2.3 dev update feedback mega thread

[The Wallet Inspector]

In regards to instant Commander teleportation for Multicrews:

It's completely immersion breaking and destroys the unique grand sense of scale of the ED setting.

Players already need to meet up to do Wing activity together, and I don't see that being complained about as a chore to achieve; so why would meeting up to form a crew be any different practically?

I already play with my friends in Wings, and the same friends will be each other's multicrew too. We're already hanging out in the same volumes of space. This teleportation feature will be used by non-Winging players maybe only once or twice, as a complete gimmick, yet the damage to the setting's scale is already done. Those who want teleportation to support their mindless sugar-rush insta-combat gameplay (besides already having CQC/Arena), will be gone to the next flavour of the month game anyway in short order once bored again.

Magical insta-teleportation for crew utterly devalues the intangible (but magical) quality of feeling like you're really journeying in space with your friends.

I doubt the gaming press / media will ever again bother covering the "magic and wonder" of ED's huge Exploration voyages, since it won't exist anymore. The thing that was news-worthy and interesting was the journey, not the destination. So obvious!

Space Engine will be the go-to application for anyone wanting to explore the Galaxy using simple "console command" shortcuts.

Lots of people (probably the same people who chase fast-credit exploits), are screaming for instant-teleportation to make sugar-rush combat as easy as pressing a button, but have FD considered that the degradation of the scale of the setting will wipe away an element of the game that is difficult to pin down in terms of specific mechanics, namely the overall emotional feel of the game?

I fear FD are chasing a demographic with these arcade design choices, that has no interest in the setting, but rather are the sorts of players who only hang around for 5 minutes after an update anyway, before they go off to the next sugary buzz. The sort of player that is not interested in the journey, or exploring the depth that ED has to offer, but rather wants higher credits per hour so they can race to the "end" ship and hurriedly "beat" the game.

Basically the worry is that FD is chasing the money of arcade players who will simply be gone again after they've exhausted their initial novelty buzz of consuming new content, then leaving the core players of the game with a unsatisfying, stripped back, bland "ease of access" focused casual game.

Instant Teleportation is simply Instant Gratification.

Those who want Instant Gratification will not be gratified by the content after 3 or 4 goes of the ride, they will leave to find Instant Gratification from somewhere else.

When I play co-op we work together to navigate distances as a team, we travel across space for our gameplay purposes in concert. Managing our time and appreciating the scale of the setting is part of the tactical-strategic layer that we play in - having meaningful restrictions, limiters and tensions in our gameplay is GOOD as it demands creative thinking and more than just an arcade style point and click unthinking approach to play.

FD might think they're adding something and fulfilling demand in their community by "gifting" teleportation. Really they are risking diluting the specialness of the setting, and gutting a huge plank of emergent gameplay (resource management and situational awareness), by just catering to the "here one minute, gone the next" crowd, and not the loyal core of the community that loves ED for it's rich and vast scale.

Remember this video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHg6lHvWdCw

The guy is blown away by the incredible sense of scale, his mind is seemingly blown.

Now imagine the reaction when he's now told "now you just use this console command button to magic yourself to anywhere you want instantly"... - I highly suspect that the awe of witnessing the Galaxy Map is inspired not just by the sheer number of possible destinations shown, BUT BY THE EVOCATIVE CONCEPT THAT ONE MUST ACTUALLY PHYSICALLY TRAVERSE THOSE INTERVENING VOLUMES OF SPACE TO REACH ONE OF THEM, and not "by magic", but by thought and consideration and by determination that really matters and is an actual achievement. NOT a laughable Playstation Trophy or an Xbox Achievement to tick off a damn list. BUT AN ACTUAL ACHIEVEMENT WITH FEELS AND STUFF!!

If instant teleportation is going to be a thing, PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS SPECIAL IN ED limit it to only working within the Bubble, or within 100 or 50 LYs of each other.

Don't break the game's best most amazing Unique Selling Point (1:1 representation of the Milky Way) just for an arcade combat feature.

Please <3

Pretty much everything you have said here.

