Lack of info, Leaks and Cheating... my considerations and my suggestion

[Phoenix_Dfire]

LACK OF INFO:
The game is in temporary "maintenance mode".
<snip>
Two important contents from last year (Fleet Carriers and Ice Planets) have been postponed. FDEV said they would have been re-prioritized after Beyond, but after six month since the end of it no information is still available.

Just a few of things;-

The game is NOT in maintenance mode. Maintenance mode is where they just leave the servers running and that's it. You don't get bug fixes, new content or live events. Although the updates we're getting are a lot smaller than 3.3's, we're still getting updates and bug fixes. I'm having a similar argument with someone over at MassivelyOPs and Having played a game (MXO) that was in maintenance mode, this is excellent support for a non sub game.

Ice Planets are being reworked into the game at a later point. If the planetary side of things are being enhanced in the 2020 update, then they've probably being rolled into that. Paige and Co. have all said that Fleet Carriers are still on the table but they won't confirm if they are coming before or after the 2020 update. Plenty of other threads on that one.

The reason for the secrecy about future updates can be put down to 2.3 I think. There FDev was quite open about what was coming but the expectations from community went through the roof and the backlash at the multi-crew release was I think the real tipping point where these forums started to turn into salt mines. Since then they have been a lot tighter about the information that's released.

I'm more worried about the cheats to be honest. If someone looses a fight in open from now on, there's always the suspicion that they've used said cheats. Will people bother to play the BGS or even powerplay if people can hack or bot they're way to winning. I do feel that FDev need do something to reassure the community that action is / has been taken. It doesn't have to be a name and shame policy or a going into detail (which could tip people off) but maybe a statement saying they've taken action against an X number of players and leave it at that.

 

[Eleris]

Not communicating about new content until it is almost ready is a common strategy. The advantages are that you avoid announcing things that end up not making it for whatever reason (including things that are good ideas on paper and are just not fun or interesting in practice), and the announcement hype doesn't die down before you actually release the thing (you don't want everyone to have already lost interest by release day)

The downside is that in the meantime, you pretty much don't have anything to talk to players about.

 

[Alwayslate]

This is not a realistic scenario. I'm quite sure someone in the marketing is following up what happens here and deciding on the next move. We should also give signs to influence their decisions of course, and this is what I'm trying to do with this discussion. If many people agree with the OP then this is already a sign that it can't be completely ignored.

How many wasted suggestions you think are in the suggestion forums? They just ignore. The worse part they don't even tell you why.

 

[Dutchman141]

Not what I said, but have fun with that.

That sentence wasn't directly aimed at you, sorry.
It was just to defuse those who refrain to words like "make you're own game if you don't like it", something that happens quite often.

I agree with SenseiMatty that Fdev's communication or lack thereof isn't realy encouraging.
They could indeed kill off a lot of speculation and increase they're playerbase's involvment and enthousiasm by presenting a basic roadmap or at least a hint at what they're working at.
Of course haters always gonna hate but I'm not sure if silence is the right way to go at this time.
Lots of people are disgruntled by the state of the game atm and not knowing what to expect or wait for for such a long time.
All we know is they're working on something that involves a whole new era for ED and that for unknown reasons certain aspects like Ice planets and Carriers are postponed untill further notice.

The last updates weren't exactly encouraging either with their great number of bugs and another half baked attempt to engage players more with the Stellar Initiative.
Now this cheating issue presents itself, another item that only expands on the growing list of things that demoralize players.

I said it before, Fdev should be causious not to end up in a situation like Bioware with Anthem imho.
It's much easier for a player to give up on a game then it is for a developer to win them back.

 

[Nutter]

Maintenance mode is where they just leave the servers running and that's it. You don't get bug fixes.

Horizons Maintenance mode confirmed!

 

[5AnaHalfHatsize]

Other opinions are available.

Well...

