Ah yes, I will admit I lack psychic foreknowledge of in-game functions and will speak with my master in omniscience.

(Before anyone says: read a wiki, a game's fundamental mechanic should be self-contained; 'read the wiki' is short for 'forgot to include the explanation in the game')

Just to be clear, I love this game (I wouldn't keep playing it if I don't), I just feel as a player there's some unspoken or implied things that can't be easily inferred from within the game, and I explicitly avoid using Wikis so I can avoid spoilers and develop my own gameplay style unless I get absolutely stuck.

I might be out of touch here because I'm not exactly sure which one you're referring to?

The Dokimi Range interaction at Symphony in the Tangle Shroud section. The text box shows you the 'scorched ground' from testing but it is the same image as the one used to represent the planet. I would suggest either using a different image (for either the text or the planet!) or simply omitting the image entirely from the text. Images are a nice touch but they act like giant gaps between reading, so they probably should only be added if they contribute something novel.

A good use of both text and images is the pinkish-purple alien ship whose name I can't recall where it's 'pulling' on your psyche or something; the text being erratically spaced out to convey the effect of losing sanity coupled with novel images adds to the storyline, and subtle adjustments like that add so much in my mind.

There's some disagreement as to how much we should attempt to direct the player in the direction of story

From a UI design perspective my thoughts are this: if the player is never intended to access an outfit at any point, it should be removed from the outfitters entirely. Otherwise you induce FOMO plus curiousity in the player, plus frustration when they find they can't have it anyway, whilst taking up screen real estate space to display something they can't have. If they can strip it from an unrestricted ship, then the item ought also be unrestricted as a simple UI courtesy (otherwise you get what I do which is buy ships in bulk, strip out the 'restricted' parts, then sell back the ships, which feels like unintended gameplay and is a hurdle to player intentions).

If you absolutely must have equipment that can never be owned but displayed, re-arrange the UI display to have them as the lowest priority display item (I.E. bottom of the screen or hidden requiring a checkbox to see) so they're not interfering with real estate from usable parts to avoid UI frustration in scrolling.

If they're intended to have the licence at some point, you may want an information kiosk button (or maybe add options to the Spaceport button?) that allows them to enquire about the licences and how they could get them. My first instinct was to hover over the licence to see what the hover textbox says, but it just cryptically says 'a mission may unlock these licences'. It might be more useful to say 'you should speak with XYZ about these licences', for example, 'You should speak with the authorities on the Navy shipyards at [planet name] about acquiring a licence'. That way you create story leads for the player to chase; even if the mission doesn't give it to them immediately, they know the end of the daisy chain is something they want.

The other time I expect the licences to be mentioned is when I start gaining the trust of the alien species. So, for example, if I help the Remnant fend off a giant Korath attack, I'd expect them to say 'hey you really helped us out back there, maybe we can trust you and give you a licence to use XYZ, if you're interested go speak with ABC on [planet name] and say so-and-so sent you and they'll put you through your paces'. Then the missions can be about overcoming skepticism or doubt by completing challenge trials or loyalty tests or something.

so it's often easier to just give the player some credits and some fun lore

For me, one key point of confusion is I rescue the pirate kids from the ship, drop them off on a planet, and somehow they have 25k credits to give me (which isn't mentioned when they beg to be rescued as an incentive). I feel like they shouldn't have any money at all, and instead they can give me, say, a common item that takes time to acquire in the early game. For example, a Korath small heat shunt or a flamethrower ship mount.

The chief complaint is less about the novelty of the rewards (the rewards don't even have to be novel), but the fact they're suffering from rubberband failures; usually the ship required to complete the missions has to be equal to, or better than, the thing they ultimately unlock. For example, the Trefoil board can only be obtained post-Jump drive. And the pirate kids rescue mission implies the individual has a ship powerful enough to take on pirates (which suggests something like hundreds of thousands to millions in operating capital).

Counter-examples are the cloak, which has no art at all (great art dev trick), but serves a practical purpose. I'm not saying things have to be overpowered compared to the cloak, but my reward for completing Tangled Shroud missions was being able to leave the Tangled Shroud, which feels more like a 'we removed a punishment' rather than 'we rewarded you with something'.

