I almost feel bad for Frontier

[sandkid]

View attachment 168767

All of this IS the source. You think Frontier wants to tick people off?
(I mean, that's very possible given lots of other historic data points)

Massively multiplayer games regularly show that the vocal portion of the community is an ASTRONOMICALLY TINY minority of the playerbase. That doesn't that vocal minority is wrong, or is severely biased, but it does mean that when raw numbers and percentages are put into play...developers will follow the data LONG before they follow the forum.

The jokes that frontier said, "Oh! They love mining! Let's give them a ship that requires even MORE mining!" may not be that far off the mark. Mining 2.0 radically shifted the game's economy and what we've seen to date shows Frontier didn't necessarily ask the right questions as to why it shifted so dramatically.

Is it that people love mining?

Well, there's definitely many who find it lots of fun. Mining 2.0 is also the first time (no, really) that any career was further developed into a deeper, richer, skill-complex feature. The next closest is the arrival of the FSS and Surface Scanner probes. Combat has seen zero feature depth added, save for the 'alien-specific' AX weapons and Thargoids of yester-years.

But if Frontier took the mining data to mean that the playerbase, as a majority, loves the economic aspects of Elite more (trading, mining, industry) then it's not a far jump to see how an originally sqaudron-asset was redeveloped into a commercial management platform. Explorers are very vocal on these forums, but I suspicion they constitute a tiny portion of the overall gaming community given its niche interest and inches-deep feature set.

While combat is still very popular in Elite, combat requires funding is ship loss is occurring (particularly PvP). You know how most PvP players are funding their play?

You guessed it. Mining.

So what does Frontier see? Vast quantities of players spending hundreds of hours fighting, running passengers, or exploring?
Or vast quantities mining...not realising they do so to fund those other activities.

It seems like common sense, but it unfortunately isn't. Developers don't play their game...they have a job about the game. You think they want to go home and then play it? They don't have a huge 'play test' department - QA is usually outsourced to save cash - so they rely almost exclusively on data points that, hopefully, are interpreted correctly.


Your source that they don't care? That the silent majority are just cruising along and the game is generating revenue as expected?

Source: Do you think they would launch FCs, even into beta, with these parameters if they cared what the forum thought?

Keep in mind: years. YEARS of suggestions, feedback, and fan-made content surrounding this specific feature.

 

[Marklar_]

All of this IS the source. You think Frontier wants to tick people off?
(I mean, that's very possible given lots of other historic data points)

Massively multiplayer games regularly show that the vocal portion of the community is an ASTRONOMICALLY TINY minority of the playerbase. That doesn't that vocal minority is wrong, or is severely biased, but it does mean that when raw numbers and percentages are put into play...developers will follow the data LONG before they follow the forum.

The jokes that frontier said, "Oh! They love mining! Let's give them a ship that requires even MORE mining!" may not be that far off the mark. Mining 2.0 radically shifted the game's economy and what we've seen to date shows Frontier didn't necessarily ask the right questions as to why it shifted so dramatically.

Is it that people love mining?

Well, there's definitely many who find it lots of fun. Mining 2.0 is also the first time (no, really) that any career was further developed into a deeper, richer, skill-complex feature. The next closest is the arrival of the FSS and Surface Scanner probes. Combat has seen zero feature depth added, save for the 'alien-specific' AX weapons and Thargoids of yester-years.

But if Frontier took the mining data to mean that the playerbase, as a majority, loves the economic aspects of Elite more (trading, mining, industry) then it's not a far jump to see how an originally sqaudron-asset was redeveloped into a commercial management platform. Explorers are very vocal on these forums, but I suspicion they constitute a tiny portion of the overall gaming community given its niche interest and inches-deep feature set.

While combat is still very popular in Elite, combat requires funding is ship loss is occurring (particularly PvP). You know how most PvP players are funding their play?

You guessed it. Mining.

So what does Frontier see? Vast quantities of players spending hundreds of hours fighting, running passengers, or exploring?
Or vast quantities mining...not realising they do so to fund those other activities.

It seems like common sense, but it unfortunately isn't. Developers don't play their game...they have a job about the game. You think they want to go home and then play it? They don't have a huge 'play test' department - QA is usually outsourced to save cash - so they rely almost exclusively on data points that, hopefully, are interpreted correctly.


Your source that they don't care? That the silent majority are just cruising along and the game is generating revenue as expected?

Source: Do you think they would launch FCs, even into beta, with these parameters if they cared what the forum thought?

Keep in mind: years. YEARS of suggestions, feedback, and fan-made content surrounding this specific feature.

The irony of this is that one of the main reasons players have been mining so much is in order to buy a carrier.

And then they get to keep mining.