 

[Vingtetun]

Really looking forward to 2.3: The PwP Update

I have questions:

1. Will people get to sit in the lower seat on the Asp?
2. Will crew get to use the external camera view, so you can capture external shots of the ship in action?
3. When you land on a planet - and drive off in your SRV, if you have crewmen on board, can they still do stuff?
4. What is to prevent a joining player shooting at the nearest copper, making you wanted and then logging out to get you into trouble (I predict that this MIGHT be a worry that would prevent people queuing for crew). Are you operating a "scoring" system for how reliable or good crew are?
5. Firing modules etc - is there the possibility that crew can manage heatsinks AND shield cells - will they be able to manage limpets for collection of goods whilst you fly? What about repair module?
6. Missions - will crewmen gain rank/rep by being on board when you complete various mission types?
7. Will there be any boost to BGS "bucket" filling via multiple people gaining payouts from combat etc
8. If your crewman is wanted in this space, when your ship is scanned, would it be noticed by the cops
9. When you're docked, what can they "do" - can they assist with trading, or have their own menus, will they be able to see the mission board?

And a wish list:

1. Multicrew for the SRV - having someone man the turret for you
2. Crewmen can plot next destination - enabling you to fly and fight as helm whilst someone plans your escape route
3. Did I mention the SRV?
4. Mechanism for allowing NPC crew to survive
6. NPC Crew able to be asked to scoop/mine whilst you're in the fighter

And a "content" wish list:

1. More SRV variants
2. Maybe a new ship?
3. Ship names
4. More audio chatter from ships

 

[mossfoot]

In regards to instant Commander teleportation for Multicrews:

It's completely immersion breaking and destroys the unique grand sense of scale of the ED setting.

Players already need to meet up to do Wing activity together, and I don't see that being a complained about as a chore to achieve; so why would meeting up to form a crew be any different practically?

I already play with my friends in Wings, and the same friends will be each other's multicrew too. We're already hanging out in the same volumes of space. This teleportation feature will be used by non-Winging players maybe only once or twice, as a complete gimmick, yet the damage to the setting's scale is already done. Those who want teleportation to support their mindless sugar-rush insta-combat gameplay (besides already having CQC/Arena), will be gone to the next flavour of the month game anyway.

Magical insta-teleportation for crew utterly devalues the intangible (but magical) quality of feeling like you're really journeying in space with your friends.

I doubt the gaming press / media will ever again bother covering the "magic and wonder" of ED's huge Exploration voyages, since it won't exist anymore.

Space Engine will be the go-to application for anyone wanting to explore the Galaxy using simple "console command" shortcuts.

Lots of people (probably the same people who chase fast-credit exploits), are screaming for instant-teleportation to make sugar-rush combat as easy as pressing a button, but have FD considered that the degradation of the scale of the setting will wipe away an element of the game that is difficult to pin down in terms of specific mechanics, namely the overall emotional feel of the game?

I fear FD are chasing a demographic with these arcade design choices, that has no interest in the setting, but rather are the sorts of players who only hang around for 5 minutes after an update anyway, before they go off to the next sugary buzz. The sort of player that is not interested in the journey, or exploring the depth that ED has to offer, but rather wants higher credits per hour so they can race to the "end" ship and hurriedly "beat" the game.

Basically the worry is that FD is chasing the money of arcade players who will simply be gone again after they've exhausted their initial novelty buzz of consuming new content, then leaving the core players of the game with a unsatisfying, stripped back, bland "ease of access" focused casual game.

Instant Teleportation is simply Instant Gratification.

Those who want Instant Gratification will not be gratified by the content after 3 or 4 goes of the ride, they will leave to find Instant Gratification from somewhere else.

When I play co-op we work together to navigate distances as a team, we travel across space for our gameplay purposes in concert. Managing our time and appreciating the scale of the setting is part of the tactical-strategic layer that we play in - having meaningful restrictions, limiters and tensions in our gameplay is GOOD as it demands creative thinking and more than just an arcade style point and click unthinking approach to play.

