News Changes Coming to Multi-crew

[BurnyBurns]

If a bounty for a ship is 1 million credits then it needs to be split in portions among the crew not added and added and added???!!!!

Single player in CZ kills Ship get 1 million credits
Three player crew kills exact same ship with exact same bounty and gets...2.6 million!!!! errr...wot! How is this a sensible game dynamic?

Because you have three RL humans spending their free time pretending to be fantasy spaceship pilots thinking "Hey, that was a fun activity and it was made better by bringing friends."

VS.

three RL humans spending their free time pretending to be fantasy spaceship pilots thinking "Hey, that was a fun activity. ", but not being able suppress the lingering thought of "Bringing friends was fun. Could've done it alone though and would've gotten credits faster."

In a game where the measure of progression is time spend and credits gotten in that time.

 

[Soopyyy]

Because you have three RL humans spending their free time pretending to be fantasy spaceship pilots thinking "Hey, that was a fun activity and it was made better by bringing friends."

VS.

three RL humans spending their free time pretending to be fantasy spaceship pilots thinking "Hey, that was a fun activity. ", but not being able suppress the lingering thought of "Bringing friends was fun. Could've done it alone though and would've gotten credits faster."

In a game where the measure of progression is time spend and credits gotten in that time.

Careful, you're about to be lectured on how the true purpose of Elite is to find solace in the never ending quest of imaginary waffle, and that if you're seeking credits you're doing it wrong. Real Elite players don't need credits, they just are.

(if that made no sense, that's because the arguments against credits being the only reliable form of progression messurement also make absolutely no sense).

 

[Angrymog]

This is an improvement. Our theoretical pair of friends who just got the game and are playing together are no-longer harshly penalized for trying to do so, but they would still be better off each flying their own ships.

The people who most stand to benefit (newbie player dragged into game by existing player who says, "Try this space game, it's cool") are still the most harshly affected.

It's not about Risk/Reward to me, it's about valuing people's free time - my newbie friend's time is just as valuable as mine. There are plenty of things they could be choosing to do rather than play Elite, so the fact that they have chosen to do so should be respected.

Other changes - the gunner lockout etc. is quite good and appreciated. Would be nice if the Helm could toggle permissions per weapon and Utility, but what's there is a good and needed change.

 

[BurnyBurns]

Careful, you're about to be lectured on how the true purpose of Elite is to find solace in the never ending quest of imaginary waffle, and that if you're seeking credits you're doing it wrong. Real Elite players don't need credits, they just are.

(if that made no sense, that's because the arguments against credits being the only reliable form of progression messurement also make absolutely no sense).

*Yawn* I know. Frontier doesn't seem to however. Otherwise we wouldn't be seeing pretentious attempts at penalizing player time spend on their game due to "lowered risk".


They haven't got it all wrong though. Risk vs. reward is great meta to strive for as a higher concept. Only, their implementation is 'get something' as reward and 'waste your bloody free time' as risk. Which makes me question time and time again whether their game designers have ever spend their own valuable free time after a full work day on the game. I have my doubts. Edit: And even on any other multiplayer game, preferably a competent one.

Near 20 years ago, in 1998 there was a then smaller company that went on to become one of the cornerstones of multiplayer gaming if they weren't already even back then, called Blizzard. They, too, released a game that offered a whole lot of Coop PvE: Diablo 2. And who'd have known? They too were faced with the issue of a group of players organically bringing a whole other level of DPS to the game compared to a single player. Instead of telling their players with Coop aspirations to go stick it though ("Less risk! Nothing we can do, sorry. Here, have lower reward for the same amount of free time you spend on our game.. Still can avoid it by playing alone, so there you have it."), they scaled the risk. Monsters became tougher based on the player number as multiplier and so the gained and shared XP per monster increased, not obviously penalizing the individual player, either by how efficiently they progress or by simply lowering their 'risk' or 'challenge' element.


That was a rather sensible and respectful way to go about it. There's a reason why Diablo 2 is still one of the best Coop PvE experiences to be had in gaming even today and Elite is the game that implicitly discourages coop PvE.


Which is rather sad, because there are means to do a similar scaling in Elite as well. The cynical me would say to just scale the enemy ships' health bars, err sorry, hull integrities when a Wing is in the instance. But Elite is not in want of any more bullet sponges. Why does the game not spawn more and tougher enemies in CZs and around a Wing however? If that was the case?

Yeah. Then we could talk about shared payouts again. But only if the individual player payouts stay around the same level with the scaling. Otherwise you end up again with what Wings was for now two years: A great way to discourage coop PvE.

 

[Soopyyy]

*Yawn* I know. Frontier doesn't seem to however. Otherwise we wouldn't be seeing pretentious attempts at penalizing player time spend on their game due to "lowered risk".


They haven't got it all wrong though. Risk vs. reward is great meta to strive for as a higher concept. Only, their implementation is 'get something' as rears and 'waste your bloody free time' as risk. Which makes me question time and time again whether their game designers have ever spend their own valuable free time after a full work day on the game. I have my doubts.

Near 20 years ago, in 1998 there was a then small company that went on to become one of the cornerstones of multiplayer gaming if they weren't already even back then, called Blizzard. They, too, released a game that offered a whole lot of Coop PvE: Diablo 2. And who'd have known? They too were faced with the issue of a group of players organically bringing a whole other level of DPS to the game. Instead of telling their players with Coop aspirations to go stick it though ("Less risk, nothing we can do, sorry, here, have lower reward for the same amount of free time you spend on our game.. Still can avoid it bad playing alone, so there you have it."), they scaled the risk. Monsters became tougher based on the player number as multiplayer and so the gained and shared XP per monster increased,not obviously penalizing the individual player, either by how efficiently they progress or by simply lowering their 'risk' or 'challenge' element.


That was a rather sensible and respectful way to go about it. There's a reason why Diablo 2 is still one of the best Coop PvE experiences to be had in gaming later and Elite is the game implicitely discourages coop PvE.


Which is rather sad, because there are means to do a similar scaling in Elite as well. The cynical me would say to just scale the enemy ships' health bars, err sorry, hull integrities when a Wing is in the instance. But Elite is not in want of any more bullet sponges. Why does the game not spawn more and tougher enemies in CZs and around a Wing however? If that was the case?

Yeah. Then we could talk about shared payouts again. But only if the individual player payouts stay around the same level with the scaling. Otherwise you end up again with what Wings was for now two years: A great way to discourage coop PvE.

I agree completely.
Instead of more health all they need to do, is spawn more wings. Send 2 or 3 wings of 5 eagles/DBS/Vipers at a time rather than the maybe one or two in 10-15mins... Nothing makes me rage more than flying around in circles waiting for something to appear so I can kill it...

 

[TheRealTommo]

Some nice changes there, especially giving the helm control over what the gunner has access to.

 

[sedilbur]

A big thanks to the community and the commanders that contributed to make Frontier changes their mind.

And finally, thank you to Frontier for having listened the community.

It's a good compromise I think.More or less, we can always debate, but I feel ok like that.

 

[racer1]

Sounds like good news.

But as a software engineer and someone with a basic grasp of mathematics I'd like to advise you that having 2.3.1 and 2.3.01 being different is likely a source of confusion for some time to come

 

[Lngjohnsilver1]

they scaled the risk. Monsters became tougher based on the player number as multiplayer and so the gained and shared XP per monster increased,not obviously penalizing the individual player, either by how efficiently they progress or by simply lowering their 'risk' or 'challenge' element.


That was a rather sensible and respectful way to go about it. There's a reason why Diablo 2 is still one of the best Coop PvE experiences to be had in gaming later and Elite is the game implicitely discourages coop PvE.


Which is rather sad, because there are means to do a similar scaling in Elite as well.

Careful, you're treading on sensible well thought ground! Someone is bound to complain......

 

[Marc_Hicks]

All very reasonable changes, not thaf money was ever the primary inducement for me to enter Multi-crew. The thing I am most holding out for are extra multi-crew roles (combat & non-combat). Though that is obviously something I will have fo wait much longer than a patch for.

 

[BurnyBurns]

Careful, you're treading on sensible well thought ground!

To be even more of an insufferable genitalia: If Frontier's game design department refuses to do so, somebody else has to.

Whish it was some (any!) other studio producing a space game, but Elite is still unmatched in scope and its positive qualities and I don't see any likely aspirants to even come close in the near future.

 

[metatheurgist]

Sorry, but I'm going to go against the grain here.

Payout should be the same for solo, wings or multicrew. Bounty should be same total shared across the participants. What you need to do is introduce tools so the active parties can decide the share, not have some magical multiplier turn up just because more people are on the same boat or in the same wing. Equal profit for all, solo included.

 

[Soopyyy]

Sorry, but I'm going to go against the grain here.

Payout should be the same for solo, wings or multicrew. Bounty should be same total shared across the participants. What you need to do is introduce tools so the active parties can decide the share, not have some magical multiplier turn up just because more people are on the same boat or in the same wing. Equal profit for all, solo included.

The solution is really really simple. Increase the bounties, split the one bounty over all crew/wing members, spawn a butt load more pirates.

 

[BurnyBurns]

The solution is really really simple. Increase the bounties, split the one bounty over all crew/wing members, spawn a butt load more pirates.

