New Planet Tech is KILLER of Exploration (all terrain is tiling/repeating/not procedural/random)

[Alec Turner]

@Kay Ross I know you asked not to be pinged directly on twitter posts so please accept my apologies for doing so here but I really think some sort of comment on the new planet tech is long overdue. Is this genuinely working as intended because right now , to almost anyone who chooses to look a bit more closely than just "ooooh, blue sky, pretty!", it really seems like we've taken a significant step backwards from Horizons!

P.S. and sorry if you've been asked or responded already, I'm on holiday with poor wifi and haven't been able to read everything yet.

Yours sincerely
A HUGE fan of your work.

 

[Just]

Can this really be?

Also: "where is my post you are answering to?
I guess irony was not obvious enough

 

[no namn]

Unfortunately this texture pattern is visible on every planet.

i have that issues as well, but its not on all planets... seem to be some texture handling issue (not sure if ur trying to show a repeating pattern, or the blocky/pixelated texture)

 

[StuartGT]

@Kay Ross I know you asked not to be pinged directly on twitter posts so please accept my apologies for doing so here but I really think some sort of comment on the new planet tech is long overdue. Is this genuinely working as intended because right now , to almost anyone who chooses to look a bit more closely than just "ooooh, blue sky, pretty!", it really seems like we've taken a significant step backwards from Horizons!

P.S. and sorry if you've been asked or responded already, I'm on holiday with poor wifi and haven't been able to read everything yet.

Yours sincerely
A HUGE fan of your work.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1396829247881322498

Source: https://twitter.com/drkayross/status/1396829247881322498

 

[Barking_Mad]

Workday, so no time to read all new the posts since I last visited. Can anyone sum up how the apologists are excusing this issue? Call it morbid curiosity.

There's an original post which highlighted repeating patterns on a system map, and more on another cropped image, which may or may not be a planet/system map image. A third image, also showing repeating patterns was taken from the DSS.

I bothered to visited the planet and took some photos of it (post 165) and there's no obvious visible repeating patterns to be spotted so far.

There's then a bunch of people quoting Dr Kay and taking her words to mean something specific ie that all/some of the scenery is handcrafted. Again, this might be correct, or it could be that it's more subtle than that.

End result, we don't know for sure, but people took one look at the post and have thrown their teddy's out of the pram and aren't coming back.

Meanwhile the ice caps are melting, something that is not beyond question

 

[Agrar Therenus]

What I'm about to show you will be the final straw in cementing the new planetary tech system into a failure.

I remember Dr Kay Ross stating on stream that their procedural heightmap system made use of handmade terrain that would then be randomized across. I was worried when I heard this.

Check this out - I'll let the images speak for itself:

Literally all terrain features both from high orbit to low orbit are repeating, hand crafted, and break every little bit hunger for exploration. There is absolutely no desire to go down and explore since all you're looking at is the "randomly" organized set of hand crafted height map bits the developers have made.

Horizons gives a REAL sense of wanting to go and explore. Find planets with unique features.

Planets in Odyssey are no longer unique. They are just reorganised sets of the same features.

These planets were designed with one goal: look acceptable from an on-foot perspective or when looking from a twilight perspective with a setting sun for the atmo effect.

I genuinely hadn't noticed that, even though it really should've clicked why planets felt like they always had these medium blobs of badland terrain. That really is awful, and completely unacceptable in a procedural generation system.

I was warming up to Odyssey's planet tech, and now this has really pushed down my opinion again. There's just no defending this.

 

[Northpin]

@Kay Ross I know you asked not to be pinged directly on twitter posts so please accept my apologies for doing so here but I really think some sort of comment on the new planet tech is long overdue. Is this genuinely working as intended because right now , to almost anyone who chooses to look a bit more closely than just "ooooh, blue sky, pretty!", it really seems like we've taken a significant step backwards from Horizons!

P.S. and sorry if you've been asked or responded already, I'm on holiday with poor wifi and haven't been able to read everything yet.

Yours sincerely
A HUGE fan of your work.

Check Post #82

She said she cannot comment on a lot of things

 

[Old Duck]

I bothered to visited the planet and took some photos of it (post 165) and there's no obvious visible repeating patterns to be spotted so far.

This is the first rebuttal I've seen that actually sounds like a proper rebuttal. Is this similar to the ice planet thread, where different CMDRs are getting totally different results, some good and some rubbish? If so, then maybe you've restored some hope to my sad soul. As long as the repeating texture issue is unintentional and not a design decision, I can hold on till things are fixed.

 

[StuartGT]

This is the first rebuttal I've seen that actually sounds like a proper rebuttal. Is this similar to the ice planet thread, where different CMDRs are getting totally different results, some good and some rubbish? If so, then maybe you've restored some hope to my sad soul. As long as the repeating texture issue is unintentional and not a design decision, I can hold on till things are fixed.

