Allow use of pre 3.3 Advanced Discovery Scanner

[ThatSmileyGuy]

The remark was specifically about people who have refused to engage with the new system and just keep complaining about it. Some of us have just accepted it's presence and got on with accommodating it at worst and welcoming it at best, some have just moaned.

Yet I can't get rid of feeling of being constantly accused of being one of the whiners. As clearly stated i spent my time with FSS to see if how it works. So have I expressed that i'm quite content with it as a game mechanic. Yet posts around here, Yours included seem to have been posted with the assumption that none of the involved did spend their time to actuallly make up their mind and come here. Seems like it's easier to accuse others of whining, complaining and / or crying. But that is not the matter we're here to discuss.

P.S. Note the proposal in beta was for the ADS to be altered to give a minimal display, requiring the FSS function to gather detail - not for the outright retention of the ADS as an alternative - that just isn't going to happen.

As an alternative maybe You are right, that wouldn't go together really well. Hence as mentioned somewhere above, FSS could be a great extension of ADS(or ADS an extension of FSS, matter of perspective).
Furthermore, optional. Like it is in many other aspects in ED. Game which allows to do Your bidding Your way.

 

[Stigbob]

Its like asking me if i care that somebody down the street had their car stolen. Its no skin off my nose.

Not really, that's an actual problem that I would sympathize with and could even have wider repercussions.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

...thereby increasing the workload of the developers; who will now have to maintain two different features that do the same thing. Meaning when one thing changes, they have to replicate that change on the other feature.

I know, as a developer, I wouldn't be too happy about having to maintain a legacy feature for a small minority of people who can't / won't adapt.

The ADS functionality is STILL used to populate the System Map on honking. It just has an additional filter on 'already discovered'. Reinstating the ADS only requires that filter be toggled off if the ADS is installed. No need to replicate any changes, since the features use the same codebase. The FSS is simple a cosmetic wrapper on top of the old functionality.

 

[Faded Glory]

Genuine question (Because I've been too busy mining) Have they removed the Mission Target indicator or Wanted Indicator when you target a ship then? I always thought that if you had selected a kill pirates mission, you either scan the Nav beacon to get the location you need or when you target a ship, it tells you if it's a mission target.

You are quite right, I've never gone looking for a specific type of green gas giant, but Isn't that one mapped on the picture posted earlier (I.e. Helium Gas Giant)

No. The mission target identifier went missing a long while back and that was a bug, reported, complained about and subsequently fixed. For some time before that and since it was fixed any target for any mission is identified in the HUD, so if you are doing a mission you will know exactly where to look, and when you look there you will see your target identified as such.

My point was that it's not great gameplay to have to keep doing something in the hope that it's the the thing you are interested in. In relation to exploring, while ELW, WW, AW and the like are easily identifiable in the FSS (too easily identifiable according to some), some things (not many) are not identifiable until you have scanned them. When people suggest that a system map reveal enables cherry picking more easily than the FSS that's simply not true. It's just as easy, and certainly quicker, to cherry pick most types of bodies using the FSS, and anyone who has used it will know that.

But those looking for things the FSS doesn't identify (pre scan) would be obliged to scan things purely in the hope that it might be what they are looking for. Considering the size of the galaxy, 400 billion systems, presumably trillions of objects, that would be (IMO) pretty soul destroying gameplay.

 

[Burke]

Not really, that's an actual problem that I would sympathize with and could even have wider repercussions.

Forcing them to use the bus, which goes to the same place but takes 3 times as long to get there? Im genuinely saddened that more of the people who like the FSS cant have more sympathy for those who dont, rather than simply dismissing their concerns.

Edit: and you know what Stigbob, i think Fdev has some fault here, because they appear to have simply dismissed peoples concerns here and i have no doubt that has encouraged others to do so.

 

[S3B4ST13N]

The problem with backwards compatibility is that you can't really be forwards compatible. Every decision you make that even touches on that old legacy feature needs to be considered, and tested (which means additional testing).
Backwards compatibility can be nice; but only when the application must have it. The cons of backwards compatibility outweight the pros, IMO. They include, but are not limited to: increased complexity of the product (longer time to market), technological hindrances, slowing innovation and increased expectations from users in terms of compatibility* ("you made ADS backwards compatible, please make X the same, and Y and Z").
It's just not worth it, IMHO.

