Frontier's target audience (for Elite)

BRUNN · Aug 27, 2018

Based on the company's actions, I defined Frontier's target audience (for Elite):
- Played the 1984 Elite, Elite II or Elite 3.
- 40 years +
- Want a difficult game to learn (lots of hidden information)
- But easy to play (no challenges)
- Retired (or almost) [EDIT] is a joke [noob] [/EDIT]

Who isn't the target audience:
- Casual Players
- Players looking for fun
- Competitive players
- Players who want a space MMO open world
- Players seeking interaction (friendly, neutral or hostile)
- Players looking for progressive challenges

My friends in the first group are satisfied with the game.

The friends in the second group are whining.

Based on this, my suggestion is simple:

Focus on what majority players want (second group).

To confirm (or not) my theory, could you inform your age?

Disclaimer: it's an opinion

Strangepork · Aug 27, 2018

BRUNN said:
Based on the company's actions, I defined Frontier's target audience (for Elite):
- Played the 1984 Elite, Elite II or Elite 3.
- 45 years +
- Want a difficult game to learn (lots of hidden information)
- But easy to play (no challenges)
- Retired (or almost)

Who isn't the target audience:
- Casual Players
- Players looking for fun
- Competitive players
- Players who want a space MMO open world
- Players seeking interaction (friendly, neutral or hostile)
- Players looking for progressive challenges

My friends in the first group are satisfied with the game.

The friends in the second group are whining.

Based on this, my suggestion is simple:

Focus on what majority players want (second group).

Attention: Focus on the players! Not the majority of participants since forum (It's dominated by players of the first group).

The living?

Speedcuffs · Aug 27, 2018

They focus on the majority of the forum?

Hellfire85 · Aug 27, 2018

Please no, don't make the game cater to casual players... that would make everything too easy, too arcadish, and PvP would become even more unbalanced than it already is... now at least your skill can overcome an enemy, if you start dragging casuals into it, everything will become ez win and dedicated combat pilots will be overrun by meaningless grunts with super-god Cutters or C-logging cry babies....

Dean Demon · Aug 28, 2018

Oh please not another one of these ageist rants, maybe instead of complaining that the game is too hard for you or that you can't use your brain or imagination that maybe you should learn to play a game as intended rather being the modern type of gamer that thinks a game should hand everything to you for no effort at all so if you are used to getting your own way by getting your credit card out to buy ingame currency to take shortcuts to make yourself feel so self entitled. Frontier should be praised for the work they have done in keeping the ELITE name alive, games such as ELITE were based on you the gamer learning and adapting which seems totally lost on today's gamers so i for one am proud to have been here since the very beginning.

To answer your question OP i'm 48 and far from being retired !!

Flimley · Aug 28, 2018

We can only blame global warming for such threads.

Flimley

Marc_Hicks · Aug 28, 2018

Dean Demon said:
Oh please not another one of these ageist rants, maybe instead of complaining that the game is too hard for you or that you can't use your brain or imagination that maybe you should learn to play a game as intended rather being the modern type of gamer that thinks a game should hand everything to you for no effort at all so if you are used to getting your own way by getting your credit card out to buy ingame currency to take shortcuts to make yourself feel so self entitled. Frontier should be praised for the work they have done in keeping the ELITE name alive, games such as ELITE were based on you the gamer learning and adapting which seems totally lost on today's gamers so i for one am proud to have been here since the very beginning.

To answer your question OP i'm 48 and far from being retired !!

Yep, I'm 45.....so also far from retired. I play this game far less than I used to in no small part because the game is currently too easy. Anarchy Systems feel no different to Hi-Sec Systems, Systems in War, Outbreak & Famine States feel no more dangerous than regular systems, missions require far too little skill to complete & money is far, far too easy to come by.

Also, contrary to the OP's comments, I suspect greater game difficulty might actually *attract* more casual players.......not drive them away.

BRUNN · Aug 28, 2018

Marc_Hicks said:
Yep, I'm 45.....so also far from retired. I play this game far less than I used to in no small part because the game is currently too easy. Anarchy Systems feel no different to Hi-Sec Systems, Systems in War, Outbreak & Famine States feel no more dangerous than regular systems, missions require far too little skill to complete & money is far, far too easy to come by.

