Eh no?? We got EDO which was and still remains, a debacle. It would be interesting to see the stats on current Horizon players vs Oddity players. There is no way I'm paying 40 bucks for that piece of. As for horizons, yep will continue to play that even with all the bugs which are largely being ignored by Fdev.
Player Retention
- Thread starter Red Rocket
- Start date
It was the same for me, so nothing to complain about. By the time we took off FD had fixed some of the problems, like getting blown up before you could take off and getting penalised for fighting back, and we knew what to expect. Maybe some of the posters above, like us, took off after it was sorted. Contrary to what has been said above, I can remember many anti-xeno pilots raging because they were immediately blown up and sent to jail. Some even had insufficient jump range to leave the prison. That's not the point though. This thread is about player retention. How many players on the Gnosis rage-quit while many of those not on it were laughing at their distress? I doubt that many players were attracted to the game from that event, but it's pretty sure that a lot of players hated the game after it. That's the point.
I'll be honest the moments for me were, in no particular order.. Robigo, the egg, volley boom, sidewinder crashing, passenger missions and whole range of others they never knew about or ignored.
These were all shut down by fdev in the name of balance. FDev replaced them with mission stacking which yielded way more than any of those 'exploits' ever did. I know I don't understand it either. Seems to me, they give us a sandbox, but if we don't play the way they want in the sandbox, they change the rules.
Anyways, their game their rules. Our time, our choice.... They seem to have lost sight of that one.
And yes, DW2 and Thargoid landings were some of the best community time I ever spent in a game. (beside everquest raiding)
It's just a shame, they are so bad at so many stages of the game development process.
It's a bit of a fudge but switching to the camera view and selecting an over the shoulder viewpoint is a workaround. It enables me to do what I wanted to do when Odyssey was announced and look up at the stars with no restrictions.
Of course, it shouldn't be necessary but FDev are unlikely to change their stance for the foreseeable future.
And that's probably why we don't have that type of "big event" any more.
Salome, Gnosis, Colonia, Dangerous Games, whatever ... the basic problem is that they're high-risk for Frontier with relatively little advantage over the more gradual CGs/mysteries event style they've used in the last 18 months.
- everything has to work properly first time without much opportunity to test it first.
- the losing side will complain about it for years afterwards, even if they have to invent a losing side just to be on it.
- they don't appear to attract any more direct participants than a popular CG would.
- the main difference between "CG of the week" and "big event" is often the level of player-created hype in the run-up. So that's unpredictable, uncontrollable, and may lead to false expectations of what the event actually is.
Meanwhile the gradual storyline especially on the NMLA and Azimuth plot arcs has got players involved, 5-figure participant counts on some bits of it, some close-run competitive CGs without too much bitterness from the losing sides, plenty of mysteries and intrigue, and things like the discovery of the Hesperus got substantial and generally positive discussions as people worked together to discover and decode the various clues.
I'll be honest the moments for me were, in no particular order.. Robigo, the egg, volley boom, sidewinder crashing, passenger missions and whole range of others they never knew about or ignored.
These were all shut down by fdev in the name of balance. FDev replaced them with mission stacking which yielded way more than any of those 'exploits' ever did. I know I don't understand it either. Seems to me, they give us a sandbox, but if we don't play the way they want in the sandbox, they change the rules.
Anyways, their game their rules. Our time, our choice.... They seem to have lost sight of that one.
And yes, DW2 and Thargoid landings were some of the best community time I ever spent in a game. (beside everquest raiding)
It's just a shame, they are so bad at so many stages of the game development process.
I deliberately did not exploit the Egg, but I did make a fair amount of money mining LTDs in Borann and New Borann the "slow" way. To me, the social aspect of it all was certainly one of the most fun experiences in Elite. You would fill your cargo with LTDs, switch over to the System chat and look for a FC that's about to depart for a selling station. The mad scrambles to reach the carrier in time (and frequent close misses) were glorious to see.
Oh, and don't get me started on the "Block People" in chat as well. Fun times
I've been playing Odyssey since release. Its been a bumpy ride but I'm having a lot of fun...
![BigBANGtheory [VR]](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/71/71385.jpg?1644873788){kind=avatar}
I think it depends on what you mean by content.
ED has a ton of content already, its just very superficial and repetitive imho. Fine to do once or twice but then dull as hell, really don't want to do again but the game wants me to.
So for me its about defining and separating out "the superficial and repetitive content" from progressive, meaningful, persistent content that players have some agency and control over by their actions.
Exciting events I'm all for, kind of like the opposite of community goals which promote... yup you guessed it "the superficial and repetitive content"
New content that is not "superficial and repetitive" : Yes please
New content that amounts to "a photo and selling data for credits" : No thank you
I’m not an MMO player and have zero experience to call on for comparisons. With that in mind, the section quoted above provides one of my favourite consequences for any Elite player. History is made and you were either there or you weren’t there.
