Are Frontier content with Elite Dangerous? a few questions

[Muzz UK]

So this is a couple of questions to the community not an attack on Frontier and Elite Dangerous. I personally have over 2,000 hours played and love the game! I'm on an extended break whilst I wait for Odyssey to be in a place that will bring me and friends back.

Do the community think that Frontier are content with the player base numbers and sales that they aren't going to dramatically change Elite Dangerous and add anything major in terms of new game play mechanics just build on the space experience. Coin the term if it isn't broken don't fix it etc? Elite Dangerous must still be profitable as the games still up and running with regular updates.

There is still a lot of scope to add to Elite Dangerous we know this based on other space genre games. For example the community really want VR on foot and the adding of walkabout ship interiors but for the most part Elite remains an in ship simulation experience. Adding something like ship interiors would require a lot of change and work. This is something I do find a little confusing as the game direction seems a little miss matched with David Braben's kick starter vision. Elite Dangerous is very much an in seat space exploration and combat game where as David's vision and original pitch leaned more towards a Star Citizen / No Mans Sky type game.

One big comment I'm going to make on the subject is... in terms of space games do we even have the technology and infrastructure to support David's vision? Star Citizen and Dual Universe are both big space games deemed to be seamless and they are both a broken mess where as Elite uses instancing and though its restricted to a certain extend Odyssey aside things are much more stable.

What about the player owned bases and base building leaks that came from Reddit a few years ago which include Odyssey and Fleet Carrier details that came true? I'd personally love to see more on foot stuff like shooting goids, rework of Powerplay and more changes to the look and feel of the galaxy based on faction background sim play and Powerplay? I'd love to jump into a war torn system see shot up stations, interiors falling to bits and lots of fires like the goid attacks. Imagine going from that to a rich imperial system with stations bustling with traffic, Golden Ships landing everywhere and shiney clean station interiors?

Sorry bit of jumbled post but I'm on one this morning thought I'd start a little debate.

 

[Alien]

If you ask the community, the community will say things like "There is still so much potential with Elite Dangerous, so much more you could still do", but if you ask Frontier they will take into account what their devs can do, what the Cobra engine can do, how much that's going to cost and how much profit they might make from that cost. This would be a very different answer than the community's answer.

The community mostly want ship interiors. To the community, it adds depth, it adds immersion, but to Frontier it isn't worth the dev time and cost in literal £ to develop ship interiors. If Frontier came out and straight up said "we will never add ship interiors", they know that's half to 3/4 of the players gone and no more income from them, so they say things like "no plans to at the moment" or "you think you do, but you don't".

Frontier treat Elite Dangerous like they own a Formula 1 car but only take it to the supermarket once a week for shopping. It could win them races and bring in lots of money, but it would cost them to do that.

 

[Dack Janiels]

They prefer to add cringe emoticons that no one has asked for

 

[Alien]

They prefer to add cringe emoticons that no one has asked for

Wrong, people were asking for them.

 

[varonica]

Wrong, people were asking for them.

They did, and it was up to FDEV to decide whether the time and effort to add them was worth it. The same applies to any suggestion, addition or change.

 

[Phoenix_Dfire]

Fdev still care about this game (otherwise they wouldn't be doing all these updates). Over the last four months or so, the community team have really knocked it out of the part. The communication is much better, the development updates are a big help and you can see the progress they're making with every months so far. (i.e. we'll be getting Megaship interiors this update and fleet carrier interiors hopefully in the next update). Whether that's enough for some of the community to forgive the way the launch went, that's up to them. For example, it was really nice to see Dom on the Stream last night explaining the new missions.

The email leak was a right pain for fdev because it set expectations in the community that were not achieved. It might have been that base building / settlement building was on the drawing board when the email was leaked but it might have turned out to be too difficult to put in. Game Dev is hard and sometimes features don't work. It was just as bad when some people data-mined the files and found mentions of on-foot thargoids and a new SRV, some people expected it to be in at release and kicked off about it, even though fdev had never announced that those things were coming (they have mentioned the new SRV now, so we know that's coming after update 8).

They've started adding environmental reflections of a system status in the stations. More appropriate decorations in the concourse matching the stations market type, dirtier stations in poorer systems. However, the priority for fdev is to get odyssey into a state where people want to play it again. Until the performance and some of the gameplay elements are better (hopefully in the next couple of updates), then they'll be able to focus on the console versions. After that, then I hope they give Powerplay, CQC, Crime and Punishment and engineering a pass before they move onto the next thing.

They know that people want ship interiors with meaningful gameplay and on-foot VR but both of these features are really separate paid for DLCs because the amount of work that would be required is huge. But for both of these extras Odyssey has to be working properly first, so they've got something to build on.

