Allow the VR '2D screen' to be disabled?

[VR Golgot]

They are selling a released game, not an in development game now. They don't want to have extremely experimental features tucked into the game.

If they are going to "Do VR" for elite, they'd want to design that entire experience, there's huge amounts of things to consider, it's not just a different viewing device.

I think it’s worth noting that they’re not marketing EDO as a VR experience. It’s not tagged as VR compliant on Steam, and it’s not on the Oculus store.

The 2D panel, while in use in the market, is normally offered as a bonus comfort option for gameplay, or as a solution for viewing canned cinematics never designed for VR. Deploying it as the only option for gameplay is an unusual step, for unusual circumstances.

I think on balance, a further unusual step, which only the hardcore will ferret out, is not totally out of the question. But it’s certainly still not a straightforward ask, or without its complications (and potential reputational impacts for FDev/EDO).

The original idea of allowing VR to work as it does now, until you get out of the ship, made a whole lot of sense, simply because the original idea of just removing VR from the game if you wanted to even be able to go out on foot, was utterly mental, I'm not even entirely certain they ever planned to do it.

Yeah there is a question mark over whether they always intended to support ship/SRV VR in some form, but played the game of: Announce super unpopular plan, accept community 'at least do this' suggestions that align with the actual plan

I think the brass tacks though are that they are currently prepared to launch a stealth VR build of sorts. Ultimately to please existing EDVR veterans, while at some small risk of alienating new VR players who expect a fuller product.

I think there is desire demonstrated there to provide fan-service, even if the business case is currently pulling them in another direction.

I’d say another case of unadvertised fan-service isn’t impossible

 

[VR Dextrovix]

I'm happy to +1 this idea, but I dunno, FDEV really don't appear to give a crap about anything VR related anymore. Look how much it took for us to actually get them to consider adding what we're going to get, which when all said and done, takes the absolute minimum of effort on their part. The Legs projection might not even be with 3D depth on the flatscreen we'll have from our VR cockpit, that's how basic I'm hoping it isn't!

I'd love a dev to confirm that development using VR is still under consideration and being worked on, but considering the Greg business, I again dunno, I think we'll be lucky if when we try Legs VR out in alpha, they'll be something very wrong because until we report it, nobody at FDEV actually tested it further than bunging it on the code they've already got from the Horizons build.

Sceptical and cynical since the Odyssey announcement? Yep...

Would I like FDEV to prove me wrong, yes, absolutely!

 

[Vallysa]

I think it’s worth highlighting that this would likely be very no-frills. Very hacky, and not like a marketed product with classic controls. Our vision would likely be tied to the aiming device, the UI would likely be unpleasantly close etc.

We may be able to soften or resolve a few of those issues, but expect anything of this nature to be very rustic!

For sure. My comment was embracing the hacky-ness. "Current controls" just means controller/MKB like already in use the rest of the game.

 

[VR Golgot]

I'd love a dev to confirm that development using VR is still under consideration and being worked on

The closest we’ve got to date is stuff like this:

I'm really glad that we did add VR support because it's pretty awesome, it is quite an experience. Being able to run around on foot, though, is very much a different experience. We're still looking at the way that we would tackle that if we need to. Or if we decide that we think we can get a good way of doing it. And sure, like, that's something that we'll tackle, but for the moment, we have to focus on the actual main experience and getting that working the way that we really want it to feel. So on day one, there won't be any VR support. But we're not saying never, it's just we need to focus our efforts elsewhere right now. Luke Betterton - Game Designer

...our VR plans are still as we've stated with full integration a possibility in the future but unconfirmed.

I really doubt we’ll see any statements going beyond that until the dust has settled on the EDO launch, and they’ve decided where they want to focus their energies.

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

My suspicion is that it will have very little 'feel' at all, deliberately so. If nausea is a primary concern they’ll likely use a small screen that sits within our periphery vision. (There’s already one like that used for the boot up screen in the current game).

You can see similar versions in games like Star Wars: Squadrons for cut scenes. They’re functional, but definitely not very 'involving'.

I was looking at the base raid mission demo play through by the CM team that was released on Thursday and thinking "how will this look in virtual flatscreen?" My answers were not complimentary and nearly every word of them would trigger the swear sensor.

I think there is desire demonstrated there to provide fan-service, even if the business case is currently pulling them in another direction.

