Player Retention

[Mersozz]

I can only speak for myself, but the original appeal for me was flying a space ship. This is something I will never do in my life time. So, the more real the simulation is, the more enjoyable for me.

I can drive a car, shoot a gun, and walk around here on Earth. I can’t fly to a star system 3000 light years away.

To date, ED has done an admirable job of delivering on the space flight simulation I have dreamed about since I first watched Star Wars all those years ago. Their challenge to retain my interest is to work on bug fixes and optimization so the gameplay is smooth and the audio-visuals are attractive.

Again, this is just my own personal opinion.

 

[Red Rocket]

I can only speak for myself, but the original appeal for me was flying a space ship. This is something I will never do in my life time. So, the more real the simulation is, the more enjoyable for me.

I can drive a car, shoot a gun, and walk around here on Earth. I can’t fly to a star system 3000 light years away.

To date, ED has done an admirable job of delivering on the space flight simulation I have dreamed about since I first watched Star Wars all those years ago. Their challenge to retain my interest is to work on bug fixes and optimization so the gameplay is smooth and the audio-visuals are attractive.

Again, this is just my own personal opinion.

I agree about your assessment of Elite and the ability to fly in space and explore the universe , that’s what attracts me especially in VR.
But to keep my interest by fixing bugs that shouldn’t be there in the first place, bug free and game optimization is the responsibility of the game developer after they take your money.

it’s also their job to keep me engaged in their game if they want me to play and financially support them.

 

[BigBANGtheory [VR]]

But the important thing to do is decide what you want to do, not wait around for Frontier to tell you what they want you to do. Which is one of the downsides of wide-open sandboxes. Not everyone is a self-starter, or able to craft their own narrative from disparate fragments of information.

And don't rely on sites like eddb.io to play your game for you....

I agree with much of what you wrote imho this part is the important bit that allows you to 'blaze your own trail' the deciding what you want to do and then the gameplay experience you get from doing it.

For me what I want to do is upgrade my ship(s) and then go do something that has meaning or do so whilst I'm on that journey. So if I go off exploring like you did I expect to be able to search and locate something not for credits or a photo opportunity but something that unlocks the mystery of Thargoids, the Guardian homeworld or origins of life and lore in the ED universe. I want to be able to use the skills I've learnt against a system of risk & reward not be forced into a prescriptive unskilled method with my only option being what order I do something in be that parallel or not. I want to travel vast distances without mindless repetition of manually jumping between hundreds of stars.

I know what I want to do, and I can't do it it's just not there in the game. What is there is ship choice & customisation, a splattering of lore and vast procedural universe with no real way to find anything meaningful assuming there is anything there to be found anyway.

 

[Stealthie]

As far as I know, no one really complained about the Thargoid attack itself. This is a recurring false claim that is always gladly regurgitated, especially by those who were there primarily because of the prospect of a Thargoid action. And, of course, also to portray the others as fearful, coward or simply uninformed sheep, so that they can present themselves all the more as the intrepid hitmen they will (hopefully) never be in real life.

I dare to say that almost everyone expected that to happen, but many of us expected a lot more from this event. Unfortunately, this was and is completely lost in all the would-be hero chants. Even today, this misguided impression can hardly be corrected.

TBH, the thing that rained on my parade was getting shot at by other players.

I suspected the Gnosis might get "stuck" somewhere for, perhaps, a week so I went out there in my ExploraConda but also took enough modules to turn it into a battleship, mining ship and cargo ship.
The night before the jump I fitted all the combat modules and a bunch of fuel/repair limpet controllers and stocked up on limpets.

When it all kicked-off, I was rather annoyed that the 'goids were damaging (and destroying) ships before they could launch (and that the ship-launch UI wasn't even working for the first few minutes) and that they were right on top of the Gnosis but we were getting fines for defending it.

My Annie was a tough ship, though, and I got it off the pad and spent about an hour shooting 'goids and repairing other ships.
At that point, I hadn't even had chance to look at the galmap to see where we were (in relation to the bubble).
I jumped in and out of SC a couple of times, discovering that some instances had far few 'goids nearby in the process.

After about an hour, I realised I was getting attacked by other players.
By that time I knew where I was and just decided to opt out.
Headed for the nearest starport (an asteroid base in a prett nebula IIRC), transferred all my modules back from the Gnosis, rebuilt my Annie as an Exploration ship and went for a bit of a wander.

Things that cheesed me off:-

• Sustaining damage while in the hangar and not being able to do anything due to the non-functional UI.
• Getting fines for defending the Gnosis.
• Getting attacked by other players.

If the Gnosis had travelled to somewhere interesting, I might've been more inclined to stick around.
As it was, it was just becoming another gankfest and I wasn't interested in that.

