Frontier's Player Retention Strategy

[VR CMDR Novindus]

I mean FD not motivating the community to have a healthy and active participation in the desired end goal. A goal that could be made far better by trusting their paying customers with that information using the miilions of hours of knowledge and experience we have accumulated over the last 5 years.

What form do you expect this participation to take if Frontier divulges all its current plans, whether confirmed or fluid?

Given that the basis of their development plans will invariably include what they've gathered from user feedback and suggestions so far, is the expectation that they will pause said plans pending a review and tally of player reaction to the announced changes? Is it design by committee you're leaning towards, and how would you expect any schedule to be kept if proposals had to be submitted to the community before being actioned?

Can the community as a whole be expected to participate in a healthy way, or are the usual heavy doses of toxicity to be expected?

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

Has elite ever had a player retention strategy?

Just going back to my own experiences starting, elite has so little in terms of in game directed narrative, so much so that i had to reason in the first few weeks that content wasn't the point. This lead to finding the 'simulator sandbox' appeal. So would it be that this was and always will be the player retention strategy?

Perhaps its interesting for the non simulator crowd who keep playing what exactly keeps them going. Maybe reddit and livestreams and internet community is the bulk of the game. Would explain why all the progression systems are commonly picked on.. without the lack of connection to anything in game (optional sandbox things) they just appear as something in the way of doing whatever everyone else has found and is hyping on. Explains the more than common swooning for DW2 (also note that in a thread on the forums there were more simulator players who went, 'huh im not going').

Simulator players are covered. But for everyone else, i feel like saying that theres's never been anything substantial anyway. Its more thin air and flashes of inspiration that have been fuelling everyone else.

I think the most excited i remember *everyone* being was the thargoid launch drops. Specifically where we all thought that was going to go.. and think about what actually happened. Yeah they care about retention. They even had the gall to wink at us and claim the broker unlocks were going to be the 'personal narrative' of our dreams.. but maybe that's another topic.

EDIT: Some summary points to think about:

- Is it objectively possible for elite in its current form to retain mainstream non simulator players? Is expecting it even a false idol... without features directly aimed at doing so. Single player campaign etc.
- In every other current game, especially gasses, what literally retains players is fresh content in the moment, and the expectation for future content.
- Frontiers marketing has never been willing to let go of the mainstream crowd and align to the true nature of elite. The biggest telling is the very first thing a new player would see about it on steam. That marketing trailer is so far off the actual game its offensively misrepresentative. But its still there and huge statement of this. If you think about the community management it seems to just forget the nature of elite is very much a sandbox.
- Simulator sandbox players have been "retained" from day one and nothing fundamental has changed. If anything, all the features added have created exclusively to this crowd.. which and interesting contradiction to elites seeming majority which sound like the 'gameplay' group.
- Maybe frontier thinks its going to convert people. Possible, sure, but not likely successful if you look at reddit.

 

[Whitehair]

Either could be considered a mistake on the basis that the community is upset by them,

It is a given that (at least some parts of) "the community" will be upset.

The question then is 'How does FD as a company wish to handle their PR and marketing'. The answer looks like it is to ignore the snowflakes who will inevitably complain and follow their proven strategy.

 

[Sylow]

What this thread really shows is not where FD is doing bad, but where the community fails. Badly.

I mean i get it: when i read the "late in 2020" info, it also felt like that's so far off, how can i wait and how can they do that?
But then i realized: They do exactly what we told them to do!

I mean, let's look back:

• The base game was done with enough time at hand and turned out quite well.
• Then after release, they came up with their scheduled releases. While they were on time, quality was sacrificed. And that's not just speculation. Many people complained about Engineers, that the implementation is so different to what FD first described it to be. Under that pressure Michael Brookes actually admitted that they first were pursuing a completely different concept, but they found out that they could not do that on the given timeline. Thus they (rather late in development) switched to what we got. It smells like makeshift because that's exactly what is is.
• Under the impression of several expansions, which were hurled out of the doorway, with quality being sacrificed, the community demanded a switch on development. The topic was the rage on the forums for a while.
• Under the massive pressure from the forums FD did a poll on the future of ED. If i remember correctly, it was not just on the forum, but it was the one voting for which an e-mail was sent to all users. So really everybody who already played at that time had a chance to vote. And a massive majority voted that they prefer slower releases, in favour of getting quality again. [And many people in this thread have a forum account old enough so they were around for that voting. ]
• In response FD delayed the release cycle and went to fix some things. Sure they are not as good as they could've been if they would've been given time before delivering it, but still: they could've continued their faster release cycle. We'd already have the second paid expansion by now and would be looking forward to the third. The quality would again be below expectations, we'd complain about it, but FD would've made money from selling more expansions.

