Have recent official polls by FDev made forumites believe ED is "Design by Committee"?

[CmdrChorusLindarr]

Firstly, good on you FDev for update 2.3. It looks like a promising addition to the game for player who enjoy multi-player gameplay. Hopefully the systems get further developed over time, but in general 2.3 is off to a promising start.

Secondly, with all the cries from passionate forumites about how terribad 2.3 is and how it needs to change to "x, y and z", it's made me wonder why these individuals are so quick to jump the gun and start calling for nerfs and changes to an update they've both, neither playtested nor even have the full details about.

Has FDev, in trying to canvass input from the player community in the recent past, unintentionally convinced these passionate but somewhat misguided individuals that they are somehow now part of a privileged group of players who comprise the official Elite Dangerous game design committee?

The purpose of this thread is really to try to attempt to get people thinking more rationally before rushing to make a poll about something based on conjecture and assumption, because they somehow believe that they are entitled to dictate to the devs how exactly to design their game.

 

[John Rhys]

I would surely applaude to anyone, who get's the majority to think a bit more rationally, before jumping to conclusions, making wild assumptions or accusations. (Granted, i jumped the train with my idiotic FDL-Thread a few days ago...still - i got off the train.)

But - have a Fish. It seems like, the best way to deal with all of that is just sit back and let the fires burn themselves out. I hear, the Whining is pretty salty this year, how about we crack open one of those botles?

 

[Obsidian Ant]

I think there are more people that are happy with 2.3 than those who are unhappy. The unhappy ones just appear to be louder.

It remains to be seen whether or not Frontier will cave to pressure, as you have pointed out Frontier have set a precedent on this. The thing of it is, that if Frontier have a good strong vision on Elite, then they should have no need to bow to pressure on any of the large features.

To be honest though, the only large feature they have changed in the past is a rebalance of The Engineers - for the rest of their headline features they have stuck to their guns. For the most part it's the minor features and the quality of life changes, where they have given in to the community.

 

[Suitcase]

I think it's a quiet majority, and a squeaky minority.

Squeaky wheel gets the grease.

 

[Bertrand Du Guesclin]

Well, have some fish.

It's a forum, with the word "discussion" in the name.

Sure, some people are too passionate about things, and take it personnaly, and come across as entitled and over-reacting, BUT it's a forum with the word "discussion" in the name, so a place to give opinions about stuff.

 

[John Rhys]

I think it's a quiet majority, and a squeaky minority.

Squeaky wheel gets the grease.

Why does this sound so familliar, over the last two - three months...

 

[Brett C]

We take most of the forum feedback into consideration, but we don't always react and change things based on forum feedback alone.

 

[smiths121]

A few points.

ED is a competitor for people's leisure time and money - this is why people get passionate about ED and future directions, as ultimately if they do not like they have to find something else to do.
Democracy "the majority", "vocal minority" are not very interesting things to people as democracy and the language of democracy has no place in an argument about how much time and money people should throw at a specific leisure activity. I generally would not care if I was the only person with mis-givings about 2.3, it comes down to is it bad enough that I need to seek other avenues for my time and leisure budget.

Polls are a useful first indicator for FD, I'm guessing polls, discussion forum, player groups and telemetry data were all used by FD when tweaking Engineers. They tend to ask in their own thread if they think something needs tweaking (player group injection for example).

The only time the language of democracy has a place is actually with FD, they need to measure risk of updates reducing the income pool (Which is the opposite of what they are supposed to do), and f corrective action is required.

Simon

 

[CmdrChorusLindarr]

Well, have some fish.

It's a forum, with the word "discussion" in the name.

Sure, some people are too passionate about things, and take it personnaly, and come across as entitled and over-reacting, BUT it's a forum with the word "discussion" in the name, so a place to give opinions about stuff.

You're absolutely right. It IS a forum, for DISCUSSING the game.

Which is the entire reason for my thread and poll. Some people seem to be trying to use the DISCUSSION FORUMS as a tool to influence game design or the choices of the devs.

It would probably be more useful, to the devs even, if people tempered their approach a little and spent more time actually discussing the pros and cons of the different game elements/updates/etc.. There should be a lot more intelligent discussion about what works and why, and what doesn't work and why. With people considering each other's views and respecting different player's opinions.

Instead we get posters shouting at the top of their lungs about some contrived hypothetical justification for why the game is/will be broken that really requires some serious mental gymnastics to follow. I mean, if these posters took at step back and considered things for a moment, perhaps we'd have a lot more fruitful discussion on these discussion forums, no?

- - - Updated - - -

We take most of the forum feedback into consideration, but we don't always react and change things based on forum feedback alone.

Thanks for the comment Brett C. I appreciate the reply.

And I think in many ways, what you said is fairly obvious to most. Although some seem to think that they can force FDev into a particular design decision provided they get enough votes on a poll and they shout loud enough in every thread (I mean I've gotta admit I've been guilty of subconsciously thinking that).

It would be nice if we were let in a little more on your process for considering player feedback, and just how much of it gets to influence the decisions of your game designers

 

[Ozric]

What recent polls?

Everyone knows that all non official polls (with the exception of the condiments poll) are rubbish anyway.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

What recent polls?

Everyone knows that all non official polls (with the exception of the condiments poll) are rubbish anyway.

Condiments poll? Missed that but Lea & Perrin's Worcestershire table sauce (sorry for spelling) gets my vote

 

[babelfisch]

So far the feedback to the dev update has been extraordinary positive, compared to the usual bashing, whining and ranting. It was so positive that I felt the need to create a negative thread just to keep the balance.

 

[Bertrand Du Guesclin]

You're absolutely right. It IS a forum, for DISCUSSING the game.

Which is the entire reason for my thread and poll. Some people seem to be trying to use the DISCUSSION FORUMS as a tool to influence game design or the choices of the devs.

It would probably be more useful, to the devs even, if people tempered their approach a little and spent more time actually discussing the pros and cons of the different game elements/updates/etc.. There should be a lot more intelligent discussion about what works and why, and what doesn't work and why. With people considering each other's views and respecting different player's opinions.

Instead we get posters shouting at the top of their lungs about some contrived hypothetical justification for why the game is/will be broken that really requires some serious mental gymnastics to follow. I mean, if these posters took at step back and considered things for a moment, perhaps we'd have a lot more fruitful discussion on these discussion forums, no?

I totally agree with you on that, it's a shame that some take things too seriously before seeing the final product.
My first post was mainly an answer to your poll question

 

[Ozric]

Condiments poll? Missed that but Lea & Perrin's Worcestershire table sauce (sorry for spelling) gets my vote

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...ondiments-And-Player-Owned-Breadknives-Thread

 

[Nutter]

Fish - Opinion Polls are a way to show how the community feels about a topic.

I can't speak for anyone else, but for myself I like to express an opinion and wonder if anyone else feels the same.

I would like to see anything other than Pew Pew getting some love, not that it has any sway with FDEV - They have a roadmap to follow - hopefully when or IF another roles gets some love they may use some of the suggestions from the community, but they don't have to.

 

[Mengy]

We take most of the forum feedback into consideration, but we don't always react and change things based on forum feedback alone.

What I’m truly curious about is: when Frontier is designing new content, do they ever take any playstyles into consideration other than combat? Because multicrew had potential to be useful to all styles of playing. Trading, exploration, mining, none of them are getting anything at all with multicrew, it is a purely combat only feature. AGAIN. That just seems terribly narrow minded given Elite’s diverse range of playstyles?

I’d love to hear an answer on this Brett, because frankly it’s beginning to get very tiresome to have so much of your customer base simply not considered when developing new content.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

No. Knowing FD it seems they follow good arguments for or against certain elements and try to make decisions after applying good internal discussion combined with feedback from us. I feel a bit meh about telepresence, but gameplay logic says as we don't have space legs yet, current approach makes sense. Adding requirement to meet people in one certain station will make little from gameplay POV, despite I would vote for this option for immersion reasons.

 

[Red Anders]

Has FDev, in trying to canvass input from the player community in the recent past, unintentionally convinced these passionate but somewhat misguided individuals that they are somehow now part of a privileged group of players who comprise the official Elite Dangerous game design committee?

Yes I think they probably have. I also think that some of them had that impression even before the recent polls.

Whilst I'm fully in favour of discussion of upcoming features, I do find the degree of input some players expect to have into fundamental game design decisions to be somewhat troubling, not least because they are invariably players who have significant amounts of time available to play the game and seem to be incapable of recognising that a mass market game simply cannot pitch any of its headline content at player with four hours a day or more to play the game because that isn't in any way representative of the average player. Not only of this game, but of any game.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

What I’m truly curious about is: when Frontier is designing new content, do they ever take any playstyles into consideration other than combat? Because multicrew had potential to be useful to all styles of playing. Trading, exploration, mining, none of them are getting anything at all with multicrew, it is a purely combat only feature. AGAIN. That just seems terribly narrow minded given Elite’s diverse range of playstyles?

I’d love to hear an answer on this Brett, because frankly it’s beginning to get very tiresome to have so much of your customer base simply not considered when developing new content.

It also might be to add any new roles would require additional work which is scheduled in future?

 

[Kicks]

What I’m truly curious about is: when Frontier is designing new content, do they ever take any playstyles into consideration other than combat? Because multicrew had potential to be useful to all styles of playing. Trading, exploration, mining, none of them are getting anything at all with multicrew, it is a purely combat only feature. AGAIN. That just seems terribly narrow minded given Elite’s diverse range of playstyles?

I’d love to hear an answer on this Brett, because frankly it’s beginning to get very tiresome to have so much of your customer base simply not considered when developing new content.

Actually, and I admit I am being rather facetious here - Mining is helped by this as you can have a buddy watch your back and get some turret shots in when trouble comes