it feels like Exploration has ben left out to die...

[marx]

@SwingFish : Ah, I only saw your latest post about focusing on new players right now. The thing is, there were three times when there was massive interest in exploration from new players, in increasing order: when Thargoids were first added, when Guardians were first added, and when the one major update to exploration launched. The promise of good new mechanics and good new content was enough to drive quite a spike in that last one. Nearly all of them stopped exploring not long after though, as it turned out that the FSS and the DSS were lackluster gameplay, and the promised new content (Notable Stellar Phenomena) turned out to be lackluster as well, sparse through the galaxy and only offering tiny rewards.

But if Frontier wanted to drive player activity through exploration, then looking at past data, good new mechanics would be the best way to go. Of course, that takes the most work from FD's part. Barring that, adding new content that players would be interested in looking for could also help, for a couple of months until it's all discovered. So that's easier to do, but its effect is only temporary.


Anyway, another thing to add to your suggestions on feedback to players. While the game journals don't store who it was that already tagged a body, they do store if a body you just scanned was already tagged or not. So if you wanted to make an app that gives obvious feedback to players whenever they scan something untagged, then you could make one. IIRC you could also just add a custom criterion to Elite Observatory to send you a notification. Personally, I think those pop-ups would get old swiftly, since you'll be flooded with them once you leave the beaten paths, but hey, it would be possible to make them.

 

[Fnord Velkor]

This whole topic wasn't about YOU, or me, or anyone that replied so far, the idea was about ENCOURAGEMENT FOR NEW PLAYERS,
........

1. Your OP made absolutely no reference to new players*, (you just pulled that out of the hat after people posted criticism). In particular one can see the part where you say " ... would greatly push the players into more exploring ... ".

2. There is a suggestions forum if that is what you want to do.

* (Using block capitals doesn't change that fact.)

 

[Ultra Fluffy]

A few examples:

• Discovering new bodies or even whole systems has ZERO visual effect,
  removing the incentive visually and psychologically to keep exploring.
• in-game there is zero indication if a player has actually made a discovery or potentially made one
  (its just quietly booked in the ledger and that's it)
• The pay is terrible for the effort taken
• the API doesn't provide details about those discoveries made in the form of events,
  so 3rd party sites/apps cannot provide the reward visually either.
• The only way to get the gratification is to make a bookmark and check again in the galaxy map after turning the data in.
• Bookmarks are impossible to properly manage, creating a massive mess if one actively uses the bookmark system.

First of all, thank you OP for wanting to encourage more people to get involved in exploring. Unfortunately I think what you are suggesting will have little or no impact on that. Reading your other posts you clarified that you were talking about new players. The problem is that

1. There are people whose only interest is the pew pew. I've see posts that say "I ventured 200ly outside the bubble and found nothing new, so I went back to bubble" or "There was nothing to blow up so I came back". You will only encourage those people into the black if you give them an enemy out there.
2. You need to stop FDev constantly encouraging people back to the bubble. When was the last time a CG made you travel more than 2000ly outside the bubble. When was the lore encouraging you to go out and find things. Well there is Raxxla, but that is only a myth and the chances are slim of finding something that you don't know what it looks like, in a galaxy full of stars, with planets, moons and other things that it could be on. Needle in haystack comes to mind.
3. People like to meet other people. The chances of meeting someone out in the black is very remote unless you bring them with you.
4. There is very little out there that would excite most people. Very few people are into astronomy. They would not care that the had found a planet covered in spots. They would not get excited about finding a green gas giant.
5. Most of what is out there has already been discovered by someone else. Only the very dedicated would know that finding a 45G planet was something special. They would probably just fly straight past it without noticing.
6. Exploration can become very grindy very quickly. Even if you add in exobiology, it can end up finding planet after planet with the same colour scheme, the same terrain and the same plants as they did on previous places. The chances of FDev adding more variety is slim, It is a lot of effort to code and draw for such a minority of players.
7. A lot of new players are scared of leaving the comfort of the bubble. They seek the reassurance that there is a spaceport two jumps away that they can jump to to get repairs. The thought that they could be away for months collecting exploration and bio data, only to pancake land, blow up and loose it all, absolutely terrifies people.
8. Getting a single email saying "Well done you found something new" is not going to encourage them to explore further. It would be a case of "Done that, back to the bubble".
9. Very few people catalogue what they have found or bookmark them. It is a case of "Oooh pretty! Onto the next one".
10. I set up EDDI to tell me when I had discovered a new planet. It relied on EDSM logs I think, so not 100% accurate, and I soon got fed up with it saying "You have discovered something new". After all I must have found hundreds if not thousands of them.

