Should Jump Range Be Used As A Balancing Factor?

[Scoopy Doopy]

Again with the strawmen. A new one every page it seems.

What is it, you want less people to play the game, hmm? Certainly this is good for the game's future.

And besides, it's not as if this would take anything away from you. You can still use the Economical Routes plotter and travel as slowly as you like.

I recommend that if you intend to become combative, it would serve you well to read all posts before aiming your rapier like reasoning in any particular direction.

Or maybe you did read all the posts but need it simpler. I can summarise for you if it helps.

1) I believe the arguments for a jump buff are not well formed but instead are weak reasoning to justify moulding the game to a minority intepretation of what it is.
2) I believe the argument that goes "what about people with limited time" while needing to be taken into account, should not become a deciding factor in decisions
3) I personally have no objection in a fully kitted FDL having an 18 LY jump range, hell 30 is good. I don't care
4) I believe that whatever value the FDL jump range is, it will not solve the perceived problem until the FDL is not the combat ship de jour
5) You didn't read this far

Is that OK?

 

[djadjok]

Again with the strawmen. A new one every page it seems.

What is it, you want less people to play the game, hmm? Certainly this is good for the game's future.

And besides, it's not as if this would take anything away from you. You can still use the Economical Routes plotter and travel as slowly as you like.

Mind blowing.
yes, with this you take some very important thing from this game that you may be not at all aware of. If you want - go use some available unlimited jump range cheats. And be banished.

 

[Scoopy Doopy]

Well if you want to know why nobody complained about jump ranges initially its because *gasp* only the T9 had a bad one that was complained about, probably in proportion to the number of people who actually owned one (so not many). It was generally accepted that due to its jump being so bad the anaconda invalidated it in every way and we all moved on. Its different with popular ships.

Its also really not an argument to say "but then they'd complain more" they always complain, everyone always complains all the time its either a good idea or its not. For example at the moment the jump ranges that are ~ 13 are stupidly low it is easy to make a credible argument about this being bad design.

It isn't easy to make the same statement if the lowest ship was 20, because many ships sit in that general area and it wouldn't feel like a punishment attributed to a ship, it also wouldn't be anyway near an explorer it would just be slightly faster at moving round for general activities. It goes from being a relatively strong argument to a very weak one and FD have no issue ignoring the strongest arguments already lol.

While I understand what you are saying, the point is that the jump range isn't 13LY. It's only 13LY if you build your ship that way. That's the whole point of the balances thing. It boils down to what this game is. Is it a glorified "Arena" or is it a "life in a galaxy" game and perhaps the fact that FD do not come down firmly on one side or the other is an issue. I really don't care what range you have on your ship. I am asking you to care.

 

[freedom4556]

I am not combative, and have the very first response to OP in this thread. Have read the whole thing. Comparing a slight buff to effectively infinite range is a strawman argument, and several different people have done it thus far. You are just the latest.
FDev are likely to do nothing, so it really doesn't matter.

 

[BurnyBurns]

FDev are likely to do nothing, so it really doesn't matter.

Thankfully, Frontier are more critical of their game than some of the stalwart defenders in this forum.

...

On the other hand, we're certainly not finished with super cruise. There's clearly room for improvement, and I'm really happy that this game has continuing ongoing development, so we can make stuff better and better!

We definitely want to add a micro jump between stars within a system (not only does this fit in with the context of how the frame shift drive uses large bodies for navigation, it also helps significantly with those systems where you currently arrive around the "wrong" star, where civilisation has set up camp around a different star in the system).

...

Back then, micro jumps were apparently considered an improvement. This doesn't touch the balance of the current jump ranges, but shows that also Frontier doesn't necessarily consider flying in a straight line for half an hour on end the best design it can be or absolutely mandatory for player immersion. It may be similar for other convenience issues.

Only, micro jumps aren't in the game, yet. Maybe their stance has changed (seems unlikely that the sentiment has, although that statement dates pretty far back and other design constraints might play into it) or maybe they're just not a priority at the moment, despite potential hints.


Anyway, I consider any complains about Elite Dangerous wasting its player's time, very, very valid. The game is certainly guilty of that. It's not just the jump-marathons in certain ship configurations, but also the donation grind and RNG RES spawn tables, as well as the abomination that is the random USS generation for missions (hopefully to be largely banished from this earth by the time 2.1 arrives).

But anybody complaining about those must be playing the wrong game, am I right? Why don't they go and play NMS, Star Citizen, Eve or CQC? They aren't intelligent people, so we have to tell them the error of their ways to get rid of them complaining about all the things mandatory to our precious immersion!

