I'm sure that the management and developers at Frontier are enthusiastic about the new features they bring to their games (in this case, Elite Dangerous). And while they expect some negative feedback, I can't help but think that they have been caught totally off-guard with the level of disappointment, frustration, and disinterest in the latest Fleet Carrier beta. To put all that time, energy, and enthusiasm into a project to just watch it bomb - I know I would be disheartened if this were the response to a project I invested time in.
And yet, I can't fully bring myself to feel bad for Frontier. It seems they are just totally out-of-touch with their customers and player base. I'm not saying this based on what I want or do not want in the game, but rather the overwhelming negative feedback overflowing in the forums and livestreams, even from people who normally are much more generous with their praise of Frontier. I guess if I am going to feel bad for someone, it's the quiet developer working at Frontier who thinks, "This is not what the players want, but the boss tells me this is what I must do, so that's what I'll do." Having worked for such a boss in the past, I do feel bad for those employees at Frontier in this position. Something is obviously broken at Frontier, and I'm guessing it's management / leadership. And sadly, like the recent Charlie's Angels reboot and other terrible movies, they will probably just blame the fans and not own and learn from their mistakes. I hope I'm wrong (there's still time to fix these Fleet Carriers).
Not untrue. But let's understand how we got here.
You have a game that was developed for people who dont want any risk.
They dont want their ships lost. They dont want to lose materials, modules or salvage from getting blown up. They dont want a player market to buy ammo, modules and upgrades from. They want a solo mode so they can fap on their own and assume no risk while stockpiling billions. They want a ban function to cut players out of their gaming experience with no prerequisites (just click ban. Player gone). They want space police in every system. We want a BGS economy so you can always sell you good for profit and dont have to think or understand how a marketplace works.
When you've established all this entitlement and safety. And your player based has matured their game accounts to the point of having nothing to do (which people have been at for a long time). How do you add meaningful content that isn't 100% grind based?
Look at every single update they've released. All grind based. It's all they can do. People cant actually do anything in Elite besides gather pixels. Frontier are so terrified of forum tears that they designed their entire game around giving people every opportunity to avoid conflict. Shocker: people are still to dumb and lazy to manage that.
Now, FCs are released. No surprise. They are indestructible (what a joke). They persist in all play modes. You can have everything a space station has. But, Frontier TRY to introduce some player to player mechanics in the form of a marketplace. But, their own carebear game design is going to prevent this mechanic from succeeding.
You see, there is zero loss. Loss drives the demand. Therefore there is no need for an actual supply. Furthermore, we can get ammunition, modules and ships at any station in the bubble.
Commodities? What value are they? Really? No one actually NEEDS any of it because we can build stuff. So who cares.
I think Frontier are at the point that a lot of MMOs get to. They've a maxed out player base that's been spoiled and protected since day one. The only systems that can create meaningful gameplay would require a complete philosophical shift in game design, or way too much coding.
Just fly your spaceships in space. Those are the things Elite does amazingly. And those were the systems created without customer input. Everything else in Elite is completely pointless and shallow... and you can thank the carebears for that.
Note: I'd also like to add. All this vapid, mega grind is a major deterrent for new players. In order to get in a pvp capable ship, they need to unlock 8 engineers and gather a truckload of mats. And that doesnt include this Guardian crap. How to I maintain their motivation when they stop being amazed by the flight model?
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