An open letter to FDEV [Updated 08/09]

Esquisite

Esquisite
Nerth said:
I'm the OP's predecessor at EXO and with a heavy heart I fully agree with what he has so eloquently written here. I have never seen the community's wellspring of good faith in Frontier run so low. It really does feel like we are approaching crisis point with Elite and I don't know where we go from here. The feeling I have and what I'm seeing is not one of anger; we're past that. We're in the 4th stage of grief which is despair. The next stage is acceptance.....
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I've just purchased the destiny expansion, as I wasn't waiting four hours for my fuel scoop to transfer and then the 2 hour jump back. (I submitted a ticket still unanswered which ironically I would nearly be back by now)

The content is amazing, even the reskinned stuff. Lots and lots of stuff to do. I've been playing this game for so long i've forgotten how enriching new content can be. The £50 I spent on this I would not have hesitated to put in Frontiers pockets.
 

CMDR_Brantford of FLC

CMDR_Brantford of FLC
Between the Gnosis faux pas and the postponement of fleet carrier releases and the pushback of proposed PP changes to who knows when (and that got one of the largest thread discussions in Focused Feedback I've seen on there.. yet it got ignored) they arent exactly covering themselves in glory this past week or so.
 

Sweet&Dandy

Sweet&Dandy
CMDR_Brantford said:
Between the Gnosis faux pas and the postponement of fleet carrier releases and the pushback of proposed PP changes to who knows when (and that got one of the largest thread discussions in Focused Feedback I've seen on there.. yet it got ignored) they arent exactly covering themselves in glory this past week or so.
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The day ED went from a handful of systems to test to a procedurally generated Galaxy (in glorious, but pixilated VR!) Frontier truly “covered themselves in glory”. Five? years later and I’m still waiting for next ...
 

ElvisKremmen

ElvisKremmen
As a member of another one of the larger player groups I have seen lots of our members that were once staunch players of Elite turn to other games, I agree with everything you wrote and I along with many others hope and pray Fdev pull their fingers out before the community dwindles to the point of no return.
 

Electric Kite

Electric Kite
Overcame my usuall fears of the infamous "wall of text" posts and i read it all and i feel your pain man.

Ive been saying this for months now but elite, to me at least, is clearly in "maintenance mode" and has been for some time now.

Now, thats not to say this wont change and FD will prioritise the game again soon TM...but ive yet to see any evidence of that happening (and no, saying they are passionately working on it and are "very excited" does not count -spare me )
 

elkiller

E
Esquisite said:
I absolutely love Elite. I love the universe that has been built and the community that engages within it. I love the bad guys murdering everyone, I love the community groups pulling together to make a near empty sandbox into an incredible fun living galaxy for us all to enjoy.

I love how every Cmdr can blaze their own trail. Be it expanding the influence across their sectors, or hunting down rivals across the galaxy. The customisation in engineering and the real love you feel for your ship, be it a little DBX hopping across the galaxy, or the nimble FDL being thrown around at break neck speeds.

I love the massive PvP wing fights i’ve engaged in, the Thargoid hunting parties and the exploration of new sights across the galaxy.

But the thing I love most is also what I hate most. It is what WE have made of the game. Plugging holes with our own narratives, factions mostly ignored bringing fresh content in events and stories. Rivalries and enemies leading to wars. Politics over discord not much unlike the United Nations. It makes it real, living, and leads to a lot of time being invested.

But that is why I am finally getting frustrated with FDEV. I co run a faction with a great leadership team, and even better members numbering over a thousand. I sit there whilst people complain about the mistakes made by Fdev, the broken promises, the hype and tell them it’s going to be okay. That they share the love of the game that you guys do. When the chats get disgruntled, i’m always there fighting off the negativity and supporting you guys in a face where servers, reddit, your own forums are full of people criticising the work that you do.

I’ve been playing for many years, and consider myself a true Elite fan.

But unlike some I see… I am not blind to the reality it is becoming.

The bright sparks you release are only bright because of the depths of darkness surrounding them. Promises are made constantly that are broken. Your team seem completely detached from the game and engagement is honestly token at best.

You have teased us content, and then taken it away. Then replaced that with the meme that so fits FDEV of ‘SOON’

It’s almost as if you don’t trust us. Your player base are older adults, and we know when we are being sold a yarn. An example is Destiny… 100 days prior to launch you get trailers, leaks, interviews… we get thrown together live streams just before a release, a release that we all know and expect will be broken in many ways before it gets right.

We have our methods of communicating with you. Servers on discord and forums, we engage with you, trying to help you understand what we the community want from you… and are once again ignored.

It’s not us being selfish, it’s not us feeling entitled. We pay money into this game, our time. Ship kits are purchased even if we aren’t going to use them. Cosmetic items invested in because we invest in you, the game, because we want you to produce something that we can all enjoy together.

But again, it gets borked.

The Crusader… an absolute disaster. It literally has no point in the game. It was thrown out with the quality control that you should not be just apologising for, but actually be ashamed of.

Guardian tech brokers, grinds where you promised narratives, again needing to be fixed as you seem to try and hold on to tooth and nail to pushing out the biggest grind you can.

Power Play discussions, offering glimmers of hope to some and dispair to others seem to be discussed for the tick in the box of community engagement and then completely ignored.

And now the Gnosis… I mean that has been a disaster.

You talk of these permit locked systems… in your release of god moding switches. The fact is FDEV many of us don’t believe you. You tell us Raxlaa is in game, we don’t believe you. You tell us that permit locked regions are locked for a reason, we don’t believe you. You don’t ever tell us anything, treating us like children and then scrambling to fix something you break instead of engaging with us.

