I've witnessed and took part a lot of autopilot discussions, and I had seen a lot of, let's say, half-thought arguments against its implementation. In this post, I'll try to categorize and debunk most of those.
I will point out some statements as follows:
1. Autopilot for this game is already available as an external software in many variations.
2. Most of activities in this game involves traveling between star systems to various, sometimes quite excessive degrees, especially with the introduction of engineering.
3. Amount of activities in this game which have massive amounts of jumps between star systems as a meaningful and delightful part of the experience is limited. (namely exploration and exploration missions).
4. Combat currently is the most engaging and fleshed-out part of the game. Not travel between two systems.
5. By human nature, any process tends to get boring with excessive repetition.
Specifically about "Not wanting to play the game".
Let's take GTA. It has taxi since VC or SA, don't quite remember.
Is driving in GTA integral to gameplay?
. Not even talking that it is way more engaging than circling star and pressing J.
Yet GTA has a taxi service in it. Cause you might not want to drive in GTA all the time despite it being a core feature.
And same goes for ED. And ED not having an autopilot is just dumb. It's unwise. I don't even quite understand why I have to explain this.
6. Competitve value of travelling in this game is nil.
7. Time and energy which people can spend on playing this game varies, and in some cases may be insufficient to progress meaningfully, mainly because of jumping involved.
8. Autopilot implementation may vary in functionality and limitations.
9. Controlling effectiveness and consequences of external software effect on gameplay and BGS is much harder than controlling those parameters of an in-game function.
Detailed explanation why and how in-game AP can be made unusable for botting, as follows:
10. Any function can be implemented as an optional for gameplay.
11. Lack of content in the game is obvious as it is, and unavailability of an autopilot doesn't make the situation better.
12. Autopilot function not being available in this game is unnatural, especially when it's already present in-game by lore (unmanned ship takeoff from planets) and technically (NPC movements), as well as it is long being present in today's technology IRL.
Netlfix gameplay is a personal choise.
And it is a result of bad gameplay mechanics and/or balance choices. Punishing heavy armor builds by disaibling them usage of horses is not a good balance choice, IMO.
And current ship transfer system is a more Netflix solution than AP can ever be.
As for mechanics improvement, I am at loss, honestly, how to improve it without providing any incentives for people which like current state of things to change their ways. I am content with how current system works for exploration and related activities.
Sometimes people forget that recreational activity is the only purpose of games. Monotone labor certainly can have some of it.
But forcing people to indulge in such labor cannot be viewed as improving recreational value for all the people.
I may update this post in case I've missed something.
Please read the whole post, or better yet, think before replying.
By the way, reasonable ship transfer costs and transfers along with a pilot and no cargo would be a sufficient fix, but there are other pluses to autopilot's implementation as well.
To add something in place of current Hutton and ship transfer mechaincs as well as AP, addition of some economical gameplay is one of the solutions. Stock markets are a good start.
I will point out some statements as follows:
1. Autopilot for this game is already available as an external software in many variations.
2. Most of activities in this game involves traveling between star systems to various, sometimes quite excessive degrees, especially with the introduction of engineering.
Presence of capability of limiting yourself to activities in one star system does not make this point invalid.
3. Amount of activities in this game which have massive amounts of jumps between star systems as a meaningful and delightful part of the experience is limited. (namely exploration and exploration missions).
4. Combat currently is the most engaging and fleshed-out part of the game. Not travel between two systems.
5. By human nature, any process tends to get boring with excessive repetition.
Specifically about "Not wanting to play the game".
Let's take GTA. It has taxi since VC or SA, don't quite remember.
Is driving in GTA integral to gameplay?
. Not even talking that it is way more engaging than circling star and pressing J.Yet GTA has a taxi service in it. Cause you might not want to drive in GTA all the time despite it being a core feature.
And same goes for ED. And ED not having an autopilot is just dumb. It's unwise. I don't even quite understand why I have to explain this.
6. Competitve value of travelling in this game is nil.
May sound stupid to note. Yet some people sound like they view it as such.
7. Time and energy which people can spend on playing this game varies, and in some cases may be insufficient to progress meaningfully, mainly because of jumping involved.
8. Autopilot implementation may vary in functionality and limitations.
Please consider this.
For example, how autopilot which won't turn on with cargo on board can be abused for trading or PP.
