Please don't neglect mechanics for everyone by focusing on pure multiplayer content!
- Thread starter Arubeto
- Start date
Nothing. But the few single-seat ships in the game are considered "starter ships" by a large part of the community anyway (with which I don't agree, I think there isn't or at least shouldn't be anything resembling "starter ships", "end game" etc.), so the idea of multi-crew ships is relevant for a large part of the player base, I suppose.
Multicrew almost seems like an attempt to lean on the playerbase to create depth and content when it's not really capable of doing that in the vast majority of cases. The game world is enormous and the chances of coming across another player outside of a handful of popular systems and CG's is rather low, let alone getting those players to cooperate with you in their own ships. Just imagine how hard it will be to talk random people into taking up positions in YOUR ship instead of their own.
The only way I see Multicrew being used is by small groups of friends or some of the more organized player communities. For the vast majority of us this feature will be almost completely useless. It's a novelty at best, and a restriction on the type of content you have access to at worst.
What I don't understand is why FD is so opposed to NPC crew? It seems obvious to me that NPC crew would be more useful to more players, and would apply equally to Open as well as Private Group and Solo. You could mix and match NPC and PC crew in the likely event you can't convince more than one or two people to join you on the bridge. Furthermore, and this is the most important part; NPC crew could be used to add more GAMEPLAY than PC crew could. FD could create more challenging content that relies on multicrew because anybody could use multicrew abilities or whatever to tackle it, rather than creating more content exclusively for an already narrow section of the player base.
Not only that but NPC crew would help create the sense of a lived-in world instead of the often sterile and lifeless galaxy we have right now.
Bottom line: The game needs more mechanical depth of content for ALL players, not just the people who play exclusively in groups.
The only way I see Multicrew being used is by small groups of friends or some of the more organized player communities. For the vast majority of us this feature will be almost completely useless. It's a novelty at best, and a restriction on the type of content you have access to at worst.
What I don't understand is why FD is so opposed to NPC crew? It seems obvious to me that NPC crew would be more useful to more players, and would apply equally to Open as well as Private Group and Solo. You could mix and match NPC and PC crew in the likely event you can't convince more than one or two people to join you on the bridge. Furthermore, and this is the most important part; NPC crew could be used to add more GAMEPLAY than PC crew could. FD could create more challenging content that relies on multicrew because anybody could use multicrew abilities or whatever to tackle it, rather than creating more content exclusively for an already narrow section of the player base.
Not only that but NPC crew would help create the sense of a lived-in world instead of the often sterile and lifeless galaxy we have right now.
Bottom line: The game needs more mechanical depth of content for ALL players, not just the people who play exclusively in groups.
I understand and support that the game has a strong multiplayer mode. What I don't support is the new direction to make it multiplayer-only!
Just the idea of having an offline-mode in the beginning shows that single player was definitely considered an equivalent alternative to multiplayer modes. And I understand the reasoning behind removing the offline-mode - the background sim - but mechanics like wingmen and crewmembers shouldn't just be possible in solo/single player scenarios, they even make much more sense in those situations, IMHO. Creating and balancing some new mini games for crew members and making them interesting enough to make multicrew fun is much more challenging than just adding a character model for a NPC crew member in the next seat and improving some ship stats by a few percent.
If this tendency continues, I am certain ED will loose a lot of its appeal to me. I was basically waiting for proper NPC interaction during beta phase and season 1 and always told myself "it will come, just be patient". But with the current developments and focus on multiplayer only content, I begin to loose my optimistic anticipation for the future of ED
I stated a month or more ago, the this is where the community is heading. Everyone has given their patience and understanding to the devs because the game 'is under development'. People will have to make decisions on further patience and hope...or give up on the game in the short term and hope the future holds better improvements that they want to support. <shrug> It's the devs choice on conducting business in this manner....and the fallout will be there to collect.
Agree as well as with OP starting the thread.
But I think the general sentiment should be the focus and not a list of everyone's prioritized wants.
I am sure FD have discussed at length the order of content additions. No doubt they face difficult task of guessing what is attractive to the most players, what will drive sales, and also technically and financially feasible in the next year. Hopefully we get many more additions throughout the year than just the headline features already revealed.
