It's Completely Pointless... Please Let it End!

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So we learned this week that Frontier have two years of game narrative laid out already. This includes the Vanguards update and more new ships coming this year. But can I please ask...

Is the end of the colonisation beta, or changes to it, anywhere in this two year plan?

So commanders have been spreading out into the galaxy building colonies. I've built three. One close to the bubble where, like everybody else, I threw just about everything at the wall to see what would stick. I then build another one further out that I later realised is in the wrong place, and a third further out still that is beginning to look like it's also in the wrong place. My ultimate aim, so you know, is to get out to the Tenebrae region on the eastern spiral arm... somehow.

The first colony produces tritium, but not too much of it. The second colony produces pretty much nothing at all. The third colony produces huge volumes of metals used for colonisation, along with tritium. However there's nowhere else nearby that's unclaimed or currently claimable where I could build a high-tech economy. If I could do this then I'd probably never return to the bubble ever again.

But there are TWO huge problems with colonisation.

1) There's really nothing to do in these colonies once they're built
2) When there aren't any suitable systems to colonise, we have to sit and wait, for weeks, sometimes months in the hope other Commanders will also build that way

But then there are two problems with each of these two problems.

1) Colonies just behave like normal systems in the game, there's actually no incentive or personalisation for the commanders that build them
2) Unless you can create a colony that serves a very specific, and much needed purpose, there's little incentive to stay there and further curate it
3) If I don't want to colonise a system that only has one or two stars in it, or no landable planets in it, why would I assume any other commander does?
4) Sitting, waiting, checking, and searching isn't gameplay

What we need is, for the love of god, and end to the colonisation beta, bringing with it any changes that are currently planned or in development.

Right now, colonisation is deeply flawed. There's such potential and there have been so many great suggestions made by players on these forums, but all these people are being met with a constant wall of silence.

Right now, it's more likely the NEXT UPDATE will be released before this current update is finished. That can't be right, surely?
 
However there's nowhere else nearby that's unclaimed or currently claimable where I could build a high-tech economy. If I could do this then I'd probably never return to the bubble ever again.
Are you sure about that?

All you need for a high-tech economy are the T1 ports with high-tech built in (medium pad orbital outpost, large pad surface outpost) and not building things which generate non-HT weak links to them (or going for the decoy station approach, but that's more expensive). Either will generate far more HT goods than you can personally use, the surface outpost especially, and as both have intrinsic economies they completely ignore the planet type so you can build them almost anywhere.

Right now, it's more likely the NEXT UPDATE will be released before this current update is finished. That can't be right, surely?
I don't see why you want the colonisation Beta to end quickly, if you're unhappy with its present state.

Usually the complaint about Frontier's feature releases is that they release with major flaws, which they then keep for the next decade because there's no time allocated to go back and fix them. If you want further changes to colonisation, the last thing you want is Frontier saying "we're done here, Beta is over".
 
Are you sure about that?

All you need for a high-tech economy are the T1 ports with high-tech built in (medium pad orbital outpost, large pad surface outpost) and not building things which generate non-HT weak links to them (or going for the decoy station approach, but that's more expensive). Either will generate far more HT goods than you can personally use, the surface outpost especially, and as both have intrinsic economies they completely ignore the planet type so you can build them almost anywhere.


I don't see why you want the colonisation Beta to end quickly, if you're unhappy with its present state.

Usually the complaint about Frontier's feature releases is that they release with major flaws, which they then keep for the next decade because there's no time allocated to go back and fix them. If you want further changes to colonisation, the last thing you want is Frontier saying "we're done here, Beta is over".
Resources would be needed, so I'd need at least one landable HMC planet. There's nothing here right now unless I head back in the wrong direction or just get way too far from my refinery system, which also means heading in the wrong direction.

It's the complete lack of communication that frustrates me. We can all see how colonisation could be vastly improved, but as with most other things in ED, Frontier won't even acknowledge these conversations, let alone engage in them.
 
Right now, it's more likely the NEXT UPDATE will be released before this current update is finished. That can't be right, surely?
There was a PP 2.0 change and an announcement that they intend to make more tweaks right in the middle of a Trailblazers update, after MONTHS of nothing happening after PP 2.0. So I would set my expectations and my estimate of FDev capability around roadmap management accordingly...

I think it's great that ED is getting more attention again in terms of bandwidth. I don't think it's great that this just means there are now more staff who continue to learn nothing. (And if you go and look at the other game forums, it's clearly not a problem unique to the ED workstream.)
 
"Engagement" is the bane of our modern society.
Only engagement done the wrong way.

2025-02-21_16-34-14.jpg
 
Only engagement done the wrong way.
they'll look at the numbers, see player numbers increase and profits increase and then they'll congratulate themselves on a job well done.
If player numbers and profit increase, they have done the right thing for their business - and make no mistake, no matter how chummy a developer acts online, it is a business. Engagement doesn't pay for development. People buying a game does. Engagement in itself is worthless.
 
If player numbers and profit increase, they have done the right thing for their business - and make no mistake, no matter how chummy a developer acts online, it is a business. Engagement doesn't pay for development. People buying a game does. Engagement in itself is worthless.
I get that, but if it's true that...

Greater gaming hours = profit increase

Could it also be true that...

Greater gaming hours + player engagement = higher profit increase

Frontier have nothing to lose by engagement. They have to set expectations and say "We know you've all got a billion ideas, but you know we can't implement them all." Sure they've set up a thread on the forums here on feedback for colonisation, and PowerPlay etc. but where's the follow-up post acknowledging the most popular ideas and suggestions and saying "While we can't promise any of these will be implemented, or even implementable, we just want to let you know that we've read your feedback and identified the most popular ideas."

It's a bit like putting out a suggestion box that you've lost the key for.
 
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"Engagement" is the bane of our modern society.
Mismeasured and/or toxic engagement is not what we're talking about here though; we are talking about FDev fundamentally failing to communicate properly with a surprisingly loyal and long-standing base. Or are you suggesting the reason FDev struggle is not lack of attention, but attention on the wrong things?

These people will understand business and game development, but they clearly have no idea about engagement. For them, they'll look at the numbers, see player numbers increase and profits increase and then they'll congratulate themselves on a job well done.
The board do that, sure, that's what professionalised boards do. But nobody below the board is doing that, that's not what I was getting at. FDev just don't give their staff the basic tools. As one example, the issue tracker has been fundamentally inadequate - and indeed broken for some simple use cases - since the day it was there and absolutely nothing has been done about it. At all. And that's FDev-wide, not just ED!
I'd be willing to bet that none of these people have even visited these forums, let alone allowed the staff under them to provide feedback.
I think FDev under-use these forums, but you can't say nobody visits. And we do have the streams.
View attachment 432310
I don't get that vibe from the stream at all, and I speak as someone who has spent 31 years engaging with companies who absolutely go with this vibe all day and all night. I actually think the streams recently are the one thing that's going vaguely well in terms of outreach (so of course naturally the current anchor for those streams is leaving FDev.)
 
Frontier have nothing to lose by engagement.
I wouldn't be so sure at that. Historically Frontier aren't the most talented people at communicating, especially when there is nothing to communicate. The community on the other hand is very good at nitpicking at throwaway comments, fabricating facts out of fiction and generally shouting at the clouds.

They have to set expectations and say "We know you've all got a billion ideas, but you know we can't implement them all." Sure they've set up a thread on the forums here on feedback for colonisation, and PowerPlay etc. but where's the follow-up post acknowledging the most popular ideas and suggestions and saying "While we can't promise any of these will be implemented, or even implementable, we just want to let you know that we've read your feedback and identified the most popular ideas."
They do that all the time. They say "no" or "not at launch" (which is a codephrase for "no") and the vocal parts of the community (those "engaging") go "but but but but wah!".

Engagement is a waste of time if you ask me. Yes, I am an internet cynic. I am aware.
 
Engagement is a waste of time if you ask me. Yes, I am an internet cynic. I am aware.
I think our previous posts crossed in the aether and I think we're vaguely agreeing somehow...

I agree that bad engagement is a waste of time. Which is why better engagement would help stop wasting time and start progressing the game in a sensible way.

I also agree to OP's point that that once you have found the key for the suggestion box and you open it, there are some properly ridiculous suggestions in there, and that could easily drown an under-resourced team.

But then that's why we invented Product Owners and a way of managing this chaos. Whereas FDev are happy to implement obviously stupid things a lot of the time or implement things which are an obvious annoyance, so it's clearly not getting the right product level attention, regardless of where any suggestions or roadmaps come from in the first place.
 
Mismeasured and/or toxic engagement is not what we're talking about here though; we are talking about FDev fundamentally failing to communicate properly with a surprisingly loyal and long-standing base. Or are you suggesting the reason FDev struggle is not lack of attention, but attention on the wrong things?
Let me put it differently. Engaging with your customer base isn't bad per se, if you're good at it. It's outright harmful if you're bad at it, even if you put out a flawless product. Engagement as a metric, as it is being used today, is useless. The internet is full of fake engagement creating nothing but fake bubbles. Some call it social media.
 
