Game Bashing On Steam

[The Lawful]

It's not the customer's responsibility to do anything other than part wit h money for a product.

If a game's rating is low, that's probably because its quality is low. As Frontier improve the quality, the rating will probably follow.

Well, if someone's reputation is burnt, there's zero hope of restoring it in a lifetime. In our lifetimes, at least.

You can argue all day long over justifications, but if you shoot the Sherrif, he's dead.

O7,

 

[Erei]

Well, if someone's reputation is burnt, there's zero hope of restoring it in a lifetime. In our lifetimes, at least.

You can argue all day long over justifications, but if you shoot the Sherrif, he's dead.

O7,

Those guys would like to have a word with you :

Ever heard of No Man's Sky ?

 

[The Lawful]

Holy cow, that blame switching came so fast, it's insane. I'm impressed ! You start by bashing Fdev, and literally 2 sentences later it's entirely the player fault !

Amazing ! If you are not a lawyer or something already, you should seriously consider it.

Ok, to put it in simple words: I didn't and don't blame FD for making mistakes, as we all do. But I do blame certain elements of an entitled crowd (possibly even including you) for ruining the entire game because of them, or just because they think it's cool, and it makes no difference at all anyway while the game is safely in Steam Hell. And yes, I know NMS and it's story, thank you for assuming otherwise.

Your ad hominem parts are forgiven. Take a step back next time.

O7,

 

[Greasetrap42]

rejoicing on pushing Odyssey down to the 30ies also meant you killed Elite altogether in the end. If not you, then the gamer next to you, or any member of that enraged and entitled crowd. It makes no difference in the end.

No. A company releasing a product found to be unacceptable or undesirable by the customers is what makes a product fail.

 

[The Lawful]

No. A company releasing a product found to be unacceptable or undesirable by the customers is what makes a product fail.

Thank you for taking the game away then. Seems I spent too much time on it anyway.

Lol, glad they don't enforce the same rules on forum members

O7,

 

[Erei]

Thank you for taking the game away then. Seems I spent too much time on it anyway.

O7,

It's amazing how you can blame the customers for the poor quality of a product they bought, and still keep a straight face.

Always nice to see real professional at work.

 

[Moriarte]

Well, if someone's reputation is burnt, there's zero hope of restoring it in a lifetime. In our lifetimes, at least.

Yes, system working as intended. Produce low quality game + don’t communicate with players properly = we don’t want you here, make way to those who understand how to make proper games.

The sacrifice was not in vain. It will serve as a reminder to many future devs.

A reminder of what happens if

 

[zombieapocalypse]

Odyssey was released a year too early, that's clear. But see, if you and an entitled crew push an expansion or the entire game in fact to an historical low rating on Steam, it's no wonder they won't sell it as deserved, and they won't be able to turn this around ever. The game is over here, including Horizons. FD clearly made mistakes, but here is the players', and I mean: your responsibility: rejoicing on pushing Odyssey down to the 30ies also meant you killed Elite altogether in the end. If not you, then the gamer next to you, or any member of that enraged and entitled crowd. It makes no difference in the end.

So asking FD to prove you wrong is a little keen.

O7,

What a bizarre, non-sensical response, but glad to know it's all my fault for having an opinion and for very gradually losing faith in a game that I backed on Kickstarter and have supported and played for years

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Odyssey was released a year too early, that's clear. But see, if you and an entitled crew push an expansion or the entire game in fact to an historical low rating on Steam, it's no wonder they won't sell it as deserved, and they won't be able to turn this around ever. The game is over here, including Horizons. FD clearly made mistakes, but here is the players', and I mean: your responsibility: rejoicing on pushing Odyssey down to the 30ies also meant you killed Elite altogether in the end. If not you, then the gamer next to you, or any member of that enraged and entitled crowd. It makes no difference in the end.

I don't think this holds up.

1) Odyssey was very bad on release.
2) This led to bad reviews, which put people who weren't already in the "sure, I'll pre-order it" set off buying it, so poor sales
3) And sure, this may well lead to Frontier not releasing any further large-scale developments for Elite [1].