I think you underestimate the business case for headlook VR:

Even if Virtual flatscreen when on foot actually is the best solution for 80% of VR players, given a reddit survey suggested around a third of Elite players, slightly more than a third IIRC, (who also use that subreddit, and took part in that survey) use VR. Rounding numbers to simplify the verbal arithmetic that is about to follow, leaves approximately 24% of all Elite players satisfied with the virtual flatscreen solution, with ~10% of the player base not completely satisfied by it. I don't think its worth interrupting the flow of the conversation for a couple of percentage points one way or the other, but if you want to indulge in pedantry it is 26.4% and 6.66% satisfied/dissatisfied by virtual flatscreen.

Circa 10% of the player base, is a big number, it's a lot of people to leave dissatisfied. But how many actual people is that? With the game having around 4 million copies sold, to more accurately calculate the customer base, lets half the copies sold are alts to arbitrarily compensate for some players with multiple alt accounts, and average that against those who don't have any alts, again, for easiness of working with round numbers let's call it 2 a nice round million customers? Ten percent of those two million customers who would be dissatisfied with a version of Odyssey that has only a virtual flatscreen view mode when on foot, is two hundred thousand customers who, at £30 a copy, represent a large amount of potential revenue, £6m to be exact. Surely that's six million reasons to pursue implementing VR headlook on foot?

Even if a half of the dissatisfied / not completely satisfied players still buy Odyssey despite their grumblings about virtual flatscreen, or had already bought it as part of a lifetime pass, and "only" the other half of the people who resent the lack of VR headlook on foot take my standpoint that "no VR headlook on foot Frontier means no purchase from me", based on the numbers used in this paragraph, that's still three million pounds of lost Odyssey sales.

Even tweaking those numbers further to "support the case against" the commercial need for implementing VR headlook on foot, let's say it wasn't a third, but a quarter of respondents who said they play in VR, and 90% of them were happy with virtual flatscreen. If VR players represent a quarter of the two million customers, that gives us half a million "boxheads". From that half million, 10% of them are taking my stance and "voting with their wallet" regarding VR headlook on foot in Odyssey, that's fifty thousand customers, at £30 a copy, ergo we still represent one and a half million pounds of lost revenue.

Now, how expensive did we say it would be to add VR headlook when on foot? To my mind at least, even if some, or all of the potential technical hurdles of implementing VR headlook that have been raised in this thread need to be addressed and overcome, it's still unlikely that it would not be a worthwhile undertaking from the company's point of view.

 

[BinakAlgo]

It will be interesting. I think that if we can't get 100% VR, maybe we could have 360º 2D like when you play old sim games like Falcon 4.0 with Virtual Desktop with head tracking, that would be good enough for me.

 

[PR-303]

Just popping in to support this!

I have no problems playing the original Half Life games with VR mods so I'm fine with crude VR FPS experiences.

Its anyways 100000% better then pancake game'ing.

 

[VR Golgot]

I think you underestimate the business case for headlook VR:

I don't really want the thread to turn into 'Round 10' of this discussion Jay. The short answer is:

• There is no market for PCVR FPS with classic controls alone
  • All launches of any note support motion controllers. That is the industry standard which any marketed product of note would look to match.

• Classic PC gaming moves a lot more units than VR
  • VR is doing just fine, but it's still only approx 2% of the Steam market, for example. FDev are targetting the classic sales numbers that will sustain the franchise. This is also fine.

• FDev have made their decision.
  • If they were satisfied that a 'headlook alone' VR launch was viable, or warranted development in tandem with the classic variant, they'd be doing it. They are not.

These points really should be the end of the matter, as you've never been able to provide a robust response to any of them. Ignoring those facts on the ground just condemns the argument to a circular sideline which has little bearing on what's actually going on.

But if you really want to keep arguing round and round on them, could we at least do it in a different thread

 

[VR Golgot]

It will be interesting. I think that if we can't get 100% VR, maybe we could have 360º 2D like when you play old sim games like Falcon 4.0 with Virtual Desktop with head tracking, that would be good enough for me.

