Player Agency in Exploration - Why the 3.3 Honk needs a buff

[Sylveria]

IIRC (I'd have to look it up in my posts...) I made a previous prediction that they would try and rush it all in before late Nov/early Dec so they could make a Paid DLC announcement before Xmas... because sales and all that. Wouldn't be too shocked if that's the reason they've decided to rush these changes in before then.

And I'd be willing to bet on the fact that the "moar stuffz!" people have been clamoring for all along are included in that DLC.

 

[Avago Earo]

I see many different angles and feelings about the new scan mechanic. I can understand all points made without any personal investment on the matter, because as a non explorer I remain neutral.

This new interaction within star systems might attract me into exploring. But that's only down to what I imagine exploration is: Rummaging around and looking under rocks etc. I wouldn't want to Jump and Honk adnauseam, just to notch up light years on my tachometer and earn high five's from the screen staring endurance derby specialists.

But this would be the case if it turned out to be enjoyable and required skill/knowledge/foresight. If it turns out to be a drain on the soul that gets old soon; bring back the honk and I'll stay in the bubble.

 

[Straha Yeagar]

You've just nailed why I have a feeling of disheartened irritation about the whole thing. A lack of consultation, a very sketchy presentation that raises more questions than answers (plus a good deal of concern), and so late in the schedule that it makes me wonder if any of the material is anything more than a couple of jpegs and a storyboard conjured up at short notice,.

We have had years worth of ideas presented and discussed in various places around these forums, and I have to believe that Frontier has followed at least some of them. I think perhaps my biggest concern here is that what they presented in bare bones does not really resemble those years with of feedback.

 

[Lestat]

Errr, no.

Beta is for tweaks and bug-finding - not for evaluating whether the entire architecture works.

Please note Beta also point out issue to the Devs. and people can talk about those issue in Beta and the Devs can address players likes or dislikes.

FDev should perform some ALPHA testing - get players like Alitnil and Mendy to spend some time using the new mechanics to see how they impact various types of explorer.

Why need Alpha when Beta can address the same thing? When Frontier had Alpha People paid for it. Also, they use it to locate major game issues. Like the ATI 4870 5870 bugs which players who had those devices could not see Planets. I Informed Frontier when we could see Planets.

My Advice to you and other wait and see and we actually play it in Beta and then talk about the issues.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

As I have stated elsewhere, my ideal exploration scenario would proceed as follows:

1. Jump into a system, engage your Omni-directional Stellar Scanner (HONK). The time this honk takes will depend on the Scanner Quality & Engineering.

2a. All Stellar Bodies within X Light-Seconds will get a detailed scan; bodies between X & Y light-seconds will get a low resolution scan-which consists of the darkened spheres with a "list" of probable planet types (but not size or distance from primary star) & the presence of any rings (but not what type of rings), along with the Emissions & Gravitational Anomaly readings; bodies beyond Y light-seconds will only get you Emissions & Gravitational Anomaly readings. The value of X & Y will depend on scanner quality, engineering & size of stellar body relative to Earth-size.

2b. The honk will also present a HUD display showing the approximate locations of all gravitational anomalies detected-via the use of different sized circles whose sizes will be determined by a combination of the distance and size of the anomaly.

3. Players can *choose* (emphasis on choice) to begin flying towards the indicated anomalies on their HUD, & then choose to attempt an active scan-using a Secondary Scanner Button-that will give a detailed scan of any stellar bodies within range. The range, angle & time needed to perform the secondary scan will again depend on the scanner quality, engineering & size of the closest stellar body. Whilst in-flight, the player can also *choose* to start resolving the Emissions data they received when they first Honked.....or hand off that job to a crew-mate. Alternatively, the player can choose to do all Emissions resolutions before ever setting out towards the stellar bodies.

4. However they chose to get it, once the player has a detailed scan of one or more stellar bodies, they can choose to either launch a probe towards it or-if they wish to save on the probes-use their own ship to do a "slingshot scan" of the planet, using a UI almost identical to the one they would use for a probe-only this latter approach would be more difficult and dangerous to pull off successfully.