Also, contrary to the OP's comments, I suspect greater game difficulty might actually *attract* more casual players.......not drive them away.

About retired players... was a joke because of Time Wall

Marc_Hicks · Aug 28, 2018

BRUNN said:
About retired players... was a joke because of Time Wall

There really is no time wall. I have more money than I know what to do with, & I only ever played 1 hour per day, maximum.

Wendake · Aug 28, 2018

BRUNN said:
Based on the company's actions, I defined Frontier's target audience (for Elite):
- Played the 1984 Elite, Elite II or Elite 3.
- 40 years +
- Want a difficult game to learn (lots of hidden information)
- But easy to play (no challenges)
- Retired (or almost) [EDIT] is a joke [noob] [/EDIT]

Who isn't the target audience:
- Casual Players
- Players looking for fun
- Competitive players
- Players who want a space MMO open world
- Players seeking interaction (friendly, neutral or hostile)
- Players looking for progressive challenges

My friends in the first group are satisfied with the game.

The friends in the second group are whining.

Based on this, my suggestion is simple:

Focus on what majority players want (second group).

To confirm (or not) my theory, could you inform your age?

Disclaimer: it's an opinion

I'm a casual player of 31 years old having fun. Didn't play the older Elite's games, I'm far from retired, I'm competitive and I wanted a difficult / challenging game

Syrelai · Aug 28, 2018

The problem with your idea is that if you let the majority dictate how your game works, it can never get better. Sometimes hard decisions have to be made development wise, and appealing to the masses is like signing up for a firecracker burn, instead of a nice, long slow burn that stays relatively satisfying most of the way through. I've seen both sides of the spectrum here, and I'm thankful frontier hasn't catered to most of the masses. There are problems to be sure, but it's not nearly as negative as it would seem from your "second group".

For your theory I'm a "casual" gamer who look for fun, competition, spacey multiplayer, interactive game that can be quite challenging. I'm also late 20's. And majority of my friends are too.

MK Regular · Aug 28, 2018

Technically, I would probably be part of a younger version of the first group that has some traits mixed in from the second group.

I like the learning curve
I enjoy some of the more challenging aspects of the game
I like the option for me to be able to make the game as easy or hard as I want
I like that I have the option to be able to interact with other players as much as want or don't want to
Essentially, I like that I can do whatever I want and generally not have to worry about anything else. I like the freedom.

That said, I would probably consider myself a casual ED player. Also, I would welcome a change that made ED more challenging. I'm with Marc on this one. Anarchy, famine, war, and outbreak systems don't feel any more dangerous than any other system in the game. Credits are fairly easy to come by, given that some of the most profitable activities in the game have very little in the way of risk. Sure you might get interdicted by a dangerous/deadly/elite 'Conda while running a wing source mission, but that isn't really a problem if you know how to high-wake or have a ship that has a half decent combat fit.

I really want to recommend ED to my friends so I can play with them, but in it's current state ED seems needlessly complex while not being sufficiently challenging OR rewarding. While I like playing ED, I can't really recommend it to my friends. I can mention it, but when I do so I feel compelled to mention these aspects of the game.

As for your theory, it doesn't really work. The mistake you made was trying to classify the entire ED playerbase into 2 groups. This is almost impossible to do without some kind of overlap. As such, just about every attempt to separate a population into 2 groups will not work since people are NEVER completely this nor that.

Ian Doncaster · Aug 28, 2018

BRUNN said:
Based on the company's actions, I defined Frontier's target audience (for Elite):
- Played the 1984 Elite, Elite II or Elite 3.
- 40 years +
- Want a difficult game to learn (lots of hidden information)
- But easy to play (no challenges)
- Retired (or almost) [EDIT] is a joke [noob] [/EDIT]

I think this is a pretty good description of their *original* target audience (minus the "easy to play" bit) based on the DDF documents they put out and the feedback they got on them. A lot of that was basically "multiplayer FFE", which was what most of the original backers wanted. And an 'r'-shaped learning curve which is challenging until you figure it out and then very straightforward is basically common to the entire Elite series.

If you read through some of the DDF docs I think "easy to play" is not on the list, though - a lot of the things originally stated in there (and praised by the DDF players) would have been a lot tougher and slower than ever actually got released.

