Odyssey Going Forwards

[Deleted member 192138]

Braben wheeled out of the broom cupboard for the third time to keep the community in check over the state of Odyssey.

Kind of telling though. All the people that have been saying, since alpha "with the state of the game, no way will this be ready for projected console launch, it's going to be pushed back". Every time they were told "no, you don't know what you're talking about, Frontier have said nothing about that". We knew back then, but Frontier wouldn't say it. Why? Didn't you [Frontier, collectively, before I get moderated for harassment] know? Couldn't you tell? Or wouldn't you say to us?

Painfully evident now why the "open communication" attitude of the dev streams has been canned - you have no meaningful updates to give us, nothing worth rolling out a dev to speak to us about. Back to CMs being the go-between for misinformation and projections on the next half-baked update.

Continues to be cheap lip service and nice catch words but still nothing delivered in terms of the real impact that's needed to get things on track. It's the same narrative you used over why we were getting the year of bug fixes (never delivered, unless you include unbreaking the things you broke at the start of that year with the Arx update), or why you kept on pushing back, and back the Fleet Carrier update, gave us a beta, and then still released it in a mess - "we've listened to your feedback, and that's why we're waiting another six months to fail to deliver".

Playing Elite for the last two years has been like writhing around on a petri dish and wondering what's being tested on you next. If, for once, you actually delivered as a result of "listening to community feedback" that would be great. Instead it's no surprise that increasingly the word "lies" is getting thrown around when really this is just another iteration of PR doublespeak. Why be honest with us about the state of things and what awareness you have of what's actually going on with the future of your games, when instead you can keep things silent until you have to break the bad news, you throw your own community under the bus to cover your own hides, and tell us the delays are because you've finally "listened to our feedback".

Disappointing, bogus, repetitive nonsense. The worst part is, I'm not even surprised at this stage.

 

[Pigletslastand]

consoles have to wait but it is for a greater good.

Consoles have been waiting so long and been given so little.. honestly it's criminal, I know how he feels

 

[FlyingBrickyard]

Talk is cheap, and we've heard quite a lot of it over the years. Much of it nearly identical to this. Yet here we are again.

What is needed now are results, not more assurances and promises to 'do better'.

Anything less won't save Elite.

I doubt I'm alone in saying this is your last chance.

That's not intended to be harsh, or as any sort of threat - it's simply a statement of where I am in my relationship with the game at this point. I love this game. I want it to do well, and grow, and continue to be a remarkable experience for years to come. But I can't ignore the state it is in, and I won't try to deny it either.

Elite is in a bad way - and much as I want to see it succeed - there are limits.

Please, take this seriously.

 

[finnyblackpool]

Thanks David. This is reassuring and hopefully the majority of fixes and incremental improvements on PC can positively impact consoles also. As a suggestion please do try to get community engagement into some of the priority calls you may take. Although putting everything to democracy voting won't be good - if you want to get user groups made up of different player types - representing your key customer personas - I think there would be some positive ideas and potentially high story point ideas dropped in favour of low story point but higher value decisions. Further to this, potentially give content creators a look behind the curtain during development - some of them could garner some really good customer feedback from their communities also. Buur pit, Elite week, OA, Yamiks, etc - they have diff perspectives but they also represent swathes of customer sentiment.

 

[thistle]

How can we be sure that DBOBE actually wrote this?

In the trade this is known as doing a Hilmar .

I thought you were playing the commuter train game?

 

[Orinala]

Thanks for the update @David Braben. Seems a common sense approach to me, and it means a lot to hear it from the top.

o7 Commander.

 

[Pigletslastand]

Thanks for the update @David Braben. Seems a common sense approach to me, and it means a lot to hear it from the top.

o7 Commander.

Agreed

 

[JesusRocks1988]

Greetings Commanders.

With the release of Update 5 on 1st July plus a few smaller server updates since, and Update 6 currently in development, I wanted to take a moment of your time to talk about the next steps for Elite Dangerous.

We are aware and fully accept the frustration that many of our players have had with their experience of Elite Dangerous Odyssey. The community have spoken, we have heard the feedback clearly and we will act on that feedback.

As you may remember in our recent development article, the significant amount of updates and development effort that has been done to fix and improve issues since the launch of Odyssey has meant work on our console release has not progressed as quickly as we had hoped. What’s more, we can see that the strides we have made through the last five major updates are positive, but we must continue on with this progress to give the experience that you and we expect on PC.

