Reviews on steam makes me wonder :/

[KING5TON]

Unbias doesn't explain the 80% metacritic score from professional reviewers.

I'll explain it easily.
When they reviewed the game it was at release.
The reviewer only played the game for a short time compared to many players and thus didn't hit many of the issues people have when they play it a lot.
Even then many reviewers had a caveat about lack of content and things to do, many of the reviewers expected this to change in post release content, We now know this hasn't changed sufficiently enough in the 1 and a bit years since release.

 

[Boomer Kay]

When they reviewed the game it was at release.

You mean like every other game they review?
Difference being that they review dozens of Unreal Engine games a year, which play basically the same and adding the same lame copy&paste storyline, same quests, same .. everything only makes them "diverse" if you play 1-2 of them a year or haven't played a few dozen of them over the last few decades and then they have a new engine which does something new (or actually old, but pretty out of fashion) and all of a sudden find that stuff good?

And.. uhm.. the positive reviews on Steam come mainly from people playing 100+ hrs. Negatives after 20-30 hours. The odd "I played 2000 hrs and have come to conclusion that this game is bad" in between.

 

[Vyrsai]

Like I have said before, I am not a fan of doom and gloom posts generally but:

15th Dec 2015 for Horizons release... first update after release has been pushed back to June. That's 6 months with no update for this "season". It also means they only have 6 months left to push out all the content promised for Horizons which seems unlikely. I know that them pushing it back means they are most likely working on fixing bugs etc before release but, that's still not really acceptable in terms of 1 season per year for 10 years bit.

Now the Rift won't be working with the game until at the earliest June as well. That's quite the sting to many players I'm sure.

At the very least it's worrisome to me since players have no incentive to pay full price for seasons currently. Getting the bare-bones season starter for the max price versus waiting 6 months+ after and getting more content for less. If that trend continues we won't make it to season 5 let alone 10.

I love this game and my playtime reflects that (over 1000hrs).

If I had to be completely unbiased and write a review right now the first half of it would sparkle, but I would have to list many points that would be as negative as the first half was positive.

 

[Ignition]

I'm not bashing steam users at all, I'm a steam user myself. What I do is wondering why so many people got this game so wrong? and also reading some of the reviews they just don't sound as reviews done on the current game status. Its more like an old grunt against the game from early on. (price and off-line etc.)

There're a lot of reasons, the forgoten DDA, the empty windows with no gameplay, no challenge in the game mechanics, no skills in the game mechanics, no interactions between you and your ship in the activities, really boring gameplay. The game is still like when it came from release, the gameplay Is exactly the same a really big group of placeholders.

65% positive reviews on steam Positive (8,551) Negative (4,532), a real success.

 

[Derath]

You mean like every other game they review?
Difference being that they review dozens of Unreal Engine games a year, which play basically the same and then they have a new engine which does something new (or actually old, but pretty out of fashion) and all of a sudden find that stuff good?

And.. uhm.. the positive reviews on Steam come mainly from people playing 100+ hrs. Negatives after 20-30 hours. The odd "I played 2000 hrs and have come to conclusion that this game is bad" in between.

Whose going to play a game they don't like for 100 hours?

The 80% review score from journalists comes because of that, they are journalists, they play a very set number of hours as its their job and they have something else to review. If I personally reviewed elite it would have gotten about 70% when I started, probably 85% when I was really in the flow of moving up ships and finding stuff to do and down to 50 or 60% when it hit me just how shallow it is. Its easy enough to see where 80% comes from when you plot satisfaction/time on a graph

 

[Boomer Kay]

Its easy enough to see where 80% comes from when you plot satisfaction/time on a graph

It is.. if you filter by "played time" and set it to 3 digits minimum, the percentage of favorable reviews increases "magically", even on Steam.

And there comes the professionalism of professional reviewers into play - they don't review based on their bias (doesn't mean they're not biased in general, but if you follow their reviews, you know which bias they have), but see the "potential" for the "target audience".

Why do you think I haven't bothered with the Total War series after Shogun II and rather go back to playing some mods on one of the previous installments? Professional reviewers unanimously mentioned the "dumbed down AI" (despite giving it high reviews) ... that's a Yay for the casual strategist and a "meh" for the longtime player of the franchise.
The pretty clever AI was the thing that set it apart from the likes of Warcraft/Starcraft.
Now it has nicer graphics, more .. everything .. and the Intelligence of a 3 year old ... hm.

