FD should increase size of the team developing ED

[VR SenseiMatty]

Nope, you are wrong - in fact one very vocal KS backer stated that no one from 'those days' still plays

Seriously though, what you are describing is what FD released as part of their kickstarter campaign right - a list of thing they would like to do. Did they every state categorically that all those features would be in the game at release? I did a lot of large procurement activities when I was in the military (as in being part of Project Teams buying fleets of aircraft, talking Billions here, not Millions). One of the first things I was taught was the difference to a RFQ/RFT stating they shall do an activity and they would like to do an activity - the former can be held as a contractual element the latter can't. Basically too many people thought that the kickstart program was a legally binding entity instead of a request for donations.

I'm not talking about contracts nor kickstart nor contents available at release. I'm just talking about contents that people is waiting because they were announced (legally or not). So they are not coming from our own mind.

With X Rebirth they never talked about landing on planets in fact I've never expected that feature when I bought the game. Easy

 

[Sylveria]

X Rebirth...

X: you mean?

Sorry, I'm still a bit miffed over the fact they decided that you're restricted to flying one ship.

 

[Lily from anim.o.v.e]

Sure games such as Elite Dangerous doesn't needs game mechanics balancing... Multiroles ships can be the best at everything and not "Jack of all trades, master of none"... Dedicated ships are not supposed to be better at their specific role... Some activities can pay 10 times more than others activities...

sure it doesn't NEEDS balance, but then the devs can save themselves the time to put effort into dead content, because unbalanced (underpowered) stuff won't be used to a degree that justifies its implemention.

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

They weren't. Dates changed 1 month before launch of Horizons. Things change. Let it go.

No, facts must be correct. The release periods were announced and kept updated through all the year. They had delays in releasing the contents. I don't know the reason and I'm not blaming anyone. It's just a fact. This influenced a lot of people opinion though. And it was clear demonstration that the manpower was lower than the previous year.

There is difference expecting them and difference blasting developer for not releasing them soon enough or part of core game. I was addressing issue which people didn't really understand that FD didn't promise anything. They just indicated what might come in future. No surprise FD has since then avoided to hint ANYTHING, because people don't understand what words 'could' and 'might' and ohh 'some day' might mean.

One thing is saying it's wrong "blasting developer" another thing is saying that those features were born in people mind because FDEV never talked about that.

 

[Factabulous]

With X Rebirth they never talked about landing on planets in fact I've never expected that feature when I bought the game. Easy

In that case I would imagine that the X Rebirth devs talked to their publisher - probably promised more than was delivered, but this was not visible to you because you were not in the conversation.

ED didn't have a publisher giving the money, it had 'us' via a kickstarter. So those involved did see the goals of the project as unlike a traditional publisher/dev relationship this was out in the open.

All projects will have goals that get cut / postponed / reimagined, I'm quite surprised that people find this difficult to comprehend. Easy

 

[B1rdy]

Balancing is matter of perspective though. Developers and designers have their own goals and players have theirs. Players can say 'I won't do this mission' and not to do it and developers then have to think how to improve that. However our POV is always subjective, singular, why FD have their own data to evaluate how much let's say ship is used or missions are taken upon.

However, there is objective data, like the stats of ships or weapons, which can be balanced.

@Topic: We don't know for sure why ED is being developed as it is, therefore it is hard to judge what the best way to improve things. As other already mentioned, you could add a thousand more developers, but bad decisions would remain bad.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

No, facts must be correct. The release periods were announced and kept updated through all the year. They had delays in releasing the contents. I don't know the reason and I'm not blaming anyone. It's just a fact. This influenced a lot of people opinion though. And it was clear demonstration that the manpower was lower than the previous year.

Release periods were removed soon after (edit) Horizons launch. That's the fact. Now, people hanged upon release dates as 'evidence' of FD 'slowing down', but there are no evidence in first place. FD might be optimistic when they released dates. Then they decided they can't do that all on short notice. Things happen. Plans change.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

One thing is saying it's wrong "blasting developer" another thing is saying that those features were born in people mind because FDEV never talked about that.