We do have one exciting piece of news to share that to date, we have not shared with our community. A while ago, our development went from pre-production into full production on our next major milestone of Elite development.

If they only went into full production of the "new era" content back in Sep 2018, it means they weren't in that mode before.

I.e., maintenance mode.

 

[Old Duck]

No. It isn't [in maintenance mode].

Agreed. Maintenance implies fixing what is broken, something Frontier does half-heartedly at best.

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

How many wasted suggestions you think are in the suggestion forums? They just ignore. The worse part they don't even tell you why.

The suggestion forum imho is just a shame. It's the biggest evidence of the bad communication and low community effort from FDEV. They should just close that section. I don't remember how many times players requested ship lights indication in that forum and last year they added it because they only received this request during a game conference (this really proves that no one reads there)

 

[Dutchman141]

The suggestion forum imho is just a shame. It's the biggest evidence of the bad communication and low community effort from FDEV. They should just close that section. I don't remember how many times players requested ship lights indication in that forum and last year they added it because they only received this request during a game conference (this really proves that no one reads there)

Just like the new bug reporting system actually.
You get the sense of increasing a bug's importance by voting or confirming it but that's where it effectively ends.

 

[Han Zulu]

Horizons Maintenance mode confirmed!

Yup.

ED Original went into maintenance mode when ED Horizons came out, and now EDO is even gone from Mac. Wouldn't surprise me if EDO is completely gone by 2020. So while ED2020 is being built, EDH is in maintenance, and when ED2020 comes out, EDH will slowly fade away. Replaced by ED2020.

 

[Killnine]

Sadly, I must admit OP is very accurately depicting the current state of Elite.

Personally, I have not rage quit it, but I regularly go weeks without playing. It's not any single reason, but a combination of all these issues. If I had to name just one reason: Elite is coasting. The game, and the community, are left to their own devices. There's long standing bugs and completely broken/missing game mechanics (griefing/C&P, lack of meaningful PvP, lack of direction and meaning after having scratched all your ship itches and trying your hand at all the careers that interest you) with no fix in sight, yet we're expected to just hang on for a year or two, satisfied with a small patch every now and then.

No. That's not enough. I want a better return of investment for my precious time. I want FD to communicate clearly and openly, and give at least glimpses and promises of what to expect. Because frankly, their act has not been very convincing lately and I have a nagging fear I'm in for yet another disappointment.

 

[The Replicated Man]

CHEATING:
I didn't follow too much this cheating story for two reasons:

• I play solo and when I play Open I don't do it for PvP anyway.
• I don't care if someone decides to cheat. Cheats is the shortcut to burn your own fun so most of the cheaters will soon(TM) leave the game.

A couple of days ago we had the biggest protest so far, with the Beluga blocking the entrance of James Memorial.
Frontier did nothing about it and again, no communication was given.
However it seems that cheating has been going on since months/years but no one ever complained so loud until recently. It's also interesting to see that for the upcoming small game patches most people keep wishing for their own favourite feature rather than a definitive solution to this problem (see here the discussion about the next update wishes).
That's why I think that the Cheating story is just the "Straw that breaks the camel's back" (that's how you say this in English I guess). So it's the last event that will cause the catastrophic failure (just to make a bit of drama).

CONCLUSIONS:
FDEV could clear all this situation up by making a frank and clear statement and publishing a clear roadmap. Not a detailed one but with clear indications of the direction of the game in terms of type of contents and new gameplay under development.
I'm sure this will not turn down the interest in the game, on the contrary it will improve the quality of interest and it will lead it to the right direction.

As a avid and longtime PvPer, cheating concerns me gravely. In most scenarios it's easy to see if someone is blatantly cheating (unlimited shields, crazy dps output etc) but what concerns me more is the people that Actually know the game and know how to tweak the cheat engine to their advantage without anyone the wiser.

The main problem that many would have with cheating is people hiding in solo, and abusing these cheats to further their BGS or Powerplay activities. That concerns me more than a PvP opponent cheating in a fight, which is wrong however the bgs affects more people.

