VR support 'not at launch' for Odyssey

Unless the terrain generation improvements are only applied to a new type of planet that non-Odyssey owners cannot descend to (and there are plenty we can't fly over in Horizons) then everyone is going to have to see these changes; you can't have two different surface geometries for two players in the same instance.
Not sure it's about geometry looked to me like procedural textures and I suspect they can just not install those on non-Odyssey clients...
 
As a relatively experienced VR player I think I can say that, yes, (inverse) motion sickness can be an issue. However, there are ways around that and I do not believe that motion sickness in a first person setting would be significantly more worrisome than SRV driving, particularly not if remaining seated. I think most VR players would be perfectly happy to accept that controls were not motion controls (I would even prefer to switch to K+M for a seated FPS) and gameplay was seated. Switching from seated to room scale would be a real hassle anyway, not to mention switching from HOTAS to motion controllers - particularly if you have motion controllers that are strapped to your hands like the Index controllers.
That's what i would have said, i suspect that frontier are using it as an excuse, when they didn't have enough dev time to get it right
 
I watched the stream, they mentioned that they will clarify with the devs. No FPS or yet to be announced Odessey content in VR is fine, many want to know about backwards compatibility, planetary tech, flying through atmospheres in VR.

The base game still receives visual updates. I have a feeling the FPS stuff is bolted on like SRV gameplay.
Me, I would kinda like to be able to experience the new content in VR, it's not as if there's an abundance of that in Horizons...
 
I don't think the controller is the problem, but a combination of the level of detail (hardware limitations) and motion sickness.
What does the level.of detail and motion sickness have to do with using an xbox controller in VR? Do people get motion sick because of the type of input device they use?
 
Yeah, fair enough. Would make indeed sense. You want to see the new planetary tech? Well you need Odyssey for any kind of planet then, atmosphere or not.

With regards to VR we do not really know yet where the tech limitation is. Is it the actual terrain tech that kills frames? The atmospheric effects? Combination of both? Etc.
I would be surprised if the planetary tech killed frames to the point that no current hardware could support it, given the range of graphics options available.
 
If Dirty rally 2 can deal with the level of detail then so can Elite and how about we worry about the motion sickness. I imagine most of us have played enough VR games to get our VR legs.

It's not level of detail it's motion sickness that causes the problems. Things like HL: Alyx use different solutions depending on what works for you, but in a competitive multiplayer game you can't really have different players using different versions of VR.

I'm not a VR player myself so am no expert but as I understand it, the sickness is caused by the brain feeling that the movement is unnatural. It wouldn't actually surprise me if playing in different levels of gravity makes this sensation even worse.
 
What does the level.of detail and motion sickness have to do with using an xbox controller in VR? Do people get motion sick because of the type of input device they use?


Yes. 'Classic stick turning' (IE turning your first person perspective left & right) is an infamous nausea trigger. (Your inner ear is particularly good at detecting head rotation, so when a world you're immersed in claims your head is turning, and your body is convinced it isn't, the body seems to assume you've been poisoned, and at worst tries to get rid of the problem ;))

Other design areas of concern regarding nausea include acceleration curves (the inner ear also detects acceleration well).

Most of these aspects have some ready solutions (guiding your navigation with motion controllers is surprisingly fluid, for example). They can be designed around. But naturally that requires dedicated dev, and can come into conflict with the design objectives of the classic game.

Ultimately most VR players adapt to many of the classic nausea triggers (I can now use stick motion just fine etc). But most AA / AAA companies won't want an average user to have a bad experience. So if they do it, they'll want to put the dev in to be sure as many issues have been addressed at the design stage as possible.
 
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With regards to VR we do not really know yet where the tech limitation is. Is it the actual terrain tech that kills frames? The atmospheric effects? Combination of both? Etc.
I think the phrase they used was "experience", so it could (conjecture) be related to control and movement, rather than hardware limitations...

I have a reasonably strong VR head. Within ED, the only VR nausea I've had is with the violent manoeuvres that the docking computer performs (I rarely use automatic docking btw... so pls don't criticise me for mentioning that!). With Automatic docking I didnt feel sick, but did feel as if my brain was being sucked out through my ears during the twists. I have never had any issues in the SRV. In RL flying, the only discomfort I've felt have been when others have been doing the flying and were performing tight turns (and even then only once that I can recall). No issue when I'm at the controls in similar conditions and I have hundreds of 'hours'.

I briefly tried Minecraft, and then (even more briefly) Minecraft VR, and found the switch to Minecraft VR, character movement to be very uncomfortable and totally disorientating, so I can comprehend where this comes from as a 'special case'.
 