I hear/read tales of the Robigo Runs, DW1 and the Jacques mis jump amongst others and I feel like I missed out. Just like the foolishly romantic young man who feels the same when listening to their father or grandfather’s wartime stories, and just like the father or grandfather I (may choose to) forget the horror, the stupidity and the bugs (* screams in horror The bugs, the bugs) and only remember the camaraderie, the adventure and fun that can come when history is made when I recall the events I was present at.
I’ve never played a game that has made me feel so much a part of something, or that I missed out on something by not being there. These moments are ludicrously coloured by the rose tint of my memory but despite that knowledge it’s enough to keep me involved and hopeful that something else that may start off routinely becomes historic. That retention is firm when linked to the fact I simply enjoy pootling around in Space too.
Deleted member 182079
D
Well, if people rolled up with a min-max build to an event that remained inconclusive, that's on them really - I built a 35LY Krait with explo and AX gear (and of course a fuel scoop) and didn't take any other ship because I wanted to be able to handle whatever scenario would materialise, and I fared well with that approach. Sure, the bugs would've been annoying but quitting a game for that reason doesn't elicit any empathy from me at all I have to say.
There's been several situations that I faced throughout my time with the game, and that included bugs, player involvement, connection issues, or merely legit game design, things didn't always go my way and I would've had to endure some significant set backs (be that credits, mats, missions, or travel time) and at times it required a deep breath and maybe stepping away from the computer for an hour, but at the end of the day it really is "only a game". If people lost their
and rage-quit over an incident like that I don't envy them navigating through real life as that tends to throw curve balls at you all the time, but it might also mean that Elite wasn't the game for them in the first place, as it's full of these 'blink and things go pear-shaped-without-warning' moments still.Elite is already way too predictable across the board, and I welcome Frontier trying out new things even if there's a risk that it doesn't play out as smoothly as it should.
Deleted member 182079
D
Same here, no need to do the Egg exploit as normal mining already made so much cash, but despite it being out of whack from an earnings perspective vs everything else in the game, it brought the game alive as there was just so much going on in that system. My top 5 experiences in the game since playing in 2014 are all from Borann/Borann 2.
List of most-played video games by player count - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Here is the thing, numbers matter and Elite never hit big player numbers as an MMO type game. We can speculate but i'd say the vast majority of the 12 million player base (of those that still play) mostly play it in Solo, and if that is true that is just the historic dna of Elite players expressing themselves in this latest Elite game. We grew up loving Elite as a grand PvE sandbox, that is a rich tradition that shaped many young lives growing up in the 80's and 90's, and most of us have played plenty of PvP type games to understand what we loved about Elite and what we don't enjoy about MMO's. It will vary from person to person, but i'd bet my hat that all through Elite: Dangerous' lifetime, most play in Solo most of the time. History matters.
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
Please Braben please. This will be great but it also another f@#$ing dream(((
Thank you for this post, exactly my point.
“ Something where players in 5 years still will say with pride “ I was there “ “
Even tho the Cone sector didn’t go are expected I am glad I was there
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I was hoping to wait until the end of the thread before entering this conversation, but…
This is what I remember of this particular chain of events:
It started with Frontier showing blatant favoritism to a large player group by giving them direct control of a mega-ship. My opinion on this was similar to my opinion on player-named minor factions: if they’re going to give players access to things like that, add it to the sandbox for all to potentially play with, rather than picking and choosing who is worthy of special toys and who isn’t. Even if that special favoritism is to my advantage.
At some point, Cannon research discovered a region of space surrounded by other regions that were permit locked. These regions were set aside by Frontier for future content, but it seems when Frontier restricted this volume, they missed a spot. This region was far beyond normal FSD ranges at the time, but within the Gnosis’s jump range. An expedition was announced, and I decided to go along for the ride. I’d wanted to do some deep space exploration, but wasn’t willing to strand myself out in the middle of nowhere, should I decide that exploration wasn’t my kettle of tea. The Gnosis jump seemed to perfect opportunity to do that.
When Frontier learned about the expedition, and thus realized their oversight, they decided to make an event out of their mistake, rather than simply tell Canonn “Sorry, you can’t jump there after all.” Galnet article after Galnet article warned that that region was deep in Thargoid territory, and that the Thargoids would attack the Gnosis en route. Which is why I decided to set out n my own short exploration trip, rather than get stranded in the middle of nowhere after the Gnosis’ destruction at the hands of the Thargoids… which I thought would make a better story than what actually happened.
All I could think about afterwards, as the salt poured in, was, “What did you expect to happen after all those warnings?”
Viajero
Volunteer Moderator
Havent read the full thread yet so not sure if this has been commented on, what do you mean 0.1% daily? Where did you get that number from?
Like so many otger gameplay in ED "thinking outside the box" usually boils down in having to grind inordinate amounts to do it and thus it's just goalposting gameplay behind arbitrary barriers.
6000/12000000 is .05. 6000 is somwhat convurrent steam pop but I havent checked lately. Double that for console and 0.1. Maybe somethong like that.
What puzzles me more is how you end up with the gnosis stuff when talking about player retention.
Viajero
Volunteer Moderator
But average hourly concurrent players is not the same as daily players.
@Red Rocket, are you basing your post on Steam numbers?