 

[Phoenix_Dfire]

Yup.

ED Original went into maintenance mode when ED Horizons came out, and now EDO is even gone from Mac. Wouldn't surprise me if EDO is completely gone by 2020. So while ED2020 is being built, EDH is in maintenance, and when ED2020 comes out, EDH will slowly fade away. Replaced by ED2020.

Little unfair. The Mac version went because Apple didn't continue to support OpenGL (that's not frontier's fault) and technically you can always bootcamp. Elite: Dangerous Original was still getting things during Horizons (Passenger Missions, Ship Launched Fighters, Thargoids) and Horizons and EDO got updates during Beyond and now we're getting updates across all three (although much smaller than before). The definition for Maintenance mode is you get nothing but the servers being maintained (i.e. kept running).

I suspect that when Update 2020 arrives, It'll upgrade it everything to the same level. You upgrade from EDO, you get all the Horizons + Beyond content thrown in. It would be a fragmentation nightmare otherwise.

 

[Dutchman141]

I want FD to communicate clearly and openly, and give at least glimpses and promises....

Glimpses yes, promises no and that's for the better imho, they have the tendency to re-prioritize such things.
When I heard that there wasn't going to come anything substantial untill late 2020 I was genuinely worried about the patience of many players.
I was hoping that a snippet of information here and there would keep me interested for such a long time.
Unfortunately there's only silence and empty announcements of coming announcements plus a series of small updates that break more stuff then they add.

If you're actually gonna wait for the big cahuna late 2020 then prepare yourself for a long ride because things don't look to encouraging atm.

 

[5AnaHalfHatsize]

Little unfair. The Mac version went because Apple didn't continue to support OpenGL (that's not frontier's fault) and technically you can always bootcamp. Elite: Dangerous Original was still getting things during Horizons (Passenger Missions, Ship Launched Fighters, Thargoids) and Horizons and EDO got updates during Beyond and now we're getting updates across all three (although much smaller than before). The definition for Maintenance mode is you get nothing but the servers being maintained (i.e. kept running).

I suspect that when Update 2020 arrives, It'll upgrade it everything to the same level. You upgrade from EDO, you get all the Horizons + Beyond content thrown in. It would be a fragmentation nightmare otherwise.

That's a pretty generous definition of maintenance mode, and really only one that would ever come about if there were no more paying customers.

Not the case with ED as there are the cosmetics to sell.

As far as I'm concerned they're either doing something significant with the game or they aren't.

They are now (you've gotta assume) for next year's release, but for everything between the initial drop of Horizons and that, it was maintenance mode.

 

[Phoenix_Dfire]

That's a pretty generous definition of maintenance mode, and really only one that would ever come about if there were no more paying customers.

Not when you've been playing MMOs for as long as I have. A game goes into when into Maintenance mode before it gets 'Sunset' (I hate that term). SOE were notorious for that when they shut down MXO (because they didn't want it) and SWG (when they lost the licence) and it's really standard practice.

As long as you're getting bug fixes, Updates and Live events, it's not in Maintenance Mode.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Don't expect any sort of public statement from FD.

 

[Old Duck]

The game is in Half-Baked Mode...

 

[CMDR Carbo]

ED is in day-care mode.
This is where you plan some initiatives/CGs for your customers so that they don't start to riot.

 

[RexKraemer]

It doesn't matter if E: D REALLY is in maintencance mode or any other mode. But what SenseiMatty is speculating is a quite natural result of the current situation of communication.

This is, and I speak not for all or for YOU but in generall, the FEELING of a game in maintenence mode.

And this feeling is enough to do the game a lot of harm e.g. in decreasing player numbers (steam charts anywhere? ) , in forums going rampant or desperate actions like cheating protests.

It is also a strategy to minimize revenue for FDev for E: D. It probably does not affect other FDev games, so it is general minimizing revenue.