Issue Tracker: Planetary Tiling

[StefanOS]

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

Hello Bruce, intersting post.

How I see the TILTING problem. Some pictures of planets posted did really look bad. Personally I did not discover or see one myself in game. you dont see this "bug" everywhere.
But it is sad that the new planet generation system has other - more generel flaws, like making large arears very flat and uninteresting. Also the lack of narrow canyons and other details like bigger objects and more colour variations.
A new/changed/enhanced engine should show groundbracking new and spectacular things and planet features - espcially if its more hardware demanding like EDO is.
I see some benefits of the EDO engine - but they are not groundbracking new or spectacular (I dont want to start the discussion about the plethora of bugs introducted -and we have still many after 10 major updates).
I could understand the hardware demands if the planets had far more features like real atmosphere, vegitation, seas, rivers, clouds, real weather conditions, rain stormes..... animal life, bigger cities.... but I accept now that things like this are far far away - and most possibly will never be seen in ED.

I appreciate that FD is clearly stating that they cant justify working on fixing this flaw but as many stated already - tactically it would be better to get some more detailed info on the issues that are concidered to be adressed - or that are currently in work.

 

[Erei]

@Old Duck posted that one elsewhere, I find it quite appropriate. Is that guy still working at Fdev ? He seemed to know his stuff :

"There is also bad procedural generation. [...]We see things where we can see the patterns, they're too simplistic, it's too obviously computer generated. And the problem with that, it's, I mean, essentially it's bad art if you like."

Aha! Ahahahaha!!
Powerplay improvements. He funny.

It's always nice to see new players join in, with their innocence still intact.

 

[Para Handy]

@Old Duck posted that one elsewhere, I find it quite appropriate. Is that guy still working at Fdev ? He seemed to know his stuff :
...
"There is also bad procedural generation. [...]We see things where we can see the patterns, they're too simplistic, it's too obviously computer generated. And the problem with that, it's, I mean, essentially it's bad art if you like."
.....

Unfortunately I could only give you one "like" for that excellent post.

 

[Ian Skippy]

I am sure the experts will be along shortly to explain how wrong you are about this decision and the reasons for it.

My issue is that, as usual, FD dont present any actual counter for the decision. Its one thing to make the decision to not port to console, to not fix tiling et cetera. But then say what you are doing. Not this vague "we'll fix some bugs", but concrete stuff. When all FD says is stuff they won't do, without any serious committments to anything they will do, people can be forgiven for concluding that FD is pretty much doing nothing at all.

FWIW: personally the tiling drama is a very minor issue to me, and in my current little explo trip it hasnt bothered me even for a second. But still, its yet another solid "no" without anything to compensate. And in case the peeps at the top of FD havent figured it out yet: gamers need to have some hope for future additions or they will play games that do promise them. Which is pretty much every competing game.

 

[Rat Catcher]

But then say what you are doing.

Winding the game down, it would appear.

ETA: With the continual "exciting things we can't tell you about" one can only assume those things are exciting positions in another title, rather than exciting things in this one.

 

[MacIntoc]

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

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. Adding aliasing or fixing lightning 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.

 

[Erei]

My issue is that, as usual, FD dont present any actual counter for the decision. Its one thing to make the decision to not port to console, to not fix tiling et cetera. But then say what you are doing. Not this vague "we'll fix some bugs", but concrete stuff. When all FD says is stuff they won't do, without any serious committments to anything they will do, people can be forgiven for concluding that FD is pretty much doing nothing at all.

FWIW: personally the tiling drama is a very minor issue to me, and in my current little explo trip it hasnt bothered me even for a second. But still, its yet another solid "no" without anything to compensate.

I agree. It's just that it join the very long list of "things that are too hard to fix so we are moving on to something we'll eventually drop someday".

At least they had the decency to say us straight it won't be fixed, progress, I guess ?

 

[Old Duck]

Was that meant ironically? Actually, you of all people should be able to understand these people. Didn't you yourself hesitate for a long time to download Odyssey (after it was somehow given to you as a gift, if I remember correctly)?

I don't own Odyssey, never have, because I don't want it. However I have stated multiple times that if I ever change my mind, then I'll just buy Odyssey, as Rat's friends should (he's welcome to gift it to them, I don't care). I don't want "Odyssey Lite" forced on me, even for free, especially if that essentially means Frontier deletes the game from my hard drive that I DID pay money for - Horizons "Legacy".

Now if Frontier were to release Odyssey Lite while also leaving the option to log into Horizons Legacy, then I'm totally fine with that. I'm not opposed to the creation of Odyssey Lite, I'm opposed to the deletion of Horizons Legacy.

