When FD dropped the ball (with the background sim in v1.3)

[nexxo]

They can't help it. Not your fault.



Oh look, someone describing Elite as the game the guy in the original post thought he was playing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uKD1ap5hsI

Yup, and the first line is: the idea is how the galaxy will change over time.
-
Work in progress, guys. BIG work in progress. EVE Online took five years to develop into a working ecosystem. Elite Dangerous will need at least a few years to even begin to work as has been described in the above vision. I really cannot understand how people expect all this to just be there, present and balanced and working smoothly, when the game is less than a year old.

 

[Obsidian Ant]

Yup, and the first line is: the idea is how the galaxy will change over time.
-
Work in progress, guys. BIG work in progress. EVE Online took five years to develop into a working ecosystem. Elite Dangerous will need at least a few years to even begin to work as has been described in the above vision. I really cannot understand how people expect all this to just be there, present and balanced and working smoothly, when the game is less than a year old.

Ah, so the OP is playing the correct game then. Just a bit too early...

 

[Soliluna]

Yup, and the first line is: the idea is how the galaxy will change over time.
-
Work in progress, guys. BIG work in progress. EVE Online took five years to develop into a working ecosystem. Elite Dangerous will need at least a few years to even begin to work as has been described in the above vision. I really cannot understand how people expect all this to just be there, present and balanced and working smoothly, when the game is less than a year old.

Elite's front page states that it is in the game now, so I feel the person has rights to be disappointed. I believe you should stop trying to dictate what other people should feel and what they should play.

From the front page:

A UNIQUE CONNECTED GAMING EXPERIENCE

Governments fall, battles are lost and won, and humanity’s frontier is reshaped, all by players’ actions. In an age of galactic superpowers and interstellar war, every player’s personal story influences the connected galaxy and evolving narrative.

 

[Aigaion]

Yup, and the first line is: the idea is how the galaxy will change over time.
-
Work in progress, guys. BIG work in progress. EVE Online took five years to develop into a working ecosystem. Elite Dangerous will need at least a few years to even begin to work as has been described in the above vision. I really cannot understand how people expect all this to just be there, present and balanced and working smoothly, when the game is less than a year old.

Not quite sure that players will wait a few years on Elite : Dangerous. BTW, EVE's evolution is not comparable to Elite in any point, at it's release, EVE had already a working system that made it possible to influence the galaxy, it's not Elite's case, devs are just going to shutdown servers to fix the actual turmoil so players don't have to wait next cycle and take the risk that the turmoil doesn't end. And let's face it anyway, what is destroying the game is the influence of players in solo and group mode. I don't understand why basically players not in open mode can influence the galaxy, and that's what is driving Elite in the wall.

 

[Eagle Eye]

Broken BG sim? Surely you jest... It has never worked in the first place. Everything needs manual correction because the "sim" keep giving the wrong results. I just play the game with that assumption in place and I am a happy camper. But then I got quite a low expectation on this game...

 

[brumster]

I'm honestly losing the energy and will to contribute on this forum some days. The number of times I've typed in a semi-wall of text and then cancelled it with a dismissive "Oh, what's the point, it won't change anything and no-one will listen or understand".

But, in short, I'm with ChrisH, Granite and the original Reddit author. We are too far down the line for the old "it's under development" excuses to be valid any more. Too many people have expended their own personal effort, as part of the testing phases or even just post-live community work, for me to ignore the fact that this game is set on a path and it will not change. The path is NOT the path I want, it's not the one I felt was sold, and it feels to me that while there are still high hopes on Frontier's side, they will take so long to implement that the damage will be done (if they are even implementable). The core aspects, such as the BGS, the flight model, the weapons mechanics - need to be right from day one. Too much game time has passed under the bridge to change or fix this now.

God, I'm dreading the 1.4 announcement. I can see planetary landings on the horizon. 80% of the forum will whoop with delight, and I'll be done, I suspect. GAMEPLAY, people. Read the words - *game_play*. Make it an enjoyable game to play!

Ah, who am I kidding. I'm the minority. I clearly just don't get it

 

[nexxo]

Elite's front page states that it is in the game now, so I feel the person has rights to be disappointed. I believe you should stop trying to dictate what other people should feel and what they should play.

From the front page:

A UNIQUE CONNECTED GAMING EXPERIENCE

Governments fall, battles are lost and won, and humanity’s frontier is reshaped, all by players’ actions. In an age of galactic superpowers and interstellar war, every player’s personal story influences the connected galaxy and evolving narrative.