Since then I think they've been branching out a lot more to try to provide "something for everyone" - and certainly trying to support the multiplayer side of the game a bit more - while not losing the "Elite series" baseline. Very tricky thing to balance... and I get the impression that by the time they'd figured out what the multiplayer side might need, the Horizons roadmap was already locked-in.

Squadrons is definitely a step in that direction ... but it's what they announce for season 4 I'm more interested in - a lot of ways that could go.

(I'm not 40+ yet, for what that's worth)

Winterwalker · Aug 28, 2018

I concur wholeheartedly, of my own free will and without prevarication!

ps. I'm 9.

Alec Turner · Aug 28, 2018

I'm 50+, the things that apply to me are ...

- Played the 1984 Elite, Elite II or Elite 3.
- 40 years +
- Want a difficult game to learn (lots of hidden information)
- Competitive players
- Players who want a space MMO open world
- Players seeking interaction (friendly, neutral or hostile)
- Players looking for fun

The things that apply less to me are ...

- But easy to play (no challenges)
- Retired (or almost) [EDIT] is a joke [noob] [/EDIT]
- Casual Players
- Players looking for progressive challenges

I'm more or less entirely satisfied with the game.

Correlation with your theory seems weak.

Flimley · Aug 28, 2018

I am Flimley and I am timeless.

Flimley

elkiller · Aug 28, 2018

Dean Demon said:
Oh please not another one of these ageist rants, maybe instead of complaining that the game is too hard for you or that you can't use your brain or imagination that maybe you should learn to play a game as intended rather being the modern type of gamer that thinks a game should hand everything to you for no effort at all so if you are used to getting your own way by getting your credit card out to buy ingame currency to take shortcuts to make yourself feel so self entitled. Frontier should be praised for the work they have done in keeping the ELITE name alive, games such as ELITE were based on you the gamer learning and adapting which seems totally lost on today's gamers so i for one am proud to have been here since the very beginning.

To answer your question OP i'm 48 and far from being retired !!

u want a game or a second job because the game right now to get anything, say an anaconda you have to grind missions for months is you play about 2 hours a day more on the weekend. the fast way is doing passenger missions in specific systems, winch is g boring btw(just like a job). Frontier has demonstrated a very lazy philosophy to the point that Hello Games has put FrontierDev in shame in the development department with a smaller staff.

Speedcuffs · Aug 28, 2018

Flimley said:
I am Flimley and I am timeless.

Flimley

I have no time for this either! \o/

comdr0303 · Aug 28, 2018

MK_Regular said:
I like the learning curve
I enjoy some of the more challenging aspects of the game
I like the option for me to be able to make the game as easy or hard as I want
I like that I have the option to be able to interact with other players as much as want or don't want to
Essentially, I like that I can do whatever I want and generally not have to worry about anything else. I like the freedom.

Credits are fairly easy to come by...

I really want to recommend ED to my friends...

As for your theory, it doesn't really work. The mistake you made was trying to classify the entire ED playerbase into 2 groups.

I totaly agree !
I recommend this game and tell them to watch youtube and read about it, questions i will answer. I let them play on my pc if they want to try it, and can watch me doing stupid things in space :x
There will always something to adjust to the game, but you can never do good for every player.
The best way to start this game is with no expectations, just have fun doing things...don't go for elite in this or that, don't go for the credits, but enjoy space and cockpits & all the moons to visit.
After a while you'l find your gameplay or job or you just travel around doing nothing...i like that too, just cruising along in my spacemobile [smile]

BigDuke6ixx · Aug 28, 2018

Dean Demon said:
Oh please not another one of these ageist rants, maybe instead of complaining that the game is too hard for you or that you can't use your brain or imagination that maybe you should learn to play a game as intended rather being the modern type of gamer that thinks a game should hand everything to you for no effort at all so if you are used to getting your own way by getting your credit card out to buy ingame currency to take shortcuts to make yourself feel so self entitled. Frontier should be praised for the work they have done in keeping the ELITE name alive, games such as ELITE were based on you the gamer learning and adapting which seems totally lost on today's gamers so i for one am proud to have been here since the very beginning.

To answer your question OP i'm 48 and far from being retired !!

I'm 53 and had the CBM64 version in 85 and I find Elite Dangerous to be utterly boring. The worst thing ever with the introduction of the engineers and a load of extra grind. You can't even land on Earth FCS!