This was my preferred option from the get go when it started to look like FSS is coming to game.
Alas, FDEV had other ideas.
I wish they would reconsider though.
FSS - my opinion
- Thread starter [VR] optimal_909
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Alas, FDEV had other ideas.
I wish they would reconsider though.
I'm not after "types of bodies". I am after system configurations.
My complaint is not that "it's harder". My complaint is that the system doesn't make sense anymore. An investigation of a system, in my opinion, should be one of zooming in one step at the time, each step informing a decision to go to the next
Step 1. a general impression of the system you're in. (And in my opinion, knowing what types of planets are in a system, isn't really informative. Only if you're hunting ELWs, WWs, AWs or other shinies does the spectro meter give you useful information. You scan em, optionally probe them and move on. )
Step 2. having gotten the general impression, you decide if you want to investigate the system, or specific parts of the system, or move on.
Step 3. if you feel a system is worth investigating, you could fire up the FSS, get more detail about the system, or specific parts of the system. Here's where the orrery also comes into play
Step 4. depending on whether the FSS / orrery analysis shows some interesting results, you fly towards the sections that interest you for closer examination.
Step 1 & 2 would require an ADS like overview of the entire system. Stripped of all the details, but still informative enough to get an impression.
What we have now would require me to:
Step 1. FSS the hell out of the system.
Step 2. Decide whether I want to fly towards the sections that interest me for closer examination.
I don't get to decide whether a system is worth my FSS time. I am forced to FSS the lot. Which makes determining my base line very time consuming, since even a system with just iceballs can have odd, interesting configurations. I cannot rely on the spectrometer.
And I'm not going to do this. So my last 12KLY stint of exploration boiled down to: check spectrometer for shinies, scan the shinies, move on, get bored and frustrated (I can't stand not knowing if I'm passing up on some great systems) and finally quit playing.
I enjoyed those parts, that is the only function a game should have. Exploration is more than racking up credits for me. It's about discovering and experiencing.
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First off, I know you have some sort of unique dislike of the term mini-game, but two facts remain. One, being a mini-game is not a bad thing. Two, the FSS is a mini-game, by pretty much any definition of the term - although by some, it could be called a micro-game instead. So? There's nothing wrong with it being either a mini-game or a micro-game or whatever. Although it's very much debatable if exploration should be divorced from the core gameplay mechanic of the game, which is flying your ship. But with Chapter Four, Frontier decided that exploration should be taken as far from that as possible, not just with the FSS, but also the DSS, because after you finish that, you get the exact locations pinpointed and can drop right on top of them - no need to search for anything. All the flight involved in exploration is now straight line flight from starting point A to certain B. Plus you needn't look at anything and develop some measure of skill to recognize the things you're looking for, everything is pointed out with certainty when you move the corresponding axes to the corresponding points.
Second, the moment you start up the FSS, you are already playing it. For most, this play will stop once they see the barcode and realise there are no body types there that they are looking for. But once you begin moving the turret view around, you are playing it. It doesn't matter if you click any of the blobs or not, you have already engaged with it at the level it can be.
Then @Ziggy Stardust and @Faded Glory have a very good point about the frequency being a problem. I wouldn't call it the problem, because the problems of the FSS lie elsewhere, but it would certainly be easier to put up with it if you didn't have to engage with it in every system. Whenever anyone says that they wish the barcode could be displayed inside the cockpit after the honk, instead of having to start the FSS, then this already likely means they don't really like to play it often. (Because if they did, they'd play the mini-game to completion and scan the entire system, for which purpose the barcode's contents are mostly irrelevant. It's there for players to be able to decide whether they want to scan a system or not, but only on the basis of body types present.)
As an analogy: being forced to eat junk food one day a week would still be better than being forced to eat junk food every day. The better solution would be to not force anyone to eat junk food, but leave the option there for those who still like to eat it.
But as I tend to say, Frontier could do much better than either the FSS or the ADS. If they would put in the effort required.
Oh, one more thing though. Flying your ship in "regular" space is much better, or certainly more complex, than flying it in supercruise is. So I'd rather exploration involved more flying down on planet surfaces, like with using the search zone mechanic from missions to narrow down the location of surface POIs, instead of getting the exact location immediately after the DSS. Atmospheric flight could improve on this even more, of course.
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Judging the way it was introduced ... they put in minimum effort.
I was very excited there would be an exploration focussed feedback round. The other feedback rounds made me very hopefull.
Then the feedback round got delayed, and delayed again, and then delayed for the mindboggling and uninvited Open Only Powerplay idea (also known as: hey guys, don't look there, look over here!) and then cancelled.
