ObsidianAnt: Frontier - What The HECK Is Going On With Elite Dangerous?

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LumpTheNoLeggedDog

LumpTheNoLeggedDog
since this thread have a lot of attention...
maybe you guys can fix SRV hologram on SRVs scanner so it zooms out like it is in Horizons ?
zoom in Screenshot (239).png and zoom out Screenshot (240).png
 

Rubbernuke

Rubbernuke
Jmanis said:
The end of the video pretty much sums up exactly how I've felt about ED for so many years now, but I'd word it slightly differently.

FD don't just have no confidence of their own game... they're scared of it.

I've dealt with developers/maintainers of a software like this before... from small teams to multi-hundred-million dollar companies... but the signs are all the same.

  • Outstanding issues left unresolved for years
  • Upgrades/maintenance never "just works", or is incredibly onerous for the task at hand
  • A routine habit of "hoping longstanding bugs are fixed in the next major upgrade"
  • Fragile software; fixing one thing breaks another, or has unanticipated knock-ons
  • Otherwise basic actions are never basic
  • The customer tends to know your product better than you
  • Promising the "next big thing" while the current thing is still broken

I'm not going to tell people to suck eggs, I'm sure they can find evidence of all these points... but the last one is why I was always against development of FCs and Odyssey, and continue to be against the idea of things like base building, atmospheric planets and ship interiors. You simply cannot build on a fragile base, or worse, rubble.

People are probably sick of me banging on about age-old bugs like Research Limpets, Outbreak Massacres, or the (now fixed) black market price debuff or megaship looting. These might seem like "minor" things, but they are indicative of very deep-seated issues with the game as a whole. We're not talking about complex issues that might occasionally nix your game experience one in ten times... we're talking about persistent bugs in basic game mechanics that, essentially, prevent that basic activity from functioning at all. Then there's things like Nu-mining, which took years to effectively rebalance, the 2021 mineral price rebalance which caused unanticipated mission effects (effects which were anticipated and quickly exploited by numerous players).

Such bugs should persist for weeks, maybe a couple months if they're easier said than fixed. To persist for years is indicative of:
  • Poor planning and management; or
  • Lack of confidence/ability in fixing your own product
Even to ignore bugs for a minute, there is massive investment in several mechanics in the game that simply haven't gone anywhere.

This only happens when you're scared of your product; when the idea of using or tweaking the house of cards is far, far riskier than simply building more on top of it. That's why we got FCs and Odyssey; building these new things was a more appealing proposition than actually using what they've got. And that's a horrid state for a game to be in, and one which operates on a false impression that you have full control since it's "all new things"... when in fact the existing issues have full control over you and your development activities... where the wheat has domesticated you.

This writing's been on the wall for years... people just haven't paid attention to where it matters.
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Its more that FD are scared to offend, so don't and take the most conservative vanilla approach to design.

There have been many times in the past where interesting ideas that were screeched into the floor and FD just backed off, over and over. Consequently the game has retreated within itself to the point where features barely touch each other.
 

Northpin

Northpin
Red Rocket said:
He is only saying what many are thinking.
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I'd say that he's saying whatever sells and brings pay-per-view people to his channel
Pretty much like any other tabloid

I mean seriously...
people have demands from ED like they are paying subscriptions and FDev are obliged to keep delivering stuff to keep permanently entertained their subscribers.
People seem to forget they payed once, and can play as long as the servers are up, not to mention getting the game at discounted prices and/or from shady sites.

The only things i'd like to be treated more seriously are them bugs, some of them longstanding.
Development news? Future plans? Not so much.

The only future plan i really care is for them to keep running the game.
I will not be miffed at all if nothing new came to Elite in the 8 months left of this year.
But i would be really miffed if they would shut down the game this year.
 

Oztig

Oztig
Rubbernuke said:
Its more that FD are scared to offend, so don't and take the most conservative vanilla approach to design.

