I've given plenty of feedback about the FSS from the moment it was revealed, and all throughout the various phases, the usual chorus was "wait until you can try it in beta", then once the beta came, "wait until you can try it in live". Now, I gave it a week in live, to decide if I'll stick with exploration or not, and give feedback to the developers on what kind of experience that was.
First off, a disclaimer. I realise this is a controversial subject, and my feedback will be for the most part negative, which some will probably not like. I mostly wrote this to share my feedback on the changes to something that I used to enjoy for a long while, in an unlikely hope that it'll at least reach somebody at FD. I'd welcome having discussions and/or advice here, but not starting arguments on personal opinions.
So, off-topic posts like "my opinion is different and I'm having fun" and nothing more - no advice, for instance - would be of no use. Frankly, I'm happy for you if that's the case - it's great if people keep exploring! - but that's hardly useful for me, and isn't really conducive to a discussion. I'd really rather the moderators didn't end up closing this thread, so if all you have to post is that you personally like the new system, please do so in other threads.
(This is also why I'm posting it here, and not in DD nor elsewhere: doing so would most likely be hopeless.)
By clicking the spoiler button, you acknowledge you've read this and agree to do so. (Nah, just kidding with the legalese
)
After all this, which was mostly negative, there is another question: having seen what we got, what instead would I have liked? Honestly, my best-case but still realistic scenario would have been to just stick with the ADS and system map, and highlight on it the bodies that have POIs. Then it'd take the new DSS to identify said POIs, and a search zone to locate them. (By the last one, I mean the mechanic seen in some missions.) Instead, what we have is a clunky and out-of-place FSS turret mini-game, that takes me out of my ship and into some oddly-blue parallel universe. It even made me glad that I didn't buy a VR headset yet, because from what I've seen from trying out one, it probably would be a decidedly bad experience, and that would have put me off of exploration even more.
But even in this hypothetical scenario, a lack of new content would have soon made me go back to the bubble and have fun with the new stuff there.
However, I wouldn't say things are hopeless. I realise that a lot of work has gone into the backend (mostly the exploration part of the Codex), so there are some good new foundations here, and perhaps even more importantly, I believe that most of the issues above could be fixed without breaking things for people, unlike what has been done to exploration in Chapter Four. The FSS would need not a replacement, but an alternative - or alternatives. If using a faster method would involve more danger associated with it, I'd happily do so. Those who didn't want added danger from the "big honk" could still use the FSS. But honestly, it would be great if I felt I wanted to get the scans done sooner not because then I could finally move on, but because the Thargoids might come for me if I took too long.
Well, in any case, the specifics however would most likely depend on what gameplay will come with atmospheric planets - whenever those will be. So, who knows. I'd rather they came sooner, but hey, I can wait. After all, I have gotten a huge amount of enjoyment from the game already, and outside of exploration, I still continue to do so.
That's that then. Thanks for reading, and I hope this wall of text was of some use to someone!
First off, a disclaimer. I realise this is a controversial subject, and my feedback will be for the most part negative, which some will probably not like. I mostly wrote this to share my feedback on the changes to something that I used to enjoy for a long while, in an unlikely hope that it'll at least reach somebody at FD. I'd welcome having discussions and/or advice here, but not starting arguments on personal opinions.
So, off-topic posts like "my opinion is different and I'm having fun" and nothing more - no advice, for instance - would be of no use. Frankly, I'm happy for you if that's the case - it's great if people keep exploring! - but that's hardly useful for me, and isn't really conducive to a discussion. I'd really rather the moderators didn't end up closing this thread, so if all you have to post is that you personally like the new system, please do so in other threads.
(This is also why I'm posting it here, and not in DD nor elsewhere: doing so would most likely be hopeless.)
By clicking the spoiler button, you acknowledge you've read this and agree to do so. (Nah, just kidding with the legalese
)Let's see then! I've read somewhere that the best feedback one can give to game developers doesn't focus on suggestions, alternatives and solutions: rather, on what playing something makes you feel, and why you think it does so. So unlike my previous posts about this, I won't be including stuff about what could be done; the developers know that better anyway.
Well, there we go then. I have a second account which I should still finish getting to Colonia, so that I can use it for other stuff, but unless there are new rewarding things to find, I don't feel it worth the need to put up with all the tedium from the FSS to go explore. The fact that the rest of the game is (mostly) better than ever makes this easier as well. Once I got back to the bubble and tried other activities there, I had more fun. (Once the BGS gets fixed, there should be even more.)
All this also made me near-certain that I'll resign from DW2, but I'd rather wait on making that decision until it actually starts. A month can be plenty of time, after all. I might still do the CGs, but that won't be because of exploration, but in spite of it.
