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

[Iskariot]

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.

I do agree. I do not really use Inara, because I hate to go outside of the game, but I would definitely use some of the Inara functionality if it was incorporated into the game.
I would also very much like a cool virtual shipbuilder (like Coriolis) to be integrated in ED. This should be extremely easy to do, because all the ship data is in the game anyway. FDev only have to add the interface once.
A bit more trade info presented in a more flexible manner (like eddb.io does) would also be awesome to have inside of the game.
But FDev should be careful not to give too much information for free. Eddb can feel a bit cheaty . If such a database was in the game, then using it should perhaps cost credits. I think that would fit in with the ED narrative.

 

[babelfisch]

If I look for a specific sword in the Witcher (or basically any other game) I can't access an in-game search engine either, I need to travel to the merchant.
If anything they should only add it for stations we have previously visited.
I'd also like to remotely browse modifications from already unlocked engineers.

PS
And if The Witcher is too medieval, try Mass Effect.

 

[Dommarraa]

The 3rd parties do a much better job than FD could do, even if it wanted to. 3rd Parties are not limited by the ED UI which despite all the hate, is what it is by design, not lazyness or poor coding.

You see how clunky the Codex is ? Imagine Inara with that interface. No thanks.

 

[MikelGTC]

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.

Yeah riiight, "It's not a bug it's a feature". How do you know it is part of the design rather that gap in design that they never bothered to address so far, similar to all this "newcomer stuff" that is coming out in few days?

With hundreds of systems and thousands of stations and settlements only withing The Bubble one would need to play years to discover only part of all the stuff the game has to offer. Honestly if I was to do all those things manually by myself, using the very primitive, half-baked functionaliy of in-game galaxy map or outfitting, I would have give up playing this game. It would be work and real chore and I already have one life, like outside of game.

If I look for a specific sword in the Witcher (or basically any other game) I can't access an in-game search engine either, I need to travel to the merchant.
If anything they should only add it for stations we have previously visited.
I'd also like to remotely browse modifications from already unlocked engineers.

PS
And if The Witcher is too medieval, try Mass Effect.

How many merchants there is in Mass Effect or Witcher vs Elite and how fast we can travel between them?

 

[babelfisch]

Yeah riiight, "It's not a bug it's a feature". How do you know it is part of the design rather that gap in design that they never bothered to address so far, similar to all this "newcomer stuff" that is coming out in few days?

With hundreds of systems and thousands of stations and settlements only withing The Bubble one would need to play years to discover only part of all the stuff the game has to offer. Honestly if I was to do all those things manually by myself, using the very primitive, half-baked functionaliy of in-game galaxy map or outfitting, I would have give up playing this game. It would be work and real chore and I already have one life, like outside of game.



How many merchants there is in Mass Effect or Witcher vs Elite and how fast we can travel between them?

While I agree that the game could improve accessibility in some areas, remotely browsing merchants isn't a standard feature in other games either.
It's absolutely valid to want it, it's just not a must have feature since other design philosophies are valid as well.

 

[babelfisch]

How many merchants there is in Mass Effect or Witcher vs Elite and how fast we can travel between them?

Irrelevant, you need to compare the amount of items / modules which is isn't drastically different. Regarding travel times, finding all modules in Elite takes less time than it takes in The Witcher.

 

[MikelGTC]

While I agree that the game could improve accessibility in some areas, remotely browsing merchants isn't a standard feature in other games either.
It's absolutely valid to want it, it's just not a must have feature since other design philosophies are valid as well.

Oh no, I wasn't going for full remote access to any vendor in galaxy either But knowing what kind of modules can be purchased where would help even if some of them can be out of stock, knowing that I can find 5a shields moduile in given systems would help. We could make it so that these than need to be purchased if the system is close like 20-30ly
or being able to see that for all the stations that we visited by now. Same for some sort of trade helper, I do not need hand holding and remote access to every market with detailed prices just to know if the prices there are below avarage, average, high or smth like that or maybe figur it out from the state of the systems easily?

Irrelevant, you need to compare the amount of items / modules which is isn't drastically different. Regarding travel times, finding all modules in Elite takes less time than it takes in The Witcher.

Very relevant because the availability chance is being spread through vast number of traders. In ME or Witcher series we had how many? 12 or 15 merchants total? In ME I think even less but it has been some time that I've played those games, don't remember exactly. In Elite we have like 60 000 places where we can trade and do other stuff. I know it from experience when being a fresh player I did traveled for around 15 or so placed before I could buy the module I wanted and that was only for one specific module! As for travel effort needed to find some specific item in those games vs Elite, and having played all of them before, I can only say:

 

[zimms]

Rejoice! Frontier already integrated those community tools.

If you're on PC, the default key binding is Alt+Tab. It opens the Browsing Mode, don't forget to switch back to either Combat Mode or Analysis Mode to be able to pilot your ship again.

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

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.

Yeah but it's bad game design. Even now in real life I don't need to visit every supermarket/grocery shop to know what they sell, and I remember more than 30 years ago, before internet era, we had anyway shops flyers in the mail box so it's pointless...

