An essay to FDev:

I never denied that there are experts in the game. The point here is perception versus reality in the context of what is reliable, given that the OP recommends that these elements become primary consultants for design choices for the game.

If Frontier were to consult on that basis, there is no method of verification, and so perceived expertise is not a reliable gauge to determine the weight of contribution. That's aside from the transient nature of players as perhaps a more serious issue in terms of reliability.

We have never seen what the upper echelons of the community can do to the game, we have seen what FD do and it's not good. As I said, there's no test for expertise, "expert" is not an official title that you hold, it's mere reputation, that's why there is no method of verification.
 
We have never seen what the upper echelons of the community can do to the game, we have seen what FD do and it's not good. As I said, there's no test for expertise, "expert" is not an official title that you hold, it's mere reputation, that's why there is no method of verification.

Regarding what FD has done being "not good", that's subjective, or at least not accurate as an assessment of all they've done in this game, which I don't assume is what you meant to convey. We can both agree that they have a lot of room to improve, and part of my posting here was suggesting ways their internal process could be optimised and improved to that end.

As for expertise, some experts are indeed certified, meaning that there is a test and an official title in some fields. For ED, it's just reputation, and sometimes it's justified, while other times it isn't. When speaking in terms of reliability for the stated purpose, reputation on this level should be deemed insufficient.
 
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Regarding what FD has done being "not good", that's subjective, or at least not accurate as an assessment of all they've done in this game, which I don't assume is what you meant to convey. We can both agree that they have a lot of room to improve, and part of my posting here was suggesting ways their internal process could be optimised and improved to that end.

FD have done good things and bad things, the thing is, many of the bad things could have been preventable and showed a wide disconnection between them and the game, healing beams, the drag munition and the removal of the ADS are examples that come to my mind. Don't get me started on the bugs.

As for expertise, some experts are indeed certified, meaning that there is a test and an official title in some fields. For ED, it's just reputation, and sometimes it's justified, while other times it isn't. When speaking in terms of reliability for the stated purpose, reputation on this level should be deemed insufficient.

I have never ever heard of an official title that makes you an "expert" at something, there are titles that show a good deal of mastery but they do not make you an expert. If you demand a certified title to have a significant input on the game, you might as well demand that on the guys who actually make the decisions.
 
FD have done good things and bad things, the thing is, many of the bad things could have been preventable and showed a wide disconnection between them and the game, healing beams, the drag munition and the removal of the ADS are examples that come to my mind. Don't get me started on the bugs.



I have never ever heard of an official title that makes you an "expert" at something, there are titles that show a good deal of mastery but they do not make you an expert. If you demand a certified title to have a significant input on the game, you might as well demand that on the guys who actually make the decisions.

No one will say that the developers have not made some bad choices, or that bugs have been sufficiently addressed, although players will vehemently disagree on what were the good and bad choices. So who's right and who's wrong about that? Which experts are more experts, or have the more valid opinions? Which ones should the developers listen to?

"A good deal of mastery" and "Expertise" are pretty closely synonymous. Even so, certification that requires a person to complete examinations that demonstrate their expertise are acceptable measures of expertise. Of course, they don't make someone an expert, but it's their expertise or mastery that allows them to pass the examinations.

I was not suggesting that there should be a way to certify the expertise of players. I was merely asserting that there is no reliable way, and that for what is at stake for the company and its stakeholders, reputation should not be deemed sufficient. But as I also stated, player feedback is not something to be ignored, and should definitely be collated and utilised.
 
No one will say that the developers have not made some bad choices, or that bugs have been sufficiently addressed, although players will vehemently disagree on what were the good and bad choices. So who's right and who's wrong about that? Which experts are more experts, or have the more valid opinions? Which ones should the developers listen to?

There are many things that are almost universally thought of as bad, CQC, Powerplay, the modules I listed and multicrew. To answer your questions would take a lot of time and a solid idea of how this would be implemented, IOW, answer them yourself.

"A good deal of mastery" and "Expertise" are pretty closely synonymous. Even so, certification that requires a person to complete examinations that demonstrate their expertise are acceptable measures of expertise. Of course, they don't make someone an expert, but it's their expertise or mastery that allows them to pass the examinations.

And what examination is good enough for someone to be an expert? If someone gets a 5 in the AP BC calculus test, does that make him an expert? And FTR, contests are also used as metrics to say if X is an expert, those do exist in ED.

I was not suggesting that there should be a way to certify the expertise of players. I was merely asserting that there is no reliable way, and that for what is at stake for the company and its stakeholders, reputation should not be deemed sufficient. But as I also stated, player feedback is not something to be ignored, and should definitely be collated and utilised.

You imply that the only "reliable" way to see if someone is an expert or not is via a test, I'm telling you that's simply not true and that under that metric FD aren't experts either.
 
Hi Frontier,

I have a counter plea. Please don't get your player community involved in design choices and development. Do not go down the path of design by committee. Make the game that you want to make with the long term vision of greatness, rather than short term appeasement changes.

You should however read suggestions on the forum. They can help with sharpening existing or planned mechanics, or even offer an idea that's still aligned with the overall vision.

