Issue Tracker: Planetary Tiling

[[VR] Mad Mike]

there is no doubt performance has vastly improved since launch. at launch it was janky even with my AMD 5800 and RTX 3090. now it runs pretty well (as it should given its the 2nd fastest GPU on the market and was the fastest till a few weeks ago). that said that improvement has come at a cost. visuals have been dialed back imo, touches such as tire tracks going is a big loss and the in game footage shown at the initial reveal of ED:O which is still used in the marketing now.... well all I can say is I personally have not seen planets which look that good (which isn't to say they don't exist... but I do have my doubts, esp given that obviously extras like tyre tracks are considered expendable.). I do hope that they come back at least on higher detail levels.

 

[yianniv]

Greetings Commanders,

We’d like to take this opportunity to address the Tiling Planetary Features issue from the Issue Tracker.

After spending some time to observe the effects of the issue while weighing-up the costs to resolve it, we have decided to focus those resources elsewhere. Reducing or preventing the tiling effect would require a deep-overhaul of fundamental systems, which in turn would disrupt other aspects of the game. This would inevitably take time away from developing and improving other elements such as performance, bug fixes, and new content. We cannot justify this level of change and a re-generation of the galaxy in Elite. This is unlikely to change in the future so the issue will be closed, freeing up votes on the tracker for other issues.

We’ll continue to strive for the best possible experience for the highest number of players which our current focus allows us to do. We hope you’ll appreciate the reasoning behind this decision.

O7

 

[The Atlas]

after almost a year and a few of these "hey this feature we included isnt working properly, so we will let it as it is and focus on others that aren't working properly either, to maybe ditch them and the cycle goes on"

there is any hope for a refund now? the dollars i've spend could be used better somwehere else, since i still can't play the game above 30 fps, not even on exobiology lol.

btw forum is so funny, i see in a few years the last thread:

"we've decided that spending resources on elite is not worth anymore, we going to shift to jurassic park ultra poggers"
Some: yeah thats fine, the developers knows best.
x
Some: this is outrageous, here's 90 reasons why

forum is definitely one of the best parts of the game, specially when 80% of the game is spent on supercruise.

 

[yianniv]

Wait... they actually completely wiped the issue from the tracker? Not only that, you still can search for "tiling" but only get one result, that leads to the broken link. Now I wonder, is the word "tiling" already banned in the issue tracker? Will it even be banned on the forum?

We wouldn't be complaining if they did such a thorough job with E.D development...

 

[Fizzatron]

For the record, I believe that Mojang discontinued one version, then released the Bedrock version which gave it better feature parity across all the platforms. Switch, Xbox, and Playstation players can still play a current version of Minecraft and continue to get updates. I don't see the similarity.

I stand corrected, I did not see that they did that from where I sourced it, I searched for and saw it was discontinued on XBox 360 via a gaming news site, then found the wiki which stated that all of those were discontinued, so I came to an honest, but wrong, conclusion because it seems they rebranded it to Bedrock and then renamed the prior versions Legacy, which I took to mean 'discontinued' from where I was reading. I was kind of shocked to read it tbh, but I appreciate you pointing it out and correcting my understanding of it.

 

[Sluggy71]

Lucky FDEV dropped consoles to concentrate on PC eh?

 

[Frop]

Lucky FDEV dropped consoles to concentrate on PC eh?

Just waiting for equally exciting news about console profile transfers.

 

[Thatchinho]

Lucky FDEV dropped consoles to concentrate on PC eh?

Not what they said, but ok.

 

[Sluggy71]

Not what they said, but ok.

From DB - 'Over the last several months, we have been wrestling with the best way to move forward, and it is with a heavy heart we have decided to cancel all console development. We need to be able to move forward with the story of the game, and in order for us to do this we need to focus on a single codebase. Elite Dangerous will continue on console as it is now together with critical updates, but we will focus on new content updates on PC on the post-Odyssey codebase.'

Kinda reads that way to me.

 

[Thatchinho]

From DB - 'Over the last several months, we have been wrestling with the best way to move forward, and it is with a heavy heart we have decided to cancel all console development. We need to be able to move forward with the story of the game, and in order for us to do this we need to focus on a single codebase. Elite Dangerous will continue on console as it is now together with critical updates, but we will focus on new content updates on PC on the post-Odyssey codebase.'

Kinda reads that way to me.

You’ve highlighted the relevant bit. What does it say? And specifically what does it say the purpose is?

 

[Sluggy71]

Errrr, that FDEV are stopping any console development to focus on a single codebase. That single codebase is on PC. I'm not sure what your point is here?

 

[Thatchinho]

Errrr, that FDEV are stopping any console development to focus on a single codebase. That single codebase is on PC. I'm not sure what your point is here?

My point is that you’re omitting half of what you highlighted.

 

[MacIntoc]

Where are the ones that "blindly claim that nobody cares"?

Well, you right. So can we considere nobody rounded to more or less 0.1% is ok ?

..since we're already talking about strawman arguments.

There really are players who downplay the "popularity" of this issue. It's that, the strawman.

