Gunner = Arcade Action Cam for the 12 yr olds?

[kofeyh]

I believe they did say they aren't interested in giving much explanation to the finer details of multi-crew, it's meant to be pure game play.

That way lies madness. We can all invent reasons if it leads to problems sleeping at night but frontier have been purposefully vague in order to keep it as a game element, rather than highly technical and completely unintelligibly confusing mechanics.

Much like respawn after ship destruction. It's just sometimes better to not have a reason, than invent a rediculsouly implauisble one that no-one will buy. And because sometimes, just like pooping, we can just fill in the blanks ourselves, with whatever reasons we feel are needed.

Or not.

There are endless scientific reasons for many things that exist. We can't hope to know or understand them all. That we don't understand or know, doesn't prevent them from existing.

Presumably, we know in the 33rd century how it works because it's happening. Clearly it wouldn't if it couldn't.

 

[Dbrn47]

I don't take anything for granted anymore. Especially around the big patches where there are big forks in the roadmap.

I hear you... At this point I'm just wanting them to get their 'headline features' out so maybe we can finally get some depth in those features. A depth season would be great, as much as we really shouldn't need to pay for that, I'm about willing. Multi-Crew is great and all, but just being another way to 'shoot things with friends' wasn't what I had in mind. Can't even give regard to camera views among my own criticisms and worries.

 

[Red Anders]

I believe they did say they aren't interested in giving much explanation to the finer details of multi-crew, it's meant to be pure game play.

Can we get this post force-quoted at the top of every single thread on the forum because then some people might finally understand.

Agree with it or disagree with it, I'm not telling people what to think about it but for the love of God accept it and stop making endless posts about how to 'fix' this feature. Whilst we're at it, stop making endless drama posts about how to 'fix' virtually every other aspect of this update too, just like the last one.

It works like this. Developers design the game. Developers code the game. You make a decision as to whether you play it or not.

That's it. The whole process.

But... but...

No. That's it. Really. Just stop, for the love of God.

 

[lysan]

I don't know if the devs are just limited by the game engine, but I would have prefered if they had gone with a heads down display remote control weapon system, maybe using automatic turret hand off as the turrets would be networked. Something like the CROWS or ROGUE systems. I appreciate Elite isn't a simulator, but the 3rd person turret system show cased in the live stream was a touch too arcadey. Just my opinion. I'm not denegrating anyone for liking the 3rd person view.

It's hard to know what the limitation is, one could be the engine, another could be the imagination of the game designer, there could be many reasons and we simply don't know the reason why this particular mechanics was implemented.

There are also big player groups and who knows if they also are taken into advice how this should be done, we simply don't know.

If a full NPC crew was introduced it would not be so catastrophic as one could simply ignore the PvP crewman player only part.

 

[Red Fox Four]

Yes, that was pretty awfully arcadey.

Why Fdev you didnt make it like SRV turret...?

This is what I expected to be honest.

Also how it was done in Frontier Elite game. When manning turrets in that game your perspective was from the center of the ship looking outwards. Then you could aim at things around the ship using the turret without being affected by ship movement. However you still felt like you were in the ship and shooting out, rather than being spiritually placed outside the ship.

Anyways... too late now... the 3rd person view is in and it's too late for them to change it at this point.

 

[Mikey2305]

@red anders... yes, the chattering masses, bless them. I doubt if i will play multicrew because i havent got any friends. Still not done ship borne fighters or SRVs. Might make an avatar for myself which i think will twke 5 minutes out of my life at most. But hugely mpressed by what the devs have come up with. They were really having fun last night on the videocast. And if its good for the game then its good enough for me. The rest of the negative nancies can . Unless i am in need of some amusement when i can do a little gentle stirring. Unfortunately they are a little too easy to wind up. A bit like seal clubbing.....

 

[CylonSurfer]

Lets face it, multicrew is fairly useless feature at this point anyway. Well unless you want to bounty hunt or do something combat (non mission related) with a friend.

- It doesn't support Wings. So no 2 guys in one ship with another friend in his own ship
- You can't play missions together, we at least no reward will be given. So no coordinated base strikes (lack of wing support doesn't help there either), assassinations or just going a long with a friend for the ride.

Basically a multuplayer centric feature, which has bent the lore of the game to huge extremes to be accomodated and accessible but actually offers virtually no insentive or real case scenario to be worth using. The board really needs wiping with this and some actual thought going into the cooporative element of multicrewing ships and what would make it worth a crews members time to actually bother with - Coop multi crew missions would be a day expectation for this kind of thing. There are none. Being able to take regular missions as a crew and share the cash reward - also a day one expectation for this kind of feature. Denied. The implimentation of the feature is questionable and basic at best and fails to deliver any meaningful content with it. Honestly this needs to go back to the drawing board.

