I'm tired of yelling against a brick wall so I'm going to try and reach my hand out in the hopes that someone will grab it. I'm tired of all the yelling on the forums. Feedback, that's what we need right now. We need to start giving actual feedback and Frontier needs to start actualy listening. Shouting at a brick wall will not help anyone. But right now it's up to the community managers to start managing us and it's up to us, the community, to actualy give constructive feedback instead of angry yelling. They need to start supporting it. If someone gives feedback they should at least reply to it so that we know they are listening. That being said, here is some feedback on how communication is handled for the last few days and what I would like to see changed.
-We are being told that Frontier is listening to us and reading our suggestions, frustrations, etc. but we don't actualy see anything of that.
In every livestream we are being told that Frontier is reading the forums, reddit, Twitter, ... and I do believe you are doing those things but we are not noticing any of it. I have been following the forums for a while now and I barily see any activity from community managers besides on posts about updates and very rarly on a random post. If you say you are listening then show it. If we don't actualy see it then ofcourse we feel like we are talking to a brick wall.
Leaving a like on some posts, leaving a reply, ... even if it's just one word like "noted", "read" or "seen". That are ways you show us "look we are here and we are seeing it". The same goes for you telling us that you care about all of this. Then show it. A commander is leaving? Let them know you care, ask him if he can give feedback and tell him "o7". A VR player sad because there isn't any plan for VR yet? Apologise to him, tell him you are sorry it wasn't what they expected. This way your words will be congruent with your actions. Like Watzlawick says: One cannot not communicate. If you say you are watching and caring but you won't show it, then some of us will get mad. Simply because you are not communicating that message with us. People say you don't care because they don't see it. Show us.
And yes this takes time and money. Someone has to be paid to do that. But how things are currently going I think you should think about how things are currently going and how you want things to go.
-The future of Elite Dangerous.
Right now me and many other commanders are very insecure about the future of Elite Dangerous. Now this is a big issue. I have been watching the playercount for Elite Dangerous for a few weeks now.
As you can see, everyday there is a peak of players. Yesterday this peak dropped below the avarage peak that Elite Dangerous had before the release of Odyssey in Horizons. This worries me. And not only that. In six months, when the console version releases, you will merge Horizons and Odyssey together, making us unable to play Horizons. Currently Odyssey has a big amount of bugs, performance issues, lighting issues, etc. There have been 4 updates now and in the roadmap you told us you will focus on performance after update 5. This makes me worried because I have no idea if I will be able to smoothly play Elite Dangerous after the merge the same way I was able to play it now, before the merge. I don't know if my laptop can handle that merge. This gives me the impression that I will be forced to play a new version of Elite Dangerous that may or may not work. This leads to me not being sure about the future of Elite Dangerous and discourages me from playing the game right now. I have not seen any news, updates, posts or replies about this topic. Yet it makes many commanders worry and disencourages many to further play the game. This is a very important issue that should be adressed and I hope from the bottom of my heart that you will listen to this and give us an answer on this topic.
How can this be solved? First of all, I don't know if the game will be running as smooth as Horizons is running now for me and I think you don't know that either. Communication about these sorts of topics are very important to the community. My suggestion is to think about merging the game if Odyssey is still broken and communicate your statement about that. I urge you to not merge the 2 versions if Odyssey does not run as smooth as Horizons. And more important to be very honest and open about this matter to us. This is about the future of Elite Dangerous, encouraging players and keeping the game enjoyable.
-Not answering the big questions, or at least not in the right way.
This point comes down again on not enough communication. I find it very weird that you have only recently announced no plans for VR support yet. Many players bought Elite Dangerous Horizons for VR and spend a lot of money on equipment to play Elite Dangerous in VR. I find it very strange something this important has only been annoucned clearly so recently. On a sidenote about that topic, the base game of Elite Dangerous is still tagged to support VR even tho that support will be dropped soon. People are still buying Elite Dangerous and VR equipment to play Elite Dangerous in VR. Since VR support will not be worked on and since there are no plans on it, that should not be advertised. People will be let down if you don't and will feel cheated on. I suggest to remove that tag on steam.
Back on topic, you are not replying the right way to threads. No, I am not talking about giving us answers that we want to hear or do things we want to see. Important questions are ignored during the stream and on the forums. For example, and I haven't been following that topic very much but still, switching to different controls in VR, keybinds disappearing, droprates on opinion polls, etc. I know you are looking in to those things but again, communicate it more clearly. As soon as you decide to increase drop rates or increase invertory tell us. Reply to those people asking that. If you do people will not start spamming about it or getting angry because of it. If you reply we have an answer and that topic can rest in our heads. You answer these kind of questions with statements that you are looking in to it but what we actualy want to hear is what options you are thinking about to change it. When you will discuss those topics internaly. Specific details on how you will work things out.
You are the makers of a game we love, but you are also a company. Players buying games, ARX, other items in other Frontier games, merch, ... those are your costumers. Make us like your products, tell us more so we don't lose hope. So we can trust the company again. Open communication, it makes such a huge difference. Yes again, all these things cost money and you need to maybe hire more people to meet those demands. But like I said, you are a company and companies sometimes need to invest. Invest in your costumers. If you do you will win us back. You have to spend money to create money.
-Remember where this anger comes from, we are angry because we care.
Most people on the forum are angry because they love Elite Dangerous. If we wouldn't care for you or your product we would simpely leave and maybe leave a bad review. However we care and there is nothing we can do about that. We want to play the game, we want to trust you and we want to have faith in you. Unfortunatly a lot of players are losing that and are stopping to care. You can see that in the playercount on Steam and on the Forums. Makes us care again.
-Last thing, the current state of the community and how it's been handled.
