2.3 dev update feedback mega thread

[Ozram]

As the mods closed down my thread and pointed me here: Mark me down as strongly opposed to non-localized (it's not about instant or not, it's about in the same place or not, please don't just add a delay ) multicrew matchmaking. To me Elite so far is pretty good at story telling through game mechanics and a mechanic like that would do nothing but hurt the story telling. It's bad enough we have to deal with the cognitive dissonance of respawning lightyears away due to the real-time nature of the game, let's not make it worse if we don't have to.

While I'm personally OK with non localised (as a concession to gameplay) I am not OK with crewless. I think we have those NPC crew for a reason and they should be used. They aren't free!

 

[Punished Mobius]

Engineering Data had better become more common as missions rewards. I am sick of being given useless commodities.

 

[Greyza Badger]

This development does jar with my own internal sensibilities.
However, I can't deny others the chance to take advantage of it to enhance their own gameplay.
Fortunately, it looks as if it will have minimal to no effect on the solo game. As such, that is where I will stay.
If you cannot reconcile these new mechanics with how you like to play, then I would suggest you retreat to solo play. It only becomes a problem if you are in open.
If you are an open player and don't want to MC, then I don't see how you can impose your needs over those of people who want to play together.
In the end, it will attract others to open play and drive some back to solo.
A small prediction though...once the shine has rubbed off, there will be lots and lots of complaints from MC players who are dissatisfied with the experience.
Words like 'shallow' and 'balance' and 'boring' will be bandied around.
Unfortunately, for the rest of us, FDEV will the throw all hands into 'fixing' MC to minimise the crapstorm they created for themselves, letting other ways to play wither further on the vine.

 

[Xender]

This development does jar with my own internal sensibilities.
However, I can't deny others the chance to take advantage of it to enhance their own gameplay.
Fortunately, it looks as if it will have minimal to no effect on the solo game. As such, that is where I will stay.
If you cannot reconcile these new mechanics with how you like to play, then I would suggest you retreat to solo play. It only becomes a problem if you are in open.
If you are an open player and don't want to MC, then I don't see how you can impose your needs over those of people who want to play together.
In the end, it will attract others to open play and drive some back to solo.
A small prediction though...once the shine has rubbed off, there will be lots and lots of complaints from MC players who are dissatisfied with the experience.
Words like 'shallow' and 'balance' and 'boring' will be bandied around.
Unfortunately, for the rest of us, FDEV will the throw all hands into 'fixing' MC to minimise the crapstorm they created for themselves, letting other ways to play wither further on the vine.

I am not sure they will spend much time expanding muticrew than announced in dev notes. I think they need to develop 2.4 and future content in order to generate income. It is sad but multicrew will be shallow until they announce multicrew 2.0 in future seasons....

 

[Dbrn47]

People don't want instant action. I think that most want instant Coop, be it for combat, exploration or trading.

It just turns out that the only viable coop gameplay is combat and that coop is plagued by the time cost of setting up a session. (20-60min is bad as far as setting up coop play is concerned)

Ding ding ding. Like I keep saying, I don't already plan on using the feature, however, if for some reason I do come across the situation where I will, having to do that trek in the same way I have done for Wings in the past, forget about it. Just wouldn't be worth the effort when the reward isn't worth leaving the ship I brought over.

- - - Updated - - -

Not sure if it has been mentioned before, but there's another good reason (apart from the many others) of having instant multi-crew.

Sometimes, when I want to play with a mate - we'll log on and find out we're, say, 300ly apart. No problem, one of us will fly to the other to have some shenanigans.

Prior to multi-crew the general idea would be to either wait for your buddy to arrive, or do some trading/bounty-hunting until they arrive (which lets face it could be well over an hour), and then you get on and do what you want.

With instant multi-crew, I can go gun for my buddy as he comes to me (or vice-versa), and earn some cash blowing targets out of the sky. Sure, it'll take him longer (potentially way longer) to get to my location, but we're playing together whilst he does it.

Suits me just fine.

That's a great point there. Allowing you to play with your friend while waiting for your friend, genius! [cool]

 

[Lokus Midgard]

Counting down to 2.4 speculation...

 

[Cobra1984]

Counting down to 2.4 speculation...

Cargo loading in real time with grabby hands

 

[Kastor]

Teleporting around the Galaxy was never on the table, so this was not a compromise. It was always going to be instant telepresence. Maybe there was some internal debate about the LY range, but the people who are coddling explorers with infinite range ADS god vision seem to have won the day.

imo the range should be no more than 25,000 LY and not be able to function through or inside the galactic core.

For it to work at 25,000 LY means that you must be using a quantum entanglement network... Quantum entanglement doesn't have a max range nor is effected by by intervening objects like the core.

Incidentally... pilots federation owning the only civilian quantum network explains a lot of lore issues as well as gameplay ones.

 

[bitstorm]

I'd stop arguing and once 2.3 is out voting with your preferred mode choice. FDev have the telemetry data and can see the statistics.
If there will be a significant exodus towards solo then it should be clear someone obviously has backed the wrong horse.***
If not - have fun!

*** in which case I'd recommend melting CQC, PP and MC into a separate module, in the spirit of bad banks. It's quite fashionable by now...