The context of the point was about world-building. Two methods to achieve the same thing. I mean, you're not denying that you engage in cherry picking.

??? What are you talking about ?? I feel that you planted your strawman too far away, you are no longer in the right field

Horizons was never looked at as the perfect example of planetary generation that it has become in order to bash Odyssey, or are you attempting to add historical revisionism to try to keep your argument from foundering? There are positives and negatives to both Horizons & Odyssey planetary tech, and some of the issues I've seen posted about Odyssey apply to Horizons as in many ways the underlying way the planetary height map is created is the same, just more basic, as is the Horizons tech overall.

Are we still talking about the uniqueness of each planet in ED ?
I never said that EDH planet tech was perfect. Just that EDO have removed the few major qualities that EDH planet tech has without offering a result that compensates for this loss. Formally, a downgrade.
If it were impossible to find a common point (in the strict sense) within or between planets, like in EDH, that would be fine. If it were possible to discovert planets that were out of the ordinary, like in EDH, that would be fine.

My point is that you’re omitting half of what you highlighted.

And the most important half

 

[MartinG]

Depending on the point of view, since there are limited tiles, there will come a time when all tiles will have been discovered, regardless of the number of existing planets. Like for plants.

Correct me (with a citation) if I am wrong, but as far as I know, it has not been demonstrated that all terrain is derived from height-map templates; all that I have seen demonstrated is the existence of a number of easily recognizable patterns. Bad for immersion, sure, but does not mean that is all there is.

Yep, but in the case of using tiling to map a planet instead of generate a unique shape, you don't need anymore to explore every planet to discover everything there is to discover. So, formaly and mathematicaly, it's a downgrade.

That would be (arguably) true only if each planet was made from a global high-detail template. However, if terrain is made from many templates blending into each other and randomly modified, you can bet there always will be something to discover — an unusual combination of templates, a place where the random modification process produces something unique. Much of the uniqueness will probably not be noticeable from high altitudes, but I think one can live with that.

 

[MartinG]

Elite is not, and never has been, a democratic game. Elite is not an open source project.

Kind of amazing that people need this explained to them.

 

[MartinG]

Had you folks choose to do the more sensible thing like base the game on UE you could have benefitted from being able to not only find more develop people with backgrounds in Unreal Engine,

The idea of basing E:⁠D on Unreal Engine is kind of like an idea of basing an aircraft design on a racing car engine.

afaik every game FD have ever.made, including the previous 2 elite games (elite was not made by FD it was bedroom made by David braben and Ian bell), use a version of this engine.

Both FE2 and FFE pre-date the Cobra engine by many years.

 

[MartinG]

Frontier itself, however, is not entirely innocent of this misconception with their "we are listening to you" that they have trumpeted time and again in the past. I think some people have been only too happy to take that literally.

Ayep. FDEV might be a benevolent dictator, but a dictator nevertheless.

The only thing Frontier actually listens to is what the issue tracker hears: an overwhelming and vocal majority, regardless of how it came about, without rhyme or reason. And even then they mess it up, but that's another story...

I think that is a bit unfair. They occasionally listen to vocal minorities as well, when it is not going to cost them too much.

In other words, they are a pretty normal game company

 

[Fizzatron]

??? What are you talking about ?? I feel that you planted your strawman too far away, you are no longer in the right field \

See below:

World design is like one of the core pillars in any open-world game development. Bad world design creates a bad foundation for gameplay to be built upon, as many explorers will attest to considering the numerous threads and conversation surrounding the issue.

Sure, it wasn't you specifically, but that is part of the greater context of the argument that you weighed in on, so not a strawman really, or are you just not reading all of the thread?

Are we still talking about the uniqueness of each planet in ED ?

Each planet is unique as much as each planet in Horizons is, Odyssey just brings some new features that they share. You could peer behind the curtain in Horizons and the same applies to Odyssey. However, in general it's impossible to deny that Odyssey's planets/terrain is just better than Horizons, which frankly do look basic in comparison, and compositionally within the game are more basic too.

I never said that EDH planet tech was perfect. Just that EDO have removed the few major qualities that EDH planet tech has without offering a result that compensates for this loss. Formally, a downgrade.

In your opinion, nothing more. Though you're entitled to it. Odyssey isn't perfect either, so why so adamant that is has to be?

If it were impossible to find a common point (in the strict sense) within or between planets, like in EDH, that would be fine.

Edit: I just got this bit. There are common points on Horizons planets all over the place. This is what I mean by being unrealistic. It is truly the No True Scotsman argument applied to Odyssey.

If it were possible to discovert planets that were out of the ordinary, like in EDH, that would be fine.

Well then, get out there. I have found much more interesting planets that in Horizons that actually make me feel I'm on a planet, especially in VR. I have found some areas that I would suggest fit the requirements for hooning in some parts, height and tightness of valleys, just not on a large enough scale (yet), but to say there are no 'hoonable' areas in Odyssey is like looking out of your window into your back yard on a rainy day and say the sun isn't shining anywhere in the world.

 

[Angelskar]

Hey, maybe this means they’ll fix lighting and antialiasing now…

nice try

 

[The Atlas]