Then, after the presentation, they brushed aside the major complaint with: we increased the honk value.
Which seems to be clear. The FSS solution was an afterthought, they needed to have something, and they had no time left for changes, which means they were late.
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I disagree with cmdr Marx. FSS is not a minigame, IMO. Any game is based on the concept that the player can win or lose. Is there any cmdr who lost the FSS game? Doubt so. It requires no strategy, thinking or skill whatsoever. The only thing needed is time. It is not a game, just a shameless timesink.
An activity that requires some thinking and strategy can be fun, even if it doesnt provide any meaningful rewards if you win. Example: Solitaire card games
Activity which can provide interesting rewards without being fun itself is also acceptable. Example: ADS
FSS is both boring, repetitive, requires no thinking and also provides no meaningfull reward for the time wasted. Big FAIL.
I expect a lot of changes to FSS in the next big updates. Hopefully...
An activity that requires some thinking and strategy can be fun, even if it doesnt provide any meaningful rewards if you win. Example: Solitaire card games
Activity which can provide interesting rewards without being fun itself is also acceptable. Example: ADS
FSS is both boring, repetitive, requires no thinking and also provides no meaningfull reward for the time wasted. Big FAIL.
I expect a lot of changes to FSS in the next big updates. Hopefully...
Now that's a good point. It is debatable though, subject to how you define what games are. If we go with your definition and say that any game is based on the concept that the player can win or lose, then quite a lot of things are out. Jigsaw puzzles? Can't lose. Plenty of video games have temporary setbacks at worst, but no permanent game over screen either. Even in Elite, there's no possibility of losing all your progress. I assume that we agree that Elite in the very least is a game.
Instead, for the sake of the argument, let's say that a game has to have the possibility of failure, so a mini-game too. It can be argued that the FSS still has that, if you set the barcode to the wrong location, or click the wrong location - "adaptive zoom failed". Of course, then what actually comes to fore is that while there is the possibility of failure, there are no consequences for failing - or, more precisely, zero consequences for making mistakes.
This is another part where the comparison with Skyrim's lock-picking mini-game comes up. Over there, you have a consequence for failure: you lose a lockpick, and if you run out of those (unlikely, but the possibility is there), you can no longer pick the lock.
It's quite intriguing though how the FSS compares to Skyrim's lock-picking, and many of the reasons for complaints about the former can be found there. The frequency of having to do it and the frequency of rewards, too. It would be quite interesting to go into detail on both games' lock-picking mini-games (of course, in Elite's setting, it can't be called that), but to be honest, I don't think it would be very fitting for this thread.
Instead, let's go back to your point. If the FSS is not a mini-game because it can't be failed (or, more precisely, there are zero consequences to making mistakes), then what is it? Well, a time sink.
Although that's quite a pejorative term these days, time sinks aren't inherently bad. Instead, it's just that in most cases, they are inserted and designed poorly. There's actually a Wikipedia article on them, and it has a good quote:
"Implementing time sinks in a video game is a delicate balancing act. Excessive use of time sinks may cause players to stop playing. However, if not enough time sinks are implemented, players may feel the game is too short or too easy, causing them to abandon the game much sooner out of boredom. A number of criteria can be used to evaluate use of time sinks, such as frequency, length, and variety (both of the nature of the time sink and the actions taken to overcome it)."
Honestly, that delicate balancing act didn't work with exploration. Little wonder, since the Chapter Four update was obviously rushed. With a rushed schedule and developers who had no experience with the gameplay (exploration) in question, and not getting good feedback sources in time, plus only asking for public feedback for show (when it was apparently already too late by that time), is it any wonder that this was what we ended up with?
At least, Frontier should do with it what they did with Engineering 1.0.
While I agree with most of what you wrote, I just want to clarify one thing: I don’t dislike the term mini-game.
I just consider playing the “mini-game,” “tune and zoom”, “whack-a-world,” or whatever else you want to call brute forcing your way to a completed system map, to be the FSS equivalent of the “blue zone” method of traveling in Supercruise. Yes, it will get you to your destination eventually, but it’s both slow and boring, especially compared to other ways of engaging with the exact same game mechanic.
By using the FSS as a multi-role scanner, rather than a “mini-game” that must be completed in full before investigating interesting worlds, it let’s me jump straight to what I most enjoy doing: exploring alien landscapes beneath an alien sky. Along the way, I can engage in a little parallax exploration, or a lot if I so choose, and once I’ve visited whatever peaks my interest, I can then play the “mini-game” to clean up the hiring parts of a system.
