Game Bashing On Steam

[Morbad]

It's always better to just read the recent reviews. Who cares what happened six updates ago.

Knowing the past state of the game might hit at it's future trajectory.

Odyssey, for example, has suffered several graphical downgrades since launch that I find to be concerning, especially since they generally did not correspond to meaningful performance improvements. There have been (mostly unrelated) performance updates, generally in the positive direction, but some that have been very hit or miss.

Even if I hadn't experienced the whole of the public release history of Odyssey myself, people complaining about the same problems for a year would suggest to me that issues are going to linger for some time.

It's also hard to understand why other games that involve running around in settlements can have much better performance and also have much better looking graphics than Odyssey.

Frontier is just better at writing slower software.

 

[Greasetrap42]

Are y'all suggesting that not one of the negative Odyssey reviews on Steam fall in the category of a review-bomb?

One review does not amount to review bombing.

For many people "review bombing" suggests a coordinated effort. For others it just means "a whole lotta bad reviews".

In the case of EDO, I think its just "a whole lotta bad reviews". Some people may have disliked the game, saw a trend in the reviews and followed it. But a coordinated effort by individuals or a large group... highly unlikely.

Not wanting to get into a discussion of definitions & semantics, just pointing out that some people might read what you posted not as intended.


Edit: Correction: Now that I have read more of your posts you ARE suggesting a coordinated conspiracy effort to "review bomb" Odyssey. Making this claim because it is not an impossible idea is equivalent to me arguing there could be a uniorn in my yard because I can't be certain there isn't. Although the statement is technically true it is a silly argument.

 

[Fizzatron]

One review does not amount to review bombing.

For many people "review bombing" suggests a coordinated effort. For others it just means "a whole lotta bad reviews".

In the case of EDO, I think its just "a whole lotta bad reviews". Some people may have disliked the game, saw a trend in the reviews and followed it. But a coordinated effort by individuals or a large group... highly unlikely.

Not wanting to get into a discussion of definitions & semantics, just pointing out that some people might read what you posted not as intended.

That's a misinterpretation of the point, the counter to my argument is that it was impossible that Odyssey was review bombed, which effectively is also to suggest that a review couldn't be left in the manner that could be regarded as a review-bomb. My point wasn't necessarily to establish the effectiveness of what could be considered review-bombs totaled up, but the point that to say it was impossible, therefore it didn't happen is false.

Edit: Correction: Now that I have read more of your posts you ARE suggesting a coordinated conspiracy effort to "review bomb" Odyssey. And making this claim because it is not an impossible idea is equivalent to me arguing there could be a uniorn in my yard because I can't be certain there isn't. Although the statement is technically true its a silly argument.

No, not at all. That's a pretty poor summary that adds up to a superficial dismissal of what the points were. For your comparison, unicorns would have to exist and, well, that's about as far as it goes before your hot take comes to a grinding halt.

 

[Greasetrap42]

That's a misinterpretation of the point, the counter to my argument is that it was impossible that Odyssey was review bombed, which effectively is also to suggest that a review couldn't be left in the manner that could be regarded as a review-bomb. My point wasn't necessarily to establish the effectiveness of what could be considered review-bombs totaled up, but the point that to say it was impossible, therefore it didn't happen is false.

Writing nonsensical gibberish doesn't further your point.

Edit:

Seems to me a simple and easy thing to admit that there is potential for it, rather than expounding quite the effort to try to dismiss it as a possibility entirely.

And you can't prove unicorns don't exist, so maybe there is one in my yard. Its not impossible. Following your line of reasoning.

Edit2:
Unless you have actual evidence that there were individuals, groups, or corporations organizing an effort to "review bomb" the video game it is reasonable to believe the negative reviews were done by individuals in a non-coordinated manner. No conspiracy theory required. As mentioned by OldDuck (below) some frustrated people might follow a mob mentality to post a negative review. But that is an uncoordinated effort and also represents customers that are unhappy or frustrated.

 

[Old Duck]

One review does not amount to review bombing.

For many people "review bombing" suggests a coordinated effort. For others it just means "a whole lotta bad reviews".

Against my better judgement, I'll wade into this shark-infested thread. A great example of review bombing is when everyone started to post negative reviews about the Mandalorian and Disney+ because Disney fired Gina Carano. I was and still am totally opposed to that decision, but I like the Mandalorian TV show, so it would be dishonest for me to give the TV show a bad rating because of a company decision. Yet many people did just that as a form of protest. Of course, the same thing happened in the other direction, where people review bombed the show before Gina was fired because they didn't like what she said on her personal Twitter. On both sides of this debate, there was a "mob mentality" encouraging others of like-mind to downvote Mandalorian / Disney+, not on the merits of the show, but on a tangential issue. The goal was to punish / influence Disney rather than to accurately review The Mandalorian or the Disney+ service.

