It feels like someone is doing their job wrong

[[SI] Bobdelion]

I agree with the thought that this forum is by its nature a self selecting sub group of the player base at large, but that cuts both ways. 'Opinion' centered around "everything is burning - our leaders have no cloths on" is ultimately as useless as counter opinion regurgitating the equivalent of the company line (of which I actually think there is very little for all the accusations of White Knighting). Discussion has to be the only real value of threads like this one and any entrenched stances ultimately invalidate that value, whichever side of the fence you may start on.

E: D is, has been, and likely always will be a game in flux. Your tolerance for this is highly personal, and part of the problem exhibited in this thread is the feeling that all players must surely think that the game is shallow and to think otherwise naturally invalidates dissenting option. To state as much is not to shoot down these frustrations but just saying that those feelings are not necessarily universal, and that those frustrations are actually more nebulous and varied than has been described.

My personal bugbear is exploration and can't wait for planets to be be further built out. However I care very little for combat - it is more than enough for me already. I also don't run into many of the bugs people state are making the game unplayable. Does that mean that I'm right and everyone saying the game is an unmitigated mess are wrong. Of course not. I do fully expect Frontier to spend more time fleshing out the existing world and feature set as time goes on (particularly now that the core game is becoming more mature) and am not concerned that they take their time doing this. Conversely I do think that anyone calling for dev's jobs should take a breath before posting. To be blunt, that's not opinion, that's just bad manors.

 

[Dubber]

I think you will find, it is that easy, But in saying that, FD, should at the very least, place a more competent person in that position

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And how, exactly will that fix the ridicules amount of bugs since the intro of 2.3 ?

Maybe spur them on to make sure it doesn't happen again

 

[Martian Successor]

Well if you insist.

One time I flipped the "Looking for Work" flag on LinkedIn during a boring meeting on a Tuesday.

Phone (HR) interview that afternoon, first "real" interview on Wednesday, final interview on Thursday. Job offer on Friday.

Put in my LoR the next Monday.

You put in your Lord of the Rings the very next Monday!? I usually wait till the weekend; better chance of getting good quality Hobbits to join the team

On a serious note: comparing how easy it is to find a job at the drop of a hat is completely pointless as it is so ridiculously subjective. I mean we got all manner of variables like: the type of job sector, level of education, level of previous experience, type of position leaving/entering, race, gender, yada, yada. And on top of all that we have a lovely bit of real life RNG added in: i.e. works for some but not for others.

Anywho, all of that is totally irrelevant to the discussions in this thread

 

[Brownshortz]

What I've always wondered.......did the idea's for CQC, Powerplay, Engineers, and MC/Holo-me all come from the same person/group. And if so how is it they still have a job?

 

[Cageman]

My few cents are this...

When I first started playing Elite: Dangerous, I got burned out fairly quickly and stopped playing for almost 6 months. I expected some sort of Wing Commander experience. I have not played the earlier installations of Elite.

At the same time, I was, and still am, very much into Farming Simulator and really love it, for some odd reason. So, I was playing that for a good while... and all of a sudden, it struck me; Elite: Dangerous is like Farming Simulator, but in Space...

That thought haunted me for a while, and then I took the plunge to return to Elite: Dangerous, with a different mindset; I will treat it as a Simulator Game, rather than a Game Game, if you get what I mean?

After that change of approach to the game, I am now sold to it completely. Whenever I start up Elite: Dangerous, I am entering the world of a Space Simulation of being an independent Pilot in a wast universe. In many ways, Elite: Dangerous feels to me as a game that simulates real life, but set in the future and you, the player, as a Pilot.

With that said, I certanly understand that there are flaws with the game that needs fixing, but, at the same time, I have very little problems playing the game, as it is, based on my change of approach to the game.

Not sure if this helps others to understand why some players enjoys this game, while others don't, but this is my few cents on the topic.

Thanks for reading.

 

[Monk]

Anywho, all of that is totally irrelevant to the discussions in this thread

Indeed, my apologies. I must be out of things to say...time to move on

 

[Loupy]

Oh, bull, tell me about the plethora of work available at the drop of a hat...please.

I've left plenty of jobs, it isn't easy and requires careful planning and a conscious breaking of commitment.

Brush off your monocle, perhaps.

I dont use a Monocle,

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Indeed, my apologies. I must be out of things to say...time to move on

Thank the lord for that

 

[babelfisch]

I will rephrase it. Why are you defending FDEV on a very clear and harmful year and a half development mistake? You cant possibly miss the fact that most of the "new" features are something you would do during the final polish of the game. Power Play, Engineers, SLF, Ship Transfers and Multicrew all needed to be saved for the end of development. Instead they will be underused features while the rest of the game is designed.

Not sure if I understand you correctly, but actually it's the other way around. Usually you implement these features very early, then you have a feature lock / everything that doesn't work gets removed from the game, then you start polishing it. Adding new features at the end of a release cycle is exactly why stuff like PP and multicrew sucks, so that's bad advice IMO.

 

[babelfisch]

Just a quick question...................Would David B. be aware of the current situation, or is there someone else responsible for the "smooth" running of this game.

You need to ask another question first, does the game really run bad? There are a few hundred vocal people on reddit and this forum who say the game is full of game breaking bugs, meanwhile ~ 240,000 people have played the game during the last two weeks. If it's really that bad I guess more people would complain. Player numbers are very healthy and increasing, which is quite an accomplishment for a two years old game. They just released their financial report and it looks like they are making good money.
So, does that sound like an unsuccessful game? Usually that's all a CEO is interested in. They just care for revenue and everything is fine in that regard. I remember a CEO from EA saying that he hates computer games, but there is good money in it. Luckily David Braben is nothing like that, Elite Dangerous is the game of his dreams, he plays it actively, he reads the forums and he follows development closely. So yes, I am pretty sure that David is aware of the 'current situation', whatever that is.

But yes, as said earlier, OP and the more critical voices on this forum are right. 2.3 shouldn't have launched in this state, and they seriously need to rethink their decisions like releasing multicrew in a barebones state.

 

[EdzUp]

TLDR

Whilst I do agree with the OP that it's all bare bones the thing I see it as FDEV are laying a foundation and later seasons will build upon it.

There are things I wonder why the heck did they do it like that the main one being PowerPlay, why have rep decay it's always seemed stupid to be honest if you fail a mission lower the rep if you pass a mission gain rep. Just don't punish a player for being elsewhere or exploring something different in the game. Also why have people "pledge" we are all freelancers why not get rep for the power your helping bit lower it with the others so for example:
I help Hudson and get some rep with him but other feds I lose 25% of the rep I gained but imperial's I lose 50% of the rep. This would mean we wouldn't be wanted everywhere like now but if scanned by other people we can see the main group we have helped.

As for the store I would like to see FDEV sell cred packs on there and maybe even Ignition codes for other ships.

I would also love to see the old ffe ships on there and it would add much more variety into the game.

 

[Loupy]

You need to ask another question first, does the game really run bad? There are a few hundred vocal people on reddit and this forum who say the game is full of game breaking bugs, meanwhile ~ 240,000 people have played the game during the last two weeks. If it's really that bad I guess more people would complain. Player numbers are very healthy and increasing, which is quite an accomplishment for a two years old game. They just released their financial report and it looks like they are making good money.
So, does that sound like an unsuccessful game? Usually that's all a CEO is interested in. They just care for revenue and everything is fine in that regard. I remember a CEO from EA saying that he hates computer games, but there is good money in it. Luckily David Braben is nothing like that, Elite Dangerous is the game of his dreams, he plays it actively, he reads the forums and he follows development closely. So yes, I am pretty sure that David is aware of the 'current situation', whatever that is.

But yes, as said earlier, OP and the more critical voices on this forum are right. 2.3 shouldn't have launched in this state, and they seriously need to rethink their decisions like releasing multicrew in a barebones state.

