The "problem" with the current Thargoid attack gameplay

[wstephenson]

I'm sorry to say Dominic, but in-game information is awful. Very much awful.
GalNet got pushed to the background on the station information screen, I think in the 2.0 UI redesign - it is a tiny box to click on compared to how it was originally... if the player even realises it's something that they should click on...
And in GalNet, well stories are drowned out by all the powerplay auto-generated stuff that, let's be honest, most players have zero interest in and largely because items such as systems in certain states have likely changed again by the time you read the story ... AND there's no link from the story to the galaxy chart anyway so you have to remember/jot it down and search to find it ... AND anyway 99% of the time who cares about the 6 systems or so mentioned out of the whole bubble/galaxy?
GalNet needs a major rethink. As does the CG UI for that matter

Here's how I'd do it:

• Make a GalNet button the entry point to the full-fat modal Galnet/Powerplay/Powers UI in the left hand UI panel, not Galactic Powers - Galnet is more central to the game than Powerplay.
• Fill the full-fat Galnet with background information and lore as well as news, like the Frontier Elite II Gazetteer
• Highlight the UI button when there are new articles.
• Merge the Inbox and a list of Galnet article headers into a filterable feed of persistent messages in the left hand cockpit UI. This has more space than the top left comms UI.
• Have a map button in any messages with a location reference that opens the Galaxy Map or System Map at that location
• Use the top left comms UI only for managing ephemeral state, eg comm messages, wings and multicrew
• Show new message events in the top right log view eg 'New GalNet article received'
• Push more easily-gleaned local state information (Civil War, when did it begin? Powerplay changes? Station Lockdowns/UA bombings shortly after arriving in a system as inbox messages as suggested earlier.

(My credentials: The Kopete instant messenger's contact list and chat window back in the day, bits of KMail's message header list, some work on feed readers, among other things)

Problem with this is that not everyone checks his inbox, and we are back on square one.

These people are beyond help.

The problem is one of visibility. GalNet is tucked away under "Galactic Powers" on the Nav Menu, which is hardly intuitive. Secondly, there really isn't any incentive for people to go check GalNet out (aside from wanting to read the news of course). Here's some suggestions:

I think these are a start, but the cockpit UI could really do with a deeper redesign that reflects what people do in the game. Right now, it's a bunch of features squeezed in on top of the overall design we have since Beta, which was informed by the game's alpha pew pew moment to moment gameplay target, not all the dynamic content and varied gameplay that has come in since.

As Frontier discovered during development, more than half of the game is on the server, and the frontend should expose and leverage all this data. But I feel for the UI devs, they have to implement actual working messaging/nav/trading applications inside the game!

Why couldn't each station have...

- a FINITE amount of people to rescue
- A time limit before they all die (suffocation, fire, reactor overload, radiation, boredom)

Just properly destroy a couple of moderately-important stations completely up front, to get our attention, and leave burnt-out wreckage in orbit.

 

[GreyAreaUK]

Just properly destroy a couple of moderately-important stations completely up front, to get our attention, and leave burnt-out wreckage in orbit.

President's End.

#XUniverse

 

[Jex =TE=]

Contrary to what we continually see in ED, there are ways to economize on development time/content in creative ways as to not make it look so blatantly obvious that you are reusing the same assets over and over again.

Heck! They can't even randomize the Thargoid Green Goo patterns on stations and capital ships to not be obvious copy and pastes of the pattern all around the one you are looking at!

Its a real head scratcher to say the least. I could not see myself or anyone I know who is involved in the creative arts being okay with calling something like that acceptable. Yet these guys do that kind of stuff constantly.

Considering the amount of RNG and PG in the game, it seems odd they can't transfer that to station designs and damage outputs.

 

[Jex =TE=]

Because they aren't green goo patterns, they are actual burns on surface of station and 3D model accompanies that. Share to show techniques of 3D model changes and damage states on the fly, without creating tons of handcrafted assets? I am all ears.

You really can't think of any way of doing that?

 

[Whitehair]

You really can't think of any way of doing that?

Can you?

 

[sollisb]

I may be just spiffballing here, but I'd imagine, that if such a thing were in any way real, and weapons had been developed to beat the threat, that all stations would have said weapons equipped ASAP...

However in this galactically stupid narrative, the aliens only live in little spots in space, and only come out to play/attack when there is absolutely no-one around to fight them, and only attack defenseless stations.

Thargoids.. LulZ

 

[Jex =TE=]

Hi there,

If I may; how should Beyond address this in your opinion?

I'd personally honestly like to know, because I keep seeing people declaring that nothing in game ever says anything about story (To perhaps draw a slight straw man, "Hey FDev, if I weren't on Reddit or watching Obsidian Ant's awesome series of videos, I would never know this had happened") but it's often detailed in GalNet (I will concede sometimes not until shortly after the event, but normally not long).

This obviously points to an issue whereby vast numbers of people aren't reading GalNet for whatever reason (which perhaps will be improved by already planned Beyond features such as GalNet Audio).

I have had very little to do with GalNet myself, past hooking up API calls which separated the Local and Global news bulletins into their respective UI screens way back in 1.3 and can offer no etas or guarantees of any of what you ask for actually being implemented, but I'd be interested to know.

Thanks,
Dom

Hey Dom,

Have you played the game for the last 6 months and read every Galnet article that comes out? I'm asking because I don't think until you've done that, you'd understand why (or maybe you're one of the few who love reading them lol!)

 

[Jex =TE=]

Not at all. I'm all for more 'live' activities. But Frontier is trying to do what they've been repeatedly asked to do. Give people a reason and purpose for mechanics. They are being shouted down, and will probably stop doing that, if there's no development value in it.

