The Rock Rats got unemployed ?!

[Baroness Galaxy]

May I suggest that "Rock Rats Unemployed ?!" as a message is less constructive (and consequently less powerful) than "Prospecting system suggestions - We understand why you do what you are going to do, this is how it affects us, here are some suggestions to improve" will go further?

This is how you should indeed read this post

Dear Frontier,
Dear David & Michael,
Dear Product Managers,
Dear Dear Ed,

Please read what you tell us in newsletter 130:

In order to continue to address the feedback raised regarding both the grind and RNG nature of The Engineers we’re going to making the following changes;

- We will be adjusting the way the surface scanner works to allow you to see what materials are available from any given planet. This should make locating materials far easier.
- In addition we are making a number of changes to the lowest level blueprints. This includes improving the positive effects of low level upgrade results as well as reducing the cost and simplifying the materials needed.
- We’re also increasing the number of units you get for each instance of a material you find. This means instead of getting one unit of a material, you will get multiple units of that material. This will allow you to increase the number of attempts at each Engineer.
- We’ll be increasing the number of materials spawned when surface mining. Again, to make the process easier and the materials easier to gather.
- The likelihood of finding rare materials in these instances will also be increased, meaning it will be easier to use higher level blueprints.
- And we will be reviewing the balance and locations of non-planet salvage and reviewing the possible USS locations for each material

Source newsletter 130: http:// /3F35-97F8-7132ZABOD0/cr.aspx

You have been following on the expedition right ? If not, please take a look at how the DW showed the need for the rock rats when they hosted a Q&A on january 30th 2016: https://www.twitch.tv/blackneto/v/38776487. And if not, please read the newsletters from the DW at https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/226066-Distant-Worlds-Newsletters. And if not, please read the book that was published: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D09YsRnq-gc.

You might realise why the above italic text can be quite the slap in the face to a rock rat now.
Why ? Since you made it possible by a simple scan to replace the whole meta-game of that community group and you might have even removed our hope to take the prospection profession more seriously.

The real critique here is the simplicity of the solution.

So make no mistake, this is not a biased opinion piece, we were the ones asking for more game support in knowing about materials.
So we will come up with a list of proposals from our side that are more creative and positive so that there is still a reduction of time investment and still the rock rat meta game.

I will update this thread with constructive ideas given:

These changes, by themselves, do not keep the Rock Rat's employed... but I'll tell you what does. "Survey" Tags. Not to replace the "First Discovered" by, but something in addition to indicate who, after looking over the Planetary surface map, actually went down to the planet surface... found the 3-2-1 and Turned This Information In @ Universal Cartographics! <ostensibly for a bit of a Paycheck ). Once a survey was complete, the Planetary Map would be updated and the concentrations of the specific materials would make a pretty, color coded material map overlay. Those NOT wanting to go though all the trouble... "buy it" just like system data. So they can see where to go ON the Planet to find what they are looking for.

I think the process to find elements could be sped up without removing this gameplay: The SRV scanner (secondary fire button) currently does nothing on the surface rocks we encounter. You could change this to let us discover a planet's material composition by scanning a number of rocks on a planet's surface, say 3-5. After scanning a few of them, it would then show the planet's full composition whenever you have a surface rock targeted and if desired, increase the chance of the more rare materials from mesosiderites, metallic outcrops and metallic meteorites. If persistent data storage of prospecting results per player are a problem this could be left as a temporary thing, the prospecting results and increased drops only applying as long as the player remains within the planet's sphere of influence or until they end their game session.

I'd much rather see new types of SRVs or dedicated ship modules implemented, that would fit the role much better.
The increase in drop rate of rare materials alone seems justified and wouldn't really disturb the Rock Rat's gameplay, but the ability to negate most of the effort on the surface by a simple scan on top is an overreaction into the other direction.

The Engineers update came causing a lot of criticism due to the RNG grinding aspect.
That doesn't mean you solve it by applying software updates that are this simplistic.

There are beta's to try things out, and if not possible, try to take this feedback at heart.

Meanwhile I ask everyone to promote this shoutout.
Also we do not want any histeria, we simply ask for a rational feedback system that leads to understanding why this happened and how we can improve this change.

Thank you,
CMDR Baroness Galaxy
Rock Rat

 

[Kenneth McGrew]

Sounds like a great idea from the developers, I appreciate all the rock rats work but I'm just a simpleton casual player if I can scan a planet and find out .... Thank you fd thank you &#55357;&#56842;


and more materials and less required for upgrades great! Sunds awesome

 

[newman1702]

Being able to use a DSS to tell you what materials on the planet are is a very welcome change, and it doesn't exactly make the rock rats work futile - you can look up a polonium world rather than fly around randomly scanning for one...

 

[Demonseed]

Dunno how I feel about that. I never saw nor considered "prospecting" a profession, more of just a skill in a miner's toolbox. If the new surface scanner has any "percentages" with them, then groups like the Rock Rats can focus on finding rocks with the highest percentages of rare materials.