Don't expect FDev to encourage people to explore. They are only interested in the bubble and to a lesser extent Colonia. The best encouragement I have come across is the Canonn Challenge, which lists out a route of POIs, but even then it takes dedication, as it takes months to complete, and realisation that you will have to spend days just jumping to get to the next POI.

Now if we had more variety, more interactions out in the black, and less centralisation around the bubble and Colonia then people would venture past their own back garden.

Sorry, I have rambled on for too long. I'll shut up now.

 

[Gut]

Just finding silly things that make you smile , is good enough for me . I just posted pictures in The Official Explorers Photography Thread. of a planet that was fun to explore for an hour or so before i left too find the next thing =-)

 

[CMDR Sheehy]

Uh - What about the UC page when you sell the data that says "You are the first to discover" "You are the first to discover and map"!

The first time I say that is what got me hooked!

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Exploration has no more or no less been left out to die than any other part of the game.

Except Powerplay and CQC, those have totally been left to die.

 

[CMDR Sheehy]

Exploration has no more or no less been left out to die than any other part of the game.

Except Powerplay and CQC, those have totally been left to die.

However, like fat cells in your tummy, they are immortal!

 

[Go'Gen]

Err, sorry, if I may jump in with a question.
How do you know you DSSed some rare or unusual planet worth sharing on-line?

Sometimes I pass through (for me) unvisited systems and DSS everything, but really quickly. I look at the body, "wow", zoom out, next, zoom in, nice, out, next...
Then I see a screenshot of (for me) a usual system with "Look what I've found!" and all Cmdrs are, "Omg awesome what a great rare find where is this gem?!"

Any links or hints on how to know if you DSSed something worth sharing? Size? Atmosphere type? Gravity? Binary thing? Two same moons? ...?
thanks

 

[Zieman]

Err, sorry, if I may jump in with a question.
How do you know you DSSed some rare or unusual planet worth sharing on-line?

Sometimes I pass through (for me) unvisited systems and DSS everything, but really quickly. I look at the body, "wow", zoom out, next, zoom in, nice, out, next...
Then I see a screenshot of (for me) a usual system with "Look what I've found!" and all Cmdrs are, "Omg awesome what a great rare find where is this gem?!"

Any links or hints on how to know if you DSSed something worth sharing? Size? Atmosphere type? Gravity? Binary thing? Two same moons? ...?
thanks

Exploration rarities and statistics - what you should look for

Marx posted a helpful thread about the rarity of various Earthlike worlds. Going on that topic, and because of the repeat questions I see of "what is really rare or unusual?", presented here is a list of things that are unusual or rare. These are rare enough that the Galactic Mapping Project...

forums.frontier.co.uk

ELW bucket list

The question of "how rare is this" and a bucket list of ELWs to find has come up from time to time, so I thought I'd write one up now. I'll include some categories based on rarity, and at times, they'll be approximate. For reference: the main star of a system is the one that's shown on the...

forums.frontier.co.uk

GEC - The Galactic Exploration Catalog

Introducing the GEC, the Galactic Exploration Catalog! This is a new POI (Point of Interest) sharing system, hosted on EDAstro.com, designed to be a relatively open and free-form platform to share interesting locations, beautiful scenery, new discoveries, historical locations, and more. Each...

forums.frontier.co.uk

The short list:
terraformable metal rich body
helium giant (not to be confused with helium rich gas giants!)
glowing green gas giant

 

[Zieman]

That said, if you find something that looks cool to you, and manage to snap some spiffy screenies of that, why not post some to the explorers' screenie thread pinned at the top of this forum, or to stellar screenshots, or Odyssey screenie thread?