I think you can't deny that the forums are burning and the players are angry. However if nothing is done against that, that will stay. We need to work together to imporve things instead of tearing it down. The anger, rage, disappointment and yelling against a brick wall needs to stop and be replaced with constructive feedback. I am prepared to do that and I know you can make other players do the same. But you have to start managing the community. I am reaching out and offering you my hand today, it's up to you to take it.
-We are being told that Frontier is listening to us and reading our suggestions, frustrations, etc. but we don't actualy see anything of that.
In every livestream we are being told that Frontier is reading the forums, reddit, Twitter, ... and I do believe you are doing those things but we are not noticing any of it. I have been following the forums for a while now and I barily see any activity from community managers besides on posts about updates and very rarly on a random post. If you say you are listening then show it. If we don't actualy see it then ofcourse we feel like we are talking to a brick wall.
Leaving a like on some posts, leaving a reply, ... even if it's just one word like "noted", "read" or "seen". That are ways you show us "look we are here and we are seeing it". The same goes for you telling us that you care about all of this. Then show it. A commander is leaving? Let them know you care, ask him if he can give feedback and tell him "o7". A VR player sad because there isn't any plan for VR yet? Apologise to him, tell him you are sorry it wasn't what they expected. This way your words will be congruent with your actions. Like Watzlawick says: One cannot not communicate. If you say you are watching and caring but you won't show it, then some of us will get mad. Simply because you are not communicating that message with us. People say you don't care because they don't see it. Show us.
And yes this takes time and money. Someone has to be paid to do that. But how things are currently going I think you should think about how things are currently going and how you want things to go.
-The future of Elite Dangerous.
Right now me and many other commanders are very insecure about the future of Elite Dangerous. Now this is a big issue. I have been watching the playercount for Elite Dangerous for a few weeks now.
As you can see, everyday there is a peak of players. Yesterday this peak dropped below the avarage peak that Elite Dangerous had before the release of Odyssey in Horizons. This worries me. And not only that. In six months, when the console version releases, you will merge Horizons and Odyssey together, making us unable to play Horizons. Currently Odyssey has a big amount of bugs, performance issues, lighting issues, etc. There have been 4 updates now and in the roadmap you told us you will focus on performance after update 5. This makes me worried because I have no idea if I will be able to smoothly play Elite Dangerous after the merge the same way I was able to play it now, before the merge. I don't know if my laptop can handle that merge. This gives me the impression that I will be forced to play a new version of Elite Dangerous that may or may not work. This leads to me not being sure about the future of Elite Dangerous and discourages me from playing the game right now. I have not seen any news, updates, posts or replies about this topic. Yet it makes many commanders worry and disencourages many to further play the game. This is a very important issue that should be adressed and I hope from the bottom of my heart that you will listen to this and give us an answer on this topic.
How can this be solved? First of all, I don't know if the game will be running as smooth as Horizons is running now for me and I think you don't know that either. Communication about these sorts of topics are very important to the community. My suggestion is to think about merging the game if Odyssey is still broken and communicate your statement about that. I urge you to not merge the 2 versions if Odyssey does not run as smooth as Horizons. And more important to be very honest and open about this matter to us. This is about the future of Elite Dangerous, encouraging players and keeping the game enjoyable.
-Not answering the big questions, or at least not in the right way.
This point comes down again on not enough communication. I find it very weird that you have only recently announced no plans for VR support yet. Many players bought Elite Dangerous Horizons for VR and spend a lot of money on equipment to play Elite Dangerous in VR. I find it very strange something this important has only been annoucned clearly so recently. On a sidenote about that topic, the base game of Elite Dangerous is still tagged to support VR even tho that support will be dropped soon. People are still buying Elite Dangerous and VR equipment to play Elite Dangerous in VR. Since VR support will not be worked on and since there are no plans on it, that should not be advertised. People will be let down if you don't and will feel cheated on. I suggest to remove that tag on steam.
Back on topic, you are not replying the right way to threads. No, I am not talking about giving us answers that we want to hear or do things we want to see. Important questions are ignored during the stream and on the forums. For example, and I haven't been following that topic very much but still, switching to different controls in VR, keybinds disappearing, droprates on opinion polls, etc. I know you are looking in to those things but again, communicate it more clearly. As soon as you decide to increase drop rates or increase invertory tell us. Reply to those people asking that. If you do people will not start spamming about it or getting angry because of it. If you reply we have an answer and that topic can rest in our heads. You answer these kind of questions with statements that you are looking in to it but what we actualy want to hear is what options you are thinking about to change it. When you will discuss those topics internaly. Specific details on how you will work things out.
You are the makers of a game we love, but you are also a company. Players buying games, ARX, other items in other Frontier games, merch, ... those are your costumers. Make us like your products, tell us more so we don't lose hope. So we can trust the company again. Open communication, it makes such a huge difference. Yes again, all these things cost money and you need to maybe hire more people to meet those demands. But like I said, you are a company and companies sometimes need to invest. Invest in your costumers. If you do you will win us back. You have to spend money to create money.
-Remember where this anger comes from, we are angry because we care.
Most people on the forum are angry because they love Elite Dangerous. If we wouldn't care for you or your product we would simpely leave and maybe leave a bad review. However we care and there is nothing we can do about that. We want to play the game, we want to trust you and we want to have faith in you. Unfortunatly a lot of players are losing that and are stopping to care. You can see that in the playercount on Steam and on the Forums. Makes us care again.
-Last thing, the current state of the community and how it's been handled.
I think you can't deny that the forums are burning and the players are angry. However if nothing is done against that, that will stay. We need to work together to imporve things instead of tearing it down. The anger, rage, disappointment and yelling against a brick wall needs to stop and be replaced with constructive feedback. I am prepared to do that and I know you can make other players do the same. But you have to start managing the community. I am reaching out and offering you my hand today, it's up to you to take it.
