Repeat the same Guardian unlock 18 times? Really?

Manfriest

Manfriest
vidslo said:
Could be any number of things. My guess is the majority of development time was, no surprise, spent on the art/assets. It's quite nice looking I must say so myself.

However, in the implementation, they likely misjudged how it would be received by players. While flying to new/different sites is neat, when the goal of doing these puzzles is unlocking new weapons/modules, of course players are going to want to obtain them as fast as possible. They know how to make things look beautiful, they also know how to create fairly complex riddles/etc, but I'm not convinced they've figured out how to properly deal with repetitive tasks in a manner that can keep a majority of players engaged.

The riddles have been great, but one complaint they had been getting was that the majority of the player base experienced it via the forum, reddit, youtube, etc, rather than being in the game. So when the 3.0 series was first discussed the 'personal narrative' was brought up. They knew that the individual player wasn't going to have all the resources available to solve some of the more complex riddles that we've seen previously, so they couldn't go too far down the rabbit hole with the complexity/difficulty. In turn, they opted for repetition as a means to increase the challenge.

I really want to give them the benefit of the doubt in that they have the atmosphere, and the best of intentions on making this a great game. I think they just missed the mark in understanding how a large portion of the player base would view this. Heck, I even think they have the assets available to make some good fixes, whether it's by upping the blueprints to 3 per scan, or reducing the requirements some, but requiring the player to visit 3 separate systems (which from a lore standpoint, makes the most sense) to obtain each piece of the blueprint. It could even be a message that you get after the first scan that is decoded and points you to another system. Those things add depth, forces the player to not 'grind', and gets them out to other guardian sites.

This is just my take on this, and everyone has their own take on it, but I genuinely hope they take some feedback on this to heart. This is one example of where some proper beta testers (who could sign NDAs) would go a long ways to flush out some of these issues prior to hitting the masses.
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Fantastic post vidslo 👍
 

William J Smith

William J Smith
Having had time to calm down a bit

2nd ramtah mission

Good bits :trying to probe a live thargoid while flying a modified AspX...... ... partly because a 'vette with 7000 armor and 3500 shields makes it too easy... but mostly because the AspX was all I had there...
More good bits : design of the guardian sites, complete with alien skimmers and various bits to prod, poke and shoot at.

And now... the bad bits
finding the sites without reference to Canonn et al , could do with hints from ram tah say "Theres rumoured to be a site within 10 ly of Hip 39543" for example
And the really bad bit is the number of blueprints you need to unlock the guardian weapons, which makes the game a very very very grindy experience (especially if your fleet need you back in the bubble for a mission ASAP)

The best change I could think of today is to change the blueprint system to you get a random blueprint from each site, but you dont know what it unlocks until you get to a guardian tech broker.
For those of us obsessed with getting everything, they can go ahead and grind away, while someone like me gets back to the bubble and finds out hes unlocked the fixed guass cannon.
not ideal... but hey we're in a war here and you make the best with the weapons you get... not the weapons you want.

Anyways thats about it for now...... I may do another guardian site today, but have to be back at Anlave by 23.00 galatic mean time for details of another mission* from the clan...

Bill

"Anlave........ damn.. still only in Anlave.. waiting for a misison....." ;)
 

Drelthar

Drelthar
William J Smith said:
And now... the bad bits
finding the sites without reference to Canonn et al , could do with hints from ram tah say "Theres rumoured to be a site within 10 ly of Hip 39543" for example
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There is literally a GalNet article, where Ram Tah himself specifically asks commanders to investige specific systems, in which there are guardian sites.

So they covered that.

But yes, the repeat the same task thing is really, really, really, really, really, really really bad.

I hope this thread gets long enough get a dev response on this. Hopefully with an explaination of the original thinking.

To me, it seems like they wanted it to take time to unlock the weapons, and prioritised that, over making it just fun and cool.

If they had gone for fun and cool, they could have sent you around various systems to different sites, to get specific blueprints for things.
 

master_xean

master_xean
Mr_sukebe said:
From what I can see of the new Guardian weapons, they require 18 weapon blueprints.
With the "fix" introduced by ED, I see that we now get a whole 1 material per run through of the Weapon Blueprint unlock.
Implications are very easy, please player, go REPEAT this section another 18 times.

I get that Elite has a degree of grind in it, after all that's how you get to Elite. But 18 more times, of the same thing.

Are you trying to say "go forth and play DCS my young padawan".
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But it it’s fun and good game to do the same trivial time consuming thing 18x though
 

galahad2069

G
Next time one of you guys get back to the tech broker dude with their guardian loot, please tell him to make a copy of that goddamn blueprint already so that other CMDRs won't have to do the same data scanning again.

Thanks in advance in the name of all mankind.
 

zarking

Z
It's a shame that these threads go beyond the initial concern/complaint and just turn into a catch all fest for anything anyone doesn't like.

