Odyssey has driven away more players than it attracted

[Mrc_NorthEast]

I just took a look at the steam charts for elite dangerous. The top chart defaults to 7 days, way too short a timeframe, however if you make it a 1yr chart, it definitely shows a steep decline since May of this year, which shows a peak of 27,568 players, most recent date is 6/28 which shows 7615 players, which does appear to be the low data point in the 1yr top chart view.

However since 2020 was a virus lock down year, and most places in the world started opening up this month... I am not sure the drop in players is cause Odyssey's many issues made people leave the game because of those issues. Or if people who are now free to live a 'normal' life are doing exactly that... time will tell.

Oh and Fdev please leave Horizons code and planets separate from Odyssey FOREVER!

edited for spelling

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Well, there's some truth about OP.
Before Odyssey there were bunch(as much more than now which is zero to none) of players in PS4 galaxy in open.

My Elite ganker/pvp/pve buddies were playing in greater numbers and I had some 10-12 friends in Elite social on average.

Now no gankers, no players, and in social there is 1-2 online at best. My Elite buddies are still playing games, just not Elite.

Sure, summer is here so not full gaming season, but still it's much less people around Elite than same time last year.

Some went to PC to try it(free Epic accs), but with all issues and player base fragmented even more,
I think it's safe to say that players are losing interest in Elite in whole.

At least ODY had one positive effect then.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Oh and Fdev please leave Horizons code and planets separate from Odyssey FOREVER!

This is very unrealistic. Anyway, on the whole, the Odyssey planet tech looks much better anyway.

 

[Cervantes01]

All it would do is advance maintenance mode and, if anything shut down any and/or all future development.

Do we really want ELITE to end this way.

too late I think, the ship is sinking, FD's going to have to pull some impressive rabbits out of hats in order to win back community support and their willingness to spend money with them. Unless the community gets some goodies along the way to console release I can't see this changing, that doesn't bode well for console players buying the game either.

 

[FutronBob]

Going by the chart when Horizons launched nearly half the player base left, so is Odyssey more successful at launch than Horizons?

This is likely due to the fact that when Horizons first launched on Steam, it was sold and listed as a separate game and not a DLC for the base game. Anyone playing Horizons during those first few months would not have been listed in the Steam player count for the base game.

They changed this a few months after Horizons’ launch, and brought it under the base game’s umbrella as a DLC.

 

[Bigmaec]

Right, I remember the friend list of the old forum. I wonder where did it go?
Anyways, why aren't you agreeing? Or better questions, where in particular wouldn't you agree?

My personal belief is a boycott won't make FD change, it will only end ED(O) faster than anticipated, and that is something I don't want.

 

[alexzk]

really stupid and completely avoidable mistakes by game companies.

From my experience ... I had COVID in November, since then I cannot work more then 3hrs/day (or play) any more. I just caught meself doing extremely stupid code if I do work more then 3 hrs now.
So my point is, that virus could do huge damage to whole industry.

 

[Erei]

I've seen the steamchart. It's not yet close to the lowest number recorded. By quite a large margin. So certainly not "doom".
Also, summer is a poor time, usually, for games. I say usually because COVID, and 2020 shouldn't be a reference for anything^^

Still, with the "no performance" work until console in months, I'm curious to see by how much it will drop in the meantime. With all the people believing patch 5 is going to miraculously solve most problems they have.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

This is very unrealistic. Anyway, on the whole, the Odyssey planet tech looks much better anyway.

It's a downgrade.

 

[Erei]

Anyway, on the whole, the Odyssey planet tech looks much better anyway.

This is your opinion.
I disagree myself.

 

[babelfisch]

eh.... we're looking at 20/21 numbers here not the past 6 years... And the past yearsd figures clearly show a picture... I just don't think you're willing to accept it.

One of the problems with Steamcharts is that it doesn't show the amount of people regularly playing the game, but the peak of concurrent players.

It's obvious that people are playing the game less than before* but that doesn't mean it's necessarily fewer players:
If the average player plays for 1 hour each day in June but only plays for 30 minutes in July, Steamcharts will show only half as many concurrent players. Even though the active community is as big as it was before.
That's just one of the simple mistakes some people make when looking at Steamcharts.
That doesn't mean it's impossible that some people stopped playing Elite, it's just that Steamcharts can't reliably tell you.

*which could be for any reason, like people being annoyed, lockdown, summer, football or a combination of the above.

 

[askavir]

It's a downgrade.

How many Odyssey planets have you visited?

 

[ZeeWolf]

If nobody is playing the game they shut it down, no developer is going to think "quick let's green light more risky investment and just hope our employees can pay mortgages and continue to feed their families"

I shall open the Steam version on as many computers as I have from now on in respose to Ops daft request.

I like niche' space games because their existances annoys a certain demographic of mostly entitled middled age men. The more we keep around the more they can continue to be enraged in their natural habitat.

 

[Erei]

How many Odyssey planets have you visited?

Quantity =/= quality. I don't care if it's an upgrade for some amount of planet, if it's at the cost of a downgrade for others. I like it better when it's consistent.
I don't play the game for the "RNG" planet, will it be good, or bad ? You'll know when you see it !

So far, one planet was good looking and an improvement, all the others had varying issues that made them look bad.
I had one with "ice cream" look and "smooth needle", plus the "shiny" aspect. A bunch with the urban/snow camo, one or 2 with the "white puke carpet", yesterday I had a "checkboard" planet. And once the "the most flat planet in the universe" look. OFC, a bunch with the 2011 "Kerbal space program" texture level with ice cream hills, which is relatively frequent.

