If they want to improve experience for new players, incorporate external tools

[BlackSpaceCowboy]

I've never played a game that relies on external tools to make it playable. If they want this game to be easier to get into for new users incorporating tools like eddb.io and inara would be a good place to start. Also, add tools for finding trade routes, etc.

Is there some reason why this hasn't been done already? It's a simple search feature.

 

[Jukelo]

The limited availability of information which eddb and inara seek to address is actually part of the design of the game. You are meant to make do with what you have discovered yourself, with what modules you can find on your own, and for the search for the good stuff to be part of your journey, rather than a simple cookie-cutter search on google.

 

[Midian Cabal]

The limited availability of information which eddb and inara seek to address is actually part of the design of the game. You are meant to make do with what you have discovered yourself, with what modules you can find on your own, and for the search for the good stuff to be part of your journey, rather than a simple cookie-cutter search on google.

Back in my time we OCRed market prices. Now get off my landing pad.

 

[Wendake]

The limited availability of information which eddb and inara seek to address is actually part of the design of the game. You are meant to make do with what you have discovered yourself, with what modules you can find on your own, and for the search for the good stuff to be part of your journey, rather than a simple cookie-cutter search on google.

We are in 3305 man...if I can find where to buy everything I need close to my house with google in 2019 I expect that in 3305 we have tools to know where is the best place to buy X commoditie or ship module at the best price near my location. I don't see any design & fun in having to alt-tab everytime time I'm looking for something. Doing it with the game tool is far too complicated and time consuming (and for modules you can't be sure to find the one you need). This is something that can be a real deal breaker for new players experience.

Coriollis in outfitting would also be a great addition to the game and QoL improvement.

 

[Jukelo]

We are in 3305 man...if I can find where to buy everything I need close to my house with google in 2019 I expect that in 3305 we have tools to know where is the best place to buy X commoditie or ship module at the best price near my location. I don't see any design & fun in having to alt-tab everytime time I'm looking for something. Doing it with the game tool is far too coplicated and time consuming (and for modules you can't be sure to find the one you need). This is something that can be a real deal breaker for new players experience.

You may expect it, but one thing Inara, eddb and the like have shown, is that the game is clearly not designed with those tools in mind. They cheapen the experience, because looking for things is not meant to be an obstacle to the fun, it's meant to be part of the game itself. When you skip it, and have access to everthing easily, the game loses a lot of its challenge and appeal. Part of the reasons ED has become a snoozefest over the years, is because of how accessible everything has become, partly because of the broken progression that throws credits at you and party because of third party tools removing the need to explore the bubble and make do with sub-par builds.

Adding the kind of functionnality offered by these third party tools will first require a change in design, in how the game is meant to be played, to make up for the removal of that part of the core gameplay loop.

 

[Midian Cabal]

You may expect it, but one thing Inara, eddb and the like have shown, is that the game is clearly not designed with those tools in mind. They cheapen the experience, because looking for things is not meant to be an obstacle to the fun, it's meant to be part of the game itself. When you skip it, and have access to everthing easily, the game loses a lot of its challenge and appeal. Part of the reasons ED has become a snoozefest over the years, is because of how accessible everything has become, partly because of the broken progression that throws credits at you and party because of third party tools removing the need to explore the bubble and make do with sub-par builds.

Adding the kind of functionnality offered by these third party tools will first require a change in design, in how the game is meant to be played, to make up for the removal of that part of the core gameplay loop.

How would you know that? Do you work for FDev?

 

[Retropolitan]

There are a lot of reasons why Frontier can't and shouldn't do this, even if they want to.

They don't own the content, some of it user-created, on those platforms; those external sites are vulnerable to domain hijacking, domain sales, and code injections that could compromise them, and turn ED into malware; those sites have privacy policies separate from Frontier's, and may (or could) include advertising that Frontier couldn't permit; and on, and on, and on.

If what you really mean is that those tools should be duplicated inside the game, Frontier has made some changes to markets that move in that direction. The external tools just do it better, because (like the Terminator) that's all they do.

 

[pnellesen]

The limited availability of information which eddb and inara seek to address is actually part of the design of the game. You are meant to make do with what you have discovered yourself, with what modules you can find on your own, and for the search for the good stuff to be part of your journey, rather than a simple cookie-cutter search on google.

This is fine, but what we really need is a major overhaul of the bookmark system, starting with a VAST increase in the number we can have (like, thousands at a minimum). After that, an ability to add much more text to them, and then a way to sort them. What we have now is pathetic, at best.

 

[ethelred]

I'd recommend the trade computer in my sig as a happy compromise.

It's an overlay on the main game that records all that you have seen and done, including prices, modules etc BUT it's not crowd sourced so you only see data that you yourself have collected.

 

[Wendake]

You may expect it, but one thing Inara, eddb and the like have shown, is that the game is clearly not designed with those tools in mind. They cheapen the experience, because looking for things is not meant to be an obstacle to the fun, it's meant to be part of the game itself. When you skip it, and have access to everthing easily, the game loses a lot of its challenge and appeal. Part of the reasons ED has become a snoozefest over the years, is because of how accessible everything has become, partly because of the broken progression that throws credits at you and party because of third party tools removing the need to explore the bubble and make do with sub-par builds.

Adding the kind of functionnality offered by these third party tools will first require a change in design, in how the game is meant to be played, to make up for the removal of that part of the core gameplay loop.

It's not that the game was clearly not designed with these tools in mind...it's only that FDev didn't bother adding them in the game before.

We had to eye-ball planet's surfaces for hours in hope to find geological or biological sites before 3.3...now we have a tool to find them efficiently and ENJOY them.