There have been many times in the past where interesting ideas that were screeched into the floor and FD just backed off, over and over. Consequently the game has retreated within itself to the point where features barely touch each other.
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Does this not just boil down to 'listening to the forums too much'.
Best approach write a game have confidence in it, and as long as the game is selling as expected, sod the forums. Don't try and please everybody
 

Winterwalker

Winterwalker
OA's posts have gone from being about the game to being 'about the devs' for a while now, possibly in the hope they'll take him back under their wing and give him a scoop but either way I can't say I'm too impressed.

There's no information here other than what was announced, just - what I think is - a very poorly informed opinion piece having another dig. Poorly informed because Frontier - imho - would be nuts to regenerate the galaxy to fix a minor bug now, out of synch developmentally, when they'll very likely have to regenerate the galaxy yet again if / when new (thick atmos) planets get iterated in.

The overwhelming majority of opinion in the thread about it was it was a good decision and / or better to wait but OA takes his parasitic pound of flesh nevertheless. Bleuch.
 

Astaran

Astaran
Rubbernuke said:
Its more that FD are scared to offend, so don't and take the most conservative vanilla approach to design.

There have been many times in the past where interesting ideas that were screeched into the floor and FD just backed off, over and over. Consequently the game has retreated within itself to the point where features barely touch each other.
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The Exobiology minigame comes to my mind. Good idea, poorly implemented. But instead of using some of the community suggestions about how to improve it (like turning it into a "puzzle" instead of a reaction-time activity), it got removed entirely.

Oh, and powerplay, but that feels just like rubbing salt into your wounds by now.

I think the "conservative vanilla approach" really hits the mark. Look at FC interiors. They are not bad, not at all. They are working as intended and are probably as close as we'll ever get to "spaceship interiors". Yet, FDev could have gone much, much deeper here and could have turned FC interiors into something like Elite's version of "Player Housing". I'm sure, offering FC interior design packs aligned to the three superpowers (Empire, Alliance, Federation) alone would have sold pretty good in the Arx store. Add thematic interiors for other factions (PowerPlay factions, Salvation, The Dark Wheel, Marlinists, FarGod Cult etc.) and they could have turned FC interiors into something really, really individual and special.

However, FDev decided to "play it safe". FC interiors are good enough, they're working as intended, but they are nothing really special or unique that could set Elite apart from other games.
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As for OA's video. I think FDev's communication last year was spot on and very, very good. This makes it just so much more frustrating that someone higher up in the food chain at FDev decided to cut it down again.

Even more frustrating is that the only news we get at the moment, is about things FDev can't do. VR (granted, that was before Odyssey), Planetary Tech, Console Version. I would really like to know what they are working on. No spoilers or many details needed. Just a general idea what we can expect for the next few months. Still focussing on fixing Odyssey? New content in the pipe? Like the next chapter for Thargoid/Guardian content? Something else entirely? Again, no details needed. The semi-announcement of Update 12 is all nice, but it was very clear that there will be another update for Elite eventually. Just as there will be an update after Update 12 and another one after that.

We're approaching the end of April now and haven't heard anything new about the engineering rebalance FDev announced last year. A simple "We're still working on it" would be more than enough info for me.


What I would like to see for Elite is FDev's vision for the game, except for "Blaze your own trail". Where's FDev's ambition? The desire to make something unique and special? How does FDev want to exploit Elite's unqiue strengths like the amazing and huge proc gen galaxy? Odyssey, broken and buggy as it was, offers some real potential for exceptionally great content.

Quo vadis, Elite?
 

Lyamecron

Lyamecron
To be honest, dev updates like those from last year would most certainly be sufficient. They had it nailed down. Small info drops on upcoming features with an estimated delivery time including a disclaimer that the date can change. Thats all I want honestly.

Just say "We are trying to move the thargoid storyline forward and want to incorporate Odysseys on foot gameplay". That would get a lot of people excited.

Or "Yes we are working on the panther clipper, however we will release it as a story relevant asset at a later date".