 

[babelfisch]

Oh no, I wasn't going for full remote access to any vendor in galaxy either But knowing what kind of modules can be purchased where would help even if some of them can be out of stock, knowing that I can find 5a shields moduile in given systems would help. We could make it so that these than need to be purchased if the system is close like 20-30ly
or being able to see that for all the stations that we visited by now. Same for some sort of trade helper, I do not need hand holding and remote access to every market with detailed prices just to know if the prices there are below avarage, average, high or smth like that or maybe figur it out from the state of the systems easily?


Very relevant because the availability chance is being spread through vast number of traders. In ME or Witcher series we had how many? 12 or 15 merchants total? In ME I think even less but it has been some time that I've played those games, don't remember exactly. In Elite we have like 60 000 places where we can trade and do other stuff. I know it from experience when being a fresh player I did traveled for around 15 or so placed before I could buy the module I wanted and that was only for one specific module! As for travel effort needed to find some specific item in those games vs Elite, and having played all of them before, I can only say:

View attachment 128099

Thing is, if you know that most modules are sold at high tech stations with a big population you can normally find any module within 5 trips, without relying on 3rd party tools at all.

 

[Midian Cabal]

While I agree that the game could improve accessibility in some areas, remotely browsing merchants isn't a standard feature in other games either.
It's absolutely valid to want it, it's just not a must have feature since other design philosophies are valid as well.

WoW relies on AddOns, Blizzard incorporated some functionality from AddOns straight into the game and Blizzard even admitted that some bosses would be impossible to kill without AddOns. Many other games also completely rely on external sources made by communities, Warframe and its Wiki being just one notable example.

Don't forget that FDev fully supports external websites, because they created the API. As I already said, before it existed, we OCRed market prices and uploaded them.

 

[lomac]

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.

Look, my car made in 2001 has a windshield defroster. My spaceship, built in 33xx apparently doesn’t, or I haven’t found the on button for it yet. What am I supposed to do, do an EVA with an ice scraper to scrape the ice off while picking up minerals in icyrings? Once I get my defroster you can have your space google/amazon/Kelley blue book sites.

I can ask my phone with voice control where I can get Indian food near me, but I can’t ask my shop where to buy a fuel scoop near me.

Srsly, I agree, nothing breaks immersion like having to pull up a browser window...

 

[Retropolitan]

Srsly, I agree, nothing breaks immersion like having to pull up a browser window...

It doesn't, for me, because I have a web browser running in a smaller second monitor off to one side. So from my perspective I'm just using the tools that any sane group of pilots would have built to make their lives and work easier: tools that are carrried on the Pilot's Federation backbone but are not integrated into the ship systems. It's pretty seamless when you use them that way.

 

[VR jefranklin18]

Since switching to VR, I have not access a 3rd party website for trade information while in game. Although I could dock a window if I wanted to, it feels clunky and I am happy to use the tools that are provided in game. Once used to them, they're not a problem really.

 

[Midian Cabal]

It doesn't, for me, because I have a web browser running in a smaller second monitor off to one side. So from my perspective I'm just using the tools that any sane group of pilots would have built to make their lives and work easier: tools that are carrried on the Pilot's Federation backbone but are not integrated into the ship systems. It's pretty seamless when you use them that way.

I'll ask you about the 2nd monitor when you start using VR...

 

[Midian Cabal]

Since switching to VR, I have not access a 3rd party website for trade information while in game. Although I could dock a window if I wanted to, it feels clunky and I am happy to use the tools that are provided in game. Once used to them, they're not a problem really.

Try OVRDrop.

 

[VR jefranklin18]

Try OVRDrop.

Oculus has a similar feature that I have tried and is quite effective but I prefer to keep my interface clean (for immersion purposes ).

 

[Midian Cabal]

Oculus has a similar feature that I have tried and is quite effective but I prefer to keep my interface clean (for immersion purposes ).

A simple solution that would satisfy everyone: FDev should implement a web browser into one of the panels that could be turned off in options.

 

[GeneralIdea1964]

As others have said to poor OP, the game does not, as such, have these 3rd party tools, it's not been designed with them.

However I imagine everyone uses them and it has benefited from their presence.
These tools do a pretty good job.

In the "olden days", everyone playing elite had to keep lists of prices to find best trades etc. for themselves. The game didn't support anything and we didn't have internet. This mentality has been kept.

Anyways I find that after a while, you'll be able to judge/guess what will be found and where.

I only reference 3rd party tools on occasion, usually for help when something isn't obvious.

Frankly, the in game references like the codex are a complete waste of time (in my opinion).

The game's premise is basically, you have to search things for youself.
It's a pain for new players, I'll give you that, but there are many good hearted players out there that will offer you help and advice.

I'd rather they spent time making game run smoothly without bugs.

 

[Midian Cabal]

As others have said to poor OP, the game does not, as such, have these 3rd party tools, it's not been designed with them.

It has been designed with them, because it has the API that supports export of data to external sites.
Edit: There's the official forum for Player Tools & API Discussions.

In the "olden days", everyone playing elite had to keep lists of prices to find best trades etc. for themselves. The game didn't support anything and we didn't have internet. This mentality has been kept.

Back in my time my friends and me used to call each other and exchange prices and other interesting info.