2.2's Instant Ship and Module Transport - Yay or Nay?

[Weps]

> Gotta disagree with you there, that's how I got involved with the forums myself

May have worded the green part less than perfect, which is why out of context, I sounds exactly the opposite of what I was saying. If you were to color the whole paragraph green, you'd be basically making the same point as me.

In your case, you joined the forums "when 1.3 hit", not before, and not because you had *anticipated* that once 1.3 hits you'll have a lousy time. You did not come to the forums, as you put it earlier, to "voice opposition" to an upcoming change.

>As far as Gamescom streams being a representative of interest, I flatly disagree. Elite: Dangerous is played the world over and time priorities, real life events, and timezones apply.

Granted.

But! I'd like to point out there's still a bit of causality there as well. Generally speaking (very generally!!), European digital products are marketed largely in Europe and North America. Timezones match, at least for the afternoon streams. I doubt there are people in Fiji playing Elite: Dangerous, or keen on watching the loach.

> This appears to be a variation on the 'No True Scotsman' fallacy.

I wasn't trying to make a point that the forumites' opinions are more important than those of players who don't bother with the forums. What I was trying to do was combat the statement that the majority of the voters in this poll took the time to vote or took the time to speak against the new feature, specifically because they disagree with it.

In my opinion, people are voicing their opposition of the feature on this forum, of all other places, simply because they so happen to be on the forum.

 

[Walter2]

Expensive instant transfer is still instant. And FD say they will not be expensive, because they want players to be able to use the feature.

And commodities are not instantly transferred because of the expense.

 

[SkipRat]

Elite: Dangerous is, what the developers make it. Clinging to idealistic marketing is a guarantee for disappointment. Just look at the example you keep bringing up, No Man's Sky. Also, shaking your fist at the players and telling them to play your way or ship off isn't helpful or constructive. We're all playing for our own reasons, including you.

It's not about playing it my way. It's about creating a consistent coherent game that makes sense and once finished in 10 years or what can be considered a true to piece of gaming art. That people are going to continue wanting play, but unfortunately, it is just following the root of most MMO's and just anther generic bland game, that once held so much promise.

I am all for being able to move your ships, but it need to be done sensible and fairly and fits in with what the game is supposed to be, the game that FD are constantly telling us they are making. Time and time again though, the whimper out to please those that want instant gratification with minimal effort. As proven by the fact you can go from a Sidewinder to an Anaconda in less than a week, some have even doing in less than 24 hours. Seriously, what part of this doesn't show you that something is terribly terribly wrong with the way FD has implemented chosen it's changes.

The only things I have seen that have improved that game (apart from the graphics update) are the mining and fuel limpets, mission board interface and being able to tell what % of planets are made up of what % of minerals and elements. Everything has done nothing but take more away from the game than given or been nothing short of complete failure.

 

[AnnuverScotinExile]

Which seems odd - but I haven't been really paying much attention to the Jacques story. I thought stuff had to be taken to the Jacques region as it was the bold new frontier where not much was available. Why would you need to import an empty ship?

Depends on the ship, of course. But it is not difficult to deduce why someone might want to import a Vulture battleship. And not to help the colony. And of course, once it docks at Jaques, then it respawns at Jaques, no matter whether Jaques has a shipyard or outfitting that could supply one.

The aliens sub-plot is a different matter. According to the PR the aliens will react according to the way they are treated at first contact. Given players' propensity for shooting anything new, I think we all know how that's going to go down. Perhaps the instant ship transport is just a lame excuse to give the shooters (relatively) quick access to the action.

This is a popular proposal for why FD are so keen on instant transfer. It may even be true.

Control of remote ships by telemetry? In a galaxy where explorers can't transmit the data they've collected and traders can't inspect commodity prices at the nearest station, let alone another system? (And a gaming system that doesn't support inter-player communications at all successfully?)

