Horizons Horizons - Major Flaws

[coder1024]

-POI: We NEED to know what a POI contains BEFORE we land our ship and use the SRV. I could not possibly care less about yet another shoehorned in crafting system in yet another video game. All I want is to find the POI with my salvage and complete my mission. What I DONT want to do, is spend 30 minutes across 2 POI sites for three total pieces of rock I will never use.

Let me see the contents of the POI BEFORE I land my ship. If you're worried that most times we will decide NOT to land and therefore NOT to use your new content, well, that says a lot of about the content, doesnt it?

Secondly, scanning a planet from orbit should reveal the POI's on that planet. Then, we can fly from orbit TO a distinct POI, scan it from our ship once out of glide mode and decide whether to land. If not, into orbit we go once more and we cruise to the next POI. The entire random spawning system, when applied to POI, is tedious; we literally fly over the same terrain for minutes on end, waiting for a favorable die roll, and THEN hoping for ANOTHER favorable bit of RNG in regards to the contents.

I haven't tried this, but I do recall seeing a detailed surface scanner for sale. Shouldn't that, when activated, reveal details like this on the surface? Having said that, I seem to recall this being around from before Horizons so maybe they didn't update it to make sense with Horizons and planetary content? But given the name it would make sense that this item would do what you're asking for.

-Planetary Landings: They take too long.

I think this is something which takes some practice, you have to stay in OC long enough to get really close to the destination and then drop out. I'm not very good at it, but it seems to me that if you learn to time it right, you'll save a TON of time. So maybe just something requiring more practice

And the stations arent even ready for release. They contain nothing to make me think these are working stations. No vehicles. No traffic. No personnel. They are lifeless placeholders.

I have seen quite a bit of traffic driving and flying around bases. Having said that, I think you're getting at things which just aren't there yet. This is their first iteration at this sort of content. I think landing and getting out of your ship and walking around the base (not in the SRV) is something that will come eventually as will busier stations. I agree, though, right now, they're more like nodes for missions and less like busy bases with lots going on.

-Multi stage missions were a great idea. The implementation, on the other hand, is...tedious. Fly to three places for no real reason. No reward. Then fly BACK to the starting site just to collect money. This last part...especially frustrating. Just...transfer the funds to my account.

100% agree, there's absolutely no reason they can't transfer the money to your account. Going back to pick up your payment is very out of place given the context.

Better still, how about giving me some reason or reward to fly to multiple locations? Fly here, click on something and launch again simply is neither fun nor engaging.

what specifically would you suggest they add/change to give you "some reason or reward to fly to multiple locations"?

 

[Mulbin]

POIs are a huge disappointment for me. Really badly implemented with every planet in the galaxy littered with junk. What I'd prefer to see is every planet covered in deposit POIs, that makes sense... but they shouldn't show up on scanners (hell we already just drive around looking for them anyway), actual POIs such as crashed ships should be incredibly rare and get rarer the further you go from civilization. Maybe one every few star systems or one every hundred systems outside civilization. But they should be detectable from space by your system scanner. I'd be much happier exploring the galaxy and occasionally picking up a weak signal from a planet to investigate rather than just having a carpet of thousands of shipwrecks on every body in the galaxy (seriously.. literally trillions of crashed ships and lost cargos FD? What were you thinking?).

Really hope it gets fixed so that Points of Interest have a point and are interesting. Currently just a bizarre cargo farming mini game.

 

[Greyhawk]

Would be pretty cool if FD released a tool set and got the community involved in writing POI's. Companies are too tight nowadays. So scared of losing their IP. There's tons of talent in the player base who would give their right arm for a chance to contribute some content to a great game.

 

[Agrar Therenus]

They should be colour-coded for intensity, like in space.

Purple for a medium signal, red for a large signal, and blue or green for a weak signal.


It shouldn't tell you exactly what is down there, because there needs to be mystery.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

Pretty much agree that some type of coarse/basic ID needs to be available from the Ship.

Since taking the SRV into "yet another Cargo dump" (not what you need/you're looking for) is a distinctively bigger investment of (waste) time than i.e. Signal Sources in Space, I'd vote for any means to get a rough idea and sort out the ones that are definitely the wrong type.
In space, we have easily identifyable types of USS - and what we have on the ground is 100% identical in nature. With the exception of almost not having the slightest idea what kind of POI or POUI (Point of UNinterest) we'll encounter.

I've frequently parked the Ship in the center of the blue POI circles during my tests and it took me Minutes just to spot anything remotely "POI" on the Wave Scanner (driving circles 2km around my Ship basically) - very often with nothing viewable from the Ship.
POIs all by themselves are a very weak mechanic in their current incarnation (and often don't make any sense depending on location), so at least helping out when they're a Mission target is definitely in order.

Unsure if their size is already intended to work into that direction, though.
My impression is... that this is actually the intended "Pre-ID" criteria that just requires Players to build experience onto what to expect based on small/medium/large sized blue POIs on the Ship scanner.

Outside of Missions - I downright ignore them for the time being.
I currently see them as spammy and location-unaware like the USS were back in the very old days, shortly after they were implemented.

But should I ever be in need of unlimited tons of Tea, Narcotics, Personal Weapons or Animal Meat for some wicked reason - they'd be my first Target.
I'd rather save me the time and purchase those in bulk, however.

PS.
Since we're running V2.0 , I guess we'll see them getting some finetuning in future updates anyway.
After all, nothing beats entering an entirely Unexplored System (no 1st discoveries) far over 1000LY out, just to see every landable planet littered with man-made junk already

 

[Leo Sagan]

I don't know who's right about POIs tbh. But when I read the reactions about this problem in various threads on the forum, it's a bit like this very gameplay aspect is still in beta testing, with players telling FD it is too hard or too slow or too easy or too this or too that.
I just hope they'll improve it and reach some kind of compromise in the future. To me, Horizon is (at best) an early access game. And this is coming from a (very) dedicated player.

