Reviews on steam makes me wonder :/

[Theta Sigma]

Case in point

So now You speak for everyone who is bashing steam users? YOU may only be dumping on a specific set of steam users you believe to exist (yes, believe, unless you can provide hard proof) but don't pretend for one minute that that was the original intent of this thread. Read the OP, anybody posting a neg review on Steam is apparently an Angry Teen who doesn't understand the game.
Personally I think that moderators letting this thread stay open says everything about how FD work. Threads that "dump" on anyone are not supposed to be allowed, I guess its all fine and dandy as long as its bashing people who believe this game has problems and/or bad design choices from a gameplay perspective though eh?

Case in point:

Two reviews for EDH - posted on consecutive days.

One of them gives a somewhat dispassionate, and crucially - factual explanation of what is entailed in the Horizons DLC:
9 people (82%) apparently found this correct information 'Unhelpful'

The other gives a shouty, expletive-augmented - and factually incorrect explanation of what is entailed in the Horizons DLC:
16 people (73%) apparently found this incorrect information 'Helpful'

Furthermore, and interestingly, regardless of the actual wording or style of the review-content, these 'voting tendencies' for 'Positive' and 'Negative' reviews are pretty typical of the pattern being played out on a day-to-day basis in the Steam reviews for ED and EDH

View attachment 106250

 

[Ted Striker]

Add MOAR COMBAT!
I think flaunting exploration and trade will lower sales more than anything. Sure exploration is fun until you realize... you are not going to find anything "new" out there. Same planets, different configuration. If there were more easter eggs out there it would be better.
Trading... *yawn*
Action sells.

Trading is much more fun in Euro or American Truck Simulator, and exploration is actually really damned boring when you realize you aren't finding anything interesting, just barren moon/planet #4372/1000000000.

There needs to be more game in this game, if you know what I mean. Alien species, alien-populated worlds, first contacts, intersystem wars etc., not to mention basics like walking around stations and your ship.

Literally the only thing I do is fight in hazrez and CZ because everything else is yawn-worthy boring, and combat alone can only hold my attention for so long because I have other games I can play.

 

[Jex =TE=]

Case in point:

Two reviews for EDH - posted on consecutive days.

One of them gives a helpful, dispassionate, and crucially - factual explanation of what is entailed in the Horizons DLC: 9 people (82%) apparently found this correct information 'Unhelpful'

The other gives a shouty, expletive-augmented appraisal - and factually incorrect explanation of what is entailed in the Horizons DLC: 16 people (73%) apparently found this incorrect information 'Helpful'

These are pretty typical of the pattern being played out on a day-to-day basis in the Steam reviews for ED and EDH

View attachment 106250

Taking 2 random reviews is meaningless. You also don't know the reason people are thumbing up or down - just because it says helpful doesn't mean people thumbing are saying it's "helpful" - they could just want to agree with it.

I see some reviewers are posting how FD made their game DLC after a month to solely remove the negative reviews LOL

 

[Soliluna]

You know that's 12 minutes, right? What possible opinion could be formed after 10 minutes in Elite? That's not even long enough to do the basic tutorials, let alone get to grips with the actual mechanics.

A very worthwhile and important opinion, if it is your own. To quote a friend that bought Elite in a sale and has 0.3 hours on record (this isn't from a review lol):

"I loaded up a tutorial and spent 10 minutes blasting crates of some kind while spinning in an asteroid field. It looked great but the controls were unintuitive and the control menu options even more unintuitive. I haven't picked it up since."

First impressions are incredibly important, 0.2 hours is more than enough to make them, that's 0.3 but I'm afraid I have two friends on my Steam who play Elite, one loves it and one said the above.

 

[AJW]

My review of the reviews of Steam reviews in this thread is overwhelmingly negative...

 

[FuzzySpider]

Just surfed by steam and was reading some of the reviews, Oh boy there are a lot of angry teenagers out there!

When you open with an insult based on the dubious premise of "If people don't like something I like they must be immature!" you're not doing a whole lot to carry this conversation anywhere good.

To me, it sounds like someone didn't understand what FD are trying to do....

Gee! I wonder why that could be?

What do you think need to be done, so that these reviews will give more Justice to the game?

Fiddling around with add-ons like powerplay and CQC while the base game is still woefully short-sighted. And when millions of your fans have been clamouring for single player features adding functions to allow other people to sit in your ship while not allowing NPCs to fill that role is a sure way to create animosity.