Shhh. You are not supposed to notice the inconsistencies. ironically, we discussed how to solve the death problem in game in the DDF. Telepresence was, of course, discussed (along with cloning and even quantum entanglement), where you were not in the ship at all, but were flying it from your apartment in Alioth. This seemed to fit pretty well, given that, actually, none of us in game are flying the ships but are doing it from our apartment in wherever. But FD insisted that it was crucial to the game world that we were actually flying the ship, so they sort-of used the magic escape capsule thing, but did not stress it, so we actually pretty much have the no explanation.

And now we have telepresence.

And commodities are not instantly transferred because of the expense.

Quite.

 

[Jypson]

May have worded the green part less than perfect, which is why out of context, I sounds exactly the opposite of what I was saying. If you were to color the whole paragraph green, you'd be basically making the same point as me.

In your case, you joined the forums "when 1.3 hit", not before, and not because you had *anticipated* that once 1.3 hits you'll have a lousy time. You did not come to the forums, as you put it earlier, to "voice opposition" to an upcoming change.



Granted.

But! I'd like to point out there's still a bit of causality there as well. Generally speaking (very generally!!), European digital products are marketed largely in Europe and North America. Timezones match, at least for the afternoon streams. I doubt there are people in Fiji playing Elite: Dangerous, or keen on watching the loach.



I wasn't trying to make a point that the forumites' opinions are more important than those of players who don't bother with the forums. What I was trying to do was combat the statement that the majority of the voters in this poll took the time to vote or took the time to speak against the new feature, specifically because they disagree with it.

In my opinion, people are voicing their opposition of the feature on this forum, of all other places, simply because they so happen to be on the forum.

> It depends on the person and circumstance I suppose. (what doesn't?! ) For me, I don't play multiplayer games, but decided to play Elite: Dangerous because Solo was an option. I'm not used to games changing from update to update. In my singleplayer world, you get patches, and sometimes added content, but the game rarely changes; so I'm not used to looking out for announcements and feature changes. What on Earth am I trying to say...anyway, once I settled in here, I noticed that most of the discussion is either about announced, but not yet implemented features (the controversy) and post release mayhem when people come to the forums to protest a change they didn't know would happen. In my naturally biased opinion, those circumstances are pretty 50/50. Anywho, when I heard they were going to implement instant ship retrieval, I just said wow, cool, and didn't plan on making any comment at all. Opposed to when they announced how the Engineers would work, and I made sure to come and say, wow, not cool! Long story short, that's why I think those opposed to any feature will be more prevalent. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, right?

> I'm an International Man-of-Mystery, well, an international transient anyway and I find we're all much more a-like than we are different. I make friends wherever I go and I find there are always a little group of nerds like me where ever I go. Also, not everyone is keen on this modern age of streaming and live chats or even available to participate. A live stream in GB is usually around 0300 my time, not exactly high on the priority list at that time

> That may be so, and I'm sure the same could be said of the sub-reddit as well, but I think the most opposition, to any feature, will be here on the official forums, because they are just that, official.

 

[Jypson]

It's not about playing it my way. It's about creating a consistent coherent game that makes sense and once finished in 10 years or what can be considered a true to piece of gaming art. That people are going to continue wanting play, but unfortunately, it is just following the root of most MMO's and just anther generic bland game, that once held so much promise.

I am all for being able to move your ships, but it need to be done sensible and fairly and fits in with what the game is supposed to be, the game that FD are constantly telling us they are making. Time and time again though, the whimper out to please those that want instant gratification with minimal effort. As proven by the fact you can go from a Sidewinder to an Anaconda in less than a week, some have even doing in less than 24 hours. Seriously, what part of this doesn't show you that something is terribly terribly wrong with the way FD has implemented chosen it's changes.

The only things I have seen that have improved that game (apart from the graphics update) are the mining and fuel limpets, mission board interface and being able to tell what % of planets are made up of what % of minerals and elements. Everything has done nothing but take more away from the game than given or been nothing short of complete failure.

> This is all subjectivity CMDR. It's not what you want, therefore it's not right. I appreciate that you were sold one thing, and now you find something different, that is indeed frustrating, but it doesn't make it wrong.