So, excuse me if I don't care if half the planet I visit are better. An issue is still an issue.

 

[askavir]

Good idea OP, but don't stop there, you and all the other eternally disgruntled should also boycott the forum as well. That will show them!

 

[babelfisch]

I just took a look at the steam charts for elite dangerous. The top chart defaults to 7 days, way too short a timeframe, however if you make it a 1yr chart, it definitely shows a steep decline since May of this year, which shows a peak of 27,568 players, most recent date is 6/28 which shows 7615 players, which does appear to be the low data point in the 1yr top chart view.

However since 2020 was a virus lock down year, and most places in the world started opening up this month... I am not sure the drop in players is cause Odyssey's many issues made people leave the game because of those issues. Or if people who are now free to live a 'normal' life are doing exactly that... time will tell.

Oh and Fdev please leave Horizons code and planets separate from Odyssey FOREVER!

edited for spelling

That's the problem with Steamcharts. There was no 'drop' from 27,568 to 7615 players. It's just concurrent players. So if lots of people wait for the Odyssey release and they all download and play it at the same time, Steamcharts shows a large number of concurrent players. That's not the player base though. If you wanted to keep that 27,568 player number, they would need to play it 24/7, otherwise they aren't concurrent players anymore...

Obviously you can still come to the conclusion that launch wasn't good, but you don't need Steamcharts for that...

 

[askavir]

Quantity =/= quality. I don't care if it's an upgrade for some amount of planet, if it's at the cost of a downgrade for others. I like it better when it's consistent.
I don't play the game for the "RNG" planet, will it be good, or bad ? You'll know when you see it !

So far, one planet was good looking and an improvement, all the others had varying issues that made them look bad.
I had one with "ice cream" look and "smooth needle", plus the "shiny" aspect. A bunch with the urban/snow camo, one or 2 with the "white puke carpet", yesterday I had a "checkboard" planet. And once the "the most flat planet in the universe" look. OFC, a bunch with the 2011 "Kerbal space program" texture level with ice cream hills, which is relatively frequent.

So, excuse me if I don't care if half the planet I visit are better. An issue is still an issue.

Oh yes I forgot that formerly all the Horizons planets were gardens of Eden...

There were always great looking planets and crap looking planets, most in between being mostly meh. So no, we never had (and never will) have 100% spectacular planets due to their PG nature and FD's commitment to make them look like real planets and not fantasy wonderlands.

There are some issues that affect some people, but given than other people are barely affected by them obviously means those issues so can be fixed.

As a whole, new planets are much better and much more diverse and varied within them than old planets. You will say this is just my opinion, but so is yours anyway so there's that.

So excuse me if I don't take the issues some people are having as a sweeping "old planets were better" generalization.

 

[Shockbot]

With this month coming to an end, checking out Elite: Dangerous Steam Charts we can see that Odyssey has caused player numbers to drop compared to before the expansion with a difference of 7712 - 9386 = -1674.
The total loss compared to the player numbers during the launch of the expansion and now is -3244.
That is an all time record for player loss for Elite: Dangerous on steam (and 4th place in relative percentage loss).

And before anyone of you show up and tell me "But steam charts aren't covering the whole playerbase!" yes, we know captain obvious. So?
Steam charts display a good representation of player numbers because there usually is no difference between steam players and non steam players. So unless anyone can come up with a proper reasoning why relative steam player numbers should somehow be more affected than total player numbers (which we don't know), this argument is considered invalid.

With that cleared I guess the most obvious conclusion is that Odyssey has brought the game more harm than good and it would have been better without the release of Odyssey.
Dropping player numbers is (imo) a good thing because that's a language FD is speaking. Since english isn't their natural way of communication (anymore), alternative means of communication need to be used to get a message through to FD management.

So what am I trying to say here? Nothing much really except for: I am proud of ya'll! I personally didn't invest in FD as a whole company since 2018 and reduced my playtime since Odyssey to around 0h.
But one player doesn't mean a thing. Only through the effort of your refusal will there be a chance that FD wakes up and changes course. Albeit it's most likely a small chance, it's certainly a higher chance than kindly asking for change through social media and these forums for the reason mentioned above.

Keep it up (or down in that case). Actions speak louder than words do.

I did everything to not playing this game via steam beside that I bought the initial ED on steam

 

[Erei]

Oh yes I forgot that formerly all the Horizons planets were gardens of Eden...

There were always great looking planets and crap looking planets, most in between being mostly meh. So no, we never had (and never will) have 100% spectacular planets due to their PG nature and FD's commitment to make them look like real planets and not fantasy wonderlands.

There are some issues that affect some people, but given than other people are barely affected by them obviously means those issues so can be fixed.

As a whole, new planets are much better and much more diverse and varied within them than old planets. You will say this is just my opinion, but so is yours anyway so there's that.

So excuse me if I don't take the issues some people are having as a sweeping "old planets were better" generalization.

I don't mind bland planet. I don't mind ugly planet.

I mind ugly bugged trash planet.

One is boring but not immersion breaking.
The other is boring AND immersion breaking.

 

[NeilF]

Skies are falling already? ... amount of complaints and crying on these forums starts remind twitter ... and in the same time there are numerous new experts of economic, games creation, psychology and company business .

Good to see strawmen and hyperbole are doing well though...