Heck even "We have analyzed your feedback and assessed that the engineer grind really is too harsh. We are currently in the process of making tweaks, but this may still take a while."

These are 3 perfect examples as to how to communicate your involvement in the development of the game, without giving away too much too early. Even the delivery time would still be non commital that way. Players want something to look forward to, even if its still a few months out.

There is a middleground. You don't have to be transparent like glass, but not opaque like a rock either.

Edit: And to be clear, this is not a hit at the CM-team, as they do an amazing job in my opinion. Its rather directed at f-dev in general and who ever is responsible for the very limited / no info we get.
 
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BigBANGtheory [VR]

BigBANGtheory [VR]
Oztig said:
Does this not just boil down to 'listening to the forums too much'.
Best approach write a game have confidence in it, and as long as the game is selling as expected, sod the forums. Don't try and please everybody
Click to expand...

Odyssey is not "selling as expected", Frontier themselves said as much in their financial forecasts.

Sure you can't please everyone 100% of the time, that's obvious but you do have to please enough people to make a game commercially viable and successful unless its a marketing smoke & mirrors sale which will lose you trust and cause reputation damage.
 

WeComeInPeace

WeComeInPeace
Jack Winter said:
No, I can't define good in an objective way, and possibly I'm wrong in the above statement.. In this particular case I don't think it serves any purpose to post videos negative of the game and the company. This is their modus operandi and I don't think that any amount of criticism on youtube or the forum is going to change that. People who have been around a long time ought to know that and shouldn't expect a change... People that are new might get seriously concerned about their beloved game.

Still I come back to the point that this is a game and a company that has almost consistently received the same criticism as long as the game has existed. They might not publish a bug free game, but they have consistently published a game for close to 8 years.. Somewhat on topic seeing OA's channel this is something SC has failed to do.. What do you prefer a space game you can still play 8 years later or a tech demo that occasionally is completely unplayable or that occasionally resets your game?

But to conclude.. I probably should just remove the forum from my browser, all the manure here is really getting on my nerves lately..! :D :D :D
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There are plenty of things to worry about these days. Pandemics, a war with potential to turn into a nuclear war, global heating, overpopulation, lack of sustainability, inflation, death and taxes. None of those "challenges" goes away if we just keep our mouth shut. It would probably just make it worse, like when a fire starts in a building, but nobody sounds the alarm. I do understand why the general state of life on this planet has some scary perspectives for most of us, and why facing that might scare the crap out of some people to a degree, where they stick two fingers in their ears and shout "Stop talking about DOOM", but frankly it wont help anyone. Some "challenges" are probably unsolvable, and that sucks, but generally when things suck, talking kind of helps.

Fdev and Elite clearly have an "issue" right now. Odd wasn't a great succes. Player numbers and stock prices reveal that fact. However, the game is still up and running, and Fdev still exist. I'm pretty sure that they will prioritize going to meetings to discuss future plans, but better communication would help Fdev in the current situation. There might be all sorts of legal reasons why they can't, but objectively lack of communication is bad for Fdev as things are.
 

Dagwit

Dagwit
I was cleaning the bathroom listening to the Buur Pit livestream yesterday. There's no more positive ED supporter on YouTube than Cmdr Buur, but even he was struggling to maintain his optimism on occasion.

Still, he was having fun with a character restart. Just as I spent a relaxing hour or two yesterday hauling Power Generators for the CG and doing chores in my AspX.

Doesn't alter the fact that the development of the spaceship flying game most people here love effectively ended in 2018* when Frontier took it into its head to make an FPS instead, and it would take more optimism than Obsidian Ant, Cmdr Buur and the rest of us could summon to expect that to change.**

*Fleet Carriers, you say? We only got those because Frontier were able to repurpose the work they'd already done on Squadron Carriers to give us personal carriers instead.

**I admit I'll be impressed if Thargoid motherships turn out to be something more than flower-shaped capital ships. Or, on reflection, dropships for on-foot combat.
 
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