Proposal: alternative to outright removal of ADS instascan & system map minigame for explorers

[Chaparral]

Can some one explain to me how pointing at a system body and waiting for 10 20 or whatever seconds is gameplay? It's sitting and waiting like so many other "features" of this game. If skill is not involved in the process, I say dump the ridiculous timers.

If the timers are necessary as micro loading screens where stats are procgen or rng'd then that's some slow-donkey processing to pull values out of a table.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

Can some one explain to me how pointing at a system body and waiting for 10 20 or whatever seconds is gameplay? It's sitting and waiting like so many other "features" of this game. If skill is not involved in the process, I say dump the ridiculous timers.

If the timers are necessary as micro loading screens where stats are procgen or rng'd then that's some slow-donkey processing to pull values out of a table.

I don't care if you consider it 'gameplay' or not.

I enjoy the existing process of using the ADS and DSS to uncover system information. I enjoy flying around in a spaceship looking at stuff. The new mechanics massively reduce the amount of flying I'll be doing, reducing the process to what amounts to a point-and-click adventure game. If I'd wanted to play Monkey Island I'd have bought Monkey Island.

 

[Ziljan]

You are, quite literally, providing community feedback, on the community forums, as a community member. To ask they will do things like make planets black and invisible. And disable filters because they are for casuals/ redundant.

Careful, there. Everyone always believes their personal idea is fine, and everyone else is wrong. That isn't really how anything works. As I'd have expected you'd already know.

I'm not asking that they change anything to their proposed redesign. I would be 100% fine with them staying with the proposed mechanic. Honestly they could come up a dozen different solutions that involved some level of actual investigation that required a human brain to be actively involved in the process, and where mistakes were possible and skill was rewarded, and I would be fine with any of those systems.

Some people seem to feel that something is missing, and Frontier seems to have tentatively agreed to review the ADS honk. This kind of catering is how problems with Frontier's designs are born because they tend to obliterate the original design by going around it completely. That is exactly what's happening now in this thread. Which is why I'm trying to communicate with people in the other side to see what it is that people feel is missing. I don't fool myself into thinking it will have any impact on the final design, but maybe by some miracle if a viable consensus is reached, it's worth the effort to me at least.

 

[Ziljan]

I don't care if you consider it 'gameplay' or not.

I enjoy the existing process of using the ADS and DSS to uncover system information. I enjoy flying around in a spaceship looking at stuff. The new mechanics massively reduce the amount of flying I'll be doing, reducing the process to what amounts to a point-and-click adventure game. If I'd wanted to play Monkey Island I'd have bought Monkey Island.

Honestly, you really should care. Frontier focuses their design energy on popular aspects of the game. As much as people like the idea of exploration (exhibit 11,000+ Gnosis hopefuls, and populous Fleetcom discord) the current mechanic is mind-numbingly empty for the vast majority of players (exhibit: anemic participation and low retention rate of the nearly dead exploration forums). PP & CQC have nearly as much threads generated, and those are both waking-dead game mechanics.

If the current mechanic was allowed to stay, the odds getting a continuous stream of new exploration content (stuff to find) would drop off a cliff, just like PP and CQC.

On the other hand, if the new mechanic manages to attract enough players, then the odds of getting more exploration content will likely grow.

 

[WR3ND]

+1, OP.

I think some sort of compromise like this would better suit the game contextually and support a wider variety of play styles.

Hopefully Frontier can help flesh out new exploration mechanics with new celestial content in the future as well.

Spoiler

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

Honestly, you really should care. Frontier focuses their design energy on popular aspects of the game. As much as people like the idea of exploration (exhibit 11,000+ Gnosis hopefuls, and populous Fleetcom discord) the current mechanic is mind-numbingly empty for the vast majority of players (exhibit: anemic participation and low retention rate of the nearly dead exploration forums). PP & CQC have nearly as much threads generated, and those are both waking-dead game mechanics.

If the current mechanic was allowed to stay, the odds getting a continuous stream of new exploration content (stuff to find) would drop off a cliff, just like PP and CQC.

On the other hand, if the new mechanic manages to attract enough players, then the odds of getting more exploration content will likely grow.

FDev can add all the new shiny exploration content they want, and it won't matter a jot to me if the process of discovering it isn't fun.

Right now, I find it fun. Removing the instaHonk and the need to fly around to use the DSS will stop me finding it fun.

The probes and persistent POI stuff is very welcome, but it doesn't NEED to come at the expense of the things we already have.

I suggest that FDev avoid swinging from one extreme to the other.

 

[kofeyh]

I'm not asking that they change anything to their proposed redesign.