Ohh, so the absolute challenge increases for the Wing of a couple of friends and me, seeing as we have far higher DPS output, but we still need to be on our toes (so relative challenge stays the same, PvE only doesn't get trivialized by DPS increase anymore)? While we progress in the game at about the same rate as if we were playing solo?

That sounds like a pretty fun coop game. Where can I get it?

Granted: We're missing the topic here, discussing Wings rather than multicrew. But seeing as multicrew is more of a means to distribute the existing DPS output of a player on up to three different players, rather than adding any DPS output capabilities to the ship worth of note, there really is not much room for scaling in multicrewed ship. Only the realization that Wings is the better coop PvE mechanic.

If there was, say, a hypothetic PvE scenario, where actually having full 360 player degree turret control and using a SLF fighter would be hard counters to a challenge, that just might be a different story. That would allow to spawn such scenarios around a multicrew ship. But such scenarios don't exist in the game, as far as I can see.

 

[Chrysophylax]

*Yawn* I know. Frontier doesn't seem to however. Otherwise we wouldn't be seeing pretentious attempts at penalizing player time spend on their game due to "lowered risk".


They haven't got it all wrong though. Risk vs. reward is great meta to strive for as a higher concept. Only, their implementation is 'get something' as reward and 'waste your bloody free time' as risk. Which makes me question time and time again whether their game designers have ever spend their own valuable free time after a full work day on the game. I have my doubts. Edit: And even on any other multiplayer game, preferably a competent one.

Near 20 years ago, in 1998 there was a then smaller company that went on to become one of the cornerstones of multiplayer gaming if they weren't already even back then, called Blizzard. They, too, released a game that offered a whole lot of Coop PvE: Diablo 2. And who'd have known? They too were faced with the issue of a group of players organically bringing a whole other level of DPS to the game compared to a single player. Instead of telling their players with Coop aspirations to go stick it though ("Less risk! Nothing we can do, sorry. Here, have lower reward for the same amount of free time you spend on our game.. Still can avoid it by playing alone, so there you have it."), they scaled the risk. Monsters became tougher based on the player number as multiplier and so the gained and shared XP per monster increased, not obviously penalizing the individual player, either by how efficiently they progress or by simply lowering their 'risk' or 'challenge' element.


That was a rather sensible and respectful way to go about it. There's a reason why Diablo 2 is still one of the best Coop PvE experiences to be had in gaming even today and Elite is the game that implicitly discourages coop PvE.


Which is rather sad, because there are means to do a similar scaling in Elite as well. The cynical me would say to just scale the enemy ships' health bars, err sorry, hull integrities when a Wing is in the instance. But Elite is not in want of any more bullet sponges. Why does the game not spawn more and tougher enemies in CZs and around a Wing however? If that was the case?

Yeah. Then we could talk about shared payouts again. But only if the individual player payouts stay around the same level with the scaling. Otherwise you end up again with what Wings was for now two years: A great way to discourage coop PvE.

Just to add to this, and in part because I'm unsure whether this was a thing in D2, but in D3 you get a higher chance of drops that scales with the number of players in your vicinity. D3 eventually made it perfectly clear that not playing with a full party was the inferior way for many activities.

I can already hear the solo players grumbling. But to me there cannot be even a hint of multiplayer co-op being merely about as good as playing alone. It has to be strictly superior.

And it's amazing that this is a 20 year old lesson not learned.

 

[babelfisch]

Edit: OK, OK, OK. Let's not be fatalistic. It's all good, because the players still have full agency. Ignore multicrew, play in Wings, get maximum credits while still having a bit of social PvE experience, problem solved, case closed.

That was easy.

Indeed, glad we agree with each other!

- - - Updated - - -

Thanks for the explanation. I don't understand the logic behind it, though. Elite pilots don't earn more money per hour than harmless pilots, at least there are no mechanics that would do this. So basically crewing up with new players to show them the game gets punished the higher rank the teacher is?

I assume multicrew only works on bounties and bonds anyways, there's no extra reward for multicrewing a trader?

It's all about game progression. The game is designed in a way that it takes some time to get into the bigger ships. Very similar to a RPG where you don't get the best weapons in the beginning or jump from level 1 to 100 in an hour. Even games like Half-Life reward you with better weapons in the end. If a new player in a Cobra joins another experienced player in an Anaconda he would make way more credits than if he would join another new player in a Cobra. You can simply kill more and bigger ships in a big ship. FDEV doesn't want to compromise the early experience in the game, giving the players the chance to earn their own ships and learning the game.
Hope that helps.

