Remove “Irregular Markers” POI

[Rakk Jackham]

C’mon guys, be better than this. Some barrels on a hill with skimmers around it? Please please do something with this or just delete it.

It just seems really really lazy and it makes no sense in-universe. Why would someone leave a handful of mediocre value barrels on a hill?

My wife is an editor and she has a saying about how the best writing is concise and you have to achieve it by “killing your darlings” and getting rid of the sentences or phrases that you’re so attached to that you’ve wedged them in where they shouldn’t be.

There’s nothing wrong with pruning out content that detracts from the game.

 

[SlickPBW]

So, scrap the missions that go with them also?

If you don’t like them, ignore them.

Of all things this game DOESN’T need is LESS content.

I do not support this as written.

 

[Rakk Jackham]

You realize they could put that random quest item in literally any other RNG quest right?

Like, you understand this is a game, and not a real world. People made decisions and those decisions were about the design of the game. And they can make different decisions.

Is your understanding that if they removed a POI where you found something once that that item would now forever be denied to you?

As if these items were in a real tangible shed in someone’s yard, and I’m saying to burn down the shed because it is ugly, and your assertion is not to burn down the shed because you get buckets out of that shed sometimes, so where would you get the buckets after the shed burns down?

Is that… is that how you think this would work?

 

[metatheurgist]

It's a bit late to start removing things that make no sense in the game.

I have to agree that the game already lacks content and the last thing we need is to remove stuff. If there was one darling they should kill it should be the guild based MMO they've been trying to turn the game into since launch.

Irregular markers come in grades, the least is the abandoned commodities, some of the higher grades are downright crucial to aspects of the game. Did you mean to remove them all?

Does it makes sense? The galaxy is a world where people can make billions just by doing nothing, maybe they're just discarded because someone bought them on whim and decided they didn't want them anymore. It is a dystopian universe, so I'm told. If you like, I can spend some time buying commodities and leaving them around for laughs. I have enough money and free space in my viper.

 

[Rakk Jackham]

Even the name “Irregular Markers” sounds like a working title that they forgot to replace. Like, the boss walked in and said “Ok, we have impact areas, illegal structures and bio signatures, we need a few more surface thingies - just be creative and come up with them”

“Ok, what should I call them?”

“Well the rest are just labeled by some marker or sign and vaguely what makes them irregular - I’m sure you can come up with something”

“What do I put at this place!? I’m in over my head, I don’t know what to do!”

“Evan, calm down. You know the drill, just come up with something where the player gets some rewards after they overcome some sort of little obstacle”

Evan creates Irregular Markers. 5 canisters sitting openly on a hill with 3 skimmers to kill. Goes back to his desk afraid today will be the day FDev realized he’s a homeless man who just wondered into the building one day because it was raining. Irregular Markers

 

[Screemonster]

It just seems really really lazy and it makes no sense in-universe. Why would someone leave a handful of mediocre value barrels on a hill?

for someone else to pick them up when the cops aren't looking

 

[metatheurgist]

All names are stupid, ultimately. I'd rather they concern themselves with content. If the game was amazing, I wouldn't care if they called them Fluffy Banana Kittens.

for someone else to pick them up when the cops aren't looking

This is pertinent. Before you could make billions just by sneezing, these POI (presumed to be either pirate/private caches or lost shipping) were actually valuable content. They were worth investigating because sometimes they were gold or platinum instead of Tea. For a struggling commander starting out these things were literal gold. But you couldn't just take them because sometimes circling ships would take offense. I was nuked by a wing of FAS and Vipers for daring to steal from one such POI.

Now it doesn't happen. It's not worth my time to investigate these things, I can more easily mine "precious" gems in perfect safety. I haven't seen an air to ground attack like that in forever, presumably because someone decided that was too difficult for players to cope with.

 

[varonica]

So, scrap the missions that go with them also?

If you don’t like them, ignore them.

Of all things this game DOESN’T need is LESS content.

I do not support this as written.

Just change the name, "abandoned cargo" job done. That way if you don't want abandoned cargo just don't go there.

 

[SlickPBW]

Just change the name, "abandoned cargo" job done. That way if you don't want abandoned cargo just don't go there.