You should listen to quality of life complaints, to give you cues on how the game's interface might be interfering with play in some cases, to help guide any redesigns you may choose to do.

You should pay heed to bug reports, and be more transparent about which bugs have been internally confirmed, and which of those are being prioritised by developers, even if you don't provide an ETA for release.

You should do sufficient public beta testing before any release, including ones as small as the minor updates you've begun.

You should hire a few play testers as full time players of the game, even when there's no specific testing required, as they can pick up on issues and give useful reports for bugs and QoL issues. They're also handy to run proposed changes by, and may identify balance problems with newly introduced mechanics before players have a chance to take issue with them.

You should continue to allow sufficiently long periods of time for major updates, such as you have for the 2020 one, and ignore those who keep screaming for information to be released about planned features before you're able to confirm their inclusion. A sticky thread on the forum giving a little insight into the development process, and why things can change may mitigate some of that, but expect people to complain anyway, while you remain firm nonetheless. The minor updates are a great idea to keep people interested in the interim, effectively giving the player base some entrees to sample before they receive the main course.

You've made a great game that thousands of people have enjoyed for countless hours. You've made some mistakes, but all development companies do. You've been seemingly lax on some of the problem areas of the game that need attention, in terms of integrity and robustness, but the hope is that from now until the 2020 update, a good chunk of that will be addressed.

Thanks.

Spot on +1
 
Sorry OP, all your ranting & insulting the FD staff is pointless.

It's Frontier's game to do with what they wish, period.

You don't like it, walk away!

Coming to the Forum to express your opinion is your 'right', but maybe if you were a little less hostile & approached the thread in a more constructive way, like CMDR Novindus did in response, then maybe some of your points would be taken on board a little more seriously.
As it is, your post would probably be 'binned' by Frontier at the first insult of it's staff.

CMDR Novindus's post covered some interesting ideas.....yours didn't!
 
Usually I'm the first to make bingo jokes (if not ninja'd) but seriously this cheating makes me reconsider
spending time or money on this game any more. Yep, that much Doooom.

To go a bit Battlestar Galactica: All this happened before, and all this will happen again

FD will eventually stop the cheat and ban some cheaters.

Time will pass.

New cheat will be released.

Cheat will become common knowledge.

SDC will declare they will gank players until FD fix it.

Players will act all shocked and horrified there is a cheat for an online game. Tell devs they are bad. Say they will stop playing.

Life goes on, the world does not end.

Eventually FD stop the cheat working do some more bans.

The cycle continues.
 
I don't recall FD banning the cheaters in the G5 scandal, at least no permanently.

And having the same hacks/cheats for months is not what I call "fine".

I didn't use the word fine. Its an issue, but one FD will get round to fixing eventually, until the next hack is released.

Also, i would say there is a world of difference between exploiting a bug to get a slight edge over other people to running full on cheats that can make you invulnerable.
 
People keep bringing up the "g5 scandal" but that was a different case, an in game glitch which could be exploited to gain an advantage.
Using a third-party tool to manipulate the client is a very very different thing.
 
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OP got some good points actually.
He's 6 months old only but he got a good overview of what's been happening here since years.
This community is asking for transparency since years --> FD believes this is not a winning move --> FD keeps making mistakes.
Sorry but there's no evidence that this is a good tactics.
The suggestion forum is just a joke. At the beginning I wrote a lot in there. I don't even read it anymore.

I understand that the community should not be allowed to decide on the new content of the game BUT the QoL's should be defined with a Community Survey. They spent so much time in useless things that no one ever asked.
Quick example: 2 updates (2 really?) focused on the ship GUI. What you've done it's not bad, but who cares?? On the other hand I've seen many players asking for a better Outfitting page and better mission filters on the mission board. Still no feedback at all from you about these. And what about more missions variety? We have the same missions since 2 years, the only addition was the wing missions, which are exactly the same thing but played in multiplayer.
Another one: you developed the guardian fighters. They're cool indeed... no one asked them! But SRV's... :eek: how many people already asked for new SRV's, SRV modules and outfitting and more varied gameplay associated to them. If you'are really obsessed with the Guardians plot then release a Guardian SRV!

FDEV replies in this forum are non-existent. It would be nice to interact with them and have a quick chat time to time to discuss QoL or issues with the game. But this is not a thing with FDEV and it's a big shame. Stop your livestreams and jump in the forum. I'm sure the game and the whole community will benefit from this!
 
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There are many things that are almost universally thought of as bad, CQC, Powerplay, the modules I listed and multicrew.
Which is more a demonstration of the echo-chamber of these forums and the tiny subset of players on them, than the actual quality of those features. It's also a demonstration of "people don't comment much on things which they like but which aren't apparently in danger of being removed or changed" - I agree with you on healing beams being terrible, but I'm also certain that if Frontier said "we've listened to 'the players' and are removing them" there would be an instant and massive backlash from the players who had really liked them but felt no particular need to start a public healing beams fan-club on the forums without that announcement.

