What can the devs do to help grow the population?

With the release of Odyssey and update 9 (bringing the first ever new SRV), we saw very little change in the playerbase overall count. Population spiked initially at release, of course, but then went back down to what it was in late 2019 and early 2020. Update 9 barely made any change at all. The population is stable to where we're not seeing in drastic increase or decrease. This worries me as I do like this game and want it to do well. But at the same time those population trends are troubling and could potential hint at an issue with the game's direction. We also saw similar behavior with Horizons. We had a large spike, then a drop off. This is a pretty normal behavior for this game where we have a sudden spike on "major" releases, then a sudden drop.

  1. What is going on with the game currently that drove away players that we've had in the past years
  2. Why did Odyssey's new features/offerings (not talking about bugs, just the features) not have a greater impact on the game
  3. What can the developers do to bring in new players/increase new player interest
  4. What can the developers do to bring back older players who are not playing

Now I do recognize that the pandemic helped boost numbers. But to me I really want to see this game's population grow. So what do you think the answer to the above 4 questions are?
#1 I'm going to zero on the word currently - because launch is a whole different ball of wax.

Currently: It remains a subpar FPS experience, grind somehow got worse, the most pivotal facet of an FPS experience - multiplayer stability - remains a Day 1 issue never resolved. Multicrew and winging continue to be an awful experience for most, which really trips (pun intended) the player experience on foot. Populations grow when players enjoy playing with - you guessed it - other players. Elite has consistently failed to deliver a stable multiplayer experience.

#2 A bit of my first answer answers this, too, but a little more depth: EDO misses the mark on engaging multiplayer on-foot beyond stability. There's a foundation for improvement, to be sure, and that's exciting. Unfortunately, Elite is a game littered with foundations. Mile wide, inch deep, as the tag line goes. This affects player excitement and engagement: many are 'waiting to see' if FDev actually does more with space legs. They say they will, of course.

They said that about many other features, too. This adds up to an overall negative impression - which only darkened with launch woes. Launch woes are largely cleared up now, which is good, but that leaves us with a relatively empty paid expansion more akin to an alpha...which is bad. Lots of your passionate base remains, but as they (and FDev) have discovered: your passionate base doesn't represent the broader market of gamers. Elite is (mostly) healthy. It is not growing in a healthy manner, though, and I think that is what you (OP) are seeing.

#3 They're doing it...though it won't feel like enough for some time. Fix bugs and balance gets back the lost players. The new guys? The "growth" in market share? That comes from getting beyond an alpha presentation to something of substance. Stable multiplayer and multicrew functionality (a gunner that does more than give an extra pip, please). More in-depth mission designs to foster team play. Deeper PvP content (CQC/Powerplay/C&P) that is balanced and properly incented and controlled.

And of course, more ships and modules. Redundancy hardly hurts a game - EVE Online is 75% the same ship lineup multiplied four times, but that doesn't stop somebody from shopping a Punisher over a Merlin and vice versa. The game is desperate for more ships and more varied designs. Module depth remains underbaked, with engineering only muddying the waters rather than creating meaningful choices.

#4 Answered some of this above...but here's what I'll add as someone who has uninstalled. (That makes me exactly who you're talking about).

A real road map. Transparency that is believable. Focused feedback forums that are actually interested in player ideas, not player control (see: how do we make this as grindy as possible without losing you?) Most veterans who quit fall into a handful of categories, from miffed to diehards you'll never get back.