Pointless. This would be a waste of FD time to change a single POI name that doesn’t mean anything significant to another insignificant name. With all the bugs that they are ignoring and improvements that they could be working on, prioritizing this should be considered dead last. With their stated goals for the future and desire to improve their financial position, this couldn’t in any way improve things.

And you should have quoted OP, not me; I never said that I had any problems with Irregular Markers POI’s.

 

[varonica]

Pointless. This would be a waste of FD time to change a single POI name that doesn’t mean anything significant to another insignificant name. With all the bugs that they are ignoring and improvements that they could be working on, prioritizing this should be considered dead last. With their stated goals for the future and desire to improve their financial position, this couldn’t in any way improve things.

And you should have quoted OP, not me; I never said that I had any problems with Irregular Markers POI’s.

I know I quoted you, it was a way to change them for the OP without having to scrap the mission and etc, that's all a lot of work, but just changing the names is quick and easy. I would rather not have them remove existing content and put more in myself as I also have no problem with them, they are optional content, indeed what would be the point of removing them except to make the galaxy emptier.

 

[Kira Goto]

they are optional content, indeed what would be the point of removing them except to make the galaxy emptier.

The only issue I have with some of it is that the mission-spawned "Irregular Marker" with (I believe) a threat 2 marking... quite literally never has any defenses near it. Which isn't so much an issue in regards to the gameplay(I find it quite convenient, mostly taking those for the weapon schematics or BGS purposes), but that it's just a bit weird. Or I'm looking at it from the wrong angle that those smugglers which supposedly hid their crates/containers of illegal substances on the dark side of a tidally locked icy moon (or just some distant ice world) didn't invest anything into their security.

Yet when I once randomly chose to visit a threat 2 irregular marker without a mission associated, sure enough, it was guarded by a couple of pirates (or it could've been some scavengers that stumbled across it, for all I know, but I got rewarded for shooting them so it certainly wasn't police investigating the shady stuff).

 

[Kaocraft]

This is pertinent. Before you could make billions just by sneezing, these POI (presumed to be either pirate/private caches or lost shipping) were actually valuable content. They were worth investigating because sometimes they were gold or platinum instead of Tea. For a struggling commander starting out these things were literal gold.

They were always worthless and pointless. These released with Horizons, remember. The economy by that point had already progressed/devolved well past where it would be worth the time for anyone, even a starting CMDR (who definitely wouldn't know how to tackle these sites anyway) ,to deploy an SRV for scooping up 4 cannisters of literally anything in the game that comes in cannisters. This would be true even if they didn't come with skimmers and a trespass zone which gives you a BOUNTY, not a fine, for entering.

Anyway as per OP they need an update (at least add some odyssey-relevant content like a hackable object to turn off the trespass sensors or some Odyssey collectables into the mix), or should be deleted outright.

The ones that have missions attached to them are generated by the missions themselves so those can stay if necessary, but after 10 years of placeholders there's absolutely no reason to leave anything in the game that isn't actually good content.

 

[SlickPBW]

I know I quoted you, it was a way to change them for the OP without having to scrap the mission and etc, that's all a lot of work, but just changing the names is quick and easy. I would rather not have them remove existing content and put more in myself as I also have no problem with them, they are optional content, indeed what would be the point of removing them except to make the galaxy emptier.

It seems to come so easy for folks to think they know how "easy" things would be for the actual devs. I never claim to know how easy it is because FD have never described their work in this detail. I just don't think it's as easy as OP and you think it is, and any forum non-dev is just making stuff up when they do and therefore have no credibility.

You realize they could put that random quest item in literally any other RNG quest right?

but just changing the names is quick and easy.

So, I think that creating an update is much more than changing a bit of code MUST include the non-trivial, (costly) and time consuming following actions:

• actually changing the code and ensuring that the change does not cause other problems,
• a run through their QA folks. Yeah, yeah, I know... but FD says that they do this,
• creating the update package,
• scheduling the update,
• taking servers down & triggering the launchers to update,
• creating & posting the update patch notes,
• bringing the servers up with the new live update,
• and probably a lot of other work by a group of people behind the curtain.

All of these things above have been discussed by the actual FD folks.