But you are actually asking for them to change the design. I've asked them to change the design. That's fine? Just recognise that's requesting changes.

I would be 100% fine with them staying with the proposed mechanic.

But..

Honestly they could come up a dozen different solutions that involved some level of actual investigation that required a human brain to be actively involved in the process, and where mistakes were possible and skill was rewarded, and I would be fine with any of those systems.

Skill cap. I get it. Wanting a mechanic that rewards extended effort? Sure. Me too. But.. we all know frontier has an all or nothing approach, so this forces outcomes for the entire community. And they always, always get walked back.

You know? I had hoped frontier would have an iterative approach to exploring, and add more things and experiences to fill their somewhat empty universe; everything from very complex, to quite simple. Instead, we get a convoluted mini-game that really has nothing to do with exploring and turns us all into the Elite Dangerous version of a google maps van.

You know? That's sort of not what I signed on for. Convoluted, endlessly debated semantic arguments about mechanical process. For a mostly empty universe. You'll excuse me that maybe, my interests, were more in what fills that. o7

 

[Ziljan]

FDev can add all the new shiny exploration content they want, and it won't matter a jot to me if the process of discovering it isn't fun.

Right now, I find it fun. Removing the instaHonk and the need to fly around to use the DSS will stop me finding it fun.

The probes and persistent POI stuff is very welcome, but it doesn't NEED to come at the expense of the things we already have.

I suggest that FDev avoid swinging from one extreme to the other.

I urge you to use that logic in reverse on all the people who have been left out of the exploration loop for the last 4 years because the current mechanic has made exploration so unenjoyable and hence unpopular (the will is there, but the way is shut). You've essentially had the Galaxy to yourself and handful of diehards for the last 4 years while the rest of us would-be explorers have been huddled in the bubble waiting for the Exploration patch that finally replaces an obvious placeholder mechanic.

Even the founders, organisers, and the bulk of the Distant Worlds expedition generation explorers had essentially given up on Exploration and all but vanished from the game until a revision patch came out. And they were so thrilled at the prospect of the patch that they created a 2nd expedition to celebrate. That's how unpopular the current "exploration mechanic" was. I've been trying to convince some of the organizers of DW1 to come back to elite, and it wasn't until the last live steam that they even considered it.

Almost all of my hundreds of in game friends are Explorers. And almost all of the ones that still play are currently in the bubble and have been for nearly all of the past years since DW1. Maybe 5% of these explorers that still play the game actually continue to explore as a main profession (that's being generous). You can say this is just a small subset of players, sure, but it's mostly former hardcore explorers that have given up and are now playing the BGS, AX, or PVP.

 

[WR3ND]

...

Hopefully Frontier can help flesh out new exploration mechanics with new celestial content in the future as well.

...

Actually, the new ADS mechanics might make more sense on the galactic map on systems within range. Not really sure what the point of jumping to a system is when you don't have to bother moving around in it to discover what's there, or discover where something is that you can already see out of the canopy. Obviously from a gameplay perspective that isn't likely to be something Frontier would want to implement. Just an interesting thought.

 

[Mohrgan]

Actually, the new ADS mechanics might make more sense on the galactic map on systems within range. Not really sure what the point of jumping to a system is when you don't have to bother moving around in it to discover what's there, or discover where something is that you can already see out of the canopy. Obviously from a gameplay perspective that isn't likely to be something Frontier would want to implement. Just an interesting thought.

Because you will have to still move within range of your interesting objects to Map them.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

I urge you to use that logic in reverse on all the people who have been left out of the exploration loop for the last 4 years because the current mechanic has made exploration so unenjoyable and hence unpopular (the will is there, but the way is shut). You've essentially had the Galaxy to yourself and handful of diehards for the last 4 years while the rest of us would-be explorers have been huddled in the bubble waiting for the Exploration patch that finally replaces an obvious placeholder mechanic.

Even the founders, organisers, and the bulk of the Distant Worlds expedition generation explorers had essentially given up on Exploration and all but vanished from the game until a revision patch came out. And they were so thrilled at the prospect of the patch that they created a 2nd expedition to celebrate. That's how unpopular the current "exploration mechanic" was. I've been trying to convince some of the organizers of DW1 to come back to elite, and it wasn't until the last live steam that they even considered it.

Almost all of my hundreds of in game friends are Explorers. And almost all of the ones that still play are currently in the bubble and have been for nearly all of the past years since DW1. Maybe 5% of these explorers that still play the game actually continue to explore as a main profession (that's being generous). You can say this is just a small subset of players, sure, but it's mostly former hardcore explorers that have given up and are now playing the BGS, AX, or PVP.

