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How so?

They removed the tedious mechanics of probing like putting probes in formation one probe at a time.
They are replacing the predictable waves of NPC to kill for puzzle games.

I don't see how it makes exploring shallow and boring.

The scanning mods might be OP and the automatic recall of probes might be unnecessary. I don't think it's a bead deal; it makes scanning easier but certainly not shallow or boring.

I understand why miner would be butthurt about their gravs... But explorers should rejoice.

That puzzle game feels like a very underwhelming Minesweeper. You click around aimlessly, than you click on core and you are done. Like children at birthday parties that have been whacking a pinata that hangs from the tree, you try and grab as many candies as possible before they melt. So you click around in space cursing your mouse. This seems to me like a major source of frustration, and not an enhancement.

James Amril-Kesh wrote:

Kuetlzelcoatl wrote:

I'm amazed how often the "dumbing down Eve" card is pulled when people don't like changes.
Its becoming as bad as "crying wolf."

Automatically recalling probes whenever docking or jumping isn't dumbing the game down?
Forcing us to launch all probes in the launcher up to a maximum of 8 even if we just wanted to launch one isn't dumbing the game down?
Forcing us to start in one of two preset configurations isn't dumbing the game down?
Forcing the initial position of the probes (on the map) at the sun isn't dumbing the game down (and doesn't represent a huge nerf to combat probing)?

Woah... wait... what? Probes are being forced to the sun on deployment? This is crazy... Standard procedure for coming through a new WH is to drop 1 probe and cloak up.... This new "stuff" will force me to manualy reposition the probe to my current map location to do a simple scan...

Initial reaction was good - didn't like probes not starting near me - didn't like the expensive probing skills being devalued. Since considering the stuff people have posted my concerns are growing.

People are saying that CCP are saying Odyessy is supposed to be "the" Exploration expansion.

Well based upon the stuff going on in features and ideas - clone costs - modules - ohh and ship balancing - along with corp quit timers and stuff like that. Exploration hasn't had anything added - except Grav sites were removed and we now have a minigame to play whilst hacking and doing archaeology. It seems to be the patch of awesome ship balance! Anyway:



1) But this feature really does "dumb" down probes. No consequence for not recalling probes. 1 Less probe type to choose from. 1 less signature to scan for. Knowing everything before you even scan them down a bit. No need to drag probes to set formations. No need to train skills to even launch your probes, (not like before!). No need to even launch probes after the first one - because they all go in a oner. No way to lose probes unless intentionally abandoning them? Site names make sense but we lose flavour again for the sake of new player approachability.

2) Knowing everything that is there to be found before you start scanning - well you aren't "Explorining" anymore. There will be no sense of discovery in an exploration system that tells you before hand what is there to be found - it just leaves you with a maths/locus puzzle to do - before you warp. I didn't know that you'd just see everything in system that is to be found BEFORE you even drop a probe! That is what this new overlay does, no? Posts on here seem to indicate it will. Imagine if I was about to go on Holiday and suddenly I know everything that will happen already - or I went to the cinema and suddenly I know all the main plot points? it isn't exploration.

3) Wiping out the old system has removed some emergent gameplay that isn't being replaced. Was it intentional that a fleet prober can't anymore just drop probes and hit scan to get a warp to when trying to close range? Will this make long range and Alpha doctrines even stronger?

4) There is an imbalance with wormhole miners - this has to be fixed. With all the ore belts now removed and only a limited number of these grav sites that don't need to be scanned - If I see a miner - I know almost exactly where he is going to be and therefore I don't need to scan him. But he has the benefit of local - no he doesn't - and I'm cloaked and in a Loki - He won't even see my scan probes - because I don't need them - and he's pointed. This is broken. [An easy and quick fix would be to spawn minable stuff in the few remaining signatures that we do still need to scan].

5) The inability to lose probes will hurt the markets - and anyone doing SOE faction missions for LP.

I'd hold fire on this part of the update. People have got soo much to get used to already. What about all the people who don't read the blogs. You've massivly changed a lot of ships - even Iconic ones. For example - in regard of the RF Typhoon - it used to be an armour based cruise missile platform - it's now a sheild biased AC platform.

Just please prehaps rethink this - I'm going to try and get on SiSi to make a fuller evaluation of this - but if the above is all correct - this isn't great.

woah... are you telling me that the columns scale with the window size? This is farking ********... That MUST be fixed...

Dear Team Super Friends,

i think almost all of these changes are spot on really while of course some feature needs more love during the next months.

Most of that whining here like "dumbing down scanning" is just rubbish really.

I just can't see where significantly improving an interface is "dumbing down" an activity for which it is used. It rather makes that activity less tedious and more fun. Thumbs up for that.

Removing the scan result strength indicator of the scan window is premium if it really is true. Just red that in some whiner post here. Finally exploration is becoming exploration again instead of dropping a probe and ready numbers from a spreadsheet telling you which result is what type of signature. Now these folks will hopefully have to do exploration again instead of just talking about it while benefiting of the exploits around it.

Looking forward to the Odyssey expension big time.

