State of the game - Address our concerns please

[knowles2]

I mean, that the bug missions now, like other contents of the game that still are basic and incomplete, will take a secondary place this year.

Passenger missions, for example, should have been already launched in the game release in 2014. And until now nothing..not a single word...just the "usual", "on the list".

And sorry, my english is not good.

They have said more than that about passenger missions, they have stated they want other systems to be in place first before adding passenger missions to the game.

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Frontier lost half a year on Powerplay and


CQC, when they could have worked on the main game.

Considering power play was there way of implementing Tier 1 NPCs which was promised in DDF.

An assets and technologies developed in CQC will be in the main game at some stage, neither was waste of their time.

 

[knowles2]

LOL wot??

Even in "Open Play" you might as well be playing solo most of the time anyway. I could barely notice the difference though I could see the mission you got including landing on planets as not a bug but a nudge to buy the expansion. How exactly are FDEV going to continue to allow version 1 players to play with version 3,4,5,6,7,8,9 & 10 players without a huge heap of issues to get around?

The thing with the missions is that if they get them working it affects all player types so a win for everyone. If they could spend the time on missions that would be great, but they're already working on the next expansion. So what is going to happen here - are we going to have bugs in version 1 that never get addressed because they can't afford the staff to work on it? what about expansion 5 - will we have bugs in versions 1,2,3,4 & 5 that we put up with? Version 1 bugs and placeholders still remain after a year so why should we assume when "season 3" comes out, the bugs for season 2 will be looked at let alone season 1!

What you calling placeholders, Frontier don't consider placeholders. So it very unlikely they will ever be change substantially. Certainly not until they implement higher priority stuff.

 

[Excalibrates]

OP is, sadly, correct. I wrote about this before. Either FD QA is not doing their job, or FD management are deciding to release with known issues.

After getting to triple Elite I took a break and came back after 2.0 came out. How disappointing to see that FD have learned nothing; the approachability remains a massive issue unless you research third party guides from the 'net; and fundamental problems remain with the game. I installed 2.0, took some missions, flew around in space for hours, only to then go off and research on the net to find out that there are known issues with various mission types.

The thing most players need to realise is that FD isn't writing the game for existing players; their financial model needs a steady stream of new signups. For FD the best player is one who buys the game, plays it for a short while, then leaves. It's the same amount of money for them, without the need to provide ongoing service delivery for servers, support etc.

What FD need to realise is that without keeping the core advocates happy, we won't evangelise the game to our friends. A friend of mine played Elite in 1984, asked me what it was like, and I had to answer truthfully: some of the game engine components are breathtakingly good, but some of the basic game mechanics are pathetically bad. It suffers from shocking approachability (e.g. no real quality documentation from FD, and it's farcical that the only quality information on Community Goals is on a poorly structured forum thread), and it can be brutally hard on players in the early days (literally losing hours or days of game time if you make a simple mistake or get jumped by a lamer).

The game has some pretty fundamental issues. I agree with the OP; FD would be far better off pulling back from their self-imposed release schedule and (a) learning how to communicate better with their community (and I don't mean the pointless self-aggrandising newsletters, I mean openness about known issues and fix schedules) and (b) listening to the community to remove areas of friction.

Broken gameplay mechanics are intensely frustrating and need to be fixed. And by "broken" here I don't mean things I think should be buffed or nerfed, I mean things like missions that are impossible to complete, NPCs with "superpowers" etc.

 

[Kosmiker]

Please fix the missions, after that start having missions with more depth. More stuff to do at planets would be nice, couldn't care less at the ability of having ships inside ships or avatar creation if I'm mostly playing solo. More gear (weapons, ships and modules) would be nice too. That's about it.

 

[Daish]

In Short FD simply stop current new work have a forum recce day list all the known problems and there are loads from bugged missions, graphic heckups, to pointless poi and lack of richer environments the list goes go on and on, why not work these things out before implementing newer content for all of us to get even more frustrated with, I'm now hanging up my wings and mothballing my ships, for a few months out of pure frustration over the imcompleteless of the game that started good and is heading for disaster if you don't fix the already problematic issues...