Frontier need to decide what sort of game Elite is then stick to developing that particular game. Constantly making changes and updates which seemingly alter the nature of the game (or at least make it appear the game is changing direction) yet do nothing to address the core issues is proving to not be popular among the general gaming populous.

 

[Fendalton]

What makes you assume that Steam reviews are all teenagers?

That's like saying that the forums are full of old men hence all the complaining.

 

[RingoD123]

Case in point:

Two reviews for EDH - posted on consecutive days.

One of them gives a helpful, dispassionate, and crucially - factual explanation of what is entailed in the Horizons DLC: 9 people (82%) apparently found this correct information 'Unhelpful'

The other gives a shouty, expletive-augmented appraisal - and factually incorrect explanation of what is entailed in the Horizons DLC: 16 people (73%) apparently found this incorrect information 'Helpful'

These are pretty typical of the pattern being played out on a day-to-day basis in the Steam reviews for ED and EDH

View attachment 106250

Well I personally wouldn't be thumbs upping that positive review, he's give it a positive based on "I agree what they have given you is not a lot, but hopefully this season will come to something pretty good", I would not base a review on promises or potential, especially given FD's track record since this games release over a year ago now.
On the other hand, i'm not saying every negative (or positive) review is on point, nor would I ever say the badly written ones were obviously/definitely written by trolls/haters etc. There is every type of person out there, each one with their own opinions and ways to articulate them, never-mind priorities, not everyone who dislikes a game is willing to spend 30mins typing up a fully coherent review, they have no special feeling towards the game etc.
Anyway I digress, I was never trying to say that this wasn't happening, what I was saying is that ppl should not be painting the whole of steams user base as "morons", "trolls", "angry teens" etc etc, and since no one has any solid proof of any PARTICULAR people or group of people doing this, then painting ALL steam users is what is being done, and seems like a form of Elitism to me (sorry for the pun).


Anyway, I guess my main thought about this whole thing is:
If all around you stinks, start by smelling your own armpits!

 

[Soliluna]

While it is unfair to generalize any group of people based on the actions of a few, come on man, these guys are Steam users! I happen to use Steam, but only on the weekends - I find that too much Steam is a lot like too much lead: It makes you dull and a wee bit loopy.

I have to wonder what you use steam for if it makes you feel like that lol

I wouldn't identify myself as a Steam user but the application has 99% uptime on my computer. My friends list is full of everyone I grew up playing games with (locally, not online). We still play games together on most evenings in a week.

The pervasive opinion on it's userbase is part of the typical stereotyping that happens in life, I tend to ignore it but remember that the person is in all likelihood an idiot.

 

[lysan]

Yeah, funny how if the reviews where all positive you wouldn't have an issue with them. This thread would be about how spot on the steam reviews are and how it supports your point of view.
It's only that it has a mixed rating with negative reviews that you've got to try and undermine them.

Ask yourself why you need to do this?
Do you do this for any other products you buy (e.g. your toothpaste)?
If not why not?
Is it because complaining that someone wrote a bad review of the toothpaste you buy is a little bit mental?
Think about it. It's a game, you're acting like this and you're not 10 anymore (unless you are then fair enough).

I think you get me (the OP) all wrong here. I'm a (sometimes) very loud critique of the game. I have a long list of issues with the game, do I write a review raging about those issues? no. The reason for that is that the game are very dynamic, it change all the time. You simply can't write a review where you say, "this game are the best ever" or "this game socks".

If I would write a review it would be very broad in the recommendations. ED has one of the best sound design in the game world, if not the best. in the other end ED has a terrible mission design. In between those to points there are good game design and not so good game design. However a reviewer that write that ED suck balls and people should just wait for XYZ to come out because it will be the end space game is just an opinion from one sad delusional person in my opinion.

If you absolutely need to express how you feel about a game then you should at least give it some thoughts. if you can't articulate the reason, use numbers.

Sound 10/10
Mission design 2/10
Graphics 8/10
Game play 6/10

Reason for pros
----------------

Reason for cons
----------------

Overall evaluation
-----------------

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

What makes you assume that Steam reviews are all teenagers?