 

[Santisador02]

This is a AAA company? It's almost like they bought the game from another publisher and are trying to figure out how they coded it, only it wasn't another company but another generation of actual developers.
To blatantly admit they can't figure it out so they're just going to move on is amazingly insulting. Put it out to pasture already, y'all are done.

 

[Darkfyre99]

Got industrial size popcorn for this one.

I’ll take a pallet of the gourmet popcorn Cinema Therapy is always shilling for.

As the old saying goes, I’m seldom surprised, but I’m frequently disappointed.

 

[Alec Turner]

Hello Bruce, intersting post.

How I see the TILTING problem. Some pictures of planets posted did really look bad. Personally I did not discover or see one myself in game. you dont see this "bug" everywhere.
But it is sad that the new planet generation system has other - more generel flaws, like making large arears very flat and uninteresting. Also the lack of narrow canyons and other details like bigger objects and more colour variations.
A new/changed/enhanced engine should show groundbracking new and spectacular things and planet features - espcially if its more hardware demanding like EDO is.
I see some benefits of the EDO engine - but they are not groundbracking new or spectacular (I dont want to start the discussion about the plethora of bugs introducted -and we have still many after 10 major updates).
I could understand the hardware demands if the planets had far more features like real atmosphere, vegitation, seas, rivers, clouds, real weather conditions, rain stormes..... animal life, bigger cities.... but I accept now that things like this are far far away - and most possibly will never be seen in ED.

I appreciate that FD is clearly stating that they cant justify working on fixing this flaw but as many stated already - tactically it would be better to get some more detailed info on the issues that are concidered to be adressed - or that are currently in work.

Yeah, I'll second that actually. I think tiling was only a part of a bigger problem and it's unfortunate (tragic even) that a lot of the complaints got funnelled into this one issue which has now been closed. If Elite does have a long term future in which further levels of atmospheric planet (and ultimately things like water and lava worlds) are still on the distant development horizon then this is the time to really hone the tech which shapes the bedrock of those planets (the literal foundation stone of future planetary developments) ... even at the cost of "a deep-overhaul of fundamental systems".

 

[Rat Catcher]

as Rat's friends should (he's welcome to gift it to them, I don't care)

Perhaps you could gift it to one of my friends? Didn't some of yours do the same for you, then you didn't buy it?

 

[Erei]

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?

 

[Ian Skippy]

At least they had the decency to say us straight it won't be fixed, progress, I guess ?

Makes you wonder how Honest Arf is doing. Its been more than two months since he was 'working incredibly hard behind the scenes' to 'adress key subjects by priority' so they can 'inform the communication plan'. At the current rate of 'one no per month' I'm interested in when exactly they think they can actually start their 'honest and open communication' they promised a year ago or so.

 

[Sublime]

@Bruce G

EXCITING!

Can we get a roadmap?

“Many improvements and fixes”

 

[Dillon Fallon]

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?

T*****

This post was edited by a moderator

 

[Ian Skippy]

@Bruce could I just ask for one point of clarification? Does this mean we can now consider Odyssey planet tech as 'done'? Asking because I've been holding off going deep on exploration in Odyssey because I didn't want any cool locations I find to change at some point. (and also I know there were complaints about Odyssey planets being flatter with less canyons than Horizons as well as the tiling issues).

Done is a big word in a 'permanently in development' game, but I wouldnt expect major changes for a long while to already landable planets.

 

[Frop]

Thank you for reiterating what you won't be doing and freeing up one of my six votes for the Issue Graveyard.

 

[Alec Turner]

(Did I finally make a forum account for this? Mayhaps, mayhaps)

You mentioned "this level of change and a re-generation of the galaxy" ... I would love to learn more about the details on this (as in, tecnhical deep-dive on it).

Spoiler: further viewing for you

Hope this was the sort of stuff you were after (in chronological order starting with Horizons)

Source: https://youtu.be/Vz3nhCykZNw

Source: https://youtu.be/e2AJS_-bTg0

Source: https://youtu.be/xZwxgfuqdzk?t=2133

 

[StuartGT]

Wondering how "enjoyable" it is for Tencent to see their stake at Frontier getting burned and suddenly worth less than half...

Tencent's 9% stake is currently worth seven-times what they paid for it. If they wanted to sell at the share price high to take profits, they would have done. The new game franchises of F1 and Warhammer, and ongoing franchises of Elite, Planet Zoo, Jurassic World Evo 2, etc are probably leading them to think the share price will increase again.