  • The Interiors Crowd: Just give it up and do it. Good grief, it's spiritually always been a spaceship game. The business case for it is proven in numerous titles, Star Citizen (Scam Citizen, whatever you prefer) being the most obvious. Environment and Immersion are gameplay loops unto themselves.
  • The VR Crowd: Again, just give it up and do it. It's going to be rough. FPS in VR is known to be rough. Just do it, and when anybody complains point them to the mountain of data proving that it isn't for anybody. Take your crown for, "We did VR in everything" and move on. Would seriously help the game image anyways.
  • The Console Crowd: This is a sticky one (I'm in this crowd, FYI). Microsoft and Sony are undoubtedly a major component behind why this crowd is out in the cold currently. That said, transparency and communication would do wonders: inclduing, "We're not launching on console in 2022. It's just a lot more work than we expected and we're sorry." You already lost most of us. Cut the cord, we'll be back when you get it right. Elite is an absolutely unique and amazing offering on console. It could command a vats market share given proper investment. After you fix EDO for PC, of course, which this crowd will never forgive. Just is what it is.
  • The Kickstarter Crowd: These are trolls, ignore them. Anybody that knows anything about how a game is pitched and how its built bears remarkable resemblance to <generic politician campaign promising world peace>. Peter Molyneux perfected it, but he's hardly the only person to do it. David Braben's a business man. He wants money. Get over it.
  • The Bitter Vets: We'll come back if the game is fun. If we're not back, it's because the game isn't fun (to us). Chances are good that, like the passionate white knights still left, we also are not the primary market share for growth. What we are is easy money in ARX, if you coax us back. Probably not happening at current rate...but hey, if NMS can make it back, surely a more funded, established developer with a household name visionary as its leader can do even better.

There's my two credits.
 
#1 I'm going to zero on the word currently - because launch is a whole different ball of wax.

Currently: It remains a subpar FPS experience, grind somehow got worse, the most pivotal facet of an FPS experience - multiplayer stability - remains a Day 1 issue never resolved. Multicrew and winging continue to be an awful experience for most, which really trips (pun intended) the player experience on foot. Populations grow when players enjoy playing with - you guessed it - other players. Elite has consistently failed to deliver a stable multiplayer experience.

#2 A bit of my first answer answers this, too, but a little more depth: EDO misses the mark on engaging multiplayer on-foot beyond stability. There's a foundation for improvement, to be sure, and that's exciting. Unfortunately, Elite is a game littered with foundations. Mile wide, inch deep, as the tag line goes. This affects player excitement and engagement: many are 'waiting to see' if FDev actually does more with space legs. They say they will, of course.

They said that about many other features, too. This adds up to an overall negative impression - which only darkened with launch woes. Launch woes are largely cleared up now, which is good, but that leaves us with a relatively empty paid expansion more akin to an alpha...which is bad. Lots of your passionate base remains, but as they (and FDev) have discovered: your passionate base doesn't represent the broader market of gamers. Elite is (mostly) healthy. It is not growing in a healthy manner, though, and I think that is what you (OP) are seeing.

#3 They're doing it...though it won't feel like enough for some time. Fix bugs and balance gets back the lost players. The new guys? The "growth" in market share? That comes from getting beyond an alpha presentation to something of substance. Stable multiplayer and multicrew functionality (a gunner that does more than give an extra pip, please). More in-depth mission designs to foster team play. Deeper PvP content (CQC/Powerplay/C&P) that is balanced and properly incented and controlled.

And of course, more ships and modules. Redundancy hardly hurts a game - EVE Online is 75% the same ship lineup multiplied four times, but that doesn't stop somebody from shopping a Punisher over a Merlin and vice versa. The game is desperate for more ships and more varied designs. Module depth remains underbaked, with engineering only muddying the waters rather than creating meaningful choices.

#4 Answered some of this above...but here's what I'll add as someone who has uninstalled. (That makes me exactly who you're talking about).

A real road map. Transparency that is believable. Focused feedback forums that are actually interested in player ideas, not player control (see: how do we make this as grindy as possible without losing you?) Most veterans who quit fall into a handful of categories, from miffed to diehards you'll never get back.

