@ Developers, Community Managers, Influencer and Casual Player

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I apologize in advance for the wall of text and for some pieces that may be unclear due to the English translation.

It is clear how the more time passes, the more superficial updates are released and more and more, players who play seriously bgs, powerplay, trading, roleplay, piracy, exploration, pvp and mining in open play, become marginalized precisely because of a development that is not maintaining quality and seriousness of content combined with an expectation with deep mechanics.

The official forum is divided on the original vision of this game for too long now.

The more time passes the more arrogance there is in defending a short-sighted and visionless development that is betraying what David Braben himself has declared. Many of his statements and those of the development team are easily found on YouTube and on specialized sites before the official release of the game and it is easy to find how many of their expectations have been deeply disregarded.

What's not working.

DEVELOPERS: Many of the releases have brought new features of dubious utility, some positive and some totally abandoned. Just think of multicrew, powerplay and recent Carriers as examples.

BGS and POWERPLAY left behind thanks to the players in "Solo Mode" and "Group Mode". Activities in "Open Play" made in the sunlight are contrasted by activities deliberately hidden in "Solo Mode". Instead of making the universe alive and participating with interactions between players it was preferred not to act for 5 years bringing a continuous imbalance when you could have intervened with intelligence and cleverness.

It's funny to think back to a few months ago when it emerged the case of cheater in game with the daily use of BOTs to manipulate the BGS and POWERPLAY, and the FRONTIER that also asked players to report suspicious activities when most of them are hidden in "SOLO MODE" and therefore impossible to report.

Did you know how frustrating it is not to see what and how many activities are done by these players and lose wars for a month in a row without even realizing how many players are involved against their own interest without being able to take the right countermeasures?

Obviously Frontier and the developers, who don't play their own mechanics, don't even want to get their hands on these dynamics and it's clear that they don't even know their product well.


COMMUNITY MANAGER: with the passing of time and with the release of updates many official communications have become superficial. Livestream with artificial hype, often useless and embarrassing gameplay that have shown a lot of inexperience in their product. Someone will remember how they were going to undermine with the Mamba, or as a Dev who didn't even know how to enter the glide on the planets a few years ago. And these are just a few examples of how they themselves do not care, not only in the creation phase, but also in the exposure phase.

Those historians have gone and those who have taken over do not convey any kind of charisma and knowledge of the fundamental dynamics of the game.

Perhaps they should also realize the very low visualizations of their livestreams.


MODERATORS: several times on the forum have appeared posts indicating problems with gameplay, features and decay of the situation thanks to the developers and players themselves, but the only answers were very often without depth, highlighting how even the moderators do not play Elite in its true potential. On several occasions they preferred to quell discussions giving importance to casual players and game modes superficial or far from those originally wanted by Frontier. These actions have directly and indirectly discredited many serious PVE and open play PVP groups in favour of players who want to hide without even knowing that all actions on ELITE count in the BGS and staying hidden can't be countered or helped. Despite this, the moderators have contested or even punished those who live the game and want the best for the near future. It is known to all that many communities have disappeared due to casual, lonely players and will most likely be seasonal players. Unlike groups such as ours who have been playing Elite for years with community actions on a large scale collaborating with other groups are not protected at all by developers or moderators.


INFLUENCER: many of the known Youtubers deliberately never face the core of the situation. They tell and show the superficial problems without ever creating a real analysis of what the Elite had to be and what they were transforming into. This situation is even clearer with the latest Fleet Carriers videos published by the usual four or five major youtubers. The economic dynamics of running costs are addressed, but never the total absence of gameplay to match the BGS and POWERPLAY and that would make it more organic and create gameplay with objectives. Surely it's convenient also for them not to face these great shortcomings, also by virtue of the fact that they themselves are not involved in these mechanics and their increasingly immature and casual users for such game dynamics. Even in recent streaming, with the participation of developers and community managers, they have never managed to address the real issues.

What kind of game do you want to sponsor? A unique game in the world with three access modes and features often disconnected from each other? A game that in fact no longer has a soul of its own? A game that no longer encourages any kind of collaboration?

