MULTICREW: Adam Woods describing MC during the Horizons' launch stream.

[Besensec]

In 15th of December, 2015 (MC was planned to come in Fall/Winter of 2016), during the Horizons' Launch live stream, Adam talks with Ed about Multicrew. In it, MC is described to be like this:

• Max 4 per ship, limited by seats:
  (1) Helm (piloting & fixed weapons),
  (2) Fire control (turrets/weapons),
  (3) Tactical (shields, countermeasures, sensors, targets prioritization),
  (4) Engineering (power management, repairs).
• Will be balanced so 4 people in a ship is on par with 4 people in a wing.
• Uses wing system (still can't have more than 4 in wing).
• Can "hot-swap" between roles.
• Crew can do route plotting while helm flies.
• Crew can do reparations.
• Can Deploy SRV.
• Can Deploy SLF.
• Uses SRV style "neural link" or UI interface.

Adam also expands on crewing a Cobra or a Vulture, and about the things you could do as a crewmember in a peaceful situation, while the helm pilots the ship. He says that you could take care of permission requests, the galactic map & route plotting. That is in addition to the role specific tasks. As it is generally known by now, more than half of these points were cut out from the plan and only a minority of these came to be true: the basic ones without which MC wouldn't be conceivable (MC working as a wing and the UI interface), an irrelevant one (no hot-swapping in crews of two), and one that divides the crew in two ships (the irony of the coolest feature of MC depending on flying another ship on your own). While I consider SLF in multicrew a success, it is a strong indication of a really weak design if MC shines the most when one of its roles spends its time outside of the ship.

Before the gratuitous bashing begins, I want to stress that FD knows how to make things fun. All the original talk from Frontier about Multicrew, prior to the beta announcement, is evidence of it. FD knew how MC should be done. But on the other hand, there is also evidence of its planned future; there is none. As Sandro said in the stream, there are no plans for it. So we are left to wonder what happened to all of these cropped ideas. If MC is so drastically incomplete, why not have the rest of their ideas still part of the plan? But now Multicrew is left to its own luck, with its future depending on such simplistic and restrictive iteration.

What is unacceptable is that all this talk was not part of an early draft, this was the presentation of a headline feature being sold right then, during the very launch of the "Season of Expansions", and with the assurance that in general it will stay true; obviously, it didn't, by far. And even more recently, during last's week trailer, we are shown a crewed cobra deploying an SRV (as rightly spotted by this user). It is totally understandable that the description wouldn't match the reality 100%, but in this case, the difference is too big. It is an alteration in the significance of MC, not simple tiny details. It is almost a totally different product.

This might look as false advertising, all of this is misleading. If FD cares about their reputation, they could explain what happened, and they could make plans for MC to stay true to their words. I think I have the right to demand what I was being offered and paid for. MC needs and should be expanded in accordance to its advertisement. And Frontier, please, don't even think about selling these features in another DLC, they already belong to Season 2 owners.

PD: just to give credit where is due, I took this list found on reddit, and completed it.
EDIT: It is important to keep in mind that Adam and Ed, during their talk, made explicit the caveat that once the feature is in full production (and once we get our hand in the beta), it might change. However, Adam also stresses that in general the features will stay true. Question is if it did.

 

[Lateralus]

I agree that the initial implementation of MC seems a little half-baked or missing features. No doubt they are planning on building further mechanisms on top of the initial 3 roles... but I think they should make that clearer, rather than the usual FDev vagueness.

I would like to see a 'navigator' role, which uses the proposed orrery map to make exploration easier (navigator takes care of level 2 planet scans while the helm takes care of level 3 detail surface scans etc).

 

[ozrix84]

dude, those missing features might still be planned for a future update for all we know. development is iterative

 

[StiTch]

I have more respect for a developer - or any artist even - that realises what won't work as they're making it, and adjusts for the better, than someone continuing through blind pride into failure.

 

[Barking_Mad]

In 15th of December, 2015 (MC was planned to come in Fall/Winter of 2016), during the Horizons' Launch live stream, Adam talks with Ed about Multicrew. In it, MC is described to be like this:

• Max 4 per ship, limited by seats:
  (1) Helm (piloting & fixed weapons),
  (2) Fire control (turrets/weapons),
  (3) Tactical (shields, countermeasures, sensors, targets prioritization),
  (4) Engineering (power management, repairs).
• Will be balanced so 4 people in a ship is on par with 4 people in a wing.
• Uses wing system (still can't have more than 4 in wing).
• Can "hot-swap" between roles.
• Crew can do route plotting while helm flies.
• Crew can do reparations.
• Can Deploy SRV.
• Can Deploy SLF.
• Uses SRV style "neural link" or UI interface.