Now, don't get me wrong, exploration before didn't require much in the way of skills either, and was rather tedious too: the crucial difference is that while still tedious, it didn't require my attention much, and since even if I found nothing interesting, I always progressed towards my goals at a decent pace, it didn't make me feel like I was wasting my time. There's also that scanning a system feels a step back: it's more tedious, not less.
But if I'm flying somewhere now, I do it much slower.
It might have still been worth it if we got plenty of the promised new content and they were rewarding, but what's there so far is pretty lacking for me. There are no new environments to explore, just some new tidbits to find.
However, there are some positive things at least. I love the sounds of the FSS, the audio team has once again done stellar work. This stands in stark contrast with the overall poor quality of the interface and the implementation.
Also, I do like the arrows and how they come together or apart when you tune. That part is nicely done.
Finally, I appreciate that I can leave the DSS interface and go do other stuff while my probes are still heading towards the surface. At least I don't need to waste time doing nothing but staring at the streaks so that I can move on.
So. Some numbers to underscore my points. I've spent a week of real time exploring, in terms of playtime, around 12-14 hours I think. If anyone should say that's too low, bear in mind that would have been enough to complete a short video game. During this time, I've been to a bit over 500 systems (filtered to KGBFOA).
Here's what I found:
- 0 new Guardian / Human / Thargoid POIs
- 0 biological POIs that weren't bark mounds
- 1 "new" Lagrange cloud, but that was right outside Colonia
- 0 new lifeforms, or anything in any region
As for rare bodies, for comparison:
- 7 newly discovered Ammonia Worlds
- 5 newly discovered Earth-like Worlds, including a system containing two (around different stars)
Note that going through 500 systems would have taken me a bit under seven hours in the old system. I would have spent time exploring some of those, of course. Put another way: I could have visited nearly twice as many systems, quickly made up my mind whether it would be worth looking at in detail, and most likely would have found more stuff.
Instead, I've scanned about 300 HMCPs, 220 Icy and 220 Rocky bodies each, 50 Metal Rich bodies, and found nothing of interest to me on any of them. That's a bit under 800 bodies scanned, for nothing which felt like a reward to me: it should come as no wonder that after a couple of days in, most of the time I felt like I was wasting my time. Sure, I got credits and tags, but as I said, I don't care about those.
Would I have found more if I spent more time on it? Sure, I suppose I would have. Would it have been worth the time required to do so? Certainly not for me. I don't think the reward in the end would have offset missing out on having fun for who knows how much time.
- The most exciting part was when I was "hyperdicted" as I accidentally went past the Pleiades. I have killed plenty of Thargoids before, and I wasn't prepared for this, so as I sat in my disabled ship and watched the three Cyclopes around, I didn't know if they'll kill me now or not. After all, I've killed a lot of Thargoids, and the game logs that. Thankfully, it turned out they didn't. But as it is, the most unexpected thing that happened out there was something unrelated to exploration.
- I've played around 14 hours I believe, I enjoyed it only in some rare moments, and I didn't feel rewarded enough for the effort I put in. Sure, I got credits and tags, but I don't care about those. I found zero new content which's location wasn't already known. I also found no previously-unknown human, Guardian or Thargoid POIs, and nothing but bark mounds. Meanwhile, I've found five ELWs, two of which were in the same system, so apparently the above are more rare than some of the rarest bodies in the game.
- Related to the above: By day 2, I've already often felt like I'm wasting my time. After all, I'm playing a tedious mini-game requiring little skill, which requires my attention, for no reward that matters to me. Why? Because I decided to stick to exploration for a week. Come day 5, I've felt that I can't wait for this to be over and get back to the bubble. I've explored since day one, and I think this was a first.
- While I did find stuff that used to interest me before (but not really nowadays), even if I was "rushing" by the new standards, I progressed at least twice as slow as I did in the old system. Meaning I could have found more and felt rewarded more without the FSS.
- Related to the previous point, I've noted this elsewhere, and can illustrate with two pictures: the FSS means that I can no longer realistically find rare system configurations, which I used to enjoy. It's practically impossible to do so now, since it would require scanning tens of thousands of systems completely. See this post for an illustrated example.
- Nothing that anyone has found since the Chapter Four release has made me want to go out there and find my own. For most of it, watching the content on Youtube would suffice. This wouldn't apply to large stuff like Thargoid bases, new large wrecked ships and such: stuff that I might want to drive / fly around. But what has been found is small.
- New proc. gen. environments probably would have kept me exploring much longer. The icy planet revamp would have been great, but well, it has been postponed indefinitely. I don't know if it alone will be enough to bring me back to exploration though.
- Finally, I've had a What The F moment: multicrew. It turns out that your crew who helps you with getting through bodies faster isn't rewarded with anything: neither credits nor tags. I sincerely hope this isn't intended behaviour, but a bug, since from my experience, it appeared that there's real demand for joining multicrew exploration. I've never had to have a seat open for more than five minutes before someone joined. But since I realised there are no rewards for their help, I haven't hosted it.