With those things in mind, we have spent a lot of time discussing and re-evaluating our previous plans and we have made the decision to prioritise the core PC experience for Elite Dangerous. Ultimately, we believe it is right to focus our efforts on the core Elite Dangerous Odyssey experience for the platforms that we have released on, before opening up to more. We know that the work that we do to improve players’ experiences of Elite Dangerous Odyssey on PC will benefit other platforms in the future, but the dates and details of the console platforms are going to change. We do not want to rush into confirming any dates or changes this has on our console release, as we must remain fully focused on the core Elite experience. Only when we feel that the foundation of the PC release is solid, will we be able to re-lay our console roadmap on top.

Elite Dangerous Odyssey is an important step on a complicated journey, and we must get this right, before we can consider moving on to these new platforms.

So what does this actually mean for Elite Dangerous and Elite Dangerous Odyssey?

It means that we will see more game updates over the coming months. We will continue to work through Issue Tracker, fix bugs and improve performance, but we will also be able to explore and add additional features, content and improvements into the game.

We will continue to give open monthly development updates where we discuss WIP content, challenges, the issue tracker and more. We know that the previous levels of detail for the roadmap and developer update have not met expectations, but we are grateful for your patience while we shift and adjust plans, in the face of such clear feedback.

Please remember that our team here at Frontier are working hard to support the game and our community. Behind every bug fix, design decision and community post is a person who cares a lot about giving our players best possible experience. I would ask that everyone remains calm and respectful when sharing their thoughts and feedback.

We all have the same goal and we will get there, together. Please bear with us.

o7 Commanders.

I don't want to sound melodramatic, but as an exclusively Xbox CMDR, this basically means I have no reason to come back to Elite at all anymore.

I've been taking a break and playing other games while awaiting Odyssey.

Now that the console release is, for all intents and purposes, delayed indefinitely, It seems that's the end of the road for the console version. Sure it may come out in the winter instead, or it could be another year, or perhaps even more. With no inkling of a release window, there's no way to know.

So I guess that's it? Maybe? I dunno.

I understand needing to get the game into a good state. But there's no other way around the fact that it feels very alienating.

 

[thatguytimfromearth]

this made me laugh. how is it even possible that i can "report" the ceo and founder , lol as a joke i want to report but i dont want to get banned. what happens if we all report the ceo would it ban him from his own fourms ? lol

 

[Tikanderoga]

I saw the post just as I went to bed.
It's great to see David taking a step up to keep the players.

I'm curious to see where things will be going, and I hope Fdev stays true to their word and publish the next roadmap within a reasonable timeframe.

 

[JSteel]

Great news, thanks for the post!
We'll hang in there with ya!

 

[saberius]

Thank you for the update.
A polished release for the Console is a great goal.

 

[Flippimonkey]

Okay, I can accept this. It's a solid move if they come through, and I may think of re-buying Odyssey depending on how things progress. I'll be keeping an ear out for news. You have end of this year to improve the game, and wow me with these "new features" and "changes". Both realized and announced. More so the former...

Don't squander this. Come out swinging and make big bold moves. Cuz I still smell..,

 

[Cyberblitz]

I'm cautiously optimistic. We have heard all this before with little follow through. With broken promises of openness, detailed road maps and dev streams, its hard to trust anything said by FDev atm. The statement is also somewhat vague and light on information. I imagine this statement will appease some but the pessimism in me can't help but think this is an attempt at manipulating the mood of the community through cooperate speak. Only time will tell, i guess. However, I doubt we'll see REAL improvements and additional content until the end of this year, or early next year at the latest. For me, I'm giving up on Elite for now (which is heart breaking) until things are fixed and/or communication promises from FDev improve.

Sorry for the pessimistic tone of this post however, FDevs behavior over the last 6 weeks or so by not meeting their promises has made it hard to feel positive, not to mention the poor performance and lack of content in the game. I love this game and want it to succeed. Actions speak louder than words.

 

[Einar Donarsson]

I really hope these mistakes gave lessons for the future. Yes people want content fast but they do not want it broken or unplayable. While i really hope you can fix this and get it to the promised state, i obviously have massive doubts and will not spend a single coin on any Frontier product in the future until i see the promises fullfilled.

 

[Sanctusice]

as a console player, I feel dejected. Consistently being put on hold is not the kind of game I want to play. I've played over 11000 hours in game and spent TONS of arx trying to support the game. I'm happy for the PC players. Good for you. I'm moving on though. I've had enough of being hyped to only be kicked in the teeth....again.

Honestly, it's this type of response that potentially makes FDev 'scared' to delay any release even though it's not ready. Don't be jealous of PC players, they're Beta testing the game for you.

1000x over we would all prefer a smooth, proper game launch than working through 6 months of a buggy mess. You should never want ED:O before it's ready, and saying that you do is why developers release games in half states.

