"Console development continues behind the scenes with an Autumn release still on schedule"

[amigacooke]

Since the Odyssey "hot" release that Frontier had to put all hands on deck to bring the PC version up to the expected levels and understandably the console version inevitably got the end short of the stick, as soon as PC things stabilize the Console version will move much faster.

Frontier didn't just stabalise though, they've added extra content.

If you treat customers differently, then there will be a reaction. When it came to ARX, Frontier were tremendously keen that everyone was treated the same. When it comes to Odyssey, not so much so.

 

[Northpin]

Frontier didn't just stabalise though, they've added extra content.

Ofc they did... they have lots of people hired for lots of different jobs.
Focusing only on performance and bugs means they'd have to send everyone else home without a paycheck, risking to lose them for good.

Adding content while fixing the game means they can sell more PC Odyssey copies, keeping the game funded so they actually have a chance to keep optimizing the game and get to finish the console version, instead of declaring Elite dead and shut down the entire project.

 

[TNTDany]

Frontier didn't just stabalise though, they've added extra content.

If you treat customers differently, then there will be a reaction. When it came to ARX, Frontier were tremendously keen that everyone was treated the same. When it comes to Odyssey, not so much so.

Well it's not like they made that decision lightly, consoles represents a big chunk of money I'm sure but if the game wasn't in the needed shape then it wasn't.
For the better or worse PC and Console are different platforms with different rules.

Sucks for Console players but it's better to be disappointed now for not being able to play the new content while knowing it's being developed and improoved uppon than being disappointed because it released broken. Console versions don't have the luxury of fast updating like the PC version. Everything has to pass validation first which takes considerably more time.

I think Frontier can make up to console players and add a little special bonus (special skin or something alike) for the "trouble". They'll get the "finished and polished" Odyssey version. Hopefully.

 

[amigacooke]

Ofc they did... they have lots of people hired for lots of different jobs.
Focusing only on performance and bugs means they'd have to send everyone else home without a paycheck, risking to lose them for good.

Adding content while fixing the game means they can sell more PC Odyssey copies, keeping the game funded so they actually have a chance to keep optimizing the game and get to finish the console version, instead of declaring Elite dead and shut down the entire project.

It makes it easier to stabilise by changing content regularly, while maintaining two different environments which have to be synchronised?

Is everyone who was working on Odyssey still working on Odyssey, or have some already shifted to new IPs within Frontier?

Is it acceptable for Frontier to sell an incomplete, buggy expansion at full retail price?

 

[Northpin]

It makes it easier to stabilise by changing content regularly, while maintaining two different environments which have to be synchronised?

Is everyone who was working on Odyssey still working on Odyssey, or have some already shifted to new IPs within Frontier?

Is it acceptable for Frontier to sell an incomplete, buggy expansion at full retail price?

Cannot answer any of those, but for sure the team that's designing station/megaship/carriers interiors could not do engine optimizations or bug fixes
So the choice is simple.

 

[amigacooke]

Cannot answer any of those, but for sure the team that's designing station/megaship/carriers interiors could not do engine optimizations or bug fixes
So the choice is simple.

Though obviously they could be working the same content for integration into Odyssey once the consoles have caught up which I would have thought is easier than having to make it work in two different versions of the engine rather than one

 

[Northpin]

Though obviously they could be working the same content for integration into Odyssey once the consoles have caught up which I would have thought is easier than having to make it work in two different versions of the engine rather than one

Erm... what 2 engines?

Interiors are Odyssey only.. so those designers dont work in 2 engines. They work only in Odyssey engine.
And if you mean PC/Consoles, there is no PC engine or Console engine. There is only one Cobra engine to rule all platforms.

Sure, there is still an older Horizons engine, but that will be phased out and everyone will get the Magnificent Odyssey Planetary tech and the Impressive Odyssey Lighting tech. Even if they want it or not.

 

[angusmadmac1]

I think Frontier can make up to console players and add a little special bonus (special skin or something alike) for the "trouble". They'll get the "finished and polished" Odyssey version. Hopefully.

I'm not asking for free stuff or MK4 , we didn't pay for it . Fdev aren't obligated to do anything for us console players . It would be nice to know what levels are needed to be met before consoles are being worked on . Believe me when I say I dont want dates or timelines as this is impossible at this time . But give me a bingo card with a whole load of things I can tick off so I can get excited about it .

 

[Northpin]

'm not asking for free stuff or MK4

Speak for yourself please

I want a CM4

 

[angusmadmac1]

Speak for yourself please

I want a CM4

I missed out by 14 days or so I think ... And if I had known earlier about elite on Xbox I would have bought it sooner , being a Spectrum and Amiga commander ..