Here's a few examples of things I cooked up in anticipation of prizes I might have gotten but didn't for various quests, which I don't think were too OP:

• A more efficient Jump Drive (takes 100 instead of 200 fuel; it is simply the purple Jump Drive coloured blue)
• Access to advanced fuel pods in human space (holds 200 fuel instead of 100; 4 times more expensive; same outfit space)
• The completion of a space station (several)
• The ability to retroactively visit gas giants in human space to unlock more missions (with E.G. the Stratus)
• Access to the Agvi torch licence so I can buy their engines
• A way to mass manufacture (read: buy) horribly inefficient jump drives (takes 400 fuel instead of 200) in human space (as if they've done a crude rip-off).
• Opening up trade lines between two species to allow access to both species' ship parts at their respective outfitters (Hai/Human, Human/Coalition).
• Be allowed to permanently free a planet/planets from hostile occupation and return it to friendly aliens so I can use it as an easier refueling/save point
• Opening up a new hyperspace lane between species that results in easier jump travel (Coalition/Human space) [for the record, I'm not bothered if this is a wormhole only I can use with the Quantum Key; it is just so I don't have to obtain a ton of Jump Drives to ferry parts between sectors of space).
• The ability to buy/pick at least one Republic warship of my choosing (I don't mind if it's only one; but I'd like to choose one of them as a novelty ship)
• Random space encounters of a derelict cool ship (one that can't be obtained by simply purchasing it)
• External cargo holds (only applicable to specific ships)
• A new class of freighter with a much, much bigger cargo hold (I don't care if it is flimsy or slow; 200+ freighter fleets causes my FPS slow down)
• A slow firing gun with much longer range (example: a 'retuned' Particle Cannon that shoots at a range of 2000 but at half the speed of firing). Not as a one-off but a purchasable retuned weapon at an oddly specific store. The cost can be insane too, like 1 mil a weapon. Give it some burn decals at the front as a visual distinction for colour blind people, and repaint to cyan or something.
• The opportunity to earn a licence.

I dunno if these are the kind of rewards other players want, but they're the kind I conjured up.

There are two explanations I can give for the rewards being what they are:

1. Free Worlds is the only completed campaign arc. In other words, you shouldn’t be expecting end of campaign rewards at the current end of other campaigns since it isn’t the actual end. Endless Sky is a work in progress. This also addresses some of your concern with licenses, such as the navy license. There will eventually be a way to get the navy license, even if there isn’t one now. I’m pretty sure that the same is true with the various Gegno licenses.
2. The cloaking device was overpowered. The reason why other rewards are weaker is because those are more properly balanced. The cloak was nerfed as of the latest update and should hopefully not overshadow other rewards (such as the rewards for the other branch of Free Worlds) as much.

FOMO, whilst yes, can be used by DLC, I don't mean it in the exploitative sense, but in the sense it invokes a psychological concern in the player that says 'here's a thing', but they can't obtain that thing, and they may end up - like myself (so it's not a trivial concern) - frustrated trying to hunt for a way around, when the game can just say 'currently not yet available, don't go looking for it'.

A UI ultimately should improve a player's experience. I recognise things can be WIP, but a small note to say 'you can't currently earn this licence' or hiding the outfits from purchase until they can be earned would go a long way to mitigate the frustrations.

the game isn't designed around you having 200 ships; at most,

I think my point was misunderstood. My suggestion wasn't I wanted bigger fleets, the exact opposite; I want smaller fleets. The problem is a lot of the cargo ships I find are generally between 600-750 cargo space, so if I'm snowballing resources (which I will then dump into buying expensive outfits to upgrade a select few ships later on), I'm forced to just keep buying the same capped ships, or to give an extreme example: instead of me buying 200 of say 750 cargo space ships, I'd rather say, buy 20 of 7500 cargo ships (even if those ships are absurdly flimsy and slow). Before you say 'but the balance'... I'm already still doing the exact same figures but with 200 ships instead of 20.

it's again the idea that ES combat isn't extremely long-ranged

I think you're focused too heavily on the range aspect (which is below the Blue Laser's 2400 range; the entire Avgi's argument is long range to outplay Aberrant) and less on the concept of having a limited set of 'retuned' weapons as rewards that offer some improvement over the base stats but aren't wildly unbalanced. A particular cannon that either consumes less energy or has more range or less heat, is more useful to me in the early game than say, a slightly more powerful outfit scanner.

