News Content Recap: Beyond - Chapter Four Livestream - Background Simulation and Scenarios

[Alec Turner]

It would be great if a third answer/option was added to the distress signal sources - ahem scenario - that would tell the ship in distress that the CMDR will help, but has to fetch the required things.

Totally! The food scenario really bothered me actually and you could see that reflected in the chat. Everyone was basically saying "why on earth would I randomly be carrying food?". In other words, of course it would be a case of "I don't have any right now but sit tight and I'll be back in 5 minutes". The fact that picking the "I don't have any" answer was basically the "sorry pal, I'm going to leave you here to starve" response was horrible. I felt the same about the scenario leaked by pcgamesn. I hated the fact that saying no to the request for help by the megaship automatically had the pirates saying "great, we're glad you're on our side" ... "woh! no no no, that's not what I meant at all!". FD really need to make these scenario interactions be more than binary choice options.

Don't get me wrong, I'm loving the update generally but yeah, I do have a bit of a problem with this aspect.

 

[Adam Bourke-Waite]

Totally! The food scenario really bothered me actually and you could see that reflected in the chat. Everyone was basically saying "why on earth would I randomly be carrying food?". In other words, of course it would be a case of "I don't have any right now but sit tight and I'll be back in 5 minutes". The fact that picking the "I don't have any" answer was basically the "sorry pal, I'm going to leave you here to starve" response was horrible. I felt the same about the scenario leaked by pcgamesn. I hated the fact that saying no to the request for help by the megaship automatically had the pirates saying "great, we're glad you're on our side" ... "woh! no no no, that's not what I meant at all!". FD really need to make these scenario interactions be more than binary choice options.

Don't get me wrong, I'm loving the update generally but yeah, I do have a bit of a problem with this aspect.

You should be able to focus away from the panel and just not respond, allowing you a third choice of not getting involved.

 

[Winterwalker]

You should be able to focus away from the panel and just not respond, allowing you a third choice of not getting involved.

I think this makes a lot of sense to be honest. Gives a simple judgement call on whether I think I'll have time to get to a station and back as, for example, a ship that's out of fuel and NPC on life support can't wait an extra ten minutes, that I might want to ask for but real life situations just might not give me.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

You should be able to focus away from the panel and just not respond, allowing you a third choice of not getting involved.

Adam, can you say that you will use NPC comms interface for more than scenarios? Will it be available to other parts of the game where you need to communicate choices clearly than just dropping cargo?

 

[Klemyr]

Well, this update certainly gona be a big thing for me. Exploration changes are great and now additional staff for BGS and this ... scenarios.
While on first stream I had a feeling of something new and exiting, on that one I didn't. Instead I feel like FD adding a new layer on cake.
It is not bad, it is very good in fact and I am really looking forward to test it on BETA.
It is also clear now, how all changes connected to each other and how they overlapping.
For now, I am happy with all changes. Sadly, some of them just bring things where thou should be from the start... But I am still happy))

But there are things that I still worry about...
1) Mining update - I am sure it will be fun to do, but what abut payouts???
2) Squadrons - I have a feeling that it will be another bare-bone mechanic. In that case, we will have to wait for god knows how long until it will be a proper mechanic, just like with Wings that still have bugs + wing missions was added waaaaay after the wings them-selfs. I find it ...wired.
3) New Ships - Ok one is a new Krait... But what about second one? I hope it will be a totally new ship, not the NEW version of old one...

 

[CMDR RAY-ZOR'SHARP]

.... or possibly "contentment" or "wellbeing".

Happiness is not doing it for me, very subjective, Contentment would make a lot more overall sense.

 

[Zaphod Beeblebrox IV]

And of course conflict zones underline it too. Arrive in the mini-game and choose your side. It's as inconsequential as that. Surely with a war there should be more involvement than that? Surely your choice to fight for a side should mean more than the time until you next press "J" to jump out of the mini-game?

...

Looked at simplistically that is exactly how a mercenary operates. Give me money, I'll kill your enemies. Thanks for the cash, hope I helped, have a nice war I'm moving on now.

 

[Micha]

You should be able to focus away from the panel and just not respond, allowing you a third choice of not getting involved.

That's tantamount to crossing the road when you see a homeless person though. Still leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. Acknowledging and saying sorry is better than turning your head and pretending you didn't see it.

So yeah, another vote for more choices in the comms here. Although I can understand it might significantly increase the complexity of the implementation (not just from a programming point of view, but also the necessary assets).

 

[Alec Turner]

You should be able to focus away from the panel and just not respond, allowing you a third choice of not getting involved.