Yeah I found the '360 2D' view you could use in the GTA V mod (Luke Ross) strangely playable. (If you wanted to record footage you had to toggle off the 'cheap' stereoscopic effect he'd opted for to get it running. IE it alternated eyes rapidly to save on rendering.). Just being able to look around within the the 3D world as the character was still entertaining. When there's that much to crane around and look at, while jumping over it on a motorbike

I haven't tried Virtual Desktop variants, but it could be an intriguing option. The biggest impediment currently, ironically, seems to be the 2D screen presentation though. If it turns out to be a small 'safe' version sitting within our periphery, as I suspect, it won't lend itself easily to that I wouldn't think.

It's possible that the other thing worth pushing for could be a large screen option. We may have to wait until alpha to confirm though? (If the VR build is even ready for alpha?)

 

[Arioch]

If it turns out to be a small 'safe' version sitting within our periphery, as I suspect, it won't lend itself easily to that I wouldn't think.

It's possible that the other thing worth pushing for could be a large screen option. We may have to wait until alpha to confirm though? (If the VR build is even ready for alpha?)

A thought has just occurred to me - we’ve been told that we can either use the in-helmet flatscreen or just remove the goggles and continue to play on our monitors - using the “Desktop” view in my Oculus I can resize the window, curve it, bring it closer or move it away. If the ED provided screen is too small for some, I wonder if the desktop view could be an alternative?

 

[VR Golgot]

A thought has just occurred to me - we’ve been told that we can either use the in-helmet flatscreen or just remove the goggles and continue to play on our monitors - using the “Desktop” view in my Oculus I can resize the window, curve it, bring it closer or move it away. If the ED provided screen is too small for some, I wonder if the desktop view could be an alternative?

That's an interesting point yeah. Presuming we still have control over whether we're launching in VR or flatscreen mode we could just boot in flatscreen, and then view via the VR Desktop. Yeah fair point. So at minimum we should be able to jury rig some kind of curved big screen. That's something

Would still rather have some form of stereoscopic view, ideally with at least some form of headlook, but it's good to have a backup plan

E: Having the native VR render in place, but viewing the game via a 2D screen, still just feels so wrong though

E2: Oh and I've remembered the other issue. For convenience we'd likely end up playing the ship & SRV sections via Desktop view too. So we'd lose the bits of native VR that we actually do have! :/

 

[VR Dextrovix]

If any VR users have tried VorpX, where a non-VR game is injected to render the view in VR, whether the original game is first or third person, that would be what I'd expect the VR experience to be for EDO. I'm hoping it's rendered in 3D in VR, but if it did include a hidden option for removal of the projected screen and we can use headlook as well as move via controller or K&M, then to me that's not hard to implement and doesn't get in the way of anything non VR-specific that FDev have in mind.

I'd certainly see no benefit in removing my headset and only seeing the Legs part on the real monitor- I'm used to using my hands effectively blind as it is in VR, and very much have my VR legs so I'd be fine to have a whole rendered view of the game so I could look around in VR. It's certainly more immersive than seeing the 2D screen projected view, which is a little hard to explain via in-game lore, so although that's all FDev have said we're getting at the moment, I'd like the option for an alternative, despite how I'll still stick to my opinion that FDev won't implement VR integration any further, ever.

 

[Viajero]

Agree with the principle. I would imagine this would be also best framed as part of an eventual "VR alpha" that goes ahead in parallel to the main game at some point.

I would also imagine that, in such a case, FDEV would probably want to do some preparatory work anyways before such thing happens (if at all). Highly doubt that an eventual VR toggle would be abilitated just "as is". So a degree of work and time would most likley be required before it anyways.

 

[[VR] Orodruin]

There is no market for PCVR FPS with classic controls alone

• All launches of any note support motion controllers. That is the industry standard which any marketed product of note would look to match.

Those launches are dedicated FPS games. Elite is first and foremost a space sim. I for one do not want to get out of my chair or switch to motion controllers to transit to on foot gameplay as this would be quite a hassle

Classic PC gaming moves a lot more units than VR

• VR is doing just fine, but it's still only approx 2% of the Steam market, for example. FDev are targetting the classic sales numbers that will sustain the franchise. This is also fine.

This is a bit of a red herring. You are artificially underestimating the VR share of the ED market through two effects:

• A larger number of VR users are likely to have or be interested in ED than the typical Steam user.
• VR users are on average likely to have a higher disposable income just by the fact that they have been able to afford investing into VR.