Instead they listened to what we wanted: they slowed down. They take their time to do things right. For us, the price is some patience. For FD, they give up actual potential income. So yes, they on short to mid term could make more money by doing quicker deliveries.

How long ED would still survive delivering several low quality expansions and thus would make money at all is another question. So i think that on long term they are doing the right thing. ED needs some quality expansion, even if the community thus has to survive a stretch of just small upgrades.

But really, what amuses me is this: some of the people who now loudly state that FD is doing wrong at earlier times also were among those who demanded more quality. They are around for long enough to have participarted in the mentioned voting. Where according to the numbers, they almost certainly voted for slowing down the development cycle, to get better quality. FD did listen to you. Please now try to remember that it's us who asked for it.

I know it's hard. My gut reaction to the time estimate was also not that great. But i know that i was one of the many people who demanded FD to focus more on quality. All of us who formerly did that should be honest enough and accept that FD is doing what we asked for. We should be happy that they do so, instead of now blaming them for it.

 

[sollisb]

It is a given that (at least some parts of) "the community" will be upset.

The question then is 'How does FD as a company wish to handle their PR and marketing'. The answer looks like it is to ignore the snowflakes who will inevitably complain and follow their proven strategy.

He played the 'snowflake' card. lulz

 

[babelfisch]

He played the 'snowflake' card. lulz

It trumps the white knight card.

 

[StuartGT]

I do like my free snowflake bobblehead

 

[Ddraig]

You make some good points. With the expectation around a consistent marketing campaign and good communication, does that necessitate that all details about a planned release should be provided with the announcement of that release, or is it an acceptable scenario that some span of time is between the two, depending on solidification of the development items pertaining to the release? I ask that because sometimes some consistency may have to be sacrificed for better communication, and vice versa.

That is what I want. Not sure if that is what it needs to be.
I suppose there is a middle ground where they can tease us with things to come, without going full spoiler alert.
My central point, that Frontier must not allow for people to forget about Elite while they spend their 18+ months of development.

 

[babelfisch]

That is what I want. Not sure if that is what it needs to be.
I suppose there is a middle ground where they can tease us with things to come, without going full spoiler alert.
My central point, that Frontier must not allow for people to forget about Elite while they spend their 18+ months of development.

I doubt that's going to happen. First, because of the regular updates, and second, because it's very likely there will be more announcements and details as we are heading towards 2020.

 

[Ddraig]

I doubt that's going to happen. First, because of the regular updates, and second, because it's very likely there will be more announcements and details as we are heading towards 2020.

Optimism is a good thing to have.

 

[Sepp]

See, that's my biggest disappointment for Beyond.

It's like (with exploration in particular) they gave us a bunch of tools but forgot to include anything to really do with them.

The FSS just means it takes longer to do some of the stuff you could already do while also negating the gameplay required to investigate specific planets and there's some extra stuff floating around in space which, presumably, you'd still have been able to find using the old disco-scanner.
The new DSS gets a pass here cos it does actually provide a new way to find surface POIs... which were already there.

FDev seem to have a habit of creating "stuff" rather than creating "gameplay".
It's all things that you can see/do once and then tick it off a list.
They seem to struggle to create things that players might have a reason to do and then keep on doing.

So much this! When the FSS dropped, I stopped playing because I really didn't like it. I hoped the hiatus would make the game more appealing when I came back. I have to say, it has so far failed to engage me on the couple times I've opened it up, which is a pity. I'm a Founder and have been in pretty much from the get-go, so I'll give it a longer break and at least one more go before the Next Big Thing happens. If it's no better then, I'm done.

 

[babelfisch]

Optimism is a good thing to have.

It's even better when you don't have unrealistic expectations.