Thanks Adam, appreciate the repsonse (and I also appreciate that scripting and recording a third strand of dialog for the non-involvement case is a big ask).

 

[NeilF]

Looked at simplistically that is exactly how a mercenary operates. Give me money, I'll kill your enemies. Thanks for the cash, hope I helped, have a nice war I'm moving on now.

Understood, but don't you think maybe that "signing up to a cause" should be a touch more involved, engaging and meaningful?

ie:-
Press J to enter war. Choose side A. Blow side B up. Press J to exit war.
Five seconds later, press J to enter war. Choose side B. Blow side A up. Press J to exit war.

After four years, can we not be held to a cause/choice more than this? If you join a side, should it not be for a longer term, for a greater cause/outcome/commitment?


Too much of the game is "arrive in a mini-game", play and leave. There needs to ideally be more joined up cause and effect, commitment and outcome.

I suppose stateful NPCs are all tied into this too at some point!

 

[NeilF]

But there are things that I still worry about...
1) Mining update - I am sure it will be fun to do, but what abut payouts???
...

Has anyone mentioned HOTSPOTS?

Been waiting years for these to arrive, and FD have gone completely radio silent on them, so I'm getting more and more worried they've missed an opportunity to add in some really interesting mechanics and gameplay, and we're going to get some bare bone mechanic instead

Fingers crossed!

 

[carlosmaline]

I was whelmed by the scenarios. The added production value is highly appreciated, but after watching how the new parts integrate with what the game already has, I feel—like with parts of exploration and the codex—that it's mostly hooks that want to be baited, so I expect, nay, demand some discoverable and accessible rumours and fresh scenarios to pop up when the update is released. The combat zone "gamification" looks great, and I hope the improvements are available and fun for everyone from fledgling scrubs to wings of fairly well-equipped players in the later stages of the high intensity variants (there's no accounting for ground-out all-the-engineering big ships, so if they come out bored I wouldn't care too much…)

The BGS, I'm not sure. Again, I welcome the changes in discoverability and "liveliness", but I'm still hoping for ways to better do targeted support of an underdog faction, and it looks like that will mostly remain the same (hoping for good missions) with a slight chance of scenarios involving them. I'll have a look at it in beta, but I suspect lonely outlier systems with very few or even just a single port will still make it rather hard to sneak influence past the controlling faction. This may be a matter that can be resolved between scenarios and mission generation and variety though (please teach the mission generator to do medium-range missions over 500Ly over 20kLy ).

This is shaping up to be a really great update for the game that adds actual game-like interaction across the board, makes it more discoverable and enjoyable, but most importantly openly displays so much potential for future expansion. Please don't squander it.

I agree. I think that the game should focus on high ranking human cmdrs having trailblazing status and as such have more influence providing attributes to a systems progression (or demise). This would make the game more narrative driven and place the player on a rite of passage through gameplay. It could even be aligned to a more detailed reputation algorithm.

 

[Zaphod Beeblebrox IV]

Yeah, but 5 minutes? That was the time I saw remaining on the USS. You have to fly there, drop in, find out what they want, fly out, get it from somewhere, and get back in 5 minutes? I could see that existing as a tick-over rate before it disappears and a new one appears, but not for figuring out what they want and coming back.

If they had a third option like the "I'll be right back" I mentioned, that could maybe trigger a timer extension that would allow you to leave and come back in time.

The Devs stressed not to pay much attention to the content of various mission related stuff as they were just place holders. The real stuff will be in the beta.

 

[CMDR Darkler]

My 2p, but for things like the running out of fuel scenario, maybe in the future some branching could be added, for example "Sorry don't have any spare at the moment, but pop into an escape pop and I will take you to a nearby station" - admittedly that would be something in the future but gives the player a couple more options.. who knows it might open up a new mission etc..

 

[Marc_Hicks]

Adam, can you say that you will use NPC comms interface for more than scenarios? Will it be available to other parts of the game where you need to communicate choices clearly than just dropping cargo?

I second this question. In particular, I believe NPC Comms-in conjunction with notoriety-could give you the ability to "Menace" NPC's into dropping cargo. The higher your notoriety, the more likely the NPC is to drop the cargo. This has the advantage of adding depth to piracy whilst also giving another function to Notoriety.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

You should be able to focus away from the panel and just not respond, allowing you a third choice of not getting involved.

Hi Adam. If you're still around, I was wondering if you could tell me if there are plans to have Scenarios be a source of Follow-on Missions? I could see the pilot you give the fuel saying something like "OK, guess I should 'hobble' on back to the nearest station/outpost & get fully fueled up. In the meantime, I was wondering if you could deliver this vital data to $Station_Name for me, as I won't be able to get it there on time, now!"

