I almost feel bad for Frontier

peteuplink

peteuplink
Han Zulu said:
I suspect their Cobra engine is a hodgepodge of code blocks that aren't well optimized or manageable. So many projects I was introduced to or even part of in the past where some pieces of code got to a point where it was easier to rewrite it than try to fix it.
Click to expand...

This is why I always say that FDev should have listened to the original community (those that were active on the forums before ED was announced),and just started the basis of the game as a remake of FE2 or FFE with full planetary landings and everything those other games had. That would have given them a much better optimised code base to work from that they could add carriers, space legs, multi crew, powerplay, engineers and everything else to.

Instead, what they did was create a game similar to Elite 84, then added rocky worlds, then powerplay and ship launched fighters with multicrew, etc, and I wouldn't be surprised if the code is now a massive logistical mess which is why it's taking so long to implement stuff.

My games are small. If I screw up it's fairly easy for me to fix it, or in some cases start over and recreate everything differently. But with something the size and complexity of ED this isn't possible, which is why the developers needed to follow a well thought out schedule and not do what FDev seem to be doing and picking ideas out of a hat.
 

Han Zulu

Han Zulu
peteuplink said:
This is why I always say that FDev should have listened to the original community (those that were active on the forums before ED was announced),and just started the basis of the game as a remake of FE2 or FFE with full planetary landings and everything those other games had. That would have given them a much better optimised code base to work from that they could add carriers, space legs, multi crew, powerplay, engineers and everything else to.

Instead, what they did was create a game similar to Elite 84, then added rocky worlds, then powerplay and ship launched fighters with multicrew, etc, and I wouldn't be surprised if the code is now a massive logistical mess which is why it's taking so long to implement stuff.

My games are small. If I screw up it's fairly easy for me to fix it, or in some cases start over and recreate everything differently. But with something the size and complexity of ED this isn't possible, which is why the developers needed to follow a well thought out schedule and not do what FDev seem to be doing and picking ideas out of a hat.
Click to expand...
And compared to much smaller companies with similar games (Hello Games ;)) who can produce and update, large updates, on a regular basis. I think they just figured out a very slim, smart, easy to maintain code. It's like I had to explain to my son when he started as a coder years ago, write your code and database tables (names etc) in such a way that 3 months from now, when you have forgotten everything you did today, you can read the code/table and know immediately what it was supposed to do and how you solved it, that way maintenance is quick and easy. Too many times in other projects did I see table names and columns with strange abbreviations that were confused with other ones and you had to spend 10 minutes or more just to figure out what it really was, and occasionally things were mixed up and dumb bugs introduced, only because of "space saving names". Ugh.
 

Markoz

Markoz
Until they make some very big changes to Fleet Carriers, I'm not going to play the beta. And if the charges aren't good enough, I certainly won't buy one when they go live, and I will play the game less often than I do now (which isn't much because I was really looking forward to, and waiting for, the Fleet Carriers).
 

peteuplink

peteuplink
Han Zulu said:
And compared to much smaller companies with similar games (Hello Games ;)) who can produce and update, large updates, on a regular basis. I think they just figured out a very slim, smart, easy to maintain code. It's like I had to explain to my son when he started as a coder years ago, write your code and database tables (names etc) in such a way that 3 months from now, when you have forgotten everything you did today, you can read the code/table and know immediately what it was supposed to do and how you solved it, that way maintenance is quick and easy. Too many times in other projects did I see table names and columns with strange abbreviations that were confused with other ones and you had to spend 10 minutes or more just to figure out what it really was, and occasionally things were mixed up and dumb bugs introduced, only because of "space saving names". Ugh.
Click to expand...

What I think Hello Games did was start with a good base product. Everything they needed was there, from the resource gathering, to the planet generation, exploration and space flight... it just needed fleshing out with more content. This is exactly why I say FDev should have concentrated on the core elements that FE2 and FFE had first, before they went and started adding stuff like multicrew, ship launched fighters, CQC, powerplay, etc.Get your full base game built first, then you can start adding your innovations later.
 

Han Zulu

Han Zulu
peteuplink said:
What I think Hello Games did was start with a good base product. Everything they needed was there, from the resource gathering, to the planet generation, exploration and space flight... it just needed fleshing out with more content. This is exactly why I say FDev should have concentrated on the core elements that FE2 and FFE had first, before they went and started adding stuff like multicrew, ship launched fighters, CQC, powerplay, etc.Get your full base game built first, then you can start adding your innovations later.
Click to expand...
Agree. It's like what they're saying about building on solid ground. I soooo hope this is what they're doing for NE. Rebuilding the engine to be more flexible for changes and improvements. And for their own sake it's what they need to do.
 