On exploration, its a matter of improving exploration gameplay mostly. And they had already taken steps against honking. Which, because of botting, affected all, as usual. Instead of targeting botters only.
I view autopilot in-game not being able to scoop fuel, or doing it at slowest rate possible at least.
For example, how autopilot which won't turn on with cargo on board can be abused for trading or PP.
On exploration, its a matter of improving exploration gameplay mostly. And they had already taken steps against honking. Which, because of botting, affected all, as usual. Instead of targeting botters only.
I view autopilot in-game not being able to scoop fuel, or doing it at slowest rate possible at least.
9. Controlling effectiveness and consequences of external software effect on gameplay and BGS is much harder than controlling those parameters of an in-game function.
Detailed explanation why and how in-game AP can be made unusable for botting, as follows:
First and foremost, effect of botting on BGS is what concerns most people, myself included. And this happens even now, without any autopilot in-game. Also, I do understand that in-game autopilot, no matter how limited, can be supplied with external scripting to make it fully automated. Yet adding simple captcha for each 20 minute max sequence is able to create enough disincentive for using in-game autopilot in a a bot. I am sure you can find a lot of captcha crackers presented on Youtube. Yet making a captcha cracker is way harder than just jamming a coin into keyboard. Google "machine learning" to get the picture. It is way harder than just making external autopilot from scratch. Which are made already at that. Not even saying that in-game autopilot would be deliberately "gimped" for immersion as well as gameplay reasons (but, for all that holy, it should not be made working as bad as docking computer and left alone in order to be able to say "its in the game").
Also I do understand a possibility of a scenario when a single person would supervise a number of limited autopilots. Thing is, as in-game functionality would be in use, it would be easy for devs to have data avaliable at any time such as:
Maybe a bit too quick and dirty.
Then a GM could spend 4 hours max two times a week to filter this table by most suspicios activity, check activity of upper 50 players, issue shadowbans in most obvious cases, and correct damage done to BGS. And whoever would multibox understands that too, and as external autopilots are already avaliable, they wont be using in-game ones. Also that enabling autopilot while carrying PP goods could be made unavaliable blatantly, or better yet...
It is not a big stretch in terms of immersion to forbid autopiloting with some wares. Thus making you transmit your shipping manifest to every nav beacon you pass. And when opposing PP faction learns that there are some Cutter moves on autopilot through their space and carries 750 tonnes of Aisling softcore mags, they would immedieately tell their ATR to go and atomize it.
Imagine now what will happen with some multiboxer then.
Some might say that devs do not have tools needed to correct BGS damage. Well, they shoud get some. As problems with bot users griefing BGS are already present. As the fact that easiest to bot their way through PP factions have most influence atm.
Traders and explorers which are using bots do not hurt anyone other than themselves, as they tend to quit the game pretty fast. Still, they would be blocked same as BGS botters. Adding external scripting which automates gameplay more than permitted in-game being illegal will disincentify enough. Adding captcha will create enough of a technical obstacle. If this won't stop those type of botters, it wont stop them without anything being done in the game at all.
Screw captcha for now. Let's play with constraining usage time.
Its use could be limited to 2 hours per day, sort of energy bar. Can't imagine myself using it more during weekdays, and can't imagine myself using it at all during weekends.
So it should be limited to 10 hours a week, and no more than 2 hours a day.
(And sorry for using myself as a point of reference so much, I don't have any other atm).
So in order to cause an effect of one bot doing its thing (nowadays) for 24 hours, you would need 12 accounts. After five days their resource will become depleted. So you would reach 71% of week efficiency of a single today's bot. All of that for only 360 quid. In order to apply effect of 5 bot/weeks, you would need (500/71)*12=84 accounts, or 2520 quid. Instead of today's number accounts needed as one and five respectively. Also, those numbers are a bit lower than they are, as it takes some time to reload the client. Don't know the average efficiency of currently available external autopilots, but I think it is about same as mentioned before 50%.
Don't really like it in terms of immersion though.
But this would make this game truly pay-to-bot one.
Not to mention such amount of ap users doing the same stuff in one place will create huge spikes in the mentioned in the OP data tables which would be visible even on the CG background. And those spikes would be rare, considering... well let's agree that even one dude spending 2.5 grand on messing up things in a game is kinda bogus.