So for me it's ludicrous to continue to be talking about this make-work, pointless change to the game, when there are NUMEROUS documented bugs on FD's own website that they asked players to enter (and confirm) yet these bugs largely continue to become fossilized from neglect. I want them to fix the existing bugs and do their stated actual development in the form of PP 2.0, working on "the new content" that is supposedly coming "soon" (tm), working on the new ships that are supposedly coming, managing the thargoid war, and all the other things that they are currently working on.

 

[metatheurgist]

They were always worthless and pointless. These released with Horizons, remember. The economy by that point had already progressed/devolved well past where it would be worth the time for anyone, even a starting CMDR (who definitely wouldn't know how to tackle these sites anyway) ,to deploy an SRV for scooping up 4 cannisters of literally anything in the game that comes in cannisters. This would be true even if they didn't come with skimmers and a trespass zone which gives you a BOUNTY, not a fine, for entering.

Nope. The 20 gold I picked up occasionally while hunting mats was definitely worth it. This was when gold was still worth mining. And there were no skimmers or trespass zones. Some did have them but not all.

Oh, and on the subject of circumventing the trespass zone and skimmers when there was one and you really wanted the handful of platinum cannisters, you could use your ship's thruster wash to blow the cannisters out of the zone and pick them up in complete safety. Probably more unintended gameplay there than stuff Frontier has actually planned. If I were to update it, I'd have those caches secured by camo tarps and require the covering be cut because having them blow around is a bit dumb.

 

[Rakk Jackham]

Nope. The 20 gold I picked up occasionally while hunting mats was definitely worth it. This was when gold was still worth mining. And there were no skimmers or trespass zones. Some did have them but not all.

what ship are you flying that has room for 20 gold but … where having 20 gold would make any distance. Let me google the price of gold right now.

The price is ~4400 credits. So 88000 credits? It’s just absolutely not worth it at any point in your career.

But that is also off topic. The argument was never “these don’t benefit the player” they… also don’t do that… but the argument is that these don’t add anything to the player experiences. And in my view detract from it, because it lets you see too much of the wire frame beneath the papier-mâché. There are other POIs that have met the minimal threshold of effort that can replace this horrible one.

So far the arguments are along the lines of “but that POI used to be slightly useful to me personally”
“but where will the quest items be if the POI goes away”
And
“Well, the game is already empty enough - we shouldn’t do anything that makes it more empty”

Anyone else notice there’s no pros? I think that is pretty telling

 

[metatheurgist]

what ship are you flying that has room for 20 gold but … where having 20 gold would make any distance. Let me google the price of gold right now.

The price is ~4400 credits. So 88000 credits? It’s just absolutely not worth it at any point in your career.

But that is also off topic. The argument was never “these don’t benefit the player” they… also don’t do that… but the argument is that these don’t add anything to the player experiences. And in my view detract from it, because it lets you see too much of the wire frame beneath the papier-mâché. There are other POIs that have met the minimal threshold of effort that can replace this horrible one.

So far the arguments are along the lines of “but that POI used to be slightly useful to me personally”
“but where will the quest items be if the POI goes away”
And
“Well, the game is already empty enough - we shouldn’t do anything that makes it more empty”

Anyone else notice there’s no pros? I think that is pretty telling

This was waaay back at the start of the game. 88K was definitely worth something for someone starting out. The ship was a Viper 4 which I gifted everyone at that time with a CG. This was when 10M a week was considered amazing and only achieved by people hauling with Anacondas.

And again, you have made a blanket statement to "remove all irregular markers". I have already stated these POI come in several grades, most of which are definitely still useful. Your blanket statement would remove them all.

 

[Morbad]

Why would someone leave a handful of mediocre value barrels on a hill?

Because it wouldn't fit in their ship, or they had to make room for something better.

Someone else comes along, doesn't have the inclination to do an inventory at the time, or does and decides they want to come back for what's there, so they leave a few skimmers to deter other interlopers.

Or it's just hazardous waste/garbage:

Like, you understand this is a game, and not a real world.

