This is a cut out part from the article i wrote about how i feel about the current game, which you can either see at my website here, or by the forum post here.
I'd also like to point out that this isn't very related to my break from elite, as it has been on my mind way longer than that, anyways i hope this may enlight some of you, and as always i apologize for any bad grammar
3. The problems with exploration in the current game.
Exploration has always been a profession which frontier has put little effort into. Frontier counter-arguments this by saying there have been loads of updates to exploration, but updates, as proven by powerplay, aren't always good. Take the first discovered by system, although it gives nice rewards, and the ability to brag over being there first, it also has negative effects. I remember before the system was implemented, going to the far reaches of the galaxy and seeing amazing sights, which i most likely was the first to ever see. Now i could still do that, and i often would be the first one, but jumping just two systems away from it and seeing a "First discovered by Allintil" is more than enough to ruin that feeling. Another update, yet not an upgrade, was the ability to target planets from the system map. Although this certainly was a help to combateers, traders and smugglers, this was a rather downgrade to the exploration gameplay. There was always a challenge, a rather fun one, to look at the system map, trying to find the correct planet via an assortments of tricks, and either feeling like you've accomplished something getting it right the first place, or discover something you weren't planning on if you failed. It had a value for explorers, as it was one of the few times which skill was required, but frontier didn't listen, and exploration became even less skill-based than it already was.
One of the maybe more fundamental issues, but which i have literally seen none point out is how traveling in elite works vs in the real life. Okay, imagine sitting in a car. You're not the driver, but you sit in the second front seat, with a quite comfortable seat (amazingly enough) but yet nothing to do other than to look outside the window. Now imagine you're in a foreign, and very new country. A country with loads of things you haven't seen before. Of course most of us wouldn't mind being in that situation, even if that included being in the car for a few hours, you get to see stuff! So what has this to do with elite? Well in elite it's not quite the same. Once you reach a system it's for the most part just like any other, a star, maybe one or two or three nearby, very rarely a close planet, and nothing particularly new. You jump to the next system, and it's practically the same, except this time there's one star more 100k LS away. Of course on the system map this isn't the case, but as many explorers such as i do not always check the system map, and even if i do, go to the planets, it gets repetitive very quickly, and traveling only becomes rewarding after a couple of thousand lightyears as you see the backdrop change, which frankly, for most people, isn't worth the time. I've almost never seen anyone completley depend on the amazing gameplay of grinding yourself to the other end of the galaxy alone. Me myself tend to have whatever YouTube video playing on my phone, while barely paying attention to elite except from the occasional fuel scoop.
It's just not fun.
It doesn't help either that the rewards for exploration are, and have never been, that great. Now i'm not just talking about direct reward via credits, but also the reward in finding something unique. Sure, occasionally you get a ringed earthlike, a binary supergiant etc. but in comparasent to all the completley similar systems you find, and the rarity of the galactic wonders, you have to have a real dedicated and special mindset to make exploration any fun for you, which frankly very few actually have, and it is probably a part of the reason why exploration is such a small, and undeveloped proffession.
Fly safe!
I'd also like to point out that this isn't very related to my break from elite, as it has been on my mind way longer than that, anyways i hope this may enlight some of you, and as always i apologize for any bad grammar
3. The problems with exploration in the current game.
Exploration has always been a profession which frontier has put little effort into. Frontier counter-arguments this by saying there have been loads of updates to exploration, but updates, as proven by powerplay, aren't always good. Take the first discovered by system, although it gives nice rewards, and the ability to brag over being there first, it also has negative effects. I remember before the system was implemented, going to the far reaches of the galaxy and seeing amazing sights, which i most likely was the first to ever see. Now i could still do that, and i often would be the first one, but jumping just two systems away from it and seeing a "First discovered by Allintil" is more than enough to ruin that feeling. Another update, yet not an upgrade, was the ability to target planets from the system map. Although this certainly was a help to combateers, traders and smugglers, this was a rather downgrade to the exploration gameplay. There was always a challenge, a rather fun one, to look at the system map, trying to find the correct planet via an assortments of tricks, and either feeling like you've accomplished something getting it right the first place, or discover something you weren't planning on if you failed. It had a value for explorers, as it was one of the few times which skill was required, but frontier didn't listen, and exploration became even less skill-based than it already was.
One of the maybe more fundamental issues, but which i have literally seen none point out is how traveling in elite works vs in the real life. Okay, imagine sitting in a car. You're not the driver, but you sit in the second front seat, with a quite comfortable seat (amazingly enough) but yet nothing to do other than to look outside the window. Now imagine you're in a foreign, and very new country. A country with loads of things you haven't seen before. Of course most of us wouldn't mind being in that situation, even if that included being in the car for a few hours, you get to see stuff! So what has this to do with elite? Well in elite it's not quite the same. Once you reach a system it's for the most part just like any other, a star, maybe one or two or three nearby, very rarely a close planet, and nothing particularly new. You jump to the next system, and it's practically the same, except this time there's one star more 100k LS away. Of course on the system map this isn't the case, but as many explorers such as i do not always check the system map, and even if i do, go to the planets, it gets repetitive very quickly, and traveling only becomes rewarding after a couple of thousand lightyears as you see the backdrop change, which frankly, for most people, isn't worth the time. I've almost never seen anyone completley depend on the amazing gameplay of grinding yourself to the other end of the galaxy alone. Me myself tend to have whatever YouTube video playing on my phone, while barely paying attention to elite except from the occasional fuel scoop.
It's just not fun.
It doesn't help either that the rewards for exploration are, and have never been, that great. Now i'm not just talking about direct reward via credits, but also the reward in finding something unique. Sure, occasionally you get a ringed earthlike, a binary supergiant etc. but in comparasent to all the completley similar systems you find, and the rarity of the galactic wonders, you have to have a real dedicated and special mindset to make exploration any fun for you, which frankly very few actually have, and it is probably a part of the reason why exploration is such a small, and undeveloped proffession.
Fly safe!
