FDEV should reconsider the odds to find something interesting with the FSS in the galaxy: my opinion after DW2

[B1rdy]

So it is my opinion that exploration is still empty gameplay.

This is why I couldn't understand the hype surrounding the expansion of Exploration after we got actual details from FDev. It was clear from before the start that searching for a handful of different phenomena amognst billions and billions of star system is not very interesting (due to the rare odds) and not very engaging (due to the very limited means of interaction). The actual play sessions are mostly dominated by loading screens, zooming in and out in the FSS, uneventful SC travels, a simple probe mini game, pressing and holding a button (aka "scan") an NSP in order to get "some sticker in a virtual Panini album" (as someone else described it analogously here on the forums a few months ago).
Therefore the exploration mechanic is pretty simple, therefore adding more of the same stuff will have a similar effect as the credits inflation we already have. It would render NSPs meaningless. Therefore increasing the variety of stuff to find, which increases the overall change to find anything notable, is the only reasonable way (if you don't want to re-design any current mechanics).

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

Wrong. They made tonnes of discoveries and located plenty of codex content on that route.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nlVeF2ywwj5iMABWI7Tyyfkfsee1D1WF/view --- Thats just a small sample. Check out their discoveries thread, its packed full of them.

The OP must have been doing it wrong because this stuff is all over the place.

Your link actually confirms I did it right!
The discoveries listed there were not casual/random finds. They were preset destinations on the route to BP that the organizers found for us and I also think that some of them have been suggested by FD (pure speculation here). I found them too together with a lot of other players and we were all space tourist interesting in shooting selfie with our ships.

It's like going to Egypt and pretend to discover the pyramids, like this:

 

[IamMe]

Unfortunately I find having a willing suspension of disbelief to be rather challenging in this game at times, given the meta and so on. I do still care to play the game as though I'm a Commander in the Pilots Federation where and when able.

Either way, the galactic sim has been great, even given its limitations and shortcomings. My perspective on astronomical objects and phenomena has greatly improved since playing the game. Something as simple as looking up at the night sky and seeing the Seven Sisters and knowing roughly where that is in our galaxy in comparison to other things is very cool indeed, at least in my opinion.

Ok! Tonight before logging off I will land on an ELW, using the SRV I will go inside a small forest and using my legs I will collect then some wood. Finally I will light a fire while camping on the shore next to my ship. I will see a double sunset with falling stars!

I was being sarcastic
Exploration wise yes more random stuff to discover are welcome along with FSS overhaul by making it part of the ships UI rather than being arcade popup screen minigame.
So far exploration is poor aspect of the game, maybe atmos will bring more to it if they add it!

 

[Retropolitan]

What about this?
"Kordylewski clouds are large concentrations of dust that exist at the L4 and L5 Lagrangian points of the Earth–Moon system. They were first reported by Polish astronomer Kazimierz Kordylewski in the 1960s, and confirmed to exist in October 2018."

They don't seem so uncommon.

That's great; well spotted! But you're shifting the goalposts a bit here, since in the post I was replying to you said:

Lagrange points are quite common... Scientist find 3 only around Earth.

... which is not the same thing.

 

[Pville_Piper]

Surface Mapping: this mini game has become boring and repetitive too quickly

SHOCKED!

So it is my opinion that exploration is still empty gameplay.

OMG!!! Did an explorer finally figure out what most of us have known all alone. The END! is nigh! Time to stock up on ammo and large containers of freeze dried food... Civilization is coming to an END! I tell you!

We have the tools now, true that, but

"But"... That is the only good thing to come of it. Notice the period after the statement.

but the gameloop is too short because the probes mini game is soon repetitive

Too short? WOW!

I don't even know where to start with that statement... How many million/billions of planets in the game? And you want to make it even longer to scan them?!!!

The biggest issue I have with the whole probe thing is the god awful crawl out of the gravity well, it fits with the game, but it turns exploration gameplay into something mind-numbingly slow and tedious. It would be better that you could either fire one probe from a reasonable distance or bring back that function in the discovery scanner. Forget the mini game. ANYTHING you do will become repetitive and boring soon enough.

and the things to find are too sparse and too rare (consider also the bug of the loading time to scan POI's on surface). Moreover the few features that are more common are not varied enough (lava spout, geyser etc. there is some variation but they're always basically the very same thing and you intearct with all of these in the very same way).

