2.3 dev update feedback mega thread

[Bobbydylan]

Seriously the things I'm reading again and again on this are:

- Multi-crew is pointless, FD shouldn't add it.
- Commander Creator is pointless, FD shouldn't add it.
- Ship Launched Fighters are completely pointless, FD shouldn't have added them.
- Passenger Missions are worse than pointless, FD shouldn't have added them.
- Every update we've had since 2.0 is pointless and shouldn't have been put in.
- None of this is in the DDF. (Which is patently false, by the way; most of it is in the DDF, but just looks different since the original concept, which is perfectly reasonable)
- All of this ruins the game completely by adding things to it that I don't want to do.

But even after all that I still see loads of the following:

- Wings are pointless, FD shouldn't have added them.
- Planetary landings are pointless, FD shouldn't have added them.
- SRVs are awful, FD shouldn't have added them.
- Skimmers are exploitable, FD shouldn't have added them.
- Powerplay is pointless, FD should never had added it.
- CQC is pointless, FD shouldn't have added it.

And after all that, 1) I feel like I've pretty accurately summed up the entire forum, and 2) What game do you actually want to play anyway if you don't want most of it?

Then you reading wrong and could do with revisiting secondary school reading comprehension classes. Here, I'll translate:

- Multi-crew (as described) is pointless, FD shouldn't add it (like it's described. Either do better or work on season3).
- Commander Creator is (nice side feature)
- Ship Launched Fighters are (fine, but serve less utility than most would like).
- Passenger Missions (should have been in the base game. Saving it for an update then making them warm cargo is underwhelming).
- Every update we've had since 2.0 is (flawed and should have had more forethought).
- None of this (is as interesting as what was described in) the DDF.
- All of this (is more unfulfilled potential of this amazing game).

But even after all that I still see loads of the following:

- Wings are (another missed opportunity, a function without reason)
- Planetary landings are (Shallow), FD should have (worked harder on) them.
- SRVs are (fine, but lacking purpose), FD should have added (more for them to do).
- Skimmers are exploitable, FD should (fix them)
- Powerplay is pointless, FD should never had added it. (ok this one is true)
- CQC is pointless, FD shouldn't have added it. ( ok, so is this one.)

 

[DMaster]

So for those of us who only play in Solo, (i.e. no Open or Group play), is there anything in the 2.3 update that benefits us? It seems as if FD are focusing primarily on pushing people to Open/Group, whereas Solo players seem to be 2nd class citizens. Genuinely curious to know whether there will be feature parity between modes. I don't see any reason why NPC AI can't be used to fulfil the roles of multi-crew..

It is not a question of the gamemmode, it is a question of the gamestyle. If you don't want to Play with others, then this specific Feature of 2.3 will not be viable for you, but perhaps an other one, announced in the next few weeks. And to be fair: This is the first Feature can not be used by singeplayer gamestyle.

 

[Obsidian Ant]

"Spacelegs" is a red herring. It's not necessary to be able to move your avatar around your ship to make interesting, varied, and deep gameplay work. You could have players doing much more interesting things than what is on offer here, and it would all work fine with canned animations or even just the SRV "fade to black" transitions between different areas. Being part of a persistent crew, with everyone "belonging" to a single ship would be amazing. Traveling to pick people up or drop them off wouldn't be a chore or "time gate" as you're so fond of calling things, because it would be a natural part of moment to moment ongoing play. At issue right now is that the multicrew experience we're getting right now is a tacked on diversion rather than a new bedrock fundamental part of the game. Multicrew as currently described does not justify travel. That's a problem with multicrew not with travel. If Frontier are unwilling or unable to build a "full" multicrew experience then I think the instantaneous drop in/drop out approach is the only viable solution. But let's not fool ourselves here: there is nothing preventing them from making genuine, real, fleshed out crew mechanics *right now*. If they're not willing or able to do it now, there is no reason to think that the addition of "spacelegs" will somehow change the situation.

I fully agree. My points were defending instant-join-crew, I certainly wasn't defending shallow gameplay. The points I make about Spacelegs is that it will offer other options, not necessarily "deep gameplay".

It seems to me the two issues here are now getting blurred into a single issue.

1) Instant Joining Crew. This is a great idea, and opens up new gameplay opportunities within the current (lacking) game mechanics we already have. These opportunities (the ones I listed in my post you quoted) are available due to instant-join-crew.

2) The roles / content shown within the 2.3 Dev update appears to be extremely basic. As many people have pointed out; where are the other roles?