As I’ve repeatedly said, my three main issues with exploration as it is today are:
- the long-standing VR bugs, which robs me of useful information
- being forced to engage with the system map to view information about a nearby body
- the artificial throttle restriction to using the FSS
While I tend to agree with the first part of your statement, it depends I suspect in what one sees as the ultimate goal of exploration. I suspect FD see it as simply a part of the game that they hope all players will engage in, at least until they get the rank.
For that, the FSS is excellent. It vastly reduces the amount of time it takes to scan all but the smallest systems, and they even kindly upped the rewards for scanning stuff. I'd say getting to Elite in exploration now could take as little as a week's play if someone can put in a few hours each day.
I don't really share your hope that there'll be a lot of changes to it, although it would certainly be welcome. Having a suite of tools that can be used to explore the galaxy and not being forced to use the FSS (just like there's no need at all to use the FSS for other gameplay, even though it can be used) would surely add depth and variety.
Just imagine if there were only one type of weapon that could be used for combat...
Doesn't that depend on how you use the FSS? Anything can be made boring by not caring about how it is done or used.
I use the FSS mainly for orbital configurations as well as planetary whack-a-moling depending on objectives.So far, all it is is a different process from the previous (lack of) solution. A process I find slightly more engaging. But it has not made me unable to continue my exploration strategy, just changed what tactic I have to use to meet my objectives.
Mainly I look for interesting sights when exploring. Usually these are based on interesting orbital configurations. Since the FSS have been introduced, I have also been able to search fruitfully for PoIs. But that didn't stay as exciting for that long, as there isn't that much variation in those compared to the stellar system configurations.
S
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I can't find the official thread, but while searching for focused feedback exploration thread, I did find many reaction threads.
One of which had this lovely sequence: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/focused-feedback-forum-content-schedule.425036/page-47 which illustrates ... some thing or another.
But one of them reminded me of a point I made when it was clear the ads was a goner, and it would be fss all the way. The surface POIs. In my naive little mind I was hoping that the FSS trail would lead us to new and fun geographical features on planet surface. Those POIs could still salvage the situation. If planet surfaces had features which were procedurally generated, meaning that I could look for the outliers there. That those would be my new shinies to chase. When the update was actually released it became pretty clear pretty fast that all we got was fields of some things. Which were literally, seen one, seen them all.
We didn't even get updated ice planets. Just pumpkin fields. Or fields of smokey things. Just fields. If flying close to and driving on planets would have been made interesting, the update would have made more sense. The focus would have shifted from finding anomalies in the Stellar Forge towards anomalies on planet surfaces.
Oh well, maybe in 3 years time we'll get another exploration update. Curious how they'll screw up that one.
One of which had this lovely sequence: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/focused-feedback-forum-content-schedule.425036/page-47 which illustrates ... some thing or another.
But one of them reminded me of a point I made when it was clear the ads was a goner, and it would be fss all the way. The surface POIs. In my naive little mind I was hoping that the FSS trail would lead us to new and fun geographical features on planet surface. Those POIs could still salvage the situation. If planet surfaces had features which were procedurally generated, meaning that I could look for the outliers there. That those would be my new shinies to chase. When the update was actually released it became pretty clear pretty fast that all we got was fields of some things. Which were literally, seen one, seen them all.
We didn't even get updated ice planets. Just pumpkin fields. Or fields of smokey things. Just fields. If flying close to and driving on planets would have been made interesting, the update would have made more sense. The focus would have shifted from finding anomalies in the Stellar Forge towards anomalies on planet surfaces.
Oh well, maybe in 3 years time we'll get another exploration update. Curious how they'll screw up that one.
Oh sure, post my point just before I finish my post. By all means go ahead.
Fields of silver liningAt least the PoIs are easy to find now.
Maybe, once you've got your eye in, most of them can. If you're relying on a quick pan you'll easily miss some that are far from the planes indicated in an unscanned FSS view without resolving all the signals on those lines and realising there're a bunch more out there somewhere.
If you're happy with your methods then more power to your elbow but it's not for me. I am quite happy with my quickly resolve all the signals and then look at the system map to decide if there's anything I want to take a closer look at.
POI only being rough areas from mapping needing chasing down like the mission markers in normal flight would be nice, and there is a lot of room for UX improvement in the FSS screen but I generally like it even if I use it differently to you.
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My main gripe with the quick scan method (ADS) is that it is just that; quick. Getting the orbital configurations resolved should take time as the objects will have to move. Unless we accept more space magic, but I think this game already has enough of that - we accept the game mechanics so we can observe the game world which we probably want to seem realistic. And we probably also want our observation methods to be somewhat realistic. To me, one-button scan space magic is just not that realistic.