 

[the darkwalker]

Sorry but Frontier has gotten way better at communicating with its player base over the last year.

like when they "forgot" about the extras that we paid, and then locked the thread? i still have private messages from the guy that closed it...

or when horizons was supposed to be a full fledged dlc, and you could pay extra to play the beta, to find out later that when released it's STILL in beta? because in the store i did not find mention anywhere that when it was supposed to launch would be incomplete

what about the utter incompetence in dealing with the offline drama?

then we have the horizons trailer with guns blazing, ships flying in canyons shooting eachother to find out that "it was not even planned to have npc's on planets" of course AFTER the launch (this is what i'm angry about, if they allow bounty hunting on planets i can pass on everything, but reading dev's say it's not even planned makes me super upset)

yes i know, it's a game but...we deserve better than this treatment honestly

 

[Red Anders]

Go into a Hazardous Resource Extraction Site... kill ships for at least an hour straight without the game freezing / crashing due to a probable memory leak. Now do this 3 more times just to make sure. We'll see who's making baseless assumptions

The longest I have spent in a haz res since Horizons was released was three hours straight (Vulture with pulse lasers) getting bounties for the Hel CG. I've also done at least 10 sessions of one hour or more in haz res sites since Horizons dropped. No crashes at all, of any kind. No slowdown either. Now you can think I'm lying if you want, it's really no skin off my nose either way because I'll just be over here playing the game. Or you can accept that your problem (which I have no doubt is real) is precisely that; your problem. Not a general one.

I'm not saying that it doesn't need to be resolved. What I'm saying is that we're both playing the same version of the game, you have a problem and I do not. Therefore there is clearly another factor at play which is influencing your situation and not influencing mine. That factor is either your hardware or software and its interaction with the game. Not the game itself.

 

[OCD]

As a long term support and huge fan of the original and this version I have to agree

My last support tickets have also been closed when the problem wasnt fixed so even when we ask for support
and give a detailed explanation of what the issue is they are not investigted . The response to my last ticket
saying I couldnt move forward in empire rank was to reply to me saying "ive looked at the log files and see
its all working and you are at outsider rank". I log into the game and my Empire rank is still None.

I think im a bit weary and the stability of Horizons on my platform and the people I know have also the same issues
; so ive stopped playing as I cant afford system wide lockups like the one last week that corrupted a bunch
of windows boot files. I did a couple of long cpu and gpu burn in tests afterwards just to rule out any issues with
my hw and its sound.

I bought into the £130 lifetime pass ; since this we have gone backwards in stability & functionality , wonky AI , missions and
ranking systems, community goals (dont mention tourettes i mean cherrets). But forwards in terms of performance so thats good !

Its a new year, we all want to enjoy the value the game has to offer but your team must address stability and
functionality - we can all live with performance issues or stutters here and there, but, bug-wise, you need to set the thargoids on
them.

ps - as priority 2 can we have yaw srv thrusters for better downhill srv-skiing action

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The longest I have spent in a haz res since Horizons was released was three hours straight (Vulture with pulse lasers) getting bounties for the Hel CG. I've also done at least 10 sessions of one hour or more in haz res sites since Horizons dropped. No crashes at all, of any kind. No slowdown either. Now you can think I'm lying if you want, it's really no skin off my nose either way because I'll just be over here playing the game. Or you can accept that your problem (which I have no doubt is real) is precisely that; your problem. Not a general one.

I'm not saying that it doesn't need to be resolved. What I'm saying is that we're both playing the same version of the game, you have a problem and I do not. Therefore there is clearly another factor at play which is influencing your situation and not influencing mine. That factor is either your hardware or software and its interaction with the game. Not the game itself.

of course - from your end you can of course diagnose this

Funny how this non general problem of stability affects me and 4 people I fly with and we ALL get crashes a lot when in wing at
RES sites when larger prey come along (documented issue). We all have toally different platform builds with different cpus and gpus

I have also been unable to spend more that 30-40 mins before a lock up at RES sites and nothing changed on my system other than the
horizons update. If I am not in wing I may get an hour but once I tag a few larger ships, complete lock up. This issue has been discussed by
many people across the forums and other forums so yes, it is a general issue in RES sites and not our HW or SW.

