Huge decline in console player numbers, Hull Seals consider disclaimer & drop support.

[robbyp]

I have to speak up for Artie. He spends time working on Inara, providing a invaluable aid to those of us who play the game.

He's very active in the discords which work to provide players with tools to play the game.

It takes the biscuit to have a go at someone who does so much work for the community. Really.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

The number of players requesting assistance on any given platform has a direct relationship to the total number of players using that platform.

You'd certainly expect, all else equal, that they'd move in the same direction. On the other hand, other factors can be more significant - various things can change patterns of player behaviour without affecting total numbers. As Rubbernuke points out - and the ultra-high spike on the Fuel Rat graph after the Epic release also indicates - there's a big "noob mistake" market for these services, so while anyone can make a mistake, the numbers will to some extent be more related to "new players joining" rather than "current active players".

I think there's two claims you're making in this thread:
1) console player numbers are down from their pre-Odyssey levels.
2) console player numbers have decreased more than PC player numbers, as a proportion.

The first is almost certainly true - it'd be unexpected if the entire drop was of PC players. The second I don't think there's any particular evidence for in either the public data or Frontier's responses.

 

[[Cancelled Consoleer] boppa_]

You'd certainly expect, all else equal, that they'd move in the same direction. On the other hand, other factors can be more significant - various things can change patterns of player behaviour without affecting total numbers. As Rubbernuke points out - and the ultra-high spike on the Fuel Rat graph after the Epic release also indicates - there's a big "noob mistake" market for these services, so while anyone can make a mistake, the numbers will to some extent be more related to "new players joining" rather than "current active players".

I think there's two claims you're making in this thread:
1) console player numbers are down from their pre-Odyssey levels.
2) console player numbers have decreased more than PC player numbers, as a proportion.

The first is almost certainly true - it'd be unexpected if the entire drop was of PC players. The second I don't think there's any particular evidence for in either the public data or Frontier's responses.

Agree with all points made. I'd certainly 'expect' #2 to be true if we add "from Pre-Odyssey" to the end of the sentence.

 

[amigacooke]

The first is almost certainly true - it'd be unexpected if the entire drop was of PC players. The second I don't think there's any particular evidence for in either the public data or Frontier's responses.

You don't think that there's likely to be a greater loss (proportionally) from a platform that Frontier says it has de-prioritised, than from one that Frontier has said is it's sole priority?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

You don't think that there's likely to be a greater loss (proportionally) from a platform that Frontier says it has de-prioritised, than from one that Frontier has said is it's sole priority?

1) If we're inferring from Frontier strategy then they appear to have decided that it's better to have the Odyssey console release be "good" rather than "soon". Whether that's good news or bad news I guess depends on whether you consider the current state of Odyssey to be "disaster" or "let me have it!" [1]

If we're going to make wild guesses based on the collective psychology of people we've never met, if people were enjoying Horizons on consoles before Odyssey released, why would they stop enjoying it just because Frontier says they can't have a 10 FPS FPS too? Or perhaps fear that ED-Console might go away encourages them to play it while they still can? You can prove anything with speculation about player motivations.


2) Both the Fuel Rats graph and the Hull Seals graph have console rescues making up a greater proportion of the total now than 2-3 months ago. Inara reports a marginal rise in console activity. The current ratio of EDSM-Console and EDMC on EDDN is 1:15 ... the ratio over the last two weeks was 1:23 ... so the console connector is currently making up a greater proportion of hits than the medium-term trend.

These are all very small (miniscule, in the case of the Hull Seals) and not particularly representative subsamples but they're all pointed in the direction of "console activity has been hit less than PC activity" if they point anywhere at all.

Squadron figures I think would give a better subsample but I only have historic data for the PC ones because you can't view them cross-platform. If anyone on console wants to do a comparison then we'd need the following data:
- for all of trade, exploration and combat leaderboards (maybe AX too?)
- for both this season (to date) and the last season
- the scores achieved by the 1st, 10th, 100th and 1000th squadrons




[1] It does appear that just over two months after release, Odyssey is reaching the normal "pre-release" state of an Elite Dangerous expansion where there's an actual debate between "release it now, I want a go!" and "this is terrible, fix these thousand of bugs first". Probably needs a bit more than that, though.