> That may be your perception, but again, that is subjective. What is fun for one, is not fun for all. I earnestly empathize with you, as there have been changes I don't agree with either, but it's not my game. Like all things in life, you take the good with the bad, and carry on.

 

[jasonbarron]

Except they (and you) got the word "majority" mixed up with "minority". Just look at the poll.

For every CMDR that *wants* magic ship teleportation, there's 3 who do not & want it to have some kind of believable delay.

At some point someone's going to have to quit being in denial here.

Easy now son, you're almost painting me as coming out in support of this feature; I can assure you that I'm not. Far, far from it. I've just decided to be slightly more discreet with my complaints, and also take a step back and look at the bigger picture.

First off, I've read & participated in all the polls relevant to this topic, and I can interpret them as well as you can...but I don't assume that a forum poll here or on Steam or similar site is truly representative of the will of the majority of players; if it was, Fdev would not proceed with implementing this feature. Simple as that. Obviously, their telemetry is telling them a different story. Also, and I think this is the most significant factor, we may well find that multi crew isn't going to work without instant transfer & player teleportation.

Right now I've given up on fighting the inevitable and am scaling back my efforts to blunting the damage inflicted by supporting proposals that are realistic for Fdev to implement based on their budgetary constraints and also work in tandem with their current and future design decisions.

 

[Walter2]

I don't assume that a forum poll here or on Steam or similar site is truly representative of the will of the majority of players; if it was, Fdev would not proceed with implementing this feature.

Why not? Anybody of any persuasion has an equal opportunity to contribute, so it's as likely to be as representative of player opinions as a UK general election is as representative of the feeling of the nation as a whole.

No, wait . . .

 

[AnnuverScotinExile]

Why not? Anybody of any persuasion has an equal opportunity to contribute, so it's as likely to be as representative of player opinions as a UK general election is as representative of the feeling of the nation as a whole.

No, wait . . .

As Churchill said (quoting another unknown source, apparently

Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others

And perhaps the only way of getting player opinions that is worse than a forum poll is not getting them at all. It may not be perfect, but it is what they have.

 

[Weps]

On the matter of how representative forum polls are:

I've seen this happening a lot: whenever a forum poll option is contrary to a developer's opinion, an argument in favor of the developer is the the forum is not representative of the larger player base, and that the developer knows better, by having access to more data. I'm not saying that this is either wrong or right - frankly I have no idea.

But I would like to ask, on this particular case: an upcoming, untested feature, which will change a core feature of the game (for better of for worse, we don't know yet), how do you forum users think they assert if the majority of the player base will appreciate it? What type of data do you think the developer bases his decision on? Is there any scientific method, a recipe if you will, by which they draw conclusions?

I am honestly curios what the forum users think on this matter.

 

[AnnuverScotinExile]

On the matter of how representative forum polls are:

I've seen this happening a lot: whenever a forum poll option is contrary to a developer's opinion, an argument in favor of the developer is the the forum is not representative of the larger player base, and that the developer knows better, by having access to more data. I'm not saying that this is either wrong or right - frankly I have no idea.

But I would like to ask, on this particular case: an upcoming, untested feature, which will change a core feature of the game (for better of for worse, we don't know yet), how do you forum users think they assert if the majority of the player base will appreciate it? What type of data do you think the developer bases his decision on? Is there any scientific method, a recipe if you will, by which they draw conclusions?

I am honestly curios what the forum users think on this matter.

They will throw some dice. And if they don't like the answer, they will try again.

 

[Jypson]

On the matter of how representative forum polls are:

I've seen this happening a lot: whenever a forum poll option is contrary to a developer's opinion, an argument in favor of the developer is the the forum is not representative of the larger player base, and that the developer knows better, by having access to more data. I'm not saying that this is either wrong or right - frankly I have no idea.

But I would like to ask, on this particular case: an upcoming, untested feature, which will change a core feature of the game (for better of for worse, we don't know yet), how do you forum users think they assert if the majority of the player base will appreciate it? What type of data do you think the developer bases his decision on? Is there any scientific method, a recipe if you will, by which they draw conclusions?

