News Elite Dangerous - 2.4 and beyond

[shadowwar]

Zac, thank you and the FDEV team. Fixing what is broken is a welcome change of pace. Making the core elements more interesting is a welcome offering for sure. You and everyone at Frontier can see what this very little offering of yours has generated a lot of interest from an "info starved" player base.

Instead of making us all wait why can't you share the road map for game play covering just 12 months of future releases? We don't expect timelines but it would be nice to know what is coming instead of treating us all like children and keeping it all a BIG secret.

Here's hoping for a brighter future????!!!!

 

[krylite]

Instead of making us all wait why can't you share the road map for game play covering just 12 months of future releases? We don't expect timelines but it would be nice to know what is coming instead of treating us all like children and keeping it all a BIG secret.

They can't say anything will be completed within 12 months. They have said previously that spacelegs are a "long way off", which could mean over a year or even several years but it was said it "will come" eventually. They also mentioned atmospheric planets are in the works but of course no definite dates. The 2.4 "secret" was stated to be mentioned at the upcoming E3. It's still a lot better than the continuously revised timelines of SC in the years past, or yt comments of a release in 2076.

 

[kofeyh]

To he honest, 2.4 was going to be a surprise, and that's what I thought it would be. Not a fix or qol thing.

Important, sure, but you don't use a full update for that, that was announced as a surprise.

No i think the surprise is that it's a stability and core gameplay fix as well as sneaky to-be-enabled-later stuff. No-one was expecting that at this point. I am surprised. I'd pretty much resigned myself to the notion "the next bling thing" model was going to continue at the same improbable pace it has done.

I am in a way hoping this has actually meant in fact that whilst a ton of work has been done, the wheels have essentially fallen off the wagon and the developer is realising the implicit value that is game stabilisation.

But people are being a little unfair. The unknown hyperdictions were virtually sprung on the community (as a pilot to test the waters, it wasn't half dramatic) and so if they have an update that's basically fixed and improvements, with other features added in the background and then enabled in a rolling fashion then - you know? - I am okay with that.

And it just makes sense to decouple fix/ improvements from new content. They've made kitchen sink updates lately and it's just too much to test, with to many variables thrown in. Flipping maintenance cycles and new content is (imho) a smart move.

People are howling but it's same people who howl about everything. And yet remain. And play. And whine about the experience. Endlessly.

We need stuff to work. We need more stuff to work more often when it is added. Content doesn't mean a darned thing if it doesn't work. Why? People leave. Don't spend. Frontier has a shrinking player base.

We have essentially had the last 3 2.x updates add a lot of functionality, most of it however is fundamentally broken to some degree. That just can't keep happening. It's not fair on us. And it's not something the developer can sustain without seriously bulking up the team numbers (which needs a sustainable community to fund).

Frontier, thank you. It's a hard pill to swallow. It's a start and I want to pass on my appreciation that you keep trying. It matters.

 

[Cosmo]

I think it's great that they'll focus on core features, but does this mean they're delaying landing on atmospheric planets, gas giants and space legs? Because that would be a pitty.

Wow, this game community is so desperate for any kind of communication from the devs It gets excited about the most patronising non news. Same old.

This is nothing more than hype building for PS4 launch. No substance.

Strap in to your seat and prepare for hype backlash.. Frontier does it to itself.

False. There's a lot of useful information if you read carefully. Some people can never be pleased though like you.

 

[ZinniaHondoram]

Quality of life.

My Quality of Life would go up immensely with some more Feminine Hairstyles. Like more cute pixie cuts or something else short but with bangs and more around the ears. Or even a side-swept cowlick. Please please!

 

[Willa Allason]

My Quality of Life would go up immensely with some more Feminine Hairstyles. Like more cute pixie cuts or something else short but with bangs and more around the ears. Or even a side-swept cowlick. Please please!

Seconded!

 

[Tel Prydain]

Same time it's about time that we're getting a narrative in the game story missions are not an option but an obligation !
[/QUOTE]

Oh, go suck an egg. Not only do they have no obligation to you, but story missions aren't something that should ever be in the game.

So please, pretty please, please with cherry on top - do not put your stupid booster nerf idea into this beta. You know what will happen - we anti-nerf people will sink it.

Entitled much? If I was in charge I'd go ahead and do it just to spite you, but in the long-run FDev's vision for the game trumps whatever random rubbish the community is championing.

This direction is precisely what so many of us have been screaming for, for literally a year and a half now. And as much as we all hoped it would actually happen, I really doubted you guys would seriously consider doing this!
...
I'm so glad that myself and my fellow critics stuck to our guns, refused to be silenced by the White Knights and their Apologist cousins and instead continued to hammer home the urgent need for just this kind of point update! [up]
...
I feel vindicated by a factor of 10!