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It's not level of detail it's motion sickness that causes the problems. Things like HL: Alyx use different solutions depending on what works for you, but in a competitive multiplayer game you can't really have different players using different versions of VR.

I'm not a VR player myself so am no expert but as I understand it, the sickness is caused by the brain feeling that the movement is unnatural. It wouldn't actually surprise me if playing in different levels of gravity makes this sensation even worse.
I am and I'm willing to deal with the motion sicknes (or lack there of as it turns out) as I have been in all the other VR FPS games I've played.

And yes, zero G movement is an issue in VR as I have experienced in both "Adrift" and "Detached" and yes you can get used to even that.
 
It's not level of detail it's motion sickness that causes the problems. Things like HL: Alyx use different solutions depending on what works for you, but in a competitive multiplayer game you can't really have different players using different versions of VR.

I'm not a VR player myself so am no expert but as I understand it, the sickness is caused by the brain feeling that the movement is unnatural. It wouldn't actually surprise me if playing in different levels of gravity makes this sensation even worse.

Its not as simple as a single cause or even effect as a result. Other factors include framerate, field of view, input latency for head movements amongst a host of other technical factors. Then there is physiology, as there are sets of players that can tolerate some of those factors more or less than others e.g. I find low framerates more tolerable than field of view as experienced going from the Rift to the Pimax headsets.

The point is there is no perfect experience in VR and you either have or learn "VR tolerance" or you have to not play in that mode and no amount of coding or hardware will change that across a player base. So using this as a reason for removing VR from the development strategy is a fallacious one. This is a commercial and project timeline decision.

If its the former then Elite becomes a legacy product and if the latter then there is hope it may get re-introduced in the future.

Its one thing not to deliver wished for features and another to remove fundamental aspects of the experience. An analogy would be to reduce the current 3D environment back to 1984 wireframe mode.
 
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Yes. 'Classic stick turning' (IE turning your first person perspective left & right) is an infamous nausea trigger. (Your inner ear is particularly good at detecting head rotation, so when a world you're immersed in claims your head is turning, and your body is convinced it isn't, the body seems to assume you've been poisoned, and at worst tries to get rid of the problem ;))

Other design areas of concern regarding nausea include acceleration curves (the inner ear also detects acceleration well).

Most of these aspects have some ready solutions (guiding your navigation with motion controllers is surprisingly fluid, for example). They can be designed around. But naturally that requires dedicated dev, and can come into conflict with the design objectives of the classic game.

Ultimately most VR players adapt to many of the classic nausea triggers (I can now use stick motion just fine etc). But most AA / AAA companies won't want an average user to have a bad experience. So if they do it, they'll want to put the dev in to be sure as many issues have been addressed at the design stage as possible.
Skyrim VR did a really good job at easing me into first person VR, it's not as if Frontier needs to reinvent the wheel. The sollutions for motion sickness in VR already exist all they need to do is implement them. (and provide a toggle cuz I don't need them any more)

edit: I played Skyrim VR with my Xbox controller so that would be "stick turning"
 
If its the former then Elite becomes a legacy product and if the latter then there is hope it may get re-introduced in the future.

It's going to be a legacy product for a very small number of people, who will all come back if they manage to get VR working in first person/on foot in the future.
 
I think this is just another sign of the evolution of FDev from plucky development studio with a passion project to FDev the publicly traded publishing company. This is a speadsheet driven decision. Compare the market for PCVR users versus Console FPS users. The timing of this expansion will compliment the launches of both the PS5 and series X. Some clever marketing to pitch Elite as a FPS with some spaceships could bring a much bigger and much different demo. VR is not even in progress and you know from history that the expansion content will need bug fixes and will need to fleshed out because it will not be fleshed out at launch.
 
So using this as an reason for removing VR from the development strategy is a fallacious one. This is a commercial and project timeline decision.

If its the former then Elite becomes a legacy product and if the latter then there is hope it may get re-introduced in the future.

Its one thing not to deliver wished for features and another to remove fundamental aspects of the experience. An analogy would be to reduce the current 3D environment back to 1984 wireframe mode.
Well put. I think (and kind of hope) they have probably overspent on the planet tech and fps stuff and couldn't make VR work in time.
 
It won't be motion sickness that FD are struggling with. (Imagine any company having the gall to say, "Soz VR users. No VR for you because some of you may feel sick")

It's effects that are 2d; without some form of depth buffer, you can't render in 3d.

I used to play games using 3d vision until nvidia killed it. It's surprising how many elements in games are actually rendered in the 2d plane. E. G. Dust clouds, explosions and the like.

I reckon that's the case with odyssey.
 
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