Old Duck

Old Duck
Han Zulu said:
Agree. It's like what they're saying about building on solid ground.
Click to expand...
I'm more worried that they are dynamiting the solid ground of Elite lore when building new features. For example, the latest magic fleet carriers that can store way more than what their internal volume can hold, like how I can carry 100 swords in Skyrim or 1000000 materials in my NMS suit. The days of David Braben's "hard science" are apparently a thing of the past, and now we have Harry Potter magic wand sonic screwdrivers along with our bigger-on-the-inside fleet carriers and massless, volumeless, magic materials. I fear that New Era will Elite Man's Sky, and that's not what I want.

But considering who I am quoting, you'll probably love such a game, LOL.
 

Han Zulu

Han Zulu
Old Duck said:
I'm more worried that they are dynamiting the solid ground of Elite lore when building new features. For example, the latest magic fleet carriers that can store way more than what their internal volume can hold, like how I can carry 100 swords in Skyrim or 1000000 materials in my NMS suit. The days of David Braben's "hard science" are apparently a thing of the past, and now we have Harry Potter magic wand sonic screwdrivers along with our bigger-on-the-inside fleet carriers and massless, volumeless, magic materials. I fear that New Era will Elite Man's Sky, and that's not what I want.

But considering who I am quoting, you'll probably love such a game, LOL.
Click to expand...
I all depends. In NMS I like it. Because that's a game, and you don't expect it to be realistic, but Elite I expect to put more effort to stay true to it's idea of being real and stay true to its lore and story, and it feels like Elite is all over the place. Trying to be everything, but have a hard time being good at anything.

However, what I was referring to as a solid ground is not just lore and realism, but the technical aspect. As an old programmer, I know that a well written code base that's easy to maintain and expand upon is what I'd call a solid ground. Hello Games can crank out stuff quickly with is the symptoms of a well written engine, while Frontier struggles, which to me suggests a less efficiently written. There's no blame or judgment here. Been there, done the same, it just happens.

My hope is that Frontier is doing what Hello Games did last year, a huge rewrite to make the code more efficient, easier to maintain and scale, etc. Perhaps they're rewriting to use Vulcan too, that would be neat. I had to start over and rewrite my code many times. You don't know what you don't know, and when developing, you're also discovering. You're learning. The illustration I used to make was that when you're hiking up a mountain, you'll see more and more of the landscape below, and development works that way. While you're making things, you see more things you should've done different getting to the point where you're at.
 

Arindor

Arindor
Old Duck said:
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).
Click to expand...

It's been coming tbh, especially since a few of us have felt the same about ED since PP was introduced. Imho, it's been downhill ever since which is a shame because ED appears to have a lot of potential. Yet I still hope for content which will be a joy to use rather than turn ED into a 24/7 mining simulator. :)
 

Barking_Mad

Barking_Mad
Han Zulu said:
And compared to much smaller companies with similar games (Hello Games ;)) who can produce and update, large updates, on a regular basis. I think they just figured out a very slim, smart, easy to maintain code. It's like I had to explain to my son when he started as a coder years ago, write your code and database tables (names etc) in such a way that 3 months from now, when you have forgotten everything you did today, you can read the code/table and know immediately what it was supposed to do and how you solved it, that way maintenance is quick and easy. Too many times in other projects did I see table names and columns with strange abbreviations that were confused with other ones and you had to spend 10 minutes or more just to figure out what it really was, and occasionally things were mixed up and dumb bugs introduced, only because of "space saving names". Ugh.
Click to expand...

Surely the big differences though are the BGS and online play and how they touch nearly everything you do in the game? NMS certainly doesn't have any notable BGS issues and its multiplayer is considerably less complex than E:Ds. In style they're similar, but in scope they're very different games.

I'm sure FDev would make many changes if they were given another go from the beginning, but on the upside of dropping in larger features first they have a really good idea of what works technically and what doesn't. I'd guess one big problem is staff turnover and people moving between projects. It's one thing staring at 5 years of your own code, quite another to state at 5 years of other peoples code.

They've had work ongoing for atmospherics and walking about for at least three years, so I'm hopeful that we're going to see a large improvement in the game come release - with any Covid delays included....
 

Barking_Mad

Barking_Mad
Arindor said:
It's been coming tbh, especially since a few of us have felt the same about ED since PP was introduced. Imho, it's been downhill ever since which is a shame because ED appears to have a lot of potential. Yet I still hope for content which will be a joy to use rather than turn ED into a 24/7 mining simulator. :)
Click to expand...

I'm glad I'm not the one trying to make everything in Elite's universe exciting and interesting to do. Many simple platform games struggle to make gameplay fun, so designing a plethora of stuff in a universe simulation game must be hard work. That's not to say I like everything or agree with everything, but as we can see from all the AAA companies making the hundredth remake of a tried and tested formulaic games, I'm glad Frontier are trying to do what they're not and what David himself described as being, "hopelessly optimistic".
 