Don't know though, if anything can be achieved in a multiplicative focused two-hour burst of influencing on BGS. Though, his should certainly could be the case for PP if done on a Thursday night. But again, this certainly would create such obvious "spikes" of influencing. It would be fairly easy for devs to consider whether or not this influence should be allowed to stay for the next week. Even if devs won't have time to do that much(considering that poor bot user paid them 2520 pounds), it would be easy for concerned player groups to calculate and pre-compensate for such bursts. I will return to those concerned players in a moment.
Add in some of those low-chance surprises for autopilot mentioned earlier. Stability is an important factor for a bot, let alone that it is crucial to be sold to anyone.
Usage for honking and/or trading is effectively abolished. Nuff said.
Even more, adding autopilot in-game will disincentify people to create more illegal externals. As most of the people will be content with added to the game functionality, demand for externals will decrease a lot.
Also I do understand a possibility of a scenario when a single person would supervise a number of limited autopilots. Thing is, as in-game functionality would be in use, it would be easy for devs to have data avaliable at any time such as:
| System | Autopilot users which were docking in the system and % of game time autopilot was used by each of them | Activity (links) | IP address (Yes, I know it can be faked). |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eravate | DavidBraben123, 99,9% DavidBraben666, 99,9% DavidBraben999, 99,9% | link link link | 192.168.0.1 192.168.0.1 192.168.0.1 |
Then a GM could spend 4 hours max two times a week to filter this table by most suspicios activity, check activity of upper 50 players, issue shadowbans in most obvious cases, and correct damage done to BGS. And whoever would multibox understands that too, and as external autopilots are already avaliable, they wont be using in-game ones. Also that enabling autopilot while carrying PP goods could be made unavaliable blatantly, or better yet...
It is not a big stretch in terms of immersion to forbid autopiloting with some wares. Thus making you transmit your shipping manifest to every nav beacon you pass. And when opposing PP faction learns that there are some Cutter moves on autopilot through their space and carries 750 tonnes of Aisling softcore mags, they would immedieately tell their ATR to go and atomize it
. Imagine now what will happen with some multiboxer then.
Some might say that devs do not have tools needed to correct BGS damage. Well, they shoud get some. As problems with bot users griefing BGS are already present. As the fact that easiest to bot their way through PP factions have most influence atm.
Screw captcha for now. Let's play with constraining usage time.
Its use could be limited to 2 hours per day, sort of energy bar. Can't imagine myself using it more during weekdays, and can't imagine myself using it at all during weekends.
So it should be limited to 10 hours a week, and no more than 2 hours a day.
(And sorry for using myself as a point of reference so much, I don't have any other atm).
So in order to cause an effect of one bot doing its thing (nowadays) for 24 hours, you would need 12 accounts. After five days their resource will become depleted. So you would reach 71% of week efficiency of a single today's bot. All of that for only 360 quid. In order to apply effect of 5 bot/weeks, you would need (500/71)*12=84 accounts, or 2520 quid. Instead of today's number accounts needed as one and five respectively. Also, those numbers are a bit lower than they are, as it takes some time to reload the client. Don't know the average efficiency of currently available external autopilots, but I think it is about same as mentioned before 50%.
Don't really like it in terms of immersion though.
But this would make this game truly pay-to-bot one.
Not to mention such amount of ap users doing the same stuff in one place will create huge spikes in the mentioned in the OP data tables which would be visible even on the CG background. And those spikes would be rare, considering... well let's agree that even one dude spending 2.5 grand on messing up things in a game is kinda bogus.
Don't know though, if anything can be achieved in a multiplicative focused two-hour burst of influencing on BGS. Though, his should certainly could be the case for PP if done on a Thursday night. But again, this certainly would create such obvious "spikes" of influencing. It would be fairly easy for devs to consider whether or not this influence should be allowed to stay for the next week. Even if devs won't have time to do that much(considering that poor bot user paid them 2520 pounds), it would be easy for concerned player groups to calculate and pre-compensate for such bursts. I will return to those concerned players in a moment.
Add in some of those low-chance surprises for autopilot mentioned earlier. Stability is an important factor for a bot, let alone that it is crucial to be sold to anyone.
Usage for honking and/or trading is effectively abolished. Nuff said.