Oddly, the only complaints I've heard about multicrew forcing people out of open have been from people who play in solo.

 

[Von Elsner]

Why should some players be arbitrarily excluded from participating in a new feature that is designed to remove barriers from multi-player?

.... and Michael has said in the past that some Exploration features might be better if they were different but it's too late now to change them.

Yeah...why shouldn't I be able to play a class or role in a game and get to access every skill and ability of every other class or role. Stop putting up barriers for me to play every class or role at the same time. Its not fair!

 

[bitstorm]

Then you must read more carefully. It's not about me (I'm not complaining at all cause it can't affect me directly). I'm playing in solo anyway but I've heard these complaints from players who are mostly playing solo in open.

But.. nice try!

Lol, I didn't realise you were a solo player. Odd you talk about the effect on open too!

I queried two posters last night who were complaining about the effect on open, both solo players.

Though of course I may have missed something.

It just seems odd people who only play in solo seem concerned about griefing in open and raise it as an issue.

Regardless I think the claim of "open players your galaxy is about to become very unfair" is hogwash. (to quote another poster who plays exclusively in solo).

 

[Franc Kaos]

I only came in on 2.2 so really don't have an issue with instant game on, or waiting / paying for ship transfer but I do have a question.
With Fighters the AI will fly your ship whilst you can take the fighter out, will it be the same with the gunner position and its 360 view, like the AI takes over piloting (since the game can already do this with the fighter add-on)?

 

[bitstorm]

With Fighters the AI will fly your ship whilst you can take the fighter out, will it be the same with the gunner position and its 360 view, like the AI takes over piloting (since the game can already do this with the fighter add-on)?

That is an interesting question.

I would hazard a guess that it's a no, due to running out of development time. But I don't know.

 

[Lokus Midgard]

With Fighters the AI will fly your ship whilst you can take the fighter out, will it be the same with the gunner position and its 360 view, like the AI takes over piloting (since the game can already do this with the fighter add-on)?

It's no longer guaranteed that a user will be able to transfer between seats on their own ship.

Although, technically, as I've been saying for a long time, I don't see why a target has to be in front of the ship for you to gain a firing solution/lock for any missiles, when these craft are essentially the same size as ocean-going warships and submarines of our own time. We shouldn't need to have a 'gunner' seat to do that. A 360-degree engagement sphere should automatically be assumed (just as it already has been for turrets).

 

[Drink!]

It's no longer guaranteed that a user will be able to transfer between seats on their own ship.

Although, technically, as I've been saying for a long time, I don't see why a target has to be in front of the ship for you to gain a firing solution/lock for any missiles, when these craft are essentially the same size as ocean-going warships and submarines of our own time. We shouldn't need to have a 'gunner' seat to do that. A 360-degree engagement sphere should automatically be assumed (just as it already has been for turrets).

shhhh
some people have delicate immersions and that are easily broken

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

shhhh
some people have delicate immersions and that are easily broken

I don't mind whether we have to travel to meet up or not. I just want a better ingame reasons that doesn't completely destroyed the ingame lore like unlimited range telepresence does.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I don't mind whether we have to travel to meet up or not. I just want a better ingame reasons that doesn't completely destroyed the ingame lore like unlimited range telepresence does.

Forget the reason, it doesn't matter. Either multicrew is instant or they might as well not have bothered. Since they have bothered, it needs to be instant. There is no real way out of this if they want people to use it.

Q.E.D.

If you really need a reason, just pretend its not your CMDR, its your twin brother/sister/clone, who just happens to share all their profits with you because they bullied you as a child and now are on a guilt trip to pay you back.... or something.

 

[lokvette]

So 75 pages 1486 posts in and were still arguing, sorry debating about the same old thing. For the love of something to read that isn't about MC and they way were going to get from A to B FD give us something new about 2.3.

 

[Xender]

Forget the reason, it doesn't matter. Either multicrew is instant or they might as well not have bothered. Since they have bothered, it needs to be instant. There is no real way out of this if they want people to use it.

Q.E.D.

If you really need a reason, just pretend its not your CMDR, its your twin brother/sister/clone, who just happens to share all their profits with you because they bullied you as a child and now are on a guilt trip to pay you back.... or something.

Of course there is a way to handle not instant multicrew. If the multicrew would be enough advanced: sharing ship, sharing helm, being assigned to ship even when you logoff (even offline you still traveling with your friends). Just imagine those space adventures, like in Pulsar Lost Colony. The truth is sad but Frontier created mini-game for us, and to be honest this is their dev-style... I am not surprised.

At the beginning I was disgusted by telepresence and how it breaks immersions. I changed my opinion over time, the bigger problem is shallowness of multicrew. How they could create another barrow, shallow and empty mini-game rather than true sandobx cooperative space adventure! Why?!

 

[vulkman]

Either multicrew is instant or they might as well not have bothered. Since they have bothered, it needs to be instant. There is no real way out of this if they want people to use it.

That's like saying Wings would have had to be instant for people to use it. Same thing, almost exactly (controlling the fighters is effectively winging up with always on nav-lock), so why should it be different for multicrew?