Yes. I am a cynical ass.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

The main thing, and pretty much only thing actually that bugs me about mega long hyperspace travel, is the fact that you're only required to press 3 buttons to continue, for around 5-10 seconds,
Roll, Pitch, Activate FSD.
The other 50~ seconds, you do nothing but stare.

Yet, if you even so much as mention an autopilot, people chase you down with ptichforks and burn you at the stake, while claiming "if you don't want to play, then don't! Boo hoo!", while forgetting the fact that on any journeys, you're only "playing" for 10 out of 60 Seconds per jump.... Lol
Bump up the scale for long distance, and for every 60 minutes of play time, you're only actually playing for 10 minutes.
That's 50 minutes of time not doing anything in game.

And so by my dodgey logic, using jump range as a balance actually prevents people from playing, or should I say, interacting, with the game as much as they would like, during their allocated game time.

Of course loading times are mandatory, and if you're on an epic voyage to beagle point, you're still gonna waste a heck of a load time staring at hyperspace. But that's really your own choice.
But If you want to go to the next CG, you shouldn't be wasting 83.3% of your time looking at hyperspace, any more than necessary.
So by gimping jump ranges below comfortable range, FD have gone and created a beautiful bubble, in which not many people are willing travel through in certain ships.

 

[mistohise]

Cosmicspacehead makes some fairly valid points.
The jump range thing is a bit limiting. I think that perhaps it wouldn't be QUITE so limiting if we could request ships to be moved to our current location. Heck, I wouldn't even expect such deliveries to be instant, they could take an amount of in-game time proportional to how far away they are, but the point is that my having to [personally] travel 100s of light years in a taxi ship [that I have to buy] to collect ship Z and then travel 100s of light years back to the location where I want to use ship Z is nothing more than a time sink.

Take the current community goal. I would have taken a much fuller part in the Bounty Hunting goal, had I been able to request that my FAS be delivered to a local station whilst I got on with other things. This needs to be added in, it's just daft that you can't currently do it.

A suggested mechanic would be that you call for a ship delivery from the shipyard, and the game figures out how long it would take a delivery pilot to head off over to where the ship is, collect it, and fly back. That's how much in-game time you have to wait until it's available. Meanwhile, you can carry on doing whatever. There would likely be a nominal charge for delivery. There could even be differing charges depending on what condition you want the ship to arrive in, which could drive whether the ship is transported, escorted, or flown by some mad man smuggling slaves.

 

[djadjok]

Of course loading times are mandatory, and if you're on an epic voyage to beagle point, you're still gonna waste a heck of a load time staring at hyperspace. But that's really your own choice.

Interesting argument. But flying in a ship with a tiny jump range is also really your own choice. As I've said I hope that with introducing of the possibility to recall your ship to a given system most of somewhere understandable complains will be negated.

 

[djadjok]

The main thing, and pretty much only thing actually that bugs me about mega long hyperspace travel, is the fact that you're only required to press 3 buttons to continue, for around 5-10 seconds,
Roll, Pitch, Activate FSD.
The other 50~ seconds, you do nothing but stare.

Yep, understandable. But it means more that there is a need to introduce some more content you can be occupied with during the jump procedure rather than re-balancing/reducing the number of jumps. May be an introduction of the possibility to walk in you own ship can be a starting point of that content.

 

[BurnyBurns]

Yep, understandable. But it means more that there is a need to introduce some more content you can be occupied with during the jump procedure rather than re-balancing/reducing the number of jumps. May be an introduction of the possibility to walk in you own ship can be a starting point of that content.

More content during jumps is going to make the key issue people with limited tim have even worse: The time to meet up somewhere/get somewhere. Not. Better.

For explorers though, exploring being an activity which is largely about jumping around, more such content would be appreciated. So yes, add such things, but also make them optional and also reconsider how travelling the bubble can be made enjoyable with reasonable time requirements for all ships. Not just the "works for my ship" explorer and smuggler faction.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Interesting argument. But flying in a ship with a tiny jump range is also really your own choice.

I understand the choice is mine to fly my fully combat fitted FDL 300ly, and take an hour lol, but what is not my choice is that even if I strip it for travel, and cut the time down to around 35 minutes, o still have to then spend the equal or more time refitting it at the other end. Which saves you zero time over all. This means that FD have given you no good option, but to choose a different ship.
Ship delivery would be an extremely useful tool though. No arguments there!

Yep, understandable. But it means more that there is a need to introduce some more content you can be occupied with during the jump procedure rather than re-balancing/reducing the number of jumps. May be an introduction of the possibility to walk in you own ship can be a starting point of that content.