Same goes for Squadrons that were added only a few months ago while they are mainly managed by third party tools.

I love this game and have over 800h in it but if eddb.io didn't exist I would have stopped playing after 25h.

 

[DNA-Decay]

I’ve donated a few times to INARA.
I reckon if Artie had set up micro transactions I would have spent more there than I have on skins. (checks how much I’ve spent on skins. Whoa!. Okay maybe not that much)

When I see a hollow square I always looked them up on INARA.

Sometimes you find out a whole heap of their story. Who they work with, where their home system is, what they are proud of.

I love INARA, and actually - I don’t want it in the game.

INARA is done really well. Whereas the in-game Squadrons tools are very underwhelming.

 

[Iron Golem]

I'd recommend the trade computer in my sig as a happy compromise.

It's an overlay on the main game that records all that you have seen and done, including prices, modules etc BUT it's not crowd sourced so you only see data that you yourself have collected.

Elegant and simple solution.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

Can't really incorporate 3rd party tools since FDev doesn't own them.

The dependencies on 3rd party Sites is already huge as is, might not be advantageous to set it into concrete.

PS.
A mention of active and long-established useful Sites in the soon-to-be-ingame-accessible manual might not hurt though.
Users can still go "Advanced" from there and check out the Sites.

 

[Wendake]

In my case I wasn't talking about incorporating already existant tools but creating in-game tools with the same functions. Not everybody want to alt-tab or have an extra computer to browse for everything they are looking for...

 

[Schmack]

The limited availability of information which eddb and inara seek to address is actually part of the design of the game. You are meant to make do with what you have discovered yourself, with what modules you can find on your own, and for the search for the good stuff to be part of your journey, rather than a simple cookie-cutter search on google.

Which is basically how I play the game most of the time. That's why I'm finding opportunities randomly in my travels. Because of that, planning your trip to be the most efficient possible isn't always going to look the same as people who use third-party tools to do that. And to be honest if I'm not using those third-party tools it's most likely because I don't want to take the time to do so. I still have use them though for things like void opal mining to know where the highest payouts are.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

I've never played a game that relies on external tools to make it playable. If they want this game to be easier to get into for new users incorporating tools like eddb.io and inara would be a good place to start. Also, add tools for finding trade routes, etc.

Is there some reason why this hasn't been done already? It's a simple search feature.

It have never relied on external sources to play the game and there are ready tools to find trade routes in the game.

They are not needed. What they do though is make stuff easy. That is not necessarily better or better for beginning players or the game.

 

[Lestat]

It Third-party Sites not controlled by Frontier.

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

I've never played a game that relies on external tools to make it playable. If they want this game to be easier to get into for new users incorporating tools like eddb.io and inara would be a good place to start. Also, add tools for finding trade routes, etc.

Is there some reason why this hasn't been done already? It's a simple search feature.

Fully agree, the outfitting is a complete mess, I can't find a proper configuration without Coriolis.io, that's really a must! Also inara.cz allowed me to save a lot of time and without EDSM it would be impossible to follow my journey and my progress in Distant World 2.

 

[WorldsGreatestForumDad]

There are a lot of reasons why Frontier can't and shouldn't do this, even if they want to.

They don't own the content, some of it user-created, on those platforms; those external sites are vulnerable to domain hijacking, domain sales, and code injections that could compromise them, and turn ED into malware; those sites have privacy policies separate from Frontier's, and may (or could) include advertising that Frontier couldn't permit; and on, and on, and on.

If what you really mean is that those tools should be duplicated inside the game, Frontier has made some changes to markets that move in that direction. The external tools just do it better, because (like the Terminator) that's all they do.

True but this does not mean they cant absolve all those features those 3rd party programs offer.

Here is something the majority of the community doesnt see. And this will make a buncha people mad when I say this but owell.

3rd party tools like voice attack and macro based users give people the upper hand in ship to ship combat, everything from gimballed pips(macro dumps) and voice commands.
Pip management is a thing of the past with that software.

However, If we take that away. We really screw with people that rely on that software to play this game. There are a lot of people that use that software because they are in one form or another unable to play this game due to a form of disability. But on the other end, there are others that use 3rd party software to their advantage. Even Lekeno has made a tracking system that tracks other people in this game and lets you know what and who is in the system you're jumping to.

All this is something Elite should work on at some point, All these tools people made or are using to improve the Elite experience. Fdev needs to try and take advantage of for their own game so that content is available to EVERYONE and not people relying on 3rd parties.

Cause what if they get mad at the game, then put malicious software in these programs we are downloading. Its happened far too often with WoW and League addons back in the day when it was allowed.

Should we remove something like macro based systems and voice attack because of the advantage they give? Yes, because its outside the realm of the game you are gaining that advantage, even from other parts of the game like EDDB.io.

But we shouldn't remove them until we have a replacement from the developers so everyone has the same trusted tools upfront from a developer.

3rd party tools were made because Elite really doesnt offer those things we are needing. They 100% should be looking to incorporate everything they can. And not anything against anyone invested in those 3rd party tools. They are awesome, but they should be available to everyone and not people who pay or have to look elsewhere for those 3rd party programs.

Its a matter of fairness to the newplayer as well as the seasoned one.

 

[CMDR X]

The limited availability of information which eddb and inara seek to address is actually part of the design of the game. You are meant to make do with what you have discovered yourself, with what modules you can find on your own, and for the search for the good stuff to be part of your journey, rather than a simple cookie-cutter search on google.

Pfffffffffffffff yea right, like I'm going to visit 30 stations 'till I find a measly Point Defense module. Homie don't play dat.

Thank you INARA.