Role Play?
- Thread starter dxm55
- Start date
Hear that sound? It's the sound of any half competent role player taking you seriously walking out of the thread.
@dxm55 - I'd guessed your motive from the first post, nothing wrong with itBut you did provide some good ideas along the way.
We all play our 'own' game and to fit 'Lore' onto all those hat sizes would be a challenge!
Top marks for continuing to be civil
If you can put an idea across, it doesn't matter if it attracts some bad attention.
You don't always get positive responses when selling stuff, do you?
In Frontier there was a minimum crew required before you could take off in the bigger ships, but then there was no interior vanity cam to be able to look at them. I seem to recall them taking a flat rate of pay per week too, unlike the shysters we have now deducting a fixed percentage for sitting in the crew lounge.
If they were doing something useful, fine. If we could rescue them after ship loss, better...
If they were doing something useful, fine. If we could rescue them after ship loss, better...
I believe that was what many who asked for NPC crew were looking for. A semblence of that old system, but with Holo-Me technology.
I'm proposing one step further, and that's adding SLF pilot stats to your crew, and having them add function to your ship (or take away functions if you have no crew)
Elite Dangerous is a Space Simulator. You fly in a ship, do missions, get better ships, make those ships super awesome, take a trip to Beagle Point or literally whatever else you wanna do
it just happens to have RPG elements such as partying up with friends, quests (BGS, missions, Lore, Powerplay etc) and more!
Simply put, if you're unable or unwilling to think outside the box to generate your own fun OR let go of your own ego or social insecurities to make friends within the game thats entirely your problem. the developers shouldn't have to add a completely new mechanic to the game when the players have the ability to create that mechanic themselves.
I certainly would enjoy AI multi-crew, but only in a capacity similar to the SLF AI pilots: you can't change their stats and better skilled AI will cost more to hire and want more share of the booty. Your ship can already be sent off/recalled remotely when in an SRV, what would the point of having an AI on the flight deck when the ship can already pilot itself?
it just happens to have RPG elements such as partying up with friends, quests (BGS, missions, Lore, Powerplay etc) and more!
Simply put, if you're unable or unwilling to think outside the box to generate your own fun OR let go of your own ego or social insecurities to make friends within the game thats entirely your problem. the developers shouldn't have to add a completely new mechanic to the game when the players have the ability to create that mechanic themselves.
I certainly would enjoy AI multi-crew, but only in a capacity similar to the SLF AI pilots: you can't change their stats and better skilled AI will cost more to hire and want more share of the booty. Your ship can already be sent off/recalled remotely when in an SRV, what would the point of having an AI on the flight deck when the ship can already pilot itself?
Now the bolded bit was a game changer for 'lil ol Solo' me... My friends list now has more than just me in it and I'm having a lot of fun 'socialising' - and it is good to know that when the black calls once more, as it surely will, they'll be friends to go back to once again.
(I played in Solo/mobius for a year or so...)
That's about it.
Maybe with legs, which would demand some kind of leveling system for your character's ability to walk around, mitigate and cause damage, pick things up and identify what they are we might eventually get a similar system for the NPC crews but I doubt it as that would require depth FDev seem reluctant to provide.
Legs could be a completely different level of complexity, a whole new RPG layer of fun...
That would be a traditional party in an RPG game. Which was basically what I propositioned.
You remain in the role of player character, the CMDR.
You don't directly control your party, but they do respond to your orders just like the SLF pilot. And they will learn (ie. level up) via actions in game.
FD can do this. Most of the elements are already in the game, just waiting to be merged.
Plus... They created this, didn't they?
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Did you ever play Dungeon Siege, or the first Mass Effect where you had full control over the entire party, could assign orders, swap out their inventories, change their weapons and armour, play as any one of them, etc? That worked great, in SOLO, when you could pause the action and reconfigure as desired...
The "time-stop" ain't gonna work in a real time game like ED but, a similar concept maybe...
You don't need to swap out inventory while on foot.
You can do it in the ship, while flying thru Supercruise or in orbit, or maybe while landed.
You prepare your away team before deployment. And not sashay into the hotspot only to realize your fly's still unzipped.....
Besides, we can skip introducing armor or different types of hand-weaps (unless you really want to make FPS a main thing), or even allow you to jump into the bodies of your crewmember. They're just your.... crew. Like your SLF pilot.
Once you're out on foot, you could just have a fixed set of orders .... again like the SLF pilot, then you can either stop, look down and to use a menu command.... or assign shortcut keys to, which is a smarter option if you know you're gonna be in the thick of action.
No need for time stops. Treat your crew as your wingmen when on foot or in SRVs.
sigh
puts on Thargoid costume
puts on Thargoid costume
LOL! OF COURSE! (That was funny, I approve
)Now you're thinkin', and the same set of commands would probably suffice while you're the one actually interfacing with the environment. Weapons, if we get them at all, armour upgrades and level requirements to use them I'm not so sure about but some kind of skill tree for opening locks and terminals maybe?
That might vary things a science, medical or navigation officer could do for a little variety.
Well, I certainly agree that the game could set the stage better and provide some more well thought out props.
I feel that where ED shines is as a sandbox. It provides the universe, the players provide the stories. That said there are a few aspects to the universe that would aid the player in creating the stories.
- NPC crew. Pay RL cash for a Holo-Me crewmember or enlist one from the pilot's lounge for in-game credits.
- Custom paint-jobs. I've suggested how this could be arranged elsewhere. Briefly, FDev provide an editor/API/uploader and charge RL money to upload a design, but third parties can produce designs. FDev get to moderate for obscenity etc. and make as much money as they do now, but there are vastly more designs out there without them having to pay artists.
- NPC interactions. Give me a testy Flight Operations Manager who remembers me as the guy who never clears the pad before heading to the bar. Give me traders, pirates and security pilots who remember me and banter as we run cargo or shoot pirates. That requires good text to speech and AI but it is not beyond state of the art now and Frontier could lead game development with it.
- Realistic RNG. If I'm mining 500ly from civilization, the chances that I'll meet anyone, let alone a pirate are zero. I found the wreck of a smuggler 1,500 ly from the bubble; how is that at all likely? You know that it would have been just as likely 30,000 ly out.
- A richer civilian infrastructure. Why is it that life-bearing worlds are of no interest to anyone? Wouldn't there be scientific institutions gagging for their locations and detailed maps of them? Wouldn't they post missions to take some scientists to study them? Let's take the engineers concept and extend it to more procedural generation. You get introduced to companies, institutions and so forth that have cargo to run, escort missions, passenger missions. In return you get reputation, money, cosmetics, further introductions.
- Yes, I said escort missions. NPC wings. You fly to location A, wing-up with it and accompany it to location B. And imagine fighting pirates in a RES and being personally trusted enough that you get an invitation to wing-up from the local security squadron with real and useful intelligence on the wing comms including scan data.
- If we get space legs, don't just give me a blaster; give me a nightclub, a park, a pilot's hostel. Give me the choice between a restaurant and a cafeteria. Make me change out of my flight-suit before the maitre d will let me in. Let there be snooty duchesses looking down their noses at me and grubby kids offering to watch my ship for 10cr. Give me the choice to sign up for missions on-line as I currently do, or walk down to their office and talk to them directly.