Odyssey Progress (2)

Cmdr Harrier77

C
Thanks for the update, David. I have been playing Elite since 1984 on the BBC Micro. I like Odyssey and the planet tech. The only issues I have had have been server connect/disconnect, which seems to have been sorted. I am looking forward to the fruits of your team's efforts in making the game even better o7
 

Mallchad

Mallchad
Thank you for taking your time out to do this, I know you're a busy man and it's
most appreciated.
It's also very nice to see you openly still deeply invested in the project, you've been quite quiet
lately and people were starting to wonder if you still cared about the project (I have no doubts, to me you're like the JRR Tolkein of gamedev).

Of course in hind-sight it was probably a bad decision to take the same approach for optimizing Odyssey as you did with the 1.0 release.
But I can't say the community and I didn't warn you all,
you don't have to look any furthur than https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/elite-dangerous-odyssey-pc-launch-date.572921/
Especially considering you had an army of testers ready to stomach the game in any state it was in, rather than being promised a functional, well
performing produce and launch and getting.. well...
And then there's the very clearly placeholder and unfinsihed assets which I just don't get... If you're just going to use it as a crutch to find the pain points
faster... ...
Thing's like the lack of occlusion culling... Or even view frustrum culling some cases.

We're here now, you can't change the past, but you can change in the future, I would note that Elite : Dangerous might have periodically been harmed,
at least in the short term by expectations, hype and the optimization strategy you outlined.
I'm sure I don't have to tell you with the benefit of hindsight what could have been done better in terms of the game itself.
But what you can do is continue with the excellent back and fourth communication and make the the community is getting themselves in for, by making
sure players know what they're getting themselves in for, optimization strategy and all, hype marketing just before of after release to better manage expectations,
the more a product is hyped, the harder it falls if something goes wrong, this is what Horizons fell victim to, it was eventually a very good update.

As well as being more careful of nasty bugs like Material Count being reset, even if its just a short 1 week long "beta" period to play with
release tech but no progress. (I also hear a lot of players like using this as an oppurtunity to play with their account in ways they wouldn't consider normally).

Of course I'm not expert I can only offer suggestions.
Thanks again o7
 
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Rubbernuke

Rubbernuke
Alien said:
TO THE COMMUNITY: Do not expect the road-map to say anything more than the immediate fixes for Odyssey.
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Well duh. Fixing EDO is going to suck up all the attention for the next few months, all the talk of balancing other aspects of the game are now pipe dreams once again. I admire DBs vision but at the same time wholesale change is not always needed or required- how much time has been wasted on the new UI which does not solve any pressing problems or needs, while whole chunks of the game- CQC, multicrew, ranks, Powerplay, FCs, aspects of C+P, engineering, general balance etc just never see any love?
 

Juniper

Juniper
OK, so you're blaming the issue on the Horizons / Odyssey split - and still no explanation or apology as to why this was pushed out so early when there was clearly so much work still be done on it - or why the split even happened in the first place.

I suspect the two aspects to be more than a little related.

I also find it amusing that occlusion culling is completely absent from Odyssey (which is a big reason for people's FPS drops, and why we all know this is unfinished rather than merely bugged) when you and Ian Bell literally pioneered the technique in 1984 with the original Elite. In fact, it was one of the main reasons the 3D vector graphics were able to run on a wide range of low-powered 8-bit machines, and contributed significantly to the success of the original game.

Anyway, carry on. People keep sucking it up after all. For me, you've basically killed the game - and it's not likely to go back on my hard drive for a long time, if ever.
 

Alien

Alien
Rubbernuke said:
Well duh.
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I had no doubt you were not expecting anything more than the obvious ... but you know what this community is like, they'll expect a full 10-year-plan road-map and rage when David (or a CM) only talks about immediate fixes for Odyssey
 

CornishCracker

C
Thanks, please don't forget your game designers. There are some really big issues with unlocking engineers and also the suit/weapon upgrading is super grindy. I've spent 10 hours looking for materials, what have I got to show for it? Maverick and Dominator suits upgraded to level 2, no mods or anything. Please evaluate your engineering game design.
 

Kyobinoyo

Kyobinoyo
First of all Thanks for the Update and Thanks for your hard work on fixing the issues.

BUT!
Next time there should be a longer "Alpha" followed by 1 or 2 Betas really Testing the game with enough time until release.
Most of these issues you have now could've been already fixed or noted if you like i said took more time to test and let the players actually test everything instead of budging many things into the game in 2 weeks after the testing phase with not enough time to fix anything, i believe that could've prevented a lot.
 
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Vingtetun

Vingtetun
Thank you for the update - and some of the "tech" detail is much appreciated as to the hows and whys of various slowdowns and the decisions made.

Trusting that you are looking at all the replies - if you could pass on from me, and from the ENTIRE team over at the Hutton Truckers our very best as you collectively plough through the big challenge that is in front of you. For what it is worth, despite the various glitches and problems, we're having great fun experiencing and exploring the new update and whilst it can be frustrating at times for individuals, we aren't blind to the fact that occasionally, a bumpy ride happens but we've done up our safety belts, are holding tight to the Odyssey rollercoaster and making appropriate screaming noises at the exciting bits.

