Why are Fdev so bad at community management?

I don't think he was being "accused" of anything or was it mentioned as derogatory that he streamed popular games that said this is somewhat off topic now
Not sure it is as 'influencers' are used to 'manage' the community on occasions. For example, the blessed 17 visiting FDevs offices, though it was yet another exercise in 'great things are coming, can't tell you what though'.
 
Not sure it is as 'influencers' are used to 'manage' the community on occasions. For example, the blessed 17 visiting FDevs offices, though it was yet another exercise in 'great things are coming, can't tell you what though'.


Very true that is entirely on Elite not the blessed 17 if Fdev invited any of us to see secret stuff for free we'd go.

I think they were going for some kind of "look at how tight we are with the community they on the inside with us!!!"

just sounded like "we kinda spent the marketing budget sooooo you guys wanna help?"
 
To be honest, I don't care about "community management" as much as I do "game development". Develop the game and the community will manage itself. The reason we're all desperate for Frontier to talk to us is because the game is in development limbo right now. It's been almost half a year since the last major update, and we still have a game that's a half-baked bug-infested mess.

Compare this to NMS when they released their "Next" update, which they followed with weekly bug fixes and updated their community constantly via social media. During that time I submitted 5 bug reports to Hello Games, and all 5 bugs were fixed within a two week period. ED, on the other hand, continues to ignore bugs and unfinished game mechanics many MONTHS after multiple, well-documented reports. I like ED better than NMS, but I respect HG way more than I respect Frontier.
 
To be honest, I don't care about "community management" as much as I do "game development". Develop the game and the community will manage itself. The reason we're all desperate for Frontier to talk to us is because the game is in development limbo right now. It's been almost half a year since the last major update, and we still have a game that's a half-baked bug-infested mess.

Compare this to NMS when they released their "Next" update, which they followed with weekly bug fixes and updating the community constantly. During that time I submitted 5 bug reports to Hello Games, and all 5 bugs were fixed within a two week period. ED, on the other hand, continues to ignore bugs and unfinished game mechanics many MONTHS after multiple, well-documented reports. I like ED better than NMS, but I respect HG way more than I respect Frontier.


I think this is very fair but, if it is just a fact (and I have to take their word for it as I'm not a developer) that they simply cannot deliver quicker for whatever reason then the next best thing is keeping us informed for example if they said "Old Duck - Elephant Butt leather it being removed in July it's been a tricky one to fix but we think we've got it" would that not be better than "Old Duck - LALALALALALALA We cant hear you LALALALALLAAAAAAAAA"
 
It's kind of their job though. A pilot who refuses to take off because he's afraid of heights isn't exactly great.

Yes, there definitely are unacceptable posts and insults, but is it really the best course of action to punish the whole community because of a few bad apples? Because the silent treatment is for everyone.

We had a 1/LT who refused a night mission for anything he could come up with. He wasn't around long.
 
To be honest, I don't care about "community management" as much as I do "game development". Develop the game and the community will manage itself. The reason we're all desperate for Frontier to talk to us is because the game is in development limbo right now. It's been almost half a year since the last major update, and we still have a game that's a half-baked bug-infested mess.
I see what you did there ;)
 
They are not punishing anyone. They just know what they can and cannot say.

The only thing you can really crticize the team for is the quality of their communications and how they interact. You can't criticise them for not telling you something they are not allowed to tell you.

We can take a good guess at who to criticize... :)
 
You most certainly can. Of course, FD might accept that critcism but refuse to change it, because there are also problems with being more open as well, for example, telling the players "we'd like to do X if we can" becomes "FD said they will do this" and then later "FD didn't do X! Down with FD!" :p

They know the community would love to know more, they might just not want the aggro that comes with it.

Business would be great, except for the customers.
 
I think this is very fair but, if it is just a fact (and I have to take their word for it as I'm not a developer) that they simply cannot deliver quicker for whatever reason then the next best thing is keeping us informed for example if they said "Old Duck - Elephant Butt leather it being removed in July it's been a tricky one to fix but we think we've got it" would that not be better than "Old Duck - LALALALALALALA We cant hear you LALALALALLAAAAAAAAA"
Here's a bit of trivia - Frontier has already stated twice in their official patch notes that EBL ("low quality shadows on PS4") has been fixed, when in reality the update that supposedly fixes it made it WORSE. "Oh, we'll look into that and see why the patch didn't fix the issue." they say. Months go by and still no fix for a bug that's well over a year old!

When Frontier does speak, they can't be trusted. I'm not saying they are evil grifters (though sometimes I wonder), but rather they are like an amateur weather reporter who always gets the forecast wrong. So like the weather, I just wait for it to arrive to know what we are actually getting, which more times than not doesn't match the forecast.
 
Was it? I think there was a lot of QoL stuff that mostly applied to the base game over the two years. What made it into Horizons that wasn't originally sold (2.4 being a mystery aside)?
And QOL stuff doesn't require dev time?

  • mission UI has been improved
  • factions at a port are now represented by specific NPCs
  • new ships
  • alien ruins and artifacts
  • simple alien lifeforms
  • new station interiors
  • new station types
  • new station UI
  • destination UI
  • dynamic filters added to route plotting
  • ship transfers
  • remote selling of ships
  • module storage
  • interstellar factors
  • improved graphics
  • FSD supercharge
  • synthesis
  • new camera suite
  • ship naming
  • megaships and CQC assets
  • asteroid bases
  • better comms panel
  • new weapons, limpets and modules
  • search and rescue contact
  • station evacuation
  • improved route plotting
  • chained missions
  • countless bug fixes and other QOL improvements
Pretty sure there is more, but I believe adding all this stuff requires quite a lot of time. If they also ran into some trouble adding the promised features I am not surprised that Horizons was delayed.
 
Management attention is now focused on other projects.

After Beyond was shoved out the door, look at how the Elite game community was treated until mid January, at the earliest.

I said it earlier and I'll say it again we are now nearing 400 posts between the 2 threads now over 24 hours in the forums that they are "always reading" and not a peep I'm assuming it's because they need the additional CM they are hiring so the others can be busy doing management things.... for the community? I don't know what they can be doing
 
...if they said "Old Duck - Elephant Butt leather it being removed in July it's been a tricky one to fix but we think we've got it" would that not be better than "Old Duck - LALALALALALALA We cant hear you LALALALALLAAAAAAAAA"
I'd rather they say, "Old Duck, you suck. PS4 sucks. So suck it up, because what you got is what you get." That's better than the boilerplate "We're currently looking into this issue."

By the way, that "We're currently looking into this issue." was QA's reply to me in March 2018, over one year ago!
 
I'd rather they say, "Old Duck, you suck. PS4 sucks. So suck it up, because what you got is what you get." That's better than the boilerplate "We're currently looking into this issue."

By the way, that "We're currently looking into this issue." was QA's reply to me in March 2018, over one year ago!

Again it would be made better by some more open and honest comms if they said "Look 3.3 is focussed toward ps4 / pro and the slim is just a bit rubbish" (Im assuming you're on slim for some reason...) at least you'd know.
 
Again it would be made better by some more open and honest comms if they said "Look 3.3 is focussed toward ps4 / pro and the slim is just a bit rubbish" (Im assuming you're on slim for some reason...) at least you'd know.
Slightly off-topic, but to set the record straight - PS4 Pro > PS4 Slim > PS4 original. The Slim is not some "PS4 Light" except in the physical sense. From a processor / RAM / specs sense, there is just PS4 (which these days is only the Slim sold in stores) and PS4 Pro.
 
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