That's like saying that the forums are full of old men hence all the complaining.

grumpy old men are just that, grumpy! (one look at you, right now, ps: you're standing on my lawn)

 

[CoreHaven]

Most here don't seem to understand what went on over there. When the pricing thing came about for Horizons, the reviews went hostile. Hard. At least the last time I checked, about 3 months ago, most all bad reviews were talking about Horizons and it's pricing model and bashing it.

To me this was difficult as a potential buyer. Most reviews were not talking about the game itself or it's merits but rather the pricing of Horizons. I'd imagine a large aspect of the poor reviews on steam are still the same nonsense.

But I don't knock Steam reviews either. Lots of games have great reviews on there and that's because they're great games. Even little niche games that are good? Have good reviews.
However, when Horizons released, the Steam reviews went incredibly hostile over the pricing.

So....there it is.

 

[Kristov]

A very worthwhile and important opinion, if it is your own. To quote a friend that bought Elite in a sale and has 0.3 hours on record (this isn't from a review lol):

"I loaded up a tutorial and spent 10 minutes blasting crates of some kind while spinning in an asteroid field. It looked great but the controls were unintuitive and the control menu options even more unintuitive. I haven't picked it up since."

First impressions are incredibly important, 0.2 hours is more than enough to make them, that's 0.3 but I'm afraid I have two friends on my Steam who play Elite, one loves it and one said the above.

I have a friend, professional commercial pilot, 777s and the like, who thinks the controls are too easy and simplified, so he doesn't like the game for that reason, yet he loves Star Citizen, which is almost identical in controls and flight model(I use the exact same HOTAS settings for both no less), which I've pointed out to him, but he doesn't see it. Bias, his, which is understandable, he never played Elite, HUGE fan of the Wing Commander games however.

My grandson, watching me play for a few months, thought he knew how to fly in the game, so I let him try out the tutorials. 2 hours later he still hadn't shot a single container. 'How do you make it look so easy grandpa?' "many hours of practice bub". I even let him remap the controls with my HOTAS, didn't help at all, took him hours to complete the first few tutorials. He finally got comfortable enough to actually land and take off using my HOTAS, but he wasn't very good at flying by any means. I got him the game on the XBOne, kid has NO problems at all flying like an Ace with that controller...still can't use my HOTAS for jack.

When you open with an insult based on the dubious premise of "If people don't like something I like they must be immature!" you're not doing a whole lot to carry this conversation anywhere good.



Gee! I wonder why that could be?



Fiddling around with add-ons like powerplay and CQC while the base game is still woefully short-sighted. And when millions of your fans have been clamouring for single player features adding functions to allow other people to sit in your ship while not allowing NPCs to fill that role is a sure way to create animosity.

Frontier need to decide what sort of game Elite is then stick to developing that particular game. Constantly making changes and updates which seemingly alter the nature of the game (or at least make it appear the game is changing direction) yet do nothing to address the core issues is proving to not be popular among the general gaming populous.

I'll give you the considering anyone on Steam giving a negative review a teen, that's not a good thing to do, as many of those are actually adults. Still quite possibly immature, but that's not an assumption I'd make myself, they are just acting that way for whatever reason.

I do wonder though, who are these millions of fans demanding a single player game? I mean, I'd LOVE for this game to have millions of players, but it hasn't sold millions of copies yet, so....

 

[lysan]

I have a friend, professional commercial pilot, 777s and the like, who thinks the controls are too easy and simplified, so he doesn't like the game for that reason, yet he loves Star Citizen, which is almost identical in controls and flight model(I use the exact same HOTAS settings for both no less), which I've pointed out to him, but he doesn't see it. Bias, his, which is understandable, he never played Elite, HUGE fan of the Wing Commander games however.

My grandson, watching me play for a few months, thought he knew how to fly in the game, so I let him try out the tutorials. 2 hours later he still hadn't shot a single container. 'How do you make it look so easy grandpa?' "many hours of practice bub". I even let him remap the controls with my HOTAS, didn't help at all, took him hours to complete the first few tutorials. He finally got comfortable enough to actually land and take off using my HOTAS, but he wasn't very good at flying by any means. I got him the game on the XBOne, kid has NO problems at all flying like an Ace with that controller...still can't use my HOTAS for jack.



I'll give you the considering anyone on Steam giving a negative review a teen, that's not a good thing to do, as many of those are actually adults. Still quite possibly immature, but that's not an assumption I'd make myself, they are just acting that way for whatever reason.

