Hello past James Northstar, it is I, the future... Still the exact same issue, dont worry, covid has passed. XD
"Physical" Multicrew broken for anyone else?
- Thread starter Aurora Destiny
- Start date
StefanOS
Volunteer Moderator
Before Devs use time to fix the stability of connections between players in MultiCrew (which is really needed) - I would suggest to look FIRST at the RESPAWN logic used when a MC member dies or gets disconented. AFAIR it had the DEVASTATING outcome that the disconected or death member rewpawned on his last docked station - that could be far away. If the crew did travel as MC many jumps away to a location your team mate is so far away BACK that it can take many minutes or hours to get together... it basically negates the idea of flying TOGETHER in ONE ship because any error (disconection or bug or glitch or death) will end the play session as you need TOO MUCH time to come together again - only to fear to be disconnected again for any reason.
For me this is the a reason to avoid MC and to ask people to come it their own ships, if they die on foot or disconnect they respawn at least in the same system on their ship and can join in 5-10 minutes.
And the more unstable the MC connections are the more a better or more reasonable RESPAWN logic is needed to be able to rejoin the Multi Crew TEAM fast.
The worst case would be to take a friend to a trip to Sagitarius in MC - on the last jump he gets disconnected and respawn in the bubble...
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Agreed. There is also needs to be persistence if you were part of wing, completed a ground mission, and then were disconnected on the way back to the station for the turn-in. That is what killed it for me. Before we completely gave up, my friend would always come to the mission in his own ship. He would end up using my SRVs (either joining me in a Scorpion, or taking one of my spare Scarabs. Upon mission completion, he would fly back in his own ship to prevent any disconnects/loss of mission progress.
I could easily get three of my real life friends to come back to this game, and have fun, if they could just do physical multicrew on my ship. They would enjoy all the ground combat, using my SLFs and SRVs, etc. But due to the "disconnect and your back at the station" they have no interest in returning. I also have no desire to push for that return until this is fixed.
I think sorting out the frameshift team crew drop bug is critical since it outright blocks play, and it's intermittent nature makes it difficult to predict when it will rear its ugly head.
That stated, @StefanOS is absolutely correct that there's a multiplayer design issue here that makes disconnects or on-foot casualties extremely onerous.
The 'snap back' of a crew member respawning at their ship 100 LY away on death / disconnect is painful and a huge hassle.
I have one friend who refuses to fly, and originally they were just going to play as crew on my ship (I kid you not.)
They ended up having to buy a sidewinder (or similar) at each station near where we were so they could 'set' their respawn/reconnect point so it wasn't too far away.
(And there is a separate bug that occurs when they do that when already in a team, but that's beyond the scope of this thread and has a workaround.)
To support the on-foot playstyle, some thought needs to be put into how someone can 'set' their respawn/reconnect point - especially in a team setting where they are on another person's ship.
The fact that this still exists is straight up shameful and depressing.
I quit playing Elite a year ago (played for several years prior to) after convincing two friends to come play the game only to find that functionally 100% broken. All 3 of us quit because of this exact issue. Why bother playing a multiplayer game if basic multiplayer functionality is fundamentally broken?
I played for the first time in a year last night and thought surely this would've been fixed in the more than 12 months that have passed since then. But nah, still happens 100% of the time. I packed my fancy HOSAS back into the box and won't be playing unless this is fixed. Hopefully some other game where the Devs actually care about their game comes along soon. I've got the itch for this type of game but Elite certainly won't be scratching it in its current state.
I quit playing Elite a year ago (played for several years prior to) after convincing two friends to come play the game only to find that functionally 100% broken. All 3 of us quit because of this exact issue. Why bother playing a multiplayer game if basic multiplayer functionality is fundamentally broken?
I played for the first time in a year last night and thought surely this would've been fixed in the more than 12 months that have passed since then. But nah, still happens 100% of the time. I packed my fancy HOSAS back into the box and won't be playing unless this is fixed. Hopefully some other game where the Devs actually care about their game comes along soon. I've got the itch for this type of game but Elite certainly won't be scratching it in its current state.
Well they said they would develop MC further if players used it enough. It was sort of a in between line hint that it wont be developed any further.
StefanOS
Volunteer Moderator
I think FD knows well enough why MC is not used by the players. The connection losses will never be 0 even if they get more stable. So if FD want to make players have fun with MC - they could just let players join their MC session fast after a deconnection. How much manpower would it need to implement such a mechanic?
I think MC would be a good playmode - even with the disconnections - when a good & fast respawn machanic is implemented.
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I don't think it's just the connectivity issues. It's also gameplay and rewards. When you play as "low level" with "high level" player you get measly peas while the "experienced" player earns real cash. There simply is no better way to tell players that they utterly suck and better go away do something else.