Oh, please... this is the equivalent of a bloke with a megaphone standing outside a burning building where the firefighters were setting and yelling out that they should be putting out the fire. Then once they're ready and say, "Stand back, while we fight this fire", the megaphone guy declares victory because someone finally listened to him.

No white knight I saw ever said there were no issues or areas for improvement. What we did say is, "hold a sec while they work through the items they promised and people pre-paid for, then they can circle back around". Annnnnnd that's what happened.
That's not to say feedback is bad, or that we should remind them that we need to loop around and fix the stuff undone... just that there was no need for the poo-storm between 2.2 and now.

Glad to hear the news but any idea when we will get our space legs on ship & planet side ?

FDev got into this position by over-promising on Horizons... 2.0-2.3 each had a massive engine-changing, system altering component that meant they were struggling just to hit the goals they set themselves and left no time to go back and actually fix or polish the stuff they were throwing in the game. I want legs too - the windows on the 'conda, 'vette and Cutter make me want to run down those hallways and see what's there... but FDev need time to flesh out what's already there.
But don't worry! This latest update confirms what they've been saying over and over - this is just the start. There is a lot more to come.

The roadmap wasn't the problem, it was the addition of specific dates that caused the issues .

Maaaaaaaaaaybe? The dates, and the order, and the promises they were tied to place even when it became apparent that multicrew was far more of a challenge and taking up more dev time then intended.

Reading the OP I get this:
"Changes to things like C&C (aka C&P), PowerPlay, and other important stuff is coming Soon^TM"

Wish I hadn't heard that for the last two years

Is that what you heard? Because what I heard was:
"Yeah... yeah, we want to do that... but you see at the moment we're trying to sort out engineers, because they're touching every component and we have to add all this stuff to support them. Also, we're trying to figure out how SLF will work... they just don't at the moment. Should the AI be good? Bad? Are they too overpowered? We're looking at adding NPCs, but then we have to work out how that would look. And we have a team looking at multi-crew and at the moment it looks like having to rewrite half the networking and OH DEAR GOD WHAT HAVE WE DONE?!?!"

Clearly it's been a struggle to hit those big new features - now they're done they can finially loop back.
Check out the great post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/66a2at/an_attempt_at_perspective_from_a_newly_woke/

So, after a long period of silence we get... for 2.4, an announcement that there's going to be an announcement on 2.4 later this summer. But wait, for after s3 there will be an announcement that will be announced on the event that announces 2.4 which was announced now. Frontier are so meta.

Announcing an announcement is an irksome practice, but Fdev were in a bad position. The forums were on fire, but obviously they're going to use any new announcements to help promote Elite during the PS4 launch, while they have the games media's attention. As I said before - this is like launching the game for the first time, they have more visibility than they've ever had and they have one chance to push the game mainstream. Of course they won't be showing new stuff now and will be wanting to save 2.4 for the big show... why people think they'd be randomly blurting out news just before E3 is a mystery to me.

You're a small developer and you have to communicate better or else.

Or else...... what? The whinging people will leave? Sounds like a win to me.

 

[Brownshortz]

Wow........a very long OP that said absolutely nothing. Not sure why they bothered tbh.

 

[BL1P]

Faith Restored !!!
Reading the OP I think I had my first Nerdgasm.
Open beta, Core improvements and QOL improvements.
Yes indeed Faith Restored.

So I thought I would celebrate with a Song from Elites (original release year).
I had the Tshirt, sad but true

[video=youtube;h75mqUm0lIo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h75mqUm0lIo[/video]

 

[X-Terminator]

Same time it's about time that we're getting a narrative in the game story missions are not an option but an obligation !
[/QUOTE]

Oh, go suck an egg. Not only do they have no obligation to you, but story missions aren't something that should ever be in the game.



Entitled much? If I was in charge I'd go ahead and do it just to spite you, but in the long-run FDev's vision for the game trumps whatever random rubbish the community is championing.



Oh, please... this is the equivalent of a bloke with a megaphone standing outside a burning building where the firefighters were setting and yelling out that they should be putting out the fire. Then once they're ready and say, "Stand back, while we fight this fire", the megaphone guy declares victory because someone finally listened to him.

No white knight I saw ever said there were no issues or areas for improvement. What we did say is, "hold a sec while they work through the items they promised and people pre-paid for, then they can circle back around". Annnnnnd that's what happened.
That's not to say feedback is bad, or that we should remind them that we need to loop around and fix the stuff undone... just that there was no need for the poo-storm between 2.2 and now.



