Should there be an 'Open' Player Vs Environment Option on the Login Screen

[Faded Glory]

[snip]
Wait, what? That is enormously better than I expected, and likely far better than ED's retention as a whole. We are, after all, talking about a game that sold over 600K copies through Steam alone, but that has less than 6K concurrent players playing through Steam on its weekly peak.

The actual statistic implies that those 1500 members of Mobius are considered inactive, as in have left the game as they haven't logged in for 6 months (and I guess that since those numbers came from FD, that's a timeframe that they use to indicate a player has 'given up' on the game).

This is what Mobius posted:

Frontier have got back to me and gave me an interesting statistic.
out of the 19,000 members 1500 have not logged in since August 2015, that leaves us with 17,500 commanders that actively play in our private group.

So, while there may be 17,500 'active' Mobius players, that doesn't necessarily mean that they all log in and play regularly. It's nonetheless an impressive statistic, and likely above the general retention / attrition rate for the game.

It might well be giving FD some food for thought...

 

[Vyrsai]

The actual statistic implies that those 1500 members of Mobius are considered inactive, as in have left the game as they haven't logged in for 6 months (and I guess that since those numbers came from FD, that's a timeframe that they use to indicate a player has 'given up' on the game).

This is what Mobius posted:




So, while there may be 17,500 'active' Mobius players, that doesn't necessarily mean that they all log in and play regularly. It's nonetheless an impressive statistic, and likely above the general retention / attrition rate for the game.

It might well be giving FD some food for thought...

No way of knowing I guess. For the record I was accepted into the Mobius group when it first became a thing and I have never logged into it. So according to what FD gave them as a statistic, I am still active and part of the group although I've never logged into it.


Edit: I have logged into it while stacking missions of all kinds.

 

[shadragon]

You want something like this?

Spoiler

 

[Faded Glory]

No way of knowing I guess. For the record I was accepted into the Mobius group when it first became a thing and I have never logged into it. So according to what FD gave them as a statistic, I am still active and part of the group although I've never logged into it.


Edit: I have logged into it while stacking missions of all kinds.

My reading of it is that FD is talking about players (who belong to Mobius) who have not logged into the game since August 2015, but I could be mistaken about that.

 

[Vyrsai]

My reading of it is that FD is talking about players (who belong to Mobius) who have not logged into the game since August 2015, but I could be mistaken about that.

So it's counting all players that were invited to the group regardless if they actually play in it, making those posted #'s pretty skewed.

 

[Mohrgan]

So it's counting all players that were invited to the group regardless if they actually play in it, making those posted #'s pretty skewed.

The numbers aren't skewed if you refer to them properly. The 20k members are those that are owners of the game, that are/were interested in a PvE environment. If you try to make more, or lass than that, you are just misunderstanding the data.

 

[Vyrsai]

The numbers aren't skewed if you refer to them properly. The 20k members are those that are owners of the game, that are/were interested in a PvE environment. If you try to make more, or lass than that, you are just misunderstanding the data.

Not when the original post stating those numbers represented them as players that are playing primarily in that PG and that's not the case. We have no # or % of that 20,000 that either play all of their time in Mobius, some of it, or little to none of it. That was my only point.

PS. I am all for the PvE Open if FD decides enough people actually want it.

 

[Mohrgan]

Not when the original post stating those numbers represented them as players that are playing primarily in that PG and that's not the case. We have no # or % of that 20,000 that either play all of their time in Mobius, some of it, or little to none of it. That was my only point.

PS. I am all for the PvE Open if FD decides enough people actually want it.

When I mentioned how the numbers should be viewed, that was directed at anyone, on either side of the debate, who tries to make hay with them. All it shows is that at some point 20k players were interested in playing in a PvE environment.

 

[DarkWalker]

Yeah same here, I actually think that those numbers ( 1500 inactive out of almost 20000 ) are way off. I believe Mobius is healthy (majorly so since its cap has been met for invites) but it can't have 20,000 active players when all of ED on Steam has only 6k active at it's peak at a time.

And yes I know people play ED without Steam but it's still more than likely that those numbers are off.

Active players tend to be far higher than peak weekly players; it of course depends on a series of factors, but for a game where the average active player spends about 10 weekly hours, I would expect the number of active players to be roughly 10x to 20x the weekly concurrent player peak. Or, in other words, given the numbers we have access to, I expect the game to have 60K to 120K active players on Steam alone, depending on how many hours per week an active player plays on average.

Still, supposing Steam makes up for half the PC players, that would put the number of active PC players somewhere between 120K and 240K. If Mobius truly has about 18K active players, that is a far higher share of the active players than I would ever expect an unofficial player group to get.

(And, since Frontier is now responsible for causing a backlog in applications for the group, perhaps they should be the ones clicking "accept" for the requests on that backlog )

 

[Faded Glory]

So it's counting all players that were invited to the group regardless if they actually play in it, making those posted #'s pretty skewed.

Not when the original post stating those numbers represented them as players that are playing primarily in that PG and that's not the case. We have no # or % of that 20,000 that either play all of their time in Mobius, some of it, or little to none of it. That was my only point.

PS. I am all for the PvE Open if FD decides enough people actually want it.

Firstly, as I pointed out, I don't know exactly the context of 'not logging in', whether that refers to Mobius or the game. I wasn't particularly trying to use the figures to make a point, although the reason it's come up is because currently Mobius cannot accept new members to his group as it would appear it has reached a limit of some sort, so I guess he's looking as to the possibility of removing 'inactive' members so he can add people trying to join now.

You correctly point out that players may or may not be actually playing in Mobius even though they are members, and that's very possible, even likely, as there is no requirement to play in Mobius just because you've joined it. Some may be playing Open, some may be playing Solo or indeed in other groups either permanently, or swapping to suit their moods.

Of course, that concept can also be used to dismiss the fears expressed in this thread that just because a PvE Open mode existed, players would desert other modes for it. We can just say they would use it when the mood took them (or indeed not at all).

 

[babelfisch]

Regarding the current state of the game I would like an official PVE mode. If they manage to improve punishments and rewards for PvP I think we don't need it.
Some thoughts:

- increase punishments for unlawful attacks on players
- increase system security response time
- add NPC wingmen to protect you
- increase rewards for lawful attacks on players (powerplay, bounty hunters, CZs)
- allow us to pledge to a minor faction in order to participate in wars, this would be mandatory for certain actions like CZs and CGs. Players pledged to a faction in war state don't get bounties when they attack enemy vessels, they get rewards (higher if they are in foreign territory).

 

[Vyrsai]

Faded - I totally agree.

Dark - While I appreciate your point, even those numbers you are using are you just guessing and serve as no actual amount of how many "active" players are even playing the game in total.

I'd like to know how many players meet your 10hrs a week (which I would make the minimum as "active players" [just my opinion] ) and a break down of where they spend those 10(minimum) hours of play per week ( Open, PG, and Solo ). Just to know, ya know?

 

[Bill Clement]

Ok, so when we're quite done with the lies, damn lies and statistics patter...

We now know that the number of players who can make immediate use of Moebius as an alternative to Open for player interaction has reached saturation point. Never mind whether new players or recently/often ganked 'carebears' know about Moebious or not, it's no longer an option.

So we're back to play on your Jack, or volunteer to be someone else’s punchbag as the cost of entry to a game mode with real people in it. From what I can see, flying mainly go fasts and fighters, non combatants are cautious to the point of paranoia around me. Maybe they're scared of my impressive and stylish paint, maybe they're expecting me to shoot them full of holes, either way player interaction for this community orientated gamer is approximately zero at this point in time. The (v.small) survey shows about half of the forum posters who care enough to vote want PvE as an option. I'd say the OP has been answered...

...anyone got DBOBEs e-mail?

 

[DarkWalker]

Dark - While I appreciate your point, even those numbers you are using are you just guessing and serve as no actual amount of how many "active" players are even playing the game in total.

I'd like to know how many players meet your 10hrs a week (which I would make the minimum as "active players" [just my opinion] ) and a break down of where they spend those 10(minimum) hours of play per week ( Open, PG, and Solo ). Just to know, ya know?

That is info only Frontier has. And it's likely regarded as strategic business information, so I believe our chances of getting more than a tiny glimpse at some PR-sanitized morsels of it to be rather slim. Thus, "guessing" is the best we will likely get.

What I use for guessing, though, involves comparisons with other, similar games that have released more detailed info, and a bit of cold hard math to make sure I'm not outside the realms of possibility. It can, of course, be wrong if ED deviates from the games I have some info about in a meaningful way, but I would be quite surprised if I'm too far off in this.

BTW, official info released by Frontier about a year after launch says that the average play time was 60 hours per player. If you consider an active player to play at least 10 hours per week, that would point to players that purchase the game remaining active for only about 6 weeks...
(Which, ironically, is actually consistent with the active player numbers I got )

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

Ok, so when we're quite done with the lies, damn lies and statistics patter...

Statistics is the art of torturing numbers until they say exactly what you want to hear

 

[Roybe]

You are not helping your cause talking like that. You are just spewing your opinion as fact. I know what I want is just my opinion and I'm not telling you to play something else.

Try again.

Also I'm ok with having a PvE Open option now, seeing as Mobius is having issues due to player cap it seems it is indeed needed!

Please, explain where my description is wrong. I have made this point for more than a year now...and no one has shown me where the game actually rewards direct pvP play with anything more than a few points in PP or an even more minor contribution to faction play.