I could accept a system that automatially resolved orbital configurations after the initial honk, but took time and might require the ship to move at different velocities to resolve everything effectively (not prescribed, each player might come up with their own "rain dance" for fast resolution. It could be as little as flying straight up or down from the orbital plane and then turning at a right angle, or just moving away from the main star). The system map would that way slowly and seemingly randomly be filled with black bodies after a variable amount of time. The system might not be able to resolve all moons or objects orbiting very close to each other, but it could then be used to enter the FSS only to look for interesting things missed by the passive scan.
There, a one button ADS solution presented by an FSS advocate!
S
I could accept a system that automatially resolved orbital configurations after the initial honk, but took time and might require the ship to move at different velocities to resolve everything effectively (not prescribed, each player might come up with their own "rain dance" for fast resolution. It could be as little as flying straight up or down from the orbital plane and then turning at a right angle, or just moving away from the main star). The system map would that way slowly and seemingly randomly be filled with black bodies after a variable amount of time. The system might not be able to resolve all moons or objects orbiting very close to each other, but it could then be used to enter the FSS only to look for interesting things missed by the passive scan.
There, a one button ADS solution presented by an FSS advocate!
S
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I think comparing the FSS to Skyrim's/Fallout 4's lock-picking mini-game might be fair if they allowed you take the individual components, and use them separately, or different combinations, for purposes other than lockpicking. Since I'm only familiar with Fallout 4's, let's say I can use the screwdriver separately for screwdriver things, the bobbypin to complete or short out circuits, and "zoom in on the lock" to zoom in on anything you want. Of course you can't do that in those games, but this is something that you can do with the FSS.
If you only use the pan and the tuner, you get a orbital hierarchy detector, capable of telling the difference between single planets, planets with moons, and binary+ worlds. Just performing the honk and a quick peek at the orbital plane makes parallax exploration easier if you prefer to explore mostly in-cockpit by flying. You can do something similar for certain body types by parking the tuner in a specific band the FSA... assuming you use analog tuning. Strategic placement of your ship, combined with the zoom function, allows you to more easily detect eclipse candidates. The pan function, plus the distance and temperature readouts in the lower left corner, can help isolate terraforming candidates. Resolve a single icy body, and you've exploring a system via parallax and hunting terraforming candidates much easier, tells you if a system has any wildly tilted orbits, and can provide a hint on where to look for them.
I could go on, but many of those require a moving ship to be useful at all, which is why I find the artificial "you must be throttled down to use the FSS" restriction so annoying. So much potential wasted for so little reason.
Yes, the FSS is a time sink, especially compared to the ADS's five second honk. But much like Supercruise, it's a time sink that can be greatly reduced by experience, strategy, and a little bit of skill... as long as you're not searching for GGGs, weird looking worlds, or size outliers. For those, an optional ADS-like module would be needed.
Ultimately, the reason why I’m a fan of the FSS is because there’s enough variety in how the FSS can be used, the Stellar Forge creates a rather wide variety of system types, and there’s sufficient variety of things to find, from common geological sites, through ephemeral events like eclipses and other planetary alignments, to the proverbial rare unicorns, that each new system I enter feels like the initial stages of a 4X game or procedurally generated survival game. You’re surrounded by the unknown, and you need to adapt how you peel back the darkness around you, based on your starting circumstances.
It'll be one further step further detached from the ship, so you'll need to go outside and sit on the ship canopy, but you'll have RFBFSS (Really Flippin' Big FSS). Last time, they eliminated the need to fly to bodies - this one will eliminate the need to jump to systems. Explore the entire galaxy from Sol! But that's not all! They'll add a new tag, "First Ultra-Discovered By", for those bodies resolved with the RFBFSS - and of course, the Bubble will be available to tag (for ~4 minutes after servers come back online). For those explorers who like to get up close and personal with planets, there will of course be extra content added - 40 new colours of Brain Trees and Anemones!! (Half of these won't register at all in the Codex, and the others will all be populated in all regions within 15 secs of servers coming back online).
For me, the FSS adds no compelling gameplay. It occurs to me that I'd give up everything - space telescope, space probes, auto-tagging, increased payouts, mapping for POIs, everything to do with the Codex - just to have the ADS back. Hell, keep the FSS as 'default' and lock the ADS behind another engineer. Make it's uses mutually exclusive to FSS, with all the supposed "drawbacks" it entails.
I can dream.
You're wrong there. When you use the FSS, you're playing it, the mini-game, no matter how you go about it.
You're saying that there are inferior ways of playing the FSS, and then it's a mini-game, but if someone uses your superior ways (although I'm not sure what they actually are: your tutorial from much earlier describes standard fare), then it's suddenly not a mini-game. Unfortunately, how you play games doesn't change what those games are.
