Placeholder mechanics?
- Thread starter EdzUp
- Start date
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
From discussions around the time of the great Ship Transfer debate of '02, the gist of the instant transfer "requirement" was that it was aimed at reducing barriers to gameplay.
With that in mind, and, from observations on the forums that Multi-Crew is not exactly the most used game feature, I doubt that adding a requirement to join the ship to be crewed in dock would make the feature any more popular.
With that in mind, and, from observations on the forums that Multi-Crew is not exactly the most used game feature, I doubt that adding a requirement to join the ship to be crewed in dock would make the feature any more popular.
FSS is clearly a rush job, I'd say that's a placeholder. I asked what FDev considered to still be placeholders in March's Xtra thread. Not seen an answer yet.
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Interesting. After initially disliking it (because change) I've come around to liking it a lot now. I don't see it as a placeholder.
What is it about it that you do?
I don't dislike it, but it's incomplete & not well polished or integrated, it looks more like a prototype mule than a finished product.
ergo: Placeholder. Awaiting final implementation. Further work required. Fundamentally flawed & would not have made it into the live game without a tight deadline. Placeholder.
I quite like the benefits, the design intent is okay, but it's just a placeholder in my view. None of this would be an issue at all but it is the only available option because the pre-existing process wasn't retained. That was commonly described as a placeholder too.
ergo: Placeholder. Awaiting final implementation. Further work required. Fundamentally flawed & would not have made it into the live game without a tight deadline. Placeholder.
I quite like the benefits, the design intent is okay, but it's just a placeholder in my view. None of this would be an issue at all but it is the only available option because the pre-existing process wasn't retained. That was commonly described as a placeholder too.
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Closely related to Multicrew but telepresence, in general, is probably the most glaring example of "placeholder" that I can think of.
The whole malarkey with ships, SRVs and SLFs just a train-wreck of conflicting mechanics.
Also, on a related note, I'd say that NPC SLF pilots qualifies as a placeholder too.
They "work" insofar as they fly SLFs around but, lordy, they're tenuous.
Considering all the faff of hiring, training and paying one, we might as well just have drone fighters.
When having an SLF jockey aboard your ship "feels" like having Serana or Piper tagging along in a Bethesda game, FDev can give themselves a pat on the back.
The whole malarkey with ships, SRVs and SLFs just a train-wreck of conflicting mechanics.
Also, on a related note, I'd say that NPC SLF pilots qualifies as a placeholder too.
They "work" insofar as they fly SLFs around but, lordy, they're tenuous.
Considering all the faff of hiring, training and paying one, we might as well just have drone fighters.
When having an SLF jockey aboard your ship "feels" like having Serana or Piper tagging along in a Bethesda game, FDev can give themselves a pat on the back.
Gotta say, I'm not really that fussed about stuff like that.
When I see video's of SC, it looks pretty cool to wander around your ship but I'd bet that, once you've done it half a dozen times, the idea of getting out of the pilot's seat of your Corvette, walking to the back of the bridge, calling an elevator, riding it down to the bottom deck, getting out, walking across a cargo bay, opening a door, entering the SRV bay, opening the SRV door and climibing in will be as much fun as sticking needles in your eyes.
There IS a lot of gameplay, and immersion, to be had from wandering around our own ships but FDev need to be careful about what stuff they focus on.
FSS is the final product. The exploration mechanics we've had since 2015 were the placeholder.
A lot of the originals have been developed quite a bit since, especially in Beyond. And there's a difference, to me, between "feature which could be developed further in future" (e.g. missions, BGS, lots of other stuff) and "placeholder" (where the game needs something to do X, but further development might not keep very much of what's currently there). So actual placeholders...
RES - they don't make a lot of sense as currently constituted, but are still mostly necessary to fill a gap between "occasional NPC interdictions" and "combat zones" in terms of intensity.
Navy ranking doesn't really do anything at the moment. Reputation in general is very basic, and just covers "do they like you" rather than "what do they like you for".
NPC interactions - very definitely just the basic minimum there in most case, though some of the 3.3 scenarios are starting to develop it.
Galnet/Events - the "we'd like" plan was for a multi-feed newsfeed covering galactic, regional and local events. Also, to have more defined local and regional events for it to report on. There's a big gap between the "galactic storyline" and the "local routine" that isn't really covered yet.
Fuel scooping - it works, but "hover near a star" is about as basic as it gets.
Smuggling/slavery - extremely basic (and sanitised) representation meaning there's virtually no difference between legal and illegal trading.
(I think about half the above are ones where further development and more detailed features would face significant dislike from at least some players - sometimes a placeholder can be around so long that a major rewrite to something more detailed doesn't work out well)
RES - they don't make a lot of sense as currently constituted, but are still mostly necessary to fill a gap between "occasional NPC interdictions" and "combat zones" in terms of intensity.
Navy ranking doesn't really do anything at the moment. Reputation in general is very basic, and just covers "do they like you" rather than "what do they like you for".