I'd love stuff I can do while hyperspacing. But the main issue is while you're spending 50 minutes per hour doing nothing(on long trips), 50 seconds per minute is not alot of time to do anything either. Even if I come on this forum while traveling, I still can't get much done. And if I decided to walk to the back end of my Anaconda for something to do while jumping, it'll just mean I have to walk for less than 25 seconds, and back again. Lol

I'm not saying I don't want to run around my ship like a loon in hyperspace though. Because I will. Lol

If we had an autopilot, on long journeys, you could stare out of your observation deck, read galnet, tamper with things. Jump out the air lock, etc. Or even go to your VR suite and join in CQC/FPS equivalent.
The up side is you get to do something else in game while traveling, the down side being you can't scan anything or honk(if you're away from the bridge), and your ship may or may not get stuck in a binary star system and explode/and or crash in to a neutron star.

Imagine being at the back end of the ship when you hear alarms going off because your autopilot couldn't cope with the binary/Trinary system, and is now on fire!
And you 'autopilot nay sayers' say it takes away from the game!

Tut tut!

 

[djadjok]

More content during jumps is going to make the key issue people with limited tim have even worse: The time to meet up somewhere/get somewhere. Not. Better.

For explorers though, exploring being an activity which is largely about jumping around, more such content would be appreciated. So yes, add such things, but also make them optional and also reconsider how travelling the bubble can be made enjoyable with reasonable time requirements for all ships. Not just the "works for my ship" explorer and smuggler faction.

My answer about this possible new content was to all who complains that there is nothing to do during all those jumps. "we are in a hurry" is absolutely other category.
Also, if you have the right to judge like this the activity of "explorers" and "smugglers" than I have the same right to judge yours - I can assume "fighting" - activity. And you know, as with all that simplification you try to introduce here I can say that all that "pew-pew" activity have nothing in common with FSD drive at all. You don't need it. Sit there around stations or nav beacons and be happy. Topic closed=)
For people that are "in a hurry" - I think it was already discussed, but:
1) Don't want to be rude, and this is only one of options that was surely here for a long time, but it must be pronounced - if you have so limited time then there is an option to reconsider if ED is really the game to play in this conditions?
2) Looks not better then above, but you have CQC as a part of this game - no need to travel at all.
3) If you (intentionally or not) limit the time you can play then it's only natural that your in-game activities/play style options will be also limited.
3a) Choose an activity that doesn't require many (or not at all) "time-consuming" jumps. Stick to one - "home" - system. Call up to your friends to join you there. Don't travel too far. Be the king(s) of the mountain.
We all aware - with modern communications you can actually video-chat with a person on the other continent. But there is no way this person can travel instantly to your place - same as it is somewhere light-years away. And your friend ARE light-years away in-game.
3b) You need to travel far away for a CG event? You want to be a king in some other system? Hope that with the ability to recall you fleet this problem will be also resolved. Take a taxi or - if it will be introduced - hi-speed passager transport - travel to destination, recall your fleet.
More of your complains looks like:
You are in an american style huge comfortable car just at the beginning of a traffic jam driving, say, to your work office. You are in a hurry. And you see your neighbor on a junkie scooter traveling fast between cars in the same direction. Your options?
1) you can strike/destroy this rusty bike with your huge car if it will be as careless as to pass in proximity - just for some "lol's" (be honest, this is really the first option for more then many=)). Aside, this act will not advance you by any silly meter to your destination.
2) you can reconsider and buy yourself a bike/scooter next time. Travel faster to your office, and in the nearest - I hope - future with the option to hire a driver that will deliver you car to the doors of your office (and all traffic jams will be it's own business)
3) you can take your work to your home - no need to drive away anymore. Or buy/rent an appartement near your office (may be with your friends) with the same result.
4) possibly abusing option (1) without any forward advance start to complain on the forums that you want to have a possibility while sitting in your huge comfortable car of an insta-jump to your work office (or at least as fast as your neighbor and he managed to evade your last strike, and it's not honest, yes-yes). Looks like this the most preferred option. And that's all about it.

 

[Lestenio]

Yet, if you even so much as mention an autopilot, people chase you down with ptichforks and burn you at the stake, while claiming "if you don't want to play, then don't! Boo hoo!", while forgetting the fact that on any journeys, you're only "playing" for 10 out of 60 Seconds per jump.... Lol

I agree but rather than having auto pilot, which would just make the experience even more dull, I’d rather see hyperspace developed.
Eg, instead of watching the jump, you actually had to do something like keep the ship aligned. Failing to do that adds wear to the ship. Not instant destruction wear but damage over time.
Or, speed up jumps in the bubble. Add some law around nav beacons providing a means for the FSD to lock on to a destination more effectively or something similar. Explorers could then buy nav beacons/take missions to scatter them throughout the galaxy to make travel quicker and expand human space.