FD might think they're adding something and fulfilling demand in their community by "gifting" teleportation. Really they are risking diluting the specialness of the setting, and gutting a huge plank of emergent gameplay (resource management and situational awareness), by just catering to the "here one minute, gone the next" crowd, and not the loyal core of the community that loves ED for it's rich and vast scale.

Remember this video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHg6lHvWdCw

The guy is blown away by the incredible sense of scale, his mind is seemingly blown.

Now imagine the reaction when he's now told "now you just use this console command button to magic yourself to anywhere you want instantly"... - I highly suspect that the awe of witnessing the Galaxy Map is inspired not just by the sheer number of possible destinations shown, BUT BY THE EVOCATIVE CONCEPT THAT ONE MUST ACTUALLY PHYSICALLY TRAVERSE THOSE INTERVENING VOLUMES OF SPACE TO REACH ONE OF THEM, and not "by magic", but by thought and consideration and by determination that really matters and is an actual achievement. NOT a laughable Playstation Trophy or an Xbox Achievement to tick off a damn list. BUT AN ACTUAL ACHIEVEMENT WITH FEELS AND STUFF!!

If instant teleportation is going to be a thing, PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS SPECIAL IN ED limit it to only working within the Bubble, or within 100 or 50 LYs of each other.

Don't break the game's best most amazing Unique Selling Point (1:1 representation of the Milky Way) just for an arcade combat feature.

Please <3

Rep for passion.

Ordinarily I'd agree with you (I've always argued if favour of immersion within reasonable limits) and actually do on some level with this. But I'm not convinced this can work without instant transport... at least not in a way that ends up being used by only 1% of the players over time. That's an awful lot of work to put into an unused feature.

 

[Mengy]

OKAY, feedback. Since this is a 2.3 feedback thread I’ll keep my discussion to 2.3 stuff, namely the headline feature of Multi-Crew.

Let’s start with the summary:
Multicrew should be more than just a combat only feature, and Frontier should have included roles and positions to do more than just shoot things with it.

While I will say that multicrew currently sounds pretty sweet from a combat point of view, this new feature could have given new gameplay to many playstyles in the game, not only combat but including trading, mining, and exploration. A large percentage of the players do not play combat regularly, in fact combat isn’t even the style that is played the most:

Spoiler

A combat only multicrew is extremely limited in usefulness and by design alienates a huge percentage of Elite’s players. Frontier desperately needs to start considering players other than the combat crowd when designing new features for the game. This incessant combat only focus is hurting Elite overall, you need to balance development work better than that or the health of the franchise will suffer for it.

So, what other seats could be added to the multicrew feature which would broaden it’s appeal and give non-combat players ways to use it too?

Add an engineering station to multicrew.

Now, what possible duties could this new station have?

• Navigation – Use the galaxy map to monitor and adjust the route, even search the local map for points of interest while the pilot flies the ship
• Science – Allow the engineer seat to manually point discovery scanners 360°, giving the ship the ability to scan stellar objects in any direction. Also give the seat a way to boost scanning range via a minigame perhaps.
• Mining – Allow the engineer seat to work the refinery, manually give collection drones targets to retrieve (without the drone self destructing afterwards). The engineer can also fire prospecting drones 360° around the ship, allowing the pilot to fly through the asteroids while the engineer searches for good rocks to mine.
• Trading – In addition to the above navigation duties, an engineer seat on a trader would have access to a new info display which stores commodity prices for visitied stations, thereby allowing the engineer to actually search local systems for the best locations to sell carried cargo.
• Damage Control – The engineer seat could work the AFMU and make repairs on the fly by carefully working the module page while the pilot continues to fly the ship.

Some other improvements that multicrew could use to make it better overall:

• Add a new mining SLF which can mine & prospect asteroids. This way a ship with two commanders and a hangar on board could mine twice as fast and cooperatively! Note that only the mother ship is collecting ores.
• Allow SRV’s to be manned by multicrews. This would transform surface base assaults into an awesome cooperative multicrew experience.
• Increase the amount of crew from 3 to 4 total.
• Give the option to switch helm control. Many friends would use this, it's risky but at least allow said risk if it's wanted.

