The threadnaught isn't meant to squash disucssion, but to foster it. The forum was becoming unreadable today because every single thread on the front page was about 2.3. While the discussion is great, it really was becoming cluttered and difficult for FD to read and assimilate feedback.
Okay. So under the assumption that this megathread is
1. Not intended for the discussion among forum participants.
2. Intended for the consumption by the devs.
3. Will actually be read by the devs (as opposed to the other threads).
Here is my consolidated feedback so far:
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So you get 1 extra pip for each crew member. Not sure if that means 1 per extra crew member beyond the owner, or 1 for each person, i.e. either it is a maximum of 2, or a maximum of 3 extra pips. Let's be conservative and assume it is 2.
I hope I don't have to explain what the pips are used for and how big of a thing it is to suddenly have 2 more pips, distributions like 4/0/4 and 0/4/4 being among the most obvious outcomes.
What is probably intended as a passive buff for multi-crew is the door to multiboxing and buffbots. This is not me being paranoid, because these things happen in every single MMO that enables it. So how would it work? Simple:
* Buy 2 extra accounts.
* Log with these extra accounts as crew members onto your main account's ship.
* Set the bonus pip for each of them.
* Play only your main account using 8 pips now.
* As a bonus, you even generate extra money for your extra accounts from bounties and combat bonds.
These 2 extra buffs are a clear game mechanical advantage, and they are enabled for any one lone player by purchasing 2 extra copies of the game. I know this is not intended by FD, but this is essentially a backdoor to P2W.
I propose as a solution the extra pips are dropped entirely from the multi-crew feature list. Imo there shouldn't be "magical" stat buffs anyway just for having a 2nd or 3rd player on your ship, let alone by just putting afk sockpuppets into those seats.
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It is not just possible, it will happen. It happened in every MMO that had a way of passively buffing one character by the mere presence of another combined with the ability for a character to afk follow another. Heck, it even happened where the buffbot would have to cast a spell from time to time, it just ended up scripted to press the button every N minutes.
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I am very disappointed that the owner is always restriced to helm. Is this due to technical reasons or a game design decision? Because I can see plenty of reasons why the owner would want to play gunner or fighter pilots themselves, not always remain glued to the mother ship pilot seat.
Likewise, I would like to see the option to defer NPC fighter control to another player. This is a task especially suited for another player. Imagine a ship with 1 player at the helm, 1 player as a gunner, 1 player in a fighter as "fighter leader" also giving orders to the 2nd, NPC-flown fighter. Giving commands to the NPC with the bottom menu doesn't suit well to flying the ship anyway, so please reconsider this limitation at least, even if the owner=helm restriction ends up unshakable.
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Would the rebuy cost split between all present crew members, so everyone pays a share (then what if one crew member can't afford it)? Or does the owner pay it, but it is simply reduced by a certain percentage for each crew member aboard? In the latter case: idle sockpuppet accounts in crew member seats to reduce your rebuy cost.
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Duplicated bounties+bonds is a terrific change and should be applied to wing members in their own ships as well.
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As someone who was and still is firmly opposed to instant module and ship transfer (due to balance and meta reasons mostly, immersion only secondarily), I can totally live with the multi-crew-teleportation for gameplay reasons, as long as this is kept strictly a gameplay thing and not made into lore in any form whatsoever. Sometimes no lore explanation is the best explanation.
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I want emphasize again that the extra pip for each crew member is a dangerous idea. Selfishly speaking, if they get to set pip distributions like 0/4/4, I want that, too. And actually I can have it at all times: just buy two more accounts and invite your sockpuppet CMDRs onto your ship to idle there forever. I am certain this is not intended, but this is effectively a pay-to-win mechanic: pay real money for extra pips in your power distributor.
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(In response to griefing by using the gunner role to attack police or starport to have someone else's ship destroyed)
Even if the other CMDRs would be forced to keep the bounties on their heads, their actual ships could be 200Ly away and completely safe from repercussions. But as a trolling mechanic, yeah. This could spell the death of open drop-in-drop-out pick-up-groups. Just by opening up your ships for random people to join, you are giving them the power to get your ship destroyed on a whim. Sharing the rebuy cost (even if you cannot wiggle out of that) won't help, some people have exploited their way to many billions and couldn't care less about losing a few millions if it let's them "harvest salt".