 

[Soopyyy]

Ohh, so the absolute challenge increases for the Wing of a couple of friends and me, seeing as we have far higher DPS output, but we still need to be on our toes (so relative challenge stays the same, PvE only doesn't get trivialized by DPS increase anymore)? While we progress in the game at about the same rate as if we were playing solo?

That sounds like a pretty fun coop game. Where can I get it?

Granted: We're missing the topic here, discussing Wings rather than multicrew. But seeing as multicrew is more of a means to distribute the existing DPS output of a player on up to three different players, rather than adding any DPS output capabilities to the ship worth of note, there really is not much room for scaling in multicrewed ship. Only the realization that Wings is the better coop PvE mechanic.

If there was, say, a hypothetic PvE scenario, where actually having full 360 player degree turret control and using a SLF fighter would be hard counters to a challenge, that just might be a different story. That would allow to spawn such scenarios around a multicrew ship. But such scenarios don't exist in the game, as far as I can see.

To be fair, if you're doing multi crew and you're not using a SLF, there is something seriously wrong with you. As far as I am concerned Multicrew + SLF is basically just a wing without the travel grind to start. The fighters are as good as any other small ship IMO.

 

[BurnyBurns]

It's all about game progression. The game is designed in a way that it takes some time to get into the bigger ships. Very similar to a RPG where you don't get the best weapons in the beginning or jump from level 1 to 100 in an hour. Even games like Half-Life reward you with better weapons in the end. If a new player in a Cobra joins another experienced player in an Anaconda he would make way more credits than if he would join another new player in a Cobra. You can simply kill more and bigger ships in a big ship. FDEV doesn't want to compromise the early experience in the game, giving the players the chance to earn their own ships and learning the game.
Hope that helps.

And if they were to join that same player in an Anaconda, only in a Wing using their own Cobra, their time would not be wasted with pretentious aspirations to slow down their progression, instead giving them normal progression.

But, but, but... the risk is higher!?

Boh-ducking-hooo! You mean the fun is higher? And the payout on top of it! ? Boy, does a multicrew sound unattractive! Yes, actual risk is part of the fun. Not invariably gimped progression and less risk ingame. Good job wasting player time and dev time.

 

[Mephane]

View attachment 118831

Wait what? And there I thought the payment reductions where solely based on the rank of the person joining the ship, but it is also effected by the rank of the helm? Sorry but not sorry - this idea is so mind-boggling that it never even occurred to me you'd be scaling them like that, punishing new players for the the potentially high combat rank of their friend - coupled with the stark absense of multiple CMDR slots, their friend can't even make a fresh CMDR for playing together without deleting their main!

Edit: Woah. You even did - and still continue - to reduce the payment in the case the crewmate is of equal or higher rank than the helm - even when the gunner is Elite! And here I thought this was just intended to nerf the ability to take a friend who is new to the game with you to quickly earn them some cash (which is a valid use for multicrew and usually MMOs expressly allow it, some even encourage it!).

We’ve been actively listening to feedback from the community and one thing we’ve seen is a number of requests for greater protection for hosts of Multi-crew sessions and improved safety measures. That’s why we’re going to be introducing two new function controls for the role of Helm. The first change will allow Helm to toggle limited access for the Gunner role. When toggled on the Gunner will only be able to use weapons, not utilities (such as shield cells), and only Helm will be able to deploy and retract the ship’s hardpoints. When toggled off the Gunner will have full access as they do now.

So this is a quick fix until the real multicrew permissions system comes in 2.4, right? When you will be able to select each piece of equipment and decide whther the helm or the gunner - or both - can activate it?

 

[babelfisch]

And if they were to join that same player in an Anaconda, only in a Wing using their own Cobra, their time would not be wasted with pretentious aspirations to slow down their progression, instead giving them normal progression.

But, but, but... the risk is higher!?

Boh-ducking-hooo! You mean the fun is higher? And the payout on top of it! ? Boy, does a multicrew sound unattractive! Yes, actual risk is part of the fun. Not invariably gimped progression and less risk ingame. Good job wasting player time and dev time.

I don't care much about the risk argument, and just for your information: I argued for higher multicrew payouts, not against them. However I don't think you are making a good point. What do you mean by normal progression and slower progression? Do you think it's normal for a new player to earn 5 million credits per hour? Also please note that I just explained FDEVs reasoning to Quinloe, I didn't say if they are right or wrong. The world isn't always black and white.

PS
One argument could be that multicrew isn't supposed to be the money printing machine for new players, but something aiming at seasoned players who already own big ships and have seen everything else the game has to offer. Maybe it's some kind of endgame content. You can participate in it earlier, but it's not designed around newbies. Just guessing here, don't take the argument too serious please.