Yet you can't make the assumption they did on flawed information.
It's not valid.
It's not valid.
Engineers Why is Elite Failing (in my opinion)? Negative Feedback Loops - An Analysis
- Thread starter Colonel Kenney
- Start date
Just because it is incomplete does not make it invalid. The larger the set the smaller the error. So having access to more information will not invalidate the data only reduce the error.
If you could point out how the data is flawed I would appreciate it (other than being a smaller subset of E D users).
If you could point out how the data is flawed I would appreciate it (other than being a smaller subset of E D users).
Also, and I know it's been mentioned by others, I have steam, but I don't play ED through it. So, my play time isn't counted, which is almost daily.
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I use steam for some games, but not all. Elite is one of those where I don't.
So because you don't use steam to play E D that invalidates all those people who do?
Yep! That's exactly what I said! Way to pick that out of my comment. Geez. [rolleyes]
Sorry about that. You might have copped a bit of cross-fire. Yes some people do, some dont.
Thank you, and understood. My reaction wasn't very cordial, to say the least. My apologies if it is taken rudely. A lot of tempers of late in the forums. Reminds me of the days when Powerplay came out.
FYI, I do not discount the numbers of steam users. As well, it seems that those that don't use steam are discounted, if only steam numbers are used. However, I understand that all we truly have are what is available to us, which is steam numbers.
Fly safe as well, Commander! o7
People use Steam. In fact, a lot of people use Steam. Oh and btw, Steam reviews matters to a lot of people. And ED isn't getting very good reviews... 65% are positive. Not a very good number. This is something that FD needs to deal with.
As a percentage of people who have bought the game and active players Elite isnt doing any worse than any other game , according to your list.
So you have knida shot youself in the foot with that one. In the end there are games on that list that should have far more active players given the amount of copies they have sold, by your flawed logic.
That doesn't make the game a failure especially when a good percentage of people don't launch the game through steam anyway. You could easily add another 3000 or 4000 active users to that no.
Please do not forget that the game has been live for 18 months, and everyone who has wanted to sample the game probably already has.
Good post OP.
I can agree with most of your points.
However I don't think Elite Dangerous can hit the sweet spot or whatever you think it is.
Why ? Because of the nature of the game. It is a space "simulator" (some aspect of it at least) video game and it is supposed to be a sandbox as well.
Elite dangerous is a niche game and even within the people who enjoy that kind of game, we hardly have the same definition of what is fun.
The trouble is deep within the game design and gameplay choices, it feels like the dev team were thinking : "maybe not good enough but that will do until we can come back to fix it or improve it".
But I feel we have too many layers of "maybe not good enough but that will do until we can come back to fix it or improve it".
I can agree with most of your points.
However I don't think Elite Dangerous can hit the sweet spot or whatever you think it is.
Why ? Because of the nature of the game. It is a space "simulator" (some aspect of it at least) video game and it is supposed to be a sandbox as well.
Elite dangerous is a niche game and even within the people who enjoy that kind of game, we hardly have the same definition of what is fun.
The trouble is deep within the game design and gameplay choices, it feels like the dev team were thinking : "maybe not good enough but that will do until we can come back to fix it or improve it".
But I feel we have too many layers of "maybe not good enough but that will do until we can come back to fix it or improve it".
I can say for sure: no.
I have several friends who had some interest in it, but not enough at launch. They took a look, i explained things. First there was no group mechanic, so they were not interested. Then wings was implemented, but still up to now, it's not really that great. (Traveling in wings is more cumbersome than required, which could be fixed by just a few tiny changes, there's no real incentive to do stuff in wings, etc. ) Then there was Powerplay, where they i explained the mechanics and it turned them off. (Like most of the players. )
Now there's Engineers, and again it's in a state which does not transmit the message "the game now finally is fun to play with friends". Every single expansion we got, when explaining it to people, basically holds the message "nice game to play alone, but not to play with friends", with Engineers bringing the bonus "now with extra tedium for reduced fun". Getting my friends to play this game turned from hard to impossible.