The multicrew feature has much potential to improve Elite’s multiplayer experience for everyone, not just the limited group of combat players. Potential that the current 2.3 implementation completely lacks.

Is there any chance that Frontier is aware of this, or even planning to flesh it out in the very near future? I’m not talking S4 or later, I’m talking like in 2.3 yet or maybe 2.4? Because as it is now for 2.3, your new multicrew feature is going to barely be used at all by a vast majority of your players. There’s just nothing there for a huge amount of commanders.

 

[Lianachan]

It's early days yet, and there may be good stuff yet to come, but the only thing announced so far that's potentially interesting to me is the new camera. If it's a proper external camera, then that's great. It's not clear yet though, and it may be bridge only for looking at your avatar/friends - which would be awful.

As for the rest of it - well, as a solo only player there is (yet again) nothing for me. The entire announcement may as well have said "hey, do you know there's a new X-Series game coming out?". Commander designer and avatar - pointless. Multiplayer only multicrew pew-pew - totally unnecessary, and sounding like it's going to be clumsily implemented.

I hope there's much more info still to come.

 

[fennster]

In regards to instant Commander teleportation for Multicrews:

It's completely immersion breaking and destroys the unique grand sense of scale of the ED setting.

Players already need to meet up to do Wing activity together, and I don't see that being complained about as a chore to achieve; so why would meeting up to form a crew be any different practically?

I already play with my friends in Wings, and the same friends will be each other's multicrew too. We're already hanging out in the same volumes of space. This teleportation feature will be used by non-Winging players maybe only once or twice, as a complete gimmick, yet the damage to the setting's scale is already done. Those who want teleportation to support their mindless sugar-rush insta-combat gameplay (besides already having CQC/Arena), will be gone to the next flavour of the month game anyway in short order once bored again.

Magical insta-teleportation for crew utterly devalues the intangible (but magical) quality of feeling like you're really journeying in space with your friends.

I doubt the gaming press / media will ever again bother covering the "magic and wonder" of ED's huge Exploration voyages, since it won't exist anymore. The thing that was news-worthy and interesting was the journey, not the destination. So obvious!

Space Engine will be the go-to application for anyone wanting to explore the Galaxy using simple "console command" shortcuts.

Lots of people (probably the same people who chase fast-credit exploits), are screaming for instant-teleportation to make sugar-rush combat as easy as pressing a button, but have FD considered that the degradation of the scale of the setting will wipe away an element of the game that is difficult to pin down in terms of specific mechanics, namely the overall emotional feel of the game?

I fear FD are chasing a demographic with these arcade design choices, that has no interest in the setting, but rather are the sorts of players who only hang around for 5 minutes after an update anyway, before they go off to the next sugary buzz. The sort of player that is not interested in the journey, or exploring the depth that ED has to offer, but rather wants higher credits per hour so they can race to the "end" ship and hurriedly "beat" the game.

Basically the worry is that FD is chasing the money of arcade players who will simply be gone again after they've exhausted their initial novelty buzz of consuming new content, then leaving the core players of the game with a unsatisfying, stripped back, bland "ease of access" focused casual game.

Instant Teleportation is simply Instant Gratification.

Those who want Instant Gratification will not be gratified by the content after 3 or 4 goes of the ride, they will leave to find Instant Gratification from somewhere else.

When I play co-op we work together to navigate distances as a team, we travel across space for our gameplay purposes in concert. Managing our time and appreciating the scale of the setting is part of the tactical-strategic layer that we play in - having meaningful restrictions, limiters and tensions in our gameplay is GOOD as it demands creative thinking and more than just an arcade style point and click unthinking approach to play.

FD might think they're adding something and fulfilling demand in their community by "gifting" teleportation. Really they are risking diluting the specialness of the setting, and gutting a huge plank of emergent gameplay (resource management and situational awareness), by just catering to the "here one minute, gone the next" crowd, and not the loyal core of the community that loves ED for it's rich and vast scale.

Remember this video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHg6lHvWdCw

The guy is blown away by the incredible sense of scale, his mind is seemingly blown.

