.
Hey, I'd like to see that gif. But more seriously, if it were the quick abandonment, then why wasn't it the same with AWs?
Although there, there is that before the FSS made them obvious and scannable without flying, people would scan half as many as after. To be precise, AW / systems would increase gradually, then shot up to twice as before when Chapter Four was launched, and only now has it almost decreased back to pre-FSS levels. (Meanwhile, ELW / systems is well below pre-FSS levels.)
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Yeah, but if you want to target them, it's not like you can do so from the sysmap after FSSing stuff, like you generally do with planets, and if you are specifically looking for them it's way more convenient to just look left after the honk before you populate the panel with all the planets in the system, to know if any are there and target them. Almost like they were designed for the old DS mechanics and this aspect was overlooked when incorporating them into the FSS.
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Oh yeah, good point on the system map. Same applies to all the other space POIs, of course. And yeah, I've mentioned earlier as well that the best tool for finding them is the left panel, not the FSS. Now that you mention it, I find it likely that the new content (and the Codex) were done before Frontier worked on that.
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A couple of possible reasons why AWs spiked differently:
1. Whilst the brown AWs were obvious from the SysMap, the white ones looked an awful lot like ice balls, so the FSS made it easier to detect them, whereas ELWs were always pretty easy to spot and the only thing you'd confuse them with was WWs, which people would scan anyway.
2. The goldilocks zone for AWs is further out than ELWs and WWs, and they payout is less, so people were less likely to scan them. Again, the FSS impact on AWs is less than the impact on ELWs.
Couple those factors with ELWs being less obvious on the spectrum and it starts to make sense.
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We’ll have to agree to disagree on that. I don’t see gloom and doom in your data. I see a change in demographics, as the focus of exploration moves towards planetary exploration.
Given that Frontier has stated repeatedly that _DS functionality runs counter to their plans for exploration, it’s not really something I’m hoping for... or worried about for that matter. It’s also something I don’t believe I’ll have to worry about until 2020, which is why I’m enjoying the current iteration as much as I can (time permitted). If the worst does happen, I’ll be back in the Bubble, and at the very least I’ll have the new (and perhaps revised) BGS to relearn, plus the “new era.” Much like all changes I haven’t liked that Frontier has made, I’ll either adapt to them or ignore them.
I agree! But my comment was countering the "appeal to reality" argument of somebody else.
I had been responding to:
"I expect to have to travel to things to discover the actual details about them."
^^^
This.
I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that a lot of cherry pickers have probably looked at Qohen Leth’s FSA diagram, and reduced it further to some kind of rule like “look above ‘AL’ for the big bucks.” If that’s the case, then they’re probably missing a large chunk of the size outliers for both Earthlike and Water Worlds while accidentally scanning the size outliers of Ammonia Worlds, since the borders between planet types on the FSA isn’t nearly as clear cut as that diagram implies.
This is why I'm hoping @marx can put together the stats for WWs.
My prediction is that they spike less than AWs - since they were easy to spot previously - but tail off at a similar rate.
It would have been okay as an option. I can see how people can enjoy it, but also how it can get real tedious very quickly.
Completely Insane:
In 2021, you can clean save to a new galaxy, where the biggest ship is a Cobra 3, only planetary ports, and there are no engineers.
Better, promise it as an "exclusive".
In 2021, you can clean save to a new galaxy, where the biggest ship is a Cobra 3, only planetary ports, and there are no engineers.
Better, promise it as an "exclusive".
I can't. I've tried.
If frontier were as adamant and hardline to demand that choice should be removed, the only justification would be if the mechanic that replaced it was capable of being the entire pillar.
The mechanic of discovering something is literally one activation of a button. A click. The panning is terrible with both joysticks, mice, hotas thumbsticks.. though it kinda makes sense on the console controllers that developers probably have at their workstations. The tuning doesn't add anything to the experience. There's no depth to it, its about as complex as my 2yr olds mobile matching games. The status is binary on/off. Theres no variability permitting decision or skill for effected outcomes from player agency.
It seems the new title rebel galaxy outlaw is doing something similar with their quick travel, point and click and you're there. But that's not a sign of gamers, they're using as the option which removes the mechanic entirely.
Click click.
Just to fill the gaps, certainly nothing was better than something bad. Especially since nothing by accidental nature dumped the exploration experience on an activity that was 100% pure, pristine player agency. Yes better.
As a supporting evidence, new mining. The glowing rocks provide something that the fss doesn't. Before the learning experience is complete, distant identification of the glowing ones is real a learned skill. And then even once done, there's depth, because a player has a variable choice, they could just min max like a chump, or they could decide they want to go for deposits, do surface mining, whatever they want.. like the rest of the elite sandbox. Its just not fair how exploration came out limp.
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The FSS is a good idea with an unpolished execution. I think a few small tweaks which are mentioned here could make it very acceptable to 90% of the players.
Good luck with that.
Just to be clear, I'm not saying I'd personally ever find it fun, but it's got a certain 'slot machine' aspect to it that is well known to be addictive - keep pulling the lever and you may win an ELW.
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