Adam also expands on crewing a Cobra or a Vulture, and about the things you could do as a crewmember in a peaceful situation, while the helm pilots the ship. He says that you could take care of permission requests, the galactic map & route plotting. That is in addition to the role specific tasks. As it is generally known by now, more than half of these points were cut out from the plan and only a minority of these came to be true: the basic ones without which MC wouldn't be conceivable (MC working as a wing and the UI interface), an irrelevant one (no hot-swapping in crews of two), and one that divides the crew in two ships (the irony of the coolest feature of MC depending on flying another ship on your own). While I consider SLF in multicrew a success, it is a strong indication of a really weak design if MC shines the most when one of its roles spends its time outside of the ship.

Before the gratuitous bashing begins, I want to stress that FD knows how to make things fun. All the original talk from Frontier about Multicrew, prior to the beta announcement, is evidence of it. FD knew how MC should be done. But on the other hand, there is also evidence of its planned future; there is none. As Sandro said in the stream, there are no plans for it. So we are left to wonder what happened to all of these cropped ideas. If MC is so drastically incomplete, why not have the rest of their ideas still part of the plan? But now Multicrew is left to its own luck, with its future depending on such simplistic and restrictive iteration.

What is unacceptable is that all this talk was not part of an early draft, this was the presentation of a headline feature being sold right then, during the very launch of the "Season of Expansions", and with the assurance that in general it will stay true; obviously, it didn't, by far. And even more recently, during last's week trailer, we are shown a crewed cobra deploying an SRV (as rightly spotted by this user). It is totally understandable that the description wouldn't match the reality 100%, but in this case, the difference is too big. It is an alteration in the significance of MC, not simple tiny details. It is almost a totally different product.

As a customer I am feeling tricked. If FD cares about their reputation, they could explain what happened, and they could make plans for MC to stay true to their words. I think I have the right to demand what I was being offered and paid for. MC needs and should be expanded in accordance to its advertisement. And Frontier, don't even think about selling these features in another DLC, they already belong to Season 2 owners.

PD: just to give credit where is due, I took this list found on reddit, and completed it.

To be fair I watched the video and didnt think they were nailed down ideas that were definitely coming, Im pretty sure Adam said as much. However they should probably have added another caveat and said, "This is a goal, but it might be the case we reduce the number of crew and the roles on offer." to make it clearer to people that it was not an outright promise.

On a separate point I try to take stuff with a dose of salt and not pin my hopes on what's being said, that way disappointment is reduced if it's not as suggested. It is after all game design and there's a lot of things that can go wrong given time, money, technical problems etc.

 

[Besensec]

No doubt they are planning on building further mechanisms on top of the initial 3 roles... but I think they should make that clearer, rather than the usual FDev vagueness.
etc).

dude, those missing features might still be planned for a future update for all we know. development is iterative

Last we heard of was that they have no plans for MC. Sandro said he is open to consider it if the feature is welcomed by the players. But then again, how much positive reception it could have if the feature is so incomplete?

 

[KING5TON]

I think the issue has always been not enough time/resources. For everything.
The release of the game and the release of all the updates, not enough time/resources spent on them so each one has been lackluster.
I assume that this is an upper management issue.
Rather than delay elements to make them better enforce that releases need to meet arbitrary dates rather than releasing when they're ready.
Rather than staff the teams working on updates with enough devs to develop quality updates spread all your dev teams thinly either creating new games, porting existing games to other platforms and developing updates for ED.
Rather than managing your customers expectations over promise and then under deliver every single time.

 

[ozrix84]

Last we heard of was that they have no plans for MC. Sandro said he is open to consider it if the feature is welcomed by the players. But then again, how much positive reception it could have if the feature is so incomplete?

sandro said they'll overhaul powerplay, despite the fact that it isn't the most popular feature out there

 

[Hooplah]

It's all relative. A list of features they are looking to incorporate in 2015 is not a promise that they can pull it off, or find in the programming some may not be feasible. Other features may require additional primary game enhancements before they will be stable and work in Multi-Crew. The issue is that some regard these as a solid promise to the consumer that they will be added. Then when they don't work out it is rant time. Oh well.

History lesson for today: Dan Cook, a sports writer for the San Antonio, Texas News-Express, in 1976 is regarded to have coined the phrase, "The opera ain't over till the fat lady sings." Many derivations since. They all apply here here as well.

 

[Besensec]

To be fair I watched the video and didnt think they were nailed down ideas that were definitely coming, Im pretty sure Adam said as much. However they should probably have added another caveat and said, "This is a goal, but it might be the case we reduce the number of crew and the roles on offer." to make it clearer to people that it was not an outright promise.