Personally I find the limited jump range on some ships just too limiting. I get the balance thing, but if I get home from work Friday, see there is a community goal 300y from my FDLs location, I look a the galaxy map and think ‘nah, I’ll stick with a RES”.

 

[BurnyBurns]

1) Don't want to be rude, and this is only one of options that was surely here for a long time, but it must be pronounced - if you have so limited time then there is an option to reconsider if ED is really the game to play in this conditions?
2) Looks not better then above, but you have CQC as a part of this game - no need to travel at all.
3) If you (intentionally or not) limit the time you can play then it's only natural that your in-game activities/play style options will be also limited.
3a) Choose an activity that doesn't require many (or not at all) "time-consuming" jumps. Stick to one - "home" - system. Call up to your friends to join you there. Don't travel too far. Be the king(s) of the mountain.
We all aware - with modern communications you can actually video-chat with a person on the other continent. But there is no way this person can travel instantly to your place - same as it is somewhere light-years away. And your friend ARE light-years away in-game.
3b) You need to travel far away for a CG event? You want to be a king in some other system? Hope that with the ability to recall you fleet this problem will be also resolved. Take a taxi or - if it will be introduced - hi-speed passager transport - travel to destination, recall your fleet.


More of your complains looks like:
You are in an american style huge comfortable car just at the beginning of a traffic jam driving, say, to your work office. You are in a hurry. And you see your neighbor on a junkie scooter traveling fast between cars in the same direction. Your options? ...

1 & 2) Then don't be rude: Stop suggesting people ought to play other games. They've paid more or less the same amount for Elite as you and have the same right to assess the game's balance and design.

3a) "Play your way - 400 billion star systems. Infinite freedom." => "Unless you're a combat player, then be good, stick to your system and farm your RES. Otherwise we'll punish you for chosing that path by wasting your time more than if you had other paths." This directly flies in the face of the game's own claim.

3b) Another argument/"Solution" I've heard before. And I'm as unimpressed as I was the last time. Why do you people suggest mechanics for avoiding playing the game as fix for the issues people are faced with while actively playing the game? It's the issues' root that ought to be tackled.


As for the other points below. This is a game that claims it's about a player's freedom to chose their own path. Being a game and not our second or mabye third job, it's time it started to value the time its players invest into it a bit more. That goes for sleep inducing jump marathons of combat ships in the bubble, it goes for explorers having to sell thousands of pages worth of exploration data page by page for hours on end without a batch-sell option, it goes for having to sit in a station, mode jumping and donating for hours on end for rank upgrades instead of making regular missions effective at ranking up, it goes for some RNG deciding whether or not you find your mission goal as well as for RNG deciding whether the spawning ships in RES waste your time or are worth a damn.

So, if the path you chose requires you to use a vehicle with specific capabilities, the game damn well ought to remember it's a game and not punish you for chosing that path by minimizing your time spend participating in the core activity of said path. The "path" btw, isn't how you get to work, but what you do there. I think we all spend enough time getting to work and working outside of the game and I don't think combat players should be required to spend as much time "getting there" in the game, as they do IRL. Nor anybody else moving through the inhabited bubble btw..

I've also heard the "works for my ship (and you're free to take the same ship if it isn't working for yours!)" rethoric of your travel analogy a lot before when it comes to time spend marathon jumping through the bubble. It's as condescending and unhelpful as ever.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

I don't really get the "if you don't have time to play, then don't" argument.
Skyrim took me 1000s of hours to play through(I got distracted alot), even with limited game time. Yet there is no part of that game that intentionally forces you to waste time (except bugs, and rubbish quests. Lol).
I still played it. And even with limited time, I will play ED.
And I'm very patient, so travel isn't that much of a huge game ending issue for me, but for others, It is. And many people voice their frustrations over travel times.
It's not something FD should ignore, because less players, and a bad name is the last thing they want as a company.

CQC isn't ED. It's just Space CoD. And rubbish(sorry FD) lol
And besides, I don't play just to 'pew pew' everything in sight.

Choosing a home system is a good start if you like to meet up, but CGs are often no where near where you are, due to the size of the bubble.

Using a traffic jam isnt exactly relevant BTW.
There is no real world equivalent to hyperspace.

One thought I had, is FSD class, size and ship mass effect jump range, but why not supercruise acceleration/deceleration?