Even more, adding autopilot in-game will disincentify people to create more illegal externals. As most of the people will be content with added to the game functionality, demand for externals will decrease a lot.
10. Any function can be implemented as an optional for gameplay.
Anyone which have some daoistic view on traveling can opt to not use the autopilot. I remember trying to get out from LHS 3447 without jumping despite knowing how to, and was set on not using jumps at all as this, as I've thought, will make my gameplay experience better. Unfortunately, ships do not move faster than 2001 ls/s.
11. Lack of content in the game is obvious as it is, and unavailability of an autopilot doesn't make the situation better.
12. Autopilot function not being available in this game is unnatural, especially when it's already present in-game by lore (unmanned ship takeoff from planets) and technically (NPC movements), as well as it is long being present in today's technology IRL.
Imagine how GTA would be successful if it didn't have bowling, arcade machines, etc. Hell, GTA5 even have a stock market. Who cares if many do not use this stuff more than once. It helps immersion, even more, it creates immersion.
If this game looks realistically, its hard for the imagination to make you belive that there are more happening than you see. All of it would have sort of worked if the player was presented as part of the military, with limited activity specter and with limitations created by some military statute, which are quite often stupid and go overboard. But its not the case in this game. So not having things which are supposed to be here but are not present kills immersion pretty fast, in two weeks in my case. Imagine all that realistic party in FFXV lining up in a row and attacking in turns. That just doesn't work. With all those limitations, this game looks like NES Super Mario with realistic graphics.
If this game looks realistically, its hard for the imagination to make you belive that there are more happening than you see. All of it would have sort of worked if the player was presented as part of the military, with limited activity specter and with limitations created by some military statute, which are quite often stupid and go overboard. But its not the case in this game. So not having things which are supposed to be here but are not present kills immersion pretty fast, in two weeks in my case. Imagine all that realistic party in FFXV lining up in a row and attacking in turns. That just doesn't work. With all those limitations, this game looks like NES Super Mario with realistic graphics.
Mining is not the most cost-efficient to make money in this game. But it is the best relaxing activity avaliable in-game (chopping some rocks with a can of beer in my hands is the past-time of my choise in this game) . And it is automated, or you prefer to collect shards without limpets? Having limpets abolished would bring us to situation we have with travel in this game.
I do understand the fact that traveling for the sake of traveling have said entertaining value. And it is good at that.
Travelling to get to your destination ASAP, when your playtime is limited and you are tired, have none of those.
Travelling in those circumstances, and with current state of things, is an obligatory chore.
Autopilot is a sort of "Scenic Carriages" and similar mods for Skyrim. They are a bit slower than running by foot, yet create a lot of immersion. Fast travel in this game kills my immersion, so I usually disable it with mods, and it is barely acceptable in the MMO so lets remove it from this compartion.
Lets take Falkreath to Riften route (and maybe forget the fact that there is a convinient pass through this mountain in the middle, ED have nothing to be put instead). And assume that player have Heavy armor build (which is the Vette/FDL).
If I had no destination at the moment, I would walk by foot.
If I had some sort of destination, but wasn't pressed to get there, I'd use scenic carriages or walked there. Scenic carriages, in fact, would be more pleasurable way to do that, as they will free my attention to appreciate the scenery. Despite being slower.
If all I wanted is to continue Thiefs Guild questline, well then, plow me sideways. I'd care only about getting there ASAP.
I'd run there in a straight line by compass marker. Diving in every puddle, jumping cliffs, scaling cliffs, being bitten by crabs which do no damage to my armor and irritate me with uselessness of their existance. I would not take my time to apreciate surrounding views. And you cannot shorten you travel time much in ED.
If I were too tired to scale all those cliffs in a glitchy way, I'd use scenic carriages. Especially when travel in ED is not as engaging as glitch-scaling cliffs. And I would even win in immersion, as I would have time to look around having nothing better to do.
Where are the horses in there? Well horses (DBX/AspX/Conda) cannot carry your heavy enchanted armor in this game, and can take only portion of your weapons. Only way is to ship them, in 40 minutes and 5% of the cost. What am I supposed to do while waiting those 40 minutes then? Watch Netflix I suppose. And I'm supposed to pay 5% of Enchanted Daedric armor cost each time I get somewhere.
