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

[Besensec]

This :


is why we cant have nice things like this:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/338240-what-dev-updates-should-look-like-IMHO

Sorry, I don't understand your point.

Stuff happens, sometimes its not good, but you have to go ahead anyway. They promised multicrew as part of season 2, they had to deliver something. To do everything they initially planned right now, and assuming what they wanted is still a good idea, then we would be looking at months more.

Perhaps better to get what they have out of the door now so they can move forward. It will probably mean that MC doesn't get any major love for a while afterwards, but at least it won't be holding up other features further.

I agree with you, but then again, this is why a road map is necessary. I am not saying MC is a bad idea. I consider the SLF role a success, as I said in the OP. I am OK with all we are getting with MC now. But I expect it to be expanded, to get closer to what I was being offered, and I expect FD to assure this to some extent. Right now, MC is too far away from the form of its original announcement. Again, my objection is not that is not accurate to the original plan, it is about how different it is. And yes, our lives will go on anyway, but such talk is tautological.

 

[Brownshortz]

When have FDev looked back to an existing feature?

MC won't change anymore after it is launched

Exactly....it kind of amuses me when people keep saying "but they will bring in more features later to flesh it out." I mean seriously guys when has FD ever gone back to flesh out some random feature they brought in. Wings?.....exact same as it was when it was first released. PP?....ditto bar a few tweaks here and there. Planetary
landings?....exact same even though they talked about bringing out new SRV types for different roles, and absolutely no new gameplay whatsoever. And apart from deleting commodities from the engineer recipes that (Engineers) is pretty much identical too. Are we seeing a pattern here? MC is what it is...there will be no further development bar maybe fixing the odd bug.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Also please solve the issue of not being able to use the SRV - it seems like it would be pretty vital to not only the exploration and mission branches of the game, that it would just be a hell of a lot of fun too.s.

this is probably the biggest improvement needed imo.

some surface missions with multicrew, one in a FGS or other main ship, one in an SLF and one in an SRV... this is probably the most fun example of multicrew i can think of right now.... not just for pew pew either, but for organised planetary exploration.

 

[K-Rose]

this is probably the biggest improvement needed imo.

some surface missions with multicrew, one in a FGS or other main ship, one in an SLF and one in an SRV... this is probably the most fun example of multicrew i can think of right now.... not just for pew pew either, but for organised planetary exploration.

This and being able to share missions to wingmates/crewmates so you can both get rewarded.

 

[Brownshortz]

this is probably the biggest improvement needed imo.

some surface missions with multicrew, one in a FGS or other main ship, one in an SLF and one in an SRV... this is probably the most fun example of multicrew i can think of right now.... not just for pew pew either, but for organised planetary exploration.

People have been screaming for Wing based missions since......well the Wings update. If they were going to do it they would have done it by now.

 

[NeilF]

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

True, but let's look at the general track record over the past two years? What area of the game has been revisited and truly made deeper?

History suggests, draw a line under it, and move on to the next shiney bolt-on promotion... So I think multi-crew is all but done now. Now if something truly more involved was added like NPC wingmen to command (attack that, defend this, stay here, go there) in specific tasks/missions, I can then imagine maybe a multi-crew member for example being given a nice interface to control/give orders to numerous NPC Wingmen/fighters to better effect etc etc... Or if we have exploration drones we could fire off to planets to discovery-scan and view them (video feeds), then a crew member could help assign/control those. But we don't seem to get gameplay depth like that being added, for it then to be utilised elsewhere for greater benefits - https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...ite-ED-in-the-boosters!?p=5227174#post5227174

TBH, I suspect Multi-Crew will all but become another CQC, ultimately just ending up with niche usage rather than it being a commonly used feature. Indeed, when all it offers is to fire turrets from an external view, or fly a SLF on someone else's ship, where's the gameplay depth/benefit/challenge to truly entice (reward) you in? The generous CR payout alone seems to suggests it's trying to make up for the lack of something else?

 

[Lateralus]

When have FDev looked back to an existing feature?

MC won't change anymore after it is launched

Engineers, weapons, some minor powerplay bits (needs a lot more though)....

The problem with the way FDev structured the whole 'season' model is that they committed themselves to delivering 4 specific updates a year and a half ago... this left minimal time for revisiting existing features. I think they have learned from this and will do the second major expansion differently.

 

[Jaiotu]

While I agree with the rest of your post, I want to point out that I didn't claim these to be promises. They made the disclaimer near the end of their talk about MC. But my objection is against how much it changed and the current attitude towards it (although my main purpose is just to pressure on MC receiving more attention in the future, hoping FD will read it).

Trust me. Nothing would make me happier than to see a major overhaul of the current multi-crew features. In its current form I don't see me using multi-crew at all. As an explorer it offers me nothing.

- - - Updated - - -

... this is why a road map is necessary.

The problem with a road map analogy is that it only helps illustrate Frontier's decision to follow a short cut

 

[sorcer3r]

Limited time and resources argument doesn't convince me if they had time and resources to spend on PP and QCQ...

I have the impression that it is more about quantity over quality.

 

[Jaiotu]

Exactly....it kind of amuses me when people keep saying "but they will bring in more features later to flesh it out." I mean seriously guys when has FD ever gone back to flesh out some random feature they brought in.

Expanding route plotting from 100 light-years to 1000.
Adding route filters.
Adding bookmarks.
Surface maps added to planets.
Showing surface material composition after completing a planetary scan.

Tons of times when Frontier has gone back and fleshed out features. Seriously.

- - - Updated - - -

this is probably the biggest improvement needed imo.

some surface missions with multicrew, one in a FGS or other main ship, one in an SLF and one in an SRV... this is probably the most fun example of multicrew i can think of right now.... not just for pew pew either, but for organised planetary exploration.

Yep. When I saw that you could carry more than one SRV with the right size module I originally assumed it was for multi-crew. Very disappointing.

 

[VR Golgot]

Dear Golgot [smile], I didnt. I said later in my post that it is Ok if things change. But is OK as long as they don't change too much. In this case, we are getting about 20% of what was suggested. If I buy a pack of ten tomatoes, I don't mind if one is rotten, or two. But to have eight rotten tomatoes would make me go back to the market and ask for a change.

Cool yeah saw you recognise that caveats probably existed .

I just think it isn't that surprising to see this much slippage in a project like this and over those timeframes. Nutter gave an interesting insider perspective on this, that getting the networking solid probably ate up most of the dev work and limited design play time.

(It probably helps that I had fairly minimal expectations for Multicrew, and was if anything apprehensive that a 'minimum viable' Engineer or Tactical role would be the best we could expect on that front, given deliveries to date. That would have almost certainly have been dull, and would have required a future rework to become anything better. I was hoping purely for a solid technical base and execution, on par with the SLF deployment, but with online aspects. Got that, so happy enough as it's a base for further expansion later, from Legs to technically involved roles).

You are right, I got it mixed with other specific missing features of MC in which he said they have no plans. Such as adding the SRV.

On the SRV you're right he says they have 'no plans at the moment', but it's also clear they looked at it from his replies and that it's 'difficult but do-able', and something they're open to revisiting. It's definitely something we all want and would be badass, but when they hit a tech wall or a time limit what else can they do?

If you want I could edit it in OP, but I am not sure if editing it now is fair to the objections to it than have already been made.

Could be worth sticking Adam's caveat quote in there. On the other stuff it's just player perspective differences. I see his 'no plans for now' as possible future development, you see them as the death knell for the feature and unacceptable

 

[Besensec]

Yep. When I saw that you could carry more than one SRV with the right size module I originally assumed it was for multi-crew. Very disappointing.

I think it was. They clearly expected to do it, as expressed by Adam in the video, and as shown in the 'unknown' trailer released at PAX. But they had problems with some "edge cases" and some "technical" problems about telepresence (as Sandro said during the stream). I am not sure how important edge cases really are, nor how could telepresence be a relevant problem beyond the balance between gameplay design and lore.

 

[Brownshortz]

Engineers, weapons, some minor powerplay bits (needs a lot more though)....

The problem with the way FDev structured the whole 'season' model is that they committed themselves to delivering 4 specific updates a year and a half ago... this left minimal time for revisiting existing features. I think they have learned from this and will do the second major expansion differently.

Is that it? First of all you can't include weapons as they are continually being changed, nerfed and balanced. The only major change Engineers got was eliminating commodities from the recipes, and that was because of FD's short sightedness in not including storage in the first place. And PP?...all they did was make it so you don't get interdicted quite so much as before. Hardly major gameplay developments.