But what's the actual alternative scenario here?

2a) To avoid the original 3, everyone agrees either not to review it, or to write positive reviews focusing on the good bits only (while continuing to be critical on the forums, of course, so that Frontier doesn't think they can leave it in it's 4.0.0 state)
3a) With the mostly positive initial reviews, people who hadn't pre-ordered then buy the game a few weeks post-release
4a) They aren't in on the agreement, so they leave a bunch of negative reviews when they discover it barely runs on their PCs, etc. and are perhaps even angrier because no-one told them.

or

3b) People who hadn't pre-ordered the game note that it's bad but there's widespread agreement to give Frontier a chance to fix it, ignore the positive reviews, and wander off again rather than buying it in its first year.

The result is the same whichever way: Odyssey doesn't sell well, Frontier spend the next year trying to fix it up (failing entirely on consoles), the recent reviews are still on the negative side of Mixed after most of a year's effort (they've improved from 32% on release to 42% in the last month, so another two years to get into Mostly Positive?) and presumably anyone buying it now having a fair idea of what they're getting into and already substantially lowered expectations from the initial pre-release hype.

It's not the reviews which are causing poor sales here. (And no, none of them are mine, I'm not on Steam)


[1] That said, there'd be no point in them announcing Odyssey was cancelled on consoles, in the terms they did, if they didn't intend at the moment to at least support and develop it further on PC. So I don't think it's as doomed as you think it is yet - they'll have "one more go", at least, at fixing it.

 

[The Lawful]

It's amazing how you can blame the customers for the poor quality of a product they bought, and still keep a straight face.

Always nice to see real professional at work.

Thank you. Still, I didn't blame any customers for the poor quality of any product they bought or not. Assuming that is a lie, my comrade!

And I don't quite get why you refuse to accept the obvious.

O7,

 

[CMDR Harada]

Ok, to put it in simple words: I didn't and don't blame FD for making mistakes, as we all do. But I do blame certain elements of an entitled crowd for ruining the entire game because of them, or just because they think it's cool.

Your ad hominem parts are forgiven.

O7,

I DON'T blame FDev for making mistakes.. Thats not the issue. Its their ability to make them and then continually repeat them.. again and again and again ad infinitum.

Case in point :
A: Communication with the fan base. Where do I start ? Ugh. On again, off again, forgotten again.. rinse/repeat...
B: VR on Oddy. First it was.. then maybe not.. then no.. then maybe, all interspersed with long silences. Now it's a hideous mess, swapping back and forth between a virtual pancake world and VR. Talk about jarring.
C: Random Features that were supposed to be big, but poorly thought out.. and then got forgotten : Power Play, Multi-crew, CQC ( I guess ? Never played, it was basically a seperate game ).

Getting the pattern, here ? There is no clear CONSISTENT direction. They talk big, release something, and then leave it out on the figurative back porch for it to get rained on.. This applies to patches, features, bug fixes. Talk, possible movement, more talk, then eternal silence... Know what most people call this ? LIES.

They could have salvaged their rep. No Mans Sky did. Other games have. Other companies have. But it takes effort, willingness to fix what ed of the fans to begin with, and communication with the fan base. They've done very little on that front. Looking at their record it seems like they've been trying to actively sabotage it.

I'm tired of waiting for them to stop stumbling around and puking on their own shoes like a drunk on a bender.

 

[The Lawful]

What a bizarre, non-sensical response, but glad to know it's all my fault for having an opinion and for very gradually losing faith in a game that I backed on Kickstarter and have supported and played for years

I'm not the mood to argue, but if you admit, attributes like bizarre, non-sensical and such are subjective value judgements. The rest of that sentence I can understand, but it's unsubstantial in fact. Besides, I too don't want to see Elite go away, definitely not.

O7,

 

[Rainbro]

Damnit, I can't believe that Odyssey could have been so much better if only players had just lied in their steam reviews about the state of it.

Like, I can't believe it. Odyssey was fundamentally flawed prior to release and any reviews.