I can certainly agree that PVP is allowed...and the devs expect it to occur for a few reasons (mainly to allow others to punish ne'er do wells...or both sides get bored with the attempt)..however, no one has been able to show me that there is any game reward reason to shoot other players in the face.

The PvP players are slowly wising up to this fact....and are living with it or making proper choices as to the time they spend in the game.

 

[Vyrsai]

Please, explain where my description is wrong. I have made this point for more than a year now...and no one has shown me where the game actually rewards direct pvP play with anything more than a few points in PP or an even more minor contribution to faction play.

I can certainly agree that PVP is allowed...and the devs expect it to occur for a few reasons (mainly to allow others to punish ne'er do wells...or both sides get bored with the attempt)..however, no one has been able to show me that there is any game reward reason to shoot other players in the face.

The PvP players are slowly wising up to this fact....and are living with it or making proper choices as to the time they spend in the game.

Rewards? This game isn't about rewards in that fashion, it's about blazing your own trail and if that trail consists of other CMDRs destroyed hulls then that's the reward!

Again you are just speculating (immensely) and speaking as if it was gospel. Those are just your views, not facts.

And I was referring to you calling names that wasn't helping your cause (which btw I again am for the PvE Open option).

 

[excalibus]

What I come away with from the numbers mentioned - 1500 players for just mobius group who have not logged into the game in 6 months....

Thats 1500 out of 20000 that have essentially quit the game (for whatever reason)... that is 7.5% of players quitting... (of those players that knew / found out about mobius group)... now extapolate that to 1.4 million game sales (yes I know I know, there are people with multiple accounts who have brought more than 1 copy of the game) that is 105,000 players who have brought the game and quit...

So making some allowances for people who brought multiple copies of the game, say 100,000 players that have quit the game... in 6 months...

Of course to be totally fair this is probably not the whole figure... it could be plus or minus some degree for sure...

Still that in and of itself... is not good is it?

 

[Space Dandy]

What I come away with from the numbers mentioned - 1500 players for just mobius group who have not logged into the game in 6 months....

Thats 1500 out of 20000 that have essentially quit the game (for whatever reason)... that is 7.5% of players quitting... (of those players that knew / found out about mobius group)... now extapolate that to 1.4 million game sales (yes I know I know, there are people with multiple accounts who have brought more than 1 copy of the game) that is 105,000 players who have brought the game and quit...

So making some allowances for people who brought multiple copies of the game, say 100,000 players that have quit the game... in 6 months...

Of course to be totally fair this is probably not the whole figure... it could be plus or minus some degree for sure...

Still that in and of itself... is not good is it?

ALL of which is why I think more content/bug fixes before any thing like this .....because all those people left not because there wasn't a "open pve" button but cause XYZ other reason IMO.

 

[excalibus]

ALL of which is why I think more content/bug fixes before any thing like this .....because all those people left not because there wasn't a "open pve" button but cause XYZ other reason IMO.

there is no hard reasons for us as players to look at as to why players have left the game... obviosly if they are leaving at that kind of rate then all aspects need to be looked at that is for sure... none of us can directly claim that peopla have left for <insert reason> here that is for certain...

So to say any one aspect needs fixing 'first' as priority is probably not going to change that percentage much... So really all of it needs looking at, you cannot say that some of those people did not leave due to no open pve button on the front page either... just as I cannot say that some of them did not leave due to bugs / content / ganking / griefing / not the game they thought they were buying etc...


what however is a little disconcerting is that private groups have a hard limit on membership, so the arguement of 'we already have <insert PVE only PG name here> has now become a moot point and really does show that there needs to be an option for a PVE mode on the login screen... An official mode that won't reach some designated hard limit.

 

[Arkadi]

What I come away with from the numbers mentioned - 1500 players for just mobius group who have not logged into the game in 6 months....

Thats 1500 out of 20000 that have essentially quit the game (for whatever reason)... that is 7.5% of players quitting... (of those players that knew / found out about mobius group)... now extapolate that to 1.4 million game sales (yes I know I know, there are people with multiple accounts who have brought more than 1 copy of the game) that is 105,000 players who have brought the game and quit...

So making some allowances for people who brought multiple copies of the game, say 100,000 players that have quit the game... in 6 months...

Of course to be totally fair this is probably not the whole figure... it could be plus or minus some degree for sure...

Still that in and of itself... is not good is it?

I must correct that calculation. Its a false conclusion to assume that players who have not logged in into mobius since August 2015 have quit the game. Maybe they just have played open or other groups. Thats me. I was curious what Mobius is all about, joined it in June, looked around and forgot about it.

I will do the right step and sign out of Mobius now to free a slot for someone who really wants to play it. This doesnt mean I dont like the game. Currently I fly with the Distant Worlds Expedition, when I am back I will participate in Powerplay again and try some bountyhunting. I am far from done with ED

Note: I am for a public group mode like eza proposed. That would be the compromise I would like most.