 

[Darkfyre99]

For me what I want to do is upgrade my ship(s) and then go do something that has meaning or do so whilst I'm on that journey. So if I go off exploring like you did I expect to be able to search and locate something not for credits or a photo opportunity but something that unlocks the mystery of Thargoids, the Guardian homeworld or origins of life and lore in the ED universe. I want to be able to use the skills I've learnt against a system of risk & reward not be forced into a prescriptive unskilled method with my only option being what order I do something in be that parallel or not. I want to travel vast distances without mindless repetition of manually jumping between hundreds of stars.

Ah, I see what you’re saying.

The unfortunate reality is many of the things you list above would fall under the category of “future paid expansions.” You can’t explore the Guardian Homeworld, for example, if you can’t land on worlds with complex ecosystems. I’ve always been of the opinion that such worlds, due to their inherent complexity, won’t be accessible until the final paid expansion.

Given that Frontier still needs to finish optimizing Odyssey, and then port it console, before they even start working on the next paid expansion, let alone the one after that, I’m not expecting to see such worlds while standing on their surface for at least eight years… assuming ED is still a profitable franchise for Frontier, of course.

I’m hoping that with the release of Odyssey on consoles, we’ll also see the release of Odyssey related content for the Thargoids and Guardians. But if you’re expecting this to be a handcrafted single-player experience, or “the queue for the rescue the prince quest starts here” traditional MMO experience, you will be disappointed.

Frontier doesn’t do that kind of thing, much to my relief. You’ll be one of hundreds of players who will be eager to engage in a little alien archeology, and only one player can be the first to discover something. It’ll be a once in a lifetime experience, similar to what we saw in Horizons. Which means you’ll need to pay attention to Galnet, brush up on your cypher decoding skills, obsess over in-game audio, and hope you can beat Canonn to the punch if you’re going solo.

Oh, and if you want to practice in the meantime, see if you can unravel those kinds of past mysteries on your own. All of Galnet is available, though it’s not exactly searchable. No cheating by using 3rd party sites, though.

 

[Astaran]

Ah, I see what you’re saying.

The unfortunate reality is many of the things you list above would fall under the category of “future paid expansions.” You can’t explore the Guardian Homeworld, for example, if you can’t land on worlds with complex ecosystems. I’ve always been of the opinion that such worlds, due to their inherent complexity, won’t be accessible until the final paid expansion.

Uhm...the Guardians have been dead for a veeeery long time and there's no reason to believe the Guardian Homeworld even has an atmosphere today. All known Guardian ruins and structures have been found on "Horizon" planets without atmosphere. There is no indication Guardian structures even exist on "Odyssey" planets with a tenuous atmosphere, let alone on "ELWs" or similar bodies.

We don't know whether we can explore the Guardian Homeworld or not, because it hasn't been found yet. It might not even be in the game at all or "hidden" in a permit locked region for "future content". We simply do not know until someone finds it one way or the other

 

[Trollymctrollerson]

Uhm...the Guardians have been dead for a veeeery long time and there's no reason to believe the Guardian Homeworld even has an atmosphere today. All known Guardian ruins and structures have been found on "Horizon" planets without atmosphere. There is no indication Guardian structures even exist on "Odyssey" planets with a tenuous atmosphere, let alone on "ELWs" or similar bodies.

We don't know whether we can explore the Guardian Homeworld or not, because it hasn't been found yet. It might not even be in the game at all or "hidden" in a permit locked region for "future content". We simply do not know until someone finds it one way or the other

I think according to the files discovered by ram tah, there was an exhiled faction of guardians whose location was unknown when their Civil War concluded. So it's possible their descendants are out there somewhere.

 

[Stealthie]

I think according to the files discovered by ram tah, there was an exhiled faction of guardians whose location was unknown when their Civil War concluded. So it's possible their descendants are out there somewhere.

Honestly, I think somebody from FDev watched "Prometheus" before putting together the Guardian/Thargoid plot and I suspect that, originally, they planned to reveal that the 'goids were the Guardian's attack-dogs.

Dunno if they're still planning to go with that though.

 

[Riverside]

Honestly, I think somebody from FDev watched "Prometheus" before putting together the Guardian/Thargoid plot and I suspect that, originally, they planned to reveal that the 'goids were the Guardian's attack-dogs.

Dunno if they're still planning to go with that though.

There is a similar back story behind Fred Saberhagen's 'Beserker' series; An ultimate weapon that wiped out their enemy and their creators. I think it's a popular trope in sci-fi.

Not all Thargoids are immediately hostile though.

 

[Fizzatron]

After all these years, it's still a sandbox for which you have to bring your own sand (= imagination).

I get that after a while the game may not fire the neurons of the imagination like it did but I don't think using one's imagination should be looked at as a negative. To some a novel is just words on a page too...

 

[Fizzatron]

There has been a lot of talk and interest in DLC quest/campaign over the years.
Frontier could sell a permit to one of those permit locked areas where the campaign is, but they show no interest.

