VR support 'not at launch' for Odyssey

Gully Foyle · Jun 3, 2020

I think you'll still be able to use your VR headsets perhaps they are due for a pivot and a new system coming down the road

Kaocraft said:
That was a convenient excuse to shift blame, is all that was. They ported the game to PS4 for god's sake.

Apple does not nor are interested in keeping their implementation of OpenGL up-to-date. Horizons needs the latest version. The PS4 has it.

They would rather promote their in-house product Metal. I blame Steve Jobs.

Kaocraft · Jun 3, 2020

lemon407 said:
Because much to many many peoples disapointment, VR is a gimmick with the current technology, it works great while in the cockpit, but moving about on the surface in first person would be horrible. VR for first person shooters is very very gimmicky and is just not there with the technology to be viable.

I highly suspect what it will be is, there will be VR support for in cockpit activites, but the second you get up and start moving around on your feet. Its going to be no VR support at this time.

Counterpoint: VR works great it just makes a lot of people feel sick. You could easily have full body autonomy and robust freedom of movement in VR with no issues, except that only a small subset of VR users (who are themselves already a small subset of players) would be able to enjoy it because of the nausea issue. But y'know Frontier could opt to soldier forward anyway and ask people to adapt if they want to come along for the ride. VR users just need to make peace with the fact that some of the potential VR experiences out there aren't compatible with their physiology, and stop demanding that creators hamstring their designs to accommodate them.

It's worth remembering that a large contingent of video game players suffer nausea from playing ANY FPS just on a regular old flat screen (no this has nothing to do with FOV sliders); but collectively we don't care about these people, and just keep on making FPS games anyway. Elite Dangerous VR could go the same route, although from a marketshare perspective this will probably not be a viable path forward until there is a much much broader install base of high-end PCs with VR headsets.

thesnowdog · Jun 3, 2020

Turd Ferguson said:
When I saw the trailer, the first thing I thought was : this is going to suck in VR.

looks like this is where I get off the Elite Dangerous train if they do, in fact, drop VR support.

this game has NOTHING going for it other than it's the only game where you can fly space ships in VR.

Not the only game. No Man's Sky has both space legs and letting you fly your ship in VR. It's more of a game than a simulation though.

Kaocraft · Jun 3, 2020

Gully_Foyle said:
I think you'll still be able to use your VR headsets perhaps they are due for a pivot and a new system coming down the road

Apple does not nor are interested in keeping their implementation of OpenGL up-to-date. Horizons needs the latest version. The PS4 has it.

They would rather promote their in-house product Metal. I blame Steve Jobs.

PS4 doesn't use OpenGL.

VR Golgot · Jun 3, 2020

Kaocraft said:
Counterpoint: VR works great it just makes a lot of people feel sick. You could easily have full body autonomy and robust freedom of movement in VR with no issues, except that only a small subset of VR users (who are themselves already a small subset of players) would be able to enjoy it because of the nausea issue. But y'know Frontier could opt to soldier forward anyway and ask people to adapt if they want to come along for the ride. VR users just need to make peace with the fact that some of the potential VR experiences out there aren't compatible with their physiology, and stop demanding that creators hamstring their designs to accommodate them.

It's worth remembering that a large contingent of video game players suffer nausea from playing ANY FPS just on a regular old flat screen (no this has nothing to do with FOV sliders); but collectively we don't care about these people, and just keep on making FPS games anyway. Elite Dangerous VR could go the same route, although from a marketshare perspective this will probably not be a viable path forward until there is a much much broader install base of high-end PCs with VR headsets.

There are middle grounds. Offering controller-relative & head-relative motion options allows most people to move around an environment without issues. Such approaches have been used to adapt existing FPS / RPG games without any real issue. FDev could totally design in a '2D first' way, and add VR in that sense. (See titles like Skyrim / Fallout 4 / Payday 2 etc).

It all comes down to the money, as you note. Whether they think they'll get a prompt ROI for that dev and ongoing support. Whether they care if they do or not, etc. (IE if they were to punt on further expansion of VR, and use ED as a loss-leader in that sense to capture market share down the line).

lemon407 · Jun 3, 2020

Golgot said:
Half-Life: Alyx just practically doubled the VR playerbase single-handed. It's a first person shooter.

And hell, practically every VR game of note in the last few years has been first person and involved locomotion and kinetic gameplay of some sort.

I'd also note my own anecdotal take: First person gameplay in VR is where it excels, handheld weapons work excellently, traversing terrain can be great (jet-packing around proc gen surfaces in NMS is a blast ).