The player isn't the Pug or someone who could just make a hypergate or hyperlane/wormhole, that's far out of the ability of one individual, or even most species, especially within ES's timeframe.

This feels like an appeal to 'the character can't do this because...' when you're the creators of the story and frankly, it isn't from the character's perspective. The opening of a hyperspace lane was done in the Free Worlds Pug storyline, and the use of pre-existing wormholes is generally a feature found in the game to link many disparate areas.

For me, the intention behind it is a 'this route no longer needs a jump drive for the purposes of trading goods and items'. It's got absolutely nothing to do with the main character being super sayian or a god or whatever. You can attribute the wormhole creation to whoever, or nature; I'm just interested in a 'my fleet of trade ships does not require jump drives to reach coalition space on the regular'. Which in a way my other comment about mass produced 'lower quality' jump drives is attempting to address.

Rewards should make the player's life easier in some fashion. My concern is the devs are justifying being a jerk to the players because the lore prohibits them? But you write the lore. So it's kinda circular 'I wrote my own lore that says I should be a jerk to the player therefore I have to be a jerk to the player' doesn't sit with me right. You don't have to deny minor convenience tweaks because of the Drak. The Drak aren't real. They're not going to get mad and turn up with baseball bats.

My concern is the devs are trying to justify pre-existing designs rather than inclining towards UI improvements. I will admit I am a nobody, I've never made a successful game in my life, I've not ever released my games software library, and my only call to fame was one compliment from a clinician who loved a clinical form I designed UI-wise, but I feel like ES UI is just a bit bumpy in places, and UI doesn't just mean buttons; it can mean communicating with the user so they understand how the UI works and making it easier for them to execute intended tasks.

Bear with me as I reply to these. This should address most things, as at this point I feel we're getting into a circle that ends up being a fundamental disagreement on what choices have been made for the game.

I can agree with the UI concerns - a common request, although not specifically what you mention here - is to have a line at the end of a given mission chain or unfinished story content in the game, for items such as Wanderers or alien faction stories. Personally, I'm not a fan of the idea as we don't need to be going through the fourth wall to tell players an unfinished game is unfinished, but I understand and can see from the other perspective how that can prevent some time spent into pursing something that isn't there yet. I think it's worth bringing up to the team again.

I think my point was misunderstood. My suggestion wasn't I wanted bigger fleets, the exact opposite; I want smaller fleets.

In this context, however, you're asking for a smaller fleet, but the capability of what a much larger fleet would have. A Behemoth is a large freighter. A Deep River is a large freighter. Some of the Korath ships have enormous cargo holds. Those are big freighters. If we start considering even larger freighters, we start to break ship logistics and comparisons. Sure you could be doing what 200 ships does with 20 ships, but the balance concern still remains - you probably shouldn't be doing what 200 ships can with 20 ships. The concern isn't that you're doing what a large fleet can do - yes, you're doing the same figures, but, there shouldn't be a ship class designed to perform those figures within the smaller fleet gameplay scope.

Let's say you have a trade fleet of six Deep Rivers. Pretty good. Now, let's say you get to a point where you have 20 Deep Rivers. Now that's a lot. But, if we look at making a new freighter, that six of which can do what 20 Deep Rivers do, that new freighter would be quite imbalanced against all the other freighters in the game, or other ships overall, because you're balancing it around a capability of a large fleet, not around other ships in the game.

If you believe that the freighters in-game can fit this scope, and it's just a matter of obtaining them, then I can see that. At that point it is indeed a matter of stories being incomplete.

I think you're focused too heavily on the range aspect (which is below the Blue Laser's 2400 range; the entire Avgi's argument is long range to outplay Aberrant) and less on the concept of having a limited set of 'retuned' weapons as rewards that offer some improvement over the base stats but aren't wildly unbalanced. A particular cannon that either consumes less energy or has more range or less heat, is more useful to me in the early game than say, a slightly more powerful outfit scanner.

I feel the idea of having "adjusted" weapons starts to put too much of a nuance within a particular timeframe of gameplay. By the time you would acquire something like a tuned weapon, you'd either be expected to be in alien territory, or that small difference between one and the default weapon would be pretty insignificant to warrant a new weapon. And if the idea is you would get it earlier than that, you're starting to add a wider section of balancing to a smaller section of the overall game plot.