FDev got into this position by over-promising on Horizons... 2.0-2.3 each had a massive engine-changing, system altering component that meant they were struggling just to hit the goals they set themselves and left no time to go back and actually fix or polish the stuff they were throwing in the game. I want legs too - the windows on the 'conda, 'vette and Cutter make me want to run down those hallways and see what's there... but FDev need time to flesh out what's already there.
But don't worry! This latest update confirms what they've been saying over and over - this is just the start. There is a lot more to come.



Maaaaaaaaaaybe? The dates, and the order, and the promises they were tied to place even when it became apparent that multicrew was far more of a challenge and taking up more dev time then intended.



Is that what you heard? Because what I heard was:
"Yeah... yeah, we want to do that... but you see at the moment we're trying to sort out engineers, because they're touching every component and we have to add all this stuff to support them. Also, we're trying to figure out how SLF will work... they just don't at the moment. Should the AI be good? Bad? Are they too overpowered? We're looking at adding NPCs, but then we have to work out how that would look. And we have a team looking at multi-crew and at the moment it looks like having to rewrite half the networking and OH DEAR GOD WHAT HAVE WE DONE?!?!"

Clearly it's been a struggle to hit those big new features - now they're done they can finially loop back.
Check out the great post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/66a2at/an_attempt_at_perspective_from_a_newly_woke/



Announcing an announcement is an irksome practice, but Fdev were in a bad position. The forums were on fire, but obviously they're going to use any new announcements to help promote Elite during the PS4 launch, while they have the games media's attention. As I said before - this is like launching the game for the first time, they have more visibility than they've ever had and they have one chance to push the game mainstream. Of course they won't be showing new stuff now and will be wanting to save 2.4 for the big show... why people think they'd be randomly blurting out news just before E3 is a mystery to me.


Or else...... what? The whinging people will leave? Sounds like a win to me.

LOL!!!!!!

 

[Rafe Zetter]

That's correct.

Glad to see people positive about the news though!

Not read the rest of the thread posts (11 pages) but here's my reply.

Please don't let us down with another sub-par content release, I think you know this is your last chance to grab that rope.

(and why did it take so long for FDev to make a public comment on 2.4 and what it's focus is?)

 

[Rafe Zetter]

No white knight I saw ever said there were no issues or areas for improvement.

If I had the energy (and inclination) I'd bet I could find hundreds of white knight posts that basicially say "nothings wrong, you are all idiots and whiners, 10 year plan, it'll come SOON (tm) yadda yadda"

What we did say is, "hold a sec while they work through the items they promised and people pre-paid for, then they can circle back around". Annnnnnd that's what happened.

No it isn't, because there are still significant kickstarter items missing - we have currently less than 50% of them in the game right now. Now you might be able to suggest they are fixing this now and cracking on with the missing items after that, but to directly assume that they are circling back around as part of thier "plan" is total , because if that were true, from the moment the "poo-storm" started they would have put out a press release saying exactly that, but they didn't and it's been MONTHS since 2.2 and at least 2 weeks since the "we have lost faith" threads have been on the forums.

They didn't put out a "WOAH, hold on guys - we have this plan *shows plan* and it clearly states we are on track and 2.X will be this bit *points to plan*" which is exactly what CIG did with SC.

Fdev didn't "circle back around" out of any forward planning, they did it because WE MADE THEM - ED right now is at the Sh*t or bust stage.

That's not to say feedback is bad, or that we should remind them that we need to loop around and fix the stuff undone... just that there was no need for the poo-storm between 2.2 and now.

Really, because there was this *plan* FDev had all along that we could all see and because they have been so incredibly vocal about what the next part is..... right?

 

[RobotMan]

False

No, conjecture.

There's a lot of useful information if you read carefully.

Translation: leave for the reader to generate hype/expectation in place of actual info.

Some people can never be pleased though like you.

False. Proof: I am pleased with my Coffee right this moment.

 

[Rafe Zetter]

I have to say though Zac's ending:

"On behalf of the entire Elite Dangerous team, thank you for your continued support. We are very excited to embark on the next part of the journey together as we continue to make Elite Dangerous an even more fantastic game and experience for our incredible community of players. "

Was classy, because it's certainly not what I would have written it would have been more like " already we heard you ok? *mutters* bunch of sh*ts.... why don't you lot try making a game like this..... buttheads..."

 

[Terrator]

To he honest, 2.4 was going to be a surprise, and that's what I thought it would be. Not a fix or qol thing.