  • The Interiors Crowd: Just give it up and do it. Good grief, it's spiritually always been a spaceship game. The business case for it is proven in numerous titles, Star Citizen (Scam Citizen, whatever you prefer) being the most obvious. Environment and Immersion are gameplay loops unto themselves.
  • The VR Crowd: Again, just give it up and do it. It's going to be rough. FPS in VR is known to be rough. Just do it, and when anybody complains point them to the mountain of data proving that it isn't for anybody. Take your crown for, "We did VR in everything" and move on. Would seriously help the game image anyways.
  • The Console Crowd: This is a sticky one (I'm in this crowd, FYI). Microsoft and Sony are undoubtedly a major component behind why this crowd is out in the cold currently. That said, transparency and communication would do wonders: inclduing, "We're not launching on console in 2022. It's just a lot more work than we expected and we're sorry." You already lost most of us. Cut the cord, we'll be back when you get it right. Elite is an absolutely unique and amazing offering on console. It could command a vats market share given proper investment. After you fix EDO for PC, of course, which this crowd will never forgive. Just is what it is.
  • The Kickstarter Crowd: These are trolls, ignore them. Anybody that knows anything about how a game is pitched and how its built bears remarkable resemblance to <generic politician campaign promising world peace>. Peter Molyneux perfected it, but he's hardly the only person to do it. David Braben's a business man. He wants money. Get over it.
  • The Bitter Vets: We'll come back if the game is fun. If we're not back, it's because the game isn't fun (to us). Chances are good that, like the passionate white knights still left, we also are not the primary market share for growth. What we are is easy money in ARX, if you coax us back. Probably not happening at current rate...but hey, if NMS can make it back, surely a more funded, established developer with a household name visionary as its leader can do even better.

There's my two credits.
EDO is doomed to failure. A sale of Odyssey for $10 is in order where I would add a 2nd copy for my alt account.
 
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I think you've summed it up there. The player events pre-2020 were epic in scale and creativity, with Distant Worlds being the most epic event of all. Post-2020 there's been nothing (certainly nothing in the same league as those string of Horizons era events we were lucky to experience). There seemed to be something big happening in the community every few months back then, and most making big headlines in the gaming mags. Odyssey's "player content" is as you say, mind numbing livestreams of farming settlements and shooting npcs in the face, one after another. No innovation, no original thinking. That's down to two things imo; 1. EDO content is bare bones and there's very little to build an epic event around, and 2. all the best community content creators have moved on and no one has stepped in to continue the rich history of player events of the past.

The OP asks what can be done to bring people back to the game. My guess is something like Distant Worlds 3, or a followup to the Premonition event i.e. something that gets players actively interested in a story that plays out in game and has actual real time consequences. CGs and Galnet narratives will never cut it imo as they'll never fire the imagination like the events of the past did, they'll never make the headlines like DW2 did.

100 % this.
 
I think you've summed it up there. The player events pre-2020 were epic in scale and creativity, with Distant Worlds being the most epic event of all.
EDSM still has a lot of active expeditions, what exactly is the difference between those and Distant Worlds? It's just a set of waypoints.
 
EDSM still has a lot of active expeditions, what exactly is the difference between those and Distant Worlds? It's just a set of waypoints.
There's no comparison really. Distant Worlds 1 set the standard for all expeditions that came later. Its still the second largest expedition ever in Elite, around 1,200 players if I recall - only its sequel bettered it. DW1 was just a set of waypoints as you say, but the game back then had very little content in the galaxy, there was no Codex, no neutron boosting stars, no deep space npc stations to visit, no engineers, and no Colonia. So it didn't have much content going for it. It was popular though because it was the first major Horizons event where players could use the new SRVs at the time and land on planets for the first time too.

Distant Worlds 2 however, was a whole other ball game. What set it aside from anything else was its ambition and scale. 14,000 players puts it way out there as far as community participation goes. It wasn't just about visiting waypoints. There was the construction and mining CG to build the Explorer's Anchorage, which was just one of the DW2 mission goals, there was the science project, the galactic mapping surveys of the aphelion regions, the Codex was in place and had a whole set of events going on during the expedition for that, there were distinct roles to take, like prospecting for materials needed for the Explorer's Anchorage CG, deep core mining events, fleet logistics (which gave birth to the Hull Seals). DW2 was nothing like anything before it, or anything that's came after it.

The expeditions on EDSM are all waypoint trips, and not much else. They're lucky to get a couple of hundred players tagging along. What Distant Worlds did was use a trip through the galaxy to visit waypoints as its backdrop, but the whole event was far more involved and rich in player created content and events. That's why it got the massive press coverage it did, because it was highlighting what a game community can achieve when it comes together like that to achieve a common set of goals.