NPC interactions - very definitely just the basic minimum there in most case, though some of the 3.3 scenarios are starting to develop it.
Galnet/Events - the "we'd like" plan was for a multi-feed newsfeed covering galactic, regional and local events. Also, to have more defined local and regional events for it to report on. There's a big gap between the "galactic storyline" and the "local routine" that isn't really covered yet.
Fuel scooping - it works, but "hover near a star" is about as basic as it gets.
Smuggling/slavery - extremely basic (and sanitised) representation meaning there's virtually no difference between legal and illegal trading.
(I think about half the above are ones where further development and more detailed features would face significant dislike from at least some players - sometimes a placeholder can be around so long that a major rewrite to something more detailed doesn't work out well)
Asteroid belts. They're there, but they're useless.
I have a laundry list o fthem, so in no particular order:
Bounty hunting is currently still just mob farming at a farming grounds. There is no hunt, no investigative work to find your target, even for assassination missions.
Multicrew: it's basically more of the same but with even less to do for either players. Still waiting for the engineer position which does more than assign the magic pip, also waiting for more integration with the other features of the game like wings, and generally speaking all those things you can't do when MCing (SRV, outfitting etc..)
Exploration/prospection: the new FSS is great for improving the process, but we're still missing a purpose. In a dev diary David talked explained explorers would drive the expansion of the bubble and could trigger conflicts by discovering resource-rich systems for factions to fight over. We have the tools to discover those resources, but we're lacking the overarching BGS work to make it matter.
Big ships: they still don't have their own mechanics and simply behave like oversized fighters, an almost criminal missed opportunity for gameplay involving deeper management (wink wink NPC crews).
The black market still has no depth to it and is for all intents and purposes the same as when you accessed it by yelling I WANT TO SELL ILLEGAL GOODS.
Piracy and criminal gameplay in general: the process of committing crimes is reasonably fun, what is missing is the rest. Where is the gameplay involving finding a reliable fence for your stolen goods beyond just clicking the black market button? Should the local gangs just allow you to do your business on their turf without demanding their cut or some other compensation? And should the authorities be so hopelessly passive about it too?
Bounty hunting is currently still just mob farming at a farming grounds. There is no hunt, no investigative work to find your target, even for assassination missions.
Multicrew: it's basically more of the same but with even less to do for either players. Still waiting for the engineer position which does more than assign the magic pip, also waiting for more integration with the other features of the game like wings, and generally speaking all those things you can't do when MCing (SRV, outfitting etc..)
Exploration/prospection: the new FSS is great for improving the process, but we're still missing a purpose. In a dev diary David talked explained explorers would drive the expansion of the bubble and could trigger conflicts by discovering resource-rich systems for factions to fight over. We have the tools to discover those resources, but we're lacking the overarching BGS work to make it matter.
Big ships: they still don't have their own mechanics and simply behave like oversized fighters, an almost criminal missed opportunity for gameplay involving deeper management (wink wink NPC crews).
The black market still has no depth to it and is for all intents and purposes the same as when you accessed it by yelling I WANT TO SELL ILLEGAL GOODS.
Piracy and criminal gameplay in general: the process of committing crimes is reasonably fun, what is missing is the rest. Where is the gameplay involving finding a reliable fence for your stolen goods beyond just clicking the black market button? Should the local gangs just allow you to do your business on their turf without demanding their cut or some other compensation? And should the authorities be so hopelessly passive about it too?
Blackholes.
Good one.
Telepresence makes sense from a gameplay perspective.
You accidentally shoot a bystander in a RES. Right now, you just leave the fighter behind and you don't lose much. Now imagine your Elite pilot is sitting in the fighter. Are you going to wait for it to dock or are you going to lose an Elite NPC?
You accidentally shoot a bystander in a RES. Right now, you just leave the fighter behind and you don't lose much. Now imagine your Elite pilot is sitting in the fighter. Are you going to wait for it to dock or are you going to lose an Elite NPC?
That would seem to be a reason to be happy that telepresence is halfassed rather than a rebuttal of the assertion that it is halfassed.
Is it halfassed though? We already remote fly drones for tactical strikes in 2019. Given the benefits (no leaving crew to die) is it such a stretch?
Oh, there's nothing wrong with that part.
The issue is that the entire thing, overall, is a mass of tangled inconsistencies.
The very fact that telepresence is a thing should completely negate the need for people to be flying spaceships at all.
We can telepresence to a ship at the opposite side of the galaxy but not to an SLF 30km away.
Same thing but we can't beam exploration data back home or access data about a system a few Ly away.
We can fly an SLF via telepresence but we can't use it to drive an SRV.
Etc.
The whole thing just reeks of the desire to allow people to play together (which is fine) without putting any effort into integrating it into the game-world.
It would have been better if they had just left it as an entirely "gamey" mechanic and then left it up to people's suspension of disbelief to overlook it rather than give us the ham-fisted, inconsistent, explanations we have.
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