Hello Games Exploring worlds Vs Elite Dangerous.

[Dutchman141]

Elite should use procgen the way NMS uses procgen. And I don't mean put animals everywhere. NMS generates variants of every rock, plant, building interior, outpost/base layout, ship, etc. Elite just has cut and paste assets for all their stations, outposts, guardian site, brain trees, points of interest, scatter rocks, etc. The procgen terrain is great. The procgen star systems are great. Why can't smaller, more intimate things have a procgen aspect as well? Use those ship kit pieces on NPC ships. Create tiled sections of geometry for station interiors, exteriors, etc, and make everything unique. Why does every tourist station have to have the EXACT SAME park layout and the same exact statues everywhere? It would make such a difference if there were more variation in the details, especially for the types of locations you interact with again and again (looking at you surface data point scan locations).

Remember how excited people were when they added a few more station interior types? That was a good move. The game should be progressing in that direction all the time. Anywhere that it's possible to use procgen to create unique variants of something, it should be done. Every skimmer doesn't need to look the same. Every surface turret doesn't need to look the same. Every surface mineral deposit doesn't need to look the same. Etc. This would make such a difference. Much more than the guardian sites or any of the other initially new and exciting but copy-pasted assets they've created.

I agree but not entirely.
The Guardian sites are all different and handcrafted as far as I can tell and imho they look fantastic, mysterious and that eerie atmosphere.
To bad the had to turn these beautiful structures into grind fests, they could've done so much more intriguing and compelling with them.
The Thargoid structures are beautifully made too and the activation mechanism for the machine inside was a nice addition, a good start, again, to bad they stopped there with creating cool gameplay.
I don't get it that almost everything Fdev adds to ED must be locked by this simple and boring mechanism that a lot of players experience as a grind and pushing people away from that content.
They've shown that they're able to construct great looking sites, the thing lacking is engaging and fairly rewarded gameplay at those sites.
Using PG in a more compelling and variable way for general POIs would be a good thing in ED imho but those handcrafted sites look like they put a lot of love and effort in them, they should keep making those too, just conect them with much better gameplay.

Visually there's nothing wrong with ED imho, filling those great visual places with good and rewarding gameplay is a whole other matter.
I didn't switch to NMS for now because ED doesn't look great, I enjoy NMS more righ now because of ED's lack of good gameplay, things to do with a better effort vs reward system, things that NMS has covered splendidly in my opinion.

 

[Backer42]

And how much engaging gameplay did we get with that stuff, brain trees and fumerols are nice to look at the first two times but then what?
NMS has plants that actually attack you when coming to close, you can scan them, get credits and nanites for them which you can use on all different kinds of upgrades, and that's just the plants.
Thargoids are pew pew only and the Guardian stuff is sitting behind a grind wall.

It doesn't matter if there is "grind", if the gameplay loop is fun and the progression isn't too slow. ED is hampered by its "real time" design. The whole universe progresses at "real time", which is simply too slow. It transports the notion of a pilot working in eight hour shifts mapping that to real time eight hours. It also prevents saving progress at your own pace, you are bound to the universe clock. Another is problem is too much stuff happening outside of the game itself, which is never a good thing for a video game.

There is a reason why video games have ten minute day/night cycles and 50 hour campaigns cover weeks to months to multiple years of in-game time. There is a reason why roughly 1000 minutes of a TV show cover a whole year for the characters. There is a reason why movies are roughly two hours long, covering a whole adventure.

I'm sorry, I know it's not right to compare ED with NMS but the whole planetary landing stuff in ED has a very meager level of content at the moment.
FDev introduced planetary landings, gave us an srv to drive around in but as soon as you go outside the bubble all those planets are literally void of any compelling content except a couple poi locations which repeat themselfs after two or three variants. That's close to 400 billion systems with nothing.

Yeah Horizons was very nice when it was introduced but that's where Fdev decided to go back and concentrate on pew pew again.

I agree, Horizons was a disappointment.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

It doesn't matter if there is "grind", if the gameplay loop is fun and the progression isn't too slow. ED is hampered by its "real time" design. The whole universe progresses at "real time", which is simply too slow. It transports the notion of a pilot working in eight hour shifts mapping that to real time eight hours. It also prevents saving progress at your own pace, you are bound to the universe clock. Another is problem is too much stuff happening outside of the game itself, which is never a good thing for a video game.

There is a reason why video games have ten minute day/night cycles and 50 hour campaigns cover weeks to months to multiple years of in-game time. There is a reason why roughly 1000 minutes of a TV show cover a whole year for the characters. There is a reason why movies are roughly two hours long, covering a whole adventure.

This is actually very interesting point you make, repped. I disagree with notion that ED is hampered by it...it just offers different kind of gameplay.

And there's a rub - ED is like big, even huge painting, which is not finished. And problem is that you see it is not finished more than with other games due of this 'real time' design'. For example, imagine that you would have NPC comms at some point. Suddenly you could have all those small talks with NPCs you meet randomly everywhere, even maybe getting some random mission or two from them. It is like detailing and painting big part of ED picture. Same went with ship transfer for example - people who pitched arguments against instant transfer mostly talked about potential *strategic* usage of feature down the road, and also adding big ships that transfer those player ships, etc. There are gameplay possibilities down the road you can add, more strokes to the picture.

That's why ED is more about *feel* of space commander's life, and less about instant coffee satisfying gameplay loops. FD tries to strike careful balance, and sometimes they fail, hard, and sometimes they hit gold. They certainly don't go after easy goals here.