Let's say there's a Particle Cannon that has slightly better stats or changes. For example one, let's say you get it around the time the Dreadnaught is made for sale. Sure, you're getting a better weapon than what you started with, but you already have a large variety of weapons to choose from - different cannons, blasters, missile launchers and beams. The slight changes to the Particle cannon don't make a much of a difference as the Particle Cannon still retains its niche as a long-range impact weapon.

There isn't really a necessity to have a new one exist with slightly better stats, other than to exist as a reward that's slightly better than something else in the game. It's not something that would change gameplay drastically; it's the reward aspect you're looking at. Not everything needs a reward - there are plenty new modules in the FW campaign.

The reactor, Dreadnaught, Plasma turret, and the side inclusion of Typhoons, new ships like the Skein line and Barbs, there are plenty of rewards or new items to choose from. It could just be the case that you're asking for more than what is given because you feel what's given isn't enough, or isn't very good, but that's arguably true for the case with the tuned weapons as well, especially when these are purely focused on rewards for a combat style.

Now, let's say you get a tuned Particle Cannon at the end of FW, after the Pug. By that point, you're beginning to open up your opportunities past human space into alien territory. The need, or use, for a tuned human weapon dissipates pretty quickly, as human content no longer is relevant for the rest of the game. We don't need progressive content to be tuned or given the ability to match or be as rewarding, or somewhat rewarding, as later content when it's not the part of the story you're playing anymore. This again feels more about the reward from the story, and not the journey or experience of the story.

It also depends on what you mean by slightly more powerful outfit scanner. If you're talking about the Coalition one, that's way past early-game. That, and a lot of players might not see that as a poor reward, since not all players play purely for combat. So, it feels like having slightly better-tuned weapons as rewards is a bit unnecessary.

This feels like an appeal to 'the character can't do this because...' when you're the creators of the story and frankly, it isn't from the character's perspective. The opening of a hyperspace lane was done in the Free Worlds Pug storyline, and the use of pre-existing wormholes is generally a feature found in the game to link many disparate areas.

I feel this is just a conflict of ideals. Yes, we are the creators of the story, and the design of the story and the game has been the way it is since it was created. It plays out a certain way and is written a certain way, in our case, the lore being the most important part. No, the Drak aren't going to be beating us up for not changing something, but what you're asking for in convenience is something that starts to break outside of the story.

For me, the intention behind it is a 'this route no longer needs a jump drive for the purposes of trading goods and items'. It's got absolutely nothing to do with the main character being super sayian or a god or whatever. You can attribute the wormhole creation to whoever, or nature; I'm just interested in a 'my fleet of trade ships does not require jump drives to reach coalition space on the regular'. Which in a way my other comment about mass produced 'lower quality' jump drives is attempting to address.

If suddenly your escorts can travel places differently, by making jump outfits obsolete, by making wormholes, or by having a means to simplify JD obtainability or usage, then you start to break the general loop of gameplay, where we're looking at what benefits specifically the player, and not the species or existing ships in the game. Wormholes are meant to be extremely rare in the game as "discoverables" and links to areas. Hyperlane changes are events within the game as a result of different species. Yes, you're right that these are items attributed to various natures or species, and that's entirely the point. These events are meant to happen based on the story of the game, not for the sake of the player.

The player isn't meant to be doing things that the rest of the AI or game characters couldn't feasibly do; that sort of functionality is a design of the game's universe, not what the player can or cannot do. That may be restrictive, but it is a design choice, and it's one some people may not agree with, which is entirely understandable and common in game design. The game's mechanics don't exist specifically to make it easier for the player - they exist to tell the story and guide the player through it. It's intended hyperdrive, or jumpdrives, are required to bridge certain areas in the game. It's not necessarily an act against convenience either - it's simply just how travel is designed to be.

I will say that we do have a few cases where there is a convenience choice versus lore choice for the sake of simplicity, mainly crew and credits. These are pretty simple so that the gameplay loop doesn't have an extreme depth to understand, say, credit conversions, or stats for various crew members of different species, balancing acts, etc.. Although I suppose I wouldn't compare this to something as game-changing as simplifying travel.

