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+--- Thread: Deleting systems poll UPDATE (/showthread.php?tid=196649)
RE: Deleting systems poll UPDATE - Haste - 04-04-2023
(04-04-2023, 02:14 PM)Saronsen Wrote: i really feel like people are missing the whole thing being that these systems are being deleted to make way for new ones, if markam is to be believed. which means instead of just blessing the existing systems that people want to keep with your golden touch, youre just going to delete them and make new ones no one will be invested in, just like Nu.
whats the point?
why make new ones that may or may not be popular (unless you force them to exist between current system routes, making them popular by the fact you HAVE to fly through them) when you can fix whats already in the game?
I feel like most things that have to be said have already been said, so I'll refrain from going into too much detail for now, but I'll chime in here: I think we shouldn't be adding (any relevant number of) systems after culling what we believe to be the most unnecessary systems. I think we should have a manageable, somewhat "compact" core game universe that allows organic, "chance" based interaction to occur with any kind of regularity.
I think we would all agree that if the player list were to be hidden, both on the forums and in-game, interactions would be exceptionally rare. Maybe New York would have something going on sometimes, and maybe 5ks would bump into now-unknown pirates a little bit more frequently, but players would be mostly playing on their own unless they organized groups and encounters outside of the game. I don't think that's what we want. This game is best when there are other players to co-operate with, chat to, or fight. Trading is more interesting when piracy is a real threat, or when you see the occasional other trader or lawful ship you can greet and have a chat with. Flying a lawful ship is more interesting when pirates are successfully pirating and require "action". And so on, and so forth.
Upping our player count is one way to achieve this, but simply making the game a little bit more reasonably sized is another way. I think we should be doing both of these things to the best of our ability.
I have many more thoughts on this but I'll have to think about how to best put it into words first.
RE: Deleting systems poll UPDATE - Sombs - 04-04-2023
(04-04-2023, 03:35 PM)Haste Wrote: but simply making the game a little bit more reasonably sized is another way
The problem with that logic is that you are just as likely as to piss more than one person off by removing their niche. Discovery is all about niches. Which is why editing systems and connections is so much less of an issue than merging and removing them outright. People like the bit of consistency that the game is providing, but whenever stations are magically moved to another system or simply removed without any explanation or build-up, that's where the wounds open. Not every system needs to feel unique. Sometimes it is just better to not touch a running system - pun unindented - and simply alter the connections so the conservatives can keep what they silently enjoy while new stuff can be added.
RE: Deleting systems poll UPDATE - Serpentis - 04-04-2023
Look, I have no connection with any systems mentioned that may be deleted or not, doesn't matter to me.
But, what I do have a connection with is the Sector itself, Sirius has always been a part of me ever since I joined in 08.
The best thing about the game was the incredible number of systems, I even liked the Guard systems, when, you know I could visit them.
Could it be better to cut some systems? Sure, but cut those not used then, it would seem that the systems that are being cut are systems a portion of the community enjoys and that is active, where's the logic in cutting just those systems? Cut those systems that do not see activity or has no purpose.
Exploration is important in Discovery and for new players that do come to this mod, having the possibility of searching a wide sector for secrets or just to look at pretty graphics, it should be important still.
Also, I saw some mention of the News thing? I -loved- the news back when I played, gave me a proper reason and will to log in. It's an incentive to log on and actually find out more based on those news reports.
I personally would love for them to continue, they gave me a urge to explore.
Also, glad to see the Devs are having an discussion instead of just doing what ever without even saying anything.
This is a community and things like this should be something the community (that includes the Devs) should discuss together, ignoring the players is straight out wrong, you are doing this for them, not yourselves after all. We all want a thriving and fun game to play in after all.
Back to lurking.
RE: Deleting systems poll UPDATE - HanCloudstone - 04-04-2023
Quote:I think we should have a manageable, somewhat "compact" core game universeYeah, the thing that truly terrifies me in context of Disco's development is the idea of a contolled little world where eye candy and atmosphere are restricted to designated hotspots.
I don't want this to happen to a mod where I could go to some absolute hellhole like Omicron Chi and genuinely have a nice flight. I could also go out of my way just to see the Razgriz black hole or the Dyson sphere in Nomicrons again despite the possible risks.
Where and when will I be able to relive that feeling again? In Uncharted systems at best? They're mostly event material. Events are mostly about people swarming to get the high score for the prize and/or blues, not about chilling and enjoying the atmosphere.
There's very little space for people like me in devs' controlled, compact little world where players have no options but to play where intended and as intended.
RE: Deleting systems poll UPDATE - Megaera - 04-04-2023
Like I stated before:
Downsizing the game to accomodate a declining player base is essentially the same as slowly closing the door of the game and turning off the light.
It means that you lost all aspiration of cranking up the playerbase. I mentioned earlier that deleting stuff that is actually being used will only chase off more players. The case in point being the high activity zones being listed to be removed.
Also, I have to note a very paradoxical claim that downsizing the game will help the game somehow, and in the same breath it is stated that new systems will be introduced. Sorry, but I do not follow the logic here.
And finally, it is clear that all recently added systems were met with little enthusiasm. Have devs learned from the past mistakes and have they learned how to create systems that are well received? In this last note it would be better to first implement some of these next-gen systems to see how well the community actually likes them, before the knife goes into the systems that are currently driving game activity.
RE: Deleting systems poll UPDATE - Haste - 04-04-2023
(04-04-2023, 04:48 PM)Sombs Wrote:(04-04-2023, 03:35 PM)Haste Wrote: but simply making the game a little bit more reasonably sized is another waySometimes it is just better to not touch a running system
See, this is where I just disagree conceptually. I think Discovery's mistake in the past decade has mostly been to just kind of leave it be. To tinker as little as possible. Some of the biggest changes "Wow, repair ships!" are still a drop in the bucket. The last genuinely big changes to game systems (not to be confused with game star systems) - other than some recent balance reworks - were PoBs in.. 2011? I don't quite recall.