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Even afk multiboxing would buff you - 2 extra pips. Imagine flying an FDL with 0/4/4 distritution: maximum speed and agility, infinite boost and full weapon power at all times. Just for 2 accounts being passively there.
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I've totally missed Ed's extra posts where he said it is telepresence. And there I was already accepting the "log out and then back directly on a friend's ship" as a pure gameplay shortcut "until we have space legs", but there they are again, just throwing in a buzz word to put it into lore and bulldoze over its many ramifications.
What's more, it becomes clear that this is a more recent change in direction. For the launch of Horizons and the SRV, it was designed clearly so that you are physically inside the SRV, the black screen transition is just there as a placeholder until space legs. But at some point between the launch of Horizons and update 2.2, they apparently changed their minds about it. I now fully expect that the SRV will be retconned into telepresence only activity as well.
P.S.: Since apparently low latency high bandwidth bidirectional superluminal data transfer is an every day thing in ED, there is no justification whatsoever any more why we cannot still do any of the following remotely:
* Cash in exploration data.
* Cash in bounties.
* Cash in combat bonds.
* Cash in intel packages.
* Cash in trade dividends.
* Turn in completed combat missions.
* Pay off fines.
* Browse the mission board and accept missions that do not put a physical item into your cargo hold (basically all put passenger and delivery).
* Initiate ship or module transfer.
* Fly an SLF an indefinite distance away from the mothership.
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Just to be extra clear, I can accept that there is instant transfer to the other ship. What I don't want to accept is that this is through telepresence. Just ignore it for the lore, pretend they met up somewhere physically. It's just like the 3D printing idea for SLF bays - too many ramifications to simply ignore. Please note I don't say it is unrealistic, I say it does not fit within the context of the ED universe as it is presented by official lore.
Remember when Sandro mentioned 3D printing of SLFs and we were just like that "nah, he just causally said this", then it turned out that was the officially intended explanation.
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It is not a 1-dimensional "interstellar telepresence vs hour-long timer to join your friend". You can have instant join without resorting to an explanation of interstellar telepresence that makes the ED lore fall apart almost as rapidly as SLF 3D printing would have. Just let it be instant join without any lore explanation at all. Lore should say you are physically there, you have somehow entered the ship, just like in a movie we cut to the juicy bits now.
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We know enough things that are coming to be disappointed:
* Even more telepresence. I could accept the instant multi-crew joining as a pure gameplay shortcut that is simply ignored by the lore (just as the instant respawn after ship destruction is not explained how it can be instant), but we are now at the point where we can ask "why is anyone sitting in any cockpit at all, ever".
* Extra pips for crew members. A magical stat buff that encourages multiboxing with secondary buffbot accounts.
* Owner is helm only. That kind of defeats half the purpose of multi-crew, which is to let a friend fly your ship while you (for example) pilot an SLF.
* SRVs not included in the multi-crew equation.
* Totally new avenues for trolling and griefing, just sign up for a multicrew PUG and shoot the space station from the turret seat to get another player killed immediately.
* A consistent track record that gives no hope to justify a "just wait for further details" stance. Never in the past did further forthcoming information about an upcoming feature redeem its problems, sometimes the details we learnt later made them even worse. The improvements that came did so only after protest, sometimes way after the feature went live and people had had to play with the problematic feature.
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The way I would have preferred it:
* To join another player on their ship, you must both dock at the same station for the transfer.
* If the ship is destroyed, the players are automatically back on the multi-crewed ship after the rebuy.
* If the ship owner logs out or disconnects, so do the crew members. They may choose to either wait until the owner returns, or choose the option to return to their ship:
* Crew members can at all times instantly return to their parked ships. This transfer is instantly and handwaved away (escape pod, like with your own ship's destruction).
But I can even live with instant transfer to the other ship. What I don't like at all is even more "it's just telepresence" lore. Because we are approaching the point where we have to both ask "why is anyone sitting at all in these ships and not in the safety of a starport" and "why do I have to dock with a station for all these kinds of data transactions while full body telepresence works even at interstellar distances". Bonus conundrum: Why do SLFs have a distance limit if telepresence in ED patently has not.
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