I don't think I'm dictating anything. I'm just pointing out that unrealistic expectations tend to meet with disappointment. YMMV.

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

Then Frontier started accusing me of lying for reporting bugs

Says it all really ...

 

[nexxo]

Hmmm. I've noticed a trend where people accuse each other too easily of lying or being called a liar when they just have a genuinely different point of view or understanding of the situation. I think it is best to avoid such emotive accusations.

 

[Soliluna]

I don't think I'm dictating anything. I'm just pointing out that unrealistic expectations tend to meet with disappointment. YMMV.

Not dictating? Re-read your post below... One page back and you have forgotten what you posted?

OP is playing the wrong game. He needs to buy himself a subscription to EVE Online.



Word.

 

[Cyda]

Funny, I thought it conveyed the OP's feeling rather well, unlike some of the posts here, either undying fandom or hatred. WHY do you feel the need to mock? I think THAT is a bigger indicator here. Your post, which just seems to be here for no reason at all apart from gloating is typical of the gamers today, shallow and without vision....PLEASE dont have kids, we have enough gimp's on the planet.

Well said mate, you saved me having to type this reply.

I really cannot understand how people expect all this to just be there, present and balanced and working smoothly, when the game is less than a year old.

I know right! How dare people expect the game they paid for, to work as advertised, after release! The cheek of it! /s

 

[Sandro Sammarco]

Hello Commanders!

Just to let you guys know, we have *not* stopped work on the background simulation.

Clearly there are some issues that we're working through with the way that states interact with each other, and some where influence formulas don't return the results we expect (or think appropriate). I guess it's fair to say that this stuff can get pretty complex.

We're also still looking at more ways for minor faction interaction to join up with Power interactions and general iterations to improve the experience overall.

Player feedback and our long term commitment ensure that this work remains ongoing: we're going to be working on the background simulation until it hits all the notes we're aiming for. It isn't going to happen straight away, but the plan is to keep going.

I can't give you ETAs for this stuff right now, all I can say is: we haven't given up!

I hope this info helps a little.

 

[SentineI]

God, I'm dreading the 1.4 announcement. I can see planetary landings on the horizon. 80% of the forum will whoop with delight, and I'll be done, I suspect. GAMEPLAY, people. Read the words - *game_play*. Make it an enjoyable game to play!

(Since this thread has already gone to hell in a handbasket (or heading that way anyway), I guess my replying off-topic won't make things noticeably worse...)

The big much-hyped Gamescon announcement NEEDS to be about a major enhancement to Missions (as in huge amount of new content & variety, chained missions, wrecks containing mysterious stuff that leads to unexpected twists, etc), otherwise Elite Dangerous will have been basically the same (Solo) game for 8 months for a lot of people (minus a lot of v1.0 bugs). Apart from bug fixes, so far the only major enhancements by FD have been multiplayer-orientated (Wings, PowerPlay... and now CQC).

I've been crying out for enhanced Missions since v1.0, seemingly to little effect. CQC appears to be distracting FD from what they *should* be working on, and that worries me.

N.B. I will welcome Landing On Planets (if announced), as it will personally give the game a new lease of life for me (finally I'll get the Multiplayer Frontier Elite 2 that I dreamed of), but I have my doubts that it will solve the fundamental missing game content needed to satisfy the majority of people who get bored with Elite Dangerous after several 10s or 100s of hours play.

 

[AnnuverScotinExile]

I hope this info helps a little.

It helps enormously, I would imagine (I don't give a damn for factions and groups and powers, but those that do should be happy).

It would help enormously if you could give similar vague, nothing promised, no dates, statements about other bits of the game that are 'missing' or 'not working properly'. Like exploration, for example, to quote my biggest problem.

 

[Obsidian Ant]

Hello Commanders!

Just to let you guys know, we have *not* stopped work on the background simulation.

Clearly there are some issues that we're working through with the way that states interact with each other, and some where influence formulas don't return the results we expect (or think appropriate). I guess it's fair to say that this stuff can get pretty complex.

We're also still looking at more ways for minor faction interaction to join up with Power interactions and general iterations to improve the experience overall.

Player feedback and our long term commitment ensure that this work remains ongoing: we're going to be working on the background simulation until it hits all the notes we're aiming for. It isn't going to happen straight away, but the plan is to keep going.

I can't give you ETAs for this stuff right now, all I can say is: we haven't given up!

I hope this info helps a little.

Thanks Sandro.