These are two separate issues.

The reason the proposed multi-crew is so basic, is because Frontier still haven't fleshed out the main game. Mining, exploration, trading etc are all essentially placeholder...therefore there is nothing multi-crew can add to the game in terms of depth without those things first being fleshed out. People have been pointing out for months that this would be the case, and that it would be a problem.

Spacelegs of course will not address this either. It will not add extra complexity to mining, exploration or trading.

The only reason I talk about Spacelegs, is because it offers the people requesting "physical-crew-joining" what they are after. Without space-legs there is absolutely no point to force players to dock at the same station to join a crew. The bottom line, is that due to the lack of depth and complexity within Elite, instant-join-crew is already have very shallow proposition even though it opens up the options I listed. Physical-joining (without Spacelegs) will only make the currently limited and shallow proposed multi-crew even less appealing because it closes off most of the options I listed, leaving players with very little other than turret control.

 

[sorcer3r]

Rename it to 2.3 "gunner". No one could complain...

We could just ask if it was worth spending dev time on this strange feature.

I don't get why I had to share bounties with a wingman last night, but when this comes out anyone who comes into my ship gets money from the magic money tree

Maybe a sign of lack of trust in their own game mechanic ?

 

[Lokus Midgard]

And telepresence makes sense in the game. I mean, we already have FTL space communication (galnet & powerplay news & galmap). So what is the big deal if the FTL data transfer is instead
used for telepresence. In fact it would be nuts for a society having FTL communication ability not to use it for telepresence. Immershun cuts both ways XD

Yes, it makes sense purely as an isolated gameplay feature. However, it's not in isolation. It has consequences for other gameplay features, including the very ship models, themselves.

I can understand why Frontier chose this method. Indeed, it would have been completely excusable if they had allowed for NPC crew. In fact, if we had a true single-player experience, stuff like this would have been excused by just flipping forward in time. The system we have now, however, is restricted by the limitations of operating in 'real-time'.

So, OK... What does this new system mean if we explain it via 'telepresence' (remote piloting)? If this is the way of life our characters inhabit, then this continuity means the following.

1: The characters we hire as NPC crew must physically board our ship. They control fighters via remote, but must be aboard our ships to do so. However, even though we have a survivable lifepod, access to this feature is strictly forbidden to them (just as our form of remote piloting is denied to them). Being hired on our ships means potential suicide for them. They're also confined to extremely limited 'telepresence' range, even though we can apparently be given instantaneous, no-lag control of functions aboard another ship many thousands, possibly millions, of light years away.

2: Even though fighters are create-on-demand, those we launch from our ships have cockpits for no apparent reason, even though they're designed for nothing but remote piloting.

3: Frontier decided to waste time and resources on modelling, animating and coding ship-launched fighters, rather than simply allow for hiring NPCs which could use 'Wings' functionality. Is there something in the game code, itself, which is presenting a barrier to NPC inclusion of these pre-existing functions?

4: Our characters could very easily remotely pilot all of our owned ships from the safety of a huge station or surface base, yet politely choose not to (yes, even pirates). In a single move, Frontier has rendered their recent 'ship summoning' function obsolete. If we can remotely take control of another ship's functions, regardless of distance, then we should be able to take control of any ship we own, regardless of their location.

5: These ships we control also now no longer have any reason to be modelled with cockpits. This also means there's no need for life support. As a consequence, explorers should be able to go much further than the present system would allow for. Our FSD ranges would also improve by a fair margin, because of the reduced mass.

So, yes, it's acceptable as a gameplay feature for conveniance. But no, from an in-game perspective of our characters, it doesn't make very much sense, at all. NPC crew would all have to be suicidal and we'd all be willing to pay potentially vast chunks of our savings on auto-transfer of ships, when there's no reason we couldn't just simply remotely pilot them.

 

[Barking_Mad]

If I'm honest I'm now at the point where I feel the Dev's aren't competent enough to deliver any more than the very basic; too many dropped balls and I've about lost interest, don't really play much atm.

Well you can always go play all those other games that have done 'Elite and everything else' much better.

 

[kpmop]

(After reading the thread about crew numbers...)

A question that's occurred to me is where are the multi-crew going to sit (i.e. what will they see) and what are they going to do when the ship is not in combat? Or is the idea that they just jump in and out while the ship is in a Rez or CZ?

 

[Deleted member 110222]

(After reading the thread about crew numbers...)