StefanOS
Volunteer Moderator
Many older players dont care about $ anymore, after you get your FC - you dont have anything big to spend money. And making $ did get far easier the last view years. I have friends who have more the 50 billions in cash... I have "only" 10 ( mainly from AXI killing Thrags)..... what should I do with it?
So money is no reason for most commanders, I/we want to have fun - and the respawn mechanic does not alow you to have real undisturbed fun with your friends. On every jump you fear to lose connection to your crew/friend and them respawn many jumps away at a station.... thats just a totaly no go.
Honestly, I wonder why people playing Star Citizen put up with the jank in that game so much.
StefanOS
Volunteer Moderator
Sorry this issue or my writting are not related or mentioning Star Citizen. I hope you are not trying to turn this thread to a SC vs ED place to create drama.
No, it's just that there is a lot jank out there and in MP it kills games.
Glad to see this has gained some traction. I admit I noticed sooner but medical shenanigans came first. Might try to check and see how things fair again at some point soon. Glad to hear some info was given to the dev team it seems. I'll look back on that stuff next time I try to multicrew
Multi-crew actually works in SC though. The game itself crashes, but riding along in someone else's ship does in fact just work, you can even seamlessly jump from seat to seat or pilot your friend's ship while they take a break. It's a shame really that the colossal dumpster fire that is Star Citizen can somehow get this right and Elite can't. A dumpster fire it is, but in many many ways it is more fun than Elite and immensely more immersive. I'm not playing either currently, and don't want to start a fight, but it is important to point out that this kind of gameplay is not only possible, it exists elsewhere.
I could do that stuff in DCS and Battlefiled or Carrier Command already. Sometimes you want to play a multicrew game, you go get one. Hoping the game you currently play will have that and interior and seamless world and story and careers and skills and loot and crafting and building and buying and selling and physics and autonomous npc and night and day and shops and skins and ships and gear and release soon just isn't any realistic.
I agree, but I don't think I'm wishing for something unrealistic.
The systems for multicrew gameplay already exist in the game, they're just broken and forgotten. I don't think it's unrealistic to want to enjoy the game as it was intended. If I was asking for all the things you mentioned yeah that'd be unrealistic, but I didn't. I just want to be able to reliably play this game with friends. The only reason I mentioned being able to switch seats is because that is also something that was promised in Elite in the beginning.
If it was as simple as just going and getting one, please tell me where I can find a good multicrew space sim?
OK, a space sim multicrew - no idea off the top of my head.
I just want my friends to be able to able to ride on my ships and do space and ground missions with me. It is a feature of the game and while I can't say it's "broken" it's reliability is far below the bar necessary for fun to be had.
For physical multicrew they need to fix:
- The respawn system
- The mission sharing system persistence (a shared, completed mission should remain with the person(s) it was shared with even if they disconnect)
- The ability to only share one mission at a time and then need to turn in before you can share another one (less of issue with space missions, but travel time is more of an issue with ground missions)
- The unpredictable disconnects that happen when changing instances (e.g. jumping to supercruise, new system).
Here is my real frustration: if they can't, or won't, fix the above issues, then I could just play solo. However, with this Thargoid war they have introduced AX combat zones that require multiplayer to finish. It's one thing to have key feature not work, but the player can just not use it and still enjoy the game. It's a whole different situation when you introduce more and more content that relies on the broken key feature that doesn't work!
Disclaimer: I haven't tested ANY of the multiplayer in months. I haven't had the time, nor the inclination, to wrangle my friends into giving it another go. I'm even less incentivized to do so because the bug reporting system in this game for the last three years (whenever they introduced the current ticket system) is even worse than the bugs I'm reporting! Doesn't matter how much evidence you provide (screen shots, logs, video recordings), if that ticket does keep getting confirmed by other users, it drops off the list and is never resolved. It's bad enough I'm not being paid for my time to document in full the bugs I report, but then you toss the reports aside if they don't get voted on? Really?! And even if the bugs do stay on the list and remain confirmed, Frontier stays silent on the progress. It took them a year and half to fix the Rotational Correction/thruster reduction bug! That, in and of itself, isn't that bad IF THEY MAKE IT A KNOWN, PUBLICLY ADVERTISED ISSUE complete with the work around to use until the bug is fixed!
I love this game, but I hate the bug report system, the networking code, and the lack of transparency on unresolved issues. I will continue to play this game until it completely breaks (unlikely) or shuts down (years away). That said, I'm going to be spending a lot more time playing Starfield than this game when Starfield is released (and thoroughly patched). I only bring that game up because Starfield has killed ALL my interest in Star Citizen, but will only eat into my Elite Dangerous time.