Regarding the background simulation could you give a little information on how it affects the marketplace, and how the marketplace affects the simulation? I tend not to have much to do with the minor factions, or Powerplay, but I am very interested in getting involved in the market and trading...but have kept away from that so far, because I don't really understand how it works in terms of being a galaxy wide market (I know it's not random, but it appears a little random at times).

Also, is there any likely-hood that in the future we will see more commodities added to the market - I'd actually like to see a few hundred there.

Thanks again for popping into this thread.

 

[Soliluna]

Hello Commanders!

Just to let you guys know, we have *not* stopped work on the background simulation.

Clearly there are some issues that we're working through with the way that states interact with each other, and some where influence formulas don't return the results we expect (or think appropriate). I guess it's fair to say that this stuff can get pretty complex.

We're also still looking at more ways for minor faction interaction to join up with Power interactions and general iterations to improve the experience overall.

Player feedback and our long term commitment ensure that this work remains ongoing: we're going to be working on the background simulation until it hits all the notes we're aiming for. It isn't going to happen straight away, but the plan is to keep going.

I can't give you ETAs for this stuff right now, all I can say is: we haven't given up!

I hope this info helps a little.

As it turns out, FD are not comfortable with the current implementation and believe it is not always providing the expected or appropriate results. I wouldn't take this as 'we admit this is broken' as that would be putting words in their mouths and doesn't really represent the reality. However it is clear that they can empathise with the sentiment of disappointment from some players, why can other players not do the same?

Sandro - what I want to know is, where is the simulation heading now, is it closer to the entirely simulation driven expansion and contraction discussed by David originally or is there always going to be a developer hand in manifesting the results of the interactions? I would hope the former, as it is far more organic and this is what I always expected. If the latter is true, it makes me wonder whether or not work on the simulation is effort that could be spent elsewhere, with continuation on PP and CG's providing the galactic narrative.

 

[SentineI]

It would help enormously if you could give similar vague, nothing promised, no dates, statements about other bits of the game that are 'missing' or 'not working properly'. Like exploration, for example, to quote my biggest problem.

Yes, this ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

FD's marketing department may hate the idea of announcing the short-term direction the game is hopefully heading in, as it might mean they can't make a big "surprise announcement" shortly before a major update... but given the growing level of dissatisfaction among long-time players (on these forums AND Reddit), I think such updates NEED to be given.

It would be very fine line for FD to tread, as they must avoid promising stuff that end-up taking 3-6 months for release (or gets cancelled). Multiple people need to review any such news, to ensure things are not phrased poorly or promise more than they should.

 

[SentineI]

I had missed an earlier announcement by FD, which will hopefully belatedly address some of GlyphGryph's issue(s):
https://community.elitedangerous.com/node/235

For the CQC update we're looking at making a few changes to the background simulation. One commonly raised issue is that minor factions don't always enter conflict states such as war, civil war and elections. This occurs when the other minor faction is in a state that cannot be overridden, so we are changing the rule so that conflict states can immediately override other states so that conflicts can be entered and completed. We'll also reduce the recovery periods so states can repeat more quickly. Expansion in particular will receive a substantial reduction in the recovery period.

(Thanks to AnnuverScotinExile for pointing this out.)

Although that still leaves the issue of how FD treated GlyphGryph. Some of it was clearly customer-relations mess-up, due to staff turn-over, which FD to should really look at preventing from happening again.

 

[Sandro Sammarco]

Hello Commander Soliluna!

The aim is to have the background simulation run autonomously. Right now, that means making sure that when things look a bit squiggly we investigate and make changes as appropriate. We certainly aren't making these changes with the intent of having "Dev" control; instead, we look at rules and formulas to make sure the system behaves as we were expecting it to, with the end goal of it not needing intervention at all.

Time and effort permitting, the background simulation has a long future ahead of it.

 

[Stigbob]

It helps enormously, I would imagine (I don't give a damn for factions and groups and powers, but those that do should be happy).

It would help enormously if you could give similar vague, nothing promised, no dates, statements about other bits of the game that are 'missing' or 'not working properly'. Like exploration, for example, to quote my biggest problem.

If they give a concrete update release time and delay for improvements or release early because it's magnificent, they'd trigger a deluge of "YOU LIED GAAAAH !" threads.
It's easier and more sensible to release when ready whilst keeping ranty people in the dark, it means ranty people rant about being kept in the dark. But they are ranty they'd rant anyway (they even rant about server's being down for updates, whilst rantily demanding updates).

@Sandro Sammarco, thanks for the update. The games already great and getting better.