5. Once the probe(s) have been launched & had their data compiled, your system map & HUD will show various "search zones", of differing size, showing where PoI's (transient and persistent) are most likely to reside, as well as what they are most likely to be.

6. Where applicable, players can utilise the active secondary scan controls to pin-point PoI & USS objects-in normal space......using a mechanic similar to SONAR.

Not included in the official run-through of my preferred method, but I would also like the ability for scans to highlight parts of a Main Sequence Star that will provide the fastest rate of refuelling, but at the cost of those areas being the most likely to erupt & damage your ship.

In the main, I believe my own preferred exploration activity is pretty much in line with the one provided by Mengy. The benefits of the system, IMHO are:

1. They retain the new mechanics suggested by the Developers-fully intact.

2. They introduce an additional layer of mystery to exploration, without totally blindfolding players.

3. They give players multiple paths towards achieving the same objective.

4. They will almost certainly result in the entirety of the exploration process being much shorter-per system.

 

[kofeyh]

Game mechanics, particularly in an open world game like Elite, provide the framework for how people interact with the game. They are the rules within which the players make decisions and take actions. The difference between grind mechanics and engaging mechanics are the degree of flexibility within the design. Are there multiple ways to accomplish a goal, or is there only one way? Are the mechanics rigid forcing the players to all play the same way, or do they allow a variety of ways for players to play the game?

This. Nail. Head. Smashed it. Frontier is removing a massive amount of player agency. They do leave breadcrumbs for commanders to follow; arguably all the Guardian/ Thargoid stuff has some agency to it. But that's more just solve endless puzzles via the power of Audacity and third party conversion tools.

Jaques. Gnosis. POI. USS. They try. It's just formulaic and there's an expectation for us to just fill in the blanks. They work really hard. It's not through a lack of effort. Just.. I dunno.

Beta will tell us all, just where Frontier's design philosophy is at. God honk is bad. But sometimes bad, is infinitely better than worse. Again; be careful what you ask for. This will never not be relevant for Frontier.

But as with all the discussions over the new scanners, we will need to see it and likely use it to know.

The question can be distilled to a very simple factor. How many times. Frontier has a poor track record of understanding how massively important player agency is; because they've gifted us a mostly empty universe and the expectation is we will invent the engagement.

This could be amazing? Beta will show. But I have the same feeling about this, as I did the original blueprint count for guardian upgrades. And that? At least that was a choice. This? isn't. It's a binary outcome. And a massive, massive amount of player agency has been thrown under the bus in the process.

What's the point if there's nothing to find? I really hope the POI or USS work is going to be completed. It's potentially the only thing that could make or break this.

 

[fu9ar]

Hooey, FDev is putting in fantastic mechanics, you're just too dense to realize it. An example that you whiners won't shut up about would be scooping engineering loot, if you don't want to learn how to scoop salvage junk up quickly you can use collector limpets. FDev actually turned grabbing loot, something that is almost always some crappy point and click menu, into active gameplay and also gave us a tool to use to skip that gameplay if we choose to. How is that removing player agency?

 

[kofeyh]

Hooey, FDev is putting in fantastic mechanics, you're just too dense to realize it. An example that you whiners won't shut up about would be scooping engineering loot, if you don't want to learn how to scoop salvage junk up quickly you can use collector limpets. FDev actually turned grabbing loot, something that is almost always some crappy point and click menu, into active gameplay and also gave us a tool to use to skip that gameplay if we choose to. How is that removing player agency?

Dude, the attitude is ordinary. Debate the game, and developer, not the people at the end of either. Everyone has different reasons for playing.

 

[Straha Yeagar]

Hooey, FDev is putting in fantastic mechanics, you're just too dense to realize it. An example that you whiners won't shut up about would be scooping engineering loot, if you don't want to learn how to scoop salvage junk up quickly you can use collector limpets. FDev actually turned grabbing loot, something that is almost always some crappy point and click menu, into active gameplay and also gave us a tool to use to skip that gameplay if we choose to. How is that removing player agency?