People had numerous expectations from multi crew from simple dropping off / collection of real players and friends to working missions as a multicrew. These expansions are really failing to deliver the content. I'll certainly wont be buying season 3 in a rush, I'll have to wait and actually see the content to ensure it delivers what it promises before I buy again. Season 2, other than landing on planets has been a complete let down and a move in a direction I cannot support from the weak 3rd person camera additions to the lack of actual new playable content.

 

[Ziljan]

It's hard to know what the limitation is, one could be the engine, another could be the imagination of the game designer, there could be many reasons and we simply don't know the reason why this particular mechanics was implemented.

If you watch any SC multicrew video, you'll spot the reason why Frontier went this route immediately. Attached turret cam views for passengers SUCK. Being passively rotated while trying to spin your turret in 3D? Too many rotating axes for the inner ear to keep up with. To complicate things even further, many players use VR.

In order to keep the dramamine budget reasonable, they opted for a detached camera view for multicrew members. It's that's simple.

 

[Muetdhiver]

Lets face it, multicrew is fairly useless feature at this point anyway. Well unless you want to bounty hunt or do something combat (non mission related) with a friend.

- It doesn't support Wings. So no 2 guys in one ship with another friend in his own ship
...

This could be solved by adding a "ship recall" option like in the SRV when doing MC (with the customary "immersion timer (R)"),
and then voilà ! MC => wing in a rather seamless way.

 

[Angry Fish Smell]

- It doesn't support Wings. So no 2 guys in one ship with another friend in his own ship

Did they explicitly call this out? I was at work during the livestream so I must have missed that bit.

- You can't play missions together, we at least no reward will be given. So no coordinated base strikes (lack of wing support doesn't help there either), assassinations or just going a long with a friend for the ride.

You can't share missions when you're in the ship, but I'd be interested in seeing if you could dock at the same station as your friend, pick up missions, and then multicrew in to take care of them.

 

[Kharadrass]

Well.. however, the "tactical" gunner view IMHO should look different from the actual "real" view (because in the ed universe a cam view without an actual physical cam cant exist - FD is using here the concept of an"external cam" which doesnt belong to the game universe per se blending together with game mechanics ). The biggest difference would be full cg to wireframe. If you know another solution to distuingish "real" from "a generated tactical view" then Im glad to hear it.

How about Elite being set 1000 years in the future and the fact by then computers will be able to take in sensor data, extrapolate positioning of said data and project a holo or direct 3rd person perspective directly to the gunners station or helmet visor or directly to his/her brain! Come on immersion freaks, stop thinking as immersion in terms of 21st century technology and needing a "physical camera". Also for those that complained about FD breaking the rules? What rules? There is no "rules", its their game and they can develop it how they see fit. Gaming communities don't make the rules. OH NO, its a GAME and heaven forbid if they make it interesting for other people apart from your small immersion dependant groups to have fun in. If you do not like the new content....simply don't use it. Same as if you didn't like offensive content in a movie, why would you keep on watching it? Mary Whitehouse frame of mind.

 

[Dbrn47]

Did they explicitly call this out? I was at work during the livestream so I must have missed that bit.



You can't share missions when you're in the ship, but I'd be interested in seeing if you could dock at the same station as your friend, pick up missions, and then multicrew in to take care of them.

Yes, they did call it out. Twice in fact.

 

[lysan]

If you watch any SC multicrew video, you'll spot the reason why Frontier went this route immediately. Attached turret cam views for passengers SUCK. Being passively rotated while trying to spin your turret in 3D? Too many rotating axes for the inner ear to keep up with. To complicate things even further, many players use VR.

In order to keep the dramamine budget reasonable, they opted for a detached camera view for multicrew members. It's that's simple.

Well you could be right, however there are better solutions to fix that, but they are not that simple to make and would require some serious coding, and FDEV just didn't had the time to do it.
That is my guess.

Or maybe they actually believe this is the best way to do it?

 

[CylonSurfer]

You can't share missions when you're in the ship, but I'd be interested in seeing if you could dock at the same station as your friend, pick up missions, and then multicrew in to take care of them.

No, you would think they would fix this before spending time and money implimenting a mulitplayer, cooperative feature such as multicrew right?

3 months ago at FDEV HQ.....
"Hey guys, you know this multicrew we're working on shouldn't we be making some content for the players wanting to use this feature to actually... well. Use?"

"Nah. Why bother, we have some RES sites which are essentially place holders we left in game - I'm sure they'll be happy in those..."

 

[Ziljan]

Lets face it, multicrew is fairly useless feature at this point anyway. Well unless you want to bounty hunt or do something combat (non mission related) with a friend.

