VR support 'not at launch' for Odyssey

I'd be perfectly fine with disembodied hands like Alyx and Onward, and for the models fixing them in position like normal pancake players based on where the gun is aiming


Yeah I actively prefer hands alone for my own view. (IK arms kinda clash with reality more. Thought they worked well in Echo tho because they’re 'robot arms')

Onward does use IK arms for multiplayer 3rd person modelling though. (As do Pavlov, Contractors etc etc, all the PvP titles). Presumably because the alternatives either look terrible (players rotating like spinning tops to match gun orientation) or look terrible and lack visual cues (direction of fire being disconnected from player model completely)

Aren't you overcomplicating things? Never in my long history of playing multiplayer games was I concerned with teammate's gun position,


Possibly ;). But I was talking about competitors’ gun positions there, not teammates.

And all of this is in the 'may not have an impact' tier. It’s all just possible R&D that could need investigation if they were leaning in to the PvP side of things.
 
A minimum viable implementation is not hard to do, and won't delay Odyssey for another 1-2 years, as some people are trying to suggest.

3D rendering can be implemented quickly (won't say a few days but most likely it is that - it is rendering the same scene 2x from a slightly different angle)
allow the HMD axis as your mouse/controller input (they had that during the FSS beta but unfortunately removed it) - done. Unless their new engine does away with 3D representation of things and uses mostly 2D sprites.

It won't be the best FPS implementation that exists, but it is more or less along the lines of what we have in space (with HMD axis as headlook). And what most VR players would be happy with.

Throw in a few optional comfort modes (vignette, blackout in certain situations, like what they have for the SRV) for those that want them and you can say it has solid VR support.

It won't be Halflife Alyx or a pure VR game, but it would allow people that play Elite in VR to continue to enjoy the newest incarnation of their game and the long awaited new content, that many of us have already paid for.

Would I like to have more support? Of course, I'd love to be able to interact with the cockpit, use roomscale (as an option) in FPS. I prefer to stay realistic though.
I pretty much echo this, for me level 2, seated VR in pilots seat, and seated VR with WASD / gamepad on foot and no hand controllers, and I think this is a reasonable expectation. The "comforts" you mention are something I broached in "the list" I did a few posts back, but even those aren't mega hard, as things are already available mostly from the SRV. My suggestion of "smoothing head bob when running in VR" would be a straight plug in of the "SRV maintain Horizon" setting, blackout from SRV could be the basis of my "fade to black transition in and out of seats" etc.

Hand controller games and Room scale VR is cool, but it's a lot of work, and I don't think the game needs it, and "tacking it on" would always feel like a botch, so I'd reckon they are best leaving it out.


Starlight - I'm going to reply in line to your quote rather than slice it up, saves a ton of formatting and I don't really have the time to do that just now...

While it should be - we need to refine it with the rest of the team, decompose into smaller units and estimate on that, then we can talk money (mandays) :p
I used the unit "Dev Weeks" to be more politically correct, as in dev rather than man to avoid being accused of chauvinism, and I used weeks rather than days to paint the timeline in broader strokes which inherently factors in some leeway for overruns etc. If I said two man-days and it took 4 I'm 100% out, if I say one dev week and it takes 4 days I'm on target / ahead of schedule.

Heh you're a PM, I'm worse - I'm a project engineer :-( so you should know better (friendly dev -> pm jab there ;-) ) that it's not that simple. I tried to sneak in huge swathes of contingency resources (time = money) by working with weeks rather than days, see comment above. Adding coders to project makes it late, not earlier ;-) There is a sweetspot where you achieve synergetic bonus to productivity, before you get to the point of over-staffing a project where the team are tripping up over each other. But just to hedge my bets I never revised the time the developers were working on it as I kept adding more people to the team, so in essence as I added to the proposed team I was reducing their productivity projections. And number of hours don't usually convert linearly 1:1 like you optimistically assumed. Software development is a complicated process, sometimes one thing being worked on can hold the entire team etc. etc.