Now imagine the reaction when he's now told "now you just use this console command button to magic yourself to anywhere you want instantly"... - I highly suspect that the awe of witnessing the Galaxy Map is inspired not just by the sheer number of possible destinations shown, BUT BY THE EVOCATIVE CONCEPT THAT ONE MUST ACTUALLY PHYSICALLY TRAVERSE THOSE INTERVENING VOLUMES OF SPACE TO REACH ONE OF THEM, and not "by magic", but by thought and consideration and by determination that really matters and is an actual achievement. NOT a laughable Playstation Trophy or an Xbox Achievement to tick off a damn list. BUT AN ACTUAL ACHIEVEMENT WITH FEELS AND STUFF!!

If instant teleportation is going to be a thing, PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS SPECIAL IN ED limit it to only working within the Bubble, or within 100 or 50 LYs of each other.

Don't break the game's best most amazing Unique Selling Point (1:1 representation of the Milky Way) just for an arcade combat feature.

Please <3

Can you please tell me then what happens without telepresence when the owner of the ship logs off with everyone on board being left stranded.

Do they gain ownership of the ship?
Do they reappear at the last station, where you docked? (Instant transfer)
Do they get locked in a limbo state, waiting for the owner to log back on?

I guessing that most will go with the same explanation of how you transport 60,000 Lys back to a station when you ship gets destroyed on the other side of the galaxy.

 

[AcidsEcho]

I doubt the gaming press / media will ever again bother covering the "magic and wonder" of ED's huge Exploration voyages, since it won't exist anymore. The thing that was news-worthy and interesting was the journey, not the destination. So obvious!

Or coverage could be improved since said gaming press/media that has access to the game could request to join someone at a particular discovery in order to capture and publish content.

Also, as had been mentioned dozens of times and opponents of insta-travel love to ignore, commander teleportation has been in the game since day 0. It happens every time you lose a ship. Regardless of distance, you are always 10s to thousands of light years back at your last port of call every time you rebuy, with the click of a button. From what I can gather CMDR teleporting is fine when it's convenient for you, but the precedence should be ignored when it lets other people enjoy something.

 

[Dinsy]

Really not sure how I feel about this update. To be honest I'm a little disappointed there is no systems/navigation officer - it makes the main feature seem very hallow. The only real application I can see is combat and even then not in an interesting way.

Beta will tell, but I currently feel like the only real use is being able to deploy 2 fighters at once. I just feel as if there were many more interesting and less artificial things (extra two pips) they could have done.


Willing to give it a try though, and always excited for more content, just not what I wanted...

 

[Monk]

Seriously, people on both sides of instant or not need to take a step back and think about what they are spending so many words on.

Can we talk about what the update is going to be and not what a bunch of know-nothings wish it to be?

 

[cheesenbiscuits]

In regards to instant Commander teleportation for Multicrews:

It's completely immersion breaking and destroys the unique grand sense of scale of the ED setting.

Players already need to meet up to do Wing activity together, and I don't see that being complained about as a chore to achieve; so why would meeting up to form a crew be any different practically?

I already play with my friends in Wings, and the same friends will be each other's multicrew too. We're already hanging out in the same volumes of space. This teleportation feature will be used by non-Winging players maybe only once or twice, as a complete gimmick, yet the damage to the setting's scale is already done. Those who want teleportation to support their mindless sugar-rush insta-combat gameplay (besides already having CQC/Arena), will be gone to the next flavour of the month game anyway in short order once bored again.

Magical insta-teleportation for crew utterly devalues the intangible (but magical) quality of feeling like you're really journeying in space with your friends.

I doubt the gaming press / media will ever again bother covering the "magic and wonder" of ED's huge Exploration voyages, since it won't exist anymore. The thing that was news-worthy and interesting was the journey, not the destination. So obvious!

Space Engine will be the go-to application for anyone wanting to explore the Galaxy using simple "console command" shortcuts.