 

[Artie]

1. A raise or decrease of numbers in Inara are not representative of logins to Elite. Usage of Inara (last time I checked) are just that. A raise or decrease in Inara logins. The question is... Can I use Inara without logging into Elite?

Yes, I never said that. In fact, I said exactly the opposite ("It doesn't mean anything").

2. Steam game logins are just that logins to a specific game, in this case, Elite. If those numbers are up or down, thay are representative of the playerbase that uses the steam login and are therefore directly related to the playerbase as a whole.

Nope, they are related just to the Steam playerbase, because it's only the Steam stats. Although it may somehow reflect the entire playerbase, it may also be entirely wrong and very misleading. There is probably safe to assume the entire playerbase has declined recently, but exactly how much can be hardly reliably decided by the Steam stats, because it's just a minor portion of the entire playerbase.

3. I did not claim that Inara figures meant anything. In fact I was correctly stating that using Inara usage figures was disengenuous.

I never said otherwise.

Finally, if Steam usage of Elite is taking an absolute hammering, it is indicative of the entire playerbase. It would be just as disengenuous to claim that only the portion using Steam are the only ones losing players. It can be seen in every facet of the Elite community, steam charts, these forums and almost every content providers' videos etc, Everywhere I look, DTEA, OA, Yamiks, Egrerios, and all the others show a plethora of unhappy players. So, my guess is yes, the elite playerbase as a whole is losing players quicker than of the shills here can create some magical reasons why they are not.

Yes, as I said above, there seems to be safe to say the numbers are lower in general, but how much are lower is a pure speculation.

Artie,I notice you're around since '14... In that time, you've made a total of 9 posts here. The latest aimed at me, because of what I've posted. Either that's an enormous coincidence or the shills have been out crying. Boo Hoo to them

Absolutely irrelevant, an incorrect number and also a wrong assumption.

ps: to prove the point, I have just logged into Inara and not Elite. Will the Inara figures now show that as an increase?

Yes, it will. But as I wrote before, it means nothing in a relation to the game playerbase stats. So I am not sure what you have actually tried to prove.

Addendum: I took another quick look to the stats to filter out just the known active players on Inara (and by the "known active players" I mean just those users that imported their journals, so they were in the game. The entire userbase is bigger than that, of course). The results - close to 5% increase of the console players percentage in comparison to PC player numbers. It also worth to be added that my sample pool is much bigger than the Steam charts sample. Yet, I do not make any conclusions on that - as I said, it doesn't mean anything.

 

[amigacooke]

If we're going to make wild guesses based on the collective psychology of people we've never met, if people were enjoying Horizons on consoles before Odyssey released, why would they stop enjoying it just because Frontier says they can't have a 10 FPS FPS too? Or perhaps fear that ED-Console might go away encourages them to play it while they still can? You can prove anything with speculation about player motivations.

I don't think you have to make wild guesses (nice emotive language, by the way).

If someone on console wants to try Odyssey, they have to leave their platform, there is no choice. So unless everyone on console is happy to wait an undisclosed amount of time to try Odyssey, they will have to transfer to the only available remaining platform.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

If someone on console wants to try Odyssey, they have to leave their platform, there is no choice. So unless everyone on console is happy to wait an undisclosed amount of time to try Odyssey, they will have to transfer to the only available remaining platform.

That's true, but doesn't say anything about whether the number of console players who want to try Odyssey in its current state is "one" or "most of them". This is why I say "wild guess" - it's very easy to come up with motivations that, given the size of the player base, at least some people probably do have ... but determining how many people do and whether this is more or less than the number of people doing the opposite thing due to other motivations is much trickier.

If that was happening in significant numbers, then we'd expect to see PC player numbers/activity rising as console numbers fall, as the total number of players isn't changing but the balance of platforms is. The quantitative evidence definitely doesn't seem to support that right now.