But I think the general sentiment should be the focus and not a list of everyone's prioritized wants.
I am sure FD have discussed at length the order of content additions. No doubt they face difficult task of guessing what is attractive to the most players, what will drive sales, and also technically and financially feasible in the next year. Hopefully we get many more additions throughout the year than just the headline features already revealed.
The thing is, theres not much multiplayer content in the game, neither solo.
No coop missions, no coop synergies. You can only fly together but not much else to do, and when the game works properly and nothing weird happens (server, instances)
Also its true, there are not much solo content.
No coop missions, no coop synergies. You can only fly together but not much else to do, and when the game works properly and nothing weird happens (server, instances)
Also its true, there are not much solo content.
The next big update is loot and crafting, which you mainly be able to do as a single player.
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I suspect it will mostly enable you to use turrets more effectively. An have a human control fighter.
I think multicrew will come into its own when we have first person content added to the game.
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Except they are investing in a looting and craft system which is a single player thing. And most of Horizon content is single player.
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I suspect it will mostly enable you to use turrets more effectively. An have a human control fighter.
I think multicrew will come into its own when we have first person content added to the game.
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Except they are investing in a looting and craft system which is a single player thing. And most of Horizon content is single player.
Except it is possible to make crafting require grouping/clans. Go take a look at EVE's high end crafting or Star Trek online. No thanks.
Those games have some good ideas Frontier could steal.
I do not have any faith in Frontier and haven't for a while, they don't seem to have any ideas for adding engaging content, from previous discussions I am not sure the network code even allows for some of the things we want.
Frontier seem to be fixated on an idea that GRIND = CONTENT. They even make the grinding difficult for the sake of it.
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My biggest issue is how they are chopping up relevant updates. I only real care about 1 maybe 2 updates out of each season, and because they split it up (ex. planetary landings) I have to spend money on crap I don't care about. There has hardly been any improvement on this game from my perspective.
Wings, don't care, solo player.
CG, don't care, a huge grind of the same game.
PowerPlay, HAHAHAHAHAHAno
Multicrew, same as wings plus it seems like a nightmare to balance
Avatar Creation, don't care. Who am I going to show my face off to, if I could get up out of my chair even. Seems like a 100% unneccesary addition that does absolutely nothing given where this game is at. Should wait until we at least get legs.
Wings, don't care, solo player.
CG, don't care, a huge grind of the same game.
PowerPlay, HAHAHAHAHAHAno
Multicrew, same as wings plus it seems like a nightmare to balance
Avatar Creation, don't care. Who am I going to show my face off to, if I could get up out of my chair even. Seems like a 100% unneccesary addition that does absolutely nothing given where this game is at. Should wait until we at least get legs.
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![[VR] Mad Mike](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/27/27910.jpg?1553527108){kind=avatar}
If I did not know better I would have thought I wrote this myself. I could not agree more. All the MP content in ED is fab and I welcome it........ As an Addition to npc equivalents not instead of.
True, and NPC crews would benefit both, single player and multiplayer modes!
The strange thing to me is, if I am reading it right the issue is not that FD do not want to have npcs in there doing each role but because it is too hard to do.
And yet historically normally devs say it is the MP side which is hard to get right with even the lowest budget games having fairly usable npcs in there.
To be honest from the get go i had an inkling that the mp stuff may have been a bit lumpy and took a while to get right esp the competitive stuff.... But I never for one second ever considered the solo npc content would have been a problem
With a crew of people, a system is required.
With an NPC crew of people, a system and A.I at least equal to a crew of people is required (for a given value of A.I) There's a quick fix (with possible long term problems) but this will do for now.
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Who remembers the days when Perpetual Entertainment were developing Star Trek Online? Both their and Cryptics forums were full of threads to asking allow multicrew ships... It never happened despite the obvious possibilities given the bridge crew positions seen in every show. A loud number of voices (not large) really wanted this but in all honesty who would find it fun?
You join up with a friend who ask's you to take the ENG seat, what are you going to actually do? Move some pip's around? Repair a system? What else? You're mates the one flying and as you have no gunner he's also the one shooting... Oh by the way, one more pip to power please..
