Please don't neglect mechanics for everyone by focusing on pure multiplayer content!

[Legacy_LuckyLuke]

As long as none of it is made mandatory to play the game, happy for FD to add as many multiplayer elements as they see fit. So long as I'm still able to go out solo and not have to rely on teaming up with another player to access parts of the game.

With that in mind, ship launched fighters could be a useful 'multiplayer' addition - if I could advertise that I'm going on a combat mission and need another pilot for my ship launched fighter. But seeing the matchmaking issues with CQC I wonder how viable this will be.

 

[insanephoton]

With that in mind, ship launched fighters could be a useful 'multiplayer' addition - if I could advertise that I'm going on a combat mission and need another pilot for my ship launched fighter. But seeing the matchmaking issues with CQC I wonder how viable this will be.

Even then it would probably be better if they joined you in their ship rather than the 'glass cannons' that the shipboard fighters are likely to be. We've all seen the fighters in combat zones and how fragile they are. The only place they are likely to be viable is in planetary rings, in open space they are just the express route to the insurance screen.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Even then it would probably be better if they joined you in their ship rather than the 'glass cannons' that the shipboard fighters are likely to be. We've all seen the fighters in combat zones and how fragile they are. The only place they are likely to be viable is in planetary rings, in open space they are just the express route to the insurance screen.

Agreed
Those Condors are no match for anything.
They seen some serious buffage to actually provide any sort of support in a real combat environment.
1 strike from my FDL kills them.
They need boosts to speed, and should easily do 400ms. A decent amount of utility slots so they can spam chaffs if needed. And shields.
Just the amount of deaths from poor landings would be enough to put you off ever using one.
They would be quite lethal with 2 rail guns, traveling at 400+ms, able to turn on a dime, and be near impossible to hit with turrets and gimballs.
They could zoom in, shred shields and be out of range again before you even knew. Lol

 

[Arubeto]

As long as none of it is made mandatory to play the game, happy for FD to add as many multiplayer elements as they see fit. So long as I'm still able to go out solo and not have to rely on teaming up with another player to access parts of the game.

With that in mind, ship launched fighters could be a useful 'multiplayer' addition - if I could advertise that I'm going on a combat mission and need another pilot for my ship launched fighter. But seeing the matchmaking issues with CQC I wonder how viable this will be.

I don't mind FD adding new multiplayer aspects to the game at all, I think ED needs them, but what I do mind is adding multiplay-only aspects and mechanics to the game.

But that's sadly what is happening right now: Wings is multiplayer only, Multicrew will be multiplayer only. Even planetary landings are somehow skewed towards multiplayer play, since combined frontal attacks on planetary installations where one player flies his ship and his mates drives SRVs is multiplayer only.

NPCs - in the form of wingmembers or crewmembers - on the other hand would benefit both play styles, multiplayer and single player.

I regularly play in open and in private groups, but finding people to wing up with still isn't as easy and straight forward as one would think. In many of the backwater systems of the game there simply is noone to wing up with. Planing in advance with other people just to play in a wing poses and organisational challenge I sometimes just don't want to engage. I just want wingmen, NPCs would be available whenever I want, much more convenient than always hoping to find someone who plays at the same time as I do, in the same part of the galaxy where I play, and who also wants to wing up with me.

That's why I'd vote for giving higher priority to gameplay mechanics that can be enjoyed by everyone, not just those that are willing to invest time to organize wings or player groups in the first place.

 

[X-Terminator]

FD have not completed enough Content in the main game IMO. It all feels so empty!
I think radio broadcasts are needed even though they may seem too generic after so long. They need this to match the adding of characters. It's quite an obvious addition!

 

[Futuristic Kung Fu]

FD have not completed enough Content in the main game IMO. It all feels so empty!
I think radio broadcasts are needed even though they may seem too generic after so long. They need this to match the adding of characters. It's quite an obvious addition!

Those are already in game. Find them yourself!

 

[Zelos1983]

The lack of content has been discussed many times. Season 1 only brought a few new ships and some very minor improvements. Horizons itself is great, but I doubt there will be more meaningful content within the season itself.

Now let's wait for Season 3.

 

[SentineI]

I think this multicrew thing is actually going to be a huge waste of development time.

Yeah, seems like another Power Play. I can't see it working well at all, just a huge amount of effort for something that won't be used by 95% of players after the novelty wears off.

 

[Arubeto]

The lack of content has been discussed many times. Season 1 only brought a few new ships and some very minor improvements. Horizons itself is great, but I doubt there will be more meaningful content within the season itself.

Now let's wait for Season 3.

This is not about the perceived lack of content. It's about interesting content that is already in the game (Wings) or will come soon (Multicrew) but that isn't or won't be experienced by many players because it's limited to multiplayer (all the people playing solo don't get anything out of these two basically very interesting mechanics). Even if people play multiplayer modes, winging up is far too cumbersome and often requires planning prior to playing just to meet up - mainly because of the playerbase/gameworld ratio, that IMO doesn't support multiplayer only mechanics.

Of course, there is other stuff still missing in the game, but what worries me more than that some stuff is not there yet - walking around in first person, additional station models, new mission types - is that some stuff that already is there can only be experienced if you go through the hassle to meet with other players. Even though solo is supposed to be equivalent to the other modes in what you can do, wings and multicrew will not be available in it.

 

[GluttonyFang]

Hah...

Npc wingman would be nice... and just give an accuracy boost to NPC multi-crew but not godly accuracy since that defeats the purpose of having another human on the ship...

 

[Hadron-Higgs-Boson]

I just posted this in another thread but got the impression it might warrant its own thread and discussion, so here I go.

I do like the game a lot and enjoy playing it, but my main concern about Elite: Dangerous is that the increased focus on multiplayer content seems to reduce the resources spend on developing content that would benefit everyone, from "solo" over "private group" to "open" mode players.

Two very good examples for this are some major updates from season 1 and season 2:

• In Season 1 we got Wings with the 1.2 release of ED, but contrary to many players expectations and to what other games provide, the option to enlist NPC wingmen instead of players wasn't included. Even worse, neither David Braben himself nor the developers wanted to confirm that NPC wingmen for hire would indeed come during season 2. So we might reach the year 2017 without the option to hire NPC wingmen - a basic mechanic that you have in nearly every other space flight game, and not only the new ones, but even those released decades ago like X-Wing Alliance or Starlancer. In ED, update 1.2 and Wings are basically meaningless for players in solo mode, and even in open or private group modes it requires coordination, aligning schedules with other players etc. to take advantage of this mechanic.
• In Season 2 we are going to get Multicrews, a concept I like in principle, but that again will be restricted to players (granted - Michael Brookes said NPC groups might come in a later season, but this is hardly an announcement and not even a confirmation). This case baffles me especially, since I believe that NPCs are much, much better suited for the role of crewmembers than other players. Players need to be entertained, e.g. they need something to do that let's them stick to the game. Right now, it's already easy to manage your ship alone and people complain about SC being void of anything to do. If ship management for individual players is watered down further by distributing these not to complex states among multiple players, I don't see how this might address the concerns about not having enough to do in the game.

FD stating that the ED community is great and that player groups are providing needed variety and content is a cheap excuse for not being able to provide this content themselves, IMHO. Adding NPCs to those mechanics mentioned above - crews and wings - would already alleviate this perceived problem of missing content. It would become much easier for everyone - including players in multiplayer modes - to take advantage of and enjoy the multicrew and wings gameplay mechancis.

Don't get me wrong, I think ED is a terrific game and Horizons is one hell of an achievement for the devs - kudos again to them! - but I fear the development focus goes in a direction where the possibility to enjoy everything the game has to offer without the need of teaming up with other players is lost.

agreed, mostly

As I see it, FD are developing ED not to neglect the solo player in favour of the group player, they are in fact neglecting having to develop anything to support either group of players and leaving both to look somewhat bemused at the game support they are provided with. For the solo player, the worsening lack of NPC content development (though this is for everyone not just the solo player) and for the group player, the quite frankly embarrassing lack of anything that works on a group level. The game is not being developed for one group or the other its being equally neglected for both while promoting a tick in the box for perceived online game features. Clearly FD are flat out just managing to build the basics (and some of them are pretty cool looking basics), but bells and whistles (or standard features as the rest of the gaming world refers to them) will have to wait

After Horizons I headed on on exploration, now bored to tears with it and the lack of things I think would be useful; log book, bookmarks, route planning, basic auto pilot, screenshot naming. Elite is a lot of fun in its small dont expect much play mode, push on any thing in any direction and the holes show up, Im sure they wil all get filled in if they can fund it for long enough, but in the meantime it can be a pretty limiting experience. Thank god it has a lot of redeeming features as well

 

[Iskariot]

Hah...

Npc wingman would be nice... and just give an accuracy boost to NPC multi-crew but not godly accuracy since that defeats the purpose of having another human on the ship...

Godlike accuracy would be very bad.
It would be great if there could be some sort of progression in crew member abilities.

I also would like automatons/robots/limited ai (I know the lore) as crew members.
I don't want human npc on board. They can't be trusted .

 

[JosiahD]

Personally I think player crew is just a gimmick, something Devs (not just Frontier Devs mind you) think would be great because it's cool. Just look at what SC is doing with multicrew. And yes, it is cool - but is it useful in the long run? Sure, having players man turrets in combat would/could be great fun. But much of a game like Elite is non-combat, during which that crew will have nothing to do, so very little benefit at the end of the day - unless there's a marked benefit in things like ship performance. In which case those who can't/won't have crew due to the absence of NPC crew will be at an even greater disadvantage.
.
All smells to me like something where Devs are focusing too much on whether it can be done (and how) instead of whether or not they should (what value does it really add in the long run).
.
I think the crew should simply be NPC-based and that's it. Forget the folly that is player crew and focus on improving other content such wing-based missions, planets with atmospheres, the Thargoid threat, more station design variation, increased NPC activity to add 'life' to this galaxy we're in etc etc. Shore up the existing wing-based mechanics if need be (eg missions and activities requiring a wing), so that players continue providing their ship as part of a wing, in keeping with their role in-game as a ship CMDR in their own right. And include NPC wingmen within that. Forget the idea of subordinating the player role to that of follower by filling crew roles - our player role as a CMDR is to be a leader (ship's captain), not a follower (crewmember).

 

[Bambi]

Multicrew honestly sounds like something that would be better fit for a walking around inside your ship expansion. They should focus on the planets this one.

 

[jabokai]

Multicrew will be garbage. The way they have worded it so far each player's contribution, whatever mechanics that takes, will effectively "buff" the ship by 100%. So 4 players in an Anaconda will be equal to 4 single players in 4 Anacondas. This is absolute garbage. Those 4 solo Anacondas would burn the shields of the 4 person Anacondas in seconds UNLESS they use magical fairy dust. And what happens when a person gets disconnected or logs off? Suddenly the magic disappears and the ship is instantly weaker? The only way, IMHO, to make this work is bring in NPC/AI crew at the same time. Then, fine, 4 real players in one ship will probably be better than 1 real player and 3 NPC crew, but would still suck if they tried taking on 4 solo ships topped off with NPCs.

I can't see a way they can make this remotely palatable, and plausible, without NPC crew.

 

[drholliday]

I think multi-crew will be mostly focused on the deployment of fighters. Everything else makes really little to no sense.

 

[jabokai]

I think multi-crew will be mostly focused on the deployment of fighters. Everything else makes really little to no sense.

They've already talked about the 4 positions within one ship - Helm (piloting), Fire control (turrets/weapons), Countermeasures (shields, tactical), Engineering (sensors, navigation, repairs).

 

[Arubeto]

The way they have worded it so far each player's contribution, whatever mechanics that takes, will effectively "buff" the ship by 100%.

Where did you get that from? The most detailed description of multicrew features I have seen so far was from Adam Woods in the Horizons launch stream (see video below from about 2h15m).
He did say that a fully crewed ship with 4 crewmembers would be like "a wing in a ship", but when he continued to elaborate on the benefits of multicrew he didn't say anything in the line of "every crewmember increases ship power by 100%" or anything like that, but instead the additional "finer control" over ship systems would be the benefit people would get from it.

But anyway, I agree with you on the verdict that NPCs are much better suited for being crewmembers than players. In case of NPC crewmembers "buffing" certain areas of ships a few percent might be an easy and good way to go. A fire control NPC crew member could slightly increase accuracy and speed of turreted weapons, for example.

