Player Retention

[CMDR Harada]

If anyone is waiting for FDev to create content that is in any way enough to draw players in.. You're going to be waiting a while. Their track record is... not good.

The BEST moments in ED ( IMO and personal XP ) have been player created. You're best bets for that are in PGs, or in OPEN with a bunch of friends, or finding a cause right here in the forums. That's the primary reason I check in here, despite rarely playing. I've found two causes here that I could ( and would ) fly for.

New ships aren't a draw. A Panther clipper is just power creep for trading. Better combat ships, better weapons, more engineering, rare modules.. it's all power creep of some type, and only leads to more. More. MORE.

No, there has to be something else to draw players back, and new players in. A story, or event of some type. And it has to be something deeper. What, I don't know.

To quote Mr Burns from the Simpsons " I'm no art critic, but I know what I hate "

 

[Maolagin]

No, there has to be something else to draw players back, and new players in. A story, or event of some type. And it has to be something deeper. What, I don't know.

It's curious. People keep saying versions of this, but here we are with Frontier currently running two extended storylines (Azimuth/Thargoids/Aegis and NMLA/ACT/Empire) with events, puzzles, and at least the implication of lasting changes to the setting. Can anyone from the "there's no good content" faction help explain what's not working for them here?

 

[Northpin]

No, there has to be something else to draw players back, and new players in. A story, or event of some type. And it has to be something deeper. What, I don't know.

It's curious. People keep saying versions of this, but here we are with Frontier currently running two extended storylines (Azimuth/Thargoids/Aegis and NMLA/ACT/Empire) with events, puzzles, and at least the implication of lasting changes to the setting. Can anyone from the "there's no good content" faction help explain what's not working for them here?

Yes, this puzzles me too.
Sure, there was the drought in January - August 2020, drought in terms of story, we still got carriers beta and carriers and all the drama with mining getting nerfed.

But except that... in 2019 we had the 4 Interstellar Initiatives and starting with September 2020 we have the current story arc sporting several threads that might be or not be connected with each other.

 

[Zak Gordon]

I'm trying to think of another game that best represents Elite, that is not a typical MMO where 'everything' is about combat alone (because in Elite that is also not only what the game is about). And somehow i thought about the Truck Simulator games, so here are some sales figures and online player numbers to compare:

How many players are online in Euro Truck Simulator 2

Find out how many players are in Euro Truck Simulator 2 right now. We always have an up-to-date online, showing how many people are playing your game. Join now!

howmanyplay.com

Talk:Euro Truck Simulator 2

I've changed "The game has sold over 1.7 million units as of February 2015 and over 2 million units as of April 2015." to "The game has sold over 2 million units as of April 2015.". I'm right in thinking the first figure was pointless, right? Mazz0 (talk) 14:48, 3 July 2015 (UTC)[reply] Hello fellow

thereaderwiki.com

Old data but 2 million units sold as of 2015, and 14,000 players online as of last year.

Now take into account that Elite is not just about trade and travelling between trade points, adds a galaxy to travel around (even if it could be argued travelling in space is less engaging than driving from Bristol to Berlin!), adds combat and ship customisations and lots of other stuff. ED should be doing better than it is imho.

 

[Northpin]

Now take into account that Elite is not just about trade and travelling between trade points, adds a galaxy to travel around (even if it could be argued travelling in space is less engaging than driving from Bristol to Berlin!), adds combat and ship customisations and lots of other stuff. ED should be doing better than it is imho.

Should be, but not necessarily
The learning curve is really steep in ED. It deals with flying ships, while driving trucks... well, it's driving, i mean everyone is familiar with. And moving in a 2D space is more manageable than flying a ship in open space.

IMO, player retention in ED has to deal with 2 main things:

• it's difficult, it has a ton of binds, it's really disconcerting for a new player. Certainly it's not a game for the masses.
• sandbox open game. There nothing in game to tell you you have to do this and that and then this and then 10-50 hours later to congratulate you for finishing the game. Lots of players dont have the time or the patience to get involved in a game that does not hold their hand and does not guide them along a more or less linear campaign.