Spoiler: *

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backward_compatibility

As a developer You should know that some legacy features are in fact kept for sake of for example backward compatibility. But that's not the issue we are here to discuss.

I did not enjoy the ADS at all. I much prefer this new setup we've got. I get much more enjoyment out of it. But the reason we had it for a long time, was because they were working on other things and the ADS worked as a temporary measure. The complete overhaul of the entire system kind of shows that they had other things in mind.

ADS has been in the game for a long time now. It might not have been perfect mind You, but if it has proven working for such a long time there doesn't seem to be much maintaining to be done. I do not claim to be one hundred percent correct here.

I don't need to. I'm not looking at this from a game perspective, I'm looking at it from a dev one. All I see is one group of people wanting an old system back that Frontier obviously wanted to change. Keeping both systems in place, creates more unnecessary work.

Please re-read the thread to get a better understanding of what features of old system are mentioned. Those two don't do the same thing.

See back to my comment about more unnecessary work.

As Para Handy said, ADS was requested to stay in game in a manner that FSS would be another way to carry out exploration for the willing to use the system.

No, I can't - but given that I don't see a huge uproar over this.. leads me to presume a small number of people want the ADS back.

Neither can You say that it's a small minority of players who would like to see the return of the feature(then again, neither can I prove that the minority is not in fact small).

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

How small does this minority have to be before it becomes acceptable to just exclude them? We all paid for the game as it was advertised. For every vocal poster i suspect theer are many who said nothing. As you say there is no proof so i could be off but my feeling is that i am not.




This still doesnt explain why the endless nay saying. If people had just got on with it and held a truely neutral attitude to all this, then why do they keep posting?

Probably because the old mechanic was complete trash and happy to see the back of it. But most of the naysayers are not that against it, they just can't see FDev doing what you want. If had bothered to read what they have said, you would know this.

Other are probably sick it the accusation, the falsehoods, the straw man arguments, the lies and the spamming of the same crap again and again, the Dev bashing etc, I could go on. They will eventually turn against you and fight against it. Your choice of course.

 

[Riverside]

I earned 1.3 billion credits in January 2019 from exploration data alone. I like the benefits the new system provides (being able to scan at a distance and a way to locate persistent POIs other than by eye), the basic design is clearly a very early iteration & will presumably be improved or at least made fully functional (distance marker on the left, time to complete geological count, sitting stationary in supercruise etc). The new system is okay.

I continue to play, I have seen so many persistent POIs I am bored of them, I have ticked most of the codex boxes in several regions & have seen at least one example of most of the shiny things. After a month I was bored & fast-tracked back to the bubble.

By way of comparison I left the bubble in about Oct 2016 & only returned in March 2018, and was not bored or frustrated with the old discovery process after thousands of hours. Scanning distant binaries was a bit of a chore (trivial with the new process), finding undiscovered geological activity was an enormous challenge (I found a dozen or so sites over the 18 month journey), again this was made much easier with the 3.3 update.

If someone is happy to only use the new stuff that's fine.

 

[ThatSmileyGuy]

I would also like to point out, that if I do have a problem with FSS it is that now honking is just an added timer to do more or less, well, nothing.
One could argue that in discovered systems it shows previously discovered bodies but in virgin systems it's just a timer before a Commander can jump into the FSS to do the scanning. Displaying a message about establishing an orbital plane is nothing more than a flavor text. The only thing it does is give an information about how many bodies there are in a system.
And that, at least to me, is not telling much. Seems like the honk is now reduced to only being a nice sound to produce whilst flying.
But that's my take on that.

 

[Stigbob]

Forcing them to use the bus, which goes to the same place but takes 3 times as long to get there? Im genuinely saddened that more of the people who like the FSS cant have more sympathy for those who dont, rather than simply dismissing their concerns.

The difference I see there is real world problem v subjective and fairly minor video game preference.

I also get the impression the main issue with the FSS for some is that they feel they were not consulted enough and confuse being an end user with having a seat on the board.

At the end of the day its an MMO so majority rules, within FDEV's self imposed and technical limits.

 

[S3B4ST13N]

An assumption; since you can't honestly say you know exactly what it is they changed (unless they said otherwise?). They could have taken bits of the ADS and scrapped the rest, or, yes, they could just the call existing "RunADS" procedure.

Even so, making a wrapper means you now have to be very careful about what you change in the ADS (assuming that's all they did). It also assumes that the ADS functionality was forwards compatible in the first place (which is not always the case in development).

If you are rebuilding the entire way players scan systems, it's better to canibalise on existing features, delete the rest and build it as you want instead of Frankenstein'ing it which only leads to bigger issues down the line when someone makes a change which cascades and buggers up a lot of other stuff.

The ADS functionality is STILL used to populate the System Map on honking. It just has an additional filter on 'already discovered'. Reinstating the ADS only requires that filter be toggled off if the ADS is installed. No need to replicate any changes, since the features use the same codebase. The FSS is simple a cosmetic wrapper on top of the old functionality.

Off topic: I see the swear filter has been relaxed a bit?

 

[Burke]

Probably because the old mechanic was complete trash and happy to see the back of it.

Round and round we go eh? Some people thought it was trash others used and enjoyed it. Can you not even try to be a little bit inclusive?

majority rules

I didnt realise there was even any player input here

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Round and round we go eh? Some people thought it was trash others used and enjoyed it. Can you not even try to be a little bit inclusive?

Just because they enjoyed it doesn't stop it from being trash. It was the worst mechanic in the game, the fact you enjoyed that crap is irrelavent.

 

[Burke]

It was the worst mechanic in the game

Not by a very long way, however i wont critisise you for having that opinion. You didnt like it and could not get any satisfactory results from it, ok. Some people could.

 

[ThatSmileyGuy]

Just because they enjoyed it doesn't stop it from being trash. It was the worst mechanic in the game, the fact you enjoyed that crap is irrelavent.

That's a matter of personal prefference, really. For some it didn't necessarily need to be the worst mechanic. Barebones as it was there are those who enjoyed it in its however crude form.
And far from true, that is relevant. If we say that one's opinion is irrelevant so is the others. Everyone should have the right to speak.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

That's a matter of personal prefference, really. For some it didn't necessarily need to be the worst mechanic. Barebones as it was there are those who enjoyed it in its however crude form.
And far from true, that is relevant. If we say that one's opinion is irrelevant so is the others. Everyone should have the right to speak.

It's irrelavent in regards to my reply to Burke.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Not by a very long way, however i wont critisise you for having that opinion. You didnt like it and could not get any satisfactory results from it, ok. Some people could.

Irrelevant in regards to my reply to you.

 

[ThatSmileyGuy]

Round and round we go eh? Some people thought it was trash others used and enjoyed it.

Just because they enjoyed it doesn't stop it from being trash. It was the worst mechanic in the game, the fact you enjoyed that crap is irrelavent.

If I may address both of You, Gentlemen. Discussing that there were groups that preffer one of the two is stating the truth. This is arguing over personal prefferences. Some did like the ADS. Some do like the FSS. Please, Max Factor, try and understand that noone here is trying to force anyone to use any method. Just help expand available options.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

If I may address both of You, Gentlemen. Discussing that there were groups that preffer one of the two is stating the truth. This is arguing over personal prefferences. Some did like the ADS. Some do like the FSS. Please, Max Factor, try and understand that noone here is trying to force anyone to use any method. Just help expand available options.

That is not my original reply. This is what I wrote:

Probably because the old mechanic was complete trash and happy to see the back of it. But most of the naysayers are not that against it, they just can't see FDev doing what you want. If you had bothered to read what they have said, you would know this.

Others are probably sick of the accusation, the falsehoods, the straw man arguments, the lies and the spamming of the same crap again and again, the Dev bashing etc, I could go on. They will eventually turn against you and fight against it. Your choice of course.

As I said pretty irrelavent concerning the important part of my post.

 

[Stigbob]

If I may address both of You, Gentlemen. Discussing that there were groups that preffer one of the two is stating the truth. This is arguing over personal prefferences. Some did like the ADS. Some do like the FSS. Please, Max Factor, try and understand that noone here is trying to force anyone to use any method. Just help expand available options.

Waste of dev time.