New Planet Tech is KILLER of Exploration (all terrain is tiling/repeating/not procedural/random)

Daniel Cloudsifter

Daniel Cloudsifter
Well this would explain why I keep seeing the same terrain layout around Odyssey settlements. I thought it was odd that so many of them were on similar cliff sides.

Now, I can live with that, but I can see how this is a HUGE issue for Explorers. Why continue discovering more in the Galaxy if it's all just more of the same... nothing unique.
 

vanFace

V
In addition it is currently not clear if and how the galaxy will change (again). So every POI you may come across in Odyssey could well be gone in one of the following updates. This gives explorers the opportunity to re-visit the old Horizons vistas while they are still there, though.
 

Zera

Z
agreed. this absolutely KILLED the game for me. FDEV are unable to even deliver on the front end which is planetary topography / textures , how do they expect us to believe there is ANYTHING out there worth looking out for like new alien bases / on foot Thargoids etc? Just the promise of "something" isn´t worth much when even looking at the game becomes a CHORE !. Once "atmospheric"(lol) and breathtaking landscapes like Jameson crsh site are now randomly generated uninspired non-sites. Worst thing is they WONT EVEN ADRESS there IS A PROBLEM !
I just dont want to play anymore since they Odyssey release, everything looks the same , nothing to find that you wouldnt see within 100ly of the bubble. And even IF you see something remotely interesting that doesnt just disappear or flatten out on approach you want to log over to horizons because its WILL look 10000 times better there then it does in odyssey. Cant stand any slight slopes and hills with some repeating dirt pattern anymore. FedeV REALLY dropped the ball here. There is NOT ONE FEATURE FINSHED in this Odyssey release and the wort part is so far it has broekn evething that has been good about Elite so far.
 

BlackMaze

BlackMaze
drew said:
This is not a very encouraging answer. :(

Cheers,

Drew.
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Indeed, it is not.

I believe this answer is proof that the system they brought out with Odyssey was their intended final product. This new design, while binning the countless discovered worlds would serve to look good from an on-foot perspective or when viewed with a sun in twilight position, casting long shadows through an atmospheric effect.

It makes me feel a little better about having shouted so incredibly loud through all the videos and forum posts over the previous weejs because I fear if it wasn't for all the noise we collectively made on the subject; we'd have been stuck with what we've got now.

This message we received now stating "this is proving to be a very significant technical challenge" explains to me the weeks of radio silence on the subject. They simple have no answer, right now.

I look forward to what they can come up with over the coming months, though I suspect it will be some time before we see a system that will generate mathmaticaly randomized terrain like we saw with Horizons.

In summary:
  • Yoghurt/fluffy terrain must be improved;
  • Cliffs should have sharper edges than what we see now;
  • Terrain textures must not tile;
  • Terrain features must not tile;
  • Terrain features should not be shared across planets;
  • Terrain LOD snapping should be smoothened out.
P.S. I love your books -- Should you ever feel the desire for some machinima story telling, reach out to us over at Rebuy Unlimited -- Discord in my signature!
 

AdriánGuth

AdriánGuth
drew said:
This is not a very encouraging answer. :(

Cheers,

Drew.
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I wonder what answer they expected.
Fdev obviously wasn't expecting people to be bothered that there are some patterns seeing the huge leap in near-photorealistic graphic quality that we got on odyssey.
This is not easy or fast to "fix"
Can you try to be a bit realistic?
Are you really asking that we go back to Horizons' lousy graphics quality just so there are no patterns? thus no further progress is made.
Currently I do not believe possible a jump in next gen graphics without patterns, not even Star Cityzen with only 20 planets has them. and no NMS let's not talk because it has cartoon graphics.
 

Erei

Erei
AdriánGuth said:
I wonder what answer they expected.
Fdev obviously wasn't expecting people to be bothered that there are some patterns seeing the huge leap in near-photorealistic graphic quality that we got on odyssey.
This is not easy or fast to "fix"
Can you try to be a bit realistic?
Are you really asking that we go back to Horizons' lousy graphics quality just so there are no patterns? thus no further progress is made.
Currently I do not believe possible a jump in next gen graphics without patterns, not even Star Cityzen with only 20 planets has them. and no NMS let's not talk because it has cartoon graphics.
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lovepixelmeme.jpg
 

Jack Schitt

Jack Schitt
drew said:
This is not a very encouraging answer. :(
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Very disappointing. From the way the answer is worded, I can only speculate that:
  • They had no idea that the new planetary tech was doing this, or
  • They knew it was doing this but assumed that the vast majority of players would neither notice nor care.
If anything, it's the second scenario that bothers me more. ED is a very complex beast built on oodles of legacy code, so being caught off-guard by unexpected planet-related issues when you can only test a fraction of the galaxy's contents before release is perhaps forgivable to a degree. But if they simply thought that nobody would notice or care, it suggests a worrying level of disconnect between the creatives and a significant chunk of their audience. And given the similar rifts that have occurred before over the life of the game, I honestly expected better by this point.
 
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Crank Larson

Crank Larson
Flimley said:
Currently i would describe the reoccurring terrain features as, unsatisfactory.
However I recall horizons planet surfaces going through a few iterations before finally arriving at where we are today.
So give odyssey a couple or there years and we’ll all be dead good.

Flimley
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Agreed. Though I would quite like to potter on with Horizons as it is in the meantime. As you point out - it took a long time to get that into the relatively stable state it is. I can stick with that for another three years while they do the same to Odyssey. :D
 
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