You too have responsibilities in what you show and what you ask of your guests. There is a lack of direct and credible questions that have been unresolved for years, with the right focus and expertise.


CASUAL PLAYER: the merit of superficial and problematic contents is also thanks to a user that justifies all the wrong or superficial choices of the Frontier because it allows you to be comfortable in your own ship doing simple activities that have nothing to do with a video game with incredible but unexpressed potential. Years of development and wasted potential that can no longer be recovered. You've allowed Frontier to produce ineffective content by no longer dedicating themselves to the true nature of this game, and by failing to make objective criticism because they're incompetent in the game precisely because of the casual nature of many of you.

Mine is not arrogance towards casual players and everyone else.

If anything, it is the regret and disappointment of what has been happening for too long and that the 4.0 risks to amplify for lack of communication from Frontier with the community base that really counts for the experience in the field for years.


CONCLUSIONS: We assure you that we have many ideas we can give you to push players to play open play, to improve BGS, Power play and other interesting and not trivial mechanics. Tie carriers to what you as a developer have included in recent years and leave orphans by yourself if not with trivial and superficial ties.

Even the modifications to the carriers we know very well that they will only be for the economic part. There will never be added dynamics of gameplay fun and tied to what already exists. And this is another reason why we will be further regretted after so long used for development and all the postponements of this features that could be used to start bringing a remedy to everything else.



Define this post as you want.
For someone it will be an indictment of developers, community managers, influencers and casual players.
For some people it may be a post to think about.

For me it's definitely an act of love for a game that has given me emotions, giving daily new goals to our Squadron despite the subjects mentioned above are not facilitating us.

Instead they should have much more respect for their product and for the historical users who have become loyal to their creation and their promises.

Thanks
 
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CASUAL PLAYER: the merit of superficial and problematic contents is also thanks to a user that justifies all the wrong or superficial choices of the Frontier because it allows you to be comfortable in your own ship doing simple activities that have nothing to do with a video game with incredible but unexpressed potential. Years of development and wasted potential that can no longer be recovered. You've allowed Frontier to produce ineffective content by no longer dedicating themselves to the true nature of this game, and by failing to make objective criticism because they're incompetent in the game precisely because of the casual nature of many of you.

So in your opinion, there are some badly designed features because some players are not playing the game the way it should be played... And so how the game should be played in that case ?! How a player "dedicated to the true nature of this game" should have fun in the ED universe ?
 
Wrong conclusion Jethro49

My post is written there and challenges 4 aspects, 4 types that all fit together.
If I wanted to make a post indicating only one category of person I would surely have made a different post.
Don't you think?
Useless to quote what I wrote without taking everything else.
That's the usual mundane conclusion of this forum.
Taking pieces at will to discredit without having an overview.
As those who bring statistics of Steam to show that now the game is "full" of players, obviously that will not last more than a month, to demonstrate the good work of Frontier. Not to mention that not everyone plays via Steam.

We are at these levels of discussion.
 
Wrong conclusion Jethro49

My post is written there and challenges 4 aspects, 4 types that all fit together.
If I wanted to make a post indicating only one category of person I would surely have made a different post.
Don't you think?
Useless to quote what I wrote without taking everything else.
That's the usual mundane conclusion of this forum.
Taking pieces at will to discredit without having an overview.
As those who bring statistics of Steam to show that now the game is "full" of players, obviously that will not last more than a month, to demonstrate the good work of Frontier. Not to mention that not everyone plays via Steam.

We are at these levels of discussion.

I must admit, I intended to raise a debate by quoting out of context a part of your text. I should have also quoted that :

Mine is not arrogance towards casual players and everyone else.


However, I also really wonder : I'm not a developper, nor an influencer, community manager or moderator. I feel like a casual gamer in ED. A bit dedicated, but still casual if I compare with the communities I play with. So I would like to understand, what did a casual player do that led FDev to provide this or that half-baked / half-broken loop of gameplay ?
 
I don't think it's ever going to end... :rolleyes:

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Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
Define this post as you want.
For someone it will be an indictment of developers, community managers, influencers and casual players.
For some people it may be a post to think about.