Rewards should make the player's life easier in some fashion. My concern is the devs are justifying being a jerk to the players because the lore prohibits them? But you write the lore. So it's kinda circular 'I wrote my own lore that says I should be a jerk to the player therefore I have to be a jerk to the player' doesn't sit with me right. You don't have to deny minor convenience tweaks because of the Drak. The Drak aren't real. They're not going to get mad and turn up with baseball bats.

I don't think "rewards should make a player's life easier" is the correct way of interpreting rewards. I think it would be better to say, "rewards should help progress the player further in the story". I would also argue that rewards do make the player's life easier in some fashion. Most rewards are results of gameplay progression and are used/included in the balance/continued progression of a story. There are no rewards I would consider not in-line with your concept within the FW or Wanderer story.

Ultimately, I think what your concerns are and what your suggestions ask seem to be more specifically focused on those of alien species and not the core gameplay story. I agree that FW, and Wanderer rewards, are pretty well done, yes, as parts of the main story of the game. However, once you beat that story, you're looking at exploration of alien species, that may have stories of their own. This includes species that may not be as good as yours, or ones that may be more powerful.

At this stage of the game, it's no longer about rewards to make gameplay easier or ones that are better than items you currently have. Once you complete the main campaign, we're not talking about gameplay progression anymore - you've beaten that part of the game. Now you're exploring stories, the areas and lives of other species in the galaxy. The incentive isn't more rewards, it's visiting this new life and being a part of it, hence the game's main focus of story and lore. These are stories individually and separately told from the main campaign of the game, with their own nuances, rules, and interactions. Not every area in the game is required to reward you, or at least, reward you with something good (in terms of stats, at least).

Writing off lore and game design choices as "letting devs and contributors be a jerk to the player" is a pretty inconsiderate way of looking at all of this. Nobody here is trying to be a jerk or tell off the player. I again think it comes down to a difference of values and beliefs. You're entirely valid in feeling that there is more to be desired in the game than what is in it, or what is accessible, and I'm sure there are other players who feel this way. However I do think it's important to note that there are also a lot of players who enjoy the lore and story-telling of the game, and understand the reasoning of these restrictions or choices made to include or not include something. If this is more speaking out-loud, then that's fine. I see elsewhere your intent isn't to come off as demanding; you're more than welcome to make the suggestions or discuss as you are, no worries.

If anything, if the interpretation is we're being jerks to the players, or trying to justify it, then I would say, equally, other people are being jerks to the writers of the various stories because they're not getting something cool out of it and aren't appreciating the story written and just want better things out of it. Which, I don't believe this is the case, as neither is us wanting to be "jerks" to players. It sounds silly, doesn't it? That's why I don't think this line of thought is beneficial thinking for this sort of discussion, as it's more at its core a disagreement of design.

The above is a lot to read, so here is a TLDR, looking at the last comment.

My concern is the devs are trying to justify pre-existing designs rather than inclining towards UI improvements. I will admit I am a nobody, I've never made a successful game in my life, I've not ever released my games software library, and my only call to fame was one compliment from a clinician who loved a clinical form I designed UI-wise, but I feel like ES UI is just a bit bumpy in places, and UI doesn't just mean buttons; it can mean communicating with the user so they understand how the UI works and making it easier for them to execute intended tasks.

I think enough has been said/cycled around on the above discussion, so I'll bring things back to the point that I think is the core of your concerns or feedback. Your main feedback, from what I gather, is that there are items in the game that are visible and not obtainable, and you do not have a means of knowing if they are obtainable, mainly the concern with licenses. The UI is definitely something we can always improve on, for sure, we have always acknowledged we can do better with it and continue to consider ideas to change or make additions to it, it's not as if we'll never change it. Once again, we could as a team discuss the tooltip idea or comments on said items.

For the time being though, I think it's best again to remember that ES is an incomplete game, and to assume that not everything has been finished or added to the game as accessible yet. Someday, when the game is in a more complete state, these concerns wouldn't really be a problem anymore, as stories would be finished.

I also acknowledge that a good portion of these concerns are coming from Avgi space, in fact, most of them seem specific to it - I'm guessing the license case is for there, and the hyperspace conveniences you're looking for is also specific to the shroud. If so, I think it would be better to, instead of suggest or discuss the functions of ES overall and fundamental changes, to be more specific and discuss or give feedback into Avgi space in particular.

