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

[Sakashiro]

Maybe we got it all wrong. Maybe this is working as intended. You see, the title of this thread suggests that repeating terrain patterns kill exploration, but do they really? Look at what we're doing here: We're flying through the galaxy, looking for repeating terrain patterns and documenting them. FDev has turned the planet surfaces into hidden picture puzzles keeping us busy. The patterns themselves are becoming points of interest. Like it or not, but this is what exploration is all about, isn't it?

 

[Agony_Aunt]

They were sure they had a good system though.

They were just... unfortunately, a tad wrong about that, because they misjudged how well the player base would be able to see through the illusion (it would always, always be an illusion no matter the system)

This does seem odd though, considering they must know what their community is like.

Yeah, it is quite possible nobody saw the issues during development... which would be strange, since they can be pretty glaring, but they only gave them a cursory look, it could have been missed. Still not a good sign really.

 

[Erei]

Nature, which the game tries to simulate, is not random.

S

Since I'm tired of this silly debate with no nuance. Yes nature is not "random". No, nature doesn't make chessboard and camo randomly either, and certainly doesn't throw texture at random. There are no texture on a mountain.

So here is a screenshot on what is poor and what's I'd expect :

Red is poor. It's random, blocky and do straight lines. Those lines are random and don't follow any "natural" things that's make them that way. it's a graphical glitch. In the background it goes to "chessboard" texture and it's just bugged, plain and simple. Nothing to debate there. If you think it's natural, get your eyes checked, or your brain, it's a "you" think.

The black circle is for a mountain that supposedly look like a volcano. But it's terrible. It's just a "shaped like a volcano" mesh, with nothing else. it's smooth with nothing that look like a volcano. It's essentially how you designed a volcano in 2010.

The yellow circle in front is good. This is intended and certainly an improvement. We see different layer, and it's not random. Bottom is black-brown, then it's yellowish with "natural" lines, and the top is white-ish, the ground terrain.

Red and black circles are bad. The yellow in front is good.

 

[Pigletslastand]

Yeah, it is quite possible nobody saw the issues during development... which would be strange, since they can be pretty glaring, but they only gave them a cursory look, it could have been missed. Still not a good sign really.

It's because it's become blatantly obvious their testing procedures are nowhere near as robust enough. Compounded that a lot of the issues are difficult to reproduce until you unleash thousands of players on them.

 

[Drelthar]

Here's the problem.. They are too self assured in their own predictions without testing them on a real player base.


Remember Dav (bless his heart, really like him) confidently announcing on stream that they had run the numbers and were correct on the pricing of Fleet Carrier upkeep?? Yup, they see through spreadsheets, not player experience alas.

Well, yes, they ran the numbers, but the thing is, those numbers are massively skewed by various "exploits" or "get rich quick" schemes employed by various player elements - they were clearly not based on "normal" gameplay.

It's also possible, when those numbers were run, it was when they were still designing for squadron carriers (certainly seemed like it) and hadn't been updated for single player carrier ownership.

 

[Drelthar]

Yeah, it is quite possible nobody saw the issues during development... which would be strange, since they can be pretty glaring, but they only gave them a cursory look, it could have been missed. Still not a good sign really.

Well, I have to admit - I personally didn't see the problems until pointed out by actual explorers.

This is because I am not an explorer - I just see planets as I glide in to do (insert thing I'm doing on the surface) and the planets looked really great to me (when the LOD bug wasn't happening!)

So, as the people who looked at the tech are probably not players, exploring how real players do - it seems entirely possible they had the same reaction as me...

 

[Drelthar]

Since I'm tired of this silly debate with no nuance. Yes nature is not "random". No, nature doesn't make chessboard and camo randomly either, and certainly doesn't throw texture at random. There are no texture on a mountain.

So here is a screenshot on what is poor and what's I'd expect :
View attachment 248126
Red is poor. It's random, blocky and do straight lines. Those lines are random and don't follow any "natural" things that's make them that way. it's a graphical glitch. In the background it goes to "chessboard" texture and it's just bugged, plain and simple. Nothing to debate there. If you think it's natural, get your eyes checked, or your brain, it's a "you" think.

The black circle is for a mountain that supposedly look like a volcano. But it's terrible. It's just a "shaped like a volcano" mesh, with nothing else. it's smooth with nothing that look like a volcano. It's essentially how you designed a volcano in 2010.

The yellow circle in front is good. This is intended and certainly an improvement. We see different layer, and it's not random. Bottom is black-brown, then it's yellowish with "natural" lines, and the top is white-ish, the ground terrain.

Red and black circles are bad. The yellow in front is good.

You've got LOD level bugs here - it's not all loaded in at full detail, those straight lines are smoothed out in full detail level.

(those "mountains" look silly to me though, they are too high with not enough width to make sense to me (though who knows what could happen on planets with different gravity and other factors, not me)

 

[[VR] Merkir]

Yeah, it is quite possible nobody saw the issues during development... which would be strange, since they can be pretty glaring, but they only gave them a cursory look, it could have been missed. Still not a good sign really.

It's because it's become blatantly obvious their testing procedures are nowhere near as robust enough. Compounded that a lot of the issues are difficult to reproduce until you unleash thousands of players on them.

Software engineering doesn't work like that. Some of the devs would have known exactly how it worked, and the issues we see now. There would have been significant work prototyping not just the final planet tech, but probably many other possible solutions. A decision would have been made as to the final planet tech design, then a team (or teams), would have coded the system. Those devs know precisely how the planet tech works, including the way the pre-generated terrain shapes are created, how many there are, how they are chosen (procedurally) for each planet, and the frequency and proximity with which those "tiles" are placed. The procgen parameters which give these metrics would be very well known by them. They coded it.

The only unknown is how far up the management chain this design choice was known. I'd be shocked if Dr. Ross was unaware. One would assume she had a significant part, not only the new planet tech design solutions, but the decision as to which one to use.

Whether David Braben was aware is a very interesting question, which is why I asked the question of him on page 1 of this thread. The procgen is his little baby after all, and I'd be surprised if he doesn't have some "fondness" towards it even after all these years.

 

[Erei]

You've got LOD level bugs here - it's not all loaded in at full detail, those straight lines are smoothed out in full detail level.

(those "mountains" look silly to me though, they are too high with not enough width to make sense to me (though who knows what could happen on planets with different gravity and other factors, not me)

OFC there are lod issues. We've been plagued by them since EDO launched, and to be fair, the lod was never smooth in horizon. At least it wasn't "broken".

But it was a random planet, I didn't cherry picked anything. It's important to note. I was looking for bio stuff on my way back from the last CG, I landed on a single planet, that one. 100% random.
The other planets I landed on where one for opinion poll farm, a snow "flat and white" planet that I posted earlier for the repetitive pattern, and dav's hope, which I posted earlier to.

But yes the mountain looks silly. They look like a 2010 videogame volcano, and since the planet had volcanism, I think this is what it was supposed to look like. But they are very basic in shape and very smooth.


This is literally 99% of my experience in odyssey. I had one (singular) planet which looked good. Didn't have many hills or elevation, and I think it's the biggest issue. They tend to get super smooth with no details, with very poor texturing.

 

[AdriánGuth]

Nice recopilation of well know, bugged planets.

 

[M_72]

Software engineering doesn't work like that. Some of the devs would have known exactly how it worked, and the issues we see now. There would have been significant work prototyping not just the final planet tech, but probably many other possible solutions. A decision would have been made as to the final planet tech design, then a team (or teams), would have coded the system. Those devs know precisely how the planet tech works, including the way the pre-generated terrain shapes are created, how many there are, how they are chosen (procedurally) for each planet, and the frequency and proximity with which those "tiles" are placed. The procgen parameters which give these metrics would be very well known by them. They coded it.

The only unknown is how far up the management chain this design choice was known. I'd be shocked if Dr. Ross was unaware. One would assume she had a significant part, not only the new planet tech design solutions, but the decision as to which one to use.

Whether David Braben was aware is a very interesting question, which is why I asked the question of him on page 1 of this thread. The procgen is his little baby after all, and I'd be surprised if he doesn't have some "fondness" towards it even after all these years.

Sadly I agree with this. It was a stonewall design decision to do this and if I'd hazard a guess, it was done exactly for one of the reasons stated in the OP.

Quote "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."

Leg mode and making it work and look good with all the new tech is priority #1 now, and is the direction they're taking this game. Exploring their 1:1 scale galaxy for the uniqueness it once offered has become a sham. Its secondary to the new direction.

Anyone still thinking this is going to change is wasting their time, Frontier pretty much said its a very difficult issue to resolve (which probably translates to "it won't be resolved, and soon it'll become the norm that's universally accepted by the new players coming to the game who won't even know what Horizons tech was, nor care").

 

[Franc Kaos]

There was repetition. But it was well hidden and you wouldn't see it. Like that stupid giant crater which is literally on every rock moon and planet. It was there in horizon to, but I didn't noticed it, because it was usually covered by the surrounding terrain and it "looked" different.
Now, this crater can't be unseen.

My list of gripes in order of <my> importance...
Lighting & shadows, that stupid crater, no procedurally generated plants or settlements, repeated planetary tiling, doll like NPCs unless they're for the shooter bits and one room to convey the magnificence of star bases.
I really despise that <redacted> giant crater!

 

[Erei]

I feel the biggest issue is how downgraded the planet tech was. Not even cherry picking can make the difference we have today, unless it's misleading on purpose.

This is one of the reason I bought this DLC. It makes me sad/angry/frustrated to see it now :

I want to play the game they are selling. Someone made an album of the video planets :

https://imgur.com/a/Z8yuimT

Source: https://imgur.com/gallery/Z8yuimT



What's ridiculous, is that even during alpha we had better.
This was on reddit, a partially frozen world, during alpha.

Spoiler

https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/mrkb1f

Source: https://old.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/mrkb1f/the_new_terrain_generation_in_action_this_planet/

Look at that comparison between alpha and release, the quality difference is mind blowing. The alpha 3 textures are highly detailed, with rocks and snow at the same place as if the ground had frozen, but was not made of ice otherwise. There is a large amount of rock scattering, and texture variety.

Spoiler

Still alpha, frozen world, not ice world. Note the "ice fog" weather.

Same planet, video vs reality :

The planet is HD 10329 , B 5, if anybody want to make an horizon screenshot (I don't want to lose my keybinds^^). Curious to see it compared to horizon.

Anyway, the quality downgrade is ridiculous.
We can't see repetition on the video planets, they are way too detailed for that. Too much noise, even if there is repetition, you can't see it unless you really look for it.

I sincerely believe they are surprised by the repetition. Because the planet gen we have is not the one they worked on. We have the "low quality" one they apparently slapped in emergency before release. I assume for performance reason, but it could be something else.

Heck, even the skybox is different, it look like "better horizon" instead of "horizon but we dimmed everything drastically".

 

[Rat Catcher]

Didn't have many hills or elevation, and I think it's the biggest issue. They tend to get super smooth with no details, with very poor texturing.

I find this rather funny, as that also describes so many of the Bio sites on bodies I visited in Horizons. Having posted just a couple of screenshots, as an example, one of the 'hooners' was kind enough to comment that I didn't like hilly planets... The blinkers were strong on that one!

The majority of bodies in both versions are incredibly boring... Why not try comparing the boring ones you find directly, rather than just posting another bland Odyssey shot? At least there would be some sense of honesty...

 

[Erei]

I find this rather funny, as that also describes so many of the Bio sites on bodies I visited in Horizons. Having posted just a couple of screenshots, as an example, one og the 'hooners' was kind enough to comment that I didn't like hilly planets... The blinkers were strong on that one!

The majority of bodies in both versions are incredibly boring... Why not try comparing the boring ones you find directly, rather than just posting another bland Odyssey shot? At least there would be some sense of honesty...

The planet I posted are not cherry picked, if that what you mean. I landed on very few of them due to the issue that really get to me. I posted the one I landed back from the CG, and the one I went to farm opinion poll. I went to another for ground CZ, but it was all in a settlement, and nothing to see here (for better or for worse). It's a low CZ in the current CG system, if you want to see it.

I then went to dav's hope, because the screenshot I had was from someone else, and I wanted my own, with proper graphic settings, because I didn't want to be inaccurate.
Oh and I went back to Deciat to check if they changed anything there, and as you know already, they didn't.

I posted all of them in the thread. They are very random. Perhaps I was unlucky, who knows, but they are certainly not cherry picked.

I'm not going in horizon because it messes up my keybinds. Also right now, I'm playing less and less because the issues gets to me.

It's kinda ironic. People complain when we don't "take a break if you don't like it", but then they also complain we don't have new screenshots.

I can open my flight log on Inara/EDSM if you wish to see. If it's not open already.

 

[Rat Catcher]

The planet I posted are not cherry picked, if that what you mean. I landed on very few of them due to the issue that really get to me. I posted the one I landed back from the CG, and the one I went to farm opinion poll. I went to another for ground CZ, but it was all in a settlement, and nothing to see here (for better or for worse).

I then went to dav's hope, because the screenshot I had was from someone else, and I wanted my own, with proper graphic settings, because I didn't want to be inaccurate.

I posted all of them in the thread. They are very random. Perhaps I was unlucky, who knows, but they are certainly not cherry picked.

I'm not going in horizon because it messes up my keybinds. Also right now, I'm playing less and less because the issues gets to me.

It's kinda ironic. People complain when we don't "take a break if you don't like it", but then they also complain we don't have new screenshots.

That isn't what what I said... You post another bland EDO body - there are plenty to choose from, but fail to compare the same body in EDH - is it the same, or more interesting.

I understand how 'betrayed' some players 'feel' because EDO has faulty planet generation, it has - Frontier have agreed they are wrong - but there is a distinct lack of direct comparisons here, possibly because 99% of the bodies in both EDH & EDO are about as interesting to look at as some drying paint!

ETA: Deriso has a very nice "textured - valleys" body outside of the station in Horizons - in Odyssey it is very bland... EDO doesn't do either good "sharp edges" or "high things" which EDH is very good at. But both versions are good at producing bland, boring, bodies not worthy of a screenshot...

 

[Erei]

That isn't what what I said... You post another bland EDO body - there are plenty to choose from, but fail to compare the same body in EDH - is it the same, or more interesting.

I understand how 'betrayed' some players 'feel' because EDO has faulty planet generation, it has - Frontier have agreed they are wrong - but there is a distinct lack of direct comparisons here, possibly because 99% of the bodies in both EDH & EDO are about as interesting to look at as some drying paint!

They agreed upon 2 issues, the tiling and "planetary textures" whatever that include. I assume lod and all the camo effect ?
And I don't feel betrayed. I feel sad and frustrated. Because I'd like to have what I saw in video and I'd like to go and explore to scan plant and stuff, but the quality it not good enough for me to do that.
I can't say how other people feel though.

I don't play much nowadays, and changing to horizon reset the bindings, so it's very annoying. Otherwise I'd jump in horizon. Also I'm a bit more busy this days, and will be until mid august.

 

[Rat Catcher]

And I don't feel betrayed

Which is why I chose the word "some"

and changing to horizon reset the bindings, so it's very annoying

I have 2 sets of named bindings, it saves a lot of time re-doing them when changing between versions!

 

[FX2K]

Hey, that's my screenshot from Geawete system (in the bubble)

As cool as that one was, out of 2 weeks (approx) system hopping and trying to find great planets, this was one of the only one's I found that was somewhat unique, although, the terrain that covers it, is in use on many other planets just at a smaller scale.

Sadly, most planets I have been to have had tiling either large scale or small scale, with some exceptions of course, either too bland or some actually well done.

 

[FX2K]

Perhaps not identical, especially as this is much closer and coloured different, but its very similar and in abundance... I see it a lot.