A much better FSD balancing mechanic would be for lighter ships to accelerate and decelerate quicker, while heavier ships are much slower. On the flip side, lighter/smaller ships are effected by gravity wells more than larger/heavier ships that can plough through them with ease.
Kinda like headwinds on a motorway (freeway),
Your little 1.0l Fiat Panda will out accelerate an 18 ton lorry(semi), and stop quicker. But the headwinds (gravity wells) may prevent your little Fiat Panda from ever reaching 70mph, but the lorry will.

Food for thought!

 

[Eymerich]

1 & 2) Then don't be rude: Stop suggesting people ought to play other games. They've paid more or less the same amount for Elite as you and have the same right to access the game and it's balance and design.

3a) "Play your way - 400 billion star systems. Infinite freedom." => "Unless you're a combat player, then be good, stick to your system and farm your RES. Otherwise we'll punish you for chosing that path by wasting your time more than if you had other paths." This directly flies in the face of the game's own claim.

3b) Another argument/"Solution" I've heard before. And I'm as unimpressed as I was the last time. Why do you people suggest mechanics that allow you to avoiding the game's issues by not actively playing the game as a fix for circumventing the issues? It's the issues' root that ought to be tackled.


As for the other points below. This is a game that claims it's about a player's freedom to chose their own path. It's time it started to value the time its players invest into it a bit more. That goes for sleep inducing jump marathons of combat ships in the bubble, it goes for explorers having to sell thousands of pages worth of exploration data page by page for hours on end without a batch-sell option, it goes for having to sit in a station, mode jumping and donating for hours on end for rank upgrades instead of making regular missions effective at ranking up, it goes for some RNG deciding whether or not you find your mission goal as well as for RNG deciding whether the spawning ships in RES waste your time or are worth a damn.

So, if the path you chose requires you to use a vehicle with specific capabilities, the game damn well ought to remember it's a game and not punish you for chosing that path by minimizing your time spend participating in the core activity of said path. The "path" btw, isn't how you get to work, but what you do there. I think we all spend enough time getting to work and working outside of the game and I don't think combat players should be required to spend as much time "getting there" in the game, as they do IRL. Nor anybody else moving through the inhabited bubble btw..

I've also heard the "works for my ship (and you're free to take the same ship if it isn't working for yours!)" rethoric of your travel analogy a lot before when it comes to time spend marathon jumping through the bubble. It's as condescending and unhelpful as ever.

Definitly good points here. Reputation well deserved.

 

[SpitTheDog]

Yes. Next question?

 

[Scoopy Doopy]

The main thing, and pretty much only thing actually that bugs me about mega long hyperspace travel, is the fact that you're only required to press 3 buttons to continue, for around 5-10 seconds,
Roll, Pitch, Activate FSD.
The other 50~ seconds, you do nothing but stare.

Yet, if you even so much as mention an autopilot, people chase you down with ptichforks and burn you at the stake, while claiming "if you don't want to play, then don't! Boo hoo!", while forgetting the fact that on any journeys, you're only "playing" for 10 out of 60 Seconds per jump.... Lol
Bump up the scale for long distance, and for every 60 minutes of play time, you're only actually playing for 10 minutes.
That's 50 minutes of time not doing anything in game.

And so by my dodgey logic, using jump range as a balance actually prevents people from playing, or should I say, interacting, with the game as much as they would like, during their allocated game time.

Of course loading times are mandatory, and if you're on an epic voyage to beagle point, you're still gonna waste a heck of a load time staring at hyperspace. But that's really your own choice.
But If you want to go to the next CG, you shouldn't be wasting 83.3% of your time looking at hyperspace, any more than necessary.
So by gimping jump ranges below comfortable range, FD have gone and created a beautiful bubble, in which not many people are willing travel through in certain ships.

This seems a valid point to me. You are sitting looking at "charging" graphic and a countdown timer when you could be doing something although I think any particular thing might be irritating after a while. I also fully support the "send my ship here" idea though perhaps with the caveat that there ought to be limits such that you can't say "send my ship to Sag A*" and you must have be in another ship or off line for the duration.

 

[freedom4556]

Ship delivery is a good idea on its own merits (especially for those of us who have accumulated a large fleet). It definitely needs associated costs and potentially cooldowns.

However, I submit that there is little difference between giving everything 30ly range and letting players jump to a destination in a 30 ly taxi hauler and then letting them recall their 11 ly Corvette to their current position.

 

[jmp470]

Again, make the minimum jump range 25LY, then scale it up from there. Thus, the fuel tank becomes the rate limiting step. Combat focused ship would still have to plan out their jumps, due to stars and explorer type vessels would have a larger range and not be affected as much.

The game dynamics would not change from today, only less time would be required moving from point A-B.

There red would not be a negative effect for any of the roles being played in game.


Also, there are several ways to do this and add it to the game lore!