It doesn't feel to me like the motivation is plausible in large numbers either. To leave console for PC Odyssey you'd need to:
- be a sufficiently big fan of Elite Dangerous to buy another copy for PC and build up a fresh account there
- think that Odyssey in its present state - bugs, major performance issues, etc. - is a significant improvement on Horizons
- not be prepared to wait for Odyssey to release on consoles

That's all a pretty big vote of confidence in the current state of Odyssey, and if that was a generally held view among players or supported by Frontier's internal figures, I don't think they'd have changed their strategy from "console release is the next step" to "can we get this working properly on one platform?"



Obviously this could change in future - but I don't think we're seeing it right now.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I have offered my services to the console arm of the Hull Seals.

They probably don't need you. Apparently the game is dying and there are no people who need rescuing anyway because apparently people aren't playing.

DOOOOOM

 

[[Cancelled Consoleer] boppa_]

The current ratio of EDSM-Console and EDMC on EDDN is 1:15 ... the ratio over the last two weeks was 1:23 ... so the console connector is currently making up a greater proportion of hits than the medium-term trend.

I'd be interested if you had any data from Colonia that trended that ratio over a longer period. The data I have - that did show a longer term decline - only covers a ~100ly cube, and only back to November.

The Squadron idea is a good one. If I'm right we'd need to collect it on both Xbox and PS as I think the Squadrons are separate entities across those platforms.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I'd be interested if you had any data from Colonia that trended that ratio over a longer period. The data I have - that did show a longer term decline - only covers a ~100ly cube, and only back to November.

I don't record information about the source of data in the Colonia systems, so no.

Full EDDN archives are at https://edgalaxydata.space/EDDN/ however, so taking a sampling approach I downloaded the FSDJump archives for the 27th of the following months: April-July 2021 (Odyssey release effects), October-December 2020 (Epic giveaway), July 2020 and July 2019 (longer-run comparisons)

Ratios (27th of each month) between EDMC and EDSM-Console:
July 2019: 11:1
July 2020: 12:1
Oct 2020: 20:1
Nov 2020: 24:1 (just after Epic giveaway)
Dec 2020: 29:1
April 2021: 22:1
May 2021: 41:1 (just after Odyssey release)
June 2021: 51:1
July 2021: 20:1

Big disclaimer: the proportion of EDDN activity in total from console appears very low - I think it unlikely that >95% of players are on PC - so it's likely that a lower proportion of console players use it compared with the (already low!) proportion of PC players which do. So you probably can't draw any firm conclusions about console users given that this is relying on a small subsample of an already small subsample.

Nevertheless, in so far as this poor-quality data is pointing in any direction, it's certainly not pointing towards a faster decrease in console numbers.

The Squadron idea is a good one. If I'm right we'd need to collect it on both Xbox and PS as I think the Squadrons are separate entities across those platforms.

Ideally, yes, though unless you expect different behaviour on XBox and PS it's probably not that crucial.

 

[amigacooke]

That's true, but doesn't say anything about whether the number of console players who want to try Odyssey in its current state is "one" or "most of them". This is why I say "wild guess" - it's very easy to come up with motivations that, given the size of the player base, at least some people probably do have ... but determining how many people do and whether this is more or less than the number of people doing the opposite thing due to other motivations is much trickier.

If that was happening in significant numbers, then we'd expect to see PC player numbers/activity rising as console numbers fall, as the total number of players isn't changing but the balance of platforms is. The quantitative evidence definitely doesn't seem to support that right now.

It doesn't feel to me like the motivation is plausible in large numbers either. To leave console for PC Odyssey you'd need to:

• be a sufficiently big fan of Elite Dangerous to buy another copy for PC and build up a fresh account there
• think that Odyssey in its present state - bugs, major performance issues, etc. - is a significant improvement on Horizons
• not be prepared to wait for Odyssey to release on consoles

That's all a pretty big vote of confidence in the current state of Odyssey, and if that was a generally held view among players or supported by Frontier's internal figures, I don't think they'd have changed their strategy from "console release is the next step" to "can we get this working properly on one platform?"

Obviously this could change in future - but I don't think we're seeing it right now.

There's an obvious motivation to go from console to Windows, but I can't really see any motivation to go from Windows to console.

I presume when it comes to Frontier's strategy you're in the realm of 'wild guesses'?