I also don't think it's a time/cost decision. I think it's Braben's "stance shift" on VR and decisions that followed. I think you are right, and I think that will potentially make it harder to get them to overturn the decision to can VR. as in its not that they can't do VR, its that the boss doesn't want them to. When I first heard that, I thought "uh oh, no new VR things in E: D". Never in my wildest dreams did I envision that he actually leaves VR on the cutting room floor while refactoring the engine... That blindsided me too. Greg's VR must have been one hell of a spaghetti hack universally hated by the devs :D

We know. It isn't complex, because it is not implemented :p
As I've said elsewhere, Implementing to "level 2" isn't complex, and would essentially be a copy pasta of Greg's VR "plug-in" - regardless of how spaghetti code it was.

ODYSSEY
Copy it from your Avatar, or Fdev will make extra expansion called Odessy simulating a ship's toilet and implement VR there. Bonus - reading galnet while... you know. Hell even spellchecker on my browser highlights that abomination "odessy". Come on, fix it :p
Strangely in my browser when writing it I wasn't flagged for misspelling Odyssey, but now in this message I am? But TB, I don't care, as much of a "grammar " as I am at times, I have no respect for this product because I'm being excluded from it, so "dissing" it by misspelling its name is maybe a mild, subconscious rebellion?

I don't get the hype for IK arms, very few games can pull it right. In fact I think only Boneworks did pull it right, and even that glitches sometimes. Watching teammates in Onward is often a freak show. Bonus points if someone puts headset on the floor to take a break, and then gets it back up. That's some really scary level 99 necromancy show right there :D
The Inverse Kinematics strikes me as a lot of work for not a lot of gameplay, but its absence would detract from hand controllers, so I see IK as being a major reason NOT to do Levels 3 or 4 of VR.

I'd be perfectly fine with disembodied hands like Alyx and Onward, and for the models fixing them in position like normal pancake players based on where the gun is aiming. Hardware for IK arms is not there yet - vive trackers cost a fortune and only 2.8% of VR users have them ;-)))
Yeah, that would work, given Alyx is hyped as the new VR posterboy, if it can get away with disembodied hands, why couldn't elite?


U wot mates? Seriously? Aren't you overcomplicating things? Never in my long history of playing multiplayer games was I concerned with teammate's gun position, only just making sure that I'm not on the line of fire. I also think that you are envisioning something as complex as Elite: Dangerous - The Division 2, while we will probably be getting Elite: Dangerous - Wolfenstein 3d judging from FDev's love for MVP. So yeah, IMHO those concerns are irrelevant. I also see a lot of references to the competitive aspect and I think people built this IMHO frankly absurd outlook that FDev implemented something akin to Fortnite and it's now merging it with Elite codebase. While in my opinion we will get something akin to SC where you simply have a gun on foot and maybe simplistic leaderboards. But my guess is as good as yours. I'm still seeing space legs as extension to gameplay, not as a CQC on foot, but... we will see.
I'm hoping legs is more of an RPG with some combat elements rather than a run and gun COD style shooter or multiplayer deathmatch experience.But without VR, I won't be playing it in which case it can be what the frack it wants.
 
2nd Level - WASD/ Gamepad Walking VR in Odessy

This level would "inherit" the flying and driving in VR from the first level, but would add to it by allowing the player to take to their feet while still in VR and have VR headlook while on foot. The game remains a "seated VR experience" and as such does not include use of hand controllers to track the players hands, as such this would be a wasd / gamepad control scheme, with things like [PRESS E or BUTTON 2 to plant charges] prompts as opposed to the player physically placing the charges with own (tracked by hand controllers) hands.

Considerations / problems that I can foresee would be:
This list of considerations is in addition to the list from 1st Level and relates only to the VR On Foot aspect
  • Smooth Locomotion vs Teleporting?
    • Smooth locomotion may cause nausea in some
    • Teleportation is janky and could be used to cheat in FPS combat
      • pinned down? Simples... Teleport to a new safer location, this would be an exploited in PvE combat and an infuriating cheat in PvP FPS combat.
  • When running is there an element of headbob, which might cause nausea, so could this be smoothed for VR? Maybe via an option in graphics setting like "SRV Keep Horizon" setting?
  • What happens when the player leans their real body forward / back / left / right?
    • Would this be reflected by the "characters" and avatars?
    • Would reflecting this movement by the player need new animations for the "characters"?
      • Would the head be stuck to the neck and not movable at all?
      • or would the head only movable within certain limits?
      • Would hitting those limits induce nausea when the head motion stops changing the view?
        • as in you can move your head say ~150° (vertical to chin on chest), and more with slight shoulder / torso movement, but if the avatar/character is limited to say 110°, so movements from 110° to 150° of the players head would not be reflected on the view screen representing what their character's head is doing, the disconnect is a potential nausea trigger.
  • Similarly - care would need to be taken when entering or leaving the pilots seat, [Press X to enter/leave Pilot's seat] and an animation of your character getting up or sitting down disassociating the VR players view with their physical movements and or expected view changes arising from their control inputs into the game/simulation.
    • Maybe this might be best served as an optional fade to black during the transition?
    • Maybe cut to a third person view instead?
(roll-plays as a dev lead at Fdev)

First I'd like to start by saying that "1st level" is not really going to cut much time off. As a developer I would not want to have to maintain "button states" based on isVr=true. It's also not what I want for the game. :p

"2nd level" is exactly what the game needs. It is also the easiest to implement because it requires the least amount of dev work separate from the regular game.

Before I go down the list of points, I'd like to talk about the heads-up-display (HUD). The HUD does require some thought to be put in for it to work in VR. This has already been done for ships/srv, but in those it can exist in the 3d space of the cockpit. For legs, it cannot exist in the 3d space of the environment because other things could get in front of it. Therefore the HUD must be drawn last so it is always on top. (the regular game may already be implemented this way)

* Teleporting
No reason to support this as it only makes sense if motion controllers are used and those won't be supported.

* Headbob
There should be an option to enable/disable this for the regular game too.

* Leaning
Ok, this is where things get a bit interesting. Right now, we can get up and walk around our ship cockpit leaving our body behind. This would be a pretty big exploit for PvP legs combat. Options:
1. Do nothing for initial release and deal with it later. The players are bound for find additional ways exploit things anyways. Waiting may be the best course of action to avoid re-work.
2. Drag the character body along with the HMD position. Probably minimal dev time to implement. This would prevent people from hiding behind walls and still being able to see. Just don't lean too far to look over a cliff! (ahhhh /falls-down)
3. Block-out the view. Half-Life Alyx does this but would require dev time to implement.
(preferred option: 1, it's better to have VR exist and fix any exploits later, we have a deadline to meet!)

* Entering/leaving seat
I wish I could re-enable the FSS zoom effect and UI shake in VR. If you can't handle the seated/legs transition, close your eyes for a few seconds. ;)

As for 3-4th level... motion controller support would be a LOT of work. This idea can be re-visited post-release if necessary.

(end roll-play as a dev lead at Fdev)

Seated VR legs is exactly what this game needs and it should be minimal development effort to implement it. Come on FDev... I know you can do it!
 
(role-play as if in a meeting with dev lead at Fdev)

Thanks for agreeing to meet me like this, VR means a lot to the players, and I'm glad you are open to discussing options and its a privilege to be here representing them, so you've obviously seen our comments, what are your thoughts?

First I'd like to start by saying that "1st level" is not really going to cut much time off. As a developer I would not want to have to maintain "button states" based on isVr=true. It's also not what I want for the game. :p"2nd level" is exactly what the game needs. It is also the easiest to implement because it requires the least amount of dev work separate from the regular game.

I'm 100% in agreement, levels 3 & 4 on "the list" would be a lot of work for not a lot of gameplay benefits, but level one is a clunky fudge. A segment of the VR players would have settled for level 1, but for me it would have been "horribad" and it's music to my ears that you are aiming for level 2. You have to remember that level 2 will exceed the expectations of some players, and live up to the expectations of more, so by going to level 2 you will have satisfied far more of the VR community for not much more development resources than implementing the MVP solution that is level 1. So, cheers what else is on your mind?

Before I go down the list of points, I'd like to talk about the heads-up-display (HUD). The HUD does require some thought to be put in for it to work in VR. This has already been done for ships/srv, but in those it can exist in the 3d space of the cockpit. For legs, it cannot exist in the 3d space of the environment because other things could get in front of it. Therefore the HUD must be drawn last so it is always on top. (the regular game may already be implemented this way)
This might need worked out in alpha to see how it plays, I know that in the cockpits in VR in certain circumstances it is harder to see the dashboard HUD elements than it is to see them onscreen. Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was more black behind the ships dash holo panels, this made them easier to read, now while I haven't seen the Odessy space legs HUD, it might need a similar background to enhance legibility in VR? But mere minutes in Alpha or Beta with a headset will tell you if what you are proposing will work or if it needs tweaked.

* Teleporting
No reason to support this as it only makes sense if motion controllers are used and those won't be supported.

Apart from it only making sense with hand controllers, teleporting is janky so please don't do it. Teleporting in Odessy is also a potential means of cheating, "oh look, I am pinned down and the enemy is flanking me, oh no!, But it's OK as I'll just teleport to that safe spot over there, and they can't get me now!" would be used by players, and would create a tonne of salt.

* Headbob
There should be an option to enable/disable this for the regular game too.

Cool! I know back in the days when I used to play some FPS games on flat screen, head bob always annoyed me, but in VR I think it would be a nausea trigger, so I'm glad you are making it optional.

* Leaning
Ok, this is where things get a bit interesting. Right now, we can get up and walk around our ship cockpit leaving our body behind. This would be a pretty big exploit for PvP legs combat. Options:
1. Do nothing for initial release and deal with it later. The players are bound for find additional ways exploit things anyways. Waiting may be the best course of action to avoid re-work.
2. Drag the character body along with the HMD position. Probably minimal dev time to implement. This would prevent people from hiding behind walls and still being able to see. Just don't lean too far to look over a cliff! (ahhhh /falls-down)
3. Block-out the view. Half-Life Alyx does this but would require dev time to implement.
(preferred option: 1, it's better to have VR exist and fix any exploits later, we have a deadline to meet!)

Can I present you with a fourth option? Keep the VR headlook viewpoint within a semicircle whose radius is the same as the measurement from the outside of the shoulders to the centreline of the neck... In real life you cannot get your eyeballs much if any at all past your shoulders, so that would be a sensible limitation for VR viewpoint.

Picking up on the cheating thing, I think you are going to have to consider locking out camera suite when in combat - yeah it would be good for explorers to photo themselves on foot in front of a fantastic skyline, but it'd be sucky for others to use the camera suite in combat like some sort of aerial photography to see where their opponents are located.


* Entering/leaving seat
I wish I could re-enable the FSS zoom effect and UI shake in VR. If you can't handle the seated/legs transition, close your eyes for a few seconds. ;)

Yeah, they could close their eyes, indeed, its what I myself used to do when I got an SLF into a spin, but if possible, an option to have a fade to black for the transition would be a far more polished affair, and could be done by recycling the horizons transition to SRV, so it wouldn't;t necessarily take a lot of work. You can think about it?

As for 3-4th level... motion controller support would be a LOT of work. This idea can be re-visited post-release if necessary.
I don't think you'd really need to go there, there are some VR players who might like it, but majority will be delighted you are implementing level 2, what I would say though is what I've just said holds true to the base game & horizons players but Odyssey will broaden the appeal of the elite franchise and bring in people who ordinarily wouldn't have played elite. As such it would be worth doing some market research after Odessy is established to see if the demographic has shifted and if levels 3 & 4 would work for the Odessy player base.
(end role-play as if in a meeting with dev lead at Fdev)
 
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I wasn't going to call out kelster posting in the wrong thread, but I'm guessing they have posted it in te right thread now, probably the "remove military slots" or the "make specialist ships have built in passenger cabins or cargo racks" thread?
 
I recommend every VR player here give the Protonwar demo a try. If we can get enough people to first-hand confirm that keyboard+mouse is not half-baked or "sufficient", but actually "good" then maybe, just maybe FDev will consider doing it for launch.
Well, I did try Protonwar Demo with KB+M. No problems with motion sickness, HOWEVER it wasn't a "good" experience in my opinion. It feels unnatural, it's twitchy af (to the point of not being completely aware what is happening). You can compare it to watching a pro-gamer play a shooter - you're just left out of the action momentarily not being able to follow the sudden direction shifts and very high mouse sensivities.
I got used to it, but to say I liked it would be lying. Also aiming with the mouse when you can with motion controllers is just sooo XX century ;-)))
When I switched to motion controls game instantly became more appealing, I felt right at home ;-) Don't get me wrong, it's not "bad", it just feels... "strange" to do this in VR. Again: no motion sickness involved at all.

I get the same feeling of disconnect watching my Onward streams when clipping highlights sometimes: I noticed that when I glance at the watch on my right wrist, it's completely unreadable on stream. You cannot tell what the watch says on the stream unless you pause the video while in VR it's as clean as day, and somehow slower. It might however be connected to the fact that stream is 60fps and gameplay is 90fps.

TL;DR that's a "no" for WASD implementation in Odyssey for me. Motion controllers all the way. I don't care I will get "owned" by m+kb players. In fact, I laugh at them from Solo tbh. If it's made open-only, I wouldn't care either because I'm not interested in "Competitive" aspect of the gameplay at all.
 
Well, I did try Protonwar Demo with KB+M. No problems with motion sickness, HOWEVER it wasn't a "good" experience in my opinion. It feels unnatural, it's twitchy af (to the point of not being completely aware what is happening). You can compare it to watching a pro-gamer play a shooter - you're just left out of the action momentarily not being able to follow the sudden direction shifts and very high mouse sensivities.
I got used to it, but to say I liked it would be lying. Also aiming with the mouse when you can with motion controllers is just sooo XX century ;-)))
When I switched to motion controls game instantly became more appealing, I felt right at home ;-) Don't get me wrong, it's not "bad", it just feels... "strange" to do this in VR. Again: no motion sickness involved at all.

I get the same feeling of disconnect watching my Onward streams when clipping highlights sometimes: I noticed that when I glance at the watch on my right wrist, it's completely unreadable on stream. You cannot tell what the watch says on the stream unless you pause the video while in VR it's as clean as day, and somehow slower. It might however be connected to the fact that stream is 60fps and gameplay is 90fps.

TL;DR that's a "no" for WASD implementation in Odyssey for me. Motion controllers all the way. I don't care I will get "owned" by m+kb players. In fact, I laugh at them from Solo tbh. If it's made open-only, I wouldn't care either because I'm not interested in "Competitive" aspect of the gameplay at all.
I wouldn't suggest mouse aim in VR, at the very least you'd need "look to aim" also keyboard and mouse wouldn't be my first choice for a seated experience. I'd very much prefer a gamepad for all the walkie shootie bits.
 
I'm away to get a shower and some supper then I'll give this protonwar a bash. I'm going to be relatively scientific, KBAM, Joypad, and motion controllers.

Plays and feels like good ol' Quake ]I[

5CE5F37DBC4EBB5FBC7A90F45C732B14BB267EE2
 
Well, I did try Protonwar Demo with KB+M. No problems with motion sickness, HOWEVER it wasn't a "good" experience in my opinion. It feels unnatural, it's twitchy af (to the point of not being completely aware what is happening). You can compare it to watching a pro-gamer play a shooter - you're just left out of the action momentarily not being able to follow the sudden direction shifts and very high mouse sensivities.
I got used to it, but to say I liked it would be lying. Also aiming with the mouse when you can with motion controllers is just sooo XX century ;-)))
When I switched to motion controls game instantly became more appealing, I felt right at home ;-) Don't get me wrong, it's not "bad", it just feels... "strange" to do this in VR. Again: no motion sickness involved at all.

I get the same feeling of disconnect watching my Onward streams when clipping highlights sometimes: I noticed that when I glance at the watch on my right wrist, it's completely unreadable on stream. You cannot tell what the watch says on the stream unless you pause the video while in VR it's as clean as day, and somehow slower. It might however be connected to the fact that stream is 60fps and gameplay is 90fps.

TL;DR that's a "no" for WASD implementation in Odyssey for me. Motion controllers all the way. I don't care I will get "owned" by m+kb players. In fact, I laugh at them from Solo tbh. If it's made open-only, I wouldn't care either because I'm not interested in "Competitive" aspect of the gameplay at all.
Thank you for your perspective.
But here is a question: Do you think kbd+mouse/controller in VR would be preferable to no VR at all? And, if this was the only option for VR at launch, would you play it in VR anyway even though it is not ideal for you?

I'm not against the possibility of motion controllers some time in the future, but this thread is about there being no VR at all for Odyssey at launch. I think motion controller support is too much to ask for "at launch". I do think kbd+mouse/controller support for VR is doable for launch.


I wouldn't suggest mouse aim in VR, at the very least you'd need "look to aim" also keyboard and mouse wouldn't be my first choice for a seated experience. I'd very much prefer a gamepad for all the walkie shootie bits.
As long as face-aiming is optional, I'm fine with that.


Plays and feels like good ol' Quake ]I[

5CE5F37DBC4EBB5FBC7A90F45C732B14BB267EE2
You're a lot better than I am. 😳
I'm a pretty bad shot, despite my favorite game mode in Quake3/UnrealTournament being instagib CTF.
 
I wouldn't suggest mouse aim in VR, at the very least you'd need "look to aim" also keyboard and mouse wouldn't be my first choice for a seated experience. I'd very much prefer a gamepad for all the walkie shootie bits.
Me too: the game pad is already useful for the FSS, and can be kept available to pick up on the fly fairly easily.
 
Thank you for your perspective.
But here is a question: Do you think kbd+mouse/controller in VR would be preferable to no VR at all? And, if this was the only option for VR at launch, would you play it in VR anyway even though it is not ideal for you?

You're a lot better than I am. 😳
I'm a pretty bad shot, despite my favorite game mode in Quake3/UnrealTournament being instagib CTF.
As I said, I was able to play (honestly didn't know what to expect and if I can stomach that camera control) but again it wasn't good experience either... Of course compared to no VR as "alternative" there's little "choice" to be made.

You're a lot better than I am. 😳
I'm a pretty bad shot, despite my favorite game mode in Quake3/UnrealTournament being instagib CTF.
Nah, just a wee bit more experience with Onward clocking in to 123 hrs at the time of this posting :D Also 2d shooter muscle memory doesn't translate to VR well in my opinion for some strange reason... Or I am just getting old.

That said, my experience with Protonwar was somewhat additionally tarnished, as I learned to play FPS... on Alien Breed 3d on Amiga. And because of that, I am a weirdo who uses QWES instead of WASD as controls and need to remap every god damn game in existence. I couldn't do it in Protonwar because the keybinding UI was borked and didn't allow me to bind my preferred strafe keys. That said - this screenshot is from VR controller session :) As is this:
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