Still, the Rock Rats are a fine example of emergent playstyle that this change will severely affect. And from having played countless games over the last 35 years, you never want to discourage or program-out emergent gameplay.

In the best-case, I'd encourage Frontier to create a whole new ship's module.... something around size-3 in size that requires you to be in Orbital Flight to use... but it's purpose is to provide a detailed percentage breakdown of elements found on a planet. Maybe as you start scanning, it gets the common elements and starts adjusting their percentages the longer you scan... eventually adding in the uncommon ones and rarer ones. A complete scan after an orbit or two would have the final percent-breakdown of all the elements found on the planet as proposed. It's something the Rock Rats could use to help do their jobs, and it's something the typical average-joe explorer won't be strapping onto their ship. Perhaps make the scans sellable as well as additional data - though not counted towards first-to-find discovery since that precedent has already been set.

 

[Lyneira]

I think the important thing here is that it takes away a chunk of gameplay that brought us Rock Rats a lot of enjoyment within Horizons: A reason to spend time driving around these beautiful procedural planets you have created.

I think the process to find elements could be sped up without removing this gameplay: The SRV scanner (secondary fire button) currently does nothing on the surface rocks we encounter. You could change this to let us discover a planet's material composition by scanning a number of rocks on a planet's surface, say 3-5. After scanning a few of them, it would then show the planet's full composition whenever you have a surface rock targeted and if desired, increase the chance of the more rare materials from mesosiderites, metallic outcrops and metallic meteorites. If persistent data storage of prospecting results per player are a problem this could be left as a temporary thing, the prospecting results and increased drops only applying as long as the player remains within the planet's sphere of influence or until they end their game session.

We hope you will listen to these suggestions and preserve this part of the game that encourages people to spend more time with the most prominent feature of this season: planetary surfaces.

 

[samuelb]

About time --> if you want to be a rock rat, don't scan the planet, just land and prospect.

 

[AnnuverScotinExile]

Dumb, dumb and dumber. Though I'm not sure if that refers to FD or to their approach to the game. We have precious little to do as explorers anyway, and dumbing it down further is not a good choice. Though, of course, with their target audience, we had better get used to it.

 

[Kenneth McGrew]

Wow no pleasing some folk, if you want a 10488496846 sheet long excel chart to review over some hob nobs and a organic tea while you "play" this game fine, the rest of us thickos have a scanner yay cant wait

 

[certhas]

Well, i can imagine how FD does have their hands full of work after that much critism they received over the engineers update. Sadly they imo choose the easy way to satisfy the majority of the players.
Dont get me wrong, i agree with the improved drop rate of materials and especially VR's but the insta material scan does take it to far - its the complete opposite what FD tried to do with the AI update.

There would be a lot possibillities to introduce prospected planets into the game so the casual player doesnt need to search on forums or use 3rd party programs to find them. Like the galnet, a lot planets in the bubble are already prospected, so they just could ask the prospectors to provide them some data to make a weekly prospectors post...
that would be an easy way to get player researched information into the game and broadcast it widely.

another way would be a dedicated module for mineral searching, like a probe you have to drill into the planets surface (i dont like the scanning from space idea at all)

 

[lineagerulz]

Dumb, dumb and dumber. Though I'm not sure if that refers to FD or to their approach to the game. We have precious little to do as explorers anyway, and dumbing it down further is not a good choice. Though, of course, with their target audience, we had better get used to it.

What do you want?
for me to wait for people like you to give me the info i can scan in seconds?

 

[Aura Lorell]

Perhaps this is an opportunity for the Rock Rats to adapt and evolve? I think the main problem many players face is the sheer difficulty of finding rare materials for the Engineer upgrades.

For me, the problem is finding any type of rare material on planets without spending hours and hours praying that randomness delivers me what I need for an advanced FSD range jump. I am around 6K LY away from the bubble and as much as I would love to visit every single planet I can land on, I simply don't have the time. So anything that allows me to explore more efficiently is welcome.

Elite is a huge game that evolves continuously. I am certain the Rock Rats will continue to evolve and thrive. Please don't be disheartened.

 

[Caldeon]

Hard to decide in this case. I really appreciate what the rock rats have done in DW and near the bubble. I have gladly used their infos to easily pick planets that have the needed materials. On the other hand, i am a solo explorer. That DSS upgrade would really help me, because i wouldnt ask the rockrats to go like 40 k out to check that part of galaxy, where i am just right now. And doing the 3-2-1 rule all by myself is a heavy impact on my playtime. But then again, i dont like that the rockrats are going to be obsolete, so its hard to make an objective opinion. I would like something between of the two worlds, but how ?

 

[dognosh]

It doesn't matter what I think on this new "feature", 2.1 is extremely broken and anything that makes the natives put their pitchforks down for a while so that FD can find a solution for the other broken mechanics, is good.

 

[Greytest]

The way i feel about this decision is as follows:
On the one hand i can understand the players that were complaining about the admittedly huge and out of proportion time investment you had to make to find those very rare materials on your own.
On the other hand the community stood up and tackled the problem on their own and the Rock Rats emerged to at least make it easier for everyone, so they can make sure they are on the right planet and maybe get some help with gaterhing those materials.
I understand that this might still be too much investment for a casual player, but i feel that the solution planned by FD is just a cheap quick fix because they don't have the required technology yet, to implement a proper prospecting gameplay.

