Argument against having pilot controlled weapons of big ships: - Too much DPS per Player will make the ship unbalanced and negate the need to have other players on the ship in the first place. Counterarguement: - Pilot controlled weapons can only fire where the pilot points the nose. Big ships can't steer quickly so pilots will always have an issue acquiring and hitting targets. - Turrets manned by crew can aim their guns better and more quickly than the pilot so large ships with multiple crew members will always be more effective than flying them alone. - 2 ships with 1 pilot each that can output 100k dps but only have a 1% hit rate are less effective than a single ship with 2 crew that has a 20% hit rate. There is literally no downside to letting the pilot control extra guns when they're short on crew. Opponents in small ships will be able to easily dodge the incoming fire and opponents with more crew will be able to more effectively apply damage. Therefore, solo pilots should be able to control at least SOME of the guns on every shiip.
The aspect you haven't acknowledged is that there are solo players that just want to be left the F alone but we haven't been given any tools to make that a reality. The tragedy is that the same tools that would allow the solo player to get himself out of a griefing situation can also be used by the griefer to keep from being held accountable for being a AH as well and there's the rub. I have many large multi-crew ships in my inventory but will only ever scratch the surface of their capabilities because I will only use a portion of what they have to offer. CIG said at one time that we were going to be able to hire an NPC crew to fill crew slots, I haven't seen any progress being made toward that end.
I've been here since very early 2013, and I do remember that from the very beginning, they said the game would cater to everyone, but there would be tradeoffs. No matter which play style you choose, there will be pros and cons. In some ways, playing with large orgs will be fun, and in other ways, no so much. In some ways, playing solo will be fun, but in other ways, not so much. There are things I remember them promising. 1. There will be areas that are much safe/safer but the rewards will be less lucrative. That's more than fair. If you want to avoid PvP, you can stay in those areas. The reason the unsafe areas have to be more lucrative is to make up for your losses. Also, sure there may be better resources to gain there, but if you aren't doing PvP, is that going to be critical to have? I don't think so. Also, there will be other mechanisms to cause random ganking to be less of a thing. Fixing ships won't be as cheap. Resupplying ammo and fuel won't be as cheap. So going after solo players simply won't be worth the time of a PvP oriented Org. 2. Solo in a large ship with NPC crew will not be as good as having player crew. 3. You can affiliate with many orgs to facilitate having more friends to play with, without being 100% committed to that Org. 4. Playing solo will be possible, but not the best way to experience everything. It's meant to be played with others. 5. I've never had a hard time making friends in a game. If you like to play with others, but don't want something rigid, join something like TEST Squadron. Or, you can search for a smaller, more casual org to play with. Once again, since you can affiliate with many orgs, it gives you the ability to play with several orgs to find one that fits you. Remove an org when you realize they aren't a great fit.
for all ya solo players, we making an org around having a planetary city, allowing people to do whatever they like and get a house in our [to come] city, we doing this so that soloplayers that are not interested in base building on itself can still have a little home while being close to refinery's and hangers and so on.
@4tonmike FIXIT, but right now we ain't nothing serious just wanted to share our idea atm we only got like 15 people with 3 actively playing sc atm :P but if base building is out! Feel free to visit our base!
@@AeyLaen great! I hope with org rework and how base building in the way of making buildings private and etc will hopefully support this idea of ours, i think many may appreciate it in the long run. So if you want to help you're always free to join us! We don't mind if you have a 2nd org
@Doryli_vr I don't have a PC that will run SC at the moment, but I absolutely love this org idea. Once I get one, and can start SC, I'd love to join your org.
They should not have too much power but... there is just not enough solo progression. Most progression in the game is about upgrading your ship and buying a bigger more capable ship, but what are you working towards as a solo player? A polaris? A redeemer? Most of what you work towards are multicrew ships...
I agree with you that solo players should be able to engage in all of the game loops and I think it's arrogant to believe that one human (even with the assistance of AI blades or NPCs) should be as productive as 3 humans. I fly a MSR solo (irregular playtimes that rarely last more than 30 minutes) and I'd love to have someone man the turrets but very few players are willing to just do a single cargo run before I have to log off. Because of that I'm looking forward to AI blades and NPCs. However, I am under no misconception that my ship will ever be as efficient or as productive as a MSR with three humans in it. Not everyone gets to be the main character and I wish that more people in our world understood that.
Why that makes no sense... not everyone has people to play with, thats why they are bringing ai blades and npc crews to hire.. everyone pledges and shouls have their opinions.. most people are gonna be solo
It should all be playable solo, but solo players definitely shouldn't have influence far enough beyond their scale to outperform multiple players in the same large vessels.
agreed. u shouldnt be as powerful as a solo but u should definitely be powerful enough. no reason to make someones experience worse because they dont wanna play with anyone else
multicrew combat ships should not be combat viable when played solo. end of story. Paladin having no pilot guns is 100% fine. Redeemer with no pilot guns also would have been fine. Valkyrie with no pilot guns would also be fine. The only multicrew combat-viable ships that should have pilot guns should be multirole ships intended to be operated adequately with a crew as small as 2 (Constellation series, Corsair Series, MSR, 400i, Cutlass, Freelancer, C1, Zeus). And even these should honestly have their pilot firepower shifted even more towards their copilots and gunners than what's currently seen in game. 400i and MSR are almost textbook perfect in terms of their pilot/gunner balance. With Zeus coming in very close behind.
@AJ-em2rb most players are gonna be solo sooo they don't get anything worth having then right? Sorry but also solo players are the majority of pledgers
Over 70% of backers are solo players, and that number will only increase with 1.0. Letting the loud minority choose how the majority will play is a great way to destroy your game.
I agree as a whole however as a primarily solo player I would like to see some larger/more capable/or more luxurious single or 2 crew ships as something to move up into beyond a starter or fighter
allowing a solo to have remote turrets track forward facing under pilot control isn't a big deal as that solo vs the same ship fully crewed will loose every single time due to the physical aspect of running a multi crew ship when engineering is in, having ships designed with it simply possible to solo crew beyond just the minimum wouldnt hurt those with more time/social skills ect as they would have faster repairs more flexibility from the ships weapons loading and unloading times support craft ect
@@AJ-em2rb 890 is a very valid option for a solo, I suppose my disclaimer is that such ships do exist just not every solo will want the same solo ship and being few as far as ships that are larger without major disadvantages towards being without crew i would like to see just a few “large (or powerful) specialized ships that can be more than entry level for that specific task for example something between vulture and reclaimer. The upcoming mirai guardian is a very nice example of something with that potential
@@AJ-em2rb I don’t mean for it at all to be possible for a solo to control a capital ship no no no just as opposed to adding more medium salvage mining cargo and exploration etc ships just allowing low level blades to get it done slowly or less efficient or effectively or perhaps costly and in a few instances where engineering play on wouldn’t be possible solo adding a another ship that could but would still present a reason to have real crew instead of ai blades
Why shouldn’t solo have more power. You’re restricting game play. Solo play should be able to get there money back. If you want group play only, the truth is that a small niche play . Facts show this to be true.
Why? Because you are playing as a single character in a ship, not as the ship itself. In the single player game Squadron 42, you will be restricted to what a single player can do. Same thing in the MMO PU. If you want to control everything in a ship, pick a ship designed for a crew of one. If you want to play as a ship, there are plenty of other games that are designed that way. Star Citizen is a special project, and in support of that I have purchased some multicrew ships. But I am under no illusions of being able to efficiently crew them by myself, though I should be able to move them from point A to point B solo. If you desire solo play only, then Squadron 42 is made for you. If you want to play solo in the MMO universe then you can do that with the understanding that you will still only be able to do what a single person can do. If you decide to keep your multicrew ships, you do so with the understanding that you will need to crew those ships to have maximum efficiency. You could decide to melt them and transform them into smaller ships that more fit your solo play style. But these are the choices you have to make for yourself. You don't get to make them for everyone else.
Is it decided that solo player NPC/AI crewed ships going to outcompete player crewed ships though? That's quite an assumption. After what we can assume is additional years of alpha bugtesting, balancing, and reworks, there will be plenty more years to voice concerns and provide feedback on how CIG implements it all.
My only issue when it comes to a specific ship is the Scorpius. I personally think that you should be able to man all 8 guns without the need for a second player. It’s a fragile ship that can easily be disarmed but has a lot of fire power which I think makes it balanced when between two skilled pilots. Ik they’re promising AI blades will do that later on but I think it’s obnoxious that the ship is basically half usable right now when they could make it so you could simply slew the weapons together similar to the two seater F7M
But, But, Stupid By Design is a CIG staple! you can't possibly ask for them to give you the same ability that other remote turrets have! Next thing you'll be asking for the Antares back seat to be removed and that button press to go to the pilot, completely over-saturating their tiny 8-bit brain with choice and ability!
Group play on a erratic schedule like some people have myself included just isn't possible I resigned myself to the fact that I will never own or operate anything that's not solo friendly. I hope they don't dilute the system in order to entice people into purchasing the bigger ships They've set a standard I am absolutely fine with it just stay with it
i'd say it's worth owning one and joining a small (but not tiny) organization or two. i'm in two sister-orgs with about 70 members between. only 20 of us play semi-regularly and only a little over a half dozen are active in the Discords. the most i've seen in game at once was around 18 after this IAE and we were running 2 Polaris with 3 small fighters. it was epic. most of us spend the bulk of our playtime solo, with those of us who have multicrew ships posting in Discord when playing. we rarely get group ops going more than once a month and outside of IAE/ILW it's never more than 6 people, usually just 3 and i miss most raids. even still i find keeping my Cat and Corsair are worth it. all my other ships are 1-2 crew and advertised as perfectly soloable in the long run. i want to point out that the vast majority of ships are under 3-crew and intended to be fine to operate solo with the only penalty being reduced capability. and the overwhelming majority of those are under $200. CIG will not forsake solo players, but they do want to offer engaging play for people wanting to live out their Star Trek fantasy. But where CIG needs to be careful is to not enable any Handsome Jack's (one player with a crew of bots) to be able to take on and beat the crew of the Enterprise (a team consisting of all players). it should never fall into a Handsome Jack Player's favor regardless of skill or NPC price because at that point what even is the point of teaming up?
Agreed this video arguments are just not based in reality of the actual game but rather the the idea of what the game is in his head. The game needs to be accessible by all.
Ship balancing is horrible. Multi crew is always worse then each player haveing there own ship . Combat 3 pilots always give u more dps and normally speed and speed wins fights . In mining it’s better to have 3 prospectors then 1 mole . If you put prospectors bag on all 3 moles you get more cargo and the pilot gets to mine without getting up . Salvage is the only gameplay iv done where having 1-2 friends is better with the reclaimer .
Concern is whether there will ever be enough players and online to fill all these roles - be fine if we all lived on the game but most players will be casual
And a huge piece… no fast travel. You are 100% stuck where you are. Multiplayer only makes sense for very short engagements. Who is going to be an engineer on my carrack for a month while I log on once a week.
I mean clearly you are, even if you're only there to shoot at other players. Otherwise you wouldn't have gone for the fundamentally multiplayer game. That said, the important thing is still that solo players have options, that they can play in ways they enjoy, but that they don't have an outsized influence that eclipses whole groups of players. The game will absolutely die if they do.