Essentially I have no idea how you've arrived at your conclusion. I find your take, niche

Because its a game that was built from the ground up to be a first person VR experience. Its not built like current FPS games are, its not meant to be that. ED was not built from the ground up with FPS VR in mind. As it still stands VR is a gimmick that is not marketable to the masses yet. The technology is not there or cheap enough yet.

Kaocraft said:
Counterpoint: VR works great it just makes a lot of people feel sick. You could easily have full body autonomy and robust freedom of movement in VR with no issues, except that only a small subset of VR users (who are themselves already a small subset of players) would be able to enjoy it because of the nausea issue. But y'know Frontier could opt to soldier forward anyway and ask people to adapt if they want to come along for the ride. VR users just need to make peace with the fact that some of the potential VR experiences out there aren't compatible with their physiology, and stop demanding that creators hamstring their designs to accommodate them.

It's worth remembering that a large contingent of video game players suffer nausea from playing ANY FPS just on a regular old flat screen (no this has nothing to do with FOV sliders); but collectively we don't care about these people, and just keep on making FPS games anyway. Elite Dangerous VR could go the same route, although from a marketshare perspective this will probably not be a viable path forward until there is a much much broader install base of high-end PCs with VR headsets.

I get your counter point, i really do and i agree, but with VR its not phisable, if we lived in a world where yeah Fdev could aford to donate all this dev time to making this super amazing expereince and just tell people solider through it, sure. But they dont, they are not valve. They cant afford to adapt to it. VR headsets are going to set back players around 600 bucks, on top of needing a PC that can support it. Vr in the current technology is not viable outside of super niche gaming and gimmick games.

Which again much to the chagrin of many, Alyx while an amazing game and really showed off what the VR head set can do in first person, is, at the end of the day, a gimmicky game, that requires you to have a $800 worth of equipment on top of the cost of the game, on top of the cost of the PC.

Personally im totally fine wth Fdev not focusing on VR support first, which yes thats gonna suck because for those who really want VR first person, its not gonna be that great when they port to it because it was not built for it from the ground up. But we need to put on big boy and big girl pants here and realize that Fdev and ED, while again loved by many people here, is not going to be the game that breaks the mold, they dont have the capital to put up for that, they dont have the backing to devote all the time and money needed to build an exp that caters to a super niche market of gaming. You might not like it, but, thats a kinda crappy truth you have to come to terms with. ED is not going to be the VR game that breaks the mold for FPS, and trying to make it that, will only result in disappointment all around for everyone.

Kaocraft · Jun 3, 2020

lemon407 said:
Because its a game that was built from the ground up to be a first person VR experience. Its not built like current FPS games are, its not meant to be that. ED was not built from the ground up with FPS VR in mind. As it still stands VR is a gimmick that is not marketable to the masses yet. The technology is not there or cheap enough yet.

I get your counter point, i really do, but its not phisable, if we lived in a world where yeah Fdev could aford to donate all this dev time to making this super amazing expereince and just tell people solider through it, sure. But they dont, they are not valve. They cant afford to adapt to it. VR headsets are going to set back players around 600 bucks, on top of needing a PC that can support it. Vr in the current technology is not viable outside of super niche gaming and gimmick games.

Which again much to the chagrin of many, Alyx while an amazing game and really showed off what the VR head set can do in first person, is, at the end of the day, a gimmicky game, that requires you to have a $800 worth of equipment on top of the cost of the game, on top of the cost of the PC.

Personally im totally fine wth Fdev not focusing on VR support first, which yes thats gonna suck because for those who really want VR first person, its not gonna be that great when they port to it because it was not built for it from the ground up. But we need to put on big boy and big girl pants here and realize that Fdev and ED, while again loved by many people here, is not going to be the game that breaks the mold, they dont have the capital to put up for that, they dont have the backing to devote all the time and money needed to build an exp that caters to a super niche market of gaming. You might not like it, but, thats a kinda crappy truth you have to come to terms with. ED is not going to be the VR game that breaks the mold for FPS, and trying to make it that, will only result in disappointment all around for everyone.

Yes it's true Half Life Alyx is essentially an on-rails series of carnival games with excellent presentation, and it has little in common structurally with more open-ended FPS games which aren't made for VR. And yes it's true that Frontier is not Valve and probably aren't set up to be the leaders in anything.

