[Video] Open letter from community to Elite Dangerous

zimms

zimms
Agony_Aunt said:
I think one thing to say following this is that it makes sense FD will do what is best for the company, although it always seemed to me like this was a passion project for Braben, and therefore perhaps some decisions made not in line with what is best for the company.

Regardless, in that case, if they think its worth keeping ED going (which seems to be the case) and its profitable for the company, then they will be doing the best they can to maintain that. If it was a ball and chain for them, the best thing to do would be to drop it, or at least put it into maintainance mode and keep the servers running on minimum, or perhaps make an offline patch. This does not match with the upcoming fleet carriers and announcement about the 2020 update.

The logical conclusion to this is that FD are trying to do their best and believe they are doing the right thing, with some admission of mistakes made and areas they can still improve.

Assuming management want to make as much money as possible from ED, they are looking at their sales and reports from players, feedback, etc, and then taking decisions. They have been doing this for years.

The result is what we have now. Buggy updates and complaints about lack of communications.

Let that sink in for a moment people. We've had 5 years of buggy patches, complaints about lack of communications, and numerous open letters and disucsions on the forums, and yet it never changes.

While FD are probably doing what they can to improve processes, expecting this open letter to have any different result to anything in the last 5 years is being overly optimistic at best. They obviously think that in general they are doing the right thing and that thing is still generating them money.

So, despite buggy releases, Steam review bombing, open letters, complaints, etc, they continue to do well as a company, and ED remains fairly stable in terms of players year after year, which is quite interesting in itself.
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I have to say I'm a bit surprised to see such a critical post from you. Not that I disagree.
 

jasonbarron

jasonbarron
Agony_Aunt said:
Where do 99% of requests for combat/weapon balances come from? Their effect on PvP or PvE?

Unless something is totally out of whack that everyone agrees it needs changing, its usually a PvP based demand for change.

Like i said, great missile nerf? Yeah, thanks PvP for causing a really nice PvE weapon to be nerfed into the ground. Force shell, a shadow of its former self, great fun for PvE, not so great for PvP. Thermal attacks? For PvE, meh, made no difference, but tragic for PvP.
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As I suspected: combat being confused with PvP. A patch that relates directly and specifically to PvP would actually include PvP content, not a balance pass suggested by the only player demographic that actually tests this stuff on each other and NPC's instead of looking for the "I win" button against NPC's that you seem to prefer. The community should be thanking PvP experienced players for helping bring a semblance of balance to the game with respect to the weapons/ammunition/modules.

As far as I'm aware there never has been a single PvP related patch, much less two as you said.
 

jasonbarron

jasonbarron
Stigbob said:
They used to be deadly as in launch a few at an unshielded target then forget about it as it was toast. But got nerfed so hard they became totally irrelevant for about three years.

They were being used by griefers to destroy ships in stations by barraging a near stationary ship from something small and disposable with missiles in every hardpoint.

All the coding, graphics, sound effects wasted just because some people got off on being a bit ish.

They are good fun again, less than they were but I frequently use non-optimal weapons just for yuks so as with shock cannons I like them.
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Clearly they needed to be re-balanced. Even their "splash effect" knocking off all hard points with a couple fire and forget passes was far far too powerful and essentially nutted all but a handful of I win god shielded ships.
 

jasonbarron

jasonbarron
zimms said:
I think those two patches you're referring to are the Powerplay patches people discussed earlier, not PvP.
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I was challenging AA's assertion that they were PvP specific. How did they relate to Powerplay? As far as I'm aware Powerplay is still abandonedware.
 

Rubbernuke

Rubbernuke
zimms said:
I think those two patches you're referring to are the Powerplay patches people discussed earlier, not PvP.
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I think the point was, there is no explict PvP patch, just patches that re balance weapons.

Those patches had Powerplay changes, from memory they made the PP NPCs less hostile if you held no merits, and lowered how many PP NPCs were about.
 

Werewolf13

Werewolf13
NOTE: if the below quote is an accurate statement of the poster's stand then keep on reading. If, on the other hand, it is somehow intended as sarcasm then never mind and just move on.

LeoBartlet85 said:
... We pride ourselves on our status as influencers...
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Influencers - Bah! Mind Control over SHEEP! Not something to be proud of, leading the mindless masses around by the virtual rings in their noses.

Influencers; I fart in your general direction.
 

Agony_Aunt

Agony_Aunt
jasonbarron said:
As I suspected: combat being confused with PvP. A patch that relates directly and specifically to PvP would actually include PvP content, not a balance pass suggested by the only player demographic that actually tests this stuff on each other and NPC's instead of looking for the "I win" button against NPC's that you seem to prefer. The community should be thanking PvP experienced players for helping bring a semblance of balance to the game with respect to the weapons/ammunition/modules.