Ok so play the solo stuff, if you think the game should make you do everything because "you don't like others" then go play a single player game not an MMO
@@luistigerfox Just because the game is an MMO doesn't suddenly mean that a person playing that game is fundamentally interested in playing with others. I have 0 interest in playing with randos, i have 0 interest in making friends, i have 0 interest in joining big orgs, i have 0 interest in pvping, i am here to play a cool space life simulator, i have 0 interest in you or anyone else for that matter, and would prefer if you all didn't exist in the game, honestly, but unfortunately this is being designed as an MMO and not a singleplayer game i can invite my friends to play in a multiplayer session if i want to
there is a clue in the name , multi crew ship use different horses for different courses ie rock crawling 4x4 is not going to be competative in nascar etc and vis versa
Well i mean. not everyone has someone to play with. I think the focus on multicrew is important. but i also think that there should be more solo supporting ships.(also the big turret on the paladin should have the option to be pilot controllable... or any unmanned turret for that matter)
Money is power. That is just a reality. If CIG wants to deny themselves revenue from people with disposable money then pigeon hole solo players. Orgs are great if you have the time but person for person solo players spend more money on the game and for that revenue those players should have full access to the game. Those are the cold hard facts and why CIG allows individuals to buy whatever ships they want.
If you think about it fucking over ppl who already paid for something isn't beneath them, they already fucked over corsair owners so likely a matter of time until bullshit creep start coming for any ship with more solo fire-power than a starter
CIG has already stated that there WILL be NPC engineers that will help man stations in a ship. Im pretty sure they said that youd have ti pay them like real people AND that they wouldnt be as good as real people. I dont take that to mean sub-par, rather just intentionally predictable - like AI. I am a solo player myself. 80% of ALL MMOs are solo players. But that doesnt mean CIG should cater to solo players. I WANT the Paladin, but I dont biy it because as much as I'd love to have a dropship, I dont have a group.
SC is mainly a solo game, period. How many players do you see standing around doing nothing? How many players do you usually see on a ship? You can project all you want about what you think CIG is doing but its not actually trying to get humans to play with other humans in regards to large ships. This wont happen until they stop selling ships and that wont ever happen. See, SC has a people problem, not a ship problem. EVERYONE in SC has a ship, and most people that PAID their hard earned cash for that ship want to fly that ship, not spend time on someone else's ship running around putting out fires or staring at an engineering terminal. This is exactly why CIG is pushing for NPC crew and AI blades. And they know this. If CIG truly wanted multi human crewed ships then CIG would sell game packages w/o a ship.
I think that's coming in 1.0. Game packages without ships. I'd go as far as to say that that particular game package will be free. A free-to-play player will start with about 5,000 Euc and a basic set of clothes. They will be relegated to local "in-city" missions like local couriers or janitors. Picking up trash. Soon enough, they can rent a vehicle and do some missions around the city or at a closer outpost. After that, they can afford to buy their first ship and expand their horizons. Or they can sign on to another player's ship and skip all the local stuff. Alternatively, they can visit the pledge/ship store and fork out some real money for a permanent ship, as all the backers did during its alpha phase.
Is it not common knowledge that the *pledge* store is closing once the game fully releases? I was under the impression that was the case, since it's a *pledge* store, not a ship shop. You're giving them money as a pledge, you're not purchasing a ship, you're pledging a certain amount of money to the development of the game and in return are being given donation incentives in that game based on certain criteria for your donation. Once the game goes live in 1.0 you will no longer be able to just pay real money to own whatever ship you want, was my understanding. You'd be able to purchase the game package with a starter ship and that's it.
@@ThndrMge It's not common knowledge. In fact, I couldn't find any definitive proof that they are stopping ship sales at 1.0. Could you provide a source for that claim? I only saw some unfounded comments from backers on Reddit. I tried looking for something official. Also, they need to keep the income coming in. A retail $60-$70 price tag would bankrupt them, and they can't do a subscription model or alienate the original backers. Imagine telling someone who spent $500 on pixel ships in 2017 that they can't play unless they pay a monthly subscription. From my perspective, the cake has already been baked. Get the game in as many hands as possible via a free-to-play model, make the grind long enough to coax people to invest in a ship, and close the sale, which will be much higher than $60-$70. I predict that after 1.0, the average spend per user will be about $150 with a ship and vehicle store. Couple those sales with the Squadron 42 sales and the possible licensing money from leasing out StarEngine, and they will be in pretty good financial shape. And it's an economic model similar to every MMO in the market now. Every MMO has a store where you can make microtransactions to accelerate your progress. This would be no different. "Play for free" is the best way to go. It will also counter the scam. "You must spend $1000 to play the game," claims. Conversely, people will say that a ship store equates to pay-to-win. But they can lessen that brunt by making a plausible economy where things are reasonably attainable in the game. It should take less than 1 year of grinding to get a Connie. A Connie should take 3-4 weeks of regular play or something along those lines.
An analogy would be: You start an MMO. You can play to lvl 10 in the first zone. Outside this first zone, you have open world PvPvE, but all monsters are scaled to to a balanced 4 person party. I doubt you'd have a lot of player retention. Maybe some PvPers would stay, and ignore the PvE part. But the vast playerbase that wants to experience the game past the starting zone would leave for something that gives them what they want.
You mean like back in the day when MMOS were actually about playing together with other people rather than being single player games that have other people walking around? Sounds like a good idea to me.
Just allow public transport for your character while offline. Make it have time constraints and cost uec or something. This service should have additional restrictions on where you can transport yourself to. Biggest issue with working with others is just spending the time to meet up in LIVE.
Trying to do group play in this game is harder than trying to have a consistent DND campaign. Everyone's schedules are different. The randoms i played with during the SSP3 mission I haven't seen again. We all have our own way to play, our own loops. Even in chat when you ask someone to join your reclaimer to do some salvaging a lot of people say no they are dining their own thing. That's why I think CIG should make a single seater maybe a two seater ship that's an upgrade of the vulture and prospector. The Mole is doable solo just kind of a hassle and the reclaimer is unbearable.
This, it is great fun to play with my org mate, but it's like paddling upstream, very tedious and time consuming, by the time we get going someone has to go
I understand your concern, but every weaponized ship should have pilot controlled guns. My favorite ship is the Retaliator and I cannot effectively play it unless I have atleast 2 other friends to crew turrets.
Multiplayer only works in short term scenarios. How many people are going to lock themselves to other people’s ships as their complete gameplay for weeks? It’s not like WoW or something where you can move freely and join up for things. In SC you are literally stuck where you are. You can’t do anything else.
Its also combined with the argument that big(implied good) ships being expensive in dollars is fine because "you can trade work time for game advance" "i don't have time to play 24/7" when they conceptually work only with hardcore players. Look the meta just isn't thought through, it can't both be and not be eve and rust and elite. The ships can't both be concrete in game assets and forever owned, it just can't work in practice for emerging simulation gameplay where a stowaway can shoot you in the head in the pilots seat - and while impromptu among us traitor hunting might seem like a fun emerging gameplay idea, it really isn't if you paid 1000 bucks to do military missions and needed some crew.
A lot…. 😂😂 if you’ve supported the development for more than 2 years you would know that it gets to a point where all you want to do is just be a crewman… Also, you can still get money, rep, upgrades by being a crewman.
@@lassikinnunen Based on what I’m seeing- it’s trending towards a massive world multiplayer with arcade style action. They’ll add economy and trading of some sort and crafting- all the MMO essentials. Ultimately I highly doubt there will be deep long term engaged gameplay. We’ll see.
@@Jeremy_Walker they've promised or half implemented all that. Also a lot more like base building and eve style org wars and all and rust style and people making plans for their deep space hideouts for their mining rigs that work in an economy but somehow are safe from attack and have value despite everyone doing them and...
Your logic with the Zeus example is flawed. Even if the pilot has access to engineering, I have to take time away from my fight to change things. The definition of MFD is multi. Function. Display. Meaning you can reconfigure for whatever you need. CIG just needs to design ships with some realism. They took the forward turret from the Corsair from the pilot. But seriously, what ship designer is going to think it's not a good idea to give the turret to the pilot when it's empty. If the side guns on the paladin are slaved to the pilot when empty they can only shoot then forward. Having a crew adds a dimension you wouldn't have solo. So I partially agree with you. But saying I can't pull up engineering just because in a perfect world that would be another player is just neutering gameplay.
Nope. CIG needs to (A) make ships and gameplay function sensibly and realistically, with or without other people/players, be that through AI "blades" or NPC crew, then (B) ensure playing together is FUN and those that can and want to will with exactly ZERO need to "play-wall" functionality or content from solo players..... There are already multiple examples of CIG trying to FORCE stupid and unnecessary "multicrew" into the game ("manned" turrets in general, ROC-DS, Scrotius Antares, Ballista/Centurian, Terrapin, Corsair, Intrepid, etc) that backers have already deemed NPC/blade only jobs because we know full well no human player will do it... Manning a wimpy turret with less power that most starter ships, or sitting in some other random "backseat" pressing a couple buttons every few minutes is not fun or engaging. That's why they must have reasonably competant AI/NPC alternatives otherwise it Just Won't Happen at all. Those ships will sit unused and pointless, game loops will be ignored, and large swaths of content avoided entirely. Star Citizen's AI and NPCs will be able to functionally replace human players in basically any circumstance because if they cannot, the game will either be derpy, lifeless, and boring OR it will become a giant org only, join us or die gank-fest.
Co-op is good in theory, it almost never works out for many of the reasons you stated. Find me someone who wants to push a button on an engineering terminal and do nothing else for a multi hour play session. In real life that is what low level soldiers do on air craft carriers and stuff. In a game environment that is not fun. There is no problem with the original gun control of the Corsair. Just make it so that small ships like corsair or connie or paladin, or starlancer cannot take down a polaris or idris without a couple dozen of them attacking it. But on the same side, a polaris or idris should not fly like a heavy fighter like they both do now. Capital ships should fly like the battlestar galactica. Super slow, only able to maneuver for a few shots on another super slow capital ship at long distances. They should require fighter cover to take out smaller ships. Corsair and Connie should be able to take on capital ships, but capital ships should quite easily land shots from the turrets on those types of ships. But those ships should be able to take down those turrets by targeting them. Leave the hull damage to the capital ship sized weapons.
Respectfully disagree, this game is already slow enough without having to rely on others to complete basic parts of the game. I understand that group play will be heavily recommended for some tougher missions or massive industrial aspects etc. But I simply can't spend the extra hours it takes organizing players to complete mundane tasks, I'm not a streamer and don't have 8 hours to game everyday.
I often have to drop my play session unexpectedly... So it's difficult to coordinate group play, and if my bed log doesn't work properly I just lose my ship... I'd love to have a Polaris with a bunch of org mates who primarily live on board, and we could all log off and on on the ship whenever.
as a fellow mostly solo player, I totally agree. your effectiveness soloing a ship designed for multiplayer should be around the same ballpark as your effectiveness with the ship that represents the tier zero level for that profession, so for example you should be able to still use the reclaimer in solo, so you don't get penalised if you bought a more expensive ship to keep your multiplayer options open, but you shouldn't be making too much more money than what you would make if you were on a vulture. And if you don't like the clunkyness, you can use NPCs, which will make life easier at the cost of cutting into your profits.
Star Citizen needs to recognize the importance of the basics. Party markers are inconsistent or non existent? Really? Crews can't bedlog in a capital ship? So yeah... CIG has some work to do.
i'm with you. designing the Paladin with no pilot guns was a bold, but good move. backpedaling and giving the pilot control over two other stations was stupid and weak of CIG. now we'll just have another tankish ship with significant singleplayer firepower like the early days of the Redeemer. Gunships should follow the Valkyrie model: very weak pilot guns, with significant crew guns.