Then again, you also agreed that it's a time sink, so I suppose this is just semantics. As I said before, which it is depends on whether you count game mechanics with no consequences for making mistakes mini-games or not.
Oookay. Somebody tell me if it's just me, but to me, it seems like you spin some marketing that's really stretching a few things. I have to hand it to you, you are better at it than the developers were. Of course, everyone can decide whether their experience with the FSS' gameplay matches what you describe, or not really.
What do you mean by multi-role scanner, though? The FSS has one role: to scan bodies, with signal sources having been lumped in there too.
Of course, likely based on feedback from internal testing, Frontier decided to give an alternative to bubble players, namely scanning nav beacons. I've just checked, and most guides (written after Chapter Four) for finding HGEs recommend scanning beacons.
Hehe. Ironically enough, sitting on the ship canopy would be less detached from your ship than the FSS is. After all, for the FSS it doesn't matter in any way what ship (with what build) you're flying.
If the developers said that you can choose to use either the FSS or the ADS (so, mutually exclusive), and the ADS being the exact same as it was before, I'd go with the latter. NSPs you can find without the FSS (in fact, using the FSS is the worse way for finding them), and I don't land at surface signals unless I'm specifically exploring for those. (Which happens rarely.)
Personally, I would give fleet carriers an optional functionality though. Buy an exploration module for the exploration support vessel, and then if you explore systems and your carrier is within, say, 150 ly, then the honk reveals the system map as it used to. (Not auto-scanning bodies, of course.) That would already go a long way towards making exploration more enjoyable to many.
The "zooming in on the lock" is the function of the FSS. You might as well say: the FSS doesn't allow you to pick locks. That is something you can do with a screwdriver in Fallout.
And you know why the lock pick mini game in Skyrim/Fallout is far superiour to the FSS mini game? In Skyrim/Fallout you don't have to pick a lock every 2 minutes. Those games aren't constructed out of doors. The Elite Universe is constructed out of systems.
I have to agree with Marx here. The FSS is not a multi role scanner. I can't use it as a multi role scanner, rather than a mini game. For many the FSS is indeed a mini game that must be completed before enjoying the content they would enjoy. The mistake you're making is thinking that players have a choice what they enjoy. That if they'd only choose to enjoy the same things you enjoy in a game, they would find out how much fun the FSS is. Funnily enough, it's the same mental error some PvPers make. If only those darn PvEers would try PvP, surely they'd enjoy it as much as we do. Fun and enjoyment are subjective.
For you, the revealing of the system is your pot of gold. Each new system you enter feels like the initial stages of a 4X game or procedurally generated survival game. For me, only a few systems have this appeal. My pot of gold cannot be found in most systems. The system configuration is my baseline. It's information I want readily available, because I do not enjoy finding out this Gas Giant has 5 ... oh no, 6 moons. I feel little thrill in discovering there are 4 High Metal Content planets in a system.
Turn it around. For more than 2 years I have enjoyed exploration in Elite. Even with the limited tools at my disposal, exploration in Elite has been one of the most enjoyable experiences I have had in any game. But you told us it didn't appeal to you. So why did you not choose to make it appeal to you? Why did you not use the same creativity, imagination and motivators I had?
You couldn't, because you're not me. You're you.
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I think this is something that's a bit peculiar to Elite. Players can find the fun that they want in activities in different ways, whether it's roleplaying or whatever. To be fair to Darkfyre, they have always said that uncovering a system bit by bit is what made exploration feel alive for them, but they also, from very early on in the conversation were more than happy for an optional module to be available for those who wanted to explore differently. Others seemed to imply that using the FSS was some kind of skill you needed to achieve if you wanted to see what is in a system, which it's not...
I doubt FD listened to any of the discussion anyway. I suspect that their goal with the FSS was to make exploration an activity that all players would have a go at. And they made the FSS easy and quick enough to use for everyone, that's not me being rude or dismissive of FD, it's what they said was their intention in the reveal livestreams. I imagine they also wanted to enable players to find the stuff that they put on planets, but as many people said at the time, that would only be good if what was there to find was interesting enough.
I don't doubt that when they were designing it, the FSS seemed to tick a lot of boxes. No more long passive SC journeys finishing with a totally passive scan. Check. No more totally passive gameplay, now a hands on game. Check. But forcing players who want to fly spaceships in a game primarily about flying spaceships to spend a lot of time in a totally different environment (if they want to explore) seems such a strange decision. Ironically, if they'd just left an optional ADS module available, then likely everyone would have been happy.
Oh yeah, fer sure