You must worry as the hype train gets carried away at times, and you can manage that. Instead of burying your heads in the sand all you need to do is engage with us. “Guys we can’t do that because…” instead of these politicians answers that drive the older audience you have insane.

No mans sky listened…

Destiny listened…

You rely far to much on the good will of players and wandering around the discords today its waning.

I mean the Gnosis… honestly…

You set it up for something great… a massive attack on the megaship. But instead of ANY TESTING WHATSOEVER you just released it. You can sit here and tell me it was tested etc, etc, but it wasn’t. 5 minutes play time and you would have seen what was happening. Do you honestly think we would mind if the servers were down for an hour or so to make sure you got it right? Of course not.

It feels none of you play, or are really involved in the game other than the token community efforts. Watching people play on your live streams show us that at how bad they know the mechanics. I’m not saying that they should all be elite combat pilots etc, but they should know how to handle a ship and the basics of the game better than they do.

Combat logging… one of the biggest issues in this game (And this is not going to turn into a logging rant) has been ignored. Once again with notices of “we can’t tell you.” or my favourite from years ago on the forums “We are looking at a solution and have an announcement soon.”

Are you really surprised that you get this backlash?

My ship got destroyed at the Gnosis. After rallying together almost 50 Cmdrs to come along. I managed their hype. I expected a system with signal sources to fight and the content WE create. Defending explorers from bad guys whilst fighting goids. I look back at the excitement and were not really excited for anything YOU were actually delivering, but more what we had created. And in meddling with it, you actually managed to ruin it with a bodged effort with little to no engagement.

I submitted a ticket. more than 4 hours ago. I’m still at the Cali nebula…

Why should I pick up Elite again? For my faction, for my community, but at the moment definitely not for you guys.

You don’t stand up for the bad guys when they shoot who they want. You don’t stand up for the good guys when exploits are taken advantage of. You don’t stand up for the tin foilers when they start feeling like they are making progress in a mess of a story. You don’t stand up for the factions when they come to you with help because the ‘mysterious BGS’ gets silently changed.

You don’t listen to the PvPers and Pirates suffering combat logging, you don’t listen to the Cmdrs when they tell you what they want in a ship.

You literally have hundreds of people who want to engage with you. Factions who want to be part of this journey. I know you can’t please everyone, but honestly as it stands you might as well not engage at all.

We’ve walked this journey with you so far as you lead us. But as I look around i’m starting to see more and more people breaking off to other things, and every time I ask why, or to come back it’s you guys who have pushed them away. The pain is seeing it being such a difficult decision for them because of the community they love.

You need to sort this out guys, and the way you are going to do that is by communicating and listening. Cut the crap, sort the problems and listen. If something can’t be sorted!! Then bloody say it! Stop this… ‘we are aware of an issue and are looking at it’ Don’t tell us you punish combat loggers and can’t disclose the result when plenty of other games do exactly that! Don’t release content that hasn’t been quality assessed then tell us it has!

I’m on my last life with you guys, please sort it out.

EDIT: 0930BST my ticket was submitted to be returned to the Gnosis... as of yet, nothing.
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I love how you sugar coated it first before you dropped the bombs, just as they did when they cancelled carries. Good job bro i really like this open Letter.

rep+++++
 

Camulus

Camulus
ElvisKremmen said:
As a member of another one of the larger player groups I have seen lots of our members that were once staunch players of Elite turn to other games, I agree with everything you wrote and I along with many others hope and pray Fdev pull their fingers out before the community dwindles to the point of no return.
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I stand alone, from 10 just over a year ago I now busy myself, alone in my home system. Silently tending to odd jobs here and there like the two robots 'Hewey and Dewey' from 'Silent Running'.
 

Souvarine

Souvarine
Brilliant post. Absolutely perfectly sums it up.

Everyone I've spoken to at FD has been brilliant - passionate, committed and clearly talented, which is testament to FD being a brilliant company. No rational people doubt that. But you have a problem with communication.

This should be addressed by Adam Woods really. It's not the community managers' faults.
 

Esquisite

Esquisite
Souvarine said:
Brilliant post. Absolutely perfectly sums it up.

Everyone I've spoken to at FD has been brilliant - passionate, committed and clearly talented, which is testament to FD being a brilliant company. No rational people doubt that. But you have a problem with communication.

This should be addressed by Adam Woods really. It's not the community managers' faults.
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I feel so sorry for the community managers
 

Avago Earo

Banned
Avago Earo
Esquisite said:
The bright sparks you release are only bright because of the depths of darkness surrounding them. Promises are made constantly that are broken. Your team seem completely detached from the game and engagement is honestly token at best.
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Pretty much sums it up, for me at least.
 

Esquisite

Esquisite
I'm actually disappointed this has been moved from what is the main discussion thread. It furthers exactly my thoughts about what I had said. It picked up traction and then all of sudden gets moved to new features...

this isn't a conversation about new features! It's a discussion over recent community engagement!

Also from my initial post: https://imgur.com/a/rhH4O5U


Can you please tell me in all the years we've had Elite a permit locked system has been unlocked to conform with new narrative. I mean Guardians have all been released into known space, thargoids have etc?

This is why we don't believe you. This is why you are loosing our trust.

The time has been taken to move the thread... but not even acknowledge me here... Jesus...
 

CrunchyBaton955

CrunchyBaton955
I haven't posted on the Forums in forever, but after this got moved I felt I needed to. I already rep'd you for a well thought out post, but now that this has been moved I feel I need to say some more.

The worst possible thing to be done is move a post about not being listened to, to sub-forum that gets little traffic. instead of the perfectly legitimate one to "discuss anything" about Elite. This is a perfect example of being disconnected. The thread isn't insulting or against the ToS in anyway. It 100% appears that FDev disagrees with it, but they won't delete it, so they'll just move it to hide it away.
 
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