I'm just stating my personal preference.
As far as forum posters go, I'm clearly in the minority, so I'm sure FDev won't miss me when I'm gone.

At the end of the day, it's just a game.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

Because you will have to still move within range of your interesting objects to Map them.

Which will involve another mini-game, which you can only play in a few systems before you have to drive around shooting rocks in order to get enough tokens to play again.

I can see that getting old real fast.

 

[WR3ND]

Because you will have to still move within range of your interesting objects to Map them.

With the DSS. That's a different module though. Presumably, unless I'm missing something, many will probably just use the new ADS to tag ELWs and move on without bothering to move around in a system, and many just interesting in checking out interesting systems and views while on their way somewhere will probably bother with it less often.

 

[Mohrgan]

Which will involve another mini-game, which you can only play in a few systems before you have to drive around shooting rocks in order to get enough tokens to play again.

I can see that getting old real fast.

No more than the Honk-Jump cycle we have now. I am not against mini-games in the least. I'll get good at anything.

With the DSS. That's a different module though. Presumably, unless I'm missing something, many will probably just use the new ADS to tag ELWs and move on without bothering to move around in a system, and many just interesting in checking out interesting systems and views while on their way somewhere will probably bother with it less often.

Yup, different module just like we have now. An ADS lets you sit at a star, and divine the entire system. To get more depth you have to apply the DDS by individually scanning bodies. How are things changing, in that regard?

 

[Straha Yeagar]

With the DSS. That's a different module though. Presumably, unless I'm missing something, many will probably just use the new ADS to tag ELWs and move on without bothering to move around in a system, and many just interesting in checking out interesting systems and views while on their way somewhere will probably bother with it less often.

And I honestly think the bulk of the argument over the exploration updated would go away if the initial honk still revealed the system layout.

 

[WR3ND]

...

Yup, different module just like we have now. An ADS lets you sit at a star, and divine the entire system. To get more depth you have to apply the DDS by individually scanning bodies. How are things changing, in that regard?

You discover and tag the worlds with the new ADS now, I thought. The DSS is for surface mapping and the first mapped by tag, but not the discover tag. Presumably, there will be a lot of people who just tag the high value worlds and move on.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

No more than the Honk-Jump cycle we have now. I am not against mini-games in the least. I'll get good at anything.

Different people enjoy different things.
My objection is to FDev needlessly taking away something I personally enjoy.

 

[Ziljan]

... a convoluted mini-game that really has nothing to do with exploring and turns us all into the Elite Dangerous version of a google maps van.

The proposed scanning mechanic does at least resemble the process that astronomers use to locate objects.
1) look for objects emitting a certain peak frequency of photon energy
2) filter out muddling signals
3) look for wiggles in the EM signal: gravitational anomalies
4) try to guess the distance, and by knowing the distance better guess what the object might be

So yes, the proposed mechanic does very much resemble RL astrophysical observation and discovery techniques so it has quite a better claim to being "Exploration" than anything we've seen to date.

Meanwhile, the current mechanic is more like opening up the Google Map app on a city that is only missing street view, and you're there to drive around with your Omni camera. Like Pacman, but without any ghost monsters.

 

[kofeyh]

No more than the Honk-Jump cycle we have now. I am not against mini-games in the least. I'll get good at anything.

I don't have to stop exploring, to collect tokens, to start exploring again, as it stands. Yes, it is a monotonous, soulless unending repetitive one-button click of just oxygen stealing proportions. But is the focus solving that by making it a monotonous, soulless unending repetitive one-button click of just oxygen stealing proportions to collect the tokens to enable the mini-game? It's just moved where that happens.

People are so hung up on the process, it's like they've forgotten the reasons to explore. Even Frontier have forgotten. Instead of filling the universe, they're just filling the cockpit with a new endless chore, to replace the old one.

Beta may prove me entirely wrong and I will celebrate being a very wrong person with probably more gusto than anyone else. But this is where we are. Replacing a single button push, with a two new button pushes. Both just as monotonous and soulless and oxygen stealing as the last.

One to collect the tokens (materials) and one to start the mini-game again. Is that exploring? Or just being an accountant. I have no idea.

 

[Mohrgan]

Different people enjoy different things.
My objection is to FDev needlessly taking away something I personally enjoy.

Understood, but many of us don't see it as 'needless'. There has been an endless clamoring for more depth to exploring. Well, here it is. It was never going to be about obscure phenomena, the game is based on procedural generation. It always had to be about procedure. So random generation can be covered in all cases.

The new system offers a chance for your experience and skill to be a part of exploration. This can only be a good thing. I for the life of me can't understand how it has to come down to Cr./Hr.