I think DW2 happened at the right time. The new Beyond content was new, the Codex was in place, and players were invited to help create a bit of game lore by helping to build the first human infrastructure in the galactic core. It was things like that that grabbed the headlines in magazines, and as was mentioned earlier, had NASA astronauts tweeting about it, as well as the New Scientist magazine writing a whole article about it and Elite Dangerous as a consequence. I think it was a one off and something that will never be repeated again.
 
Last I heard Distant Worlds 3 was called off due to the Oddesy mess and Frontier's awful behavior so if you're hoping for that kind of player-driven content to reignite passion for Elite you're going to have to address the Frontier problem first.
 
By the way I've found the original Distant Worlds 2 thread. So if Frontier or anyone else wants to bring more players back to the game as the OP asks, there's a potential blueprint of how to do it right there -> Distant Worlds 2 - A journey of discovery.
:cool:
I've just read through that entire thread again and it makes me feel nostalgic for a time period I only read about on the forums and on Polygon. Reading about and following DW2 in the media is what got me to buy Elite, but the expedition had ended by the time I got fully into the game. I had naive thoughts that it doesn't matter because this game has an awesome community and I'll sign up to the next mega event Frontier or the players set up. Still waiting.
Last I heard Distant Worlds 3 was called off due to the Oddesy mess and Frontier's awful behavior so if you're hoping for that kind of player-driven content to reignite passion for Elite you're going to have to address the Frontier problem first.
The planning of DW3 is postponed until the game is stable and until consoles have access to Odyssey, and until there's more exploration content added to the game. So not completely called off, but more than likely its not happening for several years. As for your point about Frontier, sadly I agree.
 
Optimize and fix the game, also maybe being true to their trailers and ditch false advertising 💁‍♂️

Odyssey still runs like crap, VR/i7/3080

Waste of money!
 
I'm not doing EDO on the PC as I have been replaying EDH on PS4 for some years now. My PC Cmdr is in stasis somewhere on another hard drive and I'm waiting for EDO on PS4 (I can wait).

What you say about the scale of EDO is a bit troubling, not having played it. When EDO does hit consoles I'm going to be reading a lot of reviews before deciding to go to it.

That being said, now that there are "boots on the ground" and fleet carriers as you state, more Thargoid contact would make for worthy content.

Absolutely! But let's have that as part of a full-scale good, new war against Thargoidkind. Tons of action to be had there...........

Total war.....

War I tells ya....

War!

War!

War!
5z0xqy.jpg
As much as I was expecting this to happed, each day passing I'm not holding my breath, FDEV is not willing or able to create such gameplay. Not that the skill is not there, because it is, they simply can't get their heads around the concept or for some convoluted reason it's not in the design manual (if they ever had one). Now I could write page up and down how to do it, some you would agree with other stuff maybe not, however the concept of having gameplay where you can board mega ships and fight from room to room, infiltrate bases and free prisoners, rescue scientists trapped on an asteroid base or join a military carrier for a military campaign is something FDEV just don't want to do. It's going to be the same half baked game loops like CZ, cut the power, download X upload Y missions until SC finally is an actual game 2050 anyone? or someone corner Lord Braben and tell him to start hiring people who actually know what they are doing regarding writing good game loops, Just look at Rock Star games, yes they are a huge number of people however if you look at the game they make, it's not that complicated (from a design POW), yes they also do MMO's. Hunting in RDR is fun and it's simple, Bounty hunting is simple but fun, all the game loops are actually simple by design but fun so the player want to do it over and over, in ED it's more about the credits and that's is sad.
 
if only Frontier could get this project under control and stop the introducion of very silly bugs, i do not really to understand introducion of silly silly silly bugs. i really fail to understand whats going on in frontier that they introduce new bugs with every patch release, stuff which has worked succesful for years. (in the beginning of odyssey i suspected some kind of sabotage inside Frontier, now i think all this homeoffice working makes this errors possible)
And that's the main problem, they can't get out of the hamster wheel, always firefighting and not actually developing .... catch 22 if you like.
 
And that's the main problem, they can't get out of the hamster wheel, always firefighting and not actually developing .... catch 22 if you like.