I am honestly curios what the forum users think on this matter.

That's a tough nut to crack, I don't think we know what information they analyze to make those kind of decisions.

We know they track what ships are used the most to least. Maybe if they see a big up-tick in the low jump-range ships, that equates to usage?

How would they determine if it's too disruptive? Big jump in insurance claims, up or down?

Maybe Powerplay stats goes nuts?

But then again, is that translated as a good thing, or bad?

 

[nosleepdemon]

Well in that case, I would be very happy to have ship transfer 2.3.

I would rather wait for it done to be done properly, than have a game breaking feature put in that will do nothing more, than take more away from the game than actually put in.

As that is exactly what Braben said, we will implement stuff when they are ready to be implemented and done properly. If instant transfer is a quick fix to the problem, then it goes against everything that has been said about the development of this game.

Couldn't have said it better myself, just who are they trying to please?

 

[JerryLove]

Now these really are silly. I must keep on trampling on this often trotted out strawman.

You still don't know what straw man means

When you die, you are no longer in the game. What happens outside the game does not need an in-game lump of lore, nor an in-game mechanic.

According to the lore you are most definitely in-game. Your emergency escape FSD has instantly jumped you any distance to the last space station you were at.

Some other things that take 0.0 seconds.

Getting bounties on you / getting them reported.
Getting the police to turn on you.
Refuel.
Repair.
Rearm.
Communication across even intra-galactic ranges.
Loading / unloading cargo.
Market reaction to loading/unloading cargo.
Ship switching (there's some time re positioning your new ship; but it's not like it waits for you to get out and walk).

Things that take time in the game (and why).
FSD jumps (for gameplay purposes; to make combat possible)
Ship reboots and in-the-field repairs (to make systems going down have any meaning at all)
Loading screens (for technical purposes)

Indeed, if the incredibly fast escape capsule was really the mechanic, why to we find gazillions of them all over the place by crashed ships at Points of (questionable) Interest? (Yes, I know, a strawman).

No. that's not a straw man. Please stop using that term when you don't know what it means.

You've made no game-play argument that stands up against instant.
You've agreed that there is regular immersion breaking for gameplay reasons (to the extent, you claim, of "taking you out of game to resurrect" (paraphrased)

You can oppose instant transport; but you've got no coherent argument against it.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

Except they (and you) got the word "majority" mixed up with "minority". Just look at the poll.

For every CMDR that *wants* magic ship teleportation, there's 3 who do not & want it to have some kind of believable delay.

At some point someone's going to have to quit being in denial here.

All travel in ED is magic. You are just arguing over which magic you will ignore and which you will complain about.

Any delay less than what it would take manually is clearly "magic" even relative to the "accepted magic" of how we fly in ED.

Look at the poll. 75% *want* magic "faster than manually" travel.

Now tell me how long Joques took to jump to where it is. Then tell me how long it takes to travel when my ship explodes.

 

[NeilF]

Thank you so much for the gratuitous insult. Paraphrasing what FD have said is not lazy thinking. If there is laziness it is that I did not waste 10 minutes that I could have used for something useful (flying my ship from A to B, for example) in looking up and linking to the FD comments.

Gratuitous? Hardly... Simply my take on your statement.

Again, implementing a delayed ship transport, I suspect, would hardly be much more work TBH, so I have no reason to disbelieve their statement that instant transport is down to gameplay reasons.

And indeed - as I linked in my previous response to you and you seemingly chose to ignore - I can imagine at least one such reason...

 

[Heavenly-Hammer]

You still don't know what straw man means


According to the lore you are most definitely in-game. Your emergency escape FSD has instantly jumped you any distance to the last space station you were at.

Some other things that take 0.0 seconds.

Getting bounties on you / getting them reported.
Getting the police to turn on you.
Refuel.
Repair.
Rearm.
Communication across even intra-galactic ranges.
Loading / unloading cargo.
Market reaction to loading/unloading cargo.
Ship switching (there's some time re positioning your new ship; but it's not like it waits for you to get out and walk).