 

[Zak Gordon]

IMO, player retention in ED has to deal with 2 main things:

• it's difficult, it has a ton of binds, it's really disconcerting for a new player. Certainly it's not a game for the masses.
• sandbox open game. There nothing in game to tell you you have to do this and that and then this and then 10-50 hours later to congratulate you for finishing the game. Lots of players dont have the time or the patience to get involved in a game that does not hold their hand and does not guide them along a more or less linear campaign.

100% agree. My God those bindings! I've never had a cold sweat simply from entering a 'controls' section of a game before! What could help is if EACH feature in the bindings had a good description AND told you what the game default setting was before you changed it (just to give the player an instant feedback for when they configure it wrong). That would remove most of the problem imho.

As for sandbox stuff, that has always been the Elite way, but they tried to get better (from FFE onwards) in giving some storyline to follow. In EDH i sort of never really felt any of the current story stuff, but i understand it is sort of hidden away in galnet news feeds and player groups and community missions and stuff like that, that as a Solo player i will mostly not see. I like (always have) Elite's sandbox nature, but i can see why new players would feel a little lost and aimless because of it. Maybe at game start you could ask the player what faction's space they wanted to start in (tie it into the codex info on the main factions to inform the player) and have a couple of faction based missions to start off with to get some money and rank going? something like that.

 

[Astaran]

It's curious. People keep saying versions of this, but here we are with Frontier currently running two extended storylines (Azimuth/Thargoids/Aegis and NMLA/ACT/Empire) with events, puzzles, and at least the implication of lasting changes to the setting. Can anyone from the "there's no good content" faction help explain what's not working for them here?

Gladly. I do enjoy both story arcs and I participate when possible. That being said, when I say "no good content [in Odyssey]" I mean sandbox content, especially for exploration.

Yes, we've got some atmospheric planets and space flowers, but that's all. There could have been Space Legs content for Guardian Sites or Thargoid bases. Either by reworking existing sites or by the introduction of new POIs. There could have been abandoned settlements to explore on foot (with audio logs and short stories attached to them), utilizing the full scope of Odyssey tools (Maverick suit to get through locked doors or bypass debries, Artemis suit to scan data points, Dominator suit to fight automated defenses. Basically encouraging people to play as a team). There could have been liquids on planetary surfaces or better vulcanism.

There hasn't been any new ship since the Mamba and the Krait Phantom. An Imperial explorer or at least some Imperial M-sized ship have been in demand for long. Same goes for the Panther Clipper.

There is still so much unused stuff in Elite, that could be turned into something. What's the point of taking samples from space organisms or even Thargoid? What's the point of Thargoid "engineering mats", when they are not needed for engineering?

Odyssey engineering is an even worse endeavor than space engineering. As a matter of fact, I only managed to unlock the first engineeers and haven't even engineered a single item myself. All my kit is pre-engineered G3 stuff, because I cannot stomach the grind anymore. I wanted to purchase a simple improvement for my AR-50, I saw that despite running a lot of Legs missions I still did not have enough of the correct mats...and left the station without ever coming back. There are still ships in my hangar I would like to fly or try out, but I don't because of the mindless and time consuming grind involved.

I think the FC interiors are now the first Odyssey content I really care about and that I am looking forward to

 

[Phoenix_Dfire]

Lost it's sole? OK Soul..

I don't think so. I know people are hacked off that all of the 'old' style planets have been changed but I must admit, I never really explored those planets in the first place. In Horizons, once you been down on one non atmospheric, the rest felt pretty "Samey". The only reasons I landed on planets before Horizons were ;-

1. Plot bases (INRA, Far God cult, etc).
2. Thargoid Bases / wreaks.
3. Guardian Sites (Really enjoyed those).
4. Mat gathering (probably the worst of the lot).

Never did base assaults (because they were always illegal) and there wasn't really a reason to land on planets when exploring because after a while there was nothing there to do.

With Odyssey, now that the performance is acceptable, I really do enjoy exploring but I'm only landing on the atmospheric planets. That's because there's the plant scanning and the atmospheric effects and visas on these new planets are fantastic. I think it's a case of in Odyssey, it doesn't have the outliers (e.g. the planets huge 15km canyons etc) that Horizons has but the average planet in Odyssey is far more interesting than it's equivalent in Horizons.

But wow, bringing up the Gnosis again, that's some serious sour grapes. There were plenty of warnings that the thargoids were going to make a move against that ship and in reality Fdev made two mistakes with that player event;-

1. They put the misjump notice out too early.
2. They didn't disable the security zone around the mega ship for half a day.

