It adds gameplay by way of a minigame. No one is disputing that.
Nothing in the OP adds meaningful gameplay or agency.
News Chapter Four - Exploration Reveal
It adds gameplay by way of a minigame. No one is disputing that.
Nothing in the OP adds meaningful gameplay or agency.
I think you just made my point for me without meaning to. Under the new mechanic, each system and even each planet is a self contained mystery, so you cannot be exposed to the same mystery 5-15 times unless you die 4-14 times and come back and scan the system over and over again.
The dopamine release from pattern matching comes from the fact that systems come in recognizable flavors, and from the fact there is enough variation within "flavors" of systems that each object has a chance of being something unexpected. Ergo, the more exploration experience you have, the better you get at pattern matching and the more opportunities for dopamine release from a sense of mastery.
Hence the new mechanic is likely to be both compelling and addictive.
Without anything tying it back into the bgs or letting it populate something for players, or having it generate something persistent it'll be old and redundant in no time.
Frontier have some super smart folks working on this game, they know this better than I do.
I had real high hopes for this update, where's the rest of it FDev?
Frontier have some super smart folks working on this game, they know this better than I do.
I had real high hopes for this update, where's the rest of it FDev?
don´t agree - there is nonetheless an insignificant number of always the same players repeatebly insisting that their preferences should be kept - a quite conservative point of view btw.
If RL would have it like that we still would be hunting in the woods and eating raw meat....
FDev is the game developer with their targets of developement (unknown to us) and its THEIR PEROGATIVE to decide which way it goes....
I agree that the current integration of Exploration needs to be deeply expanded in order to give it true longevity. The current tie to the BGS (same value per honk, regardless of scans or value) could stand to be updated and would go a long way towards giving targeted exploration both structure and meaning. And it would be awesome to have more integration generally into the rest of the mechanics of the game, especially for future colonization expansions (fingers crossed). At the very least, adding Exploration missions that rely on finding specific types of things, like mining but for planet data instead of rocks.
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All the gameplay in ED are mini games. As to meaningful gameplay, that all depends what you get at the end of the gameplay.
Wow, way to go with hyperbole there Cobra.
Last time I checked, hunting in the woods and eating raw meat is still an option, though I happen to prefer sushi myself.
Define meaningless in this context then. Because it feels you use it highly subjectively here.
Sushi is fine for me too
but for hunting you need a licence and raw meat (not controlled by vets) will highly likely shorten your life expactation drastically....
You're right, pretty much anything becomes less fun and exciting the more you do it. This is a problem for the devs (I suspect) because they come up with an idea, try it out a few times, see that it works Ok, then move on. They don't keep doing it the hundreds (or more) times that players will. At some point IMHO, they are going to want to come to the realization that it's not simply a task, or an action that needs to be designed, but a variety of ways for that task or action to be completed that's needed. That's in every aspect of the game.
And, no, I'm not bashing the devs, I think they are all very passionate about what they do, not to mention very talented. I think possibly FD just need to look at the design aspect slightly differently.
Again really not helpful to make assumptions about why people are giving the feedback they are and then summarily dismissing it as 'not really valid complaints'. Plenty of us do anything other than 'hit and run' exploration, but we still have reservations.
That is what you are describing as busy work. Not me, that is you.
I don't thinks I either. But I was showing the ridiculous of your post. If gameplay is wasting time and busywork. Those are your words fella, not mine.
Yes that us busywork which is nothing like the new mechanic.
If you are interacting with the UI then it's gameplay. Doesn't matter if it's a UI or not. So what. Some games are just UI based. Doesn't mean it isn't gameplay.
Nope. That was using your examples of busywork.
It is a bit binary though by nature, but that's not my point to FD to dismiss them. Most of complains fall into these categories:
1. I am used to 'placeholder' and this will ruin my playstyle I learned to love. It is valid complain, but again, something gotta give;
2. There's not enough content to explore - again, subjective, again, I agree partially, but exploration gameplay update are about *mechanics*. Also pointing out that in the past people complained that they have eye ball planets to get content;
3. Changes don't go far enough / aren't deep enough - those kinda run opposite of to first point;
And lastly
4. it is all just dress up and nothing really getting improved - for me it reeks me of forum 'endpointism' (yeah, I coined that term, deal with that) just to drive some cynical point home that nothing is improved, nothing can be improved, FD are useless and everything's bad.
Which is obviously nonsense, but when you don't know when to quit sodium atmosphere of forums, that's how you turn up in the end.
As always I am a bit harsh when I am annoyed, but mostly what I read is about old ways of exploring. And I am sorry, but something's have to give.
Anyway, it is up to FD to decide how to use feedback, not me.
Better reserve judgement until we've played it though eh? We don't have a release date yet, it's been a couple of weeks since the reveal, so FD have their feedback to chew on and it will be a few more weeks until the beta. Simple truth is though, if you're not having to eyeball planets to find things, that opens up meaningful exploration (and that can be for finding pew targets too) and swapping flight time for scanner time is sum zero.
How it will be for some of the issues raised by people who don't want to fit ADS is pure speculation at this point because seems to me FD are doing the focus feedback differently (informally) this time. Bet you 100 bucks they're thinking about what people have said though.
You're right, pretty much anything becomes less fun and exciting the more you do it. This is a problem for the devs (I suspect) because they come up with an idea, try it out a few times, see that it works Ok, then move on. They don't keep doing it the hundreds (or more) times that players will. At some point IMHO, they are going to want to come to the realization that it's not simply a task, or an action that needs to be designed, but a variety of ways for that task or action to be completed that's needed. That's in every aspect of the game.
And, no, I'm not bashing the devs, I think they are all very passionate about what they do, not to mention very talented. I think possibly FD just need to look at the design aspect slightly differently.
Problem is, that's a bias. Casual players play ED with long enough pauses not to feel this repetition sinking in. But for hardcore players...well, other games try to placate them so much that it scared casual ones away, because games becomes convoluted, complex mess.
So people complaining about things they know they will grind to death aren't really outliners devs look for. FD tries to be smart with such feedback, in turn, people moan, grind their teeth, stomp their feet, then calm down and play game again.
In nutshell, you can gather such feedback, but it clearly won't set tone of any tweaks FD will do to their designs.
Oh God, yes, how did I forget that. Exploration missions! Right now all we have is tourist stuff (yay?) and special missions to do Guardian/Thargoid base/ruin stuff.
But we should be able to not only select Exploration missions with specific goals, but stack them as well for long expeditions. They should probably NOT have a time limit, either (or a very long one if you must). I could see them having a minimum LY distance from the mission provider requirement (in the thousands, probably). Require us to locate certain types of worlds, bring back certain kinds of samples, hell, the Nav Beacon possibilities are there too.
That one addition would allow any potential explorer to set themselves up with a to-do list with some sense of purpose behind it.
Of course, I expect there are problems as well. For example, any sample to be retrieved will have to be flagged as "mission target" just like current missions do... can't go mine an asteroid ring for water samples because right now there's no way for the system to know where that water comes from, correct? You could just buy it next system over and come back to collect your reward.