They talked...minimally. FD has been trying to reign in wild expectations since KS launch.

 

[Lily from anim.o.v.e]

X: you mean?

Sorry, I'm still a bit miffed over the fact they decided that you're restricted to flying one ship.

The Universe in X felt so much more alive than in ED, also many comfortable things happened (like letting items get delivered for a tiny fee). But limiting it to a single and ontop FUGLY ship was really what killed my itnerets to keep going. And oh have I mentioned this superannoying co-pilot, DAMMIT
but X never promised the world, and just delivered a yard. FD however. They promised a dsolar system and yet delivered a potted plant. So they have a lot to do, especially in terms of player intereaction and impact with the games universe..

 

[amadeus1171]

The solution to your suggestion depends on the answer to the following question:

What's their motivation to add developers to ED?

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

If you connect the current output vs an assumed 100 strong team, i think increasing the team would be terrible as that would be going towards Star Citizen style ineffectiveness, and we know Frontier are better than that.

I actually suspect there's a core 'A-team' that exists in frontier and they go off and work on whatever project needs them the most, especially with the cobra engine connecting all of them. This actually makes sense from the employees standpoint too, as after so many years of course a change is welcome and even required.

But that leaves the problem of elite.. while speculating about frontier is sometimes interesting, the game itself and its patches are what we actually care about. Objectively, frontier have done less on elite in the last year than in the previous year. This really easy to prove without speculation by looking at the patch notes. Especially considering bug fixes and any ones currently noticed in the game. Its frontiers business how they run their shop, but its impossible not to throw a word out when frontier are doing less than their own benchmarks, and now with no mans sky proving that a more efficient 'multiplatform game as a service' sdlc does exist...

Its none of my business and im probably wrong in many of the above, but i still want to go 'yay team'. /moop.

 

[Canoe]

It's not the number of staff, it's the sheer inability of FD to not blurt out idiotic comments like "we don't want to waste your time" and then do everything but that. Or lest we forget, "Winter is coming" which it did, a year and a half later, and then with such a painfully underwhelming mess of broken missions and revoked features that it may as well not have come at all. If you're making something, great, just keep quiet about it and for love of all that's sane, make it coherent. The disjointed design decisions are infuriating, if key staff at Producer level can't control this, there's more of a problem than just "not enough people working on it."

Look at the responses to media that's put out by FD. Is it positive? Does it show good faith? We're long past the point of good will here. Put your cards on the table for Q4, FD. I'm not entirely sure you even know yourselves what you want Elite Dangerous to be.

 

[Mole HD]

It's not the number of staff, it's the sheer inability of FD to not blurt out idiotic comments like "we don't want to waste your time" and then do everything but that. Or lest we forget, "Winter is coming" which it did, a year and a half later, and then with such a painfully underwhelming mess of broken missions and revoked features that it may as well not have come at all. If you're making something, great, just keep quiet about it and for love of all that's sane, make it coherent. The disjointed design decisions are infuriating, if key staff at Producer level can't control this, there's more of a problem than just "not enough people working on it."

Look at the responses to media that's put out by FD. Is it positive? Does it show good faith? We're long past the point of good will here. Put your cards on the table for Q4, FD. I'm not entirely sure you even know yourselves what you want Elite Dangerous to be.

Amen. +1

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Edit: nevermind, please remove this.

 

[StuartGT]

During Horizons (released end 2015) they were supposed to release 3 DLC in less than a year (Spring, Summer, Fall 2016) with a 4th one not confirmed on the roadmap.
The 4 DLC's were released in 2 years.

No, they weren't. It was early numbers which got replaced quickly enough not to be relevant. So no, Horizons weren't "promised" to be released over the year.