I'm a solo player and a Constellation owner, and I totally agree with you. It seems they are going for a Sea of Thieves vibe. It may be possible to solo a large ship, but it is more challenging, and repealing an opposing team from boarding you, the solo pirate, is next to impossible. There are definitive risks associated with taking out a large ship solo in the Sea of Thieves. CIG is going in that direction but isn't there yet. I couldn't imagine leaving the pilot's chair to replace a shield generator or blown fuses at the back of the ship. And I'm also guessing that AI blades won't be nearly as good as a human crew. If they are better than a human crew, multiplayer is dead in Star Citizen.
I'd like to respectfully disagree with you, in part. Right now, Star Citizen only markets new ships to solo players - I can't effectively share a ship with an organization; let alone purchase it as a group - so the customer of Star Citizen is the solo player. I think that Star Citizen needs to make larger ships at a minimum usable for Solo players (even if they continue to be better for multi-crew) or stop selling multi-crew focused ships to individuals in the first place as the action of selling and marketing a Polaris to me individually (as opposed to my organization if I had one) is setting the "unrealistic expectations" as you put it. When I purchased my current fleet, I was told this was something I can solo pilot and to me, to turn around and tell me now I can't use my ship is little more then false advertising... I don't think that's an unrealistic expectation, to me, it's delivering on the promise they made when they marketed the ship to me in the first place. I agree that Star Citizen should be more focused on finding groups to play with if it where like any other MMO, which launches on day 1 as a complete game, Star Citizen is different though because they've spent all these years happily taking my money, building up the solo player and it feels like betrayal to say "actually, that's not the direction we want to go" On another note, I love the videos, keep up the good work, and I hope your procedures go well!
Thank you for this point of view! I would have to agree that the way ships have been marketed over the past 12 years has been way too separated from how CIG wants the game to play. Overall the marketing of this project has been all over the place, especially in regard to solo and multi crew ships. Thank you for the comment and first procedure went well! 1 more to go!
Group play is very fun but coordinating it is very exhausting.. I enjoy it when it comes together. However, solo play is much easier to log on, game consistently, and make progress in a fun session. AKA the normal after work evening.
Imagine any MMO that focuses on group play. Only raids in world of warcraft. Solo play makes 70-90% of every MMO game. Trying to focus on Groups is a guarantee for failure. Sure there are people that prefer it, but they are a minority. So if you want to have 200k players instead of 10 millions then go for group gameplay and screw soli players.
Everyone who thinks Star Citizen shouldn't cater to solo will one day regret it. I think multicrew should be rewarding, but not a massive advantage against solo players. Neglecting the largest demographic that put the most time in any MMO never ends well, which is why most established MMO it today's era have started to cater to these players to keep business. The only way I can see harmony in this MMO is if they add Al crew and blades for weapons at the same time they add engineering, being forced to crew is not a good idea. This is also qood for multicrews for the same reason just because you have actual players on your ship now, doesnt mean everyone wants to be a support role fixing stupid $*** around the ship in a fight, a lot of people will want to either fly the ship or shoot from turrets or fighters. And if we do want solo players to open up to a crew it can't incontinence their time. Which means convenient grouping and not dipping into profits. The crew should be paid the same, and should not be split among all players.
I normally prefer to play solo too, but at the same time, im aware this game was conceived to be focused in multiplayer. But i know they are looking for our style of playing solo with kindness.
I think it's best just to see who's usually on when you are. Multicrew is an essential part of an MMO, even if a player is usually solo. There needs to be a push for players to find a play group.
And for the record, I'm normally solo, and my fleet reflects that. A lot of single pilot efficient ships, but a couple big multicrew ships for when groups are feasible.
I'm a longtime backer, and I own a few multi-crew ships, with the expectation that at one point, CGI would bring AI blade and NPC players(Only AI for 1.0 ), as they have mentioned on many occasions. I'm a solo player for a reason mentioned in your video and in some of the comments. As a solo player, I understand the restriction of soloing my multi-crew ship. CGI has sold many multi-crew ships and some orgs, own a crazy number of them that need crewing. It's not reasonable to expect people online and available at all times to crew all those ships. The solution was always NPCs and AI blades with the understanding that NPCs should be less capable than a couple of friends. CGI is an MMO true, but the reality is sometimes I want to be the cpt of my Polaris while my friend is cpt of his Polaris. We need NPCs
I play solo all the time, and I enjoy it as it is. In-game group and Org tools absolutely need to be added. As far as the people complaining. The lack of tools available to find a group is equivalent to the lack of tools to play effectively as a solo player. It's not big ships or if I can control "x" number of weapons or not. That's simple think. The issue is stealth and information. A solo player has to be patient and sneaky. Slip in, do their business, and then slip out. This works in both PvE and PvP. Now as far as trade goes. PDC's. Some of these haulers need PDC's to give the player a change to run when needed. Aside from that, it's gonna be tough. That's why I role "el solo".
7:17 AI crew really will help, I think. Real players will always be better than NPC crew, but having the NPCs or the AI blades will help to enable basic functionality for solo players while inviting them to bring on player crew mates.
good video, i think you cooked. Thing to note in addition is that generally no space game has multicrew incentives handled well, Elite dangerous i think is much the same. Solo players can gang up and share rewards in party if they choose to, however this is very much still solo play at the end of the day. Meanwhile, multicrew has a lot of trouble getting traction due to a lack of incentive, payments fundamentally work differently in multicrew. imo its all about the incentive and as the systems come on line and the economy fleshes out this will solve itself so long as we dont have the elite dangerous scenario where multicrew just cant make enough money to justify itself over multiple solo ships. as it stands now all party content pays like multicrew in elite dangerous where you're splitting a total payout, adjustment to this system is the primary fix i think that will get people engaging with multiplayer in star cit. If its fundamentally more lucrative to be solo at all times, why ever party up and what not.
There are solo ship for solo players. They are then efficient. There are multicrew ships for groups of players, they are then efficient. If a solo guy wants to fly a multi crew ship, it is possible but it will not be efficient. That's simple. Not every ships for any size of group. That's not a problem. the game will still be fun.
I agree that multi crew ships should hold more power than solo ships, it just makes sense. More guns in the fight, more dps. All my pledges are ships that can be solo or multi crew. Hurricane, mole, vulture, MSR. I’m less efficient if I play alone, and that’s ok with me but if I wanna play with others I’m happy to be able to that. That being said, a solo player should be able to compete with crew ships. An arrow shouldnt lose to a hurricane just because it’s multi crew and I think they do a pretty good job of that right now. Now should an arrow take on a hammerhead? I mean I guess it can but there are times where it’s like yeah, pick your battles, the arrow should flee. You don’t fight a destroyer in a sailboat.
While you may more fire power, you're still taking damage. Systems go offline, fires start, etc. The puppet ship has more hands and at a drop of firepower they can have someone that can deal with the damage. As a solo player you cannot. It is a bigger risk to fight, it will be all or nothing. IMO solo players in combat vs a crewed ship of the same type will be at a disadvantage.
I am a solo player and am only here for solo play because my life schedule simply does not make group play workable. My expectation is based on the statements made in 2013 when i signed up that NPC's would eventually be available. This will be the only way that SC will be ultimately be successful.
"Designed with a specific crew size and functionality" until CIG takes a "balance" bat to a ship that only has one area where it shines, being deficient in just about every other area. Yes, talking about my beloved Corsair specifically, but the Redeemer and many other ships have felt the same pain. The truth is that it doesn't seem as though CIG "Designs with specifics in mind" when releasing new ships, rather they're rushing things to the store to meet sales goals. While I agree that solo players in multi ships should be less efficient, things like giving fixed guns to a crewman rather than the pilot make 0 sense. How about working on things like... Fixing elevators so they aren't a mini-boss you have to fight several times before you can even start to play the game BEFORE forcing artificial multi crew?
Right now playing in a group can be very tedious. More players more bugs to find work around. When/ if they get the game running better group play will be a lot more fun.
I just want my Engineering Manual for Modders that sitting in my hanger that I paid for to be honored so I can do my own thing and not hinder the verse by my crippling desire to play solo.
I think a lot of multi crew proponents have unrealistic expectations. Expecting a crewed ship to be able to solo the entire game is just as unrealistic as expecting to solo the whole game as a single player. The endgame experience in Star Citizen is about fleets of complementary ship types working together towards specific goals. Simply occupying seats in a big ship doesn't and shouldn't automatically be effective. Training, discipline and experience are the determining factors for success. There is already value in properly crewing ships (salvaging in Reclaimers, mining in a Moles or doing security in a Hammerhead). Hard limiting certain ship types or gating content is not the answer. Skill and co operation are where it's at.
I play solo and the largest ship I own is a reclaimer. Easy to solo if I'm just out salvaging and not using it for combat. I just put all power to shields and hope for the best 😊😂
There isn’t even enough in Star Citizen to even keep solo players entertained. They have a long ways to go before multi-crews or teams are even close to being useful. The game mechanics aren’t there yet. Reclaimer is a great example of being completely powerless if your the only pilot. Even with players, it’s a slow death using turrets. If things worked inside ships, maybe I could say different, using the Reclaimer is the best example, galley, lockers, no internal storage in quarters, no armory, suit lockers, so much space wasted, nothing works. All players should have options, solo or group.
I agree, I don’t think the debate should ever be about if one playstyle is superior to the other. Rather discussing the different gameplay we can give to each play style that is meaningful and enjoyable regardless of what you decide to do. Right now there just isn’t enough gameplay regardless of how you like to play. And hopefully this next year they make significant jumps when it comes to gameplay depth.
Bold Idea: all turrets (except PDCs which should auto target and be highly lethal at close range) should slave to the pilot and big ships should allow 3rd person view and fire control (or an immersive cockpit system allowing it), fixed forward weapons should always be pilot controlled. Gunners, if available, should be able to slave multiple turrets to their control. These ships are supposed to be "advanced" and yet the best "multi-crew" experience CIG can offer is: #1 Button Peon. #2 tractor beam/fuse puller Peon ("Engineering") #3 disorienting, bad field of view, poor firepower turret Peon. If the only thing any player has to strive for is -> get a single seat ship with slightly bigger guns or be forced to find a group this game is DOA. If this game was really "designed" with multicrew in mind an individual player should feel just as respected and capable in a co-pilot or gunner's seat than in the seat of a single ship, and Star citizen is far, far away from this goal. The biggest issue with "big ships" in this game is they infantilize *everyone* on the crew. A player goes from a single seat ship making every decision from positioning, to power priority, to target selection down to just one, often tediously basic task: you just fly, and you fly ssslllooowwllyy, You just push this button when told, occasionally. You just launch missiles or fracture ships occasionally, when the pilot points the nose just right. you just shoot this gun, which is smaller than your heavy fighter and only in this tiny limited cone of view to really amp up the nausea and disorientation, you only stack boxes, and once you've figured out the best way to fill a ship, you only stack boxes "the way" any other stacking game offers more engagement. The game sells people on being a "Star Citizen" Bold, independent, in command. But Multi-crew is more about being a Star Serf, limited, tightly controlled, utterly worthless outside a very small stifling box. Star citizen is dangerously close to offering a worse version of fun things other games do: Why command a big ship in star citizen when multiple other games give a single player full control of battleships and carriers? Why be a crappy gimped bridge peon when there are literal "be a bridge crewman" games that give each role a vast, engaging, and critical set of tasks, all without the tedium of fuses and spray beams. Why be a gunner on a Star citizen ship when dozens of games offer "gunner" gameplay that's more exciting, rewarding, and less limited. Multi-crew in star citizen is a regression from the modern standard in virtually every single way. It even flip-flops on it's own standards: why can the arrow's remote turret be pilot slaved but the Scorpius's can't? why can the pilot control the mantis's snare/qed, or a hawk's emp but the antares's pilot can't control theirs? Why are the corsair's guns not all pilot controlled when we know it was designed that way? why do I need the copilot to operate the reclaimer's magic dust gun when the vulture's works with the pilot? why can't the AI already T0 player ship's guns when NPC gunners work fine on captured NPC ships?