I'm told the galaxy is big... REALLY BIG! Needle in a haystack and all that...

Funny thing though about the OPs post... It pretty much echo's a lot of what I said early on in the beta (welcome to the club of heretics... Even if you were slow on the uptake) but I was excoriated for saying less than what you said. Exploration in this game is not gameplay, it's tediousness Ad nauseam... The implementation of the whole explorers part of the update added layers of tedium on top of tedium. If it had been done like the mining part it would have been better. The tools and refinement was what was needed... The stop your ship to scan, scan from somewhere other than the cockpit and probe from a gravity well pretty much ensured that the only people who would enjoy this part of the update was the few purists and others who would spend hours looking for graphical anomalies from low orbit of a planet.

Que the "Don't touch my exploration" flame throwers, hate mail and calls for you (and me) to be banned for even inferring, let alone suggesting, that the emperor has no clothes...

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

SHOCKED!



OMG!!! Did an explorer finally figure out what most of us have known all alone. The END! is nigh! Time to stock up on ammo and large containers of freeze dried food... Civilization is coming to an END! I tell you!



"But"... That is the only good thing to come of it. Notice the period after the statement.



Too short? WOW!

I don't even know where to start with that statement... How many million/billions of planets in the game? And you want to make it even longer to scan them?!!!

The biggest issue I have with the whole probe thing is the god awful crawl out of the gravity well, it fits with the game, but it turns exploration gameplay into something mind-numbingly slow and tedious. It would be better that you could either fire one probe from a reasonable distance or bring back that function in the discovery scanner. Forget the mini game. ANYTHING you do will become repetitive and boring soon enough.



I'm told the galaxy is big... REALLY BIG! Needle in a haystack and all that...

Funny thing though about the OPs post... It pretty much echo's a lot of what I said early on in the beta (welcome to the club of heretics... Even if you were slow on the uptake) but I was excoriated for saying less than what you said. Exploration in this game is not gameplay, it's tediousness Ad nauseam... The implementation of the whole explorers part of the update added layers of tedium on top of tedium. If it had been done like the mining part it would have been better. The tools and refinement was what was needed... The stop your ship to scan, scan from somewhere other than the cockpit and probe from a gravity well pretty much ensured that the only people who would enjoy this part of the update was the few purists and others who would spend hours looking for graphical anomalies from low orbit of a planet.

Que the "Don't touch my exploration" flame throwers, hate mail and calls for you (and me) to be banned for even inferring, let alone suggesting, that the emperor has no clothes...

I miss your point here, what's your suggestion?
Making features less rare?
Adding more stuff?
Making gameloop longer/more challenging or more easy/automatic?

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

That's great; well spotted! But you're shifting the goalposts a bit here, since in the post I was replying to you said:
... which is not the same thing.

Ok I clarify.
Many people here replied to my opinion (having stuff a bit more easy to find) saying that to keep the game realistic it's ok to have the new features extremely rare.
My reply is to say that Lagrangian/Kordylewski Clouds are not so rare, we have two for the Earth alone, and concerning the other phenomena we can't be sure how rare they are in the real case because our knowledge of the galaxy is limited to what we can observe and we still know very few of our universe.
So the gameplay should not be limited by wrong reality expectations.

 

[Pville_Piper]

I miss your point here, what's your suggestion?
Making features less rare?
Adding more stuff?
Making gameloop longer/more challenging or more easy/automatic?

Suggestion? No, I'm just simply shocked that an explorer has finally seen that the emperor has no clothes... Considering the bashing I took (and will continue take for responding to your post by suggesting that he has no clothes) in the beta forums for saying what you just said from explorers (you were one of them).
Enjoy your exploration... Considering how long it takes FDev to fix anything outside of a credit exploit, you'll be stuck with this mess for a LONG time.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Wrong. They made tonnes of discoveries and located plenty of codex content on that route.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nlVeF2ywwj5iMABWI7Tyyfkfsee1D1WF/view --- Thats just a small sample. Check out their discoveries thread, its packed full of them.

The OP must have been doing it wrong because this stuff is all over the place.

No need to check anything out. Individual mileage will vary.