Cheers
Gal

Regarding personal hangers...is the 50K amount a set in stone figure? I mean they are useful if you are just storing modules or equipment in; however, for corps that use wh space, that is where the most space is taken up via PI and Ore. Yeah yeah yeah, I know EvE is about trust and keeping or breaking that trust. However, the entire purpose behind the personal hanger concept is to provide hanger space in towers without the need to give you members roles for stuff.

I think another 0 might help that, increase to 500K, this number is still 1/3 of a corp hanger, but gives a bit more space for accounting ore and PI. WH space has null sec ores which can take up quite a bit of space. Anyway, that's really the only issue I have with this blog.

This morning I was scanning down some grav sites and remembering how terrible at it I use to be. Reflecting on how long it took me when I first started, laughing at my early attempts and feeling a sense of accomplishment at how good at the task I have become.

Thank you CCP for removing this experience for not only me, but any person who might in some future sense feel a similar sense of accomplishment for becoming better at something. Thank you for your rabid compulsion to dumb down the game so that it appeals to the ADD generation who have no impulse to better themselves at anything. Thank you for completely ignoring the fan base who enjoy a challenge, the people who have made your game a success. After you have driven us away you'll soon find out at the people with the attention span of a fruit fly don't stick with any game very long, ever.

Excellent feature set.

my issues with these changes:



The point formation is one used by many but the spread formation i have never used and would never use, its negative aspects faaar outweigh its positives (there are obvious areas of no coverage where sigs can hide in)
It seems to be a formation placed there by someone who hasnt probed much at all.



This change seems to be confusing unless uve used it in game, the formations are a set position for your probes and when u click it it moves your intended probe position to that default location. If you DO NOT hit a custom probe formation your probes stay where theyve been launched when u open up the system view display. i HATE hearing rage about a UI element that people obviously havent tried out in game and just use the forum/dev blog language to formulate their responses - yes that does mean u James Amril-Kesh, u relentless troll!

...plus this has been changed in the latest build on sisi, so that when clicking the set formations they set their formations where you launched the probes, NOT their position to the centre of the system.



an auto recall mechanic for probes that expire is a dangerous train of thinking for a game developer. The effects of this change will be a complete crash in the probes market. By extension, if this train of thought was applied to other areas of the game, similar effects on other areas of the market would occur, severely affecting the game. i am surprised that Dr. Guðmundsson isnt shouting at you about this.
Probe expiration is a big part of the depletion of probes in that area of the commodities market. This change will reduce the number of probes people buy (why have more than 8 probes when u'll never loose them unless u loose your ship?), which in turn reduces the necessity to buy new ones meaning saturation levels decrease.
Add to this the fact many people probably sit on stockpiles of probes so they have reserves when they deplete or forget to recall them, this will manifest as an extreme oversupply of probes that will crash prices.
Sisters probes will be the only combat/exploration probes people use for anything, so this change will make all other probes in this area obsolete.



From what i can remember i believed the removal of the DSP and the general system scanner window was to break and otherwise hinder bots running combat sites, and its a worthy goal to achieve, however the removal of the system scanner window showing whats in space in favour for the overlay that shows approximate locations is a severe reduction in quality-of-life. a simple removal of the right click menu on items in the system scanner window that havent been probed would be the best course of action. It'd hinder bots using the menu for warping to combat sites, but still retain the catalogued info we pilots greatly prefer to the overlay.
(not saying the overlay isnt awesome, but from a pure usability standpoint it gets irritating to use very quickly when making much needed isk in nullsec.)


There are things however in these changes that i love!



Future Stuff...
In regard to Scan Probe History, if i could show u a UI example that would work well for this itd be this: http://youtu.be/9GFqMy2vjGM?t=1m32s
where the condensed multiple takes are hidden with whats referred to as a "disclosure triangle". that could work well for giving access to a scan history of an object in space that has been scanned multiple times, whilst keeping the UI clear by default.

Also with the better visual scan cues its be awesome to have a representation of your current probe signal strength vs maximum in order to better ascertain if you have the required scan strength to successfully probe a signal by having the full length of the row from the start of "scan group" column to the end of the "type" column being absolute signal strength (with max skills). Then when scanning a signal the colour indicates signal strength (with green being a warpable scan) and the length of the bar increasing to a maximum depending on the signatures strength.

So something thats easy to scan will have a small coloured bar that goes green early. Something thats hard to scan has a large bar indicating a high probe scan strength being required.

(& maybe a scale above the results but below the column names that indicate ur probe strength vs max)

Er... is that it?

You have tweaked the scanning system and changed the way it works slightly and are selling this as an expansion.

I feel the same way after each supposed expansion - utterly dejected and depressed with the progress this game is making. When are CCP going to actually move the game on a bit ie open that station cabin door for our avatar.

There was a brilliant post about a prototype exploration game made in Unity engine that CCP had been protyping. You actually got out of your ship and explored the site, other players could come and hunt you. It was FPS love in space. Where is that? We get a few changes to exploration and call it an expansion.

Oh and you add some new system travel animation.

Man this is the only game that is worth playing at the moment but you guys really need to grow a pair and release something more than tweaks.

Please hurry the **** up CCP.