Should Elite Dangerous add clans/player factions in the future

[GluttonyFang]

I disagree with your conclusion - at least in the context of this thread. We're clearly suggesting things which don't exist in the game already and were never advertised as part of it. (Game mode discussions I'll leave to the latest threadnaught.) I think we're at the point now where basic group management tools wouldn't be good enough (and even if they'd existed in 1.0, users would still be suggesting and asking for more) and so I think that blaming the advertising is mistaken.

In my mind, at least, this is a potential vs. realisation discussion. The multiplayer experience could and should be far better than it is currently.

Some people have interpreted a lack of clan support at launch as a hard-line position against it from FD - which is also untrue. The closest we have to that is DBOBE saying that they don't want the sort of ossification which can be seen in other titles - a point that I believe that the majority of users can agree on.

As Garbarrage said: if we broadly agree that something should be done, lets bounce ideas around about what that should be and what it would look like to a player...

You're pointing out what I mean by the extreme polarization of the playerbase.

What FD brought upon itself is the task of trying to look left and look right at the same time.

Or like the analogy I used earlier, this is literally the two party system in the US, and as we know, it gets nothing done, or that it polarizes people further and only demagogues that try to be as neutral as possible get any policy through, and this kind of policy satisfies actually a small portion of the playerbase. Due to the polarization, the relationship between members of the community worsens and both sides become increasingly agitated and become extremists...

I can probably write a paper analyzing the political scenery of ED and match it to the political realm of the US easily.

Anyway, on point, the polarization continues as it stand, and it isn't looking very bright.

 

[Robert Maynard]

So I really don't know what is wrong with ED other than its advertisement and attraction of overly large of a crowd than the game was intended for. The reason for it most likely fall into two possibilities:

1. Corporate greed/Lack of development funding

2. Ambitious/noble vision not translating into reality

Presumably the 25,681 Kickstarter backers, who made their pledges in the hope that the game would be produced, were happy with the design (happy enough to back it, at least).

Similarly, the post-KS backers who made / upgraded pledges in the Backers' App until just before the release of Alpha 1.0.

They were joined by players buying Premium Beta, Standard Beta and pre-ordering the game itself in the online store.

By the launch of the game there were a significantly larger number of players in total.

All of these copies of the game and indeed all other copies have been bought with particular core game features in the game design / in the launched game as well as the notable lack of some commonly offered features in other online games. Each and every player who has bought the game did so with the opportunity to familiarise themselves with this.

The Open / Solo / Groups and Guild debates have been rumbling on for over three years now - ever since some forum users realised that particular game features (or the lack thereof) did not suit their play-style in some way. The game modes have not changed. We've yet to see how Frontier accommodate some QoL improvements for player groups that sponsor Minor Factions.

So, I would offer another option:

3. Players / Forum Users hoped to change the game to suit their particular play-style and Frontier did not make the proposed changes.

 

[Yokoshima]

The issue is you don't see this level of argument and flame going on at other communities. Take Warframe and GW2 for example, the former is predominantly PvE with PvP available to the crowd, no one is trying to kill each other on the forum over the design of the game, and Warframe is still considered in Open Beta, and it has come a long way, even when the mechanics and features were mere skeleton, the community never bickered over PvP/PvE influence of the game.

GW2 provides full-fleshed features for both PvP and PvE. Both of these games have exclusive reward for PvP and PvE, the community never tried to kill each other over the basic design of the game.

So I really don't know what is wrong with ED other than its advertisement and attraction of overly large of a crowd than the game was intended for. The reason for it most likely fall into two possibilities:

1. Corporate greed/Lack of development funding

2. Ambitious/noble vision not translating into reality

Unlike those other games ED is no where near done with the core game. They are lacking so much in so many areas. As a result people want their major issue fixed first because they know how awesome this can be. Originally this was going to be a solo/small focused game but FD wanted to expand on that (a good call imo). But they are just so far off from a good base game and have been for so long people are going to get impatient. They know FD is quite slow to update and want their issues prioritized.
.
But it can be done. There is more then enough not yet in stone so to speak to achieve this. We can have guilds and PC controlled armadas (large groups of wings, etc.) that can do great deeds in a relatively short amount of time. However with the aid of NPCs solo/small group players can do the same, albeit slower.
.
I can only speak for myself, but my worry is that FD ignores solo/group players and realistically locks content behind a "guild wall".