I logged in later in the day, when point 2 had been fixed, and had great fun saving the megaship from thargoid scouts. I would love to see these kinds of event put in again but no doubt the whinging that came with that even put paid to that!

Anyway, if you listen to Lave Radio 374 and 375, we discuss the pitfalls that all developers face with retaining players.

 

[Deleted member 182079]

I'm trying to think of another game that best represents Elite, that is not a typical MMO where 'everything' is about combat alone (because in Elite that is also not only what the game is about). And somehow i thought about the Truck Simulator games, so here are some sales figures and online player numbers to compare:

How many players are online in Euro Truck Simulator 2

Find out how many players are in Euro Truck Simulator 2 right now. We always have an up-to-date online, showing how many people are playing your game. Join now!

howmanyplay.com

Talk:Euro Truck Simulator 2

I've changed "The game has sold over 1.7 million units as of February 2015 and over 2 million units as of April 2015." to "The game has sold over 2 million units as of April 2015.". I'm right in thinking the first figure was pointless, right? Mazz0 (talk) 14:48, 3 July 2015 (UTC)[reply] Hello fellow

thereaderwiki.com

Old data but 2 million units sold as of 2015, and 14,000 players online as of last year.

Now take into account that Elite is not just about trade and travelling between trade points, adds a galaxy to travel around (even if it could be argued travelling in space is less engaging than driving from Bristol to Berlin!), adds combat and ship customisations and lots of other stuff. ED should be doing better than it is imho.

It's an interesting comparison - especially for me since I own both truck sims (ETS2 & ATS) and bought pretty much all their DLC over the years, and continue to do so. Yet, my hour count is significantly less in either (in the hundreds combined, vs. thousands for Elite). I rate SCS (the dev) extremely highly, and wish Frontier would take some notes... but I digress.

I reckon (and this is pure guesswork) that one of the main challenges with Elite is just how much downtime there is while playing it. The sandbox is indeed big, but it's filled with a lot of emptiness. Jumping systems is one thing, but SC in particular is even grating on me on a regular basis despite me making peace with it, and recognising the necessity of how it's implemented (space is big yadda yadda). But the fact is, I spend significant amounts of my Elite sessions alt-tabbed out doing other things, while waiting for something in-game. I really don't get this with any other game in my library (bar long haul flights in MSFS2020 perhaps, but at least there I still can look out of the window observing weather & scenery, manage the controls, work with ATC while flying). In the aforementioned truck sims, I will be 100% engaged driving my truck, navigating through road networks and traffic.

You could end up with missions that send you to a destination tens if not hundreds of thousands of Ls from the main star, and a large chunk of the time spent on such mission is staring at a counter to go down for several minutes, without the ability to do much at all - with SC assist and particularly Apex I'm able to go AFK, gather and bring down the rubbish (I'm living in an apartment block so it's a bit of a trek), come back up, change back to comfy clothes, grab a drink in the kitchen and once back to my PC chances are I still haven't reached my destination (it's a specific example because this happened over the weekend).

Most of us take the bad with the good, so we just endure it. But it might also be one of the reasons why people clock up so many hours in this game, because getting anything done takes a lot more time compared to other games - and many players just don't have the tenacity/patience for it, and I can't exactly blame them. For me, it's worth persevering for the good bits in Elite (and they are pretty good, if sometimes flawed), but it does feel exhausting at times due to the hoops I have to jump through to get to them.

 

[Salonica]

Performance is still an issue, but overall the Odyssey content is working well, and many enjoy the content on offer. Of course, the content on offer might not be to everyone's taste, but same could be with any new content.

I'd most certainly not call it a debacle.

Well, unless I was a console user

Maybe 'debacle' was the wrong choice of word.

Let's just call it a 'rapid unplanned disintegration' of their share price then

o7

 

[Astaran]

It's an interesting comparison - especially for me since I own both truck sims (ETS2 & ATS) and bought pretty much all their DLC over the years, and continue to do so. Yet, my hour count is significantly less in either (in the hundreds combined, vs. thousands for Elite). I rate SCS (the dev) extremely highly, and wish Frontier would take some notes... but I digress.