But the feature was being sold right then. It was the launch of Season 2. They did make the caveat. My argument is not that it changed, is how much it changed. Adam said that in general the feature will remain the same. This is not the case. It is reasonable to say we received 20% or less of what was being described. We could make a list of the things that were planned and the ones we actually got. I assure you the first one will be way longer than the second.

If this was not a nailed down plan, then they shouldn't have said anything of it at the moment of its announcement. Again, this was the launch of Season 2 pass. Also, under the original timeline for Season 2, 2.3 was supposed to be release about about 9 months after that. Is not a lot of time, anyone would have imagined that everything was already on its way.

 

[Ian Skippy]

I think the issue has always been not enough time/resources. For everything.
The release of the game and the release of all the updates, not enough time/resources spent on them so each one has been lackluster.
I assume that this is an upper management issue.
Rather than delay elements to make them better enforce that releases need to meet arbitrary dates rather than releasing when they're ready.
Rather than staff the teams working on updates with enough devs to develop quality updates spread all your dev teams thinly either creating new games, porting existing games to other platforms and developing updates for ED.
Rather than managing your customers expectations over promise and then under deliver every single time.

They delayed 2.3 by six months, going from three to nine months dev time.

Its not an 'evil management is stupid' issue. They clearky ran into some issues, and fixing it drained time, energy and money. The fact they completely cut it without movibg it to 2.4 suggests its not easy to overcome...

 

[KING5TON]

I agree that the initial implementation of MC seems a little half-baked or missing features. No doubt they are planning on building further mechanisms on top of the initial 3 roles... but I think they should make that clearer, rather than the usual FDev vagueness.

I would like to see a 'navigator' role, which uses the proposed orrery map to make exploration easier (navigator takes care of level 2 planet scans while the helm takes care of level 3 detail surface scans etc).

The problem is that if the original roles as described go back "on the list" then you'll likely never see them again.
FD can't seem to revisit anything.
When you've got to flog new shinies to keep the money rolling in you've got to develop said shinines rather than improving the game you've already developed.
So expect them never to change.

 

[Besensec]

It's all relative. A list of features they are looking to incorporate in 2015 is not a promise that they can pull it off, or find in the programming some may not be feasible. Other features may require additional primary game enhancements before they will be stable and work in Multi-Crew. The issue is that some regard these as a solid promise to the consumer that they will be added. Then when they don't work out it is rant time. Oh well.

Please, point out where is the ranting in what I wrote. If you don't find it, don't poison my argument by pairing it with other rants. I would rather have you addressing the points directly. I already acknowledged the fact that nothing needs to be equal to its advertising, and that plans can change. But in this case is more than that, by far. Adam recognizes this when he says things might change, but that in general, they will remain the same. It changed more than acceptable.

 

[K-Rose]

dude, those missing features might still be planned for a future update for all we know. development is iterative

Sandro has said that it's dependant on the uptake.

To use a metaphor..

I make a chocolate cake, and I say I'll make more chocolate cake, making it even more delicious, if people like the original chocolate cake.

But the original chocolate cake was baked using 3 bags of salt instead of sugar.

I could have taken the time to use the sugar originally, or I could commit to continuing to make cake with sugar, but as it stands no one wants a salty chocolate cake and therefore I don't think anyone wants any sweet chocolate cake.



People want Multi-Crew to continue to be developed.

People want Multi-Crew to have more roles, whether they're "boring" or not, there are some people that like to RP.

People also want some form of NPC Multi-Crew to feel like they're in Star Trek or something.


Those people may not play the "Combat Only" Multi-Crew that we have now, therefore FD have stated that they'll take that as a sign that Multi-Crew is a flop. It'd just be sad to lose the opportunity to have something more fleshed out because of FD's tunnel vision.

 

[VR Golgot]

In 15th of December, 2015 (MC was planned to come in Fall/Winter of 2016), during the Horizons' Launch live stream, Adam talks with Ed about Multicrew. In it, MC is described to be like this:

• Max 4 per ship, limited by seats:
  (1) Helm (piloting & fixed weapons),
  (2) Fire control (turrets/weapons),
  (3) Tactical (shields, countermeasures, sensors, targets prioritization),
  (4) Engineering (power management, repairs).
• Will be balanced so 4 people in a ship is on par with 4 people in a wing.
• Uses wing system (still can't have more than 4 in wing).
• Can "hot-swap" between roles.
• Crew can do route plotting while helm flies.
• Crew can do reparations.
• Can Deploy SRV.
• Can Deploy SLF.
• Uses SRV style "neural link" or UI interface.