 

[GluttonyFang]

3. Players / Forum Users hoped to change the game to suit their particular play-style and Frontier did not make the proposed changes.

Sure, but that is always a factor in any gaming community, it's common to see a portion of people dissatisfied with any game. But few to none of them have produced mass riots like this one has to this magnitude, hence why I question the advertisement.

 

[Steve50]

Voted no, not interested in the least and its not something I'd like to see added.

no thank you.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Sure, but that is always a factor in any gaming community, it's common to see a portion of people dissatisfied with any game. But few to none of them have produced mass riots like this one has to this magnitude, hence why I question the advertisement.

The game is described as offering options for Solo, Co-op, Multi-Player and MMO play.

Which bit is in question?

 

[GluttonyFang]

Unlike those other games ED is no where near done with the core game. They are lacking so much in so many areas. As a result people want their major issue fixed first because they know how awesome this can be. Originally this was going to be a solo/small focused game but FD wanted to expand on that (a good call imo). But they are just so far off from a good base game and have been for so long people are going to get impatient. They know FD is quite slow to update and want their issues prioritized.
.
But it can be done. There is more then enough not yet in stone so to speak to achieve this. We can have guilds and PC controlled armadas (large groups of wings, etc.) that can do great deeds in a relatively short amount of time. However with the aid of NPCs solo/small group players can do the same, albeit slower.
.
I can only speak for myself, but my worry is that FD ignores solo/group players and realistically locks content behind a "guild wall".

And you should have that concern, this shouldn't be about kick people out of the playerbase.

 

[Mohrgan]

Sure, but that is always a factor in any gaming community, it's common to see a portion of people dissatisfied with any game. But few to none of them have produced mass riots like this one has to this magnitude, hence why I question the advertisement.

Instead of the obvious answer; that the players are acting this way. The Advertisements used in selling Elite are just like the ads used to sell WoW, so they must offer exactly the same experience? I am perfectly willing to blame, us, the forum goers for what ever 'riot' you find here. Only You, can stop forest fires...

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Mass riots like this one to this magnitude?

Taking a few artistic liberties to enhance the drama of the moment I see, Sentinel Wolf . Is this a pitchfork I see before me or art thou but a pitchfork of the mind, a false creation?

 

[Urbanski101]

No thanks.

We already have player factions and two such factions have already messed up a couple of systems I frequent including my 'home' system.

Before they arrived everything was cool now the commodity prices went south and there is virtually no profit to be made there and the BB is filled with missions for the player faction.....one with a ridiculous name to boot.

I play solo or in Mobius most of the time so changing the system back would be nearly impossible given how little time I have to play.

So on the basis of that...no.

 

[GluttonyFang]

The game is described as offering options for Solo, Co-op, Multi-Player and MMO play.

Which bit is in question?

Solo people not having campaign/story-driven gameplay, Open people have an incomplete mode, Co-op lacks challenging and rewarding content.

And the worst of all, all three modes are affecting the same galaxy with questionable instancing.

Yes, I get it it's in the documents, and changing features now will be financially suicidal, but they stand as valid complaints and points that make some people believe that FD is merely being technical with the terms instead of offering actual content. The Steam reviews(I know its toxicity) and well-known youtubers for ED have all more or less pointed out the issues in various depths.

 

[CMDR Byr Goefin]

Mass riots like this one to this magnitude?

Taking a few artistic liberties to enhance the drama of the moment I see, Sentinel Wolf . Is this a pitchfork I see before me or art thou but a pitchfork of the mind, a false creation?

Yeah,

maybe 20 or 30 people out of 1 million is not exactly a riot. It is barely a party.

 

[GluttonyFang]

Mass riots like this one to this magnitude?

Taking a few artistic liberties to enhance the drama of the moment I see, Sentinel Wolf . Is this a pitchfork I see before me or art thou but a pitchfork of the mind, a false creation?