Discovery has been left to slowly whither away with a small injection of content and story here and there. And thus, it has slowly but steadily lost more and more players.
I think we should try a different approach, and as it would undoubtedly be a bit more radical, it's going to step on some toes. But a lot of the bad aspects of the game currently (the PoB plague and the awful state of siege mechanics for defenders and attackers alike) are a result of developers playing it safe and not having the balls to do the right thing, even if that may have upset some players.
As a small sidenote:
I think there is room for more systems than the aforementioned "compact" universe. But they should not always be accessible. The event-focused Uncharted "concept" is a bit of a step in that direction, but it never really went anywhere due to the manual labor aspect of events. Plus, honestly, the systems and associated event rewards were never particularly exciting. I definitely think we should have interesting sights to see and places to explore, but we do not require a colossal spider-web-shaped grid of 168 systems to have them.
RE: Deleting systems poll UPDATE - Sombs - 04-04-2023
How many more players need to voice the opposite opinion to make you consider that what you think the game needs is not what they think the game needs?
RE: Deleting systems poll UPDATE - Chenzo- - 04-04-2023
(04-04-2023, 07:36 PM)Haste Wrote:(04-04-2023, 04:48 PM)Sombs Wrote:(04-04-2023, 03:35 PM)Haste Wrote: but simply making the game a little bit more reasonably sized is another waySometimes it is just better to not touch a running system
See, this is where I just disagree conceptually. I think Discovery's mistake in the past decade has mostly been to just kind of leave it be. To tinker as little as possible. Some of the biggest changes "Wow, repair ships!" are still a drop in the bucket. The last genuinely big changes to game systems (not to be confused with game star systems) - other than some recent balance reworks - were PoBs in.. 2011? I don't quite recall.
Discovery has been left to slowly whither away with a small injection of content and story here and there. And thus, it has slowly but steadily lost more and more players.
I think we should try a different approach, and as it would undoubtedly be a bit more radical, it's going to step on some toes. But a lot of the bad aspects of the game currently (the PoB plague and the awful state of siege mechanics for defenders and attackers alike) are a result of developers playing it safe and not having the balls to do the right thing, even if that may have upset some players.
As a small sidenote:
I think there is room for more systems than the aforementioned "compact" universe. But they should not always be accessible. The event-focused Uncharted "concept" is a bit of a step in that direction, but it never really went anywhere due to the manual labor aspect of events. Plus, honestly, the systems and associated event rewards were never particularly exciting. I definitely think we should have interesting sights to see and places to explore, but we do not require a colossal spider-web-shaped grid of 168 systems to have them.
Does it strike you as odd that there are more devs/admins/staff than online active players?
Before I left you'd struggle to get a slot out of 200, on my return the server has hit 75 once, but most of the time averages 20-35 or less.
If these player hot spots are to be deleted and server activity falls lower, will the team consider putting things back?
RE: Deleting systems poll UPDATE - Haste - 04-04-2023
(04-04-2023, 07:45 PM)Sombs Wrote: How many more players need to voice the opposite opinion to make you consider that what you think the game needs is not what they think the game needs?
Clearly every single player who has voted holds different beliefs about what the game needs than I do, to some extent. The poll is interesting to look at once in a while but I find it far less useful than the actual arguments.
I do not personally buy into the "But some of these are active places!" rhetoric. Activity has come and gone. Systems that are active are usually active due to simple factors like battle zones, ore fields, mission accessibility or system connections. All of these things can be had elsewhere, too.
If we turn out wrong, I am not opposed to reviewing our decisions. But I don't believe in mod design by democracy. We've tried that in various forms and it has yet to deliver.
Of course all I'm posting at the end of the day is a lot of words that boil down to "Trust me bro.". I do not expect people to actually trust me - or anyone on the dev team - purely off of what they're saying. I just expect people to see how the new patch actually looks and judge it then, rather than trying to judge things based on extremely incomplete and heavily subject-to-change information.
RE: Deleting systems poll UPDATE - Sombs - 04-04-2023
Here is the issue with that: The removal of systems is not a new thing. The redesign of systems is not a new thing. There is literally no new approach here - that is stuff that has been done by this dev team and by the previous ones. The result was usually the same: Content was cut, big uproar, player count decreasing. Has removing the Landwirtrechtsbewegung lead to anything other than Xiphos leaving? Did the mod benefit from that in any way? Did the removal of systems with unique features like Omicron Sigma and alike show any benefits? Because the way I see it, the game didn't benefit from butchering the Omicrons from many green systems with black holes and other anomalies into a corridor with less green systems than Kusari has blue systems despite the Edge Nebula being green.
There is literally nothing to be lost if the to-be-cut systems remain in the game as one-jump hole-systems. No lore gets lost, no content cut, and the system devs can still work on their high quality system additions and reworks. The argument that there are "too many" or "non-compact spiderwebs" feels to me like an excuse for subjective opinions on how important a system to oneself is, because in the end, if you keep these systems and see players in them, giving them literally just one jump hole would actually make intercepting those players a lot easier than a compact set of systems that have multiple entry- and exit points.
This doesn't have anything to do with democracy. The developers make this mod for players to play it. If there is such a disregard to what players want and the developers simply ignore that with an argument for "but we need to progress in this direction", and this issue here isn't seen, then there is literally no hope for the next patch since it has been made clear that what people voted for and wrote in this 15 pages long thread doesn't mean much.