Because of this, you really cannot just look at the Steam VR ownership numbers and draw this conclusion. I'm not saying that the spending numbers are going to turn things completely around, just that the ownership number on its own is quite irrelevant.

FDev have made their decision.

• If they were satisfied that a 'headlook alone' VR launch was viable, or warranted development in tandem with the classic variant, they'd be doing it. They are not.

This is the actual argument. It seems unlikely that FDev is going to change things around for Odyssey release at this point. Doesn't mean we can't have an opinion about it.

 

[VR Golgot]

Agree with the principle. I would imagine this would be also best framed as part of an eventual "VR alpha" that goes ahead in parallel to the main game at some point.

In theory we pitched for a VR alpha build with the prior 'experimental branch' thread. At least for one in parallel with launch.

I think FDev's response shows it's clear they're not prepared to invest to that extent in VR Legs at this moment. (Even running an alpha side-build has its costs etc).

But the upcoming alpha does feel like a good time for low key experimentation

And this pitch really could be the lowest-dev option available to give the VR Legs / EDVR hardcore a bonus bit of honey for launch. So you never know

 

[VR Golgot]

This is the actual argument. It seems unlikely that FDev is going to change things around for Odyssey release at this point. Doesn't mean we can't have an opinion about it.

I'll start with this, because these are the real brass tacks, as you say

Sure, have an opinion . But this thread is supposed to be about the art of the possible. About working within the business decision that FDev have obviously made regarding VR Legs, and seeing what extra EDVR QoL we can get for now. Rather than imagining we can alter that business decision. Because we clearly can't.

I'd just prefer it if we stayed within that pragmatic remit

Those launches are dedicated FPS games. Elite is first and foremost a space sim. I for one do not want to get out of my chair or switch to motion controllers to transit to on foot gameplay as this would be quite a hassle

The short answer on this is: Show me a successful PCVR game from that last 3 years, with first person character gameplay, that doesn't support motion controllers.

You can't.

Have all the preferences you like. (And the preference to use classic controls is often one that's supported in those self same games). But that's the market reality. Classic controls alone for first person character play just don't cut it in the VR marketplace any more. They don't make for a marketable product.

I'm not saying that the spending numbers are going to turn things completely around, just that the ownership number on its own is quite irrelevant.

EDO is reaching out to a whole new market of players. That's what makes the broader market numbers relevant.

We've seen that the EDVR community is substantial (and I've argued as such myself), and FDev have potentially nodded to that with the current EDOVR compromise solution. But they are not selling EDO just to us. Hence the business decision that they've made. Which we both agree is the reality we're working with, and should focus on

 

[Sirlance]

I think the simplest solution is to add a VR camera to the avator, they would not have to change any weapon firing, running or reloading animations, you still use the mouse and keyboard or controller for movement. I've been playing Alien Isolation with the VR mod this way and there's just no comparison, VR is by far better and I think Odyssey FPS would be incredible if they could add this.

 

[VR Golgot]

I think the simplest solution is to add a VR camera to the avator, they would not have to change any weapon firing, running or reloading animations, you still use the mouse and keyboard or controller for movement. I've been playing Alien Isolation with the VR mod this way and there's just no comparison, VR is by far better and I think Odyssey FPS would be incredible if they could add this.

In theory the VR camera POV might indeed be fixed to the avatar in this scenario. (Although more likely they might have to fudge that quickly for us)

If you'd be happy with that tier of access, then please do give the starter post an upvote

I should note that, even assuming the VR POV is hooked to the avatar's movement, this would be far more basic than the Alien Isolation mod. The UI wouldn't be calibrated (and would likely feel 'too close', and stuck to our cheeks). It's possible that free look would be compromised, or only moveable by moving the aiming reticule. In short, it would likely be very rustic.

But still better than no VR

 

[Sirlance]

If there's a way to enable it to play in VR despite warnings about comfort and whatnot Im in. My only concern is that a hacked VR mode wouldnt have hand tracking and Id have to aim with my head.

I don't mind playing with mouse and keyboard or controller as long as I can look around in VR, I used to play Team Fortress 2 this way back in the day and am currently playing Alien Isolation this way. its so much better than any 2d solution

 

[Sirlance]

Source: https://youtu.be/ZUe7oH4Bg3I
This method will work and will be 10x better than 2d, I'm sitting using the keybaord and mouse