I do wonder though, who are these millions of fans demanding a single player game? I mean, I'd LOVE for this game to have millions of players, but it hasn't sold millions of copies yet, so....

The teenager thingy was more a reference to the languages used in the reviews, I honestly don't know how old people actually are, it not printed in the reviews.
However "this game suck balls" "lame **** of CR*P**" suggest that this could be a youngster or someone who didn't evolve during the years.

The control thingy I will just not touch because you just need to go to RSI controls Vs Controls to see the current status.

 

[Comatosed]

Lol why do people always go by other peoples reviews or watch trailers if they are going to buy the game, I personally like to see the actual gameplay and make my own review before I purchase. Not to mention steam reviews lol, it's a bit like the forums in eve-online, take it with a pinch of salt and never to be taken seriously.

 

[Soliluna]

Lol why do people always go by other peoples reviews or watch trailers if they are going to buy the game, I personally like to see the actual gameplay and make my own review before I purchase. Not to mention steam reviews lol, it's a bit like the forums in eve-online, take it with a pinch of salt and never to be taken seriously.

I don't think anyone here does, they just sense an injustice in negative reviews not 'adequately demonstrated or communicated'.

I personally don't, to quote myself: However I disagree that it is not an accurate representation of the game when taken as a whole. In general, Steam reviews are as good as a group of opinions on something could ever be which is to say - more useful than a single opinion on something - yet still minuscule in comparison to my own.

 

[Theta Sigma]

Rumour Control

Taking 2 random reviews is meaningless.

Spoiler

https://web.archive.org/web/20160127112717/http://store.steampowered.com/app/419270

https://web.archive.org/web/20160127112717/http://store.steampowered.com/app/419270

I absolutely agree. No contest.

...if the point of posting the two reviews is to try to definitively prove a point. But I suspect you misunderstand the point?

I'd disagree that posting two reviews is - by definition - completely "meaningless", however.
You'll note that my immediately prior post stated quite clearly:

'Proving' anything, absolutely, is of course impossible.
However, as stated previously:
- "...there appears to be a small hardcore of Steam users regularly upvoting negative reviews and downvoting positive reviews"
- "despite the aggregate number of positive reviews out-pacing the number of negative reviews over any reasonable time-period"

I'm sure you'd agree that's quite an interesting state of affairs?
You're quite at liberty to verify to your own satisfaction that it does appear to be occurring.
It still doesn't 'prove' anything, but I'm sure you'd agree that it's quite an unusual state of affairs given that there are, objectively/actually/in fact more positive reviews than negative reviews, overall.

I subsequently stated:

These are pretty typical of the pattern being played out on a day-to-day basis in the Steam reviews for ED and EDH

The point, therefore, was that, "You're quite at liberty to verify to your own satisfaction that it does appear to be occurring."

You also don't know the reason people are thumbing up or down - just because it says helpful doesn't mean people thumbing are saying it's "helpful" - they could just want to agree with it.

Quite. For all I know they may have thought they were being asked whether they wanted to order pizza when they chose which button to click after the ambiguous question: 'Was this review helpful?'

I see some reviewers are posting how FD made their game DLC after a month to solely remove the negative reviews LOL

Spoiler

https://web.archive.org/web/20160127112717/http://store.steampowered.com/app/419270

https://web.archive.org/web/20160127112717/http://store.steampowered.com/app/419270

Yes, that is pretty LOL-worthy given that on 27th January 2016 ...just 6 weeks after the release of 'Standalone EDH':

...and just 9 days prior to the complete removal from Steam of 'Standalone EDH' [APPID= 419270] there were:
831 reviews (Overall: 'Mostly Positive')
72% (694) giving Positive Reviews

At the present moment for DLC EDH [APPID= 441340] 4 weeks after the DLC-change, there are still only less-than-a-quarter as many reviews as there had been for 'Standalone EDH':
201 reviews (Overall: 'Mixed')
61% (123) giving Positive Reviews.

Nothing significant has changed to the content of EDH between 419270 and 441340.

You did know that, right? Sheesh.

Yet another cast-iron example of how hearsay and conjecture becomes "fact" very quickly these days.

Back in reality, FDEV likely removed 'Standalone EDH' due to the constant complaining that that their "pricing-model isn't clear enough"
FDEV then moved to a DLC-model (supposedly) more comprehensible to Steam users...
...resulting in all the 72% majority, 604+ positive reviews being completely removed
...and leading to just-plain-wrong (and - importantly - demonstrably untrue) conjecture as to why FDEV did this.