A question that's occurred to me is where are the multi-crew going to sit (i.e. what will they see) and what are they going to do when the ship is not in combat? Or is the idea that they just jump in and out while the ship is in a Rez or CZ?

Pretty much, unfortunately.

 

[Fosdyke]

I know, but there were topics about this popping up all the time, soI guess the mods decided to turn all those little cesspools into one huge cesspool.
I like it. It makes it much easier to ignore all the pointless anger.

I know

 

[Sterling MH]

1: The characters we hire as NPC crew must physically board our ship. They control fighters via remote, but must be aboard our ships to do so. However, even though we have a survivable lifepod, access to this feature is strictly forbidden to them (just as our form of remote piloting is denied to them). Being hired on our ships means potential suicide for them. They're also confined to extremely limited 'telepresence' range, even though we can apparently be given instantaneous, no-lag control of functions aboard another ship many thousands, possibly millions, of light years away.

No, you're both on the ship. No telepresence. Remember, if you TP over to another ship, that ship must have the owner in the pilot's chair. You can't TP over to an empty ship in Multi-crew. So think up a "reason" for that requirement.

Secondly, and this may be why you don't remote pilot the ship you MC on, your ping rate is going to be bad, increasing your reaction times, and the network has to continue, else there would be no pilot there and the ship is abandoned or smacks into something.

Imagine if your elite game, if the p2p instance falls down, your PC catches fire and ignites your home. Would you trust all you own to a network game?

So, no, you want a buttock in play. If only to spare everything in the ship when or if the network goes down. And it might as well be yours, else someone just flies off with your stuff and sells it and gives your holopresence an unsuitable hand sign as they leave your employ.

If you're going to get testy at "immersion" and "reasons", think up reasons yourself. Stop thinking up reasons why they have to change the game.

 

[raymondo the great]

"Originally Posted by raymondo the great:
I don't get why I had to share bounties with a wingman last night, but when this comes out anyone who comes into my ship gets money from the magic money tree"

Maybe a sign of lack of trust in their own game mechanic ?

Very possibly.

Something I've always said about multicrew is why would I go be a gunner in some randoms conda when I can rock up in my own.

And the only answer the devs seem to have is "because magic more money"!

Multicrew is one of those things where I think a lot of people wanted to be Captain Kirk, but no one wants to be Uhura!

The only bit i'd be interested in is piloting a SLF from a friends ship in a res, and that's mostly because I can't trust the current AI with my conda while I pilot the SLF because its crap! I'm imagining this will get boring fast.

Otherwise what to do? Fly around in SC at a CG hoping someone interdicts our solo ship and then finds out it has 2 slfs and a human gunner....oh that seems like fun....not!

Personally I've just never got why this feature has been in such demand! Who buys elite to sit plotting routes as some suggest?

 

[Lokus Midgard]

They'll be on the ship for the duration of however long they want to be (assuming that their network connection would remain stable).

I have a feeling that if you switch your status to 'openly allows crew', that you'll notice quick successions of messages, as lots of random people you don't know drop in and out, wondering if there's anything interesting enough to hold their attention.

You'll effectively become your own miniature game server.

 

[Sterling MH]

(After reading the thread about crew numbers...)

A question that's occurred to me is where are the multi-crew going to sit (i.e. what will they see) and what are they going to do when the ship is not in combat? Or is the idea that they just jump in and out while the ship is in a Rez or CZ?

If you look around the cockpit of your ship and see a seat, that's where they'll sit.

See Red Dwarf how a nonexistent body can be seen.

 

[Sandmann]

Multicrew... yet another way to interact with the lack of actual GAME.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

No, you're both on the ship. No telepresence. Remember, if you TP over to another ship, that ship must have the owner in the pilot's chair. You can't TP over to an empty ship in Multi-crew. So think up a "reason" for that requirement.

Secondly, and this may be why you don't remote pilot the ship you MC on, your ping rate is going to be bad, increasing your reaction times, and the network has to continue, else there would be no pilot there and the ship is abandoned or smacks into something.

Imagine if your elite game, if the p2p instance falls down, your PC catches fire and ignites your home. Would you trust all you own to a network game?

So, no, you want a buttock in play. If only to spare everything in the ship when or if the network goes down. And it might as well be yours, else someone just flies off with your stuff and sells it and gives your holopresence an unsuitable hand sign as they leave your employ.

If you're going to get testy at "immersion" and "reasons", think up reasons yourself. Stop thinking up reasons why they have to change the game.

He is not thinking up reasons to change the game, just showing why it doesn't make any sense. You can say all you want, but it won't help with thier being no logic to it what so ever.