At the same time, vanilla Elite Dangerous supported VR at a time when nobody else was, and I doubt that it was "worth" the dev resources back then, either. And it's probably true that the potential playerbase for a full no-holds-barred VR Elite Odyssey is vanishingly small; a subset of a subset of a subset of players; but is there any reason to believe that the subset of current VR owners who either don't experience the nausea, or can learn to adapt, is any smaller than the total number of VR owners (of any kind) at the time Elite Dangerous released?

Frontier have a choice, it's a risky choice, but if they believe that VR has a strong future ahead then they would stand to gain by maintaining full and robust VR support.

VR Golgot · Jun 3, 2020

lemon407 said:
Because its a game that was built from the ground up to be a first person VR experience. Its not built like current FPS games are, its not meant to be that. ED was not built from the ground up with FPS VR in mind. As it still stands VR is a gimmick that is not marketable to the masses yet. The technology is not there or cheap enough yet.

It was, but I raised it as a simple example to disprove your assertion that "VR for first person shooters is very very gimmicky and is just not there with the technology to be viable."

I also mentioned other games though. Notice the top selling section for Steam, for example:

There are three notable ports of old games there: Skyrim, Fallout 4 & Superhot.

They too were not "built from the ground up to be a first person VR experience".

And yet they all work. They work great

We could also add pertinent examples like NMS, or Payday 2. Multiplayer capable games in first person with 'run and gun' gameplay which were ported to VR.

But the list goes on and on as far as native first person shooters & RPG games goes, comprising as they do most of the top slots in the sales charts. Which displays, at minimum, that VR does first person shooting very happily indeed

Gully Foyle · Jun 3, 2020

Kaocraft said:
PS4 doesn't use OpenGL.

I stand corrected thank you.

DreamWraith · Jun 3, 2020

777Driver said:
Not the same mate, you know it. If we don't get VR space legs, it is because of Nausea issues, not software or GPU limitations.

Try lone echo, then try one of the cheaper FPS VR games. ED is certainly not lone echo, that is not to say they can't achieve something workable, people are getting worried over something that is not confirmed.

It's cute how you act like VR space legs wouldnt be possible. The literally #1 VR game right now is a FPS.

Cyclinguy · Jun 3, 2020

As already pointed out by previous posters, if Hello Games' No Man's Sky can manage a fairly compelling space legs in VR, I'm sure Frontier can. I'm really hoping that the Steam page is a genuine mistake (it probably got put together rather in a hurry after all). Still, time will tell. If I can only walk on planets in flat screen, I may stick to my SRV in VR... ;-)

Glamdring · Jun 3, 2020

FPS and VR does not really mix well for most people. They are pretty niche and for people with good resilience to VR sickness

Glamdring · Jun 3, 2020

DreamWraith said:
It's cute how you act like VR space legs wouldnt be possible. The literally #1 VR game right now is a FPS.

Boneworks and Pavlov are pretty niche as VR games, although they sold a lot. Not for everyone for sure, considering how many people feel motion sickness in VR.
Alyx is not really a FPS with the same type of movement; and doing VR in that way in ED on foot would just be killing it. No man sky has VR on foot but it does seem to be a niche mode too; most people use VR in the ship and monitor on foot, if they have the choice.

It is possible, but people would get sick. At that point won't be worth to spend time developing a VR mode that only a subset of players will use.

VR Golgot · Jun 3, 2020

Glamdring said:
FPS and VR does not really mix well for most people. They are pretty niche and for people with good resilience to VR sickness

Have you played an FPS in VR recently? Because that doesn't reflect my experience, or what the market is saying:

Golgot said:
Half-Life: Alyx just practically doubled the VR playerbase single-handed. It's a first person shooter.

Golgot said:
There are middle grounds. Offering controller-relative & head-relative motion options allows most people to move around an environment without issues. Such approaches have been used to adapt existing FPS / RPG games without any real issue. FDev could totally design in a '2D first' way, and add VR in that sense. (See titles like Skyrim / Fallout 4 / Payday 2 etc).

Golgot said:
Notice the top selling section for Steam, for example:

There are three notable ports of old games there: Skyrim, Fallout 4 & Superhot.

They too were not "built from the ground up to be a first person VR experience".

And yet they all work. They work great

We could also add pertinent examples like NMS, or Payday 2. Multiplayer capable games in first person with 'run and gun' gameplay which were ported to VR.