As far as I'm aware there never has been a single PvP related patch, much less two as you said.
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Then you and i differ on what changes relating to PvP means and there is nothing more to discuss on this matter.
 

Agony_Aunt

Agony_Aunt
zimms said:
I have to say I'm a bit surprised to see such a critical post from you. Not that I disagree.
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Heh, i can be critical. You obviously never ready my powerplay diatribe after playing it and discovering FD had made a never ending game of Risk with little actual point to it.

I just generally don't get worked up like some people do over stuff and mainly just say "Oh, look a bug, oh well, i'll do something else or play another game for a while until its fixed"

If we were to believe some people posting here, the game is so buggy its unplayable or not enjoyable (and i accept, that consoles appear to be having a rougher time than normal of it at the moment), and if that was the case, then people would stop playing. If it was so bad, people would be stopping playing en masse. That would cause FD to sit up and do something.

An open letter won't likely have much impact. What will have an impact is people quitting playing. The risk with that is if enough people do, then the game may get shut down. So protest quitting can be risky. However, quitting because you simply don't enjoy it any more, then more power to those people! Its the sane thing to do, and it sends a message to the devs... unless those quitting are but a tiny minority and most people are more like me, just shug their shoulders and continue to play.

I don't know, maybe i'm just too laid back. Maybe i should be reaching for the pitchfork more. But you know what, its just a game, and its hard to get that worked up about a game. In the grand scheme of things, its minor, and if i were to be involved in this as a proponent, and even if I singlehandedly got FD to change how they do things, i doubt on my deathbed i would look back and think what a great achievement it was, because, its just a game.
 

Agony_Aunt

Agony_Aunt
Rubbernuke said:
Or, it was because it actually gave sensor grades an actual purpose? Thanks to that non-change nearly everyone fits D sensors and forgets about it. It could have been that A grade or an experimental gave chaff resistance, or that above C it actually was better. Do you see how short-shortsightedness has led to anemic outcomes? PvE should have challenging situations as well as require skill and knowledge to play to remain satisfying and not become Upgrade to Win.

epeen waver

Quite. The same people who actually know the systems inside out and are an invaluable source of information, and could tell FD exactly what needs looking at.
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Sensors have a purpose. Range. Its not a major differentiator, bit it is one.

Ah, and there we go, gatekeeping again? People who don't do PvP don't know the game, people do are the ones FD should listen to.

Sorry, hard pass on that one mate.
 

CMDR MRMAURICE

CMDR MRMAURICE
A petition? Is this a troll? I play video games for fun, not politics. FDev make the game, yes some updates have been buggy. But we have a bug report process use it. They have given us a road map of sorts. Things change in development, so some things they have to keep quite on. Honestly, sign a petition lmao!!! Nah, got better things to worry about. The bugs will be fixed, most of us will carry on playing anyway. I like the intention but jeez, this is too much now. Entitled comes to mind, except the bugs of course, I agree with that and only that. Just my opinion on the subject...o7
 

Rubbernuke

Rubbernuke
Agony_Aunt said:
Sensors have a purpose. Range. Its not a major differentiator, bit it is one.

Ah, and there we go, gatekeeping again? People who don't do PvP don't know the game, people do are the ones FD should listen to.

Sorry, hard pass on that one mate.
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Who fits B, C or keeps E grade sensors? Why is it gimbals work in one way only? Why is it they can't have a combination of factors that makes them effective in subtly different ways, so you have trade offs based on your preferences? You know, provide depth? You could have hardened sensors that cut through chaff or any spoofing experimental at the cost of weight, money and power. Or, you could cheap out and use the lightest possible. Why not factor in exploration, with A grade providing better resolution during surface flights, or have better abilities in SC?

Everyone fits D and lightweights them bar PvP player who fit A for range (for instancing stability).

This is not hard stuff.
 

Rubbernuke

Rubbernuke
Agony_Aunt said:
FD could have done that by removing all those modules they added that introduced the mess in the first place.
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Or just, like, balance them. Heal beams I could remove, but again with changes they could stay. If FD removed everything that caused problems, we'd be throwing bobbleheads at each other.
 

Stigbob

Stigbob
jasonbarron said:
Clearly they needed to be re-balanced. Even their "splash effect" knocking off all hard points with a couple fire and forget passes was far far too powerful and essentially nutted all but a handful of I win god shielded ships.
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Within reason though. They got nerfed so bad I think I was the only player using them for a few years. They should be powerful that's why you have such limited ammo.

Now if you have PD's, your shields are up or you can outrun them just on throttle they are not exactly gamebreaking. Brilliant against hardpoints/utilities on an unprotected unshielded target you can hit though.

And fantastic for long range killstealing in CZ's.
 

Alec Turner

Alec Turner
6BuzJc3.jpg

(OK - so the forum was hardly asleep to start with but even so)
:ROFLMAO:
 
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