I hope they make group play not feel like herding cats. I WANT to play with a group, but it feels like im herding cats every time I try to get a group together.
I agree. I really hope they expedite some of those social features shown at cit con. I would love to multi crew with more people but it’s definitely a very difficult task right now.
on the paladin subject, sure, you get as much as a constellation when solo... but can you shoot angles to the side as a pilot? of course not, the advantage of having gunners is there.
I bet more space dads would play multicrew if it wasnt a minimum 2 hour time sink. If CIG adds better spawn in with friends/org mates/or matchmaking then multicrew wouldnt be such a barrier for most people, particularly the average busy person, who is not a content creator.
I highly disagree with you and think you fundamentally misunderstand how ballance should be acheived, what systems already exist to ensure ballance promotes multicrew gameplay, and what features soon to come online already highly incentivise multicrew play. Solo play should be given all the tools possible, and artificial restrictions on solo capabilities is NOT an effective or fun way to ballance solo vs multicrew effectivness. Your zero-sum mentality of "if solo players are powerful it takes away from multicrew players being powerful" comes off as poorly considered and, frankly, just selfish and mean. As someone who rarely plays solo anyway, i dont even have a true dog in the solo-play race. I just totally disagree that people who prefer solo play should be "gamified" into artificial restrictions on play to benefit us multicrew players, or lock off entire parts of the game from them. Your Zeus example is also just not accurate. Even with MFD accessible engineering monitors, you do not have the ability to effect repairs, move components and fuses, nor modify hardware. Tney have also confirmed that AI blades and NPC crew will under perform compared to skilled players, meaning that even access to these systems do not fully bridge the gap and eclipse multicrew capabilities. You have not engaged with your example in good faith, or at least your engagment failed to consider CIG stated goals and intentions and planned features. All that, and i havent even mentioned PvP, endgame content and raids, Capital and fleet engagment, difficulty varriances, and orgs. There are so many aspects you havent addressed (to my satisfaction at least) in this video. I appreciate your perspective, and hope this engagment helps your video to suceed so the conversation can continue. I dont think this is where your opinion will end up, but if i am wrong, i look forward to hearing your counter arguments.
@@ParagonFangXen hello! Thank you for your comment and your perspective. First off I do want to mention that the most of what I am talking about here is referring to 1.0, and how that version of the game will act. I don’t believe any solo player should lose any tools or abilities simply because they play solo. In this video what I really am trying to do is emphasize that all players should have a chance regardless of play style. Multi crew should have its pros and cons, and solo should as well. I think it really comes down to the game SC is trying to be. I am not a game dev by any means, and I have no idea how difficult it might be to balance these two different play styles. But I’m advocating for a healthy balance between the two play styles whilst they each offer a certain value to the player. This means no matter who you decided to play with when you hop on, you can still have a fun experience regardless of if you play with people or not. Also the Zeus examples is flawed. I know that the actual “buffs” given to the solo player in that example are flawed and inconsistent. But the example was more about offering the perspective of seeing a solo player with a bit more power than they normally would in game. I think I could speak on for a while as to what I mean with all of this video (and honestly I have been very busy and stressed, so if this video isn’t the easiest to understand that is my fault entirely) but I am just another citizen with an opinion! Thank you for your comment!
the issue of solo + NPC is that why do ppl multicrew ship at all when they can just use NPC? 8 polarises + NPC is way too stronger then one multicrew polaris. And why use single seat ships then if every1 can use capital ship solo? solo players should use solo ships or soloing bigger ships with limitation that goes with it.
There are a ton of players who wanna play solo. And with incoming "ai blades" and hiring npc, these massive group gets, what they need to enjoy. that is why many got carrack or polaris, because of "ai blades" or npc crew. Polaris, so CIG said, will be the biggest ship, you can "solo" play with "ai blades" and Npc crew. Not operating at 100%, but enjoyable. NPC will have skills like Gunner, medic and mechanic and they will be able to become better in what they doing. SC was never panned as multicrew only. Since 2013 i follow SC and sure, from time to time it is nice to play with others, but i am still with SC because of the part, where i can crew and automate ships. If i can automate 2, maybe 3 turrets of carrack and have a npc medic and a mechanic with me, i am fine. or a npc pilot. Do not get me wrong, i do not want that people can operate Polaris, idris or javelin all alone with npc to 100%. That is where i like the point, where CIG said that players could be limited to hire max 4-5 npcs.
Just as a single seater ship CAN'T be crewed by a large crew, so should multicrew ships not be fully functional by a solo crew. You choose your gameplay when you buy the ship, that was your choice. There is plenty of solo gameplay without using multi-crew ships, FORCED to be solo playable should not be a thing. Squadron 42 is a single player game. Star citizen is a multiplayer game.
Solo is already way too time consuming, group play is like wasting 4 hours in real life just to go have a meal together…. Some people enjoy that, but some of us DO NOT.
Solo players are pretty much 90% of any MMO's player base ... as most "grind" aspects in MMO's are typically done solo, reserving bigger stuff for the groups. Imho, solo players should have most of the power available to them, and multicrew should be the cherry on top. Make every ship correctly soloable, but make it way more efficient when multi crewed. And I'm sorry, but if my role on a ship was to run around, put out fires, change fuses, click panel buttons ... I'm just not going to have any fun at all.
I personally enjoy group play, but there needs to be more incentive to group up. Most turrets are under powered compared to starters. To be honest, there so called push for Multi-Gameplay. Was to unjustly Nerf the Corsair.
They said they where gonna add npc Ai control crew, that is what the need to do. That way people can solo there big ships but they will never be has good has real people and you have to choose what to trade. Also they fact if it is you and your friend or maybe two other friends even 4 friends. Polaris put an AI in the engineering and then two friends in each gun and you in the driver seat and maybe another AI in one of the guns and that would make everything better. They are suppose to implent that. So implement that and most people will be happy. So Having instead of cutting the power of the ship you spent real money on because you have no friends or no one is online. Give you the option to still have the full power of your ship but without the same level of skill that a real player would do, not to mention the cost of the crew you would pay but still it is giving you an option to use your ships, that you spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars without having to relay on other people cause that sucks. Having an Idris and you cant use it cause no one want to get on or dont want to get in you Idris ?
The vast majority of players will play alone, multi-crew is something occasional, because each person has their life and you can't always coincide. You can't chain the game to a multi-crew game
They already nuetered the Corsair (bad enough that I meted mine), let's see what other atrocities they subject us to in the name of multi-crew play. I prefer solo. No having the wait for an org mate to log in or having them leave early. With my life, I cannot maintain a predictable schedule. So I play when I have a chance. Solo all the way.
The biggest issue I have with engineering is having someone having to run around my ship while the pilot is performing evasive maneuvers. The engineer is constantly being thrown to the floor to chase fuses that need to be physically moved. As a technician for forty years, I can often reroute Features remotely. Even with recording software, you have this ability, with today's tech. Also the pilot should have access to all remote features from his chair, including remote turrets. I also believe that the pilot should have the ability to transfer all pilot functions to the co-pilot seat of his choice. The tedium is strong with this one...
The vast majority of backers don’t want forced multicrew and so the game shouldn’t force multicrew. It’s that simple. Design a game for 5% of the player base and you’ll end up with 5% of the current player base active in game playing. When designing multicrew they need to take the approach where multicrew is more fun, not the approach where not multicrewing is a torturous experience (unfortunately the current projected direction). I personally think engineering will make this game unbearable for the vast majority of players on release and its effects will have to be greatly nerfed for this game to thrive. Gimping the solo experience to give multicrew the perception of being good will do nothing except piss off solo players. It won’t encourage them to multicrew, it will convince them to find a game that doesn’t actively hinder the experiences they want to have. When playing planetside 2 (even solo) finding gunners for my ship / land vehicle was easy, just park up and people would flock to me. This isn’t unique to Planetside but every game I can think of that allows for multiple people in vehicles. Everyone wants a lift, everyone wants to be a gunner because that experience is fun. Star citizen doesn’t have that feel, and I’m not even sure why but that’s what the developers need to address and gimping the solo experience isn’t the correct method. That’s just making the game worse, and operator modes with a top speed of 200, along with forced multicrew will cause this game to fail if the approach doesn’t change. The aim of immersion in a video game is to simulate the enjoyable moments of real life, not the boring ones. In many ways CIG doesn’t seem to realise this and believes simulating boring experiences is as valid as simulating entertaining experiences, it isn’t. I don’t need the travel time of my ship from one station to another to be an hour for “immersion”, that’s the type of immersion I can do without. Same way I don’t want to wait 30 minutes for my taxi in GTA on a Saturday night. Or not be able to play the game for 3 months because my character is doing a bid.
tbh. its better. that we have option for making public group that anybody can join and leave at anytime. si Comm tabs they should make like Create group for lets say. Bunker looting, ERT, Salvaging etc etc so people can voluntary join this public group. after the group filled necessary for the task or mission. then they can lock the group. so any intruder cant do any crap to the group. I just dont like must active in Global chat. that tell people to join my ship. I prefer passive model. let me create the group. set the task, set the reward joining my group, and can set mic audio, etc etc
Solo players are the financial backbone of all MMO's
Yep, this aint no EvE O, IT IS Star Citizen!
More like easy prey. :D
@@LocInt is it? Watch your back for an eclipse etc then if its so easy
If you can afford the torps. 😅
@@LocInt hmm kinda true ngl at least nowadays. Althoug solo mining or solo salvaging should give you the money for that
Argument against having pilot controlled weapons of big ships:
- Too much DPS per Player will make the ship unbalanced and negate the need to have other players on the ship in the first place.
Counterarguement:
- Pilot controlled weapons can only fire where the pilot points the nose. Big ships can't steer quickly so pilots will always have an issue acquiring and hitting targets.
- Turrets manned by crew can aim their guns better and more quickly than the pilot so large ships with multiple crew members will always be more effective than flying them alone.
- 2 ships with 1 pilot each that can output 100k dps but only have a 1% hit rate are less effective than a single ship with 2 crew that has a 20% hit rate.
There is literally no downside to letting the pilot control extra guns when they're short on crew. Opponents in small ships will be able to easily dodge the incoming fire and opponents with more crew will be able to more effectively apply damage. Therefore, solo pilots should be able to control at least SOME of the guns on every shiip.
The aspect you haven't acknowledged is that there are solo players that just want to be left the F alone but we haven't been given any tools to make that a reality. The tragedy is that the same tools that would allow the solo player to get himself out of a griefing situation can also be used by the griefer to keep from being held accountable for being a AH as well and there's the rub. I have many large multi-crew ships in my inventory but will only ever scratch the surface of their capabilities because I will only use a portion of what they have to offer. CIG said at one time that we were going to be able to hire an NPC crew to fill crew slots, I haven't seen any progress being made toward that end.
@@Leavon whats the point of paying for ships and ganging if you'd just be fighting even fights? Could have those just in any ship in the game.
Npc crews are not being added to after 1.0 but we will get AI blades for turrets.
I've been here since very early 2013, and I do remember that from the very beginning, they said the game would cater to everyone, but there would be tradeoffs. No matter which play style you choose, there will be pros and cons. In some ways, playing with large orgs will be fun, and in other ways, no so much. In some ways, playing solo will be fun, but in other ways, not so much.