I reckon (and this is pure guesswork) that one of the main challenges with Elite is just how much downtime there is while playing it. The sandbox is indeed big, but it's filled with a lot of emptiness. Jumping systems is one thing, but SC in particular is even grating on me on a regular basis despite me making peace with it, and recognising the necessity of how it's implemented (space is big yadda yadda). But the fact is, I spend significant amounts of my Elite sessions alt-tabbed out doing other things, while waiting for something in-game. I really don't get this with any other game in my library (bar long haul flights in MSFS2020 perhaps, but at least there I still can look out of the window observing weather & scenery, manage the controls, work with ATC while flying).

You could end up with missions that send you to a destination tens if not hundreds of thousands of Ls from the main star, and a large chunk of the time spent on such mission is staring at a counter to go down for several minutes, without the ability to do much at all - with SC assist and particularly Apex I'm able to go AFK, gather and bring down the rubbish (I'm living in an apartment block so it's a bit of a trek), come back up, change back to comfy clothes, grab a drink in the kitchen and once back to my PC chances are I still haven't reached my destination (it's a specific example because this happened over the weekend).

Most of us take the bad with the good, so we just endure it. But it might also be one of the reasons why people clock up so many hours in this game, because getting anything done takes a lot more time compared to other games - and many players just don't have the tenacity/patience for it, and I can't exactly blame them. For me, it's worth persevering for the good bits in Elite (and they are pretty good, if sometimes flawed), but it does feel exhausting at times due to the hoops I have to jump through to get to them.

Right before FCs were released, I introduced a group of six or seven online friends of mine to Elite. They saw me constantly playing "Elite Dangerous", figured the screenshos on steam were pretty and it looked "fun". One of them at least played through the "noob" area before quitting. Another one manged to leave the noob area and played a bit more before leaving (I think he made it to a Viper Mk III). Only one managed to play enough to actually buy a Chieftain. As a matter of fact, the latter player enjoyed Elite enough to purchase HOTAS and VR set. But considering he's from Finnland, I think he mainly played because Elite is the only game where you can have several hundred lightyears between you and the next human being, which is just about good enough for the average Finn. He stopped playing with Odyssey (because lack of VR support). The others all left after just a few days while still in the noob area, with "I already have a full time job in RL, I don't need another one in a game" given as the main reason.

 

[Deleted member 182079]

Gladly. I do enjoy both story arcs and I participate when possible. That being said, when I say "no good content [in Odyssey]" I mean sandbox content, especially for exploration.

Yes, we've got some atmospheric planets and space flowers, but that's all. There could have been Space Legs content for Guardian Sites or Thargoid bases. Either by reworking existing sites or by the introduction of new POIs.

This was one of my first disappointments with EDO once I figured out they didn't retrofit any of the Horizons only locations/POIs with EDO specific features. You can't even exit a planetary port while on foot, only via the SRV.

There could have been abandoned settlements to explore on foot (with audio logs and short stories attached to them), utilizing the full scope of Odyssey tools (Maverick suit to get through locked doors or bypass debries, Artemis suit to scan data points, Dominator suit to fight automated defenses. Basically encouraging people to play as a team). There could have been liquids on planetary surfaces or better vulcanism.

My cynical self reckons that if paid-for cosmetics weren't a thing in Elite, we wouldn't have these different suits but instead the tools would be interchangeable regardless of the suit you're wearing. It's a very restrictive design with the Art/Dom/Mav types, and to me it seems the decision behind this was selling skins first and foremost.

There hasn't been any new ship since the Mamba and the Krait Phantom. An Imperial explorer or at least some Imperial M-sized ship have been in demand for long. Same goes for the Panther Clipper.

I often scratch my head at posters who don't want new ships - in a game about flying spaceships. New toys in a sandbox game = good - and there are some obvious gaps some of which you pointed out already that work make sense from a lore viewpoint alone. If people want to play the game with a single ship they can do so already; but I'd say the majority of players would welcome the addition of ships.

There is still so much unused stuff in Elite, that could be turned into something. What's the point of taking samples from space organisms or even Thargoid? What's the point of Thargoid "engineering mats", when they are not needed for engineering?