 

[Rixxan]

Hull Seals adding a disclaimer around recovery time for console players.

Okay, I'm only about halfway through reading this thread but I'll drop in my thoughts on the relevant stuff.

This is, currently, the only thing being done by our organization. Yes, we are having some difficulty finding Seals able to go out on calls - and the trends we are seeing in the short term are disturbing.

No, we are not (and will not ever) turn people away because of their platform of service.

Our major concerns that we will not have enough people on consoles active to ensure proper response reliably.

We want to avoid this, but right now we are adding a disclaimer saying that wait time is taking longer than usual.

So is anyone here actually going to help the Hull Seals raise their numbers on console?

This was the point of the message we posted, and the point we were trying to get across as an organization.

We need peoples help in order to sustain our responses across all platforms, but notably our smaller platforms.

I will continue to read the rest of the thread and comment as appropriate on the relevant matters.

Edit: Regarding the datasets used to draw conclusions for the Seals, One of the things we have noticed that is the number of cases we have had where we have had to turn away a client due to a lack of responder. That is the original basis for the trend that worried us.

It is entirely possible that some other sets of data we utilized are flawed, and we will need to reevaluate.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

There's an obvious motivation to go from console to Windows, but I can't really see any motivation to go from Windows to console.

Plausible example: you already own PC and console accounts, so you switched to mainly playing your PC one immediately after Odyssey release, decided you didn't like it, and are now mainly playing your console one instead.

I agree that there's no major motivation for anyone to buy a new console account now if they already have a PC one and I'm not sure anyone is claiming that there is/should be significant movement that way.

I presume when it comes to Frontier's strategy you're in the realm of 'wild guesses'?

We pretty much agree that Frontier's strategy has changed from "next priority is console release" to "next priority is getting Odyssey working on PC", don't we?

Guessing as to why they've made that change probably would fall into the "wild" category, yes.

 

[Deleted member 110222]

My hangover on Sunday tried to tell me that meeting people for fun times on Saturday was a bad idea

The joys of going off the booze.

 

[Deleted member 110222]

Maybe people have actually learnt to fly though? More self awareness = less spoon callouts = doom data

Valid, and not getting damaged is trivially easy.

Honestly, I think it is embarrassing to be so incompetent that you nearly destroy your ship simply by cruising through space.

 

[Rixxan]

Valid, and not getting damaged is trivially easy.

Honestly, I think it is embarrassing to be so incompetent that you nearly destroy your ship simply by cruising through space.

Honestly, most of our clients are good pilots and the phrase ' happens' applies quite well.

I would say that the most common reasons for people asking for repairs are combat, high-G planets, or exclusion zones on stars.

It doesn't take a whole lot of distraction for things to go south quickly.

 

[Teh Smoo]

Honestly, most of our clients are good pilots and the phrase ' happens' applies quite well.

I would say that the most common reasons for people asking for repairs are combat, high-G planets, or exclusion zones on stars.

It doesn't take a whole lot of distraction for things to go south quickly.

Well, I have certainly never been distracted on another monitor as my ship flew into the ground. Or screwed up while maneuvering near the ground. (Except for the times that I did.)

Thank goodness for random carriers with repair facilities out near the crystal sites...

 

[Felix DiCestria]

I'd call it a reasonable assumption, wouldn't you?

For the sake of argument though ... for it not to be, we'd have to introduce another reason for players to continue playing Elite on console, but not using a client where previously they did. Are you aware of such a reason?

No that would be a misrepresentation of the data.
eg; They may have simply not bothered with using the client, presumably using it requires some imput from the player.

 

[Dextio]

I have to speak up for Artie. He spends time working on Inara, providing a invaluable aid to those of us who play the game.

He's very active in the discords which work to provide players with tools to play the game.

It takes the biscuit to have a go at someone who does so much work for the community. Really.

Yeah. I got nothing but respect for the developers of ED's third party tools; particularly EDDN and Inara.

Same goes for the Hull Seals and Fuel Rats, actually.

Takes a lot of work, time, and perhaps a fair bit of cash(?) to do what you do. Much appreciated.

Sorry you got sucked into all of this nonsense )-: