FD should increase size of the team developing ED

VR SenseiMatty

VR SenseiMatty
thistle said:
I think that perhaps we should just wait? I mean we are coming to the end of the Beyond series in Q4, with changes we don't know the extent of (which will have taken significant development effort), and whatever comes next, assuming it's within a year, will *actively be being worked on right now*.

So you cant say they need more people/output - we dont know what has/is being developed currently.

What we DO know is Beyond, and that is following exactly the roadmap we got last year. Everything else is just speculation and impatience. (edit - I'm impatient too lol)

:cool:
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If you look the last 3 years in their completeness the story appears quite different:

During Horizons (released end 2015) they were supposed to release 3 DLC in less than a year (Spring, Summer, Fall 2016) with a 4th one not confirmed on the roadmap.
The 4 DLC's were released in 2 years. They appeared buggy and superficial (beige planets with no exploration contents, bugged multiplayer, chained missions were added and then removed, engineers were completely reworked later...)

Beyond is fixing those 4 buggy DLC's plus some story content only for those interested in the Thargoids/Guardians plot and new ships variants.

Ok we still need to see what's gonna happen with mining and exploration but to resume that's not a lot for 3 years of development.
When you think about the big missing features it makes you think that with this rate they will take another 4 years of development each!
 

M00ka

M00ka
SenseiMatty said:
I think most people want what was described in the early vision of the game... (we all know what's that about).

It's legitimate to ask for core improvement, new missions and so on. But the game completeness still lack of those basic contents and this is not "own changes" IMHO.
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Nope, you are wrong - in fact one very vocal KS backer stated that no one from 'those days' still plays :D

Seriously though, what you are describing is what FD released as part of their kickstarter campaign right - a list of thing they would like to do. Did they every state categorically that all those features would be in the game at release? I did a lot of large procurement activities when I was in the military (as in being part of Project Teams buying fleets of aircraft, talking Billions here, not Millions). One of the first things I was taught was the difference to a RFQ/RFT stating they shall do an activity and they would like to do an activity - the former can be held as a contractual element the latter can't. Basically too many people thought that the kickstart program was a legally binding entity instead of a request for donations.
 
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Cmdr Eagleboy

Cmdr Eagleboy
SenseiMatty said:
If you look the last 3 years in their completeness the story appears quite different:

During Horizons (released end 2015) they were supposed to release 3 DLC in less than a year (Spring, Summer, Fall 2016) with a 4th one not confirmed on the roadmap.
The 4 DLC's were released in 2 years.
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No, they weren't. It was early numbers which got replaced quickly enough not to be relevant. So no, Horizons weren't "promised" to be released over the year.

SenseiMatty said:
I think most people want what was described in the early vision of the game... (we all know what's that about).
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No, we don't. There was no description - even more so, people said that FD doesn't have anything few videos and concept shots.

What people made up in their minds is not really business of FD.
 

coca_fr

coca_fr
People are frustrated because minor tweak like making dedicated ship more appealing (like buffing cargo ship's (Type-9 was only buffed recently to give it an advantage over Type-10), buffing a bit passenger ship especially Beluga-Liner and adding more luxurious passenger's missions.), balacing mission payouts (passenger mission always pays best... Wing mission payout is crap compared to solo mission) are waiting since the beginning of the game and it has never been done.

Instead of that we saw nothing. They were mostly involved in console portation, core engine development and bug fixes.

If they could at least do the minor tweak people are requesting for years, i'm sure people would be more than happy !
 

Sylveria

Sylveria
Factabulous said:
Not convinced. Most people want their changes, not just more changes.

And you should look at books on productivity in s/w teams - Mythical Man Month by Fred Brooks is a classic. Costs of communication follow a power law, so adding more people doesn't necessarily increase output.
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Duly repped. First line says almost all of it.

And yeah, throwing more warm bodies at a problem rarely actually solves it. Most oftentimes, unwavering focus and resilience is what resolves problems.

Adding people may great when you're building a barn, or maybe pyramids, but not everything requires heavy lifting.
 

coca_fr

coca_fr
Cmdr Eagleboy said:
Most likely because they are not seen as bugs that needs fixing. Merely a perspective of some players who don't like certain payouts or ships.
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Sure games such as Elite Dangerous doesn't needs game mechanics balancing... Multiroles ships can be the best at everything and not "Jack of all trades, master of none"... Dedicated ships are not supposed to be better at their specific role... Some activities can pay 10 times more than others activities...
 

Cmdr Eagleboy

Cmdr Eagleboy
coca_fr said:
Sure games such as Elite Dangerous doesn't needs game mechanics balancing... Multiroles ships can be the best at everything and not "Jack of all trades, master of none"... Dedicated ships are not supposed to be better at their specific role... Some activities can pay 10 times more than others activities...
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Balancing is matter of perspective though. Developers and designers have their own goals and players have theirs. Players can say 'I won't do this mission' and not to do it and developers then have to think how to improve that. However our POV is always subjective, singular, why FD have their own data to evaluate how much let's say ship is used or missions are taken upon.
 

babelfisch

babelfisch
bitstorm said:
On output I can't help think they lack tools for building stuff, and so much has to be built by hand from scratch.

Look at the in game UI bottleneck issues that have been ongoing since 2013, repeated skin issues we see, limitations on HUDs, how long it takes for content to be produced.

I wonder if it's made worse because Frontier may want a lot of stuff to be procedural, ie perhaps surface sites are procedural. So you can't really build a tool that allows you to handcraft a site, you're instead building algorithms with produce sites, which is going to mean a programmer.
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That's true. If you are using a 3rd party engine many tools already exists which FDEV needs to create on their own, which requires time, effort and money. On the other hand, a different Engine wouldn't be capable to handle a game like Elite, at least not without completely redesigning it.
 

Koen

Koen
coca_fr said:
Sure games such as Elite Dangerous doesn't needs game mechanics balancing... Multiroles ships can be the best at everything and not "Jack of all trades, master of none"... Dedicated ships are not supposed to be better at their specific role... Some activities can pay 10 times more than others activities...
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Sylveria said:
Disagree wholeheartedly and completely with this premise.
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M00ka said:
No multi-role ship should be perfect at everything, it should be lessor than a purpose designed ship for that specific role.
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Lily from anim.o.v.e said:
sure it doesn NEEDS balance, but then the devs can save themselvs the time to put effort into dead content, because unbalanced (underpowered) stuff won't be used to a degree that justifies its implemention.
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Poe's law is strong on this page.
 
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VR SenseiMatty

VR SenseiMatty
Cmdr Eagleboy said:
No, they weren't. It was early numbers which got replaced quickly enough not to be relevant. So no, Horizons weren't "promised" to be released over the year.
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I didn't say the complete Horizons, read again, I said the first 3 DLCs and those were clearly fixed in time. It's only 2.4 that was not defined:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/230362-NAMES-and-DATES-of-future-Horizons-major-patches

Cmdr Eagleboy said:
What people made up in their minds is not really business of FD.
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Again with this story? Ok so FDEV never said anything so any content we get is just charity and Frontier is a non-profit organization.

No one here talks about contracts and timeline to be respected but you can't just go around and say that people asking for Atmospheric Landings and Legs built their own expectections.
It was the game creator to talk about these features so please stop it.
People is wrong when they claim atmo planets for Horizons or Beyond, but expecting these for the future is fully legitimate.
Maybe you don't care about these, but that's your own vision and it's a completely different discussion.
 

Imo

Imo
Well, I personally think that the main issue with Elite Dangerous is that beside of the core game there has never been a real plan for a great game design. That's why we got half-baked extensions that do not play well, do not fit together and feel short thought.

The last time I had the feeling of a vision for this game was when David Braben himself talked about Elite Dangerous during the kickstarter. After that most of the excitement and hope in this game went down the river. Too sad. :O
 

Cmdr Eagleboy

Cmdr Eagleboy
SenseiMatty said:
I didn't say the complete Horizons, read again, I said the first 3 DLCs and those were clearly fixed in time. It's only 2.4 that was not defined:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/230362-NAMES-and-DATES-of-future-Horizons-major-patches
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They weren't. Dates changed 1 month before launch of Horizons. Things change. Let it go. Edit: I was wrong, it was in March, three months after 2.0 release.

Again with this story? Ok so FDEV never said anything so any content we get is just charity and Frontier is a non-profit organization.

No one here talks about contracts and timeline to be respected but you can't just go around and say that people asking for Atmospheric Landings and Legs built their own expectections.
It was the game creator to talk about these features so please stop it.
People is wrong when they claim atmo planets for Horizons or Beyond, but expecting these for the future is fully legitimate.
Maybe you don't care about these, but that's your own vision and it's a completely different discussion.
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There is difference expecting them and difference blasting developer for not releasing them soon enough or part of core game. I was addressing issue which people didn't really understand that FD didn't promise anything. They just indicated what might come in future.

No surprise FD has since then avoided to hint ANYTHING, because people don't understand what words 'could' and 'might' and ohh 'some day' might mean.
 
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