I asked myself this when I still owned a FC - I gathered all these samples and other stuff you can collect, but it just ended up being a "gotta catch them all" exercise for pretty much no reason at all beyond making credits. Still wonder what all those Thargoid mats were supposed to be for (maybe AX EDO engineering? I bet we'll get a new set of mats for that). We have a similar situation in EDO with all those worthless/pointless mats/goods (buiding schematics - I've got 50 of those but what to use them for?). It seems Frontier start designing something, then abandon whatever they planned or get distracted, or it's just a good old red herring I suppose.

Odyssey engineering is an even worse endeavor than space engineering. As a matter of fact, I only managed to unlock the first engineeers and haven't even engineered a single item myself. All my kit is pre-engineered G3 stuff, because I cannot stomach the grind anymore. I wanted to purchase a simple improvement for my AR-50, I saw that despite running a lot of Legs missions I still did not have enough of the correct mats...and left the station without ever coming back. There are still ships in my hangar I would like to fly or try out, but I don't because of the mindless and time consuming grind involved.

It is - and while I've now gone through it myself (some weird OCD I got going there, it was very compulsive indeed wanting to G5 all my 3 suits) throughout the past few weeks, having now arrived at my goal I've started asking myself whether that time was really all that well spent. I never felt that way with ships, and I still enjoy building and engineering them now as I did years ago.

I think the FC interiors are now the first Odyssey content I really care about and that I am looking forward to

Looking at FDev's comms, it seems to be the highlight for 2022. Let's hope they're withholding something else from us, because while I think FC interiors will be a great addition to the game (particularly if mat trading will be a thing, for all types including data that is), it's ultimately just another variation of the concourse environment.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Yes, we've got some atmospheric planets and space flowers, but that's all. There could have been Space Legs content for Guardian Sites or Thargoid bases. Either by reworking existing sites or by the introduction of new POIs. There could have been abandoned settlements to explore on foot (with audio logs and short stories attached to them), utilizing the full scope of Odyssey tools (Maverick suit to get through locked doors or bypass debries, Artemis suit to scan data points, Dominator suit to fight automated defenses. Basically encouraging people to play as a team).

I suspect there's a deliberate policy by Frontier not to make any of the story content an Odyssey exclusive until after the console release - which I think is the right decision if so but does mean they can't use a lot of the potential.

 

[Deleted member 182079]

Right before FCs were released, I introduced a group of six or seven online friends of mine to Elite. They saw me constantly playing "Elite Dangerous", figured the screenshos on steam were pretty and it looked "fun". One of them at least played through the "noob" area before quitting. Another one manged to leave the noob area and played a bit more before leaving (I think he made it to a Viper Mk III). Only one managed to play enough to actually buy a Chieftain. As a matter of fact, the latter player enjoyed Elite enough to purchase HOTAS and VR set. But considering he's from Finnland, I think he mainly played because Elite is the only game where you can have several hundred lightyears between you and the next human being, which is just about good enough for the average Finn. He stopped playing with Odyssey (because lack of VR support). The others all left after just a few days while still in the noob area, with "I already have a full time job in RL, I don't need another one in a game" given as the main reason.

I have one RL friend who played Elite in the past, but didn't make it past the Viper 3 either... that's years ago and he since moved away from gaming with only dipping his toes back in every so often, so Elite is probably the worst game to do that because it doesn't provide the quick dopamine fixes other games can offer.

I also remember last year (I think it was during the Epic giveaway) trying to help out a new player by answering a good few questions and giving them a leg up by donating some valuable cargo as I felt I wanted to do a good deed for someone who was a bit lost. They struggled with everything (even just cargo scooping was an exercise in frustration, for both of us) and after a few days of hassling me with inane questions you could google quickly on your own, he pinged me saying "this is all a bit boring isn't it lulz".

Kicked him off my friend list shortly after (to avoid further question spam if nothing else) and vowed to myself to steer clear of new players from then on in (in terms of going out of my way helping them at least) - noobs are better off figuring things out on their own, as that will provide a good initial acid test whether they'll be able to persevere with this game. And if they don't, they probably do themselves and others a favour by moving on instead.

 

[Northpin]

noobs are better off figuring things out on their own, as that will provide a good initial acid test whether they'll be able to persevere with this game. And if they don't, they probably do themselves and others a favour by moving on instead.