Again, first and foremost they need to fix the game, not work on platform expansion. No PC player would tell you they wouldn't have prefered to hear of a delay for a couple months and get a much more polished game than what actually happened.

 

[Sanctusice]

Greetings Commanders.

With the release of Update 5 on 1st July plus a few smaller server updates since, and Update 6 currently in development, I wanted to take a moment of your time to talk about the next steps for Elite Dangerous.

We are aware and fully accept the frustration that many of our players have had with their experience of Elite Dangerous Odyssey. The community have spoken, we have heard the feedback clearly and we will act on that feedback.

As you may remember in our recent development article, the significant amount of updates and development effort that has been done to fix and improve issues since the launch of Odyssey has meant work on our console release has not progressed as quickly as we had hoped. What’s more, we can see that the strides we have made through the last five major updates are positive, but we must continue on with this progress to give the experience that you and we expect on PC.

With those things in mind, we have spent a lot of time discussing and re-evaluating our previous plans and we have made the decision to prioritise the core PC experience for Elite Dangerous. Ultimately, we believe it is right to focus our efforts on the core Elite Dangerous Odyssey experience for the platforms that we have released on, before opening up to more. We know that the work that we do to improve players’ experiences of Elite Dangerous Odyssey on PC will benefit other platforms in the future, but the dates and details of the console platforms are going to change. We do not want to rush into confirming any dates or changes this has on our console release, as we must remain fully focused on the core Elite experience. Only when we feel that the foundation of the PC release is solid, will we be able to re-lay our console roadmap on top.

Elite Dangerous Odyssey is an important step on a complicated journey, and we must get this right, before we can consider moving on to these new platforms.

So what does this actually mean for Elite Dangerous and Elite Dangerous Odyssey?

It means that we will see more game updates over the coming months. We will continue to work through Issue Tracker, fix bugs and improve performance, but we will also be able to explore and add additional features, content and improvements into the game.

We will continue to give open monthly development updates where we discuss WIP content, challenges, the issue tracker and more. We know that the previous levels of detail for the roadmap and developer update have not met expectations, but we are grateful for your patience while we shift and adjust plans, in the face of such clear feedback.

Please remember that our team here at Frontier are working hard to support the game and our community. Behind every bug fix, design decision and community post is a person who cares a lot about giving our players best possible experience. I would ask that everyone remains calm and respectful when sharing their thoughts and feedback.

We all have the same goal and we will get there, together. Please bear with us.

o7 Commanders.

Actions speak louder than words. I hope the actions do these words justice. Time will tell.

 

[Marmalade MacGuffin]

Greetings Commanders.

With the r...

Thanks for the update! This is reassuring and I hope to see more communication between FDev and players in the future. The strange, and what appeared to me to be dismissive, reactions from recent FDev communication to us had me honestly very worried. Hopefully smooth flying from here.

 

[MASA]

Conformation bias.

[I'm gonna assume that's not you telling me your own impression of performance of streams was influenced by confirmation bias...]

So, you don't believe the people who are posting that they're getting half the performance in Odyssey that they get in Horizons?
Want me to stream how it runs on my system so you can see how well an average system can cope with running the game AND streaming it at the same time?
Quite honestly, you don't go streaming gameplay on YouTube unless you've got high-end hardware which can cope with the demands - you yourself admitted it still didn't look like it was running perfectly even for them. A lot of the streamers are complaining about dropping from 200+ fps to ~80 fps, so you're not gonna see much difference given that YouTube caps video at 60 fps.
Believe what you wish of course.

I do think it was a bit rude to respond with just a two word allegation of logical fallacy though.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

During Alpha, I suggested ways in which the Odyssey experience could be made more engaging & more integrated into the main game.

1. Have orbital conflict zone outcomes directly contribute to the reinforcement pools available in On-foot conflict zones.

2. Significantly expand on-foot exploration beyond simply pointing a gizmo at some alien plant life. Allow us to physically collect biological & geological samples, then allow us to do stuff with those samples (& any related data), on our ships, that connect into other parts of the game.

3. Allow us to meaningfully interact, on foot, with all of those surface "Points of Interest" that we couldn't interact with when trapped in our SRV's.

4. Don't have an artificial demarkation between missions obtained whilst walking around Stations and those we obtain whilst in our Ships. Also, have optional on-foot components to missions we traditionally do, currently, in our SRV's-whether an on-foot approach to completing the mission and/or additional things we can access whilst on foot.

I had a lot more than that, during Alpha, but even if they achieved these 4 things, I might be convinced to come back to the game.....