Let's Try Put Emotions Aside and Be Specific about Odyssey Development State for Consoles

It’s not the first one and not the last one post in every possible media that has Elite Dangerous in its name. But I will try to put my emotions aside and instead of asking “WHEN WILL YOU RELEASE ODYSSEY ON CONSOLES?????” (as many PC players see it right now) and be more specific and constructive.

You all know this problem of “postponed indefinitely” and copy-pasted answers like “when we’ll have news” from official sources.

So what I (as an actual software engineer) would like to know about Odyssey?

We need a clear Odyssey readiness criteria

Answers like “when it will be ready” and “when it will be optimized” aren’t concrete answers because it’s impossible to measure progress and success.

There are two main directions in this:

Technical state

The answer like “It should run on Intel 8080 with 16KBytes RAM and with 1KByte VRAM with 60 FPS but now it’s only 25 FPS” is specific and gives both success criteria and progress, so it would be a nice one answer.

Gameplay state

The answer like “We want to completely implement players' driven economy, landable ELW, cities life simulation and 100500 new ships and SRVs before starting work on consoles” also could be a good one, because it again shows success criteria and progress.

As a console player I don’t really ask for promises and specific dates, only milestones and state.

But the fact that we constantly see updates for Odyssey that include not only bug fixes and optimization but also new content and at the same time they’re completely silent and completely avoid even talking about consoles is quite depressing.

And now I will give my completely conspirological answer to such silence and avoidance:

FDev don’t care about console players willing to give us a completely ready product - they don’t want to tell us that it won’t happen because it won’t be looking good from the investors point of view to cut ~10% of players base by dropping ED support on consoles.

I am a PC player, so what will I have if I support this?

What we all get from asking these concrete questions is more transparency on what will happen with the game in future.
Don’t you want to know what you should expect soon and what to expect later?
Don’t you want to know if the bug or game mechanic that annoys you for years will be ever addressed?

Together we players as essentially people who pay their salaries have a right to dictate the game rules and push the game to a direction that we want as a community.

The following video isn't mine but has some more details:


UPDATE 1: About the power of the community
Do you remember what happened to EA when they added gameplay affecting lootboxes to Battlefront 2? If gamers would eat it silently, we'd have now all fullprice games containing such lootboxes. Only because of gamers, EA had to change the game and never do it again in order to save their Star Wars license.

UPDATE 2: About the power of the community (continued)
Why FDev continued development after Update 5? Because of players and no one else. If you all would take it silently, it won't be Update 6 and further updates including upcoming FC interiors.

UPDATE 3: About switching to PC
I personally could switch to PC, but grinding all the engineers again just to get to the same point doesn't seem to me a good perspective. If it was a cross-progress implemented, then it could be an option.
 
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Without emotional involvement.

Frontier will do whatever they wish. An alleged 'expert' in any particular field (of which this forum appears to be heavily populated, all with their own importance emphasised) does not have any power to 'force' them to do otherwise.

Your own post was full of emotional triggers and utterances "don't care..." without solid evidence to authenticate the statements.

Players have a choice, not a voice (unless asked specifically) regardless of their own perceived importance.
 
Without emotional involvement.

Frontier will do whatever they wish. An alleged 'expert' in any particular field (of which this forum appears to be heavily populated, all with their own importance emphasised) does not have any power to 'force' them to do otherwise.

Your own post was full of emotional triggers and utterances "don't care..." without solid evidence to authenticate the statements.

Players have a choice, not a voice (unless asked specifically) regardless of their own perceived importance.
Again, players reaction on lootboxes in Battlefront 2 caused change of the game rules. And the same for Odyssey actually: why do you think that Odyssey is getting Update 6 and later, but it was only 5 planned? Because of player base.
 
Dispassionately, console players have lost nothing, there are no console lifetime passes, there is no obligation on Frontier's part to supply any more to console users than saying it is their intent to try to get it to work.

They could announce the console servers are being switched off tomorrow and just weather the bad PR.

This is not what I hope or think will happen, but it is what could happen.
 
Dispassionately, console players have lost nothing, there are no console lifetime passes, there is no obligation on Frontier's part to supply any more to console users than saying it is their intent to try to get it to work.

They could announce the console servers are being switched off tomorrow and just weather the bad PR.

This is not what I hope or think will happen, but it is what could happen.

You're right on behalf of lifetime passes, but on the other side, how long would you play Elite if it were no updates on it on PC?
 
Again, players reaction on lootboxes in Battlefront 2 caused change of the game rules. And the same for Odyssey actually: why do you think that Odyssey is getting Update 6 and later, but it was only 5 planned? Because of player base.
Do I care about lootboxes in another game? I'll give you a single guess.

Odyssey is getting updates as it doesn't perform anywhere near how it should... Don't fool yourself that players forced that, they didn't.

It is unlikely that EDO will be performing 'adequately' in the near future, already Update 11 is being mentioned as in development, and from personal experience in playing the expansion on a reasonably powerful PC, it still has a great deal more 'optimising' to come close to running acceptably on their own published hardware requirements.

I do understand that 'conspiracy theories' are particularly attractive to some, and that some folk believe they are 'entitled' to be fed information on demand, it is part of normal human behaviour, and as such ignored in the main by those who such attitudes are pointed toward.
 
Again, players reaction on lootboxes in Battlefront 2 caused change of the game rules. And the same for Odyssey actually: why do you think that Odyssey is getting Update 6 and later, but it was only 5 planned? Because of player base.
Sure - players can (and should) express on opinion.

If you can't tell why:
Together we players as essentially people who pay their salaries have a right to dictate the game rules and push the game to a direction that we want as a community.
is not the same thing then you really need to go away and have a think.
 
You're right on behalf of lifetime passes, but on the other side, how long would you play Elite if it were no updates on it on PC?

Until they switch the servers off or it becomes so bugged as to be unplayable. I've played Elite on & off for 37 years, the last 7 or so playing ED. I like the game I bought (1.0), I'd still be playing that if it was all we'd got.
 
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Sure - players can (and should) express on opinion.

If you can't tell why:

is not the same thing then you really need to go away and have a think.
Ok, we don't dictate game rules after we paid already, but we still can affect as we already have seen with content of updates 6-9. They even fixed a mass of universal limpet controllers.
 
Ok, I get your point and this is fine.

I empathise with the console community, it is frustrating to have to wait. If PC users had been the ones waiting while consoles got all the dev time & new toys & tags I'd be pretty frustrated about that. However Odyssey is sprinkles of new features on top of the existing cake and rationally not worth starting a new account on another platform for on it's own.

But for a player who is considering changing to the PC platform anyway now probably is a good time to change, if you can get it on sale.
 
I empathise with the console community, it is frustrating to have to wait. If PC users had been the ones waiting while consoles got all the dev time & new toys & tags I'd be pretty frustrated about that. However Odyssey is sprinkles of new features on top of the existing cake and rationally not worth starting a new account on another platform for on it's own.

But for a player who is considering changing to the PC platform anyway now probably is a good time to change, if you can get it on sale.
What could probably reduce the negativity is making crossprogress. I would consider even buying a PC, but grinding engineers again stops me.
 
A simple, personal, observation about the 'state' of the EDO expansion: Horizons, in all of the comparable scenarios between base and expansion, runs, on average, 50% faster (FPS) than EDO. Surely, when that disparity is removed, then the expansion might be considered properly optimised?
It would be great FDev answer this question. That's what is the point of this post.
 
Emotionless....

Non-partisan....

Unbiased....

.... opinion on odyssey development state for consoles....


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But don't write a title like this then fill the first post with the absolute opposite mate, you're doing yourself a disservice
 
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