 

[OCD]

In Short FD simply stop current new work have a forum recce day list all the known problems and there are loads from bugged missions, graphic heckups, to pointless poi and lack of richer environments the list goes go on and on, why not work these things out before implementing newer content for all of us to get even more frustrated with, I'm now hanging up my wings and mothballing my ships, for a few months out of pure frustration over the imcompleteless of the game that started good and is heading for disaster if you don't fix the already problematic issues...

Very good suggestion - I think a focus on stability and functionality is key - anything else is tier 2 ATM

 

[CMDR Byr Goefin]

Day 3: Still no warm cookies.

Starting to think I am being ignored by DEVs.

 

[almostpilot]

I do like the game a lot and enjoy playing it, but my main concern about Elite: Dangerous is that the increased focus on multiplayer content seems to reduce the resources spend on developing content that would benefit everyone, from "solo" over "private group" to "open" mode players.

Two very good examples for this are some major updates from season 1 and season 2:

• In Season 1 we got Wings with the 1.2 release of ED, but contrary to many players expectations and to what other games provide, the option to enlist NPC wingmen instead of players wasn't included. Even worse, neither David Braben himself nor the developers wanted to confirm that NPC wingmen for hire would indeed come during season 2. So we might reach the year 2017 without the option to hire NPC wingmen - a basic mechanic that you have in nearly every other space flight game, and not only the new ones, but even those released decades ago like X-Wing Alliance or Starlancer. In ED, update 1.2 and Wings are basically meaningless for players in solo mode, and even in open or private group modes it requires coordination, aligning schedules with other players etc. to take advantage of this mechanic.
• In Season 2 we are going to get Multicrews, a concept I like in principle, but that again will be restricted to players. This case baffles me especially, since I believe that NPCs are much, much better suited for the role of crewmembers than other players. Players need to be entertained, e.g. they need something to do that let's them stick to the game. Right now, it's already easy to manage your ship alone and people complain about SC being void of anything to do. If ship management for individual players is watered down further by distributing these not to complex states among multiple players, I don't see how this might address the concerns about not having enough to do in the game.

FD stating that the ED community is great and that player groups are providing needed variety and content is a cheap excuse for not being able to provide this content themselves, IMHO. Adding NPCs to those mechanics mentioned above - crews and wings - would already alleviate this perceived problem of missing content. It would become much easier for everyone - including players in multiplayer modes - to take advantage of and enjoy the multicrew and wings gameplay mechancis.

Don't get me wrong, I think ED is a terrific game and Horizons is one hell of an achievement for the devs - kudos again to them! - but if you ask me about my main concern about Elite: Dangerous it is neglecting the possibility to enjoy everything the game has to offer without the need of teaming up with other players.

Could not agree with you more!

+1

 

[CMDR WHISKEY ROSCOE]

The longest I have spent in a haz res since Horizons was released was three hours straight (Vulture with pulse lasers) getting bounties for the Hel CG. I've also done at least 10 sessions of one hour or more in haz res sites since Horizons dropped. No crashes at all, of any kind. No slowdown either. Now you can think I'm lying if you want, it's really no skin off my nose either way because I'll just be over here playing the game. Or you can accept that your problem (which I have no doubt is real) is precisely that; your problem. Not a general one.

I'm not saying that it doesn't need to be resolved. What I'm saying is that we're both playing the same version of the game, you have a problem and I do not. Therefore there is clearly another factor at play which is influencing your situation and not influencing mine. That factor is either your hardware or software and its interaction with the game. Not the game itself.

______________

You only have to look at bug report page to see this is not an isolated issue:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=218819&highlight=horizon+2.0+crash

Oh and just because you as an individual has no issue with game,,,is not definitive evidence that one does not exist.
Something that used to work for many has started crashing for many.



******** Remember Whiskey Loves You *********

 

[fossil]

This is an open plea to someone from the community team at Frontier to address the community about the concerns being voiced here on you're official forums. Every day see's new posts about bugged missions, planets vanishing and just about everything else you can do in game has at least something to be complained about.