And now imagine that Scenic carriages mod is banned from Skyrim. Petitioned out by a group of players. What? Why?
And all of those players now tell me that this is not the game for me. WHY? I like combat in it, nor I have a need to use Scenic Carriages all the time (as it is simply unefficient), and I like to travel in this game from time to time (on a horse). So now I just have to leave the game?
Can you understand my bewilderment now?
I do understand the fact that traveling for the sake of traveling have said entertaining value. And it is good at that.
Travelling to get to your destination ASAP, when your playtime is limited and you are tired, have none of those.
Travelling in those circumstances, and with current state of things, is an obligatory chore.
Autopilot is a sort of "Scenic Carriages" and similar mods for Skyrim. They are a bit slower than running by foot, yet create a lot of immersion. Fast travel in this game kills my immersion, so I usually disable it with mods, and it is barely acceptable in the MMO so lets remove it from this compartion.
Lets take Falkreath to Riften route (and maybe forget the fact that there is a convinient pass through this mountain in the middle, ED have nothing to be put instead). And assume that player have Heavy armor build (which is the Vette/FDL).
If I had no destination at the moment, I would walk by foot.
If I had some sort of destination, but wasn't pressed to get there, I'd use scenic carriages or walked there. Scenic carriages, in fact, would be more pleasurable way to do that, as they will free my attention to appreciate the scenery. Despite being slower.
If all I wanted is to continue Thiefs Guild questline, well then, plow me sideways. I'd care only about getting there ASAP.
I'd run there in a straight line by compass marker. Diving in every puddle, jumping cliffs, scaling cliffs, being bitten by crabs which do no damage to my armor and irritate me with uselessness of their existance. I would not take my time to apreciate surrounding views. And you cannot shorten you travel time much in ED.
If I were too tired to scale all those cliffs in a glitchy way, I'd use scenic carriages. Especially when travel in ED is not as engaging as glitch-scaling cliffs. And I would even win in immersion, as I would have time to look around having nothing better to do.
Where are the horses in there? Well horses (DBX/AspX/Conda) cannot carry your heavy enchanted armor in this game, and can take only portion of your weapons. Only way is to ship them, in 40 minutes and 5% of the cost. What am I supposed to do while waiting those 40 minutes then? Watch Netflix I suppose. And I'm supposed to pay 5% of Enchanted Daedric armor cost each time I get somewhere.
And now imagine that Scenic carriages mod is banned from Skyrim. Petitioned out by a group of players. What? Why?
- Some players tell me now to switch to Light Armor and use a horse.
- Some players are not focused on completing questlines at all, they just roleplay an aimless idler, so they say that it is not needed. (even then, they do not see the immersion benefits from having it).
- Some players that Skyrim will look smaller if it will have Scening Carriages. (How come having slower and less efficient way to get anywhere, and which frees your attention to appreciate scenery at that instead of ruining your immersion, does that?)
- Some people say that it's a good way to balance Heavy Armor builds (it's an awful one).
- Some players tell that running in heavy armor have competitive value in this game, so everyone is obliged do so.
And all of those players now tell me that this is not the game for me. WHY? I like combat in it, nor I have a need to use Scenic Carriages all the time (as it is simply unefficient), and I like to travel in this game from time to time (on a horse). So now I just have to leave the game?
Can you understand my bewilderment now?
Netlfix gameplay is a personal choise.
And it is a result of bad gameplay mechanics and/or balance choices. Punishing heavy armor builds by disaibling them usage of horses is not a good balance choice, IMO.
And current ship transfer system is a more Netflix solution than AP can ever be.
As for mechanics improvement, I am at loss, honestly, how to improve it without providing any incentives for people which like current state of things to change their ways. I am content with how current system works for exploration and related activities.
Sometimes people forget that recreational activity is the only purpose of games. Monotone labor certainly can have some of it.
But forcing people to indulge in such labor cannot be viewed as improving recreational value for all the people.
I may update this post in case I've missed something.
Please read the whole post, or better yet, think before replying.
By the way, reasonable ship transfer costs and transfers along with a pilot and no cargo would be a sufficient fix, but there are other pluses to autopilot's implementation as well.
To add something in place of current Hutton and ship transfer mechaincs as well as AP, addition of some economical gameplay is one of the solutions. Stock markets are a good start.
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