But the list goes on and on as far as native first person shooters & RPG games goes, comprising as they do most of the top slots in the sales charts. Which displays, at minimum, that VR does first person shooting very happily indeed

Ganogati · Jun 3, 2020

Honestly, I expected that they would not have VR in FPS mode, and that's a-ok with me as long as the modes are separate enough that I don't have to swap back and forth in the middle of a normal gameplay session. If parting in legs was 100% optional, and I don't mean optional in the way Engineers are "optional" (ie you can choose not to do them but you are also choosing not to be remotely competitive with anything at all), then there would be no negative effect on the VR gamers at all.

However, if legs have no VR and we're constantly mode hopping from flight to legs in normal gameplay, especially to do "everyday" tasks, VR would become unplayable. Taking your headset on and off gets real miserable, real quick.

My honest to goodness hope is that legs is something separate enough that you can play the game 100% in flight mode and not suffer for doing so. Suddenly get a hankering for some FPS gameplay? No problem; shut down VR, reload the game in 2D mode and play some FPS. Then hop back in your ship, restart the game in VR, and off ya go. But if you are a VR pilot playing one of (if not the) best space sandbox games in existence and don't want to give that up, then that's a-ok too.

If they came back and said that this is what the expansion would be like, I think it might at least make a few folks feel better.

Tygra · Jun 3, 2020

Golgot said:
Yeah unfortunately CIG have promised so many things that their claims are somewhat devalued at this point. Not a great base for an theory.

FDev have this tendency to stay quiet instead, which is why we end up prodding around hints like the Steam page. But I don't think many people are taking it as definitive, or an official statement. The Steam page is clearly provisional at this point. (As evidenced by the scant minimum spec info, etc)

Most of the noise here is more a reminder to FDev that VR is still desired

NMS has it, CIG says it's coming, (I don't really care if you believe them or not.), Elite has it now.

I don't want to loose it from Elite either, and that's the POINT, there's no reason for them not to make a simple statement saying it's not going anyplace to end the debate. If they won't do that, then it's a bad sign for a lot of folks who currently enjoy VR in Elite.

If they are dropping it, then they can't say they won't. Staying in this unknown state for 6+ months is not a good idea. They just need to tell us now to settle it.

And if they are dropping it, it's the most brain dead, disconnected, stupid thing they could ever do to the game, as that fundamentally changes this to a completely different game, might as well go play SC at that point. Won't be much difference then. So, I don't think they will, they can't possibly be that stupid. .... right? Frontier.... RIGHT?

There's an opportunity for them here as well, NMS has VR, SC is working on it, so, they could be innovative and show everyone how to do VR properly with a Space Sim/FPS hybrid that Elite is now becoming, by doing it right, and getting the mechanics right for both Space and FPS, they could raise the bar for VR for everyone... . . . The sad thing is, I don't have enough faith in them to get that right.

I hope they raise the bar, not try to slink under it or walk away from the challenge. What say you Frontier?

Please don't steal my eyes just to give me legs!

heathenlamb · Jun 3, 2020

lol .... you are reading waaaaay to much into this. VR support will not be dropped. And playing FPS with a hotas will be absolutely no different then playing a FPS on N64 or Xbox or Playstation game pad .... Joysticks is how we all did it for a long time

lemon407 · Jun 3, 2020

Kaocraft said:
At the same time, vanilla Elite Dangerous supported VR at a time when nobody else was

Yes, it did, however, the effort needed to make ED a VR game, was extremely EXTREMELY low.
All VR for ED is, the headset controls the camera, thats really it. Thats not really a ground breaking VR achivment. The reaons everyone hails it is because games that put the play is a cockpit are the easiest to design for a VR experience because the player does not need to move. Its far more immersive because the blunk of the game takes place in a seat. And even though VR in pit is great, trying to play ED VR with out having a hotas that can bind the majority of your actions to, is still a pain in the rear, because trying tind find your keyboard with the headset on, while not impossible, is still rather clumsy.

VR in the first person, is still, a massive pain the to actually deal with, since as you said, Alyx despite its amazing game play is still an on rails experience and space legs for ED can NOT be that.

Golgot said:
"VR for first person shooters is very very gimmicky and is just not there with the technology to be viable."

yet is still is, thats nice you can link a picture of top selling VR games where of course the top selling games will be Fallout and skyrim because they were 1 arguably the best selling vr game period, because 2, those 2 games were some of the best selling games of all time in the last few years. That screen shot proves nothing. Go to steam top sellers, you will notice something alyx is the only one up there.

Lets look at Fallout 4 VR, peak player count: 3.9k
average 64