That's a good point, and succinctly put. For the entirety of EDs existence, its seems far more time has been focused on fixing existing things rather than developing innovative content that has any real depth. I hope that once Odyssey is fully optimized (if it ever can be), and has its consoles release (followed by another years worth of fixes for that platform!), Frontier will stop releasing half-baked and often broken new content, and just concentrate of adding depth to and optimizing what we already have.

There's no comparison really. Distant Worlds 1 set the standard for all expeditions that came later. Its still the second largest expedition ever in Elite, around 1,200 players if I recall - only its sequel bettered it. DW1 was just a set of waypoints as you say, but the game back then had very little content in the galaxy, there was no Codex, no neutron boosting stars, no deep space npc stations to visit, no engineers, and no Colonia. So it didn't have much content going for it. It was popular though because it was the first major Horizons event where players could use the new SRVs at the time and land on planets for the first time too.

Distant Worlds 2 however, was a whole other ball game. What set it aside from anything else was its ambition and scale. 14,000 players puts it way out there as far as community participation goes. It wasn't just about visiting waypoints. There was the construction and mining CG to build the Explorer's Anchorage, which was just one of the DW2 mission goals, there was the science project, the galactic mapping surveys of the aphelion regions, the Codex was in place and had a whole set of events going on during the expedition for that, there were distinct roles to take, like prospecting for materials needed for the Explorer's Anchorage CG, deep core mining events, fleet logistics (which gave birth to the Hull Seals). DW2 was nothing like anything before it, or anything that's came after it.

The expeditions on EDSM are all waypoint trips, and not much else. They're lucky to get a couple of hundred players tagging along. What Distant Worlds did was use a trip through the galaxy to visit waypoints as its backdrop, but the whole event was far more involved and rich in player created content and events. That's why it got the massive press coverage it did, because it was highlighting what a game community can achieve when it comes together like that to achieve a common set of goals.

I think DW2 happened at the right time. The new Beyond content was new, the Codex was in place, and players were invited to help create a bit of game lore by helping to build the first human infrastructure in the galactic core. It was things like that that grabbed the headlines in magazines, and as was mentioned earlier, had NASA astronauts tweeting about it, as well as the New Scientist magazine writing a whole article about it and Elite Dangerous as a consequence. I think it was a one off and something that will never be repeated again.

Never say never. There's still plenty of people around who fondly remember these kinds of events, and will jump at the chance of being involved in another if and when they're announced.
 
That's a good point, and succinctly put. For the entirety of EDs existence, its seems far more time has been focused on fixing existing things rather than developing innovative content that has any real depth. I hope that once Odyssey is fully optimized (if it ever can be), and has its consoles release (followed by another years worth of fixes for that platform!), Frontier will stop releasing half-baked and often broken new content, and just concentrate of adding depth to and optimizing what we already have.



Never say never. There's still plenty of people around who fondly remember these kinds of events, and will jump at the chance of being involved in another if and when they're announced.
I have no idea what it would take financially to make a game like ED, however they had time and also backup from the base, I've spend a large amount supporting FDEV, and I still do, but if someone made a game where I got 100% simulated galaxy with the same feeling of flight (planes in space) including FPS I would buy it. It needed to be a full package, not years later we will get [X], no Sir, it should be ready to go from day one.
 
and will jump at the chance of being involved in another if and when they're announced.
Why wait, then?

Erimus and Kaii did a great job of publicising and organising DW1 (accidentally) and then DW2 (more deliberately and with a larger team) but there's nothing to say that the next big expedition has to be organised by them or called "Distant Worlds".

If all the people waiting patiently for the next big exploration expedition got together and started organising one it'd probably be ready to go by the time Odyssey is released on consoles, and could easily attract thousands of players if marketed properly.
 
Like I said, I think the desire for them is there, I see people asking on forums and discords all the time so I'm sure plenty of people will begin creating the big events again once frontier are done fixing what needs fixing. But I don't think anyone with any sense would attempt to organize another epic event in Elite just yet. Plus there's no guarantee of when Odyssey comes to the consoles, it could be next year or it could be a few years away, and no one knows how well it'll run on all platforms afterwards, so I can understand why there's been a bit of a lull as far as large player events goes. I assume the work involved in setting a big event up and having no guarantee that the game will be any fit state to handle it is the main issue at the moment.