Powerplay, sure, it's got some major well-known design flaws [1], virtually no maintenance for years, and no real roadmap for addressing those issues. I never personally got into it either - though I might have, if it hadn't come out while I was taking a break from the game. But it still has considerably more players taking part in it and using it than it has players coming on to the forums to say how bad it is. (There is overlap between those groups, of course - a lot of complaints about Powerplay are coming from people who like the concept but are frustrated by aspects of the implementation)

The ADS change was controversial, not universally unpopular. Any major change to an existing mechanic would do that. The changes to engineering in 3.0 were heavily criticised in certain areas before release from several angles ... now that they've had time to settle in, there doesn't seem much call to go back to how it was in 2.4. And it's also worth remembering just how much the pre-3.3 exploration mechanics were criticised as boring "honk and point" before Frontier showed an alternative to that. (Another example of "people don't comment much on things which they like but which aren't apparently in danger of being removed or changed")

Look at it a different way: pretty much every major feature - Powerplay, CQC, Engineers, Multicrew, Thargoids, C&P, new Exploration - has been criticised heavily on release and often a long time afterwards on these forums. (I have quite a bit of criticism of many of those features out there myself). But there's no demand to roll back to 1.2 before those features were introduced. And the game sales in terms of base-game accounts sold per year have been basically constant at ~750,000/year for the last four calendar years, with 2018 being slightly stronger than average. There's a lot in Elite Dangerous I wouldn't have done that way - and I mean a lot - but Frontier are the ones with the strongly selling game in a niche market, not me, so over the years I've come to admit that they may have a point.


[1] Though much less player consensus, even among "Powerplay experts" as to what a fixed version would look like.
 
One part of this thread I'm really not impressed with is the insinuation, perhaps outright allegation, of bad faith from Frontier. This simply doesn't stack up and is unjustifiable.

That being said better communication with the community wouldn't hurt, perhaps better signposting of the directing of travel being planned. However, my personal view is that I really like the game, warts and all. Sue there are areas I'd like changes but these are possibly personal for me.

Also I mostly play in solo and use CQC for PvP, this way I don't lose rebuy and it's good practice
 
Usually I'm the first to make bingo jokes (if not ninja'd) but seriously this cheating makes me reconsider
spending time or money on this game any more. Yep, that much Doooom.
Blech - this is not the thread about cheating - that's this one from ryan with a well written, well reasoned OP

This is the thread from someone with a high regard for their own words who is diverting attention from the more useful thread - and now you made me give it more airtime it doesn't deserve 🤷‍♀️

But at least I now have Doom ✅ and Open Letter ✅ ;)
 
Blech - this is not the thread about cheating - that's this one from ryan with a well written, well reasoned OP

This is the thread from someone with a high regard for their own words who is diverting attention from the more useful thread - and now you made me give it more airtime it doesn't deserve 🤷‍♀️

But at least I now have Doom ✅ and Open Letter ✅ ;)
I agree with you and am happy to serve you the option to Bingo, but I think a single thread isn't enough, especially one by ryan/SDC which is already being attacked as "PvP only problem" or "but what about those g5 cheats" whataboutism etc.
And OP has points, even if they are presented not in the friendliest way.
More spotlight on this case is good.
 
I'm still yet to see a solid reason why FDev "owe" us anything with regards to their development program; it's not our business (and if you paid your £7 I think you got your worth) and if they choose to do something, then that's their choice - and I honestly think they DO have a long term plan. If they genuinely read every thread like this and reacted, we'd still be in Alpha... well, actually I think FDev would have gone under years ago.

It's still just a game. We might be a great, thorough, close-knit community, but to us it's a game, to them it's a business. Whilst I do think it'd be nice to know more about what is going on, or why things aren't getting done (mainly bugs), it's still not on FDev to blog the whole bloody thing on the internet. Do YOU like people looking over your shoulder when you're working? No, in most cases you do not. Let them get on with it. If they fail, they fail. Most of us are our own person and can find something else to do.

That wasn't supposed to be a rant. Sorry. I'm not white-kniting either; I just have bigger worries in life and Elite is an escape from them. I genuinely get what I want from it. I try not to focus on the things I cannot change.
 
One part of this thread I'm really not impressed with is the insinuation, perhaps outright allegation, of bad faith from Frontier. This simply doesn't stack up and is unjustifiable.

That being said better communication with the community wouldn't hurt, perhaps better signposting of the directing of travel being planned. However, my personal view is that I really like the game, warts and all. Sue there are areas I'd like changes but these are possibly personal for me.

Also I mostly play in solo and use CQC for PvP, this way I don't lose rebuy and it's good practice
Honestly, I think if FD revealed their complete roadmap a large portion of us would be so horrified we’d give up on the game.

Imagine now if we all knew for an absolute fact that we wouldn’t ever be getting...

New SRV’s
Panther Clipper
Military ranks fleshed out properly
HUD colour changes
CQC update
Powerplay update
Spacelegs
Atmospheric landings

...insert your most wanted feature^

I don’t think they can afford to reveal their plans, it’d probably be met with a tide of disappointment and people freaking out.
 
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