Amazing.

 

[FuzzySpider]

I do wonder though, who are these millions of fans demanding a single player game? I mean, I'd LOVE for this game to have millions of players, but it hasn't sold millions of copies yet, so....

Here ya go Kristov.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertc...layer-games-should-live-forever/#298e5c1d609e

Look at the list of games that sell the best.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games#All_platforms

Most of them have a robust single player mode.

Yahtzee observed something about multiplayer a while back, and it will always hold true. Some games work in multiplayer but as a general rule a good single player experience is vital to any game which is not an arena/MMORPG type game, and Elite does neither of these things very well at all.

 

[Kristov]

Lysander, the controls bit was just to show that for some people, the controls in this game are a huge problem and enough to turn them off the game without actually playing it, like my buddy the pilot. My grandson still can't fly for a damn using my HOTAS, but with his xbone controller, on the XBOne or my PC, he flies like an Ace. He didn't let not being to get the controls stop him from playing the game, unlike my buddy the pilot. And believe me, I give my pilot friend a lot of grief over this, especially since the controls and flight model in Star Citizen are almost identical, which he loves and he uses a Warthog setup, so...yeah, I gotta give him flack on that one But I get it, the controls alone can be enough to turn people off the game, which is just one of the many things that can do that, not just for Elite but for any game.

I've seen people who didn't like the color scheme on the UI so they won't play the game, not a joke, some people are THAT picky, seen people who didn't like the names they were given for their character, didn't like the names of the bad guys, all kinds of silly reasons to ME, but for that person, perfectly valid.

And I do agree with you, those people may not be teenagers, but their choice of language doesn't lead ME to believe they aren't teenagers. I taught my children and I'm teaching my grandchildren(with my daughter's help) that the language you use and how you use it, or misuse it, is used to judge how intelligent you are, so if you talk like an idiot, people automatically take you for an idiot.

I absolutely agree. No contest.

...if the point of posting the two reviews is to try to definitely prove a point. But I suspect you misunderstand the point?

I'd disagree that posting two reviews is completely "meaningless", however.
You'll note that my immediately prior post stated quite clearly:



I subsequently stated:



The point, therefore, was that, "You're quite at liberty to verify to your own satisfaction that it does appear to be occurring."



Quite. For all I know they may have thought they were being asked whether they wanted to order pizza when they chose which button to click after the ambiguous question: 'Was this review helpful?'



Yes, that is pretty LOL-worthy given that on 27th January, 9 days prior to the complete removal from Steam of 'Standalone EDH' [APPID= 419270] there were 831 reviews (Overall: 'Mostly Positive') with 72% (598) giving positive reviews?
At the present moment for DLC EDH [APPID= 441340] there are just 201 reviews (Overall: 'Mixed') with only 61% (201) giving positive reviews. Nothing significant has changed to the content of EDH between 419270 and 441340.

You did know that, right? Sheesh.

Yet another cast-iron example of how hearsay and conjecture becomes "fact" very quickly these days.

Back in reality, FDEV likely removed 'Standalone EDH' due to the constant complaining that that their 'pricing model' wasn't clear enough.
FDEV then moved to a DLC model more comprehensible to Steam users...
...resulting in all the 72% majority, 598+ positive reviews being completely removed
...and leading to just-plain-wrong conjecture as to why FDEV did this.

Amazing.

I can't give you more rep today, so I owe you one...again, well said.

 

[Comatosed]

I don't think anyone here does, they just sense an injustice in negative reviews not 'adequately demonstrated or communicated'.

I personally don't, to quote myself: However I disagree that it is not an accurate representation of the game when taken as a whole. In general, Steam reviews are as good as a group of opinions on something could ever be which is to say - more useful than a single opinion on something - yet still minuscule in comparison to my own.

Very well said, yeah most off us in this community are middle aged and know better anyway. Most of the negative reviews on steam are probably just people venting for different reasons and really no relation to the actual gameplay but then I don't know, I don't read them, I just took part in some of the forum discussions for other games and literally watched the community push out the devs on the forums and I was appalled tbh.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I think you get me (the OP) all wrong here. I'm a (sometimes) very loud critique of the game.

I'll vouch for this!