My hope is people will announce some events once they feel the Odyssey can handle them.
 
Plus there's no guarantee of when Odyssey comes to the consoles, it could be next year or it could be a few years away, and no one knows how well it'll run on all platforms afterwards
When I switched from PS4 to PC, for a long time I had separate games on each, not repurchasing games I own on PS4 just to play them on PC. But that's changed a bit over the years, and I'm amazed at how much better the same games on PC look compared to PS4. The latest title I've experienced this with is Elder Scrolls Online. On PC, I can play at max settings and high resolution with a solid 60 fps. It looks amazing, even as an older game. Meanwhile on PS4 (where my wife plays), the visual downgrade is painfully obvious - low framerates, low quality graphics, very obvious pop-in and short draw distances, etc. I just could not go back to playing this game on my PS4.

Now compare this to Odyssey, which dips under 20 fps on hardware similar to my gaming PC, along with stuttering, pop-in, morphing terrain, and terrible shadow quality. In other words, Odyssey on my* PC looks similar to ESO on PS4, so what on earth would Odyssey on PS4 look and perform like? I cannot even imagine it working at all.

* basing this on reports from people who own the same hardware as I do, as I refuse to buy Odyssey in its current state.
 
Why wait, then?

Erimus and Kaii did a great job of publicising and organising DW1 (accidentally) and then DW2 (more deliberately and with a larger team) but there's nothing to say that the next big expedition has to be organised by them or called "Distant Worlds".

If all the people waiting patiently for the next big exploration expedition got together and started organising one it'd probably be ready to go by the time Odyssey is released on consoles, and could easily attract thousands of players if marketed properly.
Um, accidentally? That sounds off, what do you mean by that?

More importantly though, your main point - why wait? - is spot on. There should be nothing stopping anyone from organising another large expedition. In fact, EDSM expeditions happen all the time, and there are always targeted exploration expeditions going on, but the key difference is there's very little (practically zero) marketing for expeditions. (For targeted exploration, this is little wonder: even managing assignments for, say, twenty people can be quite some work, and scaling that up to two thousand would be far more trouble than it'd be worth.) So anyone who wanted an expedition on a similar scale would need to do a lot of marketing, without having an established Distant Worlds brand to help with that, especially if they'd like Frontier to help out with support for it.
(Edit: apparently, some people elsewhere have taken issue with what I wrote before, so I edited here to further clarify what my main point here was. Besides, getting that much support from Frontier is not easy.)

Would it be possible to make it happen? Sure. Would it be a lot of work? Sure. Would it be easier to just ask for the DW organisers to do it? Sure - but they've made their stance on this quite clear, so yes, while just asking for DW3 is easier, it's not going to work.

That said, if we are talking about exploration - much of DW2 was about establishing a presence deep in the galaxy, and this part turned out to be much more popular than the rest of the expedition - there should be a specific goal, specific destination(s) in mind. This one would be a pretty difficult problem to tackle though, especially since these days, there isn't really any area in the galaxy that would stand out, and draw in explorers en masse on its own. (Whereas if Frontier dropped a hint that Raxxla is in, say, Vulcan Gate, you'd see players swarming there without any planned expedition :D)

One more thing: would it be technically feasible to hold large events planetside in Odyssey? That's a good concern that @M_72 has raised, and while I have no personal experience with those, I have seen some videos (from the Buur Pit) showcasing plenty of players doing just that. So it could at least be no more trouble than it already was at DW2's time.


To be frank though, I don't think it's adding new exploration content that could draw in lasting attention from many players, but new mechanics: and more specifically, new mechanics for colonisation. Practical benefit to the exploration data that people sell, because right now it's only credits, rank points, and some BGS effects (that most players ignore anyway). If Frontier gave people more reasons to find new rare planets, stars, spaceborne or planetary life, that would most likely help so much more than just adding new content to scan and be done with.
 
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