For me it's definitely an act of love for a game that has given me emotions, giving daily new goals to our Squadron despite the subjects mentioned above are not facilitating us.
For me[1] it's simply another thread showing that a subset of the player-base still can't accept that PvP is an optional extra in this game and has been from the outset - a subset that seems to have no problem demanding that content be removed from players who don't share their play-style.

Game features do not belong to players who prefer to play in Open any more, or less, than they do to players in the other game modes.

The complaints about the single shared galaxy state started around the time of the Kickstarter (over seven years ago), when some players realised that other players would not have to play with them to affect the game. Frontier would seem to be well aware that not all players agree with their stance on the optional multi-player nature of their game - however that has not changed their stance. Comparatively recently Frontier reiterated their stance on the shared BGS (in the BGS & Scenarios stream).

While Sandro previously indicated that the majority of players play in Open, with Solo and Private Groups also enjoy "significant portions" of the player-base, another Dev has stated that Frontier are "well aware" that the majority of players don't get involved in PvP.

In the Flash Topics on Powerplay (May'18), one potential change would have made Powerplay Open only. Sandro was very clear in stating that the Flash Topic was an investigation only and not a fait-accompli. He was also very clear that Powerplay was the only game feature even possibly being considered for Open only. We await Frontier's determination as to which of the subset of the proposals in the first Flash Topic will be considered for implementation.
Instead they should have much more respect for their product and for the historical users who have become loyal to their creation and their promises.
The historical users of games in the Elite franchise only ever played a single player version of those games, so it is unsurprising that multi-player was implemented as an optional extra in the fourth game in the series - which means that PvP is also an optional extra.

The game achieved its Kickstarter goal with three game modes in place from the outset. If the game pitch had been Open only it may not have reached its funding goal or been developed - in which case there'd be no game to argue about.

Being able to shoot at anything that is in ones instance is as much a fundamental aspect of the game as: every player affecting the single shared galaxy; the ability to select who one wishes to play with on a session-by-session basis; the block feature (necessary because, well, people); menu exit at any time (subject to a delay if "in danger"). That some players selectively accept which aspects they consider to be "fair" and decry the others as "unfair" or "cheating" is obvious. That Frontier have not changed[2] them in over seven years of this "debate" is also obvious.

[1] For clarity, I am posting my opinion as a forum user, a privilege that each forum user enjoys.
[2] The block feature has been strengthened over time.
 
a subset of the player-base still can't accept that PvP is an optional extra in this game and has been from the outset

no it's not. You guys will never understand this because you play the game as an astronomy screensaver with a chat attached.

exploring is pvp, explorers compete between them to put names on objects in the map.
BGS is pvp, players are expanding factions against other player factions.
Squadrons are pvp because many are competing against other squadrons for their name on the leaderboard for combat, trading, explo.
Powerplay is pvp because supporting players are pushing their power against others.

it's amazing how not even you guys understand these basic concepts.

and the game has not three modes but four...it's the only game that I've ever seen where you can go in open and block other players because that's approved gameplay.

keep the salt flowing, when it comes from mods it's even better.
 

Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
no it's not. You guys will never understand this because you play the game as an astronomy screensaver with a chat attached.

exploring is pvp, explorers compete between them to put names on objects in the map.
BGS is pvp, players are expanding factions against other player factions.
Squadrons are pvp because many are competing against other squadrons for their name on the leaderboard for combat, trading, explo.
Powerplay is pvp because supporting players are pushing their power against others.

it's amazing how not even you guys understand these basic concepts.

and the game has not three modes but four...it's the only game that I've ever seen where you can go in open and block other players because that's approved gameplay.

keep the salt flowing, when it comes from mods it's even better.
If all of these features are to be considered PvP then, at best, they are indirect, asynchronous PvP - as they do not require players to instance together to compete. They can otherwise be considered "playing the game" - the game that does not require any player to engage in PvP (if they don't want to).

There seems to be a contention, among some players, that those who eschew PvP are in some way not playing the whole game. Given that the whole game does not require PvP, I don't see their point.

I don't see any salt here from those content with the status quo....
 
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