 

[NeilF]

Expanding route plotting from 100 light-years to 1000.
Adding route filters.
Adding bookmarks.
Surface maps added to planets.
Showing surface material composition after completing a planetary scan.

Tons of times when Frontier has gone back and fleshed out features. Seriously.

Those are all pretty simple additions though IMHO, and are not really adding new depth/gameplay?


Case in hand, showing the %age breakdowns of surface materials? A true "improvement" of this gameplay would have been procedural distribution of elements on surface and rings, such that you could then scan and see which regions contain more/less of these percentages, so you could decide where to go to at least skew the dice a little in your favour of what you're after.

Then add procedural distribution of materials per asteroid, so you could then scan them and mine specific surfaces areas of an asteroid to again skew the dice in your favour. Then add in rare "resource hot spots" to surface materials or elements in rings, so while out exploring(?) you could find a rich zone of arsenic which significantly increases you dice throws for that, or a zone in a ring with a rich spot of palladium. Importantly, these would be stateful, so as you extra out of these zones, they are reduced, so once down to 0, they be gone and fall back to background levels.


Now, this is a deepening/improvement to an existing mechanics IMHO. While nice/useful, the addition of the backgruond %ages in a display, is little more than a nicety - https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=258294&page=8&p=4007154&viewfull=1#post4007154

 

[Lateralus]

Is that it? First of all you can't include weapons as they are continually being changed, nerfed and balanced. The only major change Engineers got was eliminating commodities from the recipes, and that was because of FD's short sightedness in not including storage in the first place. And PP?...all they did was make it so you don't get interdicted quite so much as before. Hardly major gameplay developments.

I'm not a white-knighting fan-boy, FDev does deserve criticism for some of it's releases being unfinished or having poorly realised mechanisms (Powerplay, CQC & the wheel of fortune to name a few), but saying they don't go back and revisit updates isn't accurate, they just haven't revisted them enough or added satisfying gameplay to these features yet. I'm guessing this is a time/resource issue...

Now we're getting past the season 2 roadmap we will see what happens.

 

[Deadspin]

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

This gave me flashbacks of the RSI forum. Not cool man.

 

[Kyennamo]

This discussion supports my belief that FD are some of the greatest Visionaries in gaming. And also some of the worst coders.

They have great ideas.....but they dont have the programing skill to implement their vision (or make it run without crashing or disconnecting every 5 minutes).

They also have their priorities twisted. I read that FD had "a whole team working on the cmdr creator for over a year". This seemed like a gross misappropriation of resources considering how many other areas of the game could have benefited from that extra manpower(milticrew especially). But they saw the potential to make more money without actually providing anything meaningful or gameplay related(or fixing what was broken). So....dont worry......multicrew may be a shadow of what was promised......but they made sure you can buy a 5 dollar colored jacket for your cmdr.....and dont forget the tattoos.......SMH

 

[mojonaut]

The problem with a road map analogy is that it only helps illustrate Frontier's decision to follow a short cut

The problem with the road map analogy is there is no road or map, just a huge expanse of featureless desert (probably beige).

But there is a souvenir shop where you can buy trinkets, so all is good.

 

[Ian Skippy]

I think it was. They clearly expected to do it, as expressed by Adam in the video, and as shown in the 'unknown' trailer released at PAX. But they had problems with some "edge cases" and some "technical" problems about telepresence (as Sandro said during the stream). I am not sure how important edge cases really are, nor how could telepresence be a relevant problem beyond the balance between gameplay design and lore.

*warning: pure speculation ahead*
Does anyone know what happens to your ship when you holo-me to someone's ship? Because if it stays in the local instance you get an 'inception-problem'.

-I am in my ship, my pc handles one instance.
-I go to your ship, my pc now handles two instances.
-I tele-presence my holo-me (or whatever, I am confused) into the SRV, and now my pc has to handle three instances. If either my ship or your ship is blown up, my SRV presence is cancelled (for ME, the helm can continue in the SRV as he is physically there)

I can see why this would be an issue at some point. And when you go for the 'when you join multicrew, your ship disappears', that means that everytime you are in a difficult position you can just join another ship, disconnecting your instance and jump back to a clean one.

 

[MarcusKross]

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.

Ahhh yes the fabled 'long list' where all the failed promises stack up.