Noddie

N
As far as fleet carriers go - I couldn't be less interested in them. I don't think they shouldn't be in the game because other people might rather like them. But I enjoy flying, not wallowing around in some massive over-sized whale of a ship, so they're not really aimed at me. I do wonder what else FD could have spent their resources on that I would have preferred but that's life. My point is, they're not a draw for me. Put them in the game, or don't. Provided they don't screw up what I do want to do in the game - I don't care. I've never bothered with larger ships because I don't enjoy flying them. I like, agile, fast ships. The Cobra MKIII is great to fly and there is virtually nothing you can't do in it, perhaps with a little engineering, and you can whine about the "Grind" for a 'Konda as much as you like - it really can't do much the Cobra can't it just does it with bigger figures. It's not real money.

I do sometimes wonder if there is someone at FD making some very odd decisions. The game doesn't seem as well-considered as it was on launch with "stuff" being tacked on in haphazard fashion to create the illusion of progress. Things seems to go awry some time shortly after Horizons and it's been weirdly sporadic and without focus since then.

I have no idea what's wrong, but if I had to try to explain it. The Carriers feels a bit like someone wanted them in the game and got them done on the minimal resources they were able scrape together. Someone else didn't want them in and has attempted to neuter them by burdening them with ridiculous costs in order that they fail and they can blame the person who had the original "bad" idea. No idea if that's what's happening - but that's what it feels like to me & is the only way I can explain it.
 
Last edited:

Old Duck

Old Duck
Noddie said:
Provided they don't screw up what I do want to do in the game - I don't care. I've never bothered with larger ships because I don't enjoy flying them. I like, agile, fast ships. The Cobra MKIII is great to fly and there is virtually nothing you can't do in it, perhaps with a little engineering, and you can whine about the "Grind" for a 'Konda as much as you like - it really can't do much the Cobra can't it just does it with bigger figures. It's not real money.
Click to expand...
A man after my own heart! I totally agree with you on all this. My biggest disappointment with fleet carriers is that back when I thought I could use one, it gave me a sense of purpose:

I think I might actually LIKE the idea of the FC maintenance fee!

I know, it sounds crazy and probably is, but the more I think about it, the more I actually like the idea of having to maintain a carrier. Why? Well here's the thing - I actually enjoy earning credits, but only when those credits serve a purpose. In the past that purpose has been to buy...
forums.frontier.co.uk forums.frontier.co.uk

Now that I realize FCs are not what I had hoped for, I have no purpose :(

I've played the game enough that I've done everything there is that I want to do from an experiential point of view. These days I play to achieve some specific goal. The thing is, Elite is mostly built around acquiring new toys as the goal and reward system. I already have the toys I want, and like you, these are mostly small and medium ships (and a very minimalist subset of those). This is why I so value things like the Interstellar Initiatives, as it let me use my toys tools to achieve community GOALS and participate in a shared experience / story. Without these, I end up with no real purpose or reward, and that's when my eye starts wandering to other games. The sacrifice of IIs to give us fleet carriers is the true shame of this story, and once I grow bored of pirating miners at Borann (because what else is there to do?) then I'll probably put ED back on the shelf again until New Era, and even then my expectations are pretty low.
 
Last edited:

Old Duck

Old Duck
timbero said:
May I inquire as to how much credits you have earned pirating diamonds?
Click to expand...
Not as much as mining. I usually earn between 10-20 million an hour, assuming a target-rich environment (Borann on weekends). However, it is way more FUN than mining IMO. People say you can't make money doing PvP, but I'm proof that you can!

disclaimer - I earned the majority of my first billion credits doing mining. I did this back when I thought I wanted a fleet carrier, but that desire has changed. So I'm a rich playboy looking for a thrill in a boring universe, and that's why I turned to piracy. If you are trying to earn 5+ billion for your own PC, stick to mining. If you want to have some fun PvP that more than pays for itself, piracy is great. Just be a "good" pirate - don't kill your targets, it's bad for business, and don't be greedy when taking their LTDs, as that is also bad for business (for all of us).
 

CMDR Carbo

CMDR Carbo
Fleet carrier aren't for me either.
As a mostly lone wolf player, I don't see the appeal of owning a carrier. The main purpose for me would be to carry my fleet as kind of a personal mobile garage, but for that the costs are way over the top. We are talking 6 Billion initial purchase and 500k-1B upkeep a year, that's not worth to just store my fleet in a glorious garage.

I hope others find them useful and find cool things to do with them that warrants the costs. I can see many getting one in June because they are new and cool at first, but then getting rid of them down the road because they just eat away your money. I don't see FCs having a future, even less than multicrew.

For me they are just a hard pass in the current form.
 
Last edited:

Old Duck

Old Duck
Northpin said:
No-no-no, stop fooling with them...

No guys, you dont need 5 billions.
You need 7.25 billions for a fully outfitted carrier with 1 year maintenance and support included.
Click to expand...
You missed my little "plus" sign, LOL. But otherwise you are 100% correct! :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom