I wholly understand and in general i agree, but let me ask you just one question.
Not discussing the particular steps how they do it, but do you think that fdev as a business should cater to the old players, who in your own words dont even play anymore, or should they try to attain (and maintain) some new playerbase?
Basicly to obtain new players Fdev has to make the game more accessable. This means explain most of the things way better then now.
Credit earning is not an issue, its very easy now, there is no need to give prebuild ships out for real money to make it more easy.
Elite has basicly no cool story missions. If you do missions from the BB they repeat themself or altered a little but basicly there are a few different mission types and you earn money, materials or fame from em. They dont tell any story.
The story telling is vom galnet and i think i cant read the storys from like 9 years ago anymore.
There are no cool and epic fights, the Titans added some but basicly there is only combat without story sometimes with bigger ships that can help or taken down so that they have to leave.
Elite is like the Jurassic World or Theme park game, you can build something and use it to make in game money, but elite has no real goal besides the ones you set or to become Elite. I mean its nice what you can do in the game, but is it fun or long lasting fun?
I have fun working for good stuff in game, if i ear a lot of money or obtain needed things fast thats good for me, but other players will say its grind.
Yes and the game added a lot grind to acomplish things and it wastes playtime hanging in supercruise.
Will this attract new players?
They log in and hey i dont even know what keys i have to press or what kind of controlling i want and how i set it up.
I dont know how this market thing works, i can buy something and sell it somewhere but even i could not really figure out how this is explained in the game. Its more easy to go to a 3rd party site and look for a good route for trading.
Bounty hunting is fun but not such a good option as a starter, Missions can be good to earn something.
Mining is also nice for a start but you miss on the ship and the tools.
OK this you will get with real money now right?
So how do i mine ? Does a new player know that and what type of tools do i need to do it in a good way?
Then there are different mining types aswell, so confusing for new ppl.
Multiplayer.... i can join up with ppl, but doin so cuts my rewards. Furthermore if the other player has a higher Rank he gets more money i think.
Aside from PvP that i wont do, is there something you should do in a group? Thargoid hunting maybe all other stuff you will make less money for the playing time.
There a basicly no missions where you need specific builds or co op playstyle to acomplish them. There are a few but thouse are nothing special with a good story or fun.
So basicly what has Elite to offer ? A good flight sim with ways to earn money and stuff to buy other ships and outfitting.
Thats cool for some, while others need more story and epic fights, others need more co op gameplay.
Does Elite have that in a good fun way? I think not.
Sure its what you made from it but do a lot players want that? I think not.
I dont think they want to learn basics for quite some hours to learn how to play Elite.
They dont want to figure everything out by themself, they want to jump in and start playing.
But to answer your question, yes frontier should have focus on the old players and deliver them good content so they play the game more.
If a game is great ppl will join and play it. I think ED is and was a great game for me, because i did know the original Elite.
New players dont know the old Elite and when they jump in they have no clue what to do.
They need a few great missions to learn everything with some nice battles and sights, some stuff to do with friends.
All that Elite does not really offer. You can do many things in ED but the question for a new player is why? Why should they earn money for a new ship?
What is the outcome to do so? Ok i get better ships and do more and other stuff to make money and upgrade, but why should i do that?
Why should i become Elite? Why should a new player spend time in ED?
If you like Space Games and many things you can do ED is great but for most players they miss that epic moments, good multiplayer fun moments.
Basicly all they will see oh i need to work my ass off to do something..... boring.
Why do i not play anymore? Because i get bored fast when playing Elite. I did everything aside from the big Thargoid hunt, i have everything, i have the Elite Badges from Horizons. Odyssey added Elite Ranks with stars and new elite ranks, but man all this time wasting supercruise traveling anoys me so much i cant play longer then one hour.
I have not much sparetime anymore that i could waste it to wait 40 mins in supercruise to play 20 Mins what i like.
I have so many other games i can play instead and every week i get new free games from Epic, steam or GOG.
I dont even need to buy new games anymore, because i just cant play the ones i collected already.
From what new player base you speak? Most players have no interest in ED and so many other options to waste free time in other games.
Why should they play ED? Why even spend some money on it?
The old players keep the game running, but with no new and good content they will leave like i did. So less sales for cosmetics.
I invited a handfull of ppl to Elite, helped em explained a lot what the game did not but all did quit the game after a short while.
ED is for a few special players, but not for the masses.
Basicly there are no new players that have interest in this game.