 

[Snowymonk]

Speak for yourself please

I want a CM4

I’ve long given up on Frontier doing anything special for consoles.
Both consoles, Xbox and PlayStation, were cash grabs to keep the Frontier alive. (See life-time passes for how PC players were fleeced)
Elite was a proving ground / PC passion project until bigger cash cows came along.

the PlayStation version, launched in 2017, didn’t get the cobra MkIV.
- in hindsight it looks very much like, maximise revenue opportunities whilst minimising development costs. I.e. it‘ll cost time and effort to work out how to give Cobra MkIV to a defined set of PlayStation players (without upsetting others) so we won’t do it.

The Xbox got a 4K upgrade (but part of me thinks it was Microsoft pushing rather than Frontier pulling)

With JWE and JWE2, Frontier don’t need to do anything on Elite anymore. Just keep it limping along. Throwing the community a bone every now and then.

Nothing on the new generation of consoles.

Frontier are showing that they will do the minimum possible.
They thought they had done the minimum on PC and it blew up in their share-price face.
Short term decisions continue (11 PC patches already announced) and still no sign of release on the other two platforms.

As Frontier are optimising the code down, they’ll get to a working version on the current Gen consoles first. I can truly believe that they would be having conversations internally whether they can defend just launching on Xbox X series and PS5. They’ll be asking if they can ever optimise the code to work on the legacy consoles. (11 PC patches already announced)

 

[amigacooke]

Sure, there is still an older Horizons engine, but that will be phased out and everyone will get the Magnificent Odyssey Planetary tech and the Impressive Odyssey Lighting tech. Even if they want it or not.

Yes, Horizons engine will be pased out, but in the future not now. At the moment Frontier are juggling two engines for the live build.

 

[Northpin]

Yes, Horizons engine will be pased out, but in the future not now. At the moment Frontier are juggling two engines for the live build.

Ofc, but interiors - this was the starting point of our debate regarding what those designers are getting payed for - are Odyssey only.

 

[NewBlacksmurf]

I'm tired of saying it but the concept is extremely simple: Odyssey will be released on consoles when the PC version is optimized. When and above all what level of optimization on PC must be achieved for the release on console? Even just a declaration of circumstance is enough as for example (the console version is going well but it will still take a few months) (we are working the console version but we prefer to pet our cat) (The console version of Odyssey exists and is in the works but our religion does not allow you to work for more than two hours a day for xbox and ps5) Please PLEASE give us real news thanks

Personally, I think their message would be taken at its value IF and only IF we did not see new things being added constantly.

You can’t tell a community you are working to optimize any expansion in order to get to a release decision for another platform when you are instead only presenting new features and updates on your website and streams Excluding any information, news or updates on the so called “optimization work”.

Am I wrong?

There isn’t even a section showing where the started and things they have addressed.
Nothing on what remains
No timeline on progress

At some point you have to take it for what is it…PR talk absent of content. This results in what we see here as well as on other websites and social accounts/systems. Obsidian Ant pointed out the distrust that exists and why…and yet here we are again

 

[Northpin]

Am I wrong?

Yes
They've said several times: Different teams
While there is a team crunching on optimization, other teams are doing other things

 

[NewBlacksmurf]

Yes
They've said several times: Different teams
While there is a team crunching on optimization, other teams are doing other things

I’m not discounting or unaware there are other teams doing other things but the messaging lacks any details.

Telling people different teams do different things is more of a PR way to delay saying something until the company is ready. Currently working for a company who does lots of big updates, you at least give your customers some type of bread crumbs.

They could very easy grab at prior feedback and use those prior acknowledgements to talk about how they are going about “optimizing” the game. They could use any new changes or content as well to talk about this…or that allows for…something in the future that is necessary for optimization. The issue is they dont’ do that for prior and are choosing not to do that in anyway for today. It’s a poor method of working on a long term game…it just doesn’t work well.

When I say am I wrong…I’m talking about there being no data, information, updates or changes for many months.
And then…you see them adding new modules new NPCs, new SRV type but they didn’t take that moment to give any update.

Thats the part I’m saying..am I wrong about. No updates, no transparency even after their long drawn out acknowledgement that they have not been forth coming about a lot.

All of that to say this…If you are truly working on it, and there are other teams working on things, talk about it. That is the whole point of having social media, news, announcements and bringing developers on their live stream.

Tell us what is going on in the game and what’s coming. For all not just their PC customers

 

[Northpin]

When I say am I wrong…I’m talking about there being no data, information, updates or changes for many months.
And then…you see them adding new modules new NPCs, new SRV type but they didn’t take that moment to give any update.

Some time ago they said they will launch EDO on both PC and consoles at the same time, then that proved impossible and they got a lot of flak for it and they still get flak for it.

