400 billions of procedural generated or 100 handcrafted?

Game development took lately this procedural generation road. I'm wondering from a developer point of view of it's really better to have a useless high number of systems (useless because they will never be discovered entirely) or maybe 100 handcrafted systems with several handcrafted contents suitable for all game styles proposed.
After playing Elite since so long what do you players think about this trend?
 
Good luck handcrafting 100 systems down to a minute detail. If you find a way to do it within a lifetime, call up with Star Citizen, they sure would love your help.

The trick with procedural generation is to add enough variables and restrictions from those variables to make all generated content unique. At some level the assets do need to be hand crafted, though morphing techniques can obfuscate that.
 
Hmm...

How's the Exploration part fitting into a mere 100 Systems (?)
That'd be one hell of a short-lived game style and a darn crowded miniature "Galaxy".
When these are handcrafted the exploration would not limited to FSS scan of course. Those systems would be filled with clues and things to find and those would be unique. Expansions and dlc could later extend the number of handcrafted system and add handcrafted elements to the existing ones like developing stories
 
Systems are not useless because they haven't been discovered. They are the reason exploration is a viable gameplay option. Without the potential for something to find, exploration is pointless.

Handcrafted content "suitable for all playstyles" misses the fact that having something to discover and travel far, far away from the beaten path is a playstyle. In a handcrafted universe, those areas are bland and boring. In a well-crafted procedurally generated universe, these areas can be exciting as well.

So no thanks to handcrafted prettiness alone. Plenty of that in other games. Elite's mix of procedural generation to simulate the vastness of space with handcrafted content is the way to go.

:D S
 
Good luck handcrafting 100 systems down to a minute detail. If you find a way to do it within a lifetime, call up with Star Citizen, they sure would love your help.

The trick with procedural generation is to add enough variables and restrictions from those variables to make all generated content unique. At some level the assets do need to be hand crafted, though morphing techniques can obfuscate that.
The point is that with procedural generation you have a unique mountain shape.. But you still have mountains. No caves and no rivers for example
 
The point is that with procedural generation you have a unique mountain shape.. But you still have mountains. No caves and no rivers for example

You are confusing the concepts here. Mountains, vegetation, fluids, weather, fauna, all can be procedurally generated and tied into the initial seed as well.

:D S
 
If the witching jump screen is ever done away with and they switch to an actual travel presentation, Celestia or Star Trek like, you'll be glad there's this huge procedural galaxy to romp in. I don't know why they're not doing that already.
 
Game development took lately this procedural generation road. I'm wondering from a developer point of view of it's really better to have a useless high number of systems (useless because they will never be discovered entirely) or maybe 100 handcrafted systems with several handcrafted contents suitable for all game styles proposed.
After playing Elite since so long what do you players think about this trend?

IMHO, the galaxy in ED is all "wrong".

Keep the bazillion stars, but make the federation, empire, and alliance space separate bubbles and much smaller, separated by large gaps of independent anarchy systems.

Then travel is about finding the safest route, or take a shortcut though the most dangerous places.

Basically, bubble sort of hand crafted, rest of the galaxy procedural generation.
 
When these are handcrafted the exploration would not limited to FSS scan of course. Those systems would be filled with clues and things to find and those would be unique. Expansions and dlc could later extend the number of handcrafted system and add handcrafted elements to the existing ones like developing stories

You do know than handcrafted worlds tend to be limited to +-30km2, right? The idea of 100 handcrafted systems is absurd. One handcrafted system is absurd. One hand crafted planet is absurd.

Anyone with any understanding of this knows this. It is PG or nothing of the sorts.
 
The thing about procedural generation is the more components you have available for the procedural generation algorithm to deploy, the better the results will be. Elite has been rather slow in propagating new assets to be proceduraly deployed, which has made it look a bit silly that 5 years after the digital big bang, its pretty much the same stuff. However, I remain optimistic that there will be a big update bringing space legs with a ton of gameplay associated with it deliberately designed to "keep the players happily busy" for a few years to allow the developers time to transfer the environmental effects and flora and fauna from the other games into Elite.

IMHO procedural generation is going to be key to realising the huge scopes that both "that other space game" and Elite are aiming for, but I think at this moment, if the development team of "That other game" plugged their assets into a procedural galaxy of Elite's scale, they would be in a better position than Elite as it stands plus space legs would be in. Being honest with you, I think its best to let them have an arms race, the more the developers try to outdo each other, the better the games they make for us the players.
 
If the witching jump screen is ever done away with and they switch to an actual travel presentation, Celestia or Star Trek like, you'll be glad there's this huge procedural galaxy to romp in. I don't know why they're not doing that already.
I highly doubt FDEV will change the travel mechanic, hyper-/witchspace jumps are the way, from the original ELITE to E: D, both in game & lore.
Would love to be able to supercruise to other systems (maybe 10* faster than current max speed) though. :)
 
A limited number of systems with a storyline to go with them can be fine, I loved Freelancer. But ED is the 4th installment of a series that is a sandbox. And it always had the galaxy to play in. It belongs to the game. Yes, you will never visit it all, not even all stations in the bubble. But they are there, you could go there. Massive freedom. Heck, even FE2 and FFE already had it, and there you definitely could not see it all, not even in theory, since hyperdrives breaking down after roughly a year without servicing were a thing.
 
The problem with the hand crafting systems is that once one or two players find the good stuff, everyone learns of it, and then no more uniqueness. Sure systems in ED are similar, but FD is adding new things to find. Albeit slowly.

Also, at some point, a limited count will eventually start to feel confining, no matter how much you try to cram into it. IMO.
 
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