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

Suggestion? No, I'm just simply shocked that an explorer has finally seen that the emperor has no clothes... Considering the bashing I took (and will continue take for responding to your post by suggesting that he has no clothes) in the beta forums for saying what you just said from explorers (you were one of them).
Enjoy your exploration... Considering how long it takes FDev to fix anything outside of a credit exploit, you'll be stuck with this mess for a LONG time.

I'm not saying you were wrong (I don't remember I've ever bashed any of your comments) but it's highly possible being criticized when you judge something without knowing it deeply (during beta).
In fact I'm criticizing exploration contents after a trip across the complete galaxy. This is probably the reason why my statements are now appreciated by some players and yours were bashed at that time.
During beta, tbh, I thought that all these phenomena were more frequent 'cause I've found a braintree forest on the very first day of test!
I also remembered I said multiple times in the forum/reddit when the "space thunderstorm" preview was released that I hoped that those phenomena were not so rare to find hoping that these would add some challenge and gameplay loop during exploration trips, so here I'm still coherent when I say that I'm disappointed.
Moreover adding new gameplay loops and new features, as you said, it would take forever, while changing the odds these spawn it's probably a much easier and quicker task. That's why I'm only talking about "odds" in the OP title

 

[Phil JMac]

I have found some stuff in unscanned systems - nothing new for the Codex but it was a buzz the first time a biological came up outside a nebula (Crystal Shards)

I'm just coming back from Sag A via Colonia and in unscanned systems I've had I think 5 biologicals but no NSP's - I don't mind, It's not the last time I'll head out exploring and I'm looking forward to (hopefully) seeing that bit of the FSS light up.

Side note - While in the core I did visit a couple of Storm Clouds noted in the codex... (very touristic of me I know). That was a very worthwhile experience (try it)

 

[WR3ND]

Bear in mind that one person's trip out to BP and back may be quite different than someone else's, even if just for jump range. One person could easily visit three times or more systems than someone else. Across the galaxy and back can be much shorter of a trip these days than it has been in the past.

On the other hand, I don't really care for the FSS gameplay for exploration in general, so I tend to avoid it, and surely miss out on finding some things due to this.

 

[BigBANGtheory [VR]]

I came to pretty much the same conclusion as the OP soon after the Beyond update and hence why I called a halt to exploration despite the claims that Beyond would get it working for the player. It comes across (to me at least) that we have all these interesting avenues to explore but no means to progress and is therefore a complete waste of time, what FDev need to do imho is turn that around into a "the truth is out there" adventure with players being able to seek evidence either for themselves or for some group. The Codex seems like a good idea which isn't working yet or simply the content isn't there. I don't know maybe I'm wrong but that's the gameplay experience I encountered.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

How do you expect to find something by randomly fishing with a toothpick in an ocean?

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

How do you expect to find something by randomly fishing with a toothpick in an ocean?

That's exactly the point.
The best solution imho would be to add proper tools that work at galaxy map level. They should not spoil the position of events but provide clues or indicate area where concentration is higher.
Lazy solution is to simply increase the quantity of the fish in the ocean so that they can be found more commonly.
Doing nothing and leaving as it is is just bad...

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

what FDev need to do imho is turn that around into a "the truth is out there" adventure with players being able to seek evidence either for themselves or for some group

Very good concept!
They should use Galnet to create some mystery and then spread clues in a sector to find several interesting phenomena. It could be an interstellar initiative or even something generated by stellarforge.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

You mean like reserving finds for players? Would probably require procedural finds. But actually that would have "personal narrative" character.

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

You mean like reserving finds for players? Would probably require procedural finds. But actually that would have "personal narrative" character.

No that would be too complex because we don't have a single player version of the game of course.
Probably good exploration missions could solve some issue.
Missions could ask to investigate a sector, providing coordinates and LY range to define the bubble under investigation. Then the events/features will be generated by the mission server.

Yes, I think this is what's really missing. Same features that we have, plus some cool ones that should be introduced together with small game updates, and mission generated events.

 

[Drelthar]

Aren't the "Rumoured" parts of the codex supposed to do this?

Does that exist yet? Has it been used yet?

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

Aren't the "Rumoured" parts of the codex supposed to do this?

Does that exist yet? Has it been used yet?

Yes and no. These are manually introduced by FDev but if they provide exact location they spoil the complete gameloop so they are useless again imho. We'll see when there will be one... If ever will be...