Would you like to have npc wingmates?
- Thread starter diddycarter
- Start date
Nothing will, save a total rework of the game. I think SJA's 2.1 work on AI may change this slightly though, at higher levels.
I'd be for hiring NPC's, but I'd also like the option to hire PC's. A jobs board could fill both needs. For the NPC's, I'd want different skill levels. Higher the skill, higher the price. Hire them by the hour.
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Sure. But here's the thing: go check that DDF for me and tell me how many decades you think any company would need to make it a reality.
People forget that FD constantly IS adding stuff from the DDF. Next up is, for example, persistent NPCs (see tiered-NPC discussion). Multi-crew is, IIRC, DDF, landing on planets is DDF (and the order how they go about it is pretty much as they planned years ago!). Being able to launch fighters, naming planets for discovering them etc. The thing is that FD is adding a lot of differing things in rough strokes of a brush, and detail is then added later. I wish FD could add the entire DDF tomorrow, but the sad fact is that for the really cool details to come we'll need to wait for quite a bit longer I am afraid. If you're bored: add the patch notes in a document and see how many lines you'll get. How much manpower do you think went into the 'now able to land on non-atmo planets' line, and then notice there are literally hundreds upon hundreds lines. Then consider FD is actually pretty small, and these guys are already often working holidays, weekend and evenings. There is a limit to what we can expect, its just the way it is.
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Then again, look at the poll, its basically just asking 'do you want more stuff?'. It doesnt really matter, you could just as well have asked 'do you want an extra ship/random other feature in the next patch'. Why would anyone vote no, there is no drawback whatsoever. More interesting is: what would you be willing to see pushed back in the priorities list to make it happen sooner?
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Not sure if you're trolling or not, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
1) The DDF was not a list of advertised features. FD even explicitly and specifically mentioned this, numerous times. People who say 'DDF=promised content' are either lying, illiterate, stupid or a combination of thereof.
2) Ofcourse frontier 'lacked the resources', the most important being 'time'. Again, FD explicitly mentioned from the Kickstarter on that ED 1.0 would be a 'basic version' with features being added over the following years.
3) People like you always resent it when reality conflicts with your sense of entitlement. Ultimately thats your own problem to deal with.
Seriously, if you have zero idea what you're talking about you may want to keep the sarcasm and entitlement hidden away.
Bad day CMDR? Keep drinking the Kool Aid and thinking that you're the only one with a valid opinion (and data to back it up).
Not sure, on the face of it yeah why not?
On the other hand I think the instance limit for players is affected by npcs too since that that's more data that has to be sent.
If that is indeed the case ~5-6 players with full wings and that's the instance full.
And to be honest if you hire wingman with credits everyone past the "mid game" is gonna to have a full wing at all times, it'll turn into a game where everyone flies round with a small armada. You then end up with a bunch of OP players and a bunch of underpowered (non-wing) newer players.
Yeah of course *I* want my own NPC wing!! But do I want everyone else flying round with full wings? Not sure about that.
Dunno.
On the other hand I think the instance limit for players is affected by npcs too since that that's more data that has to be sent.
If that is indeed the case ~5-6 players with full wings and that's the instance full.
And to be honest if you hire wingman with credits everyone past the "mid game" is gonna to have a full wing at all times, it'll turn into a game where everyone flies round with a small armada. You then end up with a bunch of OP players and a bunch of underpowered (non-wing) newer players.
Yeah of course *I* want my own NPC wing!! But do I want everyone else flying round with full wings? Not sure about that.
Dunno.
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I'd like NPC Wingmen and NPC crew.
Think both would really liven up the game, especially if it was implemented similarly to before. (Choice of whom to hire at stations, and steadily improve their levels, etc).
Think it would make a real positive difference.
Think both would really liven up the game, especially if it was implemented similarly to before. (Choice of whom to hire at stations, and steadily improve their levels, etc).
Think it would make a real positive difference.
Yes, I would like NPC wingmates. It would be nice to have some wing or fleet missions too, command of NPC wingmates and a progression system inside an NPC mini-faction.
In Rebel Galaxy you get 1 wingmate. Now and then his face pops up on the screen and he talks to you.
Star Trek Online, you interact with friendly NPC ships to kill the bad guy. Not necessarily is it always a wingmate, but AI interaction, nonetheless.
Evochron Legacy you can hire NPC mercs and issue fleet commands.
Wingmates simulate the living, breathing universe a bit more than flying around solo, imo.
It would make those lame lone Eagle NPC interdictions a little less tedious.
Yes with the caveat that I can put them on "scan&ram" duty.
If Open was the only game mode this would be a more solid argument. But for Solo, and to a lesser extent Group play, Wings imbalanced things in favour of the NPCs. If you're bad at combat the NPC wings have a strength advantage, and even if you're an ace pilot they take longer to defeat and cost you time. NPC wingmen for players wil redress this a little.
Of course it will affect the Open play meta one way or another. For instance I can see trading wings maxing out their NPC wing count in an attempt to fill up the island and limit the chance of player pirates joining them. And if the "trading in a wing" bonus is applied when flying with NPCs (assuming the bonus is greater than the cost of the wingmen) then of course everyone will do it. (And if it isn't, what of the "NPCs are treated the same as players" rule? What of our precious immersion?)
All bridges to be crossed, but not an excuse to dismiss a long-touted game mechanic out of hand.
A slight tangent:The argument that "we can't do x because of y" seems to be more and more prevalent on the forums these days. Sometimes it masks an agenda, but in many cases it appears to be the result of a sort of resignation to the idea that some things are broken and will forever remain broken and so must be accepted, along with the loss of any new features that might be affected by them. Which is a bit defeatist. Fix the broken things, then they can't adversely affect the new things.
And what's to stop the PvP crowd taking NPC wings to a fight with them?
IMHO this poll together with this one:
Crew: NPC or players? (cast your vote if you haven't done so, yet!)
shows - even when respecting that forum polls are not 100% representative of the whole player base - that demand for more and better NPC integration into the game is high!
Sadly though, neither NPC wingmen nor NPC crew for hire have been unambiguously confirmed to come at all
During a recent AMA with David Braben "They [NPC wingmen] will come", but given that he said that as a response to practically every feature request during that stream I am not convinced this can be seen as a real confirmation.
Another statement by Michael Brookes doesn't clear up the situation either:
Concerning NPC crews, Michael Brookes said they might come during a future season, but no real confirmation here either:
Crew: NPC or players? (cast your vote if you haven't done so, yet!)
shows - even when respecting that forum polls are not 100% representative of the whole player base - that demand for more and better NPC integration into the game is high!
Sadly though, neither NPC wingmen nor NPC crew for hire have been unambiguously confirmed to come at all
During a recent AMA with David Braben "They [NPC wingmen] will come", but given that he said that as a response to practically every feature request during that stream I am not convinced this can be seen as a real confirmation.
Another statement by Michael Brookes doesn't clear up the situation either:
Concerning NPC crews, Michael Brookes said they might come during a future season, but no real confirmation here either:
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Good points worth thinking about!
Its not about the ammount of data, but about the number of connections. NPC wingmen dont add to the latter.