 

[Backer42]

This is actually very interesting point you make, repped. I disagree with notion that ED is hampered by it...it just offers different kind of gameplay.

A decade ago I watched roughly over 120 hours of Star Trek TNG containing seven years of events and character development. And while the binge watch was sometimes pretty much a "grind", I never got bored by it and it was overall a great experience. And after being this amount of time with the characters and their story, it was done for good.

Now think about 120 hours of real time, spanning less than one week of universe time. It's like watching grass grow.

Same went with ship transfer for example - people who pitched arguments against instant transfer mostly talked about potential *strategic* usage of feature down the road

Let's say someone spends 120 hours straight grinding. Of course, they are going to progress pretty quickly. However is this in any way realistic? In less than one week from Sidewinder nobody to established trade mogul?

That is a fundamental design and believability problem with ED's real time universe. And ship transfer timers don't fix it.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Decades ago, in the Journal Of The Travellers Aid Society, there was an article called "Real-Time Traveller" It described a solo adventure, in which you played the game in the same time that it took your character to take actions.

The sample was provided of a cargo speculator, travelling between worlds, buying low, buying space to ship it on a starship, and accompanying the cargo until it found a profitable market. Each starship jump/cargo cycle lasted two weeks.

So you would need to wait two weeks, minimum, to make a 2D6 die roll, to see if you could make a profitable sale. Normally at least three to four jumps were needed to find the right market for your goods.

I have yet to encounter, in the thirty-odd years since this was published, any other Traveller player who has done this.

So, in terms of time investment, things could be worse...

 

[Daish]

Agree Copy & paste is a lazy developers in my opinion, they are doing the same with ships now, same ship but add a a spoiler and we are hyped over another ship but is just a rehash with a couple of bits added on or one extra module oOoo whats the point in that total waste.

Yep same goes with many aspects of ED same stuff everywhere it's getting boring, Chapter three is literally days away I can see it now, guardian ships, and sites same scenario as the thargoid side of things more endless grind and for what, I haven't even bothered grinding for any thargoid tech what so ever, serves no purpose to me personally.

But as we always do lets wait and see, if by Q4 ED does not start getting there act together by simply fixing broken mechanics, and poor system finds and the grind as well by stop developing and start fixing things,well they will just lose more and more players, right now everytime ED twitter something they are getting criticized or taughted about the same things, atmos landings and space legs.

 

[Zak Gordon]

The proc-gen in the geography in NMS is second to none. Sure people complain that all hills look alike (and they often do here in the solar system too!) etc, but they are mistaking that 'everything looks the same' aspect as being nearly entirely down to the features on top of the landscapes that NMS generates.

For example all those materials to gather from rocks&plants that are near identical across the games universe. Or all the fauna that tends to look too alike over a wide range of environments etc.

One part of that has come from either a design process/choice or QA feedback, and that relates to ensuring a player of any level of intelligence will know what gives then Iron and what gives them Carbon, anywhere in the universe etc.

Personally i'd have no issue with having a much wider visual proc-gen for these things (materials to gather etc), and have to work out what was what in each system type (tie the proc-gen into the Star type and planet type/location etc). I have a scanner (once it is fixed) and i can use that to better scan for the things i need.

The fauna issue is a bit disappointing because it sounded like it would give a huge range of creature types (going on early pre-release videos where Sean talked about the engine and system they used to generate fauna). But it has specific types that tend to all look alike after a few planets exploration.

So i give NMS 10/10 for planet generation (geographic), but currently only 3/10 for flora and fauna, and it is in those later categories that i feel most of the complaints about 'it all looks the same after a few planets' come from.

 

[cpbtrading]

The proc-gen in the geography in NMS is second to none. Sure people complain that all hills look alike (and they often do here in the solar system too!) etc, but they are mistaking that 'everything looks the same' aspect as being nearly entirely down to the features on top of the landscapes that NMS generates.

For example all those materials to gather from rocks&plants that are near identical across the games universe. Or all the fauna that tends to look too alike over a wide range of environments etc.

One part of that has come from either a design process/choice or QA feedback, and that relates to ensuring a player of any level of intelligence will know what gives then Iron and what gives them Carbon, anywhere in the universe etc.

Personally i'd have no issue with having a much wider visual proc-gen for these things (materials to gather etc), and have to work out what was what in each system type (tie the proc-gen into the Star type and planet type/location etc). I have a scanner (once it is fixed) and i can use that to better scan for the things i need.

The fauna issue is a bit disappointing because it sounded like it would give a huge range of creature types (going on early pre-release videos where Sean talked about the engine and system they used to generate fauna). But it has specific types that tend to all look alike after a few planets exploration.

So i give NMS 10/10 for planet generation (geographic), but currently only 3/10 for flora and fauna, and it is in those later categories that i feel most of the complaints about 'it all looks the same after a few planets' come from.

I think I'd give the flora a couple more points, but yes to the fauna. But there again I think the game could do with less friendly fauna and some nasty alien monster type things. Especially in caves.

The actual planet generation is great, even better now for more, well lets say, 'realistic-ish' look. Whereas before it was totally fantasy sci-fi from decades ago. Which I preferred to be honest. But that doesn't take away from the fact, NMS look's fantastic now.
I'm enjoying the exploration as much as before, so that's a good thing, for me.

How this could all be used in other games will probably surface in a couple of years, I think devs will be looking at this and thinking well, maybe mixed with hand crafted here and there. Could be great.