Update 15, the Upcoming Feature Rework and More

I think this is where FD want that sweet spot of locking people in but doing so via self contained systems like the BGS, Thargoids, Powerplay etc. If FD are revamping a BGS led Powerplay inspired by the Thargoid war sim it would also benefit the BGS and pretty much be the Brabus vision for that feature.
I'd certainly agree that "zero-maintenance player-led storyline" is going to be pretty compelling to Frontier as a potential feature. Hopefully it works out better than Powerplay Mk 1 did.

What do you mean? I don't think they've received feedback that asked them to be less open and communicate less.
Not directly, no. But equally, it's fairly clear that when the community says it wants "better communication" what it actually means - collectively, not necessarily any individual - is "we want some good news". And that's not actually a communication problem.

Like, let's say that the next Bruce post is as follows (obviously: entirely hypothetical):
"Elite Dangerous progress
Due to lower sales of the game and ARX than in previous years, we are having to make further cutbacks on our development budget so that enough money remains to keep the servers on. U15 is still expected for May but U16 is likely to slip to late Q4 as a result and may have to be delayed until 2024. The number of bugs fixed in these releases is also likely to be lower than previously hoped though we will attempt to prioritise the higher voted bugs where they're both actually bugs and have a plausible fix."

Would this be held up as an example of transparent open communication, or would it start a 100-page angry forum riot?

For a real example of this sort of communication: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...dressing-thoughts-on-tick-consistency.614365/ announcing the closure as "not fixable" of bug 41735 (and I think also followed up with some livestream dev discussion too). Transparent, open, all the technical details which can be publicly verified are true so I assume the rest are as well ... I haven't seen a single positive word about this in any of the BGS communities I'm in; they'd probably have been "happier" with the bug report being kept open indefinitely in a "well, maybe they'll fix it next year?" state.
 
For me, it's really not as much the delay as it is the perceived "dishonesty". Why wait until the initial release date to tell us they haven't even started production?
So to be clear, are YOU calling them dishonest? Or wanting to call them dishonest but don't have the b's so just pretend it's someone else with quotation marks and perceived?
 
So to be clear, are YOU calling them dishonest? Or wanting to call them dishonest but don't have the b's so just pretend it's someone else with quotation marks and perceived?
I used it for a lack of better word. And I even put perceived before it to underline it's not actually the case. And you can keep your thinly veiled insult to yourself - to be clear.
 
I'm really not sure that they've said that they haven't started on the major feature rework as some seem to imply. It seems far more likely that they've been working on it but haven't manage to create the desired result. By now they've run out of time so have stated that it's getting delayed.

To me it seems entirely reasonable to think that Elite gets it's budget allocated on how much money it brings in, as Odyssey was somewhat of a disappointment for them the budget is smaller right now, which leads to a smaller development team, which in turn leads to things taking longer than expected.

The good side of it is that Elite seems to still be long term profitable, so I think we can look forwards to more development and possibly a new DLC at some point in the future.

Note that this is just my personal speculation, and is worth nothing more than that of the nay sayers or doom cultists.
 
I'm really not sure that they've said that they haven't started on the major feature rework as some seem to imply. It seems far more likely that they've been working on it but haven't manage to create the desired result. By now they've run out of time so have stated that it's getting delayed.

To me it seems entirely reasonable to think that Elite gets it's budget allocated on how much money it brings in, as Odyssey was somewhat of a disappointment for them the budget is smaller right now, which leads to a smaller development team, which in turn leads to things taking longer than expected.

The good side of it is that Elite seems to still be long term profitable, so I think we can look forwards to more development and possibly a new DLC at some point in the future.

Note that this is just my personal speculation, and is worth nothing more than that of the nay sayers or doom cultists.
It all comes down to our own perceptions. I took it as we haven't even agreed what we are doing as we are working on the xenophobic war . But that may be down to reading it in my outraged mindset ? Who knows ??
 
I used it for a lack of better word. And I even put perceived before it to underline it's not actually the case. And you can keep your thinly veiled insult to yourself - to be clear.
So you're not calling them dishonest, in which case I apologise.
 
It all comes down to our own perceptions. I took it as we haven't even agreed what we are doing as we are working on the xenophobic war . But that may be down to reading it in my outraged mindset ? Who knows ??
I think that many signs point to the major rework actually being a rework of the BGS and PP, and possibly adding a way for us to colonize the galaxy instead of all of it being contained in the bubble and colonia. This would really be a major rework, and would touch many mechanics in the game. But again just my speculation :)
 
We did have a group who set off near Sag A to set up colonised space with FC the Azura initiative?? started by an Xbox commander . Had a lot of FC and commanders stocking up tritium and mining .
Personally people would be setting off colonies it's what we do .
We do have about 70,000 "generation " ships which have disappeared ?? Full of colonising stuff so maybe that lore is being used to help the cancer which is humanity slowly spreading and infecting the universe . Personally i hope the thargoids are the cure or at least prevent it .
 
It was always a funny thing when someone spoke their mind, only to be held to account for speaking their mind on a discussion forum built on individual opinions.
Dunno how that ever passed.
Funny old world.

I think gamers in general are very emotional about their games. Of course the white knighting reflexes come out when a post is perceived as doom or an insult of the game that we love. I can also equally understand some players being disappointed and enraged when the game doesn't develop in the direction they desire. Then throw in some trolls that enjoy stirring up the mud, and you probably get what we see here on the forums.. :)
 
We did have a group who set off near Sag A to set up colonised space with FC the Azura initiative?? started by an Xbox commander . Had a lot of FC and commanders stocking up tritium and mining .
Personally people would be setting off colonies it's what we do .
We do have about 70,000 "generation " ships which have disappeared ?? Full of colonising stuff so maybe that lore is being used to help the cancer which is humanity slowly spreading and infecting the universe . Personally i hope the thargoids are the cure or at least prevent it .
Yes but it's not the same as colonizing some new area of space with new settlements, space stations, resource production, missions, etc. Cool as the concept is, it's just a bunch of fleet carriers somewhere out in the black.
 
I think that many signs point to the major rework actually being a rework of the BGS and PP, and possibly adding a way for us to colonize the galaxy instead of all of it being contained in the bubble and colonia. This would really be a major rework, and would touch many mechanics in the game. But again just my speculation :)

I wish I could entertain this thought, but I fail to see how the disappointing monetary return of Odyssey you mentioned and colonization, PP and BGS rework could possibly go hand in hand :(
 
I would like to know what you would call their actions. They have known they were doing nothing in January , yet they waited until the end of March to inform us they were doing nothing. then to top it off they inform us they are still going to do nothing till the end of the year and then they will look at it. One word is off the table, so please enlighten me.
 

rootsrat

Volunteer Moderator
Not directly, no. But equally, it's fairly clear that when the community says it wants "better communication" what it actually means - collectively, not necessarily any individual - is "we want some good news". And that's not actually a communication problem.

This is quite often the case. I think it's hard to say whether you can generalise that it's the "community" as a whole or is it small, but vocal minority. Honestly, I've been here so long that it all gets blurry.

I personally don't mind the bad news, if it's reasonable. It's disappointing, sure, but I also understand that these things happen.

For me the big issue with communication is the lack of details. I can wait, but the waiting time is definitely better for me if I know what I'm waiting for. For example I complained about lack of details about U15. Now I know 2 things about it:

1. It will have new gameplay
2. It will have something to do with Maelstroms.

It is still not really enough for me, but it is something at least. I also get that if they shared more they'd probably spoil the story, so I'm fine with that. I have something to look forward to and I know not to disband my Maelstrom capable ship.

Tey "KFO"? It is upsetting not because I need to wait another year, but because I haven't got a clue what it might be.

I would love some more info about bug fixes, considering how bad the game is in that respect. Not sure how I would react if the info was "We're focusing on adding new things, so bug fixes will be minimal". I think I would be VERY upset. On the other hand, if the info was "We're focusing on bug fixes, so we need to delay U15 until June" - I'd be jumping with joy.
 
I would like to know what you would call their actions. They have known they were doing nothing in January , yet they waited until the end of March to inform us they were doing nothing. then to top it off they inform us they are still going to do nothing till the end of the year and then they will look at it. One word is off the table, so please enlighten me.
If you are asking me, I think it depends on what investigating means.. IMO, not a very clear choice of words. I find it difficult to imagine that they haven't done anything. I'd like to think that investigating means planning and writing/testing code to determine does this give good gameplay. I think they simply ran out of time to finish the feature update and to incorporate it into update 15. After all they have probably reduced the development teams due to lower than expected returns on their investment in the DLC, this perforce leads to less development time for refactoring a feature. Obviously they've also been sidetracked with fixing Odyssey and developing / finetuning the Thargoid war.

This statement from Bruce is also curious: "We will share details of this investigation and our plans towards the end of this year."

To me it doesn't sound like Frontier at all, that at the end of the year they will share a plan on how they'll revamp an existing feature. They never do this! Normally they are tight lipped about everything and we hardly ever get to know anything before it's about to be released...

But of course this is only my personal speculation and might be completely off track. Though personally I prefer to have a positive outlook instead of being enraged at perceived wrongs that might in fact be inexistent..
 
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