I don't know, the gaming communities/forums I've been in never impressed me with their drama to this extent, just saying @_@

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Yeah,

maybe 20 or 30 people out of 1 million is not exactly a riot. It is barely a party.

Hah don't take it literally, the reference doesn't confine itself to one thread.

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No thanks.

We already have player factions and two such factions have already messed up a couple of systems I frequent including my 'home' system.

Before they arrived everything was cool now the commodity prices went south and there is virtually no profit to be made there and the BB is filled with missions for the player faction.....one with a ridiculous name to boot.

I play solo or in Mobius most of the time so changing the system back would be nearly impossible given how little time I have to play.

So on the basis of that...no.

And tada... adding to the gridlock

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Instead of the obvious answer; that the players are acting this way. The Advertisements used in selling Elite are just like the ads used to sell WoW, so they must offer exactly the same experience? I am perfectly willing to blame, us, the forum goers for what ever 'riot' you find here. Only You, can stop forest fires...

Hah... each game has its unique perks, but there's no such thing as complete originality. We live in a societies that the unique is rarely successful and the successful is rarely unique. I'm trying to understand what ED is going for... it advertises with traditional tags, then try to offer unique gameplay, ends up upsetting people on quite a lot of fronts .-.

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Voted no, not interested in the least and its not something I'd like to see added.

no thank you.

Tada... the I'm not interested in [insert here], therefore [insert here] shouldn't be implemented .-.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Solo people not having campaign/story-driven gameplay, Open people have an incomplete mode, Co-op lacks challenging and rewarding content.

And the worst of all, all three modes are affecting the same galaxy with questionable instancing.

Yes, I get it it's in the documents, and changing features now will be financially suicidal, but they stand as valid complaints and points that make some people believe that FD is merely being technical with the terms instead of offering actual content. The Steam reviews(I know its toxicity) and well-known youtubers for ED have all more or less pointed out the issues in various depths.

Where in the advertising does it mention a scripted Solo game?

What is incomplete about Open?

The game difficulty requires to accommodate single players as well as groups of players.

Every single player experiencing and affecting the same shared galaxy state has also been a core feature of the game design since the beginning of the Kickstarter - see Ashley Barley's FAQ on these forums posted on Day 2 of the Kickstarter.

Complaints - everyone has some complaint or other. The complaints are not the same for all players - "issues" raised by some individuals are not necessarily considered to be issues by others.

 

[GluttonyFang]

Where in the advertising does it mention a scripted Solo game?

I'm talking about what a typical single player expects in a game that includes a single player mode. True, there is no scripted campaign advertised. The game can advertise itself with general tags like MMO/Co-op/Single Player, but it does not meet the expectation of a lot of those that purchase the game, hence why the abnormal amount of conflict between community members. Take the recent release of Battlefront for example, it advertised for a single player option, but people didn't get a campaign, and it was criticized for it.

What is incomplete about Open?

I already argued for this and you participated in the discussion in the mega thread of death.

The game difficulty requires to accommodate single players as well as groups of players.

I've yet to find any content that requires a group of players.

Every single player experiencing and affecting the same shared galaxy state has also been a core feature of the game design since the beginning of the Kickstarter - see Ashley Barley's FAQ on these forums posted on Day 2 of the Kickstarter.

True, and like I said, I remember you linking to the documents before. But as we can see with the introduction of features such as PP, it creates major problems and fragment the community further. Also, these information weren't made apparent and available on fronts of advertisement. (Reasonable business maneuver, but the amount of recoil is probably much higher than they expected in this case)

Complaints - everyone has some complaint or other. The complaints are not the same for all players - "issues" raised by some individuals are not necessarily considered to be issues by others.

But when these individual complaints all have a considerable amount of support behind them, it's time to question the advertisement that brought in the playerbase that are somehow neatly divided into blocks.

 

[Roybe]

The issue is you don't see this level of argument and flame going on at other communities. Take Warframe and GW2 for example, the former is predominantly PvE with PvP available to the crowd, no one is trying to kill each other on the forum over the design of the game, and Warframe is still considered in Open Beta, and it has come a long way, even when the mechanics and features were mere skeleton, the community never bickered over PvP/PvE influence of the game.