Things that take time in the game (and why).
FSD jumps (for gameplay purposes; to make combat possible)
Ship reboots and in-the-field repairs (to make systems going down have any meaning at all)
Loading screens (for technical purposes)


No. that's not a straw man. Please stop using that term when you don't know what it means.

You've made no game-play argument that stands up against instant.
You've agreed that there is regular immersion breaking for gameplay reasons (to the extent, you claim, of "taking you out of game to resurrect" (paraphrased)

You can oppose instant transport; but you've got no coherent argument against it.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -


All travel in ED is magic. You are just arguing over which magic you will ignore and which you will complain about.

Any delay less than what it would take manually is clearly "magic" even relative to the "accepted magic" of how we fly in ED.

Look at the poll. 75% *want* magic "faster than manually" travel.

Now tell me how long Joques took to jump to where it is. Then tell me how long it takes to travel when my ship explodes.

Well said. It really is just this simple.

 

[Sans Daring]

Getting bounties on you / getting them reported.
Getting the police to turn on you.
Refuel.
Repair.
Rearm.
Communication across even intra-galactic ranges.
Loading / unloading cargo.
Market reaction to loading/unloading cargo.
Ship switching (there's some time re positioning your new ship; but it's not like it waits for you to get out and walk).

All of which have balance between game-mechanic and immersion perametrers. Refuel/repair/rearm would have people twiddling their thumbs. BUT are only doable with in dock, or in refuel on a fuel scoop (which takes time), so the balance for immersion comes from being situated in a dock and not having these things happen whenever you like with no thought to the world build.

The mistake people make is that immersion/insta-transport are to do with time durations. Immersion isn't always worked through "realistic temporality", immersion is about an illusion, not an accuracy to how long things take. Hence you can watch a film, be fully engaged whether Marty McFly will make that 88 mph and know that time isn't accurate, it doesn't need to be if the overal mesh of aesthetic factors leads you to believe in the verisimilitude and through that immersion.

A ship that's half way across the galaxy suddenly appearing on your pad carries none of that stock.

As I keep saying to people, immersion isn't a constant, it is contextual. Picking another point and comparing it doesn't prove a thing. If that was the case we'd all find Elite utterly unbelievable or find all in Elite utterly perfect. We clearly don't.

The biggest key point in this debate is game mechanics. The immersion arguments are far more subjective and thus become the fighting ground. Trading is fast, fuel is fast, refuel is fast for gaming purposes. You have nothing else to do but wait so to have them "realistic" would be insane. You can do... anything you can do now while you'd wait on a ship transfer. All ship combat issues, such as instant bounties again is about pacing, which isn't realistic but in the moment, in the heat of battle, doesn't break immersion, just as McFly making 88mph isn't unbelievable in BTTF verisimilitude even though it would be in reality. It sits within a balance between immersion and gameplay that is pretty consistent with Elite throughout.

As for communications, again, it fits with Elite's world. It is a space game, with ridiculous distances, but as with all games in space, they aren't set in the future, they are set with cultural, industrial and historical understandings based on today. Ships dogflight in a way we'd imagine ships to fight, drawn from our more historical notions of airfights. We communicate instanteously here, and Elite to some degree, as with all space worlds, maps our own world onto a fantastical. We accept the communications because it sits within a sort of genre verisimilitude.

The arguments of immersion being a constant need to stop. They don't prove anything and they aren't accurate. Gaming and world-making are a balance in a game that creates a verisimilitude that works. When something is added that is pure world based or pure game based, it breaks the balance. If we were made to wait for all communications from Jaques to the Bubble to create a real world mechanic, we would be bored. It's the imbalance, not because some people are pro-game options and others "world" options. The insta-transport is too game based with no world-basis which is why it feels raw and why as a game based mechanic lacking balance with its rewards, making it a poor game-mechanic at that.