 

[Vasious]

Cant you zip down and get a looksee in the ship first?

 

[Cynaqq]

I don't know who's right about POIs tbh. But when I read the reactions about this problem in various threads on the forum, it's a bit like this very gameplay aspect is still in beta testing, with players telling FD it is too hard or too slow or too easy or too this or too that.
I just hope they'll improve it and reach some kind of compromise in the future. To me, Horizon is (at best) an early access game. And this is coming from a (very) dedicated player.

Going by what FD have talked about since Kickstarter, all through season one, and the Steam Store description, the whole of ED is an early access game. No question about it and it's not something anyone's ashamed of. It's one of the best working, playable and fleshed out early access games ever to boot.

I believe if people somehow accepted this very obvious fact, even something FD is trying to embrace let alone hide (FD: this is a WIP and the content will come as seasons of expansions. anyone?), the general perception of the game and the climate surrounding the community would be very different. Presumably toward the positive side of the scale.

Painfully obviously, if you look at the game as a finished product and get all your estimates from that point of view, it indeed can look as an unfinished mess of an overpriced cashgrab. If you look at it as an early access game in very active development and is supported by generous players who are in turn given the opportunity to enjoy whatever state the product currently is in, ED suddenly becomes a success story especially compared to how early access titles usually go.

I wish everyone saw it like this and decided to take out their credit card or not depending on reality instead of fantasies or marketing trailers.

 

[Wes Mattix]

I've actually had the best luck ignoring the POI red circle. I just look for the closest, flattest patch of land and drive around. When I went to POI circles I only found rocks.

 

[Cosmo]

Horizon's major flaws:

- No NPC ship combat above the surface.
- Starports look dead and empty.
- Missions are too repetitive.
- No multiplayer missions

I dont see the planetside stations as too lifeless. I was docked at one yesterday and there were lots of drones buzzing around, plenty of ship traffic - at one point an Anaconda and its fighter wing all took off at once which was pretty spectacular.

Drones are not examples of life unless they're civilian drones. There's no drone traffic on the station roads either. The NPC ships only dock and leave.

 

[Kezha]

The community of this game (or at least its forum) is noxious. I took a long break from the game only to return and see that it hasn't changed at all. Any type of criticism of the game is met with fanboys who will not budge an inch and will constantly bleat like sheep that the OP is lazy or impossible to please and seemingly unable to admit that there's any merit to the criticisms whatsoever. Anything short of full-throated support of every decision from Frontier Developments is met with instant dismissal. God almighty.

These are even for this game mostly the people who counter the moaning and whining people with arguments like the OP isn't reallly bothering to come with ideas, just venting "sigh this is bad", those kind of people who just moan without any feedback more than crying is what makes stuff quite noxious.

As for planets, haven't landed on them much, I'm still to fascinated by space itself to bother landing to much, I can't wait till I get a explorer ship to do planetary missions with a lot, I love zooming around and have yeat to find anything aside of dust and rocks at all, not being a fan but Personally like it, a planet without a atmosphere is after all a extremely hazardous and incredibly volatile place to be, even in the SRV's we should be glad a radioactive burst doesn't instantly kill us there and then

as for POI's, seeing them from orbit and seeing what something is takes away a immense aspect of what exploration is, however, if I find something , I'd agree that the next person around should be able to see it, but then they are also aware of that its been discovered and after all documented by someone else before them.

 

[BigDuke6ixx]

Why not go the whole hog. Just sit docked and press a button for random funds to be transferred to your account. That way you can completely remove any need for some gameplay. Actually, why should they make you press a button even.... Just sit there with random timer transferring random amounts of money into your account and giving you a steam achievement each time. Yeah, thats much better.... what were they thinking?

Not everything you do in life has a big fat reward at the end of it. Its this mere fact that makes those times when something surprisingly good happens feel all the more rewarding.

Look there's no need for that! Simply get someone to play it for you and tell how much fun you had. Should free up more sock draw tidying time.

 

[Hellhawk666]

Why not a colour coded system where the circle changes colour depending on what type of POI it is? So you could have say orange for high mineral content, blue for wrecks and abandoned cargo, green for settlements and data points etc. Would make it much easier to decide if you really wan to investigate it. Especially if you are looking for something specific.

Good idea - colour coding or something similar to the "signature" of the wave scanner readings but using the ship's scanner.

I don't have any great issue with the system of random missions / random POIs etc as they have done it so far, apart from it being a little one dimensional. Greater variety of things to discover, and some sort of key to deciding which POI is relevant to you would not hurt. Hopefully as the season progresses they will add to this, but it's not a bad start.

 

[SlugwormX]

Maybe the radar could change to ground mapping mode that produces a SAR image (Synthetic Apperature). These provide a detailed map of the ground from some distance. You could then have a form of the Wave Scanner with tones telling you if anything juicy might be just sitting there for you to...um...liberate.

Like the idea of coloured POI markers. Maybe the Detailed Surface Scanner would be required to get a refined direction and distance? Make it have multiple uses.

 

[Deareim]

Good idea - colour coding or something similar to the "signature" of the wave scanner readings but using the ship's scanner.

I don't have any great issue with the system of random missions / random POIs etc as they have done it so far, apart from it being a little one dimensional. Greater variety of things to discover, and some sort of key to deciding which POI is relevant to you would not hurt. Hopefully as the season progresses they will add to this, but it's not a bad start.

Which color for tea cannister ?