There are things I remember them promising.
1. There will be areas that are much safe/safer but the rewards will be less lucrative. That's more than fair. If you want to avoid PvP, you can stay in those areas. The reason the unsafe areas have to be more lucrative is to make up for your losses. Also, sure there may be better resources to gain there, but if you aren't doing PvP, is that going to be critical to have? I don't think so. Also, there will be other mechanisms to cause random ganking to be less of a thing. Fixing ships won't be as cheap. Resupplying ammo and fuel won't be as cheap. So going after solo players simply won't be worth the time of a PvP oriented Org.
2. Solo in a large ship with NPC crew will not be as good as having player crew.
3. You can affiliate with many orgs to facilitate having more friends to play with, without being 100% committed to that Org.
4. Playing solo will be possible, but not the best way to experience everything. It's meant to be played with others.
5. I've never had a hard time making friends in a game.
If you like to play with others, but don't want something rigid, join something like TEST Squadron. Or, you can search for a smaller, more casual org to play with. Once again, since you can affiliate with many orgs, it gives you the ability to play with several orgs to find one that fits you. Remove an org when you realize they aren't a great fit.
Mussing the point you@@lassikinnunen
Go play starfield
for all ya solo players, we making an org around having a planetary city, allowing people to do whatever they like and get a house in our [to come] city, we doing this so that soloplayers that are not interested in base building on itself can still have a little home while being close to refinery's and hangers and so on.
That's cool but which org?
@4tonmike FIXIT, but right now we ain't nothing serious just wanted to share our idea atm we only got like 15 people with 3 actively playing sc atm :P but if base building is out! Feel free to visit our base!
@Doryli_vr If you guys are still around come the org rework and when new UI drops, I'd like to help implement that vision
@@AeyLaen great! I hope with org rework and how base building in the way of making buildings private and etc will hopefully support this idea of ours, i think many may appreciate it in the long run. So if you want to help you're always free to join us! We don't mind if you have a 2nd org
@Doryli_vr I don't have a PC that will run SC at the moment, but I absolutely love this org idea. Once I get one, and can start SC, I'd love to join your org.
Group play is too time consuming, solo all the way.
I agree, and its why they wanna ad AI crew. So those Solo players that wanna play with 3-4 man ships can do so
Thats cap, me and my 3 friends play all the time and its easy, also we met inside the game so the "i don't have friends" excuse won't work
Group play is how the game is meant to be played tbh. Joining an org and multicrew gameplay is like getting into a new game.
They should not have too much power but... there is just not enough solo progression. Most progression in the game is about upgrading your ship and buying a bigger more capable ship, but what are you working towards as a solo player? A polaris? A redeemer? Most of what you work towards are multicrew ships...
@@GrimGatsby that would alienate 80% of the playerbase. How many of the players and ships you come accross today are only crewed by like.. one guy?
I'm a solo player but I know what I can an can't fly
I agree with you that solo players should be able to engage in all of the game loops and I think it's arrogant to believe that one human (even with the assistance of AI blades or NPCs) should be as productive as 3 humans. I fly a MSR solo (irregular playtimes that rarely last more than 30 minutes) and I'd love to have someone man the turrets but very few players are willing to just do a single cargo run before I have to log off. Because of that I'm looking forward to AI blades and NPCs. However, I am under no misconception that my ship will ever be as efficient or as productive as a MSR with three humans in it. Not everyone gets to be the main character and I wish that more people in our world understood that.
Why that makes no sense... not everyone has people to play with, thats why they are bringing ai blades and npc crews to hire.. everyone pledges and shouls have their opinions.. most people are gonna be solo
It should all be playable solo, but solo players definitely shouldn't have influence far enough beyond their scale to outperform multiple players in the same large vessels.
agreed. u shouldnt be as powerful as a solo but u should definitely be powerful enough. no reason to make someones experience worse because they dont wanna play with anyone else
multicrew combat ships should not be combat viable when played solo. end of story. Paladin having no pilot guns is 100% fine. Redeemer with no pilot guns also would have been fine. Valkyrie with no pilot guns would also be fine. The only multicrew combat-viable ships that should have pilot guns should be multirole ships intended to be operated adequately with a crew as small as 2 (Constellation series, Corsair Series, MSR, 400i, Cutlass, Freelancer, C1, Zeus). And even these should honestly have their pilot firepower shifted even more towards their copilots and gunners than what's currently seen in game.
400i and MSR are almost textbook perfect in terms of their pilot/gunner balance. With Zeus coming in very close behind.
@AJ-em2rb most players are gonna be solo sooo they don't get anything worth having then right? Sorry but also solo players are the majority of pledgers
Over 70% of backers are solo players, and that number will only increase with 1.0. Letting the loud minority choose how the majority will play is a great way to destroy your game.
I agree as a whole however as a primarily solo player I would like to see some larger/more capable/or more luxurious single or 2 crew ships as something to move up into beyond a starter or fighter
allowing a solo to have remote turrets track forward facing under pilot control isn't a big deal as that solo vs the same ship fully crewed will loose every single time due to the physical aspect of running a multi crew ship when engineering is in, having ships designed with it simply possible to solo crew beyond just the minimum wouldnt hurt those with more time/social skills ect as they would have faster repairs more flexibility from the ships weapons loading and unloading times support craft ect
890J has a minimum crew requirement of 3. so it's only 1 player off...
@@AJ-em2rb 890 is a very valid option for a solo, I suppose my disclaimer is that such ships do exist just not every solo will want the same solo ship and being few as far as ships that are larger without major disadvantages towards being without crew i would like to see just a few “large (or powerful) specialized ships that can be more than entry level for that specific task for example something between vulture and reclaimer. The upcoming mirai guardian is a very nice example of something with that potential
@@AJ-em2rb I don’t mean for it at all to be possible for a solo to control a capital ship no no no just as opposed to adding more medium salvage mining cargo and exploration etc ships just allowing low level blades to get it done slowly or less efficient or effectively or perhaps costly and in a few instances where engineering play on wouldn’t be possible solo adding a another ship that could but would still present a reason to have real crew instead of ai blades
Why shouldn’t solo have more power. You’re restricting game play. Solo play should be able to get there money back. If you want group play only, the truth is that a small niche play . Facts show this to be true.
Why? Because you are playing as a single character in a ship, not as the ship itself. In the single player game Squadron 42, you will be restricted to what a single player can do. Same thing in the MMO PU. If you want to control everything in a ship, pick a ship designed for a crew of one. If you want to play as a ship, there are plenty of other games that are designed that way. Star Citizen is a special project, and in support of that I have purchased some multicrew ships. But I am under no illusions of being able to efficiently crew them by myself, though I should be able to move them from point A to point B solo.
If you desire solo play only, then Squadron 42 is made for you. If you want to play solo in the MMO universe then you can do that with the understanding that you will still only be able to do what a single person can do. If you decide to keep your multicrew ships, you do so with the understanding that you will need to crew those ships to have maximum efficiency. You could decide to melt them and transform them into smaller ships that more fit your solo play style. But these are the choices you have to make for yourself. You don't get to make them for everyone else.
Is it decided that solo player NPC/AI crewed ships going to outcompete player crewed ships though?
That's quite an assumption. After what we can assume is additional years of alpha bugtesting, balancing, and reworks, there will be plenty more years to voice concerns and provide feedback on how CIG implements it all.
My only issue when it comes to a specific ship is the Scorpius. I personally think that you should be able to man all 8 guns without the need for a second player. It’s a fragile ship that can easily be disarmed but has a lot of fire power which I think makes it balanced when between two skilled pilots. Ik they’re promising AI blades will do that later on but I think it’s obnoxious that the ship is basically half usable right now when they could make it so you could simply slew the weapons together similar to the two seater F7M
But, But, Stupid By Design is a CIG staple! you can't possibly ask for them to give you the same ability that other remote turrets have! Next thing you'll be asking for the Antares back seat to be removed and that button press to go to the pilot, completely over-saturating their tiny 8-bit brain with choice and ability!
solo with NPCs as crew is going to be a thing because that's what CIG sold backers long ago.. so, i disagree with your view in this vid
CIG mentionned that npc crew isn't planned for 1.0 nor 1.x i wouldn't be surprised they drop it all together.
Group play on a erratic schedule like some people have myself included just isn't possible
I resigned myself to the fact that I will never own or operate anything that's not solo friendly.
I hope they don't dilute the system in order to entice people into purchasing the bigger ships
They've set a standard I am absolutely fine with it just stay with it
i'd say it's worth owning one and joining a small (but not tiny) organization or two. i'm in two sister-orgs with about 70 members between. only 20 of us play semi-regularly and only a little over a half dozen are active in the Discords. the most i've seen in game at once was around 18 after this IAE and we were running 2 Polaris with 3 small fighters. it was epic.
most of us spend the bulk of our playtime solo, with those of us who have multicrew ships posting in Discord when playing. we rarely get group ops going more than once a month and outside of IAE/ILW it's never more than 6 people, usually just 3 and i miss most raids. even still i find keeping my Cat and Corsair are worth it. all my other ships are 1-2 crew and advertised as perfectly soloable in the long run.
i want to point out that the vast majority of ships are under 3-crew and intended to be fine to operate solo with the only penalty being reduced capability. and the overwhelming majority of those are under $200. CIG will not forsake solo players, but they do want to offer engaging play for people wanting to live out their Star Trek fantasy. But where CIG needs to be careful is to not enable any Handsome Jack's (one player with a crew of bots) to be able to take on and beat the crew of the Enterprise (a team consisting of all players). it should never fall into a Handsome Jack Player's favor regardless of skill or NPC price because at that point what even is the point of teaming up?
As if everyone is salivating at the prospect of being a janitor on an Idris.
Group play is nice, but stop gatekeeping please ❤
Agreed this video arguments are just not based in reality of the actual game but rather the the idea of what the game is in his head. The game needs to be accessible by all.
Ship balancing is horrible. Multi crew is always worse then each player haveing there own ship . Combat 3 pilots always give u more dps and normally speed and speed wins fights . In mining it’s better to have 3 prospectors then 1 mole . If you put prospectors bag on all 3 moles you get more cargo and the pilot gets to mine without getting up . Salvage is the only gameplay iv done where having 1-2 friends is better with the reclaimer .
Concern is whether there will ever be enough players and online to fill all these roles - be fine if we all lived on the game but most players will be casual
And a huge piece… no fast travel. You are 100% stuck where you are. Multiplayer only makes sense for very short engagements. Who is going to be an engineer on my carrack for a month while I log on once a week.
All they have to do is turn on Guns to pilot.
Let's put it a simple way. If you don't have a way for solo players to evenly match a big group of people, the game dies. Simple.
fighter ships are a thing you know 🤣
Solo is the way to go. Star Citizen will loose players if they make it harder for solo players. I'm not interested in playing with other individuals.
I mean clearly you are, even if you're only there to shoot at other players. Otherwise you wouldn't have gone for the fundamentally multiplayer game.
That said, the important thing is still that solo players have options, that they can play in ways they enjoy, but that they don't have an outsized influence that eclipses whole groups of players. The game will absolutely die if they do.
Ok so play the solo stuff, if you think the game should make you do everything because "you don't like others" then go play a single player game not an MMO
Long live the Polaris and solo gameplay.