This is very different than someone saying, "Odyssey is totally broken on my computer, therefore I'm going to give it a thumbs down, and I recommend everyone else in the same boat to do the same." Why? Because these reviews are honest reviews of the product itself, rather than something unrelated where the product is just a scapegoat. And while I'm sure there are a few people who will downvote a game because of some other reason (perhaps a CM said something on a stream that they didn't like), there will be an equal if not greater number of loyalists who will give Frontier a thumbs up no matter how broken the game is, because of borderline religious convictions. I suspect these two extremes nullify each other in all reviews (Elite is not the only game to have extreme haters and loyalists), so that the overall average of reviews can be trusted, within a certain standard deviation.

Disclaimer - I've not voted either way, as I decided not to buy Odyssey. I was just as influenced by the positive reviews as I was the negative reviews in making this decision, because features that others describe as "great" do not excite me.

 

[Fizzatron]

Writing nonsensical gibberish doesn't further your point.

Yeah, I can see why you didn't want to get into it. I will grant you that wish.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

Look, we all know that the Steam voting machines are rigged, and I'm taking a case to the Supreme Court which will allow testing of the votes for traces of bamboo, so we can confirm that they originated in China.

 

[Viajero]

Btw, EDO just passed in Steam the 50% rating for the "Recent Reviews", and it´s "just" 6% short to go from "mostly negative" to "mixed" for its "all reviews". EDO´s rating has been gradually raising since the initial post launch lows that got it close to 25% at the time.

 

[VR Dextrovix]

Btw, EDO just passed in Steam the 50% rating for the "Recent Reviews", and it´s "just" 6% short to go from "mostly negative" to "mixed" for its "all reviews". EDO´s rating has been gradually raising since the initial post launch lows that got it close to 25% at the time.

And FD need to be truly grateful that the Steam gaming public feel it enough that it'll change to "mixed" then very soon.

My personal rating for communication would still be "mostly negative" however, that's not a chuff in hell's chance that I'd give that anywhere near "mixed" based on the past few years...

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

Btw, EDO just passed in Steam the 50% rating for the "Recent Reviews", and it´s "just" 6% short to go from "mostly negative" to "mixed" for its "all reviews". EDO´s rating has been gradually raising since the initial post launch lows that got it close to 25% at the time.

Sounds like a severe case of 'review boosting' to me

 

[amigacooke]

Btw, EDO just passed in Steam the 50% rating for the "Recent Reviews", and it´s "just" 6% short to go from "mostly negative" to "mixed" for its "all reviews". EDO´s rating has been gradually raising since the initial post launch lows that got it close to 25% at the time.

So after nearly a year and with the sacrifice of further console development reviews are just rising into the positive.

What a ringing endorsement.

 

[Erei]

So after nearly a year and with the sacrifice of further console development reviews are just rising into the positive.

What a ringing endorsement.

Don't celebrate yet. It's only 40% of positive review, apparently, for mixed. I mean, not really that much of an achievement

Sounds like a severe case of 'review boosting' to me

Maybe we should make a "game boosting on steam" thread. We shouldn't be the only one to have fun after all.

 

[Sublime]

Don't celebrate yet. It's only 40% of positive review, apparently, for mixed. I mean, not really that much of an achievement

Maybe we should make a "game boosting on steam" thread. We shouldn't be the only one to have fun after all.

It’s also only 80 reviews in that “recent” category. I think a good amount of people have just given up and moved on.

 

[Old Duck]

Btw, EDO just passed in Steam the 50% rating for the "Recent Reviews", and it´s "just" 6% short to go from "mostly negative" to "mixed" for its "all reviews". EDO´s rating has been gradually raising since the initial post launch lows that got it close to 25% at the time.

This make sense to me, because someone buying Odyssey today should well know exactly what they are getting, along with the risks. I would likely give Odyssey a negative review if I were to buy it right now, and I definitely would have if I had pre-ordered, but I was cautious and resisted the temptation to pre-order / zero-day purchase on faith alone. If I ever do buy it, it will be when I believe I could give it a positive review. I mean, who buys something knowing that they are not going to like it?

A very large percentage of the negative reviews were people who did pre-order or make a zero-day purchase (not wise) and were let down because the reality didn't match the promise and hype.