GW2 provides full-fleshed features for both PvP and PvE. Both of these games have exclusive reward for PvP and PvE, the community never tried to kill each other over the basic design of the game.

So I really don't know what is wrong with ED other than its advertisement and attraction of overly large of a crowd than the game was intended for. The reason for it most likely fall into two possibilities:

1. Corporate greed/Lack of development funding

2. Ambitious/noble vision not translating into reality

My two cents on your observation:

GW2. I play that, and have played it since GW1 in 1995.

The PvP community has always been completely segregated from the PvE community. There is a pure Co-op existence available...no PvP available, 'massive quantities of people' (well roughly 150/instance anyway) to play with..and no chance that someone is going to interrupt your day and change your mood. Even the harvest nodes are shareable amongst everyone.

For the 'hardcore PvP crowd' they have their own game. Completely segregated with it's own meta...even the skills are variants on the PvE ones (or vice versa).

For those that want to PvP in larger scale, the devs provide the WvW battlegrounds...which the devs themselves consider a part of the PvE environment...thus the skills are the same as PvE.

The WvW, just like our modes, also affects the systems of the PvE world, with buffs to various systems. This is not identical however, as there is no movement of the perception of ownership involved within the PvE part of the game itself. (edit: Nor does it offer a negative affect to the PvE world).

Where E: D differs significantly, and leads to most discussions of 'repair this or the game is going to die' posts, is two basic places.

First the only dev created place where large scale player interaction can occur is not a segregated area. This, historically, has always been a contentious issue. By not providing a PvE Open mode (one where no player can attack another), the devs have clearly stated that if players want to interact, they have to accept that they will become other players content. Yes, we all know Mobius exists. This is at best a work around to this situation. It is not a good solution...however, it probably is going to be the only one we will ever have....on any platform.

Second, people do not like the fact that the modes and the associated game play from each work in lockstep with each other. As far as I can remember, there has never been a game that tried to completely connect a game in this manner...mainly because the only way to do this, is for the game to be tied together in a constant PvE battle..with very few inputs from the PvP side of the game at all.

This creates huge dissatisfaction with the PvP crowd, because it diminishes their actions to side show status. This gets massively more problematic when players do not understand this basic design feature of the game...as PvP players, in general, have historically been given stronger agency/influence with in games by devs. When this agency is ignored, because it does not exist..the phenomena of the Open vs. thread occurs...constant demands for the historic levels of agency and input.

Finally, all players of MMO's know there is an evolutionary process with these games. No game is the same as what it was when it started.

Thus, the constant threads about improvements, loves and hates, etc. Many of the threads in these forums, unfortunately make requests that break the one or both of the above two issues....combat is only valid through PvE battles of trophy collection and that all modes have identical and completely equal input into the game.

Unfortunately, these are not issues that can be changed or evolved. They are design choices as basic as this being a space game. I haven't seen to many people demanding this game suddenly add wizards and dragons, yet. Both of these issues are tied together and are inseparable.

 

[Fendalton]

In all the game forums I have been on, I have never seen such an audience as the ED audience.

The amount of people who voted 'hell no' to clans pretty much sum up why the community here is the way it is. ED may as well be advertised as a Solo game, as it pretty much is.

@Above the Dev's don't want us to interact, hell, creating parties / wings wasn't even in the production release! There is no clans to be made, there is this god awful instancing mechanic / P2P, you can't even trade with other players!

This is by large a very solo game, with the odd NPC that's actually a player. I bought this game believing it would be an active universe, I was gravely mistaken.

 

[Varrag]

Yeah,

maybe 20 or 30 people out of 1 million is not exactly a riot. It is barely a party.

Assuming that 1 million people are actually playing the game, which I very much doubt. I bet we don't have more than 50-60k active players at the moment (active as in - logging at least once per week).

 

[GluttonyFang]

My two cents on your observation:

GW2. I play that, and have played it since GW1 in 1995.

The PvP community has always been completely segregated from the PvE community. There is a pure Co-op existence available...no PvP available, 'massive quantities of people' (well roughly 150/instance anyway) to play with..and no chance that someone is going to interrupt your day and change your mood. Even the harvest nodes are shareable amongst everyone.

For the 'hardcore PvP crowd' they have their own game. Completely segregated with it's own meta...even the skills are variants on the PvE ones (or vice versa).

For those that want to PvP in larger scale, the devs provide the WvW battlegrounds...which the devs themselves consider a part of the PvE environment...thus the skills are the same as PvE.

The WvW, just like our modes, also affects the systems of the PvE world, with buffs to various systems. This is not identical however, as there is no movement of the perception of ownership involved within the PvE part of the game itself.

Where E: D differs significantly, and leads to most discussions of 'repair this or the game is going to die' posts, is two basic places.

First the only dev created place where large scale player interaction can occur is not a segregated area. This, historically, has always been a contentious issue. By not providing a PvE Open mode (one where no player can attack another), the devs have clearly stated that if players want to interact, they have to accept that they will become other players content. Yes, we all know Mobius exists. This is at best a work around to this situation. It is not a good solution...however, it probably is going to be the only one we will ever have....on any platform.

Second, people do not like the fact that the modes and the associated game play from each work in lockstep with each other. As far as I can remember, there has never been a game that tried to completely connect a game in this manner...mainly because the only way to do this, is for the game to be tied together in a constant PvE battle..with very few inputs from the PvP side of the game at all.

This creates huge dissatisfaction with the PvP crowd, because it diminishes their actions to side show status. This gets massively more problematic when players do not understand this basic design feature of the game...as PvP players, in general, have historically been given stronger agency/influence with in games by devs. When this agency is ignored, because it does not exist..the phenomena of the Open vs. thread occurs...constant demands for the historic levels of agency and input.

Finally, all players of MMO's know there is an evolutionary process with these games. No game is the same as what it was when it started.

Thus, the constant threads about improvements, loves and hates, etc. Many of the threads in these forums, unfortunately make requests that break the one or both of the above two issues....combat is only valid through PvE battles of trophy collection and that all modes have identical and completely equal input into the game.

Unfortunately, these are not issues that can be changed or evolved. They are design choices as basic as this being a space game. I haven't seen to many people demanding this game suddenly add wizards and dragons, yet. Both of these issues are tied together and are inseparable.

For any given PvE/PvP mix games, there will always be a segregation between the two communities, for obvious reasons. As for the WvW influence on the PvE world, as far as I'm aware, it cannot negatively affect it on a relative scale. As for the PvP meta of things, the sPvP still respect the classes' skills relative to the PvE counterpart and cannot influence PvE, and that WvW parallels PvE assets with a few addition of siege assets, which is why it's called PvT often.

As for your observation, I think it's reasonable, and it resonates with what I mentioned about being unique and successful rarely occur, most of the time it merely upsets people on multiple fronts, as we can visibly gather from forums and in-game interactions.

 

[Roybe]

For any given PvE/PvP mix games, there will always be a segregation between the two communities, for obvious reasons. As for the WvW influence on the PvE world, as far as I'm aware, it cannot negatively affect it on a relative scale. As for the PvP meta of things, the sPvP still respect the classes' skills relative to the PvE counterpart and cannot influence PvE, and that WvW parallels PvE assets with a few addition of siege assets, which is why it's called PvT often.

As for your observation, I think it's reasonable, and it resonates with what I mentioned about being unique and successful rarely occur, most of the time it merely upsets people on multiple fronts, as we can visibly gather from forums and in-game interactions.

E: D does not provide 'proper segregation'...even in large private groups random PvP can still...and does...occur.

True on the lack of negative affect...my words failed me on the description...or at least that car was left off the train of thought.

Both the other assertions are also true.

I do think that the devs vision clashes with what people expect of this 'advertised type' of game...basically an MMO. In most cases, I would bet solid money that when a person sees MMO, single player option, and a co-op mode...they believe that the MMO would be a segregated place...and with the addition of PvP...they would also expect a developer designed PvE mode would be available. When PvP players see the advertisement of PvP they expect their agency and that PvP would have as much, if not more of an affect on the outcomes within the game, than this game offers.

Basically, expectations of both sides are improper, although based on the gaming market and past reasonable expectations. Both sides get upset and, well, we see the schizophrenia daily.

(Not to even mention the modeler/simulation player vs. the gaming/play mentality!)