Oh, and I got ED off a steam sale ... nearly 300 hours in now .. as soon as I get bored or annoyed, I'll stop playing for a while and wait for more content that I've already payed for.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

After reading the Steam reviews, its simple to see that they do have a point

While there are some good reviews, some of them are just rants or completely useless because they don't give any details to help people make an informed decision. Here are some of the most "helpful" from the week (yes, you know, those that are meant to be helpful in making people make decisions on whether to buy - not like there are not some people upvoting any negative review... surely not!).

garbage anti-consumer business practices. My account stopped working over a year ago.No help whatsoever

A vast beautiful ocean an inch deep

Oh noes... the old mile wide inch deep meme strikes again! With zero qualification as what they mean.

If your looking to get dizzy and super frustrated this is the game for you

Shallow game. Gets boring quickly.

Want the developer to constantly ♥♥♥♥ on you with every new release? How about a pvp mode where you constantly get wrecked by people in max level ships with max level weapons? Then this is the series for you!

Don't buy!!! An absolutely miserable experience getting the game started on MacOSX. Mono doesn't work properly. Damaged by User setup on install. Crashed repeatedly. I want my money back!

Seriously, if you're considering buy this game. DO NOT. I will never play this game again. Spent hour and hours of real time wandering around the universe and gazing at stars. Came back to occupied space, and some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ blew me up for wandering into Empire space region.

This game is a waste of time only.

Positive helpful reviews are not always good either

Great mate

Well, that's not useful either!

As i said, there are some good negative reviews out there, but voting of reviews into helpful/not helpful seems to be based on I agree/disagree, with a lot of the really terrible reviews being upvoted simply because they are negative.

That is the problem with Steam reviews, at least on ED. Whether its a general Steam problem or whether there is a group of hardcore haters out there voting to get the negative reviews up, or something else, no idea.

But reviews like that are useless.

 

[Kristov]

Have to agree, seems like a lot of people on these forums who owned the game before it hit Steam see themselves as "better" or have a false sense of superiority compared to the Steam users, just because you may have played longer doesn't mean you're any higher up the rung or that the newer Steam users are equivalent of the great unwashed. In fact, I would argue that they have a less bias point of view of where the game is currently at than the small % of original backers still left defending this game to the death here on the ever decreasing forums.

We're dumping on the people who purposely downvote every positive review of the game and upvote every negative review of the game, these are people who aren't interested in the game at all, they could give a damn what it's like, they are trying to ruin the company's reputation, simple as that. There are groups of people who do this for a LIVING on Steam, do you get that? They quite literally contact the game developer/publisher and set it out clearly, pay us or we'll write constant negative reviews. And if you don't pay them, that's what they do, and they've done it more than a few times. Valve knows of this, Valve does nothing about it, because Valve doesn't care, they get their money regardless.

Oh, and these 'dying forums' have more than tripled in registered users in the last 4 months, I think you've read too many of those Steam reviews....

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).

People don't like the game, that's fine, if they write a negative review and actually articulate the issues, that's great.

'This game SUCKZORZ!!!1!' is not a review. Downvoting EVERY single positive review is not the action of someone who's simply displeased with the game, that is someone who's purposefully trying to hurt the company's reputation.

I know, subtle little things that are so easy to miss unless you are aren't brain dead, but some people still miss them...

 

[RingoD123]

We're dumping on the people who purposely downvote every positive review of the game and upvote every negative review of the game...

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?

 

[Iori]

What I do is wondering why so many people got this game so wrong?

There are three types of Elite players.

1. New players who are presented with a deeply flawed product and don't know about the development plan, or simply judge the game for what it is and not for its promises. (<30h negative reviews)
2. Old informed optimistic players who still see the game for its future potential. (most positive reviews and Steam reviewer haters come from this group)
3. Old informed pessimistic players who have lost faith in the development plan because of the priorities of FDev when it comes to updates. (>30h negative reviews)

 

[KING5TON]

People don't like the game, that's fine, if they write a negative review and actually articulate the issues, that's great.

'This game SUCKZORZ!!!1!' is not a review. Downvoting EVERY single positive review is not the action of someone who's simply displeased with the game, that is someone who's purposefully trying to hurt the company's reputation.

I know, subtle little things that are so easy to miss unless you are aren't brain dead, but some people still miss them...

Maybe some people aren't able to articulate very well the issues with the game. What if these people have learning difficulties or similar. Just because they can't write a review that's up to your standard of what constitutes a review doesn't make their review any less valid than someone that wrote something that does match your opinion of what a review should contain. You've got to remember that everyone isn't like you, they are different and as such have different abilities when it comes to communication. If someone writes "This game sux, it's borin" then that's still a valid opinion just poorly communicated and I know nothing about that person to be able to say anything further about them.

You've got to also recognize that for every "this game sux" there are "BEST GAME EVAR 11/10" reviews too. No one (as far as I can see) is complaining that they aren't providing sufficient information in their review of why it is the best game evar. You can't knock one side just because you don't agree with their opinion and seek to undermine them while ignoring the poorly written positive reviews just because they're positive and you've got some weird issue with people not liking the game.

I don't agree with downvoting positive reviews (or negative ones) for no good reason. I would say that from experience on downvoted opinions that either side don't agree on is something that happens on both side of the fence, if anything I think the PRO ED side are a little more downvote happy compared to the CON ED side, especially if you look at things like Reddit.

 

[MottiKhan]

Steam reviews are why I bought this game to begin with. Back then, they were mostly positive and I was able to get an idea of what the game was about before i bought it. Of course, anyone can tell the bogus reviews from the valuable ones. The game turned out better than I expected and my positive review is there on Steam to reflect that.

That being said, if I came across it now, with reviews down to "mixed", I probably would have passed on by without even looking. It's a shame that people who don't understand FD are giving it such bad reviews. At 936 hours in the game and counting, I'm still finding it fun.

 

[Jex =TE=]

Maybe some people aren't able to articulate very well the issues with the game. What if these people have learning difficulties or similar. Just because they can't write a review that's up to your standard of what constitutes a review doesn't make their review any less valid than someone that wrote something that does match your opinion of what a review should contain. You've got to remember that everyone isn't like you, they are different and as such have different abilities when it comes to communication. If someone writes "This game sux, it's borin" then that's still a valid opinion just poorly communicated and I know nothing about that person to be able to say anything further about them.

You've got to also recognize that for every "this game sux" there are "BEST GAME EVAR 11/10" reviews too. No one (as far as I can see) is complaining that they aren't providing sufficient information in their review of why it is the best game evar. You can't knock one side just because you don't agree with their opinion and seek to undermine them because of their content while ignoring the poorly written positive reviews just because their positive and you've got some weird issue with people not liking the game.

I don't agree with downvoting positive reviews (or negative ones) for no good reason. I would say that from experience that downvoting opinions that either side don't agree on is something that happens on both side of the fence, if anything I think the PRO ED side are a little more downvote happy compared to the CON ED side, especially if you look at things like Reddit.

Can't rep you again - excellent post

 

[Kristov]

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?

I'm not reading it the way you are, and evidently neither are the mods, since there's one posting in the thread, what we see is what Lysander posted, which isn't a dump on Steam users et al, it's a commentary on what some people on Steam are doing, specifically in context to Elite: Dangerous.

As for the folks who pan games on Steam for money, google it, it ain't news, Valve is aware of them, Valve doesn't care, Valve gets their money, that's ALL they give a damn about, that's all they've ever given a damn about. Coordinated attacks on products happen all the time on Valve, nothing new there either. Players from Star Citizen actually got together on their forums and reddit and coordinated exactly such an attack on Elite: Dangerous, so....you were saying something?

YOU being unaware of the nature of Steam, Valve and the users of Steam is your problem. Me, been using Steam since it started up, as a source of entertainment, never get my software from them, but I do find it funny as hell to read the reviews and see who's trying to 86 who's product this week.

 

[KING5TON]

Can't rep you again - excellent post

I dunno, I did waffle a bit but thanks.

 

[Kristov]

Maybe some people aren't able to articulate very well the issues with the game. What if these people have learning difficulties or similar. Just because they can't write a review that's up to your standard of what constitutes a review doesn't make their review any less valid than someone that wrote something that does match your opinion of what a review should contain. You've got to remember that everyone isn't like you, they are different and as such have different abilities when it comes to communication. If someone writes "This game sux, it's borin" then that's still a valid opinion just poorly communicated and I know nothing about that person to be able to say anything further about them.

You've got to also recognize that for every "this game sux" there are "BEST GAME EVAR 11/10" reviews too. No one (as far as I can see) is complaining that they aren't providing sufficient information in their review of why it is the best game evar. You can't knock one side just because you don't agree with their opinion and seek to undermine them while ignoring the poorly written positive reviews just because they're positive and you've got some weird issue with people not liking the game.