I'd much rather see new types of SRVs or dedicated ship modules implemented, that would fit the role much better.
The increase in drop rate of rare materials alone seems justified and wouldn't really disturb the Rock Rat's gameplay, but the ability to negate most of the effort on the surface by a simple scan on top is an overreaction into the other direction.

Please Frontier, reconsider this decision and think about, if this would really add to the game, rather than take a (at least for us Mineral Rodents) huge chunk of the game away!

Cheers,
CMDR Greytest

 

[Darth Krayt]

The DSS upgrade is a great idea. It should have worked this way since 2.0.

 

[newman1702]

Dumb, dumb and dumber. Though I'm not sure if that refers to FD or to their approach to the game. We have precious little to do as explorers anyway, and dumbing it down further is not a good choice. Though, of course, with their target audience, we had better get used to it.

Trying to find a material -> randomly landing and driving around, sometimes for hours with no indication of whether you're on the right planet or not and no ability to use scanners from orbit to tell you so. That is not smart gameplay. Therefore removing it can't be called "dumbing down". The only reason we had the rock rats was because FD failed to give us enough information in-game so we had to resort to out-of-game information sources to find anything. Fixing that is a welcome change imo.

This is not removing some brilliant bit of gameplay, it's reducing annoyance. If we want to add some actual worthwile gameplay mechanics, then sure, but that doesn't mean this doesn't help with the system we have now.. At least we can find the materials quicker now when out of the bubble in areas that haven't been prospected. I can't believe people are complaining about this, tbh.

 

[certhas]

This is not removing some brilliant bit of gameplay, it's reducing annoyance. If we want to add some actual worthwile gameplay mechanics, then sure, but that doesn't mean this doesn't help with the system we have now.. At least we can find the materials quicker now when out of the bubble in areas that haven't been prospected. I can't believe people are complaining about this, tbh.

tbh? finding mats for grade3 jumponium before the engineers was ok, it was hard but ok, and thats how it should be, it should require some effort to do those 70ly jumps to reach where noone was before. if you get everything instantly it doesnt feel like an achivement! (and you can explore just fine without jumponium...)
It doesnt reduce the need for prospecting, it removes it completely, you wont have to land on planets anymore to know if its the right one, surfacescan from 80ls afar, polonium yes = land / no=forget and move on, somehow i'm pretty familiar with that pattern and as an explorer who went to bp im not okay with that.
in the bubble on the other hand you really need the materials for the upgrades they probably will get a very important part of the game so i do understand the frustration of the ppl who try to find VR's.
Prospectors dont want to keep the old system, but would like it to transform to something that benefits all, let them do their job and provide them with an instrument to provide all players with the data they discovered, and provide a dedicated way of prospecting that involves a bit of effort on the planets surface (scaning with a probe/drill whatever, or scanning a few stones on the surface...)

i do hope this will be only a temporary fix until they can provide a new module for this, it would be a shame if this simplification of gameplay would be permanent

 

[Mengy]

Sorry Baroness, but I have to respectfully disagree.

You know that I drove over 3000 kilometers on the DWE prospecting planets and putting them into Trello, but I think the upcoming change to the DSS is a good one. We need to think of the rest of Elite's players on this issue, commanders shouldn't have to resort to 3rd party spreadsheets or websites in order to find materials. There needs to be an in-game mechanic for this, and utilizing the DSS is one of the best ways to do so. SRV's are still required to actually do the collecting of materials, but at least soon players won't have to blindly drive around planets for hours just to see if the materials they need are even there or not. Elite needs less grindy mechanics, not more.

Yeah it kind of blows for the Rock Rats, but the Rats can still catalog high quality planets with good mats and those all important green systems. Hopefully FDev will soon actually implement deep space POI's on planets like rock formations and other natural objects for explorers to scan, giving us new reasons to use the SRV other than simply collecting materials.

 

[certhas]

commanders shouldn't have to resort to 3rd party spreadsheets or websites in order to find materials. There needs to be an in-game mechanic for this

i completely agree with you

and utilizing the DSS is one of the best ways to do so.

i dont think this is the best way, as i said in my post before it just reduces prospecting and finding materials to the same stupid chore like jumping from one to another system and dss scaning it... (surfacescan from 80ls afar, polonium yes = land / no=forget and move on)
its probalby the fastest and easiest fix for all the moaning on the forums, and i can understand that but there are better ways to implement this in a fashion where everyone can benefit from it.

 

[jasonbarron]

Id love to have a discussion about how this perceived sacrifice to the Gods of Simplicity effects the Rock Rats in a negative way, but I can't really, not when Fdev is nerfing so many other aspects of the game for the same core reason; so many players with only a casual interest in the game, or players who refuse to take any responsibility for their own safety, driving the developer's decisions.

I guess my thoughts are "Well, join the club, gang."