- It doesn't support Wings. So no 2 guys in one ship with another friend in his own ship
- You can't play missions together, we at least no reward will be given. So no coordinated base strikes (lack of wing support doesn't help there either), assassinations or just going a long with a friend for the ride.

Basically a multuplayer centric feature, which has bent the lore of the game to huge extremes to be accomodated and accessible but actually offers virtually no insentive or real case scenario to be worth using.

I have to agree a bit here. There are zero advantages vs Wings except being able to instantly move around the galaxy. The lack of SRV support makes doing base assaults impossible. Same for SRV rescues. There is also no role for Explorers or Ship Engineers/Defense just yet.

These will probably be implemented in the (hopefully not too distant) future. At which point multicrew may become relevant for people who can wing up instead for better results.

 

[Arkadi]

Lets face it, multicrew is fairly useless feature at this point anyway. Well unless you want to bounty hunt or do something combat (non mission related) with a friend.

- It doesn't support Wings. So no 2 guys in one ship with another friend in his own ship
- You can't play missions together, we at least no reward will be given. So no coordinated base strikes (lack of wing support doesn't help there either), assassinations or just going a long with a friend for the ride.

[...]

- Coop multi crew missions would be a day expectation for this kind of thing. There are none. Being able to take regular missions as a crew and share the cash reward - also a day one expectation for this kind of feature. Denied.

[...]

I have just seen the streams 1&2 and I have to agree to Cylon here. It all looks very nice and the 12 year old in me will be happy trying the multicrew shooting at some RES sites. But I am afraid that this is not only the beginning of the fun of 2.3 but will also be the end of the fun again. It's nice our pilots get faces that are represented in chat. That's all? Now well, it fits the spirit of detached littel game-features: have a race there, have a multicrew res-hunting here, go a littel bit mining later ... pull out your hair to fit it all into an imaginary story why the jelly-roll your pilot is doing all this... maybe becouse he is a 12 year old by heart and loves shooting stuff in space? :S

 

[Vasea Azure]

I have to agree a bit here. There are zero advantages vs Wings except being able to instantly move around the galaxy. The lack of SRV support makes doing base assaults impossible. Same for SRV rescues. There is also no role for Explorers or Ship Engineers/Defense just yet.

These will probably be implement in the (hopefully not too distant) future. At which point multicrew may become relevant for people who can wing up instead for better results.

From what I remember they said thet MC SRV function is not "yet" in the game so hopefully it will happen sooner or later.

 

[Ziljan]

Well you could be right, however there are better solutions to fix that, but they are not that simple to make and would require some serious coding, and FDEV just didn't had the time to do it.
That is my guess.

Or maybe they actually believe this is the best way to do it?

I suspect they tried more than one way of implementing the gunner seat, and this was the easiest and most workable that didn't induce nausea. Or maybe it was just the most cinematic? Idk. If you have better solutions, maybe you can voice them? I bet they have some working code ready somewhere with other versions. Probably too late for that though, unless there was a clearly superior requested option that gained steam?

 

[Angry Fish Smell]

No, you would think they would fix this before spending time and money implimenting a mulitplayer, cooperative feature such as multicrew right?

3 months ago at FDEV HQ.....
"Hey guys, you know this multicrew we're working on shouldn't we be making some content for the players wanting to use this feature to actually... well. Use?"

"Nah. Why bother, we have some RES sites which are essentially place holders we left in game - I'm sure they'll be happy in those..."

They also implemented Orcas years before passenger missions were a thing. While the game player in me is saying "how bare boned", the game dev in me can't help but approve of the continual implementation of baseline systems before layering things on top of them. I just hope they don't take another couple years before following up on it...

 

[CylonSurfer]

I have to agree a bit here. There are zero advantages vs Wings except being able to instantly move around the galaxy. The lack of SRV support makes doing base assaults impossible. Same for SRV rescues. There is also no role for Explorers or Ship Engineers/Defense just yet.

These will probably be implement in the (hopefully not too distant) future. At which point multicrew may become relevant for people who can wing up instead for better results.

Just funny that a lot of people are saying that immersion is ruining their fun and to leave the MultiCrew implimentation alone in the name of quick mulitplayer fun - when there is no fun for them if they do use this feature... as it offers them basically nothing, but does spell out some very worrying signs when it comes to the future of Elite Dangerous and its first person game play focus. I can't see either side of this debate using this feature more than a handful of times, afterwhich all we're left with is all the bad points the feature introduces and license for FDEV to use similar implimentations in future content releases. As I say I'm done pre-purchasing seasons based on Season 2 - I'll have to take the approach of see it to believe it - if its worth it I'll buy it. The more people that do that, the less upfront development cash they have. Which will be sad but will be the direct result of them developing lack luster content that does not compliment the base game in any way.