However, at that point, I think it's okay to not be a fan of one area in the game and enjoy other parts of it. Like I said above, each post-campaign alien area has their own story, lore, interactions and mechanics. They might not be for everyone, and it would either be difficult to make them for everyone, or make it less interesting. You don't have to like every area in the game - which is also common in game design. I will note that anything is subject to change at any time too - just as we're testing ammo restocking convenience, changing something the game came with almost 10 years ago, perhaps we visit others some time in the future.

In any case, I appreciate you having gone to your lengths to give us feedback. Thank you for taking your time to do so.

Such as?

Any place where you can capture a ship, but you can't land it to outfit it with a keystone or jump drive. Heliarch, Gegno, Bunrodea, avgi, exile, maybe successor as well (Im not sure if you can capture one with a keystone variant, haven't tried). And while, in any other system you can bribe to land, not these systems because that would allow you to get access to these ships. Quarg 'imprisoning' you if you land on their planets with a quarq ship is another good example.

You can wave your hand and say these are lore reasons. However, it feels more like lore reasons were developed to restrict player agency. On the other hand, the recent addition of restocking anywhere I think is a good example of putting player fun first. It opens up a lot of opportunity try different things and experiment.

Broadly speaking, as a player who originally played when the wanderer story was the 'end', it feels like the game has really taken a step back. Maybe it's more appropriate to say the game feels like it's stagnated. Despite all these new species being introduced, with all these restrictions the galaxy doesn't feel any bigger than it did when palavrets we're called raiders.

You don't get to change how it plays for everyone to be how you want it.

So you want to intentionally frustrate and annoy players, and if anyone questions that, it is to be deemed art, the player's opinion discarded, and the response 'well you can fix it on your end' is given.

I came here to play a game, not to write code, or to mod, or to get berated for pointing out a frustrating game mechanic, and this remark comes off as highly elitist. Not all change is bad, and UI improvements are always a good thing. You make it sound like I've come in here to complain of the lore when in reality I'm more frustrated there's insinuation I can obtain a licence (the game even says this), but then it's like "haha, tricked you, you can't obtain it, you gotta mod it instead".

Also I find it strange people are trying to paint my requests dishonestly as me wanting OP or broken stuff. If the outfits are OP and broken why are you offering them for sale in a store? It's a bit like me entering a restaurant, asking if I can order something on the menu, the waiter says 'well that's too toxic for any patron to eat'. Then... why is it on the menu? Remove it from the menu then. Either let me use the outfits you show me... or don't show me the outfits in the outfitters if I can't have them.

Sometimes, restricting player agency is not only the explicit intention, it is good game design.

A game that just lets you do absolutely everything that will ever be possible from the start has no progression system.

A game that has zero negative consequences for going out of your way to obtain some of the most overpowered (gear/ships/abilities/etc) in the game may have balance problems.

"Player agency" is not an absolute good that must be catered to at all costs.

And, again: if you want to make sure that in your game you can avoid these restrictions, you can absolutely do that. For yourself.

A game that just lets you do absolutely everything that will ever be possible from the start has no progression system.

Again, why are you trying to paint this as a demand to do everything? And how is it 'progression' if I have to... mod it in anyway for it to work?

You offer an outfit for sale. I say 'oh cool I'd like to buy it', and then you say 'no'. Then... don't offer it for sale if you never intend to sell it to me, and if you do intend to sell it to me, explicitly show, how, in-game (without third party exploits or hacks or mods or changes to the game's code) I can obtain it. I never said I was adverse to progression, which feels like a strawman argument for 'you must be a bad player so we won't fix this problem', I'm not keen on being taunted with items I cannot actually progress towards.

Broadly speaking, as a player who originally played when the wanderer story was the 'end', it feels like the game has really taken a step back. Maybe it's more appropriate to say the game feels like it's stagnated. Despite all these new species being introduced, with all these restrictions the galaxy doesn't feel any bigger than it did when palavrets we're called raiders.

I think that's largely a function of the fact that we've grown wider but not deeper over the past several years. That is, we've added a bunch of alien factions, but none of them has nearly as much story content as the Wanderers, at least not yet. When the time comes that every faction has a similar amount of story content to it, almost all the stuff that is currently unobtainable or extremely difficult to obtain will become obtainable through the story.

The pace of development has increased quite a bit in the past few months, so hopefully we're getting back to the point where the game can grow deeper instead of just growing wider.