Well, there we go then. I have a second account which I should still finish getting to Colonia, so that I can use it for other stuff, but unless there are new rewarding things to find, I don't feel it worth the need to put up with all the tedium from the FSS to go explore. The fact that the rest of the game is (mostly) better than ever makes this easier as well. Once I got back to the bubble and tried other activities there, I had more fun. (Once the BGS gets fixed, there should be even more.)
All this also made me near-certain that I'll resign from DW2, but I'd rather wait on making that decision until it actually starts. A month can be plenty of time, after all. I might still do the CGs, but that won't be because of exploration, but in spite of it.
Now, don't get me wrong, exploration before didn't require much in the way of skills either, and was rather tedious too: the crucial difference is that while still tedious, it didn't require my attention much, and since even if I found nothing interesting, I always progressed towards my goals at a decent pace, it didn't make me feel like I was wasting my time. There's also that scanning a system feels a step back: it's more tedious, not less.
But if I'm flying somewhere now, I do it much slower.
It might have still been worth it if we got plenty of the promised new content and they were rewarding, but what's there so far is pretty lacking for me. There are no new environments to explore, just some new tidbits to find.
However, there are some positive things at least. I love the sounds of the FSS, the audio team has once again done stellar work. This stands in stark contrast with the overall poor quality of the interface and the implementation.
Also, I do like the arrows and how they come together or apart when you tune. That part is nicely done.
Finally, I appreciate that I can leave the DSS interface and go do other stuff while my probes are still heading towards the surface. At least I don't need to waste time doing nothing but staring at the streaks so that I can move on.
So. Some numbers to underscore my points. I've spent a week of real time exploring, in terms of playtime, around 12-14 hours I think. If anyone should say that's too low, bear in mind that would have been enough to complete a short video game. During this time, I've been to a bit over 500 systems (filtered to KGBFOA).
Here's what I found:
- 0 new Guardian / Human / Thargoid POIs
- 0 biological POIs that weren't bark mounds
- 1 "new" Lagrange cloud, but that was right outside Colonia
- 0 new lifeforms, or anything in any region
As for rare bodies, for comparison:
- 7 newly discovered Ammonia Worlds
- 5 newly discovered Earth-like Worlds, including a system containing two (around different stars)
Note that going through 500 systems would have taken me a bit under seven hours in the old system. I would have spent time exploring some of those, of course. Put another way: I could have visited nearly twice as many systems, quickly made up my mind whether it would be worth looking at in detail, and most likely would have found more stuff.
Instead, I've scanned about 300 HMCPs, 220 Icy and 220 Rocky bodies each, 50 Metal Rich bodies, and found nothing of interest to me on any of them. That's a bit under 800 bodies scanned, for nothing which felt like a reward to me: it should come as no wonder that after a couple of days in, most of the time I felt like I was wasting my time. Sure, I got credits and tags, but as I said, I don't care about those.
Would I have found more if I spent more time on it? Sure, I suppose I would have. Would it have been worth the time required to do so? Certainly not for me. I don't think the reward in the end would have offset missing out on having fun for who knows how much time.
After all this, which was mostly negative, there is another question: having seen what we got, what instead would I have liked? Honestly, my best-case but still realistic scenario would have been to just stick with the ADS and system map, and highlight on it the bodies that have POIs. Then it'd take the new DSS to identify said POIs, and a search zone to locate them. (By the last one, I mean the mechanic seen in some missions.) Instead, what we have is a clunky and out-of-place FSS turret mini-game, that takes me out of my ship and into some oddly-blue parallel universe. It even made me glad that I didn't buy a VR headset yet, because from what I've seen from trying out one, it probably would be a decidedly bad experience, and that would have put me off of exploration even more.
But even in this hypothetical scenario, a lack of new content would have soon made me go back to the bubble and have fun with the new stuff there.
However, I wouldn't say things are hopeless. I realise that a lot of work has gone into the backend (mostly the exploration part of the Codex), so there are some good new foundations here, and perhaps even more importantly, I believe that most of the issues above could be fixed without breaking things for people, unlike what has been done to exploration in Chapter Four. The FSS would need not a replacement, but an alternative - or alternatives. If using a faster method would involve more danger associated with it, I'd happily do so. Those who didn't want added danger from the "big honk" could still use the FSS. But honestly, it would be great if I felt I wanted to get the scans done sooner not because then I could finally move on, but because the Thargoids might come for me if I took too long.
Well, in any case, the specifics however would most likely depend on what gameplay will come with atmospheric planets - whenever those will be. So, who knows. I'd rather they came sooner, but hey, I can wait. After all, I have gotten a huge amount of enjoyment from the game already, and outside of exploration, I still continue to do so.
That's that then. Thanks for reading, and I hope this wall of text was of some use to someone!
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