Now while I am the first to admit I am a fan boy and love the game to bits, enough is enough you are starting to take the Micheal in my opinion. You released Horizons before the holidays but was it really in a fit state? Did all these problems make it though Q & A before the various betas? If so then I can only say that you're Q & A department need to be asked what did they do? Sorry to be so blunt but the state of the game is just not acceptable to many of you're customers many of whom you have a contract with lasting for the season length of Horizon's.

You really need to at least post a state of the game type letter to try and appease you're current player base, which I can assure you will dwindle very fast if their concerns are not addressed.

The patch you put out yesterday addressed some concerns but went near very few of the issues that get raised. Today for instance Mr. Ant has posted yet more proof of graphic downgrades - if these are optimizations then they are showing either a weakness in you're engine or you are heading towards platform parity which I hope is not the case - PC gaming is on the up due to it being more powerful than either of the two consoles and well you should know it.

So, over to you Frontier, tell us why fanboys and doubters alike should keep the candle burning.


EDIT: To clarify, I have invoked the use of 'Our' not to pretend to speak for everyone that would be condescending. I am using it to encompass those of us who have had issues and would like a little 'something' just to keep our faith that things are being worked on and possibly a time frame. Sorry if you do not agree with my use of the word, I mean no offence.

Lets have little honesty here. You use the word "our" to imply you are posting on behalf of a significant group of players. If this were true you would then not go on to use the phrase "in my opinion". To cap it all you then try to justify the use of the word "our". Offence intended.

 

[Soon(TM)]

Since the Kickstarter DBOBE said that he wanted to make the game "he" has wanted to make for decades.

Elite Dangerous is that game, he is making it for himself an we are along for the ride. As long as the parts of the game that David likes are not broken then he will be happy I guess.

1.0 of Elite was released too early and 2.0 is the same, its a trend with this game it seems.

1.5 was a better update than 2.0 in my opinion.

I log in now and can't find anything compelling to do in the game, so I usually log off after 10 mins of sitting in the station trying to think of something interesting to do!

 

[the darkwalker]

Day 3: Still no warm cookies.

Starting to think I am being ignored by DEVs.

day 3 : your post is still as useless as a stone in the sand
but i might have picked the bait i know..
still i have a reason to write in here..what is yours?

on a more serious note tho...it seems that you guys were successful...thread have been yet again derailed.
i sincerely (and i was a bit naive in thinking so) that we could talk about some issues with our little hobby here.
i guess we were wrong again... so be it
ye ye i know the rhyme, "close the door when you quit"

 

[LeeBomb20]

I honestly have not had any problems yet except for one mission that asked me to deliver some goods to Carter Port in Rhea, only problem is how? I acquired the goods (which was a ~200Ly round trip, not that far i know but it still took a good 45 mins with the amount of times i was interdicted) after getting back to Carter port and docking i realised that at that station they don't have a bulletin board or a commodities market, and as far as i can tell there isn't a way to complete the contract any other way the biggest blow was that the pay was 210,000cr which for someone who's only been playing for 5 days would have been really nice, it would have boosted me up to 500,000cr and obviously it could just be me being dumb but from what i have heard its probably not.

 

[dubsdj]

I am happy Horizons was released before Christmas Hols, I know it isn't perfect but the fact that they delivered on their promise and it kept me occupied during the break.
I hope now they can get down to adding graphic improvements and also a bit more atmosphere to the game, I think there should be daily community goals that would really bring the game to life.
Keep up the good work!

 

[peter101cycle]

For me, it's not the bugs which I've not seen a massive amount of, with the exception of being able to move the external view camera into the planet surface.

The reason I'm taking a break is that there's nothing COMPELLING yet to do in Horizons, which entices me back in to the game.

Horizons is technically a great achievement but for pity's sake, fix the game content. There's still not enough in the game to keep people interested that have been playing for most of the last year.

I'm still missing the point why NPC multi-crew / wings, has not been implemented. Is it because the AI isn't good enough of is it just trying to force people to collaborate with multi-player.

Love Elite Dangerous but still hoping for the "filling-in" of content and interactivity depth.

 

[LameoveR]

I disagree.
Why are you playing on holidays when FD not working?

 

[CaptainKremmen]

Day 3: Still no warm cookies.

Starting to think I am being ignored by DEVs.

Or it's the weekend.