Lots of people (probably the same people who chase fast-credit exploits), are screaming for instant-teleportation to make sugar-rush combat as easy as pressing a button, but have FD considered that the degradation of the scale of the setting will wipe away an element of the game that is difficult to pin down in terms of specific mechanics, namely the overall emotional feel of the game?

I fear FD are chasing a demographic with these arcade design choices, that has no interest in the setting, but rather are the sorts of players who only hang around for 5 minutes after an update anyway, before they go off to the next sugary buzz. The sort of player that is not interested in the journey, or exploring the depth that ED has to offer, but rather wants higher credits per hour so they can race to the "end" ship and hurriedly "beat" the game.

Basically the worry is that FD is chasing the money of arcade players who will simply be gone again after they've exhausted their initial novelty buzz of consuming new content, then leaving the core players of the game with a unsatisfying, stripped back, bland "ease of access" focused casual game.

Instant Teleportation is simply Instant Gratification.

Those who want Instant Gratification will not be gratified by the content after 3 or 4 goes of the ride, they will leave to find Instant Gratification from somewhere else.

When I play co-op we work together to navigate distances as a team, we travel across space for our gameplay purposes in concert. Managing our time and appreciating the scale of the setting is part of the tactical-strategic layer that we play in - having meaningful restrictions, limiters and tensions in our gameplay is GOOD as it demands creative thinking and more than just an arcade style point and click unthinking approach to play.

FD might think they're adding something and fulfilling demand in their community by "gifting" teleportation. Really they are risking diluting the specialness of the setting, and gutting a huge plank of emergent gameplay (resource management and situational awareness), by just catering to the "here one minute, gone the next" crowd, and not the loyal core of the community that loves ED for it's rich and vast scale.

Remember this video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHg6lHvWdCw

The guy is blown away by the incredible sense of scale, his mind is seemingly blown.

Now imagine the reaction when he's now told "now you just use this console command button to magic yourself to anywhere you want instantly"... - I highly suspect that the awe of witnessing the Galaxy Map is inspired not just by the sheer number of possible destinations shown, BUT BY THE EVOCATIVE CONCEPT THAT ONE MUST ACTUALLY PHYSICALLY TRAVERSE THOSE INTERVENING VOLUMES OF SPACE TO REACH ONE OF THEM, and not "by magic", but by thought and consideration and by determination that really matters and is an actual achievement. NOT a laughable Playstation Trophy or an Xbox Achievement to tick off a damn list. BUT AN ACTUAL ACHIEVEMENT WITH FEELS AND STUFF!!

If instant teleportation is going to be a thing, PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS SPECIAL IN ED limit it to only working within the Bubble, or within 100 or 50 LYs of each other.

Don't break the game's best most amazing Unique Selling Point (1:1 representation of the Milky Way) just for an arcade combat feature.

Please <3

Without the instant transfer explorers will not be able to use multicrew,so i think immersion has to take a back seat on this issue.

 

[thormadragon]

Cross post as the other thread got closed, with respect to instant movement to multicrew:

This instant transport is both immersion and game breaking. It is totally unacceptable to bring gameplay mechanics into a space flight simulation. EEEEEEEEEE

Anything short of having to fly to collect the crew from a station and a QWOP style minigame for them to walk up the ramp into the ship is simply FDev being intolerably lazy.

For those who haven't seen QWOP, it is a very accurate walking and running simulation and thus would fit in with the rest of the space flight simulation quite well.

You can see this below and anyone who says this is too difficult needs to git gud.

https://youtu.be/V2GCLgaCcm4


Someone asked (really!) yes this is satire of the community.

Crossposting my reply from the other thread aswell:

You're trolling i hope. Right? If you are i will rep you every day of my life for your awesomeness, that video aswell is just brilliant!

If however you're serious then i am speechless...

 

[Blackcompany]

In regards to instant Commander teleportation for Multicrews:

It's completely immersion breaking and destroys the unique grand sense of scale of the ED setting.

Players already need to meet up to do Wing activity together, and I don't see that being complained about as a chore to achieve; so why would meeting up to form a crew be any different practically?

I already play with my friends in Wings, and the same friends will be each other's multicrew too. We're already hanging out in the same volumes of space. This teleportation feature will be used by non-Winging players maybe only once or twice, as a complete gimmick, yet the damage to the setting's scale is already done. Those who want teleportation to support their mindless sugar-rush insta-combat gameplay (besides already having CQC/Arena), will be gone to the next flavour of the month game anyway in short order once bored again.

Magical insta-teleportation for crew utterly devalues the intangible (but magical) quality of feeling like you're really journeying in space with your friends.

I doubt the gaming press / media will ever again bother covering the "magic and wonder" of ED's huge Exploration voyages, since it won't exist anymore. The thing that was news-worthy and interesting was the journey, not the destination. So obvious!

Space Engine will be the go-to application for anyone wanting to explore the Galaxy using simple "console command" shortcuts.

Lots of people (probably the same people who chase fast-credit exploits), are screaming for instant-teleportation to make sugar-rush combat as easy as pressing a button, but have FD considered that the degradation of the scale of the setting will wipe away an element of the game that is difficult to pin down in terms of specific mechanics, namely the overall emotional feel of the game?

I fear FD are chasing a demographic with these arcade design choices, that has no interest in the setting, but rather are the sorts of players who only hang around for 5 minutes after an update anyway, before they go off to the next sugary buzz. The sort of player that is not interested in the journey, or exploring the depth that ED has to offer, but rather wants higher credits per hour so they can race to the "end" ship and hurriedly "beat" the game.

Basically the worry is that FD is chasing the money of arcade players who will simply be gone again after they've exhausted their initial novelty buzz of consuming new content, then leaving the core players of the game with a unsatisfying, stripped back, bland "ease of access" focused casual game.

Instant Teleportation is simply Instant Gratification.

Those who want Instant Gratification will not be gratified by the content after 3 or 4 goes of the ride, they will leave to find Instant Gratification from somewhere else.

When I play co-op we work together to navigate distances as a team, we travel across space for our gameplay purposes in concert. Managing our time and appreciating the scale of the setting is part of the tactical-strategic layer that we play in - having meaningful restrictions, limiters and tensions in our gameplay is GOOD as it demands creative thinking and more than just an arcade style point and click unthinking approach to play.

FD might think they're adding something and fulfilling demand in their community by "gifting" teleportation. Really they are risking diluting the specialness of the setting, and gutting a huge plank of emergent gameplay (resource management and situational awareness), by just catering to the "here one minute, gone the next" crowd, and not the loyal core of the community that loves ED for it's rich and vast scale.

Remember this video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHg6lHvWdCw

The guy is blown away by the incredible sense of scale, his mind is seemingly blown.

Now imagine the reaction when he's now told "now you just use this console command button to magic yourself to anywhere you want instantly"... - I highly suspect that the awe of witnessing the Galaxy Map is inspired not just by the sheer number of possible destinations shown, BUT BY THE EVOCATIVE CONCEPT THAT ONE MUST ACTUALLY PHYSICALLY TRAVERSE THOSE INTERVENING VOLUMES OF SPACE TO REACH ONE OF THEM, and not "by magic", but by thought and consideration and by determination that really matters and is an actual achievement. NOT a laughable Playstation Trophy or an Xbox Achievement to tick off a damn list. BUT AN ACTUAL ACHIEVEMENT WITH FEELS AND STUFF!!

If instant teleportation is going to be a thing, PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS SPECIAL IN ED limit it to only working within the Bubble, or within 100 or 50 LYs of each other.

Don't break the game's best most amazing Unique Selling Point (1:1 representation of the Milky Way) just for an arcade combat feature.

Please <3

I agree with BOTH sides of this argument. I identify with both sides.

In general though...I think your concerns are overall legitimate, timely, relevant concerns. I too worry the game is chasing a "latest new buzz" demographic. Online games in need of a fan base often do.

And it almost never works.

Because every change you make toward mass appeal, further alienates existing fans. See The Elder Scrolls for more on this. And over time, you'll end up replacing a smaller, fiercely loyal base with a larger but very, very temporary one. Games franchises mostly don't survive this transition.