 

[The Lawful]

Damnit, I can't believe that Odyssey could have been so much better if only players had just lied in their steam reviews about the state of it.

Like, I can't believe it. Odyssey was fundamentally flawed prior to release and any reviews.

Reconsider that. Think in alternatives. Think outside the box even.

There are dudes who even today write Elite down to Outer Darkness because 70% of all other dudes do the same. There's a difference between steaming off frustration in a forum like this (and believe me, I was frustrated too, as were FD for sure) and ruining the game's reputation on Steam or other platforms like these. For it's permanent. You cannot take it back. If you kill a man, he's dead. Plain truth, face it.

Now hate me as you will. You may even throw stones. End of discussion, you're on your own from here on

O7,

 

[Rainbro]

Reconsider that. Think in alternatives. Think outside the box even.

O7,

Since all you've said is "Reconsider it", I have done so and come back to the same conclusion. Is there an actual point you'd like to make?

 

[Erei]

Reconsider that. Think in alternatives. Think outside the box even.

O7,

Why would we ? We usually have better to do in our lives than to try to find excuses for a botched release.

If they want us to think positively about their product, then work on it. It's no secret. HG did it with NMS, CDprojekt with CP77.

 

[Ian Skippy]

You should expect high latency, so anything multiplayer will certainly be less than fine.

You'd expect, but in tests GFN scores better in latency than Xbox X solo. Still not 'pro gamer' in CS but absolutely fine for most games.

 

[CMDR Harada]

Reconsider that. Think in alternatives. Think outside the box even.

O7,

How ? I'd either have to actively LIE about the game and leave a good review, leave a vague review which is unhelpful, leave an honest negative review, or leave no review.

Which of these helps possible customers ? I can't in good conscience lie about a piece of junk, so that only leaves no review ( and asking for a refund ). I'm afraid that only encourages poor releases and shoddy work. Should that be rewarded ?

How else can one help FDev push a piece of trash ? I know I'm not buying 5 copies ( Heck, I won't even buy one ).

 

[Ian Skippy]

Honestly, the base FPS gameplay is hands-down the deepest and most involving gameplay loops in the entire game. It's considerably less lacklustre than trading, smuggling, exo/explo and such. Only after many updates did mining come close.

The issue is more that EDO competes with a very competitive market, whereas EDH does not. But for better or worse, design wise it's the best FD has managed. I could only wish the ships had stealth gameplay on-par, the ability to hide behind asteroids to ambush NPC's, the meaningful ability to stealth-snipe sensors and so on. Honestly, the two main issues with FPS gameplay in EDO is insane grinding and the shield/health switching which can only be bypassed with grinding. Other than that I was pleasantly surprised.

The performance, lacking integration, communication with 'alternative truths' and so is what annoys me.

And the grind.

Dear lord the grind.

 

[Moriarte]

Well, bashing Steam for bashing the game is moot point - Elite started going downhill well before Odyssey hit the shelves. Anyone, who has been watching the development rate since the early Alpha days will confirm that Elite currently produces content at 1% of the initial rate, observed during 2014-15. It’s, basically, cosmetics, late stage finishing touches. Stuff that ought to be in the game, but was delayed until very end. That rate of development, to me, is the best indication of things to come. We haven’t seen a new ship in YEARS. In a game about travelling in space ships.

Anyway, let’s not shed tears and look at it objectively, as there could be lessons for the next developer of grand space game. This old architecture will continue to shed players, especially when you stretch and bend it with novelties, such as peer to peer networking, fragmentation of game modes, fragmentation across platforms. Elite fell victim of it’s own ambition.

• 400 billion star systems!
• ... but what for?
• Because we can!
• Ok... but what is the game plan?
• Well, we’re going to make a galaxy sim and a space ship sim, while you lot will fill the voids with imagination

In my opinion, that is not enough for anything bigger than a demo. The attempts at creating the economical-political systems is where elite fell short of becoming a game. Intertwining players with these systems on an unseen scale, in multiplayer. This could attract a far bigger community than just space gazers and space jockeys (like me).

So, for whoever makes a next one. Make sure you come up with a game before bolting on the graphics.