 

[Bottom Hat]

I'm going to start a campaign to have emotes removed.

 

[Phoenix_Dfire]

They prefer to add cringe emoticons that no one has asked for

I wanted them!

 

[EdzUp]

What I would like to see is simplified controls not the "has to have five keyboards for the bindings" mess we have now

 

[Nadreck]

When I realised that Horizons would only allow me to land on airless rocks, I assumed that was a placeholder: eventually I'd be able to land on any non-gas-giant planet, as with earlier versions of Elite.

Odyssey is a step in that direction, but if that's all we'll ever get, I'd be very disappointed.

Waterworlds next please! And ammonia/methane etc. Earthlikes eventually.

 

[CMDR Fnool]

If Frontier came out and straight up said "we will never add ship interiors", they know that's half to 3/4 of the players gone

Only in the current atmosphere of a disappointed community. If ED had done other things correctly, i think it could weather the storm of 'no ship interiors'. Had they elaborated on planets more than just recolouring the sky and further limiting the types of land-layout that can be seen, had they not made settlements such lifeless and uninteresting places with truly soulless NPC's, had they expanded on galactic phenomena, made new ships, updated and worked on powerplay, delivered enough frames per second so that VR wouldn't have had to be scrapped, and so on.

As to whether Frontier are content with ED as it stands i don't know, but losing large amounts of players after a big expansion doesn't seem like an outcome anyone would want. Personally i don't agree with those who say that ED has been in decline for years, ED was in a great place with Horizons, it ran well and was unique, it had faults of course, mostly with regard to under-developed features and huge amounts of un-tapped promise, but frankly it was Odyssey with its multiple, severe failures that well and truly rogered the game.

 

[babelfisch]

This was originally posted in regards to the console release, but to me it indicates they are not perfectly happy with the current state:

I'm pretty sure you're all aware that PC players aren't dancing in the daisies with joy on all fronts right now, hence our current, much needed update plans.

 

[Barking_Mad]

I think Odyssey is a good release in terms of content and they're clearly adding more stuff and supporting it. Unfortunately my frame rate isnt great, so im not playing much. Will wait and see if it gets back to the levels it was previously, as they originally promised before then changing the spec.

 

[The Lawful]

TLDR: Though the Odyssey start was disappointing from their perspective too, they stick to it and hope it will attract users again after refinements. Or that's what I get from their Annual Report they released some time ago. Financially, they're going strong and apparently had a record year, with the numbers of employees rising to 680+, recruiting 200 new staff during Corona times it seems.

Company - Frontier Developments plc.

frontier-nuxt3-corporate-app

www.frontier.co.uk

It's an interesting read, with statements from Braben and others. On the Odyssey launch, Braben said this (p. 09):

"FY21 saw the announcement (in June 2020) and release (in May 2021) of
Elite Dangerous: Odyssey on PC, our most ambitious development project
to date: the addition of first-person on-foot gameplay into our 1:1 galactic
simulation of the whole Milky Way. This meant bringing the human scale
to a galaxy nearly 100,000 light years across. Completing this large and
complex expansion without the benefits of face-to-face collaboration was
challenging, and despite a successful alpha period, unfortunately the
launch was hindered by connectivity issues, and this turned the positive
reception of the alpha to one of negativity. Despite its initial challenges,
hundreds of thousands of players are enjoying the experience. I am
delighted with the underlying achievement by our team, and remain
confident that more and more players will upgrade to Odyssey over time
as we continue to refine the experience."

and on p. 11

"Our existing game franchise portfolio continues to perform well.
Engagement with our Elite Dangerous player community
is gradually improving, and we remain confident that more
and more players will upgrade to Odyssey over time as we
continue to improve and refine the experience."

On p. 38, Alex Bevis (CFO) comments the launch as follows:

"In May 2021 we released our most ambitious expansion to date for Elite
Dangerous, Elite Dangerous: Odyssey, which generated
launch revenues on PC in that month. The overall reception
to this major content update has been disappointing, but we
are confident that as we improve and enhance the Odyssey
experience we will see more and more Commanders
engaging with the expansion."

So, the game is not dead yet and will not be in the forseeable future. Which I'm rather glad about

O7,

 

[Rat Catcher]

Do the community think that Frontier are content with the player base numbers

Is there any indication from them that they are not? The 'community' knows nothing (in real terms) about player numbers, Frontier obviously do.

 

[Winterwalker]

Unfortunately my frame rate isnt great, so im not playing much.