We know, how that works. Something with limited interest, decays. In the rush to pile on Frontier with the latest imagined slight, folks haven't really thought about how that might affect developer motivation (or really anything at all, to be fair).

So it's the players fault they find it boring?

 

[CMDR Carbo]

Hi there,

If I may; how should Beyond address this in your opinion?

I'd personally honestly like to know, because I keep seeing people declaring that nothing in game ever says anything about story (To perhaps draw a slight straw man, "Hey FDev, if I weren't on Reddit or watching Obsidian Ant's awesome series of videos, I would never know this had happened") but it's often detailed in GalNet (I will concede sometimes not until shortly after the event, but normally not long).

This obviously points to an issue whereby vast numbers of people aren't reading GalNet for whatever reason (which perhaps will be improved by already planned Beyond features such as GalNet Audio).

I have had very little to do with GalNet myself, past hooking up API calls which separated the Local and Global news bulletins into their respective UI screens way back in 1.3 and can offer no etas or guarantees of any of what you ask for actually being implemented, but I'd be interested to know.

Thanks,
Dom

Hi Dom.

I know this is a bit a late reply, but hadn't seen your question until now.
I think the main problem with GalNet is that it is confusing and unclear.

There is a standard written form of news publishing that developed over the years, it's called a newspaper.
A newspaper is structured in a way, that I see already from far in the kiosk the headlines of the most important happenings of the day in big letters on the title page.
No searching through the whole paper for the important news of the day, between stock reports and sport results. It's right there on the title page.

I have to admit, I never read GalNet. That is until started using EDDI. Do you know EDDI?
Among other text-to-speech functions it reads me the IMPORTANT GalNet articles when I start it and log into the game.
With emphasis of the news that I need to know, skipping all the stuff that is unimportant.
That tool is irreplaceable for me.

 

[Jex =TE=]

That's actually a good point...I've only done a couple of the rescue locations, but in both cases there was just the station, there were no burnt-out Vipers outside.

I already knew the answer though I've never been to one. So the story doesn't even make sense to begin with. For some reason, every station has security patrols and ships landing every minute and yet when the Goids come, there's not a ship to be seen.

These must be really back water places that see a ship dock once every 3 weeks?

 

[GreyAreaUK]

I already knew the answer though I've never been to one. So the story doesn't even make sense to begin with. For some reason, every station has security patrols and ships landing every minute and yet when the Goids come, there's not a ship to be seen.

These must be really back water places that see a ship dock once every 3 weeks?

I suppose it could be argued that there's been some cleanup of external wreckage so as to facilitate rescue efforts, but that wouldn't answer why there's still wreckage inside the station where it's more of a hazard.

So yeah, a few wrecks would definitely add some colour. Heck, I'd add a couple of burnt out Pythons and Sideys inside​ the station.

 

[Jex =TE=]

Can you?

Yes.

 

[Whitehair]

Yes.

I see you can talk the talk at least.

 

[lecorsobreton]

Hi there,

If I may; how should Beyond address this in your opinion?

I'd personally honestly like to know, because I keep seeing people declaring that nothing in game ever says anything about story (To perhaps draw a slight straw man, "Hey FDev, if I weren't on Reddit or watching Obsidian Ant's awesome series of videos, I would never know this had happened") but it's often detailed in GalNet (I will concede sometimes not until shortly after the event, but normally not long).

This obviously points to an issue whereby vast numbers of people aren't reading GalNet for whatever reason (which perhaps will be improved by already planned Beyond features such as GalNet Audio).

I have had very little to do with GalNet myself, past hooking up API calls which separated the Local and Global news bulletins into their respective UI screens way back in 1.3 and can offer no etas or guarantees of any of what you ask for actually being implemented, but I'd be interested to know.

Thanks,
Dom

To, the problem is that GalNet is only accessible if you're docked somewhere. Being able to access GalNet from anywhere and nowhere would be a good start.

 

[GreyAreaUK]

Yes.

If we ignore actual deformation of the hull (ie, physical damage) and leave it at just colourisation, then our ships' hulls can already have colour changes applied - paintjobs and decals. So it's certainly doable to have Thargoid green goo applied. I have no idea how much additional coding would be required, though, as it would have to be an additional layer on top of the existing one (hull+paintjob+decal+goo), plus it would need a certain amount of randomness in appearance, I think.


This is weird, we're agreeing on stuff..!

 

[Wobblin-Gobblin]

Sorry, but where in GalNet?

Nothing mentioned about the latest two attacks on these stations.....

Maybe I am blind

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

To, the problem is that GalNet is only accessible if you're docked somewhere. Being able to access GalNet from anywhere and nowhere would be a good start.

You can access the main galnet anywhere, it's in the powerplay section for some unknown reason.

 

[Wobblin-Gobblin]

You can access the main galnet anywhere, it's in the powerplay section for some unknown reason.

Yes, but where is the article about these attacks? The last two ones never mentioned in GalNet.....[mad]

 

[mpfj]

If I may; how should Beyond address this in your opinion?

It's been suggested in the past that a GalNet "video" could be shown when you first log in (where the spinning Coriolis station is currently shown).

Since major in-game events usually require some server downtime, everyone would have have to see at least some of that "news video", so no-one could complain about not being informed.

Or even just some sort of "breaking news" feed at the login screen ?

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Yes, but where is the article about these attacks? The last two ones never mentioned in GalNet.....[mad]

I don't know. Maybe it will come out a few days later as the news spreads. Also I am not in-game so can't really comment. I was just replying to the person that thought galnet was only available in stations, but that is local galnet, not galactic galnet.