 

[Go'Gen]

The short list:
terraformable metal rich body
helium giant (not to be confused with helium rich gas giants!)
glowing green gas giant

Awesome, thanks! Everything was right here, under my nose...

 

[grimreaper]

SwingFish for visual confirmation that you keep and share, edmc has badges... here's a few off the site. and I agree with some of the others notifications would real annoying, my last trip was east them to sag a then to beagle, formadyne, etc and it would have drove me insane. did over 200,000 ly​

​

 

[grimreaper]

 

[varonica]

Err, sorry, if I may jump in with a question.
How do you know you DSSed some rare or unusual planet worth sharing on-line?

Sometimes I pass through (for me) unvisited systems and DSS everything, but really quickly. I look at the body, "wow", zoom out, next, zoom in, nice, out, next...
Then I see a screenshot of (for me) a usual system with "Look what I've found!" and all Cmdrs are, "Omg awesome what a great rare find where is this gem?!"

Any links or hints on how to know if you DSSed something worth sharing? Size? Atmosphere type? Gravity? Binary thing? Two same moons? ...?
thanks

I use Elite Observatory to notify me of common ones, like high grav, large landable, ringed landable etc, you can also add custom criteria, for instance I have a custom criteria that lets me know when a body has an oxygen rich atmosphere, they are uncommon, but not rare, there are plenty of tools out there to help explorers keep track of their finds, both rare and common.

 

[Hellrider]

The best way to make exploration "fun" is...interaction with community

Personall I love check, what other players discovered, share my finds with friends, check new things or tests limits of my ship.

Can I found completely new type of planet, like "urban planet"? No. But after 1,7m ly I found only one ringed earthlike. And it was very cool even with whole "cool, we know thousands of them".

But damn. I REALLY want 2 things: in game base of my all discoveries and more nebula models.

Do you want gratification? Don't use bookmarks, don't be greedy. Share it with us

 

[CMDR dkO]

I was at BP when the first anomaly was discovered and flew all the way back to the bubble thinking that they are finally putting focus on exploration. Well, just as I arrive they made a fix to remove the visual aspect of the anomaly....

You know what is crazy? We currently now have 8 mysterious signal sources approaching the bubble............not ONE planned event or CG was put in place specifically geared towards explorers getting together to fly out and fully scan the region to find some clues on what exactly it might be....

It feels like we are always left out when they can easily incorporate an explorer incentive along with the others, idk...

I am not hopeful for ANYTHING new that focuses specifically on exploration.....

Frontier tells us they can't wait to see what we find but we are still not even at a full 1% of the galaxy explored...

At this point I feel they don't even care about that statistic....if they did, we would see more updates specifically focusing on exploration, making the player base actually WANT to fly to a specific region in the galaxy to find something new.....

 

[grimreaper]

I explore for the solitude and emptiness of space and the unknown discoveries. found "first discovered" bio's, some unique geo's and first foot falls and some unique and different planets and moons. an explorer has a totally different mindset than a bubble head. it's not about distance or setting a record (at least not for me) it's about being out in the black and seeing what's out there, I know some don't get it and that's ok. there's something special going past beagle point and looking back at the galaxy or going 1500-2000 ly above and below the galactic plane. imo exploration is what you make it, and I agree explorers aren't really rewarded for their efforts, but that's not why I do it.

 

[robbyp]

Have you tried the new Discoveries system in EDD? Integrated with the surveyor, custom searches, discovery panels, it will notify you as you fly of significant objects

 

[GroG79]

Yeah, that may work, if the player is 7 years old or my cat.

 

[conan02]

I explore for the solitude and emptiness of space and the unknown discoveries. found "first discovered" bio's, some unique geo's and first foot falls and some unique and different planets and moons. an explorer has a totally different mindset than a bubble head. it's not about distance or setting a record (at least not for me) it's about being out in the black and seeing what's out there, I know some don't get it and that's ok. there's something special going past beagle point and looking back at the galaxy or going 1500-2000 ly above and below the galactic plane. imo exploration is what you make it, and I agree explorers aren't really rewarded for their efforts, but that's not why I do it.
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I fully agree. Exploration for me is for rest from crowd, noise and daily work. For addition I feel incredible freedom in deep space.