That's the killer. Personally I like the driection Odyssey takes the game and I think it's not difficult for even the saltiest to see it as a stepping stone to the next thing, even if people wanted more in Odyssey 1.0. Frame rates are the root of the community angst amd you can tell Frontier aren't happy about that. Quite apart from what it might do to their bottom line, if they were happy we wouldn't be getting Update 8.

 

[angusmadmac1]

I dont think any sensible person would be happy with the launch . Considering the "connectivity " issues people are still having . But I believe the release was pushed/rushed for the beancounters . Are they trying to fix it ? yes , are they doing a good job ? i dunno? I think there are so many fixes that are needed that they are firefighting lots of litle ones whilst some of the team are trying to fix the huge ones (that take months to find ) .
People stop playing elite do other stuff come back after an update and try again . Numbers rise and fall but there are still enough playing the game as it stands .

 

[Rat Catcher]

That's the killer. Personally I like the driection Odyssey takes the game and I think it's not difficult for even the saltiest to see it as a stepping stone to the next thing, even if people wanted more in Odyssey 1.0. Frame rates are the root of the community angst amd you can tell Frontier aren't happy about that. Quite apart from what it might do to their bottom line, if they were happy we wouldn't be getting Update 8.

And already have Update 9 mentioned.

Plenty being done to 'fix' Odyssey, that much is obvious. Sooner or later it will all start to mesh nicely, then the console development could begin in earnest.

 

[WeComeInPeace]

TLDR: Though the Odyssey start was disappointing from their perspective too, they stick to it and hope it will attract users again after refinements. Or that's what I get from their Annual Report they released some time ago. Financially, they're going strong and apparently had a record year, with the numbers of employees rising to 680+, recruiting 200 new staff during Corona times it seems.

Company - Frontier Developments plc.

frontier-nuxt3-corporate-app

www.frontier.co.uk

It's an interesting read, with statements from Braben and others. On the Odyssey launch, Braben said this (p. 09):

"FY21 saw the announcement (in June 2020) and release (in May 2021) of
Elite Dangerous: Odyssey on PC, our most ambitious development project
to date: the addition of first-person on-foot gameplay into our 1:1 galactic
simulation of the whole Milky Way. This meant bringing the human scale
to a galaxy nearly 100,000 light years across. Completing this large and
complex expansion without the benefits of face-to-face collaboration was
challenging, and despite a successful alpha period, unfortunately the
launch was hindered by connectivity issues, and this turned the positive
reception of the alpha to one of negativity. Despite its initial challenges,
hundreds of thousands of players are enjoying the experience. I am
delighted with the underlying achievement by our team, and remain
confident that more and more players will upgrade to Odyssey over time
as we continue to refine the experience."

and on p. 11

"Our existing game franchise portfolio continues to perform well.
Engagement with our Elite Dangerous player community
is gradually improving, and we remain confident that more
and more players will upgrade to Odyssey over time as we
continue to improve and refine the experience."

On p. 38, Alex Bevis (CFO) comments the launch as follows:

"In May 2021 we released our most ambitious expansion to date for Elite
Dangerous, Elite Dangerous: Odyssey, which generated
launch revenues on PC in that month. The overall reception
to this major content update has been disappointing, but we
are confident that as we improve and enhance the Odyssey
experience we will see more and more Commanders
engaging with the expansion."

So, the game is not dead yet and will not be in the foreseeable future. Which I'm rather glad about

O7,

How can it be "disappointing". A disappointment is normally something you didn't expect. In the case of Odd, all the things that people weren't satisfied with were mentioned before launch. The disappointment lies with the players, because Frontier claimed that those "issues" would be fixed before launch, and half a year later it's still not fixed.

Also blaming the catastrophic launch on "connectivity issues"?!? Like the servers wasn't able to handle it? I must say that after a break, I do see improved performance, and I have wondered why that is. It's not my hardware, and there are definitely still issues, but the player numbers dropped considerably which, everything else equal, should lower the pressure on the servers.

"Despite its initial challenges, hundreds of thousands of players are enjoying the experience". Not in your wildest dreams. Steam charts show a current average number of players being ~3,600. I know that people play on other platforms than Steam, but hundreds of thousands? I don't think so.

 

[Factabulous]

Frame rates are the root of the community angst amd you can tell Frontier aren't happy about that. Quite apart from what it might do to their bottom line, if they were happy we wouldn't be getting Update 8.

If anything I'd say fdev are happier with EDO than we are - they're ploughing ahead with adding the stuff that should have been in on release and mostly ignoring the FPS issues - which most would say are the most pressing issues.

Last time I saw them talk about it they talked about addressing issues from Patch 6, but Patch 7 had already added massive new slowdowns on settlement approach. I still am unsure if they even know how to fix the FPS issues. I just hope the 3 floor m/s interiors with the glass sections have reasonable performance ...