Important, sure, but you don't use a full update for that, that was announced as a surprise.

Is he referring to the fix of core gameplay or is he just sure thargoids come? I think its the first, so pls bro read the news again...

 

[gazelle]

According to reddit:

Spoiler

[video=youtube;8iwBM_YB1sE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iwBM_YB1sE[/video]

 

[Tel Prydain]

If I had the energy (and inclination) I'd bet I could find hundreds of white knight posts that basicially say "nothings wrong, you are all idiots and whiners, 10 year plan, it'll come SOON (tm) yadda yadda"

Cool. Okay, and when will it be done?
*Refers to first post*
Oh, right... soon. First thing after the completion of Horizons, in fact.

Did you have a point other than we were right?

No it isn't, because there are still significant kickstarter items missing - we have currently less than 50% of them in the game right now.

There's a lot to unpack here, but there needs to be a clear line drawn between the plans, ideas and goals laid out in the kickstarter (things that were goals rather than promises, and things that would be done as part of a 10-year plan) - and the very specific items laid out in the Horizons season pass, where payment was accepted for specific, promised features. The horizons pass wasn't a best-efforts guess at what they might be able to do if they got funding, posted on a crowd-funding site, backed by 'pledges'. It was a specific product that sold specific features.
It's important to bear that difference in mind when discussing the past two years. This wasn't a situation where they could go, "Well, that's not working - let's put that aside and do something else". No matter what you think you were doing on Kickstarter - you were backing a project, not buying a product.

Now you might be able to suggest they are fixing this now and cracking on with the missing items after that, but to directly assume that they are circling back around as part of thier "plan" is total , because if that were true, from the moment the "poo-storm" started they would have put out a press release saying exactly that, but they didn't and it's been MONTHS since 2.2 and at least 2 weeks since the "we have lost faith" threads have been on the forums.

This comes back to what I was talking about above - since 2.0 they've had their hands tied in terms of what they could do.
It doesn't matter what was best for the game, or what they wanted to be doing. Since 2.0 they've been bound by the requirement to fulfill the Horizons road-map.
If you look at the 2.0, 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3 updates, a few things become clear... first, that they were doing their best to try and clean things up as they went, but struggled to do that while implementing the Horizons features. And secondly, that multi-crew took a lot more effort to implement than planned.

But again, they've been tied to the Horizons plan.

They didn't put out a "WOAH, hold on guys - we have this plan *shows plan* and it clearly states we are on track and 2.X will be this bit *points to plan*" which is exactly what CIG did with SC.

That's because the last time they did that it ended up forcing their hand for the next two years. They are only just now able to start looking beyond that and start reassessing what needs to be done.
And you know roughly what's on the big list. They talk about it constantly... but as for specific timeframes, that they can sort out without the pressure

Also, as a SC backer - that dumpster fire is a whole different matter. CIG have the luxury of doing whatever they want... they don't have an active game to screw up and didn't sell a specific feature list as DLC, so if they need to juggle their roadmap, they can.

Fdev didn't "circle back around" out of any forward planning, they did it because WE MADE THEM - ED right now is at the Sh*t or bust stage.

Oh, go suck an apple. The very moment they were able to escape the chains of the Horizon's plan, they went right back and are starting to revisit the stuff that's broken. You didn't do bupkis that they weren't already doing.

They didn't cancel 3.1: Space Bunnies in order to fix up core gameplay - they worked through and completed all of Horizons, just like they said they would, and then went back.

Really, because there was this *plan* FDev had all along that we could all see and because they have been so incredibly vocal about what the next part is..... right?

Yeah - talking about the plan has worked out soooooooooooo well for them so far....

 

[Tel Prydain]

(and why did it take so long for FDev to make a public comment on 2.4 and what it's focus is?)

Because they already told us? There is zero here about 2.4 that we didn't know.
[video=youtube;PEQTj8dTOC0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEQTj8dTOC0[/video]

 

[Sole Hunter]

if only these post were more frequent.

 

[Arindor]

Our awesome dev team are dedicated to continuing to build and improve the Elite Dangerous experience with an exciting long term vision in mind. We’re happy to be able to confirm that the next major updates following 2.4 will focus on core gameplay, existing features, quality of life and other improvements! We’re delighted to be investing a considerable amount of development and effort into making the core gameplay experience even better for our fantastic community or players.

You mean more pewpewpew, rubbish like PP and RNGineers, don't you?

Remember the hype about that? Remember what we got? Don't get too excited yet folks. I've been on this hype train before, and it ended up in borkedville. Just lower your expectations and hope to be pleasantly surprised.