I'd also like, if possible, for you to pass on a big thumbs up to individuals in the team - those that over the years haven't been shy about putting their faces and names out there as associated with the project. From our vantage point 0.22ly from the jump-in point at Alpha C, there has been a rather large pile of vitriol targeted at the names and faces that we all recognise from streams and other media. Morale wise it can be terrible sometimes when there is a problem as you become the focus of that problem and with modern social media accessibility to individuals, it can feel very personal. From all of us - we appreciate the team, we know they're passionate and believe in this product, and we know they are working hard, and we love them for it.

Chin up, keep up the good work, and we're looking forward to the fruits of everyone's labour. If you need any help - you know where we all are (yes, that's just 1 hour 22 minutes and 20 seconds away!)

#forthemug
 

VR SenseiMatty

VR SenseiMatty
David Braben said:
Greetings CMDRs,

Here’s a further update on where we are with Odyssey, and to keep you updated on our progress and our investigations, and talk a little about our next steps. This will be a long post, but please bear with me.

Firstly, once again I apologise for the experience many players have had running Odyssey, particularly the server issues and disconnects. Despite careful server spooling up anticipating significant demand, they were still overloaded. After a good deal of investigation, the main cause of this proved to be to do with Fleet Carriers and the systems they use. I’ll try and explain the gist of what the problem was, how we found it, and why it didn’t show during the public Alpha. The whole team are working incredibly hard to resolve the issues as quickly as possible and improve player’s experiences and this is part of that process.

As you probably know, we split Horizons and Odyssey into two sets of servers – with the plan to keep it that way until we ship Odyssey on console. Fleet Carriers exist in both ‘worlds’ and when a Fleet Carrier jumps, this (and all the players on board) are kept in sync between the two galaxies. Due to a bug with them, significant amounts of data were going back and forth between the two worlds unnecessarily, and this loop between the sets of servers simply mounted up and started bringing servers down or blocking them (resulting in many players getting disconnect errors). This is why we stopped Fleet Carriers jumping, and immediately we saw a significant improvement overall. There were other issues too with this subsystem, keeping the BGS and other things in sync between the ‘worlds’. Once we had a solid fix for the Fleet Carrier and sync issues we deployed it to the servers, and re-enabled Fleet Carriers jumping. This was compounded by the fact we had a record number of concurrent players, so the servers were already working hard. Initially we thought this was the effect we were seeing – that the high number of players was the main issue - but eventually some very smart people determined what was happening with Fleet Carriers.

Turning to the subject of performance, first of all I’d like to provide some background. When we first set the min specs for Elite Dangerous (back at the time of the Kickstarter in 2012) we made the assumption that for low-spec machines the game was playable as long as the frame rate was above 30 fps, with 60 fps for higher spec machines. Over the subsequent weeks and months after release in 2014 we optimised the game significantly. We had a similar thought process for Odyssey, especially considering that the lower spec machines will tend to be five years old or more, or be laptops, that 30 fps would be acceptable as a minimum spec performance. Separately, we have heard reports of very high spec machines failing to perform as expected. We believe this is a different issue, possibly CPU-related, and are looking into that too, as we speak.

We will get to the bottom of the performance issues, particularly with the support of the community who are already providing useful information.

Elite has always been about scale and ambition. With this latest, and biggest, expansion the team have taken on an amazing challenge. The whole galaxy in 1:1 scale, now down to the millimetre. Millions of players interacting with each other and many millions of AI game characters on billions of worlds, all orbiting around each other in an incredibly rich galaxy-wide ballet. I truly believe the team have created a milestone in modern video game history. This is not a static arena shooter where all the players join at the start, but where players are continually joining, leaving, travelling between servers alone and in groups, and so many other things. It is a real shame this incredible achievement is somewhat overshadowed by the issues we have been seeing. We remain committed to improving everyone’s experience. In the words of JFK: “We choose to go to the moon this decade and do the other things… not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

So what are we doing to fix the issues?

As mentioned above, the team have been working incredibly hard to support and fix critical issues. They have already made good progress with three hot fixes and many server tweaks too, but we can see there is still more to come. Disconnects are now greatly reduced, despite record concurrent player numbers.

As already explained, the performance issues may take a little longer to resolve, and we greatly appreciate your patience.

Our plan is to publish a road-map by 4th June as we continue to push forward addressing issues, including giving some details on specific improvements, building upon the fixes the team have already made.

Thank you and my apologies again for the bumpy start to Odyssey.
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It's good to hear some explanation and see transparency. I appreciate that. I look forward for the roadmap.
 

CMDR Dreamstate

CMDR Dreamstate
David Braben said:
Our plan is to publish a road-map by 4th June as we continue to push forward addressing issues, including giving some details on specific improvements, building upon the fixes the team have already made.

Thank you and my apologies again for the bumpy start to Odyssey.
Click to expand...

Thank you Mr Braben for your apology.

I think you know how much trust has been decimated, and silence is not how Frontier is going to save face, so I'm looking forward to the "Roadmap" you mentioned. Hopefully, more stuff to do with atmospheric worlds, balancing ground combat (5x level 0 guys all kitted out with automatic weapons and not pistols? Okay...), and sorting out engineering.

What you guys really need is dedicated servers (not just for BGS and other simple things) - then you wouldn't have so many problems.
 
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