I assume you have read the thread from the beginning?, if that is indeed the case, then you would have seen that , yes the space simulation is super cool, I, like many others love this game, prior to the release of 2.3, I found only some miner issues , nothing that would stop me from enjoying this sim. but when an update happens, and you loose the ability (reffering to myself now) to make even the most basic moves, and sim play eg: surface missions , which is what i enjoy the most, have been taken away, and to top it of, the ability to scan data terminals, Well I think I have some cause to be p155ed off some what


lert me get this right, you state there are 240,000 people in this space sim, and only a few hundred or so are in the forum complaining about this and that, which then tells me that the about 99% are not having problems, or are having problems but choose to not complain about it, is that how you see it.

I would say that the people in this forum love ED. some , like myself, from way back when it first started in 1984, thats over 30 years of dedication, so dont assume we are not aware of David B's passion for ED, if you were to look further between the line, you will see, he is not alone .

 

[babelfisch]

I assume you have read the thread from the beginning?, if that is indeed the case, then you would have seen that , yes the space simulation is super cool, I, like many others love this game, prior to the release of 2.3, I found only some miner issues , nothing that would stop me from enjoying this sim. but when an update happens, and you loose the ability (reffering to myself now) to make even the most basic moves, and sim play eg: surface missions , which is what i enjoy the most, have been taken away, and to top it of, the ability to scan data terminals, Well I think I have some cause to be p155ed off some what

Please read my post again:

But yes, as said earlier, OP and the more critical voices on this forum are right. 2.3 shouldn't have launched in this state, and they seriously need to rethink their decisions like releasing multicrew in a barebones state.

lert me get this right, you state there are 240,000 people in this space sim, and only a few hundred or so are in the forum complaining about this and that, which then tells me that the about 90% are not having problems, or are having problems but choose to not complain about it, is that how you see it.

Yes, but that's just one of the points I made in my reply.

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[iFred]

You need to ask another question first, does the game really run bad?

Yes, it does. From a quality point of view 2.3 is a DESASTER. I am not talking about content - just a) technical implementation and b) amount of bugs. Both is unacceptable for a full release.

 

[babelfisch]

Yes, it does. From a quality point of view 2.3 is a DESASTER. I am not talking about content - just a) technical implementation and b) amount of bugs. Both is unacceptable for a full release.

I get the feeling you stopped reading there.

 

[CMDRHarryTheHatchet]

I hear you and you sound like you know your stuff considering your line of work.....we all want something different and it's difficult to balance everyones needs/wants and stay true to their vision.

However, FD chose to make this game, they garnered quite a lot of money from the community to build it via kickstarter and they have a well resourced team of devs to build it. They also created this forum I presume to engage with and get feedback from the community. I really don't see the issue.

What I do see however is FD hurling content both good and bad at us in the hope that somehow it all makes for a good gaming experience. It's really hit and miss. Example. Horizons, creating planets to land on and then be able to drive around on them is an astounding technical achievement and it works brilliantly, the landing, the glide phase to disguise the transition, the planet surface, different terrains, how the buggy feels on ice compared to rock....terrestrial bases, POI, resources....amazing.

Now lets look at the gameplay and how you interact with this feature. There are hundreds of millions of planets you can land on, you can drive around them, you can shoot rocks and collect resources but that is about it. Once you've driven around a few of these planets for a while you realise that there is nothing more to it than that. On the planets in and around the bubble you can go to a base and take on some missions picking up cargo, shooting skimmers, checking some of the POIs but again, once you've done that a few times you realise that's all there is, it's incredibly one dimensional.

Just that one feature is a huge missed opportunity IMO. We have these wonderful terrains and not much to do on them, we can't mine them, we can't build on them, we can't analyse them or interact with them other than driving on their surface and occasionally shooting at something, usually a rock. FD built the sandbox but didn't provide many tools for us to shape the sand.

What I would like to see (and I don't think I'm alone in this) is for FD to take some of these features and develop them further rather than releasing another new feature that is an astounding technical achievement but holds little actual gameplay value and doesn't tie into the rest of the game.

Ah, I hear you cry, but that's what FD are doing, they are developing these features, well yes and no. The Engineers and Guardians releases gave us a reason to go to the planets, to collect the resources to engineer our ships or see the alien ruins but it hasn't added anything to the gameplay or interaction with that environment whatsoever.....it's still a series of huge empty spaces with not a lot to do in them.

I do land on planets occasionally these days but only because certain parts of the game, a mission I've taken or an engineer require me to do so in order to progress that part of the game. It's not something I'd really choose to do yet it's such an amazing feature of the game it should be a gameplay choice, I should want to go down there because it's a great experience.

That is just one example...I could give other examples but I won't.

FD are clearly a very bright and creative collective and I would implore them to stop for a moment and look at some of what they have produced, go back to it and develop it further. Give us the tools to actually interact with these wonderful environments.....but that's just me, and we circle back around to your comment that everyone wants something different

Well written response. Some really good points here. +Rep for taking the time.

Especially in point about the kickstarter backers etc. I agreed with those points. People have pledged money to Elite, because it was pitched to them in x way, during the pre-development stages. And so they expect x to happen. If only game development was ever that straight forward. Kickstarter, in itself, has problems and this is one of them, in my opinion.

I also agree that their should be more ways to interact with the current systems. I can't imagine what the game feels like to players without Horizons.

I unfortunately don't agree that the moonscapes are large empty vistas, mainly because I find moons and space fascinating. So I personally have no problems with just setting out in an SRV and finding canyons and mountains, craters, rocks etc. But that's a point of personal taste. I like switching the wave scanner off and roaming in lonely silence. When ever I have the time.

I do agree, though, with how the progression in Elite feels wooly and difficult to quantify. It took me 3 months to finally 'get' Power Play and I dont think it fits purpose at all.

Thanks for the reply!

Edit: I'm not usually a forum person, so I assumed Rep is a good thing. I dont really understand what it's for and I dont really know the metrics of it but have some anyway! [noob]

 

[EdzUp]

Being a sidey pilot I get all the SRV action I want from the SRV tutorial all planets are roughly the same and tbh driving although slightly different is just that.

 

[iFred]

I get the feeling you stopped reading there.

Nope, I just wanted to express my personal opinion in a very clear and undisputable way. I got your point though.

 

[hunvagy]

You need to ask another question first, does the game really run bad? There are a few hundred vocal people on reddit and this forum who say the game is full of game breaking bugs, meanwhile ~ 240,000 people have played the game during the last two weeks. If it's really that bad I guess more people would complain. Player numbers are very healthy and increasing, which is quite an accomplishment for a two years old game. They just released their financial report and it looks like they are making good money.
So, does that sound like an unsuccessful game? Usually that's all a CEO is interested in. They just care for revenue and everything is fine in that regard. I remember a CEO from EA saying that he hates computer games, but there is good money in it. Luckily David Braben is nothing like that, Elite Dangerous is the game of his dreams, he plays it actively, he reads the forums and he follows development closely. So yes, I am pretty sure that David is aware of the 'current situation', whatever that is.

But yes, as said earlier, OP and the more critical voices on this forum are right. 2.3 shouldn't have launched in this state, and they seriously need to rethink their decisions like releasing multicrew in a barebones state.

Yeah it runs, but why did we have 6 weeks of beta, if the most basic bugs (from annoying to game breaking) were not addressed? Just a quick example, the first beta that had MC in it already had the "feature" where you as gunner get false positive bounty messages, stating that you got a bounty for killing #&.#&# or whatever gibberish, sometimes a real target name. Even though you know you didn't get one. Or how your NPC pilot messes with a human pilot big time. The things is, not only did MC launch in a barebones state, not only did they dance back and change a lot of the mechanics associated with this poor sampling of MC (bounty scaling, taking out the sharing of exploration data), but even the little that's left has countless bugs that were in the game 4 weeks ago in the beta, and probably reported countless times.

The only saving grave for me in 2.3 is the Dolphin, because that ship is a bundle of fun. And I admit I like the holo-me, because at least it gives some character to your avatar. But the unwanted byproducts and bugs of MC and the frustration pretty much destroys all the goodwill I had for this major version.

 

[Sacman]

You need to ask another question first, does the game really run bad? There are a few hundred vocal people on reddit and this forum who say the game is full of game breaking bugs, meanwhile ~ 240,000 people have played the game during the last two weeks. If it's really that bad I guess more people would complain. Player numbers are very healthy and increasing, which is quite an accomplishment for a two years old game. They just released their financial report and it looks like they are making good money.
So, does that sound like an unsuccessful game? Usually that's all a CEO is interested in. They just care for revenue and everything is fine in that regard. I remember a CEO from EA saying that he hates computer games, but there is good money in it. Luckily David Braben is nothing like that, Elite Dangerous is the game of his dreams, he plays it actively, he reads the forums and he follows development closely. So yes, I am pretty sure that David is aware of the 'current situation', whatever that is.

But yes, as said earlier, OP and the more critical voices on this forum are right. 2.3 shouldn't have launched in this state, and they seriously need to rethink their decisions like releasing multicrew in a barebones state.

I know i said it already several times ... but i swear it will be the last time now!
IMHO the current state of ED and the bugged release of 2.3 is caused by resource restrictions due to PS4 development and testing.
I would not be surprised if the PS4 version once it is released will be the most polished version of ED.

 

[BurnyBurns]

I know i said it already several times ... but i swear it will be the last time now!
IMHO the current state of ED and the bugged release of 2.3 is caused by resource restrictions due to PS4 development and testing.
I would not be surprised if the PS4 version once it is released will be the most polished version of ED.

Is that strawmen beating? In that case: Good on them. The PS4 crowd deserves a polished experience, just like the crowd on any other platform does. And more people deserve to experience Elite, or at least its great qualities, no matter on which platform. Bugs can - at least in theory - be fixed.

Unfortunately, no port can explain why Frontier seems to value the futile attempt to control early player progression in a game with RNGenerated missions and therefore near uncontrollable consequences so much, they actually utterly discourage using their new shiny coop feature multicrew for advanced players except for hits and giggles. That's what giving full symmetrical payouts for Wings (finally...) does, when you just poo on profitability of multi-crewing even for the Elite ranked players.

Why? Because people, apparently even at Frontier, seem to care too much how other people play and enjoy the game. The early game progression experience is potentially lost? Boo-ducking-hooo! Your tag line is "Blaze your own trail" and people will do just that. As some people like the feeling of effectiveness, they'll go for the most profitable scheme currently available straight away and there's not a thing you can change about it. Only Frontier don't seem to have gotten the message yet, trying to fight it with sometimes threadbare fixes, rather than just embracing the inevitable. For instance, just tagging along in a Sidewinder to get full bounty payout with friends will give any new player what crewing up would've potentially given them. More dsicouragement to crew up I say. Frontier just demonstrate total lack of sense of proportion with the payout modifier. Instead of something like 10% to 100% based on rank we have what? 10% to 50%? For an Elite ranked player? Why would they ever multicrew for a laughable 50% (?) payout except for hits and giggles, so long as they also have the option to just join with a ship of their own for a cool 100% payout. Bonus: No gimping their DPS output with turrets.

As I said, these kind of decisions cannot be explained by lack of time born from having to handle the console ports. They demonstrate lack of understanding. As does taking two whole years to introduce symmetrical full Wing payouts. This a modifier computed on a given base value, not a complex feature that requires a new backend-to-client interface, additional DB storage etc.. There is nothing that explains why the change wasn't made earlier, except for the assumption that the people in charge of game design at Frontier never experienced taking half an hour to Wing up for PvE with a couple of friends, only to realize that this in theory very fun activity, is actually gimping their effectiveness and progression to the point, that playing alone would've let them play more efficiently. Or if they realized this, they prioritized the coop PvE experience below each singular addition or fix made during the last two years.