 

[Sysmon]

It will be interesting to see what this will bring to the single-player experience. Bring on the beta!

That being said, I hope some love will be applied either in parallel or immediate sequence to this update, to planetary models, terrains and general representation of space. We have seen a lot of work on the ships and the process of flying them. But there seem to be a bit of room still for adding details to planets and stuff to do with encounters and points of interest.

If 2.3 just gives us the opportunity to play with multiple commanders in our ship, a feature that seems large pointless here in NZ with a small player base, and inconvenient time zone and P2P issues, then I might go exploring again and hope 2.4 will bring more actual universally applicable content.

S

 

[sensai25]

Good:

-Instant play
-Multicrew buffs
-Having two fighters at once

Bad:

-Offers nothing for explorers
-Offers nothing for miners
-Offers nothing for traders

Offers nothing to small/medium ship as they do not have any fighter nor good weapon placement to justify turrets.
So only interesting for the Big 3 : Conda, Vette, Cutter.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

I do wonder if this would actually harm exploration for would-be explorers.

CMDR 1: "I'd quite like to visit Sagittarius A* someday..."
CMDR 2: "Oh, I'm already there, just pop on over, I have a spare seat!"
CMDR 1: "Ok, thanks!" *pop* "Wow, this is cool!"
CMDR 2: "Thing of beauty... When are you coming out here in your own ship?"
CMDR 1: "I've seen it now, no need!"

 

[James Son]

If a user is in SOL system and another in Colonia, will the 1st be able to be added as a crew member to the 2nd's ship? That would be awesome (NOT!). I hope there will be a limit to this (i.e. both players must be in the same bubble or within a certain distance or something - something less than 300LYs perhaps)...

I do wonder if this would actually harm exploration for would-be explorers.

CMDR 1: "I'd quite like to visit Sagittarius A* someday..."
CMDR 2: "Oh, I'm already there, just pop on over, I have a spare seat!"
CMDR 1: "Ok, thanks!" *pop* "Wow, this is cool!"
CMDR 2: "Thing of beauty... When are you coming out here in your own ship?"
CMDR 1: "I've seen it now, no need!"

Exactly this!

 

[Alex Brentnall]

Please use this mega-thread to discuss your thoughts/opinions/feedback on the upcoming 2.3 game update. Thanks!

Seeing all the locked threads on the first page totally gmh for this forum. Thanks Jenner for being the Mod we need right now

 

[Winterwalker]

I doubt the gaming press / media will ever again bother covering the "magic and wonder" of ED's huge Exploration voyages, since it won't exist anymore. The thing that was news-worthy and interesting was the journey, not the destination. So obvious!


Basically the worry is that FD is chasing the money of arcade players who will simply be gone again after they've exhausted their initial novelty buzz of consuming new content, then leaving the core players of the game with a unsatisfying, stripped back, bland "ease of access" focused casual game.

Instant Teleportation is simply Instant Gratification.

Though I can see developmental reasons for telepresenting crew into ships short term, in terms of overall strategy, the whole of the quoted post sums it up for me. "A sense of" reality IS important so forget SC fanboy digs about "muh" immersion, they WILL play ED anyway for as long as it still "rocks". But instant refuelling, cargo loading is not in the same league, as disembodying over multiply lightyears. Telepresence is OK as an interim but for me stretches credibility as high science, if it undermines 'being present' in the galaxy.

 

[smiths121]

I am pretty sure I am not alone in wanting to multicrew with a friend when either of us is out in the dark. Be decent and dont demand other people cant meet their friends in-game because it breaks your immersion. There is no gameplay cost here to you, so here you really do have the option of just not using it. Noone will mind that, its up to you. There is no need to on other people's entertainment because you have some theoretical problem with them having fun.

OK - does this mean you see this as content for explorers?

I have seen a number of posts attacking the 2.3 for being combat only. Your post and one previously about searching for ruins, give me just a little hope for 2.3.

Simon

 

[Kurok]

as stated on another thread "Multi-crew while playing solo = not excited to move on to or purchase 2.3 if that's the case" gratz for those that enjoy human company