Even though they haven't outwardly shown interest, like I wrote, the dialog trees that are being fleshed out go a very long way to making them a real possibility, so who really knows what's up their sleeves?

 

[Darkfyre99]

Uhm...the Guardians have been dead for a veeeery long time and there's no reason to believe the Guardian Homeworld even has an atmosphere today. All known Guardian ruins and structures have been found on "Horizon" planets without atmosphere. There is no indication Guardian structures even exist on "Odyssey" planets with a tenuous atmosphere, let alone on "ELWs" or similar bodies.

We don't know whether we can explore the Guardian Homeworld or not, because it hasn't been found yet. It might not even be in the game at all or "hidden" in a permit locked region for "future content". We simply do not know until someone finds it one way or the other

True.

I’m simply assuming that Frontier’s saving the proverbial conclusion of the two alien species story arcs for the last paid update, which probably will be when the final permit locked regions will open up. There’s also other mysteries, such as rogue AI, that have been hinted at over the years, whose regions might be unlocked before then.

Everything else is idle speculation on my part as well. It makes sense to me that Frontier is going to save Elite Feet alien content for the console release and/or Horizons integration. But I’ve plenty of other things to occupy my time if that’s not the case. That’s probably a year away IMO, so why worry about it now?

 

[sandkid]

Giving a 'soon' TM because I don't have a concrete date for you right now - definitely on the sooner TM side than the later TM side.

An announcement of the announcement. =D

 

[GraXXoR]

I think you need to realise that what you look for in a game isn't what others look for.

In fact I'd suggest that it's the explorers and the players who appreciate a solo game for itself rather than needing other people to be involved, who are more likely to stay with a game long term and be easier to retain. In other contexts I get told that "the PvPers have already left this game".

It's not that solo players and explorers appreciate the game played solo, it's that they don't trust the murder Hobos (PVP/PKers) not the shoot them on the way into the mailslot to deliver their data.

In Elite right now, there is very little you can lose unless you ignore the "Don't Fly Without a ReBuy" rule...
The one thing you can lose is two and a half years of exploration data with a 11% hull... In my case, one of my Alts went out before engineering was a thing and he is now at 5k south of Beagle Point...

If he were killed by a player on the way back into the buble,that would be... unfortunate, to say the very, very least.
So explorers, not willing to risk quite literally years of their life, will of course chose the no-risk option (sure there will be blokes who disagree)

 

[CMDR KCalo]

An announcement of the announcement. =D

I wouldn’t go so far to call that an announcement.

 

[BigBANGtheory [VR]]

Ah, I see what you’re saying.

The unfortunate reality is many of the things you list above would fall under the category of “future paid expansions.”

Maybe, maybe not who knows. I would say they are necessary elements in order for the current gameplay to work hence my glass walls reference earlier because what we have currently is pointless exploration and worthless expansion.

Take Odyssey for example, on foot gameplay I've no issue with that... what I have an issue with is more pointless exploration, customisation and expansion. Love the idea of on foot scanning and biology up until the point you realise 'it serves no purpose' other than to pad out RNG or procedural gameplay.

Back in 2015/2016 this was OK, things were growing and expanding of course Frontier couldn't deliver everything up front but dude we are 6years on now with zero roadmap or anything really of substance just evidence month on month the current engine isn't up to the task.

 

[Red Rocket]

The one thing you can lose is two and a half years of exploration data with a 11% hull... In my case, one of my Alts went out before engineering was a thing and he is now at 5k south of Beagle Point...

If he were killed by a player on the way back into the buble,that would be... unfortunate, to say the very, very least.i

I am sure you could find a carrier close by to sell all that data to, the longer you Wait the more first discovery’s will be lost to others

 

[d8veh]

So explorers, not willing to risk quite literally years of their life, will of course chose the no-risk option (sure there will be blokes who disagree)

It's surprising how many forget and lose everything, then come on here moaning.

 

[Riverside]

It's surprising how many forget and lose everything, then come on here moaning.

It's more surprising how much glee there is within the community for their loss, or at their frustration in the heat of the moment. I like to read (and maybe learn from) an entertaining tale of woe just as much as a success story

Without risk there is no adventure, and without the potential for loss there is no motivation to push on to succeed.

 

[d8veh]

It's more surprising how much glee there is within the community for their loss, or at their frustration in the heat of the moment. I like to read (and maybe learn from) an entertaining tale of woe just as much as a success story

Without risk there is no adventure, and without the potential for loss there is no motivation to push on to succeed.

Absolutely right. That's the same for any player that has some misfortune. There's hardly ever any sympathy. This forum seems to be full of losers full of schadenfreude. I guess they lead sad lives themselves, which brings out the worst in them. Personally, I tend to be the sympathetic type. I always feel sorry for those that have misfortune, but sometimes you have to give them stern advice, and sometimes they don't listen, in which case my sympathy rapidly dissolves.