I'm sorry to say this FD but I see this a fluffy filler content.
Then we get to the fact this will be the second update that caters only for those who play in groups of some kind (Third if you count CQC, which I do not). Nothing once again for the solo player.
Everything can be done by a group of people but not everything can be done by one man... How about some balancing content that can only be done by one man in one ship?
This is fast becoming two rather different games, I wonder which one will hold the larger appeal once the dust settles?
EDIT: All pip's to shields, prepare for incoming... Dave I said... Dave where are you... Did you go AFK in the middle of a fight! Frank, launch the fighter!... Frank... Not you too!
You join up with a friend who ask's you to take the ENG seat, what are you going to actually do? Move some pip's around? Repair a system? What else? You're mates the one flying and as you have no gunner he's also the one shooting... Oh by the way, one more pip to power please..
I'm sorry to say this FD but I see this a fluffy filler content.
Then we get to the fact this will be the second update that caters only for those who play in groups of some kind (Third if you count CQC, which I do not
). Nothing once again for the solo player.Everything can be done by a group of people but not everything can be done by one man... How about some balancing content that can only be done by one man in one ship?
This is fast becoming two rather different games, I wonder which one will hold the larger appeal once the dust settles?
EDIT: All pip's to shields, prepare for incoming... Dave I said... Dave where are you... Did you go AFK in the middle of a fight! Frank, launch the fighter!... Frank... Not you too!
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Who remembers the days when Perpetual Entertainment were developing Star Trek Online? Both their and Cryptics forums were full of threads to asking allow multicrew ships... It never happened despite the obvious possibilities given the bridge crew positions seen in every show. A loud number of voices (not large) really wanted this but in all honesty who would find it fun?
You join up with a friend who ask's you to take the ENG seat, what are you going to actually do? Move some pip's around? Repair a system? What else? You're mates the one flying and as you have no gunner he's also the one shooting... Oh by the way, one more pip to power please..
I'm sorry to say this FD but I see this a fluffy filler content.
Then we get to the fact this will be the second update that caters only for those who play in groups of some kind (Third if you count CQC, which I do not
Everything can be done by a group of people but not everything can be done by one man... How about some balancing content that can only be done by one man in one ship?
This is fast becoming two rather different games, I wonder which one will hold the larger appeal once the dust settles?
EDIT: All pip's to shields, prepare for incoming... Dave I said... Dave where are you... Did you go AFK in the middle of a fight! Frank, launch the fighter!... Frank... Not you too!
If you haven't already, try Artemis. http://artemis.eochu.com/
Granted the game has been designed with the bridge/crew at its core. Still, the appeal is derived from its strong social aspect, that of team work and that flavour of drama that can only really come from 4+ crew/idiots frantically trying to fly a ship, a ship that is utterly dependant on the successful coordination of crew/idiots.
And most of the time the roles consist of clicking something, adjusting something else and keeping coloured bars from going red.
[video=youtube;ZBiWfEWmN5k]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBiWfEWmN5k[/video]
Love it!
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This is exactly how I see it. They provide the various stations to fill on a given ship and we provide the crew to man them. Its just really lazy imo......there's really no good reason why NPC crew shouldn't be in the game other than they don't really have the resources to implement it at this time. As someone else mentioned....it should have been a priority rather than wasting time on useless stuff (CQC, PP).
Yes, that surprised me, too. New MP features always entail a lot of balancing, creating new mechanics that entertain for more than just a few minutes, taking all kinds of precautions to prevent griefing and exploiting etc.
If I am not mistaken, NPC crews have been in the older Elite games already, and I thought they'd be much more feasible than MP crews.
Michael Brookes' statement that NPC crews might come in a later season is a glimmer of hope, but tbh. after waiting several years for proper NPCs such a statement isn't as encouraging anymore as it once was.
Which sounds about as entertaining as watching paint dry......or taking part in Powerplay.
Agreed +1 rep. I read another post saying that the focus of the game should be PVP as opposed to a solid PVE layer. I wanted to slap them. Elite has always been about a solid PVE layer and (for the time) intricate systems. This really needs to be built upon here before more, dull competitive multiplayer aspects are added.