Here is the gist of Adam Woods description:

• up to 4 people in a ship, depending on ship size and number of seats on the bridge
• hotswapping between roles is possible, even for pilots flying alone (in which case open roles won't be filled with AI - hence this thread!)
• UI will probably be similar to swapping to the turret control in an SRV via neurolink
• Roles:
  • helm: piloting, fixed weapons control
  • fire control: turreted weapons control
  • tactical: countermeasure control, shields, sensors, targeting, galaxy map handling, routing
  • engineering: power management, ship repairs
• ship owner will be "Captain" of the ship with ultimate power over the ship, can give out permissions to crewmembers

[video=youtube_share;G_qwOcL1PUU]https://youtu.be/G_qwOcL1PUU?t=8100[/video]

 

[Roybe]

I'm still really confused by the whole logistics of it all.
I mean, say, you hop in my FDL. First question is, what do you do that I can't do alone while in intense combat.
Manage my Power better? Target subsystems faster? Chat to other players...?
If you have control over my guns, then what else do I do other than point in the right direction?
Second question... What if you're in my FDL, enjoying looking out the window, then I lose connection or crash?
Do you get ejected in to space? Take command of MY ship and run off with it?
Or take command until I log back in? What if I decide to log back in in solo?
Makes little sense.
Third and final question, bounties are locked to players. What if you have a bounty, and I don't? Do we still get fired upon? Do they shoot out the canopy in the hopes that you run out of air first?

So many wierd situations this is gonna cause. When all I really want is more people in my wing.

As far as the 'what's people going to do? That i cannot?' I am hoping they are going to add depth to the systems that we handle...by giving the engineer in charge of energy management choices on how to move the energy to places where it is needed...it would be your job to tell them where it needs to go...but their decision as to how best to implement the movement (You know you need more pips to sheilds...they can manipulate the energy to get it to go to different sheild sets...rear, anterior, posterior, fron, etc.)

If they are adding a gunnery station, there might be possibilities of tighter weapon control through turrets, heat handling, better aiming possibilities, etc.

As far as bounties, etc. the gameplay seems to be locked into the Wings configuration...so it will just be a different way to 'wing up'...with all the sharing of 'things' that comes with that.

As to the OP...this game was always meant to be a multi-player game that offered a solo choice. Solo is a lot harder to play with the added content and I understand the pain that brings...unfortunately, this game is moving away from Solo balance...and players will have to make decisions on how to spend their game play time based on their requirements for personal satisfaction.

 

[almostpilot]

I just posted this in another thread but got the impression it might warrant its own thread and discussion, so here I go.

I do like the game a lot and enjoy playing it, but my main concern about Elite: Dangerous is that the increased focus on multiplayer content seems to reduce the resources spend on developing content that would benefit everyone, from "solo" over "private group" to "open" mode players.

Two very good examples for this are some major updates from season 1 and season 2:

• In Season 1 we got Wings with the 1.2 release of ED, but contrary to many players expectations and to what other games provide, the option to enlist NPC wingmen instead of players wasn't included. Even worse, neither David Braben himself nor the developers wanted to confirm that NPC wingmen for hire would indeed come during season 2. So we might reach the year 2017 without the option to hire NPC wingmen - a basic mechanic that you have in nearly every other space flight game, and not only the new ones, but even those released decades ago like X-Wing Alliance or Starlancer. In ED, update 1.2 and Wings are basically meaningless for players in solo mode, and even in open or private group modes it requires coordination, aligning schedules with other players etc. to take advantage of this mechanic.
• In Season 2 we are going to get Multicrews, a concept I like in principle, but that again will be restricted to players (granted - Michael Brookes said NPC groups might come in a later season, but this is hardly an announcement and not even a confirmation). This case baffles me especially, since I believe that NPCs are much, much better suited for the role of crewmembers than other players. Players need to be entertained, e.g. they need something to do that let's them stick to the game. Right now, it's already easy to manage your ship alone and people complain about SC being void of anything to do. If ship management for individual players is watered down further by distributing these not to complex states among multiple players, I don't see how this might address the concerns about not having enough to do in the game.

FD stating that the ED community is great and that player groups are providing needed variety and content is a cheap excuse for not being able to provide this content themselves, IMHO. Adding NPCs to those mechanics mentioned above - crews and wings - would already alleviate this perceived problem of missing content. It would become much easier for everyone - including players in multiplayer modes - to take advantage of and enjoy the multicrew and wings gameplay mechancis.

Don't get me wrong, I think ED is a terrific game and Horizons is one hell of an achievement for the devs - kudos again to them! - but I fear the development focus goes in a direction where the possibility to enjoy everything the game has to offer without the need of teaming up with other players is lost.

Can only agree with this.

It's time to keep FD Their efforts on NPCs for multicrew, wings and in a persistent way.

I'm beginning to think it might be a problem of lack of their capacity, for not doing it yet