I don't agree with downvoting positive reviews (or negative ones) for no good reason. I would say that from experience that downvoting opinions that either side don't agree on is something that happens on both side of the fence, if anything I think the PRO ED side are a little more downvote happy compared to the CON ED side, especially if you look at things like Reddit.

Ah, yes, naturally, how inconsiderate of me to assume that the person who's written pages of well thought out and considered reviews for a game he likes is capable of doing so when he writes 'this game suckzorz the goatballs!' for Elite: Dangerous, obviously he's a moron who has oddly lucid moments once in a while....what a fool I was to think otherwise....

Why are some of you defending this ? Would we find YOUR Steam reviews on there in this category by any chance, for Elite: Dangerous or some other game perhaps?

Again, 'I don't like the game', fine, no one is saying otherwise, but to write 'this game suckzorz' and downvote every positive review while upvoting every negative review is NOT a critic of the game at all, how you could possibly think that is so is...well...what's your Steam nick, lets see what your reviews look like...

 

[Othniel]

@ Xondk- You just nailed down exactly what is wrong with society morally and idealogically!

Regarding the game... along with what others have said, I also would add it is too complicated for them because they are looking for a casual game they can play without having to read and study up on.
When I started, I assumed it was going to be difficult- and it was! I was upset the first time I collected bounties and then blew up- just to find out I lost all the bounties with the ship. The second time I got mad was when I was collecting bounties and made the mistake of not waiting for the scan to finish before attacking... I was clueless why everyone all the sudden attacked me right after.

Even so, I stuck it out and felt my way though a few things but had to consult forums and the game's wikia in order to a better understanding of what I needed to do and how to progress. Now that I have somewhat (in a loaded Viper), it has become more fun to play. Patience!

 

[Theta Sigma]

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?

'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.

Another observation regarding Steam reviews is that there appears to be a small hardcore of Steam users regularly upvoting negative reviews and downvoting positive reviews.

Sort by 'Recent' and you'll see that despite the aggregate number of positive reviews out-pacing the number of negative reviews over any reasonable time-period:

- as soon as a new positive review appears it attracts downvotes to upvotes in a ratio of around 4:1
- as soon as a new negative review appears it attracts upvotes to downvotes in a ratio of around 4:1

It's an interesting (and pointless) meta-game that's being played out there %^]

 

[Jex =TE=]

@ Xondk- You just nailed down exactly what is wrong with society morally and idealogically!

Regarding the game... along with what others have said, I also would add it is too complicated for them because they are looking for a casual game they can play without having to read and study up on.
When I started, I assumed it was going to be difficult- and it was! I was upset the first time I collected bounties and then blew up- just to find out I lost all the bounties with the ship. The second time I got mad was when I was collecting bounties and made the mistake of not waiting for the scan to finish before attacking... I was clueless why everyone all the sudden attacked me right after.

Even so, I stuck it out and felt my way though a few things but had to consult forums and the game's wikia in order to a better understanding of what I needed to do and how to progress. Now that I have somewhat (in a loaded Viper), it has become more fun to play. Patience!

One thing we can safely say about ED is that it is not complicated at all. Once you have learned what the keyboard does, it's a very simple game to play and that is one of the criticisms of the game. Complicated games are flight sims which ED does not even come close to. At the start there's enough to learn to make it seem complicated but once you've spent an hour or two in the game it becomes easy.

 

[Kristov]

One thing we can safely say about ED is that it is not complicated at all. Once you have learned what the keyboard does, it's a very simple game to play and that is one of the criticisms of the game. Complicated games are flight sims which ED does not even come close to. At the start there's enough to learn to make it seem complicated but once you've spent an hour or two in the game it becomes easy.

For some, yes the game isn't all that complicated, but what about all the folks who still can't dock half the time who've been playing since the gamma? What about the folks who constantly post whines about how tough the NPCs are? What about all the folks who can't figure out most of the missions? Seems that to a lot of people, this isn't an easy game to learn, much less master, even after over a year of playing it.

I know people who think WoW is deep and complicated and they haven't mastered it after years and years of playing it. I can hit cap with a new character in a few days without trying, it's not at all complicated or deep to me, pretty simple really. I played BF2 for years, thousands of hours, and I was still learning new things all the time, but to my WoW friends, it was so simple and easy, just point and shoot, what's so hard about that?

Read the reviews, I did, found some of them very good, even the negative ones, as the person actually stated what they didn't like, what bothered them, their gripe if you will with the game. Others describe what Lysander pointed out, people who didn't bother to read the game description itself, much less try to find out what the game is about and how it plays.