@@luistigerfox Just because the game is an MMO doesn't suddenly mean that a person playing that game is fundamentally interested in playing with others. I have 0 interest in playing with randos, i have 0 interest in making friends, i have 0 interest in joining big orgs, i have 0 interest in pvping, i am here to play a cool space life simulator, i have 0 interest in you or anyone else for that matter, and would prefer if you all didn't exist in the game, honestly, but unfortunately this is being designed as an MMO and not a singleplayer game i can invite my friends to play in a multiplayer session if i want to
there is a clue in the name , multi crew ship
use different horses for different courses ie rock crawling 4x4 is not going to be competative in nascar etc and vis versa
Well i mean. not everyone has someone to play with. I think the focus on multicrew is important. but i also think that there should be more solo supporting ships.(also the big turret on the paladin should have the option to be pilot controllable... or any unmanned turret for that matter)
Money is power. That is just a reality. If CIG wants to deny themselves revenue from people with disposable money then pigeon hole solo players.
Orgs are great if you have the time but person for person solo players spend more money on the game and for that revenue those players should have full access to the game.
Those are the cold hard facts and why CIG allows individuals to buy whatever ships they want.
If you think about it fucking over ppl who already paid for something isn't beneath them, they already fucked over corsair owners so likely a matter of time until bullshit creep start coming for any ship with more solo fire-power than a starter
I think solo players should play how ever they want. They are going to be slower even with ai helping. Slower then any full crewed ship.
CIG has already stated that there WILL be NPC engineers that will help man stations in a ship. Im pretty sure they said that youd have ti pay them like real people AND that they wouldnt be as good as real people. I dont take that to mean sub-par, rather just intentionally predictable - like AI.
I am a solo player myself. 80% of ALL MMOs are solo players. But that doesnt mean CIG should cater to solo players. I WANT the Paladin, but I dont biy it because as much as I'd love to have a dropship, I dont have a group.
SC is mainly a solo game, period. How many players do you see standing around doing nothing? How many players do you usually see on a ship? You can project all you want about what you think CIG is doing but its not actually trying to get humans to play with other humans in regards to large ships. This wont happen until they stop selling ships and that wont ever happen. See, SC has a people problem, not a ship problem. EVERYONE in SC has a ship, and most people that PAID their hard earned cash for that ship want to fly that ship, not spend time on someone else's ship running around putting out fires or staring at an engineering terminal. This is exactly why CIG is pushing for NPC crew and AI blades. And they know this. If CIG truly wanted multi human crewed ships then CIG would sell game packages w/o a ship.
I think that's coming in 1.0. Game packages without ships. I'd go as far as to say that that particular game package will be free. A free-to-play player will start with about 5,000 Euc and a basic set of clothes. They will be relegated to local "in-city" missions like local couriers or janitors. Picking up trash. Soon enough, they can rent a vehicle and do some missions around the city or at a closer outpost. After that, they can afford to buy their first ship and expand their horizons. Or they can sign on to another player's ship and skip all the local stuff. Alternatively, they can visit the pledge/ship store and fork out some real money for a permanent ship, as all the backers did during its alpha phase.
Is it not common knowledge that the *pledge* store is closing once the game fully releases? I was under the impression that was the case, since it's a *pledge* store, not a ship shop. You're giving them money as a pledge, you're not purchasing a ship, you're pledging a certain amount of money to the development of the game and in return are being given donation incentives in that game based on certain criteria for your donation.
Once the game goes live in 1.0 you will no longer be able to just pay real money to own whatever ship you want, was my understanding. You'd be able to purchase the game package with a starter ship and that's it.
@@ThndrMge It's not common knowledge. In fact, I couldn't find any definitive proof that they are stopping ship sales at 1.0. Could you provide a source for that claim? I only saw some unfounded comments from backers on Reddit. I tried looking for something official.
Also, they need to keep the income coming in. A retail $60-$70 price tag would bankrupt them, and they can't do a subscription model or alienate the original backers. Imagine telling someone who spent $500 on pixel ships in 2017 that they can't play unless they pay a monthly subscription. From my perspective, the cake has already been baked. Get the game in as many hands as possible via a free-to-play model, make the grind long enough to coax people to invest in a ship, and close the sale, which will be much higher than $60-$70. I predict that after 1.0, the average spend per user will be about $150 with a ship and vehicle store.
Couple those sales with the Squadron 42 sales and the possible licensing money from leasing out StarEngine, and they will be in pretty good financial shape. And it's an economic model similar to every MMO in the market now. Every MMO has a store where you can make microtransactions to accelerate your progress. This would be no different. "Play for free" is the best way to go. It will also counter the scam. "You must spend $1000 to play the game," claims.
Conversely, people will say that a ship store equates to pay-to-win. But they can lessen that brunt by making a plausible economy where things are reasonably attainable in the game. It should take less than 1 year of grinding to get a Connie. A Connie should take 3-4 weeks of regular play or something along those lines.
You mean like a Solo Ship with a S7 Gun?
They'll never add such a ship, that would be too much Pilot DPS and brain-dead Light fighter jocks would whine and cry they can't joust it.
@@matthewhain1483 [Ares Inferno enters the chat]
@@JohnMasteller I Know no such glorious ship. The Nerf Nerferno however...
An analogy would be: You start an MMO. You can play to lvl 10 in the first zone. Outside this first zone, you have open world PvPvE, but all monsters are scaled to to a balanced 4 person party. I doubt you'd have a lot of player retention. Maybe some PvPers would stay, and ignore the PvE part. But the vast playerbase that wants to experience the game past the starting zone would leave for something that gives them what they want.
@@ottodeluxe exactemundo!
You mean like back in the day when MMOS were actually about playing together with other people rather than being single player games that have other people walking around? Sounds like a good idea to me.
@@NuEM78 its not a null-sum game you know
Just allow public transport for your character while offline. Make it have time constraints and cost uec or something. This service should have additional restrictions on where you can transport yourself to.
Biggest issue with working with others is just spending the time to meet up in LIVE.
Trying to do group play in this game is harder than trying to have a consistent DND campaign. Everyone's schedules are different. The randoms i played with during the SSP3 mission I haven't seen again. We all have our own way to play, our own loops. Even in chat when you ask someone to join your reclaimer to do some salvaging a lot of people say no they are dining their own thing. That's why I think CIG should make a single seater maybe a two seater ship that's an upgrade of the vulture and prospector. The Mole is doable solo just kind of a hassle and the reclaimer is unbearable.
This, it is great fun to play with my org mate, but it's like paddling upstream, very tedious and time consuming, by the time we get going someone has to go
I understand your concern, but every weaponized ship should have pilot controlled guns. My favorite ship is the Retaliator and I cannot effectively play it unless I have atleast 2 other friends to crew turrets.
Multiplayer only works in short term scenarios. How many people are going to lock themselves to other people’s ships as their complete gameplay for weeks? It’s not like WoW or something where you can move freely and join up for things. In SC you are literally stuck where you are. You can’t do anything else.
Its also combined with the argument that big(implied good) ships being expensive in dollars is fine because "you can trade work time for game advance" "i don't have time to play 24/7" when they conceptually work only with hardcore players.
Look the meta just isn't thought through, it can't both be and not be eve and rust and elite. The ships can't both be concrete in game assets and forever owned, it just can't work in practice for emerging simulation gameplay where a stowaway can shoot you in the head in the pilots seat - and while impromptu among us traitor hunting might seem like a fun emerging gameplay idea, it really isn't if you paid 1000 bucks to do military missions and needed some crew.
A lot…. 😂😂 if you’ve supported the development for more than 2 years you would know that it gets to a point where all you want to do is just be a crewman…
Also, you can still get money, rep, upgrades by being a crewman.
@@Unmethicated How does that work if your friends can’t log on for a day or two? You are stuck on the ship by yourself.
@@lassikinnunen Based on what I’m seeing- it’s trending towards a massive world multiplayer with arcade style action. They’ll add economy and trading of some sort and crafting- all the MMO essentials. Ultimately I highly doubt there will be deep long term engaged gameplay. We’ll see.
@@Jeremy_Walker they've promised or half implemented all that.
Also a lot more like base building and eve style org wars and all and rust style and people making plans for their deep space hideouts for their mining rigs that work in an economy but somehow are safe from attack and have value despite everyone doing them and...
Your logic with the Zeus example is flawed. Even if the pilot has access to engineering, I have to take time away from my fight to change things. The definition of MFD is multi. Function. Display. Meaning you can reconfigure for whatever you need.
CIG just needs to design ships with some realism. They took the forward turret from the Corsair from the pilot. But seriously, what ship designer is going to think it's not a good idea to give the turret to the pilot when it's empty. If the side guns on the paladin are slaved to the pilot when empty they can only shoot then forward. Having a crew adds a dimension you wouldn't have solo.
So I partially agree with you. But saying I can't pull up engineering just because in a perfect world that would be another player is just neutering gameplay.
Nope. CIG needs to (A) make ships and gameplay function sensibly and realistically, with or without other people/players, be that through AI "blades" or NPC crew, then (B) ensure playing together is FUN and those that can and want to will with exactly ZERO need to "play-wall" functionality or content from solo players.....
There are already multiple examples of CIG trying to FORCE stupid and unnecessary "multicrew" into the game ("manned" turrets in general, ROC-DS, Scrotius Antares, Ballista/Centurian, Terrapin, Corsair, Intrepid, etc) that backers have already deemed NPC/blade only jobs because we know full well no human player will do it... Manning a wimpy turret with less power that most starter ships, or sitting in some other random "backseat" pressing a couple buttons every few minutes is not fun or engaging. That's why they must have reasonably competant AI/NPC alternatives otherwise it Just Won't Happen at all. Those ships will sit unused and pointless, game loops will be ignored, and large swaths of content avoided entirely.
Star Citizen's AI and NPCs will be able to functionally replace human players in basically any circumstance because if they cannot, the game will either be derpy, lifeless, and boring OR it will become a giant org only, join us or die gank-fest.
Soloing whatever dafaq I want especially when we get blades or ai crew.... hahaha
Co-op is good in theory, it almost never works out for many of the reasons you stated. Find me someone who wants to push a button on an engineering terminal and do nothing else for a multi hour play session. In real life that is what low level soldiers do on air craft carriers and stuff. In a game environment that is not fun. There is no problem with the original gun control of the Corsair. Just make it so that small ships like corsair or connie or paladin, or starlancer cannot take down a polaris or idris without a couple dozen of them attacking it. But on the same side, a polaris or idris should not fly like a heavy fighter like they both do now. Capital ships should fly like the battlestar galactica. Super slow, only able to maneuver for a few shots on another super slow capital ship at long distances. They should require fighter cover to take out smaller ships. Corsair and Connie should be able to take on capital ships, but capital ships should quite easily land shots from the turrets on those types of ships. But those ships should be able to take down those turrets by targeting them. Leave the hull damage to the capital ship sized weapons.
All ships should have some pilot controlled weapons. Anything else is unacceptable.
a one man battle ship , the navy woul;d love that cost saving lol
Respectfully disagree, this game is already slow enough without having to rely on others to complete basic parts of the game. I understand that group play will be heavily recommended for some tougher missions or massive industrial aspects etc. But I simply can't spend the extra hours it takes organizing players to complete mundane tasks, I'm not a streamer and don't have 8 hours to game everyday.
I often have to drop my play session unexpectedly... So it's difficult to coordinate group play, and if my bed log doesn't work properly I just lose my ship...
I'd love to have a Polaris with a bunch of org mates who primarily live on board, and we could all log off and on on the ship whenever.
as a fellow mostly solo player, I totally agree. your effectiveness soloing a ship designed for multiplayer should be around the same ballpark as your effectiveness with the ship that represents the tier zero level for that profession, so for example you should be able to still use the reclaimer in solo, so you don't get penalised if you bought a more expensive ship to keep your multiplayer options open, but you shouldn't be making too much more money than what you would make if you were on a vulture.