And scooping or limpeting loot has exactly what to do with the exploration topic?

 

[fu9ar]

If people are going off on vague assertions about how game mechanics are removing player agency, we're already deep into Bat Country, kiddo.

Dude, the attitude is ordinary. Debate the game, and developer, not the people at the end of either. Everyone has different reasons for playing.

So you don't actually have an argument and are just going to attack my tone? Cool man! Thanks for ceding the point!

 

[kittykatze]

This new ADS crap is just another FD time-sink. The design team really find it hard to to think in any other way.

From what we have been told so far, it seems that this new mechanic adds nothing new to the game in terms of substance and instead just makes what we can already find more difficult and time consuming to 'discover'.

Why the hell would I want to spend 20 minutes 'discovering' something that I could have found with just one scan (honk), when instead I could have journeyed forward through 20 other systems in the same time?

This whole prospect is just a further waste of players' time. If FD insist on introducing this rubbish, they should at the very least make it optional and retain the existing mechanic as well.

Its all speculation at this point but based on what information is available these are basically my thoughts on this. When we asked for deeper exploration mechanics I don't think this is what most of us had in mind. The ideas are good, the planet mapping and information provided about the planets--those are cool things, but they shouldnt be added at the expense of making the existing system also more tedious.

 

[M00ka]

Its all speculation at this point but based on what information is available these are basically my thoughts on this. When we asked for deeper exploration mechanics I don't think this is what most of us had in mind. The ideas are good, the planet mapping and information provided about the planets--those are cool things, but they shouldnt be added at the expense of making the existing system also more tedious.

Curious now, if the exploration fraternity wanted deeper exploration mechanics, but expected to retain the instant reveal honk mechanism, just what did they want? Considering the honk does everything except detailed surface scans, what other mechanism could be introduced to make the experience deeper?

 

[kofeyh]

Curious now, if the exploration fraternity wanted deeper exploration mechanics, but expected to retain the instant reveal honk mechanism, just what did they want? Considering the honk does everything except detailed surface scans, what other mechanism could be introduced to make the experience deeper?

I suspect people were keen on some better choices. Plural. Folks now have a really powerful honk, but the decision making about what to do with that information is entirely up to the player. The new system creates a linear single approach (which is no different to the single button honk, but removes all the decision making afterwards) and doubles down that the only way to pull planet info is the new hud.

Maybe I am just crazy -- and look that's likely? -- but more to see and interact with and really adding to the emptiness, might have been what people were hoping for. Instead, we have a mechanic that actually pulls people away from what they are doing, and shoves them in a mini-game.

I hope people will absolutely pound the hell out of this in beta. Just thrash it. Because people will be expected to, in live. I hope it's amazing. Genuinely. But I'd be an idiot after the Guardian blueprints to assume this will go swimmingly and the mechanics that seem fine, survive being done hundreds of times.

--

I like having Ramen noodles, or a really well made Pho (vietnamese noodle broth). But not every day. Because that's just too often. You can have too much of a thing. Good or not. That is the point being made and people seem to think this will have infinite replay value and it will be fine besides it's "skill based" which ignores that once you master a skill, whether it requires skill or not ceases to have much meaning.

I'm looking forward to beta.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Curious now, if the exploration fraternity wanted deeper exploration mechanics, but expected to retain the instant reveal honk mechanism, just what did they want? Considering the honk does everything except detailed surface scans, what other mechanism could be introduced to make the experience deeper?

They are kids.

No, really, it is not an insult. When playing games, we usually disconnect any logical reasoning behind our behaviour. And kids usually want contrariorary things, and they whine about smallest hill they have to climb. They will like "do we have to?", and when parents says ten times "yes", they submit.