I didn't say the complete Horizons, read again, I said the first 3 DLCs and those were clearly fixed in time. It's only 2.4 that was not defined:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/230362-NAMES-and-DATES-of-future-Horizons-major-patches

They weren't. Dates changed 1 month before launch of Horizons. Things change. Let it go.

SenseiMatty is correct that 3 of Horizons' 4 supplementary updates were slated for 2016 (2.1 Spring, 2.2 Summer, 2.3 Fall), and were still promoted as such in Mar 2016. Unfortunately as we know, both 2.2 and 2.3 release timeframes were pushed back somewhat (by 1 month and 4 months respectively), with 2.4 releasing 21 months after 2.0.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

SenseiMatty is correct that 3 of Horizons' 4 supplementary updates were slated for 2016 (2.1 Spring, 2.2 Summer, 2.3 Fall), and were still promoted as such in Mar 2016. Unfortunately as we know, both 2.2 and 2.3 release timeframes were pushed back somewhat (by 1 month and 4 months respectively), with 2.4 releasing 21 months after 2.0.

Yes, and that all changed for 2.1 release when it was changed. So quite soon after release. Why people insisted it had anything than change of planning I have no idea. As far as I remember only few ten thousand people were actually ordered Horizons at that point.

 

[StuartGT]

It's not the number of staff, it's the sheer inability of FD to not blurt out idiotic comments like "we don't want to waste your time" and then do everything but that. Or lest we forget, "Winter is coming" which it did, a year and a half later, and then with such a painfully underwhelming mess of broken missions and revoked features that it may as well not have come at all. If you're making something, great, just keep quiet about it and for love of all that's sane, make it coherent. The disjointed design decisions are infuriating, if key staff at Producer level can't control this, there's more of a problem than just "not enough people working on it."

Look at the responses to media that's put out by FD. Is it positive? Does it show good faith? We're long past the point of good will here. Put your cards on the table for Q4, FD. I'm not entirely sure you even know yourselves what you want Elite Dangerous to be.

No argument from me, well put.

 

[Factabulous]

It's not the number of staff, it's the sheer inability of FD to not blurt out idiotic comments like "we don't want to waste your time" and then do everything but that. Or lest we forget, "Winter is coming" which it did, a year and a half later, and then with such a painfully underwhelming mess of broken missions and revoked features that it may as well not have come at all. If you're making something, great, just keep quiet about it and for love of all that's sane, make it coherent. The disjointed design decisions are infuriating, if key staff at Producer level can't control this, there's more of a problem than just "not enough people working on it."

Look at the responses to media that's put out by FD. Is it positive? Does it show good faith? We're long past the point of good will here. Put your cards on the table for Q4, FD. I'm not entirely sure you even know yourselves what you want Elite Dangerous to be.

+1 - I'd rather discover what they've done in-game rather than every release just look at trailer & say "Ok, were looking for attacked settlements, guardians stuff in space, guardian SLF and a new ship". I know it freaks a lot of ppl out, but finding stuff in-game can actually be fun.

Fair enough if if's big stuff you want to make $$$ from - a DLC for spacelegs should mention them But for small releases like this one I'd be happier with a bug list followed with in-game hints.

Edit: Because one problem with pre-announcing everything is that it ends up like 3.1 - where everything was found within 2 days, and since then nothing. I can understand people being annoyed at slow progress as it all happens on one day - pacing FD, pacing.

 

[StuartGT]

They weren't. Dates changed 1 month before launch of Horizons. Things change. Let it go.

Yes, and that all changed for 2.1 release when it was changed. So quite soon after release.

Note that the above two comments contradict each other :S (that was the point of my comment, highlighting the error)

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Note that the above two comments contradict each other :S (that was the point of my comment, highlighting the error)

I was wrong first time, I admit. But dates were changed quite soon after launch of Horizons. My point being - it wasn't great deal, and it wasn't because FD team was called of for mysterious work somewhere else. As I have said before, Horizons had this core game focus because they saw people still insisted they need to get core gameplay improved. That's why we also got Beyond in first place.