The game is now balanced around mining profits. I really wish that the mining profits had never been buffed like this, the answer to everything now is to go mining.

 

[sandkid]

The irony of this is that one of the main reasons players have been mining so much is in order to buy a carrier.

And then they get to keep mining.

The game is now balanced around mining profits. I really wish that the mining profits had never been buffed like this, the answer to everything now is to go mining.

Well, you give an inch they take a yard...nerfing mining (REALLY nerfing) would cause wailing and gnashing of teeth worthy of Monoclegate from EVE Online.

But that's just the minority, so I'm surprised they haven't done it already, lol.

In all seriousness, the numbers really don't matter when it comes to FCs. The issue is the economic model - the two simply aren't compatible. FCs would fit in perfectly in a game like EVE Online. They are mechanically sound for a player-driven market, but Elite isn't a player-driven market and likely never will be. Ship loss and module loss simply doesn't happen, commodities are NPC only, and credits are only relevant until you own the ship(s) and modules you need...then they only serve as a buffer for rebuy. That's it.

The irony of FCs is that, functionally, they're pretty ok!
They just cast a very bright light that Elite's economy is, functionally, a dumpster fire.

 

[lefty1117]

What were people expecting? These are fleet carriers, not personal carriers. They were aimed at squadrons and player groups and a group effort is expected to be able to maintain them. Think of the capital ships in EVE.

Now I am personally not going to partake in FCs, just like I don't partake in multi-crew, but I understood going in that this piece of functionality wasn't for me. I think a lot of people have misplaced expectations on what this was supposed to be.

Now the misplaced expectations is something I can point towards FD for having the lion's share of responsibility because their overall comms are too lacking. They go quiet for far too long and are very stingy about sharing roadmap and design information. That's on them. They shouldn't be surprised that so many people are disappointed and confused.

 

[askavir]

Source?

Nostradamus told him.

 

[Walter2]

I wonder who came up with the conceptual design.

A committee.

 

[GraXXoR]

Personally I very much enjoy the irony of explorers complaining that Frontier are focusing on a small fraction of the playerbase.

That’s not how irony works unless your name is Alanis.

 

[GraXXoR]

The problem is that ED is such a wide game it attracts all kinds of people, with all kinds of preferences. And I believe that ED is best when FD focusses on various groups and their preferences, and caters to distinct segments sufficiently that there is some fun for all. If you take a miner, smuggler, explorer and combat pilot and take the average of what they want, you get something nobody wants. Also, whenever you focus on 'high-end' stuff, you know 95% of the consumers will be angry they can't afford it, their character isn't high enough level or whatever keeps them from enjoying that content now. But that doesn't mean it is wrong to add it. Are they perfect as-is? Well, in my opinion no. But that is just that, my opinion. I will share it for FDs consideration, but I will understand if they decide to cater to those who are not me.

Open development is easier in games that are more focused, with a player base that is more homogenous and, dare I say, able to present feedback in a constructive manner beyond "omg lazy devs dont care for us so stupid I hate them!", which is something that happens a bit too often around here.

the problem is IMO, that there ARE plenty of people who can afford them (5% of 1,000,000 is 50,000) But very few are gushing over them.

where are the 5% of posts saying “holy smoke!!! These things are the best thing I’ve ever seen”

the white knights aren’t even really defending them with actual data, instead they’re just calling the majority whingers and whatnot.
If this high end content was, as you say, suitable for the end game 5% then there would surely be threads gushing about them.

Forgetting the hyperbolic Yamicks, it’s telling even the steadfast and pragmatic Obsidian Ant struggles to make an entertaining video out of the whole thing. And If you watch the actual hyperjump at the end of his video, that’s possibly the saddest 2 minutes of YouTube footage I’ve ever seen.

 

[GraXXoR]

The carriers are too focused on a specific group of players (the traders). It has too little benefits for explorers and combat.

what gives you the impression the carriers are focused on traders, though?

My first elite rank was trading and I was a compulsive trader. But these bring zero to the table apart from a massive logistical headache and bottomless credit sink.

 

[Shaele]

I wonder how much money FDev have wasted on this pig (fleet carriers) and how much more they have wasted creating lipstick (carrier skins and kit) to put on the pig.

 

[Ian Skippy]

the problem is IMO, that there ARE plenty of people who can afford them (5% of 1,000,000 is 50,000) But very few are gushing over them.

where are the 5% of posts saying “holy smoke!!! These things are the best thing I’ve ever seen”

the white knights aren’t even really defending them with actual data, instead they’re just calling the majority whingers and whatnot.
If this high end content was, as you say, suitable for the end game 5% then there would surely be threads gushing about them.

Forgetting the hyperbolic Yamicks, it’s telling even the steadfast and pragmatic Obsidian Ant struggles to make an entertaining video out of the whole thing. And If you watch the actual hyperjump at the end of his video, that’s possibly the saddest 2 minutes of YouTube footage I’ve ever seen.

I see lots of used, just not really for solo cmdrs. Load up your cargo with food and jump into a famine station. Gather all your fighter pilots and jump right next to a conflict zone. This is like an emergency response team for crisis situations.

 

[Old Duck]

What were people expecting? These are fleet carriers, not personal carriers. They were aimed at squadrons and player groups and a group effort is expected to be able to maintain them. Think of the capital ships in EVE.

Now I am personally not going to partake in FCs, just like I don't partake in multi-crew, but I understood going in that this piece of functionality wasn't for me. I think a lot of people have misplaced expectations on what this was supposed to be.

Now the misplaced expectations is something I can point towards FD for having the lion's share of responsibility because their overall comms are too lacking. They go quiet for far too long and are very stingy about sharing roadmap and design information. That's on them. They shouldn't be surprised that so many people are disappointed and confused.

I agree.. Some of us are upset not so much with fleet carriers themselves, but what has been sacrificed to bring us this very niche content. We've been waiting YEARS for this, meanwhile the Thargoid War, Community Goals, Interstellar Initiatives, and Galnet (all of which offered content available to everyone) have been neutered. Frontier has a habit of majoring on the minors and minoring on the majors, and FCs is yet another in a long list of examples of this.

 

[askavir]

I agree.. Some of us are upset not so much with fleet carriers themselves, but what has been sacrificed to bring us this very niche content. We've been waiting YEARS for this, meanwhile the Thargoid War, Community Goals, Interstellar Initiatives, and Galnet (all of which offered content available to everyone) have been neutered. Frontier has a habit of majoring on the minors and minoring on the majors, and FCs is yet another in a long list of examples of this.

In. fairness, those sacrifices weren't made because of FCs, they were made for the "new era", whatever it is. The "new era" will be the time to judge if it was worth the sacrifices or not. In fact, the "new era" will be the time to see if FD is still commited to make a great space game, or just keeping ED on life support to milk the remaining player base.

 

[Old Duck]

In. fairness, those sacrifices weren't made because of FCs, they were made for the "new era", whatever it is. The "new era" will be the time to judge if it was worth the sacrifices or not. In fact, the "new era" will be the time to see if FD is still commited to make a great space game, or just keeping ED on life support to milk the remaining player base.

Well if the fleet carrier is the bridge to New Era, I fear what lays on the other side of this rickety bridge...

 

[askavir]

Well if the fleet carrier is the bridge to New Era, I fear what lays on the other side of this rickety bridge...

I see the FCs as a kind of "last gasp" of the old era. Well, I want to see them that way anyway. Let me dream, dammit!

Looking from the positive side, FCs would be rather nice if FD abandoned their old ways of thinking about the part and not the whole, trying to make every addition a subgame contained within itself, instead of thinking about how can each addition expand and fit into the rest of already in the game. Clearly the FCs were designed so each person who buys one from there on will play "the carrier game" exclusively, as between the fuelling and making money for the upkeep, that player will never again be able to do anything else for a while other than tending to the carrier. But if FD is open to tweak (by a huge lot) some numbers, FCs are still completely redeemable.

The other positive outlook is that the introduction of player to player trading, while almost completely useless in FCs, reveals a never before seen "open-ness" from FD to finally allow for players interactions and start releasing the game world from the current clutches of heavily controlled and restricted gameplay. If they start adding more tools for players to interact, between themselves and with the game world (which is, so far, extremely static), it may be a sign for what's to come, and that emergent gameplay might someday become a thing after all.

Of course, I can be just delusional, I've been known to be a sucker for lost causes, but even while sitting in my own pile of salt (and what a large pile that is), I still have hopes that the new era will finally be the leap forwards that the game hasn't seen since the release of 2.0. Either that, or I'll finally make my peace with reality, realize all that dev talk about atmos and legs et was nothing but hot air, and store ED on the "nice tries" shelf, just like I previously already have made my peace with the fact that if I wanted to explore the galaxy like a Captain Kirk, ED is definitively not the game I was looking for.

 

[JetsonRING]

Yup. I think they intentionally wanted it to be really, really expensive and difficult to own a carrier. They might tweak the numbers somewhat, but probably not much. It's almost like they want everyone to feel a bit disappointed with the carrier update to make us all hope for a "proper" update with Next Era.

FC are created to generate interest in the game in Beta. This week recorded the highest numbers of players online, all on hype, they have not even released the FC yet.

 

[CMDR X]

o7 to all the great Fdevs who are only doing what their dumb bosses are telling them to do.
X

 

[peteuplink]

I'm sure that the management and developers at Frontier are enthusiastic about the new features they bring to their games (in this case, Elite Dangerous). And while they expect some negative feedback, I can't help but think that they have been caught totally off-guard with the level of disappointment, frustration, and disinterest in the latest Fleet Carrier beta. To put all that time, energy, and enthusiasm into a project to just watch it bomb - I know I would be disheartened if this were the response to a project I invested time in.

And yet, I can't fully bring myself to feel bad for Frontier. It seems they are just totally out-of-touch with their customers and player base. I'm not saying this based on what I want or do not want in the game, but rather the overwhelming negative feedback overflowing in the forums and livestreams, even from people who normally are much more generous with their praise of Frontier. I guess if I am going to feel bad for someone, it's the quiet developer working at Frontier who thinks, "This is not what the players want, but the boss tells me this is what I must do, so that's what I'll do." Having worked for such a boss in the past, I do feel bad for those employees at Frontier in this position. Something is obviously broken at Frontier, and I'm guessing it's management / leadership. And sadly, like the recent Charlie's Angels reboot and other terrible movies, they will probably just blame the fans and not own and learn from their mistakes. I hope I'm wrong (there's still time to fix these Fleet Carriers).

The problem I see is the fact that many creators seem to operate inside a bubble, because they have the view that what they're doing is absolutely right and anyone who disagrees either doesn't get it, or doesn't understand it.

Take the latest Terminator reboot for example. Most people think it's complete garbage, but Tim Miller is refusing to acknowledge that he made a bad movie and is blaming the fans for the poor box office returns.

As a developer, I get that it's hard some times to create what you want. Heck, I only make silly little 2d arcade games, but every time I put out a playable demo all I get is "Why don't you do this!" or "It'd be better if you did that!' or "Why can't you make it easier!"... Now, I could disregard all these comments and carry on doing my own thing, or accept that there are actually some gamers out there who know what they're talking about because they make games themselves.

I think there needs to be a bit less of the high and mighty "They're just gamers and they don't understand how to make games" from the developers and some more understanding from the gamers that it's not always easy to add exactly what you want to a game because of time constraints and your own ability as a developer.

As an example, I've been working on a little 2d arcade game where you have to round up sheep. It has no shooting in the game, instead you use the sheep as allies to destroy enemies. There are 8 different types of sheep and over 100 different types of enemy... If you feed a sheep it becomes friendly and attacks the nearest hostile, but it has to know to look for the nearest enemy out of 100 different types of enemy, and this behaviour has to be carried over to 8 different sheep all with different personalities... By the time I'd managed to get it working with 4 sheep and 4 enemies, I was thinking "My god! I've only done a few and it's already turning into a logistical nightmare!" so I have had to go back to the drawing board to rework it...

This is just a game with 108 objects of enemies and sheep in 2d... Now imagine trying to do this sort of stuff for a game the size of ED and you might understand how hard it can be.

 

[Radixbase]

This really reminds me of the EvE space legs debacle. The company was going down a path and the community rebelled, so they changed direction. It would be better if there was some give and take from both sides. I am against losing the FC that I bought to repossession, period, and as such I will not be buying one if they don't back off on that. But I do understand that this feature does require some investment to achieve, maybe even to maintain. But if it's a feature designed to keep me playing Even when I don't want to then I'm having nothing to do with it. I'm getting old, my time is important to me.

 

[Han Zulu]

This is just a game with 108 objects of enemies and sheep in 2d... Now imagine trying to do this sort of stuff for a game the size of ED and you might understand how hard it can be.

I think that's a big part of the reason why carriers were delayed, new ice planets, and other thought of future expansions (gas giants etc) seems to be forgotten, and they now have this mysterious Next Era and the end of the year. I suspect their Cobra engine is a hodgepodge of code blocks that aren't well optimized or manageable. So many projects I was introduced to or even part of in the past where some pieces of code got to a point where it was easier to rewrite it than try to fix it. The fleet carriers, as they stand, might be the best they can do when it comes to features and functionality, and we won't see anything seriously new and impressive until NE. However, with that said, the cost, upkeep, jump range, and other numbers aren't really code but usually only a constant set in some header file, or in some global constant table in the database, so those things could have been decided better and they can be changed as well. Now, with all the criticism Frontier got, I have a strong suspicion they will change the numbers. Actually, it wouldn't surprise me it was tactical to put the number extremely high, because it's easier to reduce them by request from player base than to increase numbers that were too low. The only concern I have now is that the carriers don't have enough features that will be interesting, and that would be a much harder thing to fix or add because of exactly what you're saying. It's got to complex. A big rewrite is coming. Not much will change until then.