You've missed out the pretty important caveat that came 1 minute before your link. IE that as with all game dev 'things might change... anything I say today may or not be final'.

But on the other hand, there is also evidence of its planned future; there is none. As Sandro said in the stream, there are no plans for it.

Elsewhere in the stream Sandro said:

"There's no reason other than time and resources why it couldn't be expanded, but let's take it one step at a time... It could get further. We have concepts for taking it further. Obviously nothing to announce at the moment."

& in the section you reference:

'Could they come back in the future? It is possible, but it would take a lot of thinking through basically. Once you start considering out of combat stuff the longevity becomes more important, then that does effect how the rewards work and how the rest of the multicrew works with it. Wouldn't want to rule it out, but nothing just yet.'

Classifying that as 'no plans' would be wrong I'd say. Saying they have ideas, but don't guarantee they'll execute on them, sure.

this was the presentation of a headline feature being sold right then, during the very launch of the "Season of Expansions", and with the assurance that in general it will stay true

And nope on that, as above.

I'm not saying 'end thread' (and hell this'll probably run and run like that all do ). But you've asserted some things that are pretty much contradicted, and taken the most negative interpretation possible in other areas.

 

[Jaiotu]

The thing to remember is that, just like any other aspect of the game, multi-crew is subject to change in the future. I think that a lot of the missed targets are due to bugs and other limitations. Multi-crew obviously requires a lot of additions to the game. As much as I want a lot of the promised features of multi-crew they aren't worth shipping 2.3 as a broken product.

I think a lot of the things that Adam mentions in the video, such as hot swapping with the Helm, are part of the reason why the initial betas for 2.3 did not have multicrew enabled.

Treating Adam's comments in a live stream about upcoming features as an explicit promise is neither charitable nor reasonable. What we were actually promised on the product page for Horizons was simply: "MULTICREW. Allowing teams of players to assume roles aboard the same ship." They are delivering on that promise. Does it look anything like most of us were expecting? Not quite. I fully expect that many of the features we're looking for will be implemented in future updates as "quality of life" features. Look at all the additions and QOL enhancements that owners of season one have benefited from during the Horizons expansion season. Even if you don't purchase season 3 you'll be benefiting from the continual development that Frontier invests in the core game.

 

[NMS]

To be fair, they never do what they promise.

 

[K-Rose]

To be fair, they never do what they promise.

To be fair, they never promise anything.

 

[Ian Skippy]

The thing to remember is that, just like any other aspect of the game, multi-crew is subject to change in the future. I think that a lot of the missed targets are due to bugs and other limitations. Multi-crew obviously requires a lot of additions to the game. As much as I want a lot of the promised features of multi-crew they aren't worth shipping 2.3 as a broken product.

I think a lot of the things that Adam mentions in the video, such as hot swapping with the Helm, are part of the reason why the initial betas for 2.3 did not have multicrew enabled.

Treating Adam's comments in a live stream about upcoming features as an explicit promise is neither charitable nor reasonable. What we were actually promised on the product page for Horizons was simply: "MULTICREW. Allowing teams of players to assume roles aboard the same ship." They are delivering on that promise. Does it look anything like most of us were expecting? Not quite. I fully expect that many of the features we're looking for will be implemented in future updates as "quality of life" features. Look at all the additions and QOL enhancements that owners of season one have benefited from during the Horizons expansion season. Even if you don't purchase season 3 you'll be benefiting from the continual development that Frontier invests in the core game.

No, those delays came after the already limited features were announced. And FD recently stated they currently have no plans at all for adding to MC.

Lets keep facts and dreams seperate folks.

 

[KING5TON]

But the feature was being sold right then. It was the launch of Season 2. They did make the caveat. My argument is not that it changed, is how much it changed. Adam said that in general the feature will remain the same. This is not the case. It is reasonable to say we received 20% or less of what was being described. We could make a list of the things that were planned and the ones we actually got. I assure you the first one will be way longer than the second.

If this was not a nailed down plan, then they shouldn't have said anything of it at the moment of its announcement. Again, this was the launch of Season 2 pass. Also, under the original timeline for Season 2, 2.3 was supposed to be release about about 9 months after that. Is not a lot of time, anyone would have imagined that everything was already on its way.

It was the plan when Horizons announced.
Sandro basically said in the livestream that 2.3 is as it is because not enough time.
So they didn't have time to develop 2.3 to the level originally described so you we get this current cut down version.
Why they didn't have time in over a year I've no idea.
Maybe the character creator that will provide probably no more than 20 mins of entertainment was more important than a feature that could have added untold hours of entertainment. I dunno.
It's par for the course though, not enough time, not enough resources.