I don't get that vibe from the stream at all, and I speak as someone who has spent 31 years engaging with companies who absolutely go with this vibe all day and all night. I actually think the streams recently are the one thing that's going vaguely well in terms of outreach (so of course naturally the current anchor for those streams is leaving FDev.)
Maybe, but I remember when Piers Jackson was on unlocked a few months back. You could see the tension in the air.
 
Maybe, but I remember when Piers Jackson was on unlocked a few months back. You could see the tension in the air.
I feel like you're projecting here. I thought it was fine. Edit: It's their general MO to tiptoe around a bit and be careful to not reveal something they don't want to. I didn't exactly get the feeling he was "afraid of his manager".
 
I think though that it just boils down to the two things the player community want from Frontier the most.

1) Fix the bugs
2) Talk to the players

Frontier Unlocked is talking at the players, not to them. In order to talk to somebody there's a tacit acknowledgement that both sides will also have to do some listening. I fail to understand why after years of being terrible at this, and after even acknowledging on several occasions that they're terrible at it, they've never tried to do better.

I can't cook or do gardening, but at least I give it a go.
 
1) Fix the bugs
2) Talk to the players
Maybe that's a generational difference, but I care about 1), and not at all about 2). If they do 1), they'll never need to do 2) with me. Even if they don't do 1) they still don't have to talk to me. I don't care, I don't want to be their friend. If they put out a product - a game in this case - that fits my needs, I buy it, and I play it. If it doesn't, I don't engage. I move on.
 
I think though that it just boils down to the two things
that some of
the player community want from Frontier the most.

1) Fix the bugs
2) Talk to the players
No
2) Fix other bugs.
Frontier Unlocked is talking at the players, not to them. In order to talk to somebody there's a tacit acknowledgement that both sides will also have to do some listening. I fail to understand why after years of being terrible at this, and after even acknowledging on several occasions that they're terrible at it, they've never tried to do better.
Jus because you think they aren’t doing better doesn’t mean they haven’t tried.
I can't cook or do gardening, but at least I give it a go.

As for the Beta it should end when they are satisfied that it is working as they wish, or at least as close to that as is possible given it is us trying to bend it into what we want instead.
 
So we learned this week that Frontier have two years of game narrative laid out already. This includes the Vanguards update and more new ships coming this year. But can I please ask...

Is the end of the colonisation beta, or changes to it, anywhere in this two year plan?

So commanders have been spreading out into the galaxy building colonies. I've built three. One close to the bubble where, like everybody else, I threw just about everything at the wall to see what would stick. I then build another one further out that I later realised is in the wrong place, and a third further out still that is beginning to look like it's also in the wrong place. My ultimate aim, so you know, is to get out to the Tenebrae region on the eastern spiral arm... somehow.

The first colony produces tritium, but not too much of it. The second colony produces pretty much nothing at all. The third colony produces huge volumes of metals used for colonisation, along with tritium. However there's nowhere else nearby that's unclaimed or currently claimable where I could build a high-tech economy. If I could do this then I'd probably never return to the bubble ever again.

But there are TWO huge problems with colonisation.

1) There's really nothing to do in these colonies once they're built
2) When there aren't any suitable systems to colonise, we have to sit and wait, for weeks, sometimes months in the hope other Commanders will also build that way

But then there are two problems with each of these two problems.

1) Colonies just behave like normal systems in the game, there's actually no incentive or personalisation for the commanders that build them
2) Unless you can create a colony that serves a very specific, and much needed purpose, there's little incentive to stay there and further curate it
3) If I don't want to colonise a system that only has one or two stars in it, or no landable planets in it, why would I assume any other commander does?
4) Sitting, waiting, checking, and searching isn't gameplay

What we need is, for the love of god, and end to the colonisation beta, bringing with it any changes that are currently planned or in development.

Right now, colonisation is deeply flawed. There's such potential and there have been so many great suggestions made by players on these forums, but all these people are being met with a constant wall of silence.

Right now, it's more likely the NEXT UPDATE will be released before this current update is finished. That can't be right, surely?
What are you planning to do in Tenebrae when (if?) you get there?
Assuming you're the only Cmdr looking in that direction you are going to be the only one building anything there so will likely be stuck in the same position as you are now.
 
Maybe that's a generational difference, but I care about 1), and not at all about 2). If they do 1), they'll never need to do 2) with me. Even if they don't do 1) they still don't have to talk to me. I don't care, I don't want to be their friend. If they put out a product - a game in this case - that fits my needs, I buy it, and I play it. If it doesn't, I don't engage. I move on.
The greatest irony being that you're the person worth talking to, because you just speak in terms of yourself, what's good or not for you and that you're only speaking for yourself.

The internet, and by extension social media is full of far too many people who believe that what's good for them is what's best for everybody. 🙄
 
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