For the Piracy Scenario, once you've disabled the Mega-ship, the leader of the pirates might say either "Great Work, Commander. We've grabbed most of the cargo to take back to our hideout. However, we were hoping you could take this X units of $Commodity_Name & smuggle it to our representatives at $Station_Name?" or "Great Work Commander, this definitely strikes a blow to the heart of $Faction_Name. You know what would help even more? If you could massacre X ships belonging to local security, it would greatly undermine the influence of $Faction_Name in this system"

Those are just a couple of thoughts, but I do believe this approach to getting off-board missions is far superior to the current "random mission offer" system we currently have-though I probably wouldn't necessarily scrap the latter system entirely.

 

[Zaphod Beeblebrox IV]

Understood, but don't you think maybe that "signing up to a cause" should be a touch more involved, engaging and meaningul?

ie:-
Press J to enter war. Choose side A. Blow side B up. Press J to exit war.
Five seconds later, press J to enter war. Choose side B. Blow side A up. Press J to exit war.

After four years, can we not be held to a cause/choice more than this? If you join a side, should it not be for a longer term, for a greater cause/outcome/commitment?


Too much of the game is "arrive in a mini-game", play and leave. There needs to ideally be more joined up cause and effect, commitment and outcome.

I suppose stateful NPCs are all tied into this too at some point!

Press J to become a mercenary, choose a side, chosen side is doing badly, press J twice, choose other side. Standard mercenary practise. I've not played it but I believe power play is a place where you sign up for a cause.

 

[Darkfyre99]

You should be able to focus away from the panel and just not respond, allowing you a third choice of not getting involved.

Just a reminder of the true Murphy’s law: If there’s more than one way of doing something, and one of which is obviously wrong, someone will do it. I’m not sure how many players will realize that “Closing Comms” is the correct choice when you either don’t want to choose sides or fetch the supplies you don’t have.

 

[NeilF]

My 2p, but for things like the running out of fuel scenario, maybe in the future some branching could be added, for example "Sorry don't have any spare at the moment, but pop into an escape pop and I will take you to a nearby station" - admittedly that would be something in the future but gives the player a couple more options.. who knows it might open up a new mission etc..

How many people are going to be able to take advantage of this supply fuel scenario? ie: How many folks carry around fuel limpets just incase?

And how many folks are going to go to a station and refit, just to come back to complete such a scenario?


It's been an issue to me for a long time, the amount of times gameplay is shut off from CMDRs simply because of needless reasons. eg: Imagine if we could dock with other ships, offering a means to transfer things, fuel being one of them. But cargo and materials being others.

And indeed docking could also become the beginning/ending of a mission to collect/deliver something too.

Or all ships should have a basic limpet to do basic delivery/collection as standard.

 

[rp198419]

Wouldn't it be more interested if it was more meaningful? eg: A faction's mission/task to go and assault another faction's mega ship?

Wouldn't it be more interesting if it was more involved? eg: You were assigned a Wing of NPCs who you could give basic tactical commands to (attack this/defend that)?

As it stands, it's just another bolted on mini-game mechanic at almost a loose end. eg: Who's really going to participate in these? How often? Why?

And this was underlined in the livestream with, Yes, if another CMDRs was there they could sign up against you... Why would that ever happen unless the game orchestrates this via some joined up meaningful mechanics? eg: One Faction being told to attack a mega-ship, while another is told to defend it? And the game orchestrates this to facilitate meaningful PvP if that's what players are after. And God forbid Powerplay should try this, an obvious candidate to orchestrate PvP for those interested!

And of course conflict zones underline it too. Arrive in the mini-game and choose your side. It's as inconsequential as that. Surely with a war there should be more involvement than that? Surely your choice to fight for a side should mean more than the time until you next press "J" to jump out of the mini-game?

But as it is, we're 4yrs in and seeing baby steps of bolted on mechanics which even games from 20+ years ago trumped.


I wasn't expecting much from tonight, and Distress Calls to fly off and fetch something from somewhere else, to return it back to an NPC who simply won't care at all and will never join up with anything else, sort of sums it up...


I enjoyed the exploration changes. Any my big hopes for some really meaningful improvements are with mining now...

As I have said before: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...-or-FSS-mode?p=7103896&highlight=#post7103896

It is clearly not possible to integrate new mechanics into the existing code of ED.

The only option is to bolt-on anything new, which means it will always be a stand-alone minigame.