Yes, it certainly looks that way.

TL;DR: bugs.

 

[thistle]

There's an original post which highlighted repeating patterns on a system map, and more on another cropped image, which may or may not be a planet/system map image. A third image, also showing repeating patterns was taken from the DSS.

I bothered to visited the planet and took some photos of it (post 165) and there's no obvious visible repeating patterns to be spotted so far.

There's then a bunch of people quoting Dr Kay and taking her words to mean something specific ie that all/some of the scenery is handcrafted. Again, this might be correct, or it could be that it's more subtle than that.

End result, we don't know for sure, but people took one look at the post and have thrown their teddy's out of the pram and aren't coming back.

Meanwhile the ice caps are melting, something that is not beyond question

Sanity.

 

[Agrar Therenus]

As if the general flattening and yoghurtification wasn't enough, now the much vaunted new model is just replicating identical tiles!?
This is quite a facepalm moment.

I've arguad a lot with you on the ice-world thread, but with this I am in total agreement. There's just no words to describe how awful it looks - and yes I didn't notice it directly until now - but that isn't as much of a "Got ya it clearly works then." because the game is still very new and it would've clicked at some point and the awfulness would dawn.

Even if someone doesn't notice it, they'd indirectly notice the repeating terrain after a while of exploring "Why does everything feel so samey?", and indeed I did as I've wondered why there's always these medium sized blotches of badlands. Well, here's the explanation.

 

[thistle]

100% seeking a refund when I get home.

Absolutely right, and don't you dare check for yourself and see if it's true before you do it. Ridiculous salty and inaccurate forum threads are how I make all my decisions.

 

[Barking_Mad]

This is the first rebuttal I've seen that actually sounds like a proper rebuttal. Is this similar to the ice planet thread, where different CMDRs are getting totally different results, some good and some rubbish? If so, then maybe you've restored some hope to my sad soul. As long as the repeating texture issue is unintentional and not a design decision, I can hold on till things are fixed.

To be clear, I'm not saying there categorically aren't repeating patterns, only that its not been shown to exist on multiple planets, least of all on the actual planet in question.

I'm sure if OP is correct they will be shown to exist everywhere and at that point we can confirm it.

This goes is in the Codex as 'Rumoured'.

 

[CharlieFoxtrot]

What a ridiculous overwrought thread.

I've had it with this intense entitled nonsense from two-year-olds.

(OP starts a thread pointing out the existence of planetary downgrades)


"HOW DARE YOU POINT THIS DOWNGRADE OUT, YOU'RE ENTITLED EEEE"

 

[Northpin]

Absolutely right, and don't you dare check for yourself and see if it's true before you do it. Ridiculous salty and inaccurate forum threads are how I make all my decisions.

What? People are refunding? We should too...

Like the old standing in line jokes where someone waiting for his friend stood outside a store and within 30 minutes a long line was formed behind him, no one knowing why there was a line for, but not wanting to miss it whatever it was

 

[Old Duck]

Yes, it certainly looks that way.

TL;DR: bugs.

Well if this is the case, and Frontier does some serious modifications to the new UI, then my single-pole double-throw switch might toggle back to "excited" again.

I guess the moral of the story is, it's just best to wait and see what state Odyssey is in a month from now before getting too invested one way or another. That said, it is good for threads like this to exist, because that's how these bugs will get squashed (hopefully).

 

[Barking_Mad]

As if the general flattening and yoghurtification wasn't enough, now the much vaunted new model is just replicating identical tiles!?
This is quite a facepalm moment.

A rumour is around the world before the truth gets out of bed.

 

[thistle]

What? People are refunding? We should too...

Like the old standing in line jokes where someone waiting for his friend stood outside a store and within 30 minutes a long line was formed behind him, no one knowing why there was a line for, but not wanting to miss it whatever it was

Heh, it might be a joke but I'm quite sure it happens

 

[Agrar Therenus]

But this isn't a bug. This is by design. They designed the planet tech this way.
Edit: That is, to use "terrain shapes" generated offline, instead of mathematically produce the terrain height maps. Dr. Ross said so herself.

But it's crazy they use entire regions that must be many square miles in size. One would've thought 'handcrafted' would mean small tilesets randomly put into a pattern. Small to me would be a few tens of feet accross not hundreds of miles. Say you get ten types of a mountain base, ten middle bits, and ten peaks that all look right in any order.

 

[Old Duck]

Absolutely right, and don't you dare check for yourself and see if it's true before you do it. Ridiculous salty and inaccurate forum threads are how I make all my decisions.

FWIW, some of us are totally reliant on 3rd party observations. However, I am totally open to solid arguments from BOTH sides of any claims when it comes to Odyssey. The problem with this update is it seems different CMDRs are getting radically different results in some cases. It used to be that screenshots were pretty solid evidence, but I guess this is not so with Odyssey.