So now they're not giving any information or any dates unless they're absolutely sure it will happen. No progress either.

the Scorp was announced only 1-2 updates before it happened.
Carrier interiors were announced not long ago and they're scheduled for U11 (early in 2022) (although i'm pretty sure they were supposed to come in U10, but the mess that was U9 made sure that will not happen)



Edit: as we can see, the progress optimizing EDO is really slow

 

[Jaden Capek]

I was under the impression that the content being added were things that were supposed to be in Odyssey to begin with, had the pandemic not slown things down and the shareholders forced them to release a year early with no beta testing.

So I think less they want to optimize the game and more finish the game before porting it to consoles. Odyssey upon launch (and still is) rather bare-bones, and they planned to have things like new ships and SRVs that weren't finished in time for launch. If I recall, the Scorpion was first mentioned in data mining the Alpha, which proves that it wasn't something they came up with afterwards and chose to add to the game instead of fixing it. I imagine FDev wants Odyssey to be a much fuller experience before dropping it on consoles instead of shoveling a half- compete product onto the console players like they did with PC players.

 

[NewBlacksmurf]

Some time ago they said they will launch EDO on both PC and consoles at the same time, then that proved impossible and they got a lot of flak for it and they still get flak for it.

So now they're not giving any information or any dates unless they're absolutely sure it will happen. No progress either.

the Scorp was announced only 1-2 updates before it happened.
Carrier interiors were announced not long ago and they're scheduled for U11 (early in 2022) (although i'm pretty sure they were supposed to come in U10, but the mess that was U9 made sure that will not happen)



Edit: as we can see, the progress optimizing EDO is really slow

Sorry but literally none of those changes are optimizations at all.
Those are changes, as in additions to the game or new content updates.

Specific to console, when a developer talks about game optimizations its is intended to address things specifically but not limited to (a released game or BETA):

Frame rate
Addressing crashes
Launching
addressing memory leaks
etc….the list goes on

Its been a chunk of months now so they would need to share something that clears up which consoles they are working for it to run on. I say this because they intentionally split servers for Horizons and Odyssey so it makes people think things which could be false or just outlandish but logically to think its not releasing on all consoles.

Another part of this is learning how to talk about progress…so as an example Xbox does a good job talking about how their different console optimizations look to the end user (customers) Xbox Optimized List example

PlayStation boost list of games

You could have something very complicated like this that customers would struggle to understand, so you would boil it down to a few themes and each month or update interval, you would build from the framework of the initial presentation. The frustrating that is there isn’t a presentation or base…and as far as we know, the game doesn’t even run at all on consoles other than maybe a dev kit.

I’m not here to suggest they are lying, I’m just here to criticize the way they literally choose not to provide any information. Meaningful or not, there is nothing available outside of the announcement that it will not be released on consoles until “Optimization” occurs. Honestly, that is the wrong word because if the game only needs optimizing, then its something that can be released.

It seems more like it is not in a state that they can submit for cert to consoles. This is my perspective and maybe its because they do such a poor job talking about anything. I dont expect them to give us all details..heck I don’t need details at all I just need updated information.

It’s concerning that after months, NO NEW NEWS exists for consoles. That comes off as them not working on consoles at all because in one part that was exactly what was clarified on some form of news when asked.

So for those comments where ppl are speculating that they re doing this or that which is optimization … you can’t optimize something you’re not working on at all. Thats my point


I feel I also need to add this last comment: If there is still a console development team, and there are other teams who are working on new Odyssey content which we continue to see added, is it accurate that the console team is now a PC development team?

These are the types of FAQ or QnA things they can update folks on.

 

[Northpin]

Sorry but literally none of those changes are optimizations at all.

How do you know?
The game is running smoother, lighting is getting optimized, some cpu heavy tasks were optimized (sort off - i'm talking about AI Navmesh)
But most of the optimization is behind the scenes - you cant really see if they optimize some cpu workloads - not unless you run a real potato pc, way under minimum specs and you trigger that specific workload.

Edit:

Its been a chunk of months now so they would need to share something that clears up which consoles they are working for it to run on.

They dont really need to share anything.

I say this because they intentionally split servers for Horizons and Odyssey

It seems more like it is not in a state that they can submit for cert to consoles.

There you go.
They split the servers because the game was not ready
Odyssey requires higher minimum hardware requirements and with those requirements the game would not have been playable on Horizons minimum PC specs OR on PS4/XB1 which have similar specs with.

So i guess the target is clear. When the game will be playable and have stable FPS on the potato PC that is the Horizons minimum hardware requirements PC... then it will be ready to be ported on PS4/XB1