 

[Mogen Teras]

It’s also only 80 reviews in that “recent” category. I think a good amount of people have just given up and moved on.

Would explain why the forums and subreddits seem more "positive" on average nowadays; most of the people having a bad time just gave up and flatout left. Why stick around when nothing ever changes?

 

[Viajero]

It’s also only 80 reviews in that “recent” category. I think a good amount of people have just given up and moved on.

Maybe, it could also simply be that players are acknowledging the improvements made to the DLC so far. EDO is definitely in a much better place now than it was at launch. Either way, it has been at around 100 "recent reviews" for a while now. The evolution from the low 25-30% score at launch to over 50% recently has happened at around that level of review numbers for some time and not just recently. Also I think it is important to bear this in mind.

 

[Mogen Teras]

Maybe, it could also simply be that players are acknowledging the improvements made to the DLC so far. EDO is definitely in a much better place now than it was at launch. Either way, it has been at around 100 "recent reviews" for a while now. The evolution from the low 25-30% score at launch to over 50% recently has happened at around that level of review numbers for some time and not just recently. Also I think it is important to bear this in mind.

If someone already owned Horizons, and then purchased Odyssey, I really really don't believe they went back to alter their Horizons review rather than making a new one for Odyssey. That seems like a very flimsy excuse for Odyssey's poor rating/lower number of reviews.

The only circumstance that what you said might be true is for absolute newcomers who bought ED and EDO post-Odyssey, in which case I doubt there's that many of them considering what we can infer from steamcharts.

 

[Erei]

If someone already owned Horizons, and then purchased Odyssey, I really really don't believe they went back to alter their Horizons review rather than making a new one for Odyssey. That seems like a very flimsy excuse for Odyssey's poor rating/lower number of reviews.

The only circumstance that what you said might be true is for absolute newcomers who bought ED and EDO post-Odyssey, in which case I doubt there's that many of them considering what we can infer from steamcharts.

You need to really p**** people off for them to do that. Political controversy, or changing monetization policy kind of stuff. Like when Paradox changed their DLC pricing for 3rd world and relatively poorer countries around the world, so that they paid more. And it will trigger steam anti review bombing measure anyway.

Review bombing is usually used to make a statement. When the game is crap for one reason or another it just get poor review. For example, Odyssey.

 

[babelfisch]

Review bombing is usually used to make a statement. When the game is crap for one reason or another it just get poor review. For example, Odyssey.

I wouldn't call it review bombing but you are making it too easy if you just say reviews are poor because Odyssey is crap.

Lots of people give it a bad review for nonsensical reasons like no VR support, no ship interiors, FPS instead of full atmospheric planets, etc. Nothing of that was ever announced to be part of Odyssey, so these people aren't reviewing the game, they are just complaining that they don't get what they want. That reminds me of my 4 years old daughter by the way.

Lots of other people are giving it a bad review because they don't like or are disappointed of the company rather than the game. They are reviewing the poor launch, console support, broken promises, etc. They can hate Frontier as much as they want, it's completely unrelated to the quality of the game.

Many people gave it a bad review for the bad performance and issues at launch / the first few months, without changing it after many problems were fixed.

Of course something similar can be said about positive reviews, many people give it a positive review because they just love the game despite the issues and bugs. Somehow that's not completely unjustified though.

That doesn't mean all negative reviews are irrelevant, but I do have the feeling that Odyssey gets more "undeserved" negative reviews than most other games, simply because the Elite community is very emotional about their game.

PS
Personally I still have mixed feelings about the expansion. Performance and issues are still a problem, so many missed opportunities, bad exploration gameplay, connection between base game and Odyssey is basically not existant (it's like an entirely seperat game within a game), planet tech is not always an improvement - on the other hand it's pretty awesome and unique. No other game manages to do what Elite Odyssey does.

 

[Viajero]

The only circumstance that what you said might be true is for absolute newcomers who bought ED and EDO post-Odyssey, in which case I doubt there's that many of them considering what we can infer from steamcharts.

I didn’t really speculate about the reason why it happens, I only remarked that it happens . Fact is there are many commanders scoring the base game (+ Horizons) where they also mention the EDO on foot element in their text review and where that score is positive. Some commanders, for whatever reason, seem to just prefer to review the whole, including Odyssey, at the base game score page. Weather that means there are many new commanders coming to the game / EDO or not my guess is as good as yours but there are indeed around 6-7 times more base game reviews than EDO’s and a number of those happen to mention EDO in their text while keeping the total score at a mostly positive ~80% rating.