Anyway time to go on my ignore list as I am sick of seeing your inane posts.

 

[Lokus Midgard]

No, you're both on the ship. No telepresence. Remember, if you TP over to another ship, that ship must have the owner in the pilot's chair. You can't TP over to an empty ship in Multi-crew. So think up a "reason" for that requirement.

Which this update renders obsolete: You only require one person at the helm. The rest can be literally anywhere in the known galaxy and control your ship functions (or launch a fighter). Yet, NPC crew have to physically be there.

Like I said, it's fine as a gameplay mechanic, but as an in-game role-playing thing, it doesn't make much sense. Just as things like your ship 'consuming' drones and lack of NPC wingmen don't make sense.

And what's all this about "holopresence"? I assure you, modern UCAVs, like Predator and Reaper drones, don't require a holographic pilot to physically light up their interiors, in order to fly.

 

[Von Elsner]

Yes, it makes sense purely as an isolated gameplay feature. However, it's not in isolation. It has consequences for other gameplay features, including the very ship models, themselves.

I can understand why Frontier chose this method. Indeed, it would have been completely excusable if they had allowed for NPC crew. In fact, if we had a true single-player experience, stuff like this would have been excused by just flipping forward in time. The system we have now, however, is restricted by the limitations of operating in 'real-time'.

So, OK... What does this new system mean if we explain it via 'telepresence' (remote piloting)? If this is the way of life our characters inhabit, then this continuity means the following.

1: The characters we hire as NPC crew must physically board our ship. They control fighters via remote, but must be aboard our ships to do so. However, even though we have a survivable lifepod, access to this feature is strictly forbidden to them (just as our form of remote piloting is denied to them). Being hired on our ships means potential suicide for them. They're also confined to extremely limited 'telepresence' range, even though we can apparently be given instantaneous, no-lag control of functions aboard another ship many thousands, possibly millions, of light years away.

2: Even though fighters are create-on-demand, those we launch from our ships have cockpits for no apparent reason, even though they're designed for nothing but remote piloting.

3: Frontier decided to waste time and resources on modelling, animating and coding ship-launched fighters, rather than simply allow for hiring NPCs which could use 'Wings' functionality. Is there something in the game code, itself, which is presenting a barrier to NPC inclusion of these pre-existing functions?

4: Our characters could very easily remotely pilot all of our owned ships from the safety of a huge station or surface base, yet politely choose not to (yes, even pirates). In a single move, Frontier has rendered their recent 'ship summoning' function obsolete. If we can remotely take control of another ship's functions, regardless of distance, then we should be able to take control of any ship we own, regardless of their location.

5: These ships we control also now no longer have any reason to be modelled with cockpits. This also means there's no need for life support. As a consequence, explorers should be able to go much further than the present system would allow for. Our FSD ranges would also improve by a fair margin, because of the reduced mass.

So, yes, it's acceptable as a gameplay feature for conveniance. But no, from an in-game perspective of our characters, it doesn't make very much sense, at all. NPC crew would all have to be suicidal and we'd all be willing to pay potentially vast chunks of our savings on auto-transfer of ships, when there's no reason we couldn't just simply remotely pilot them.

It is a mess alright, I love the idea of telepresence too, but you cannot implement a feature without thinking about how it will fit into a game and how it affects other systems/rules in that game. It seems to me that they just kind of came up with it for SLF's, without thinking about it too much, and now they are using it for multi-crew, this time without thinking about it at all. Something like telepresence should have been planned for from day one.

 

[raymondo the great]

He is not thinking up reasons to change the game, just showing why it doesn't make any sense. You can say all you want, but it won't help with thier being no logic to it what so ever.

Anyway time to go on my ignore list as I am sick of seeing your inane posts.

Good idea...forgot we could do that....

 

[AgamemnonWhen]

Apologies for the TLDR here, but have we discussed whether or not there'll be a "tele-passenger" option? I've got several friends who would love to pop in and see what it's all about before they invest fully in the game. It would be nice if there was some sort of free client where they could simply occupy that 'spare seat' and see what I'm up to - but not be able to affect the ship.

Would be a nice bit of endorsed advertising for Frontier...

 

[kpmop]

If you look around the cockpit of your ship and see a seat, that's where they'll sit.

See Red Dwarf how a nonexistent body can be seen.

ah so it will only be the BIG ships which will do multi-crew - Annie, Beluga (not sure why you'd use this for combat though!), Corvette and Cutter...