And if you don't like the clunkyness, you can use NPCs, which will make life easier at the cost of cutting into your profits.
Star Citizen needs to recognize the importance of the basics.
Party markers are inconsistent or non existent? Really?
Crews can't bedlog in a capital ship?
So yeah... CIG has some work to do.
i'm with you. designing the Paladin with no pilot guns was a bold, but good move. backpedaling and giving the pilot control over two other stations was stupid and weak of CIG. now we'll just have another tankish ship with significant singleplayer firepower like the early days of the Redeemer. Gunships should follow the Valkyrie model: very weak pilot guns, with significant crew guns.
I'd argue it's not a case of using them properly but efficiently.
I'm a solo player and a Constellation owner, and I totally agree with you. It seems they are going for a Sea of Thieves vibe. It may be possible to solo a large ship, but it is more challenging, and repealing an opposing team from boarding you, the solo pirate, is next to impossible. There are definitive risks associated with taking out a large ship solo in the Sea of Thieves. CIG is going in that direction but isn't there yet. I couldn't imagine leaving the pilot's chair to replace a shield generator or blown fuses at the back of the ship. And I'm also guessing that AI blades won't be nearly as good as a human crew. If they are better than a human crew, multiplayer is dead in Star Citizen.
I'd like to respectfully disagree with you, in part. Right now, Star Citizen only markets new ships to solo players - I can't effectively share a ship with an organization; let alone purchase it as a group - so the customer of Star Citizen is the solo player. I think that Star Citizen needs to make larger ships at a minimum usable for Solo players (even if they continue to be better for multi-crew) or stop selling multi-crew focused ships to individuals in the first place as the action of selling and marketing a Polaris to me individually (as opposed to my organization if I had one) is setting the "unrealistic expectations" as you put it. When I purchased my current fleet, I was told this was something I can solo pilot and to me, to turn around and tell me now I can't use my ship is little more then false advertising... I don't think that's an unrealistic expectation, to me, it's delivering on the promise they made when they marketed the ship to me in the first place. I agree that Star Citizen should be more focused on finding groups to play with if it where like any other MMO, which launches on day 1 as a complete game, Star Citizen is different though because they've spent all these years happily taking my money, building up the solo player and it feels like betrayal to say "actually, that's not the direction we want to go"
On another note, I love the videos, keep up the good work, and I hope your procedures go well!
Thank you for this point of view! I would have to agree that the way ships have been marketed over the past 12 years has been way too separated from how CIG wants the game to play. Overall the marketing of this project has been all over the place, especially in regard to solo and multi crew ships. Thank you for the comment and first procedure went well! 1 more to go!
Group play is very fun but coordinating it is very exhausting.. I enjoy it when it comes together. However, solo play is much easier to log on, game consistently, and make progress in a fun session. AKA the normal after work evening.
Imagine any MMO that focuses on group play. Only raids in world of warcraft. Solo play makes 70-90% of every MMO game. Trying to focus on Groups is a guarantee for failure. Sure there are people that prefer it, but they are a minority. So if you want to have 200k players instead of 10 millions then go for group gameplay and screw soli players.
Everyone who thinks Star Citizen shouldn't cater to solo will one day regret it. I think multicrew should be rewarding, but not a massive advantage against solo players. Neglecting the largest demographic that put the most time in any MMO never ends well, which is why most established MMO it today's era have started to cater to these players to keep business. The only way I can see harmony in this MMO is if they add Al crew and blades for weapons at the same time they add engineering, being forced to crew is not a good idea. This is also qood for multicrews for the same reason just because you have actual players on your ship now, doesnt mean everyone wants to be a support role fixing stupid $*** around the ship in a fight, a lot of people will want to either fly the ship or shoot from turrets or fighters. And if we do want solo players to open up to a crew it can't incontinence their time. Which means convenient grouping and not dipping into profits. The crew should be paid the same, and should not be split among all players.
One can only count on themselves. Solo till I die.
I normally prefer to play solo too, but at the same time, im aware this game was conceived to be focused in multiplayer. But i know they are looking for our style of playing solo with kindness.
I think it's best just to see who's usually on when you are. Multicrew is an essential part of an MMO, even if a player is usually solo. There needs to be a push for players to find a play group.
And for the record, I'm normally solo, and my fleet reflects that. A lot of single pilot efficient ships, but a couple big multicrew ships for when groups are feasible.
wont solo players be able to have ai crew members to multicrew large ships?
I'm a longtime backer, and I own a few multi-crew ships, with the expectation that at one point, CGI would bring AI blade and NPC players(Only AI for 1.0 ), as they have mentioned on many occasions. I'm a solo player for a reason mentioned in your video and in some of the comments. As a solo player, I understand the restriction of soloing my multi-crew ship. CGI has sold many multi-crew ships and some orgs, own a crazy number of them that need crewing. It's not reasonable to expect people online and available at all times to crew all those ships.
The solution was always NPCs and AI blades with the understanding that NPCs should be less capable than a couple of friends. CGI is an MMO true, but the reality is sometimes I want to be the cpt of my Polaris while my friend is cpt of his Polaris. We need NPCs
I play solo all the time, and I enjoy it as it is. In-game group and Org tools absolutely need to be added. As far as the people complaining. The lack of tools available to find a group is equivalent to the lack of tools to play effectively as a solo player. It's not big ships or if I can control "x" number of weapons or not. That's simple think. The issue is stealth and information. A solo player has to be patient and sneaky. Slip in, do their business, and then slip out. This works in both PvE and PvP. Now as far as trade goes. PDC's. Some of these haulers need PDC's to give the player a change to run when needed. Aside from that, it's gonna be tough. That's why I role "el solo".
7:17 AI crew really will help, I think. Real players will always be better than NPC crew, but having the NPCs or the AI blades will help to enable basic functionality for solo players while inviting them to bring on player crew mates.
I like the idea of crewing up at a star port if needed.
good video, i think you cooked. Thing to note in addition is that generally no space game has multicrew incentives handled well, Elite dangerous i think is much the same. Solo players can gang up and share rewards in party if they choose to, however this is very much still solo play at the end of the day. Meanwhile, multicrew has a lot of trouble getting traction due to a lack of incentive, payments fundamentally work differently in multicrew. imo its all about the incentive and as the systems come on line and the economy fleshes out this will solve itself so long as we dont have the elite dangerous scenario where multicrew just cant make enough money to justify itself over multiple solo ships. as it stands now all party content pays like multicrew in elite dangerous where you're splitting a total payout, adjustment to this system is the primary fix i think that will get people engaging with multiplayer in star cit. If its fundamentally more lucrative to be solo at all times, why ever party up and what not.
Let me guess, you started playing 3 patches ago?
There are solo ship for solo players. They are then efficient. There are multicrew ships for groups of players, they are then efficient. If a solo guy wants to fly a multi crew ship, it is possible but it will not be efficient. That's simple. Not every ships for any size of group. That's not a problem. the game will still be fun.
None of friends want to touch this game since they view it as a scam. So im stuck as a solo player.
I agree that multi crew ships should hold more power than solo ships, it just makes sense. More guns in the fight, more dps. All my pledges are ships that can be solo or multi crew. Hurricane, mole, vulture, MSR. I’m less efficient if I play alone, and that’s ok with me but if I wanna play with others I’m happy to be able to that. That being said, a solo player should be able to compete with crew ships. An arrow shouldnt lose to a hurricane just because it’s multi crew and I think they do a pretty good job of that right now. Now should an arrow take on a hammerhead? I mean I guess it can but there are times where it’s like yeah, pick your battles, the arrow should flee.
You don’t fight a destroyer in a sailboat.
While you may more fire power, you're still taking damage. Systems go offline, fires start, etc. The puppet ship has more hands and at a drop of firepower they can have someone that can deal with the damage. As a solo player you cannot. It is a bigger risk to fight, it will be all or nothing. IMO solo players in combat vs a crewed ship of the same type will be at a disadvantage.
I am a solo player and am only here for solo play because my life schedule simply does not make group play workable. My expectation is based on the statements made in 2013 when i signed up that NPC's would eventually be available. This will be the only way that SC will be ultimately be successful.
"Designed with a specific crew size and functionality" until CIG takes a "balance" bat to a ship that only has one area where it shines, being deficient in just about every other area. Yes, talking about my beloved Corsair specifically, but the Redeemer and many other ships have felt the same pain. The truth is that it doesn't seem as though CIG "Designs with specifics in mind" when releasing new ships, rather they're rushing things to the store to meet sales goals. While I agree that solo players in multi ships should be less efficient, things like giving fixed guns to a crewman rather than the pilot make 0 sense.
How about working on things like... Fixing elevators so they aren't a mini-boss you have to fight several times before you can even start to play the game BEFORE forcing artificial multi crew?
They need a way for solo pilots to still progress while the best benefits being from using multiplaying
Right now playing in a group can be very tedious. More players more bugs to find work around. When/ if they get the game running better group play will be a lot more fun.
We already have robots making hamburgers and future space game doesn't even have bots for multi crew.
I just want my Engineering Manual for Modders that sitting in my hanger that I paid for to be honored so I can do my own thing and not hinder the verse by my crippling desire to play solo.
i am just imagining how happy the navy would be if they could solo an aircraft carrier 🤣🤣🤣 huge savings lol
I think a lot of multi crew proponents have unrealistic expectations. Expecting a crewed ship to be able to solo the entire game is just as unrealistic as expecting to solo the whole game as a single player. The endgame experience in Star Citizen is about fleets of complementary ship types working together towards specific goals. Simply occupying seats in a big ship doesn't and shouldn't automatically be effective. Training, discipline and experience are the determining factors for success. There is already value in properly crewing ships (salvaging in Reclaimers, mining in a Moles or doing security in a Hammerhead). Hard limiting certain ship types or gating content is not the answer. Skill and co operation are where it's at.
I play solo and the largest ship I own is a reclaimer. Easy to solo if I'm just out salvaging and not using it for combat. I just put all power to shields and hope for the best 😊😂
Group play takes longer to get people in the same place at the same time than actually playing the game.
One simple way to force players to join, is make that uec rewarding
There isn’t even enough in Star Citizen to even keep solo players entertained.
They have a long ways to go before multi-crews or teams are even close to being useful. The game mechanics aren’t there yet.
Reclaimer is a great example of being completely powerless if your the only pilot. Even with players, it’s a slow death using turrets. If things worked inside ships, maybe I could say different, using the Reclaimer is the best example, galley, lockers, no internal storage in quarters, no armory, suit lockers, so much space wasted, nothing works.
All players should have options, solo or group.
I agree, I don’t think the debate should ever be about if one playstyle is superior to the other. Rather discussing the different gameplay we can give to each play style that is meaningful and enjoyable regardless of what you decide to do. Right now there just isn’t enough gameplay regardless of how you like to play. And hopefully this next year they make significant jumps when it comes to gameplay depth.
Great point of view, i think like anything there will be time to play with others and time just for you.
Bold Idea: all turrets (except PDCs which should auto target and be highly lethal at close range) should slave to the pilot and big ships should allow 3rd person view and fire control (or an immersive cockpit system allowing it), fixed forward weapons should always be pilot controlled. Gunners, if available, should be able to slave multiple turrets to their control. These ships are supposed to be "advanced" and yet the best "multi-crew" experience CIG can offer is: #1 Button Peon. #2 tractor beam/fuse puller Peon ("Engineering") #3 disorienting, bad field of view, poor firepower turret Peon. If the only thing any player has to strive for is -> get a single seat ship with slightly bigger guns or be forced to find a group this game is DOA.
If this game was really "designed" with multicrew in mind an individual player should feel just as respected and capable in a co-pilot or gunner's seat than in the seat of a single ship, and Star citizen is far, far away from this goal. The biggest issue with "big ships" in this game is they infantilize *everyone* on the crew. A player goes from a single seat ship making every decision from positioning, to power priority, to target selection down to just one, often tediously basic task: you just fly, and you fly ssslllooowwllyy, You just push this button when told, occasionally. You just launch missiles or fracture ships occasionally, when the pilot points the nose just right. you just shoot this gun, which is smaller than your heavy fighter and only in this tiny limited cone of view to really amp up the nausea and disorientation, you only stack boxes, and once you've figured out the best way to fill a ship, you only stack boxes "the way" any other stacking game offers more engagement. The game sells people on being a "Star Citizen" Bold, independent, in command. But Multi-crew is more about being a Star Serf, limited, tightly controlled, utterly worthless outside a very small stifling box.
Star citizen is dangerously close to offering a worse version of fun things other games do: Why command a big ship in star citizen when multiple other games give a single player full control of battleships and carriers? Why be a crappy gimped bridge peon when there are literal "be a bridge crewman" games that give each role a vast, engaging, and critical set of tasks, all without the tedium of fuses and spray beams. Why be a gunner on a Star citizen ship when dozens of games offer "gunner" gameplay that's more exciting, rewarding, and less limited. Multi-crew in star citizen is a regression from the modern standard in virtually every single way. It even flip-flops on it's own standards: why can the arrow's remote turret be pilot slaved but the Scorpius's can't? why can the pilot control the mantis's snare/qed, or a hawk's emp but the antares's pilot can't control theirs? Why are the corsair's guns not all pilot controlled when we know it was designed that way? why do I need the copilot to operate the reclaimer's magic dust gun when the vulture's works with the pilot? why can't the AI already T0 player ship's guns when NPC gunners work fine on captured NPC ships?
I hope they make group play not feel like herding cats. I WANT to play with a group, but it feels like im herding cats every time I try to get a group together.
I agree. I really hope they expedite some of those social features shown at cit con. I would love to multi crew with more people but it’s definitely a very difficult task right now.
on the paladin subject, sure, you get as much as a constellation when solo... but can you shoot angles to the side as a pilot? of course not, the advantage of having gunners is there.
I bet more space dads would play multicrew if it wasnt a minimum 2 hour time sink. If CIG adds better spawn in with friends/org mates/or matchmaking then multicrew wouldnt be such a barrier for most people, particularly the average busy person, who is not a content creator.
I highly disagree with you and think you fundamentally misunderstand how ballance should be acheived, what systems already exist to ensure ballance promotes multicrew gameplay, and what features soon to come online already highly incentivise multicrew play. Solo play should be given all the tools possible, and artificial restrictions on solo capabilities is NOT an effective or fun way to ballance solo vs multicrew effectivness. Your zero-sum mentality of "if solo players are powerful it takes away from multicrew players being powerful" comes off as poorly considered and, frankly, just selfish and mean.
As someone who rarely plays solo anyway, i dont even have a true dog in the solo-play race. I just totally disagree that people who prefer solo play should be "gamified" into artificial restrictions on play to benefit us multicrew players, or lock off entire parts of the game from them.
Your Zeus example is also just not accurate. Even with MFD accessible engineering monitors, you do not have the ability to effect repairs, move components and fuses, nor modify hardware. Tney have also confirmed that AI blades and NPC crew will under perform compared to skilled players, meaning that even access to these systems do not fully bridge the gap and eclipse multicrew capabilities. You have not engaged with your example in good faith, or at least your engagment failed to consider CIG stated goals and intentions and planned features.
All that, and i havent even mentioned PvP, endgame content and raids, Capital and fleet engagment, difficulty varriances, and orgs. There are so many aspects you havent addressed (to my satisfaction at least) in this video. I appreciate your perspective, and hope this engagment helps your video to suceed so the conversation can continue. I dont think this is where your opinion will end up, but if i am wrong, i look forward to hearing your counter arguments.
@@ParagonFangXen hello! Thank you for your comment and your perspective. First off I do want to mention that the most of what I am talking about here is referring to 1.0, and how that version of the game will act. I don’t believe any solo player should lose any tools or abilities simply because they play solo. In this video what I really am trying to do is emphasize that all players should have a chance regardless of play style. Multi crew should have its pros and cons, and solo should as well. I think it really comes down to the game SC is trying to be. I am not a game dev by any means, and I have no idea how difficult it might be to balance these two different play styles. But I’m advocating for a healthy balance between the two play styles whilst they each offer a certain value to the player. This means no matter who you decided to play with when you hop on, you can still have a fun experience regardless of if you play with people or not. Also the Zeus examples is flawed. I know that the actual “buffs” given to the solo player in that example are flawed and inconsistent. But the example was more about offering the perspective of seeing a solo player with a bit more power than they normally would in game. I think I could speak on for a while as to what I mean with all of this video (and honestly I have been very busy and stressed, so if this video isn’t the easiest to understand that is my fault entirely) but I am just another citizen with an opinion! Thank you for your comment!
the issue of solo + NPC is that why do ppl multicrew ship at all when they can just use NPC? 8 polarises + NPC is way too stronger then one multicrew polaris.
And why use single seat ships then if every1 can use capital ship solo?
solo players should use solo ships or soloing bigger ships with limitation that goes with it.
I fully agree with the points made in this video.
There are a ton of players who wanna play solo. And with incoming "ai blades" and hiring npc, these massive group gets, what they need to enjoy. that is why many got carrack or polaris, because of "ai blades" or npc crew. Polaris, so CIG said, will be the biggest ship, you can "solo" play with "ai blades" and Npc crew. Not operating at 100%, but enjoyable. NPC will have skills like Gunner, medic and mechanic and they will be able to become better in what they doing.
SC was never panned as multicrew only. Since 2013 i follow SC and sure, from time to time it is nice to play with others, but i am still with SC because of the part, where i can crew and automate ships.
If i can automate 2, maybe 3 turrets of carrack and have a npc medic and a mechanic with me, i am fine. or a npc pilot.
Do not get me wrong, i do not want that people can operate Polaris, idris or javelin all alone with npc to 100%. That is where i like the point, where CIG said that players could be limited to hire max 4-5 npcs.
it's quite simple, the solo players belong in the solo ships.
Just as a single seater ship CAN'T be crewed by a large crew, so should multicrew ships not be fully functional by a solo crew.
You choose your gameplay when you buy the ship, that was your choice. There is plenty of solo gameplay without using multi-crew ships, FORCED to be solo playable should not be a thing.
Squadron 42 is a single player game. Star citizen is a multiplayer game.
Solo is already way too time consuming, group play is like wasting 4 hours in real life just to go have a meal together…. Some people enjoy that, but some of us DO NOT.
Solo players are pretty much 90% of any MMO's player base ... as most "grind" aspects in MMO's are typically done solo, reserving bigger stuff for the groups.
Imho, solo players should have most of the power available to them, and multicrew should be the cherry on top.
Make every ship correctly soloable, but make it way more efficient when multi crewed. And I'm sorry, but if my role on a ship was to run around, put out fires, change fuses, click panel buttons ... I'm just not going to have any fun at all.
I personally enjoy group play, but there needs to be more incentive to group up. Most turrets are under powered compared to starters. To be honest, there so called push for Multi-Gameplay. Was to unjustly Nerf the Corsair.
Interesting , thank You .
They said they where gonna add npc Ai control crew, that is what the need to do. That way people can solo there big ships but they will never be has good has real people and you have to choose what to trade. Also they fact if it is you and your friend or maybe two other friends even 4 friends. Polaris put an AI in the engineering and then two friends in each gun and you in the driver seat and maybe another AI in one of the guns and that would make everything better. They are suppose to implent that. So implement that and most people will be happy. So Having instead of cutting the power of the ship you spent real money on because you have no friends or no one is online. Give you the option to still have the full power of your ship but without the same level of skill that a real player would do, not to mention the cost of the crew you would pay but still it is giving you an option to use your ships, that you spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars without having to relay on other people cause that sucks. Having an Idris and you cant use it cause no one want to get on or dont want to get in you Idris ?
The vast majority of players will play alone, multi-crew is something occasional, because each person has their life and you can't always coincide.
You can't chain the game to a multi-crew game
They already nuetered the Corsair (bad enough that I meted mine), let's see what other atrocities they subject us to in the name of multi-crew play. I prefer solo. No having the wait for an org mate to log in or having them leave early. With my life, I cannot maintain a predictable schedule. So I play when I have a chance. Solo all the way.
The biggest issue I have with engineering is having someone having to run around my ship while the pilot is performing evasive maneuvers. The engineer is constantly being thrown to the floor to chase fuses that need to be physically moved. As a technician for forty years, I can often reroute Features remotely. Even with recording software, you have this ability, with today's tech. Also the pilot should have access to all remote features from his chair, including remote turrets. I also believe that the pilot should have the ability to transfer all pilot functions to the co-pilot seat of his choice.
The tedium is strong with this one...
Solo players pay the bills. You will make your game PVE friendly or it dies. The graveyard of PVP mmo's has proven this to be law.
The vast majority of backers don’t want forced multicrew and so the game shouldn’t force multicrew. It’s that simple. Design a game for 5% of the player base and you’ll end up with 5% of the current player base active in game playing.
When designing multicrew they need to take the approach where multicrew is more fun, not the approach where not multicrewing is a torturous experience (unfortunately the current projected direction). I personally think engineering will make this game unbearable for the vast majority of players on release and its effects will have to be greatly nerfed for this game to thrive.
Gimping the solo experience to give multicrew the perception of being good will do nothing except piss off solo players. It won’t encourage them to multicrew, it will convince them to find a game that doesn’t actively hinder the experiences they want to have.
When playing planetside 2 (even solo) finding gunners for my ship / land vehicle was easy, just park up and people would flock to me. This isn’t unique to Planetside but every game I can think of that allows for multiple people in vehicles. Everyone wants a lift, everyone wants to be a gunner because that experience is fun. Star citizen doesn’t have that feel, and I’m not even sure why but that’s what the developers need to address and gimping the solo experience isn’t the correct method. That’s just making the game worse, and operator modes with a top speed of 200, along with forced multicrew will cause this game to fail if the approach doesn’t change.
The aim of immersion in a video game is to simulate the enjoyable moments of real life, not the boring ones. In many ways CIG doesn’t seem to realise this and believes simulating boring experiences is as valid as simulating entertaining experiences, it isn’t.
I don’t need the travel time of my ship from one station to another to be an hour for “immersion”, that’s the type of immersion I can do without. Same way I don’t want to wait 30 minutes for my taxi in GTA on a Saturday night. Or not be able to play the game for 3 months because my character is doing a bid.
Yep. That's why I melted my Carrack and got a smaller ship.
Not even going to watch but thats a stupid title and no, Solo players are not getting enough honestly.
Cig just nerfed the Inferno in readiness for the new Guardian.
We will be getting NPCs we can hire/train
This game is a multi player nightmare because of all the extra garbage CIG is putting in the game.
tbh. its better. that we have option for making public group that anybody can join and leave at anytime. si Comm tabs they should make like Create group for lets say. Bunker looting, ERT, Salvaging etc etc
so people can voluntary join this public group. after the group filled necessary for the task or mission. then they can lock the group. so any intruder cant do any crap to the group.
I just dont like must active in Global chat. that tell people to join my ship.
I prefer passive model. let me create the group. set the task, set the reward joining my group, and can set mic audio, etc etc