Many games are best when they have a bit of verisimilitude. Not saying all POIs are conducive to this--many of them are nonsensically placed--but not everything needs to be tied to some plot, or mission, or even appear to have some immediate use or purpose, to have a place. I don't think there is anything wrong with 'irregular markers' in and of themselves.

 

[Rakk Jackham]

Because it wouldn't fit in their ship, or they had to make room for something better.

Someone else comes along, doesn't have the inclination to do an inventory at the time, or does and decides they want to come back for what's there, so they leave a few skimmers to deter other interlopers.

Or it's just hazardous waste/garbage:

Many games are best when they have a bit of verisimilitude. Not saying all POIs are conducive to this--many of them are nonsensically placed--but not everything needs to be tied to some plot, or mission, or even appear to have some immediate use or purpose, to have a place. I don't think there is anything wrong with 'irregular markers' in and of themselves.

Ok yeah totally. Fell off a space truck.


Just.
How did the barrels safely navigate through the atmosphere, land perfectly on the planet and erect skimmers around themselves?

I’m unfollowing this thread because the dishonest arguments are starting to tax me. it’s readily apparent to me that irregular markers was a placeholder that got left in the game, and I think it is to most of you as well.

You know what the only meaningful difference between the irregular markers POI and an impact site is? FDev applied environmental storytelling to the impact site. All the other POIs give some hint to WHAT they are and WHY they’re there. I-Markers are some barrels on a hill - they’re not concealed, they’re not physically secured from just rolling away, they’re not in container or structure.

I-Markers is the kind of placeholder design you use when you’re out of ideas.
You know how I know? Because I did a hostage rescue mission and it’s the exact same POI. You know what I was not expecting when I took a “Hostage Rescue” mission? A container sitting on a ing hill.

You know what I am VERY confident the FDev programmer didn’t foresee when they started creating a mission called “Hostage Rescue?” That it would end with a container on a hill. It’s the kind of thing you get when something didn’t work out in the development cycle. I get it, we’ve all run late on a term paper that ended on a note like that.

Irregular Markers are JUST that last limp, phoned-in paragraph that technically got you over the 5000 word requirement. The difference is that FDev doesn’t have to live with that, and we don’t have to just keep staring at it.

Edit this out.

 

[Morbad]

Ok yeah totally. Fell off a space truck.


Just.
How did the barrels safely navigate through the atmosphere, land perfectly on the planet and erect skimmers around themselves?

I’m unfollowing this thread because the dishonest arguments are starting to tax me.

The problem here isn't the game, but your asinine assumptions.

Nothing about canisters being abandoned or cached means they need to be jettisoned from a high altitude. Indeed, the fact they survived at all, is a pretty clear hint they weren't. I would assume they were dropped out of an SRV, or rolled into place by hand...maybe they fell off a space truck, but it was probably one flying low and slow.

The presence of skimmers implies nothing other than someone thought the site might be worth securing in some manner, or that they setting a trap. Nothing implies the skimmers and canisters were placed by the same party at the same time, but they could have been.

it’s readily apparent to me that irregular markers was a placeholder that got left in the game, and I think it is to most of you as well.

I didn't claim they weren't placeholders, but I'm not sure why it's even relevant.

They make just as much sense, as is, as many of the more fleshed out POIs do, more in many cases. The vagueness allows one to draw a plausible conclusion about it's presence, which is not so easy to do when something has been detailed in a way that is incongruous.

All the other POIs give some hint to WHAT they are and WHY they’re there.

And it would be absurd if this were always the case. It's ok for some things to just be there, with no real hope of a canon explanation.

 

[IstvaanDCIV]

I tell you what is absurd. Crash sites with trespass zones and hostile skimmers. I swear I've encountered such things. I thought that the whole point of occupying escape pods was to make it possible to be rescued. Deploying hostile drones and no-go zones would seem to go against that. I suppose that someone else could have placed them there later as Morbad suggests for Irregular Markers, but I can't help but think it would make more sense to loot the goodies as soon as they're found, rather than depending on a handful of skimmers to keep bagsies for you.

They're easy enough to deal with even in a regular SRV, so it's not a massive deal, and I don't think I've ever had to deal with the inconvenience of incurring a fine or bounty while retrieving occupied escape pods in such situations. But it does feel very counter-intuitive.