Go watch ANY video about No Man's Sky and listen to it and their slack jawed amazement at things we've had for over a year:
"OMG Are you serious????!?!? I can fly to any one of those stars?"
"OMG are you serious that's incredible - can I just fly down to that planet?!?"
"OMG are you serious - look at this galaxy map it's incredible!!!!! Does it have real stars in it? Can I visit Orion?"
If you think Elite's reached it's true market penetration you are sorely sorely mistaken.
IMHO they need to get atmospherics and chained missions down pat for Season 3 and do a a relaunch with some serious advertising spend. There are a billion potential customers out there
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Constructive criticism, that is to be absorbed and maybe even acted upon, should be as concise as possible.
I know of a dozen sandbox games that have hit the sweet spot. They need to look at them an see what made them successful. The original elite was ground breaking for the tech of the day but you can't seriously expect that sort of simplicity to work in todays gaming age.
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Until they add voxels to their engine and allow crafting that doesn't involve grinding and the ability to actually build things I can't see even atmospheric landing really fixing anything. It will add to immersion and it'll be just like the rest of the game "a novely" eye candy and cool for the first couple days. Then the repetition and lack of depth will settle in.
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Even if it were double - it still would be sad.
Yes. Elite is an open world game (not sandbox) where you make your own choices... to a degree. And you're correct. You can't always please everyone. There are always going to be people who find different activities interesting for whatever reason.
I don't study game design, but I've read and listened to a fair bit. It's interesting that normally when a certain model is put forward, the wording is never "nobody will find this fun" or "everyone will find this fun". There are always going to be variances. But it often comes down to something like, "Doing this has tended to make a significant number of players feel negatively about... whatever." It seems to be more about avoiding known pitfalls than hitting a guaranteed sweet spot.
I think one of the huge problems with The Engineers (just talking about the mods here) is the way it was presented, or "sold". The mods were hinted at and teased and the community, from what I could see, was really keen to get their hands on the mods and start playing. What they didn't expect was the number of hoops they had to jump through to get there. And then, of course, the potential of not actually getting any benefit after jumping through those hoops.
I would have thought this about some things too. But then I started reading some of the dev comments and watched video feeds. This scares me a little. It seems to me that they developed exactly the system they wanted. That they genuinely thought that this was a good idea (presumably for the enjoyment of players).
I should also point out that the term "devs" is thrown around a lot. I do realise that the majority of developers likely have very little input into what is actually being delivered. A developer's job is often just to implement the design provided to them in the best way possible. It's entirely possible that the dev who wrote the code behind that RNG wheel thought it wasn't a great idea too. Of course... I could be wrong.
I think that the current issues with the engineers are actually easy to quick fix.
Some longer term "fixes" would be (IMO)
- remove overlaping RNG range for the different ranks of one upgrade. (TBH, in many cases it is already like this).
- be more generous with mission rewards. I mean give 2-5 mats per missions instead of 1-3, and remove super-common / common stuff from the list. (or keep them in but in large amounts, e.g. 8x heat conduction wiring).
- change single commodities engineers unlocks to group of commodities (lavian brandy => any rare booze)
- add rare/very rare materials drop while mining
- make the common level firmware actually common. And tie them to one space activity (instead of having them planetside only)
Some longer term "fixes" would be (IMO)
- adding junkyard barter markets, where you can exchange the different "grades" of materials from one categorie (like 3 flawed focus cristals <=> 1 focus crystal)
- tying mission rewards to pinned blueprints materials.
Exactly - and even as I said if the numbers were double - if you take into the account the number of people who've purchased the game the percentages of people staying and playing are dropping significantly. Unlike ongoing games such as early access etc where people are along for the ride you see those numbers actually sustain and even raise over time. The numbers and reviews show the truth. Don't be so dismissive of them. Fanboys dismiss them. They are a true indication of what people think. This isn't some conspiracy of people actually trying to destroy a game. Read the reviews you'll see where the problem lie. I've made polls that back these opinions up. The PROBLEMS have been identified time and time again yet they choose to ignore and dismiss them.