It is pointless to argue this. FD will come with some small improvements most likely, but they won't be instant honk reveal. End of story. People will have to live with that or quit. And then come back again and discover it is actually nice.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

This new ADS crap is just another FD time-sink. The design team really find it hard to to think in any other way.

Every in-depth mechanic is time sink. Seriously, that's childish argument as you can make. Playing games is a time sink. Playing more of the game is more of time sink. Mind blown huh?

From what we have been told so far, it seems that this new mechanic adds nothing new to the game in terms of substance and instead just makes what we can already find more difficult and time consuming to 'discover'.

Then you have understood nothing. You don't know how discovery mechanic even works yet! Ziljan did very nice summary about it. It is actually very interesting. It is substantial.

Why the hell would I want to spend 20 minutes 'discovering' something that I could have found with just one scan (honk), when instead I could have journeyed forward through 20 other systems in the same time?

Because then it is not...exploration?

This whole prospect is just a further waste of players' time. If FD insist on introducing this rubbish, they should at the very least make it optional and retain the existing mechanic as well.

New gameplay is more "waste of players time".

 

[TrailBlazer 143]

First of all, your beginning statement about Emergent and Grind is PERFECT!

I totally agree with everything you said in this post.

Frontier: Hire this man!

 

[5AnaHalfHatsize]

Yeah, I think I agree with the op, the honk should show the positions of the planets but with NO information on what type of planet they are except for their mass - and take away the clues you get from the planet icons on the dash and the planet audio in the system map too.

Then the signal scanner can reveal exactly what type of planet it is(As well as all the USS locations) and the detailed surface scanner can reveal exactly what's on it.

That also means they could keep the different discovery scanners we have now... for what that's worth.

But as to how "grindy" what they're proposing actually is, we have to wait for beta to really find that out.

 

[kofeyh]

They are kids.

Keep digging. FD are building mechanics and the entire forum exists to allow people to freely discuss the game and it's state and where it's going and what the developer is doing. Beta, yes, happy to review what they've built in Beta.

But to suggest people querying and debating as to whether the developer has got a handle on something they've mostly not done anything with for 4+ years and equating that with "being a kid" versus just common sense based on historical changes and how they've worked out, is just hilarious.

People give a crap, still. That's better than not, frankly. Hence the debate. If this place goes almost silent, Frontier really will be hosed.

 

[nexxo]

I remember the says before there was a Big Honk. Players had to explore star systems by flying along the orbital plane and using the parallax effect to visually identify planets moving against the star field. Laborious, but I thought it was great. First, it taught a bit about how astronomy identifies planets and planetoids, and second there it made for a suspenseful chase. Did you discover them all? Did you miss something?

Space exploration was supposed to be hard and effortful, not just a quick drop-in, honk, paste my name on it, move on affair. Too light a winning makes the winnings light.

 

[kofeyh]

Space exploration was supposed to be hard and effortful, not just a quick drop-in, honk, paste my name on it, move on affair. Too light a winning makes the winnings light.

Sure. Only Frontier never bothered to extend on it, and the mad honk is all that ended up being done. The buggy exists for material collection and precious little else. I have no problem with challenges. I have a problem with stale mechanics that one is forced to do, forever, because this is really just gating the experience behind a mini-game. Endlessly.

There could be combination of options that allow people to engage with this amazing (if a little empty) universe that has been built. There's a middle ground. Frontier, never ever occupy it. It'd be nice if they gave it a shot, even just once.

Oh, and the parallax thing? I did that for a second account, prior to the payout increase. It was fun. Until around the 20th time or something I did it. Then I just wished there was anything else I could have done. I couldn't buy the ADS fast enough once I could afford it. Because no matter how much of a killer for punishment one is, everyone has their limit.

That, is Frontier's challenge. Not to build engaging mechanics. To build engaging repetition of mechanics. Because repeat them, we will. The game design is predicated on literally everything being repeated, endlessly. Sometimes the why and when, is more relevant than the how.

Forums? Always focus on the how. Endlessly. Ironic.