Problem being, what might be a good thread with useful suggestions gets lost in a muddle of the same old moans, and it's not like there's a shortage of those threads elsewhere...

Plus, people do have a habit of only seeing "what they want", the amateur game designers on here (myself included as I'm guilty of it too) often don't consider that everything has to work for a new player picking up the game today, someone 4 years in, people who play 2 hours a week and those that play 6 hours a day, the ones that have no interest in progression and the ones that min max everything, the sim players versus the arcade players.. With all that to consider, I've a lot of sympathy for fdev when it comes to introducing new things and the difficulty of balancing it. On the upside, they are willing to change things and remove broken mechanics, some see this as a weakness (why can't they get it right first time??!!), I see it as a strength.

But hey Ho... And yeah, one scan per unlock please thank you :)
 

Enderby

E
zarking said:
It's a shame that these threads go beyond the initial concern/complaint and just turn into a catch all fest for anything anyone doesn't like.

Problem being, what might be a good thread with useful suggestions gets lost in a muddle of the same old moans, and it's not like there's a shortage of those threads elsewhere...

Plus, people do have a habit of only seeing "what they want", the amateur game designers on here (myself included as I'm guilty of it too) often don't consider that everything has to work for a new player picking up the game today, someone 4 years in, people who play 2 hours a week and those that play 6 hours a day, the ones that have no interest in progression and the ones that min max everything, the sim players versus the arcade players.. With all that to consider, I've a lot of sympathy for fdev when it comes to introducing new things and the difficulty of balancing it. On the upside, they are willing to change things and remove broken mechanics, some see this as a weakness (why can't they get it right first time??!!), I see it as a strength.

But hey Ho... And yeah, one scan per unlock please thank you :)
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Yes it's crying shame isn't it. It would have been so useful to FD. They would have really taken note and acted upon it.
 

Knightshark

Knightshark
zarking said:
It's a shame that these threads go beyond the initial concern/complaint and just turn into a catch all fest for anything anyone doesn't like.

Problem being, what might be a good thread with useful suggestions gets lost in a muddle of the same old moans, and it's not like there's a shortage of those threads elsewhere...
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What suggestions?? They design abysmal gameplay with endless boring repeating that destroys any enjoyment one may get out of the game if taken seriously. This isn't some issue to fix, this is the major issue with the key design philosophy of the game in the first place.
 
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Tikanderoga

Tikanderoga
Obsidian Ant said:
Unless I am completely mistaken, it's actually random as to whether you will get a weapon blueprint or a module blueprint on completion. That means you will need to complete it significantly more times than 18.
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Nope, it's static. some sites drop weapon, some module.

And yes, it is tedious as Frank. Find a site you get VERY familiar with, know where the nodes are, then start the grind. I've done it 12 times for the weapons, 4 times for the power plant, will have to do it a few more times for the upcoming ones. Not looking forward to it, but hey, some consider this fun. I don't like the material grind either.
 

Maka Gucci

Maka Gucci
Tikanderoga said:
Nope, it's static. some sites drop weapon, some module.

And yes, it is tedious as Frank. Find a site you get VERY familiar with, know where the nodes are, then start the grind. I've done it 12 times for the weapons, 4 times for the power plant, will have to do it a few more times for the upcoming ones. Not looking forward to it, but hey, some consider this fun. I don't like the material grind either.
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I agree, although I have yet to hear a single person call either waiting in SC for HGE's, or running the Guardian gauntlet over and over, fun. In a community so ready to be divided, that level of consensus says a lot.
 

Drelthar

Drelthar
master_xean said:
But it it’s fun and good game to do the same trivial time consuming thing 18x though
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Thing is, it's actually good! the first couple time.

18???? your nuts, just have a site for each module, with a unique lay out. Gives unique blueprint for that specific weapon, which you turn in along with all the other bits and bobs at the tech broker for the module.
 

znôrt

znôrt
Novo Mundus said:
Thing is, it's actually good! the first couple time.
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imo the thing is that it's not really that different from hunting uss, gathering mats in srv, or even killing ships and scooping up. it's all a lot of fun ... for a while. this guardian blunder just shows to what extremes of utter tardiness a developer can be pushed with ongoing user indulgence. looks like we get what we deserve. time for a new 'frontier appreciation thread' anyone?
 

andrak

andrak
znôrt said:
imo the thing is that it's not really that different from hunting uss, gathering mats in srv, or even killing ships and scooping up. it's all a lot of fun ... for a while. this guardian blunder just shows to what extremes of utter tardiness a developer can be pushed with ongoing user indulgence. looks like we get what we deserve. time for a new 'frontier appreciation thread' anyone?
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I'm sure eagleboy or shadragon will be along shortly to try and drown out legitimate criticism with another "I love frontier" thread. It's overdue actually.
 

Afterglow [SecB]

Afterglow [SecB]
In this "Guardian procedure" I get the idea, FD is very important to keep the sense of achievement as small as possible and to expand idiotic logging in and out. Sad
 
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