Yep, this

Sure a little help here and there is ok, but if a new player cannot figure the basic things by themselves, it's usually better for them to find a different game to play

 

[Deleted member 182079]

Yep, this

Sure a little help here and there is ok, but if a new player cannot figure the basic things by themselves, it's usually better for them to find a different game to play

To me at least, working things out without reading the manual* is part of the fun, always has been (and during my early gaming days playing cracked copies on my C64, and soon after japanese imports for my 16bit console I didn't have much of a choice), though I accept not everyone rolls like that...

*apart from Ikea furniture

 

[Zac Cocken]

Interesting post, thank you! As far as new content goes, the Azimuth saga has been regularly adding new mysteries in the galaxy for players to come together and solve. Similarly we saw the return of Galnet and Community Goals and like you said, the recent CG was a huge success in terms of player participation. There's still plenty more to come in terms of narrative, but as others in the thread have said, a lot of the beauty of Elite comes from the player-created events, which I'm hoping the Community Event Calendar will help support - as well as more frequent shout outs from us in the CM team via streams and weekly posts soon.

 

[Astaran]

I have one RL friend who played Elite in the past, but didn't make it past the Viper 3 either... that's years ago and he since moved away from gaming with only dipping his toes back in every so often, so Elite is probably the worst game to do that because it doesn't provide the quick dopamine fixes other games can offer.

I also remember last year (I think it was during the Epic giveaway) trying to help out a new player by answering a good few questions and giving them a leg up by donating some valuable cargo as I felt I wanted to do a good deed for someone who was a bit lost. They struggled with everything (even just cargo scooping was an exercise in frustration, for both of us) and after a few days of hassling me with inane questions you could google quickly on your own, he pinged me saying "this is all a bit boring isn't it lulz".

Kicked him off my friend list shortly after (to avoid further question spam if nothing else) and vowed to myself to steer clear of new players from then on in (in terms of going out of my way helping them at least) - noobs are better off figuring things out on their own, as that will provide a good initial acid test whether they'll be able to persevere with this game. And if they don't, they probably do themselves and others a favour by moving on instead.

I helped out one of my friends with Meta Alloys to unlock the engineer in Deciat. Basically I had some left overs and sold them for a bargain. But I also deliberately did not bring them into Mining frenzy, although in hindsight that might have been my greatest mistake. I probably should have send them mining to earn a lot of credits very fast, so they can access new game loops faster. Credits are an enabler in Elite. The more credits you have, the more stuff you can try out and maybe you find something that gets you hooked into the game.

My brother is another example. He's quite the hardcore gamer and when he sinks his teeth into a game, there's no holding back. He actually started playing Elite before me, but only for some 20 hours or so. For him, Elite is just too time consuming to get things even started. Engineering a ship for example. You need to meet the pre-requisites for the Engineer, you have to unlock the engineer, you have to "improve" the engineer by engineering stuff, so you can advance to either the next engineer (the one you actually need) or to get something to G4 or G5. When we go exploring, I usually take him onboard my FC to wherever we want to go. He's still flying a DBX, although I suggested improving to a Krait or AspX. Maybe we'll do another month+ long expedition when FC interiors drop and I can "convince" him to give Elite another try. But all in all, there are other games out there that are more readily accessible, get you "into the action" much faster and are just better suited for people with a full time job and family

I suspect there's a deliberate policy by Frontier not to make any of the story content an Odyssey exclusive until after the console release - which I think is the right decision if so but does mean they can't use a lot of the potential.

The optimist in me says you might be right. The realist in me remembers that I thought the same when I played the Alpha and thought "This can't be all". The pessimist sees the state of the game, the lack of clear direction, the new gag order on CM Comms and fears the worst.

 

[Deleted member 182079]

as well as more frequent shout outs from us in the CM team via streams and weekly posts soon.

While you're here if you don't mind me asking... when is this coming back, beyond 'soon' (tm)? The silence over the past few weeks (apart from covering patch 10) has been really weird to be honest.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Maybe 'debacle' was the wrong choice of word.

Let's just call it a 'rapid unplanned disintegration' of their share price then

o7

FD's share price regarding the Odyssey launch happened (amazingly enough) after the Odyssey launch, and it had largely recovered from that after a few month when their price was hit due to the JWE2 launch and later their end of year financial announcement due to the delayed release of upcoming titles. Maybe Odyssey played a bit part in the later dips, but was not the driver.

Always worth remembering that FD make multiple games and not everything devolves from ED.