I've yet to see a good argument for insta-transport which isn't an aggresive attack on the contrary rather than how insta-transport offers the Elite world an address that doesn't damage game or world-building. It's easy to attack the "other argument", harder I think to build a defense other than "I don't want to wait for my second ship" - which feels odd as you don't even have that right now. The argument against instant transfer takes nothing away from pilots they have now, yet sometimes it feels like there is an aggressive argument that saying no to instant-transfer makes the game more boring... does that mean it's boring now?

 

[Jypson]

All of which have balance between game-mechanic and immersion perametrers. Refuel/repair/rearm would have people twiddling their thumbs. BUT are only doable with in dock, or in refuel on a fuel scoop (which takes time), so the balance for immersion comes from being situated in a dock and not having these things happen whenever you like with no thought to the world build.

The mistake people make is that immersion/insta-transport are to do with time durations. Immersion isn't always worked through "realistic temporality", immersion is about an illusion, not an accuracy to how long things take. Hence you can watch a film, be fully engaged whether Marty McFly will make that 88 mph and know that time isn't accurate, it doesn't need to be if the overal mesh of aesthetic factors leads you to believe in the verisimilitude and through that immersion.

A ship that's half way across the galaxy suddenly appearing on your pad carries none of that stock.

As I keep saying to people, immersion isn't a constant, it is contextual. Picking another point and comparing it doesn't prove a thing. If that was the case we'd all find Elite utterly unbelievable or find all in Elite utterly perfect. We clearly don't.

The biggest key point in this debate is game mechanics. The immersion arguments are far more subjective and thus become the fighting ground. Trading is fast, fuel is fast, refuel is fast for gaming purposes. You have nothing else to do but wait so to have them "realistic" would be insane. You can do... anything you can do now while you'd wait on a ship transfer. All ship combat issues, such as instant bounties again is about pacing, which isn't realistic but in the moment, in the heat of battle, doesn't break immersion, just as McFly making 88mph isn't unbelievable in BTTF verisimilitude even though it would be in reality. It sits within a balance between immersion and gameplay that is pretty consistent with Elite throughout.

As for communications, again, it fits with Elite's world. It is a space game, with ridiculous distances, but as with all games in space, they aren't set in the future, they are set with cultural, industrial and historical understandings based on today. Ships dogflight in a way we'd imagine ships to fight, drawn from our more historical notions of airfights. We communicate instanteously here, and Elite to some degree, as with all space worlds, maps our own world onto a fantastical. We accept the communications because it sits within a sort of genre verisimilitude.

The arguments of immersion being a constant need to stop. They don't prove anything and they aren't accurate. Gaming and world-making are a balance in a game that creates a verisimilitude that works. When something is added that is pure world based or pure game based, it breaks the balance. If we were made to wait for all communications from Jaques to the Bubble to create a real world mechanic, we would be bored. It's the imbalance, not because some people are pro-game options and others "world" options. The insta-transport is too game based with no world-basis which is why it feels raw and why as a game based mechanic lacking balance with its rewards, making it a poor game-mechanic at that.

I've yet to see a good argument for insta-transport which isn't an aggresive attack on the contrary rather than how insta-transport offers the Elite world an address that doesn't damage game or world-building. It's easy to attack the "other argument", harder I think to build a defense other than "I don't want to wait for my second ship" - which feels odd as you don't even have that right now. The argument against instant transfer takes nothing away from pilots they have now, yet sometimes it feels like there is an aggressive argument that saying no to instant-transfer makes the game more boring... does that mean it's boring now?

To be honest, the pro-instant camp doesn't need to make an argument for it, it's already FDev approved [up]

As for your last sentence about boredom, we're right back into subjective.

 

[jasonbarron]

To be honest, the pro-instant camp doesn't need to make an argument for it, it's already FDev approved [up]

As for your last sentence about boredom, we're right back into subjective.

And oh how they enjoy strutting around crowing about it.

 

[Jypson]

And oh how they enjoy strutting around crowing about it.

When the god's are on your side, it's hard not to strut.