Round Up of 3.3 Impressions - FDev Community Visit

[SP_Predicador]

Completely agree. The BGS is what should be giving some purpose to all the different activities. It does currently, but no very well. I am really hoping the new update helps solve some of these things. I am still hoping something like this:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/292205-Idea-for-more-dynamic-systems?highlight=

Maybe with a bit more visual flair like the Evacuate & Repair stations scenarios we get at the moment after a thargoid attack.

There are generally really good ideas!

For me, the basic (and more difficult) thing is that it should be more dynamic and there must be more interconnection in the repercussions/consequences, both between everything that is happening in a system with each other, and with the players, with what they are doing, and how it should affect the consideration that had of these in the system. At the moment there is very little coherence and the players are hardly purely external influences (inlfuencers), we are really nothing to the minor factions and super powers. They only care about our personal reputation.

Anyway, I prefer not to hype myself XD, and wait to see what there is at the end of all this. For little this can be, as long as it go in what I think is the right direction, for me, it would be great, fantastic and well done, Frontier. I would sign already for an improvement of the scenes after a thargoid attack, as you said, with enthusiasm!

 

[znôrt]

You've become an easy target for some of the haters I think partly because you're pleasant and respectful, and because you ARE popular. You're doing a grand job [up]

ftr: i've obviously not read it all, but the most hateful post i've ever read about him came from a fanboi, basically calling him 'toxic' about the game. yes, you read that well: oa + ed + toxic. go figure.

then again, people playing the fame game should know it's a double edged sword. oa always came across to me as very centered and aware of that, and seems to handle it quite well. other narcissistic drama queens not so much [haha]

 

[besieger]

At least four of us openly discussed with FDev how the hardcore PvP community largely feels "forgotten", and that the popular requests for improved piracy, C&P, player-bounty-hunting, and Open-focused Powerplay, would all massively improve the game for them.

Networking and instancing improvements were a given, of course.

So that's a no...

 

[znôrt]

Networking and instancing improvements were a given, of course.

now this is very interesting! that would be one of the crucial flaws of the game, and it would be good to know to what extent they internally reckon this is a core problem and intend to address it.

do you think you will be able to share any juicy details of these conversations after q4 goes live, or will that be bound by the nda forever?

 

[Dutchman141]

Obsidian Ant is the only youtuber I regularly watch.
Imho he's quite neutral about the goods and bads in ED.

Just for the record.
I have quite a couple complaints about Fdev and what they're doing to ED up untill now, Q4 hopefully changes that.
I didn't like their special snowflake treatment by inviting a couple prominent players anex youtubers but denying them to share anything.
I admit that my reaction was a bit over the top, other personal matters play a role in that but I shouldn't have let that happen.

However, I don't hold anything against the invitees, they obviously had a great day at Frontier and their positive reports certainly makes me curious about the actual update when it arrives.

This doesn't mean I'm getting hyped now, I'll judge the Q4 update myself wether it's good enough for me to start playing ED again or not.

 

[Andovar]

Thanks Golgot. +rep
looking forward to seeing some of this stuff on the livestreams.

 

[Bob McBobblehead]

There is one part of the game that gets used the most, yet has no fun game-play mechanics and that is travelling. We just press a button and we end up at the next star system on our plotted route. Some game-play mechanic involving hyper space jump that would allow you to travel further on the plotted route and each system you pass the harder the it gets until your bumped out of hyper space or your fuel runs out.

 

[Mengy]

Thanks Golgot for a fantastic summary. I agree that most of the info seems to be very positive.

However, some of the exploration stuff has me concerned. The new exploration mechanics themselves sound great, but I fear the implementation of the mechanics might be too rigid in practice and won't allow for enough player agency and decision making. Today the honk provides too much information, but it does provide a solid stepping stone for many styles of exploring. My concern is that 3.3 exploration will need to follow a strict routine every time before enough information is gathered to allow any decisions about what or how to further explore.

I'll have to wait to see the process in action before my fears are either confirmed or alleviated.

Mining sounds great, but I still am worried about hardpoint space with all of those new tools. And I really hope they finally rebalance ice mining to make it worth the effort, it's paid such pathetic credits ever since it was implemented.

I wish the Q4 livestreams were this week, the thirst to see this all in action is great.

 

[StuartGT]

So that's a no...

"Hi Stuart, I'd like to know if X/Y/Z was discussed, but I'm not going to tell you what X/Y/Z are, happy guessing"

 

[znôrt]

All the special snowflakes calling aside, did you ever consider how that probably works out if they would have chosen just some random players?

it would depend on how, and that tends to be their achilles heel.

you can have a player commitee. then you let the playerbase choose them and optimally agree to take input into serious consideration (i.e., not just with kind words) and to make it a permanent thing with regularity and continuity.

or you can have improv shows, but then you better have something to show.

this whole operation (with all respect to everyone involved) is just clumsy and odd, and quite screams of damage control. as i see it, this was an attempt to gain back some hype momentum and confidence. it seems to have worked for the former (at least on the forum! what a craze!) but it remains to be seen if it will pan out with the latter or if this was a smart/well played move in the mid/long term at all. i'm not at all sure.

bottom line is frontier's marketing department seems to do just like their engineering department: experimentation all along on issues that are actually long solved, with mixed to sloppy results.

 

[Rick Bravo]

So far, all the reports I have seen by the people who were at Frontier are extremely positive and based on that I expect that the changes are going to be as the streamers and other invited guests have said. What I haven't seen, is anything about how the Q4 changes will effect combat, aside from possibly losing once module slot to a (required?) ADS to find USSs. Squads were briefly mentioned but not much light was shed on that. Any Thargoid or Guardian content in Q4? Lastly, I didn't see anything relating to questions about the new mission board system. There are a lot of outstanding questions about that that have not been fully addressed. Some examples include, players have a 20 mission limit but with a single board, stacking missions for efficiency will no longer be practical, so how is Fdev going to balance that serious negative? A single board is not enough to fill a large passenger ship to a single location. Going to multiple locations is inefficient, so are large passenger ships something Fdev intends to kill or let die? They are increasing pay 10% but that compensation is only a small fraction of the loss in revenue. As I understand it, there is a technical limit to how many mission a board can spawn and a mission refresh isn't possible with thousands of players on a single mission board. What about other options, like separating different types of missions on different boards (like the passenger missions are separated now?).

 

[Dutchman141]

All the special snowflakes calling aside, did you ever consider how that probably works out if they would have chosen just some random players? Those they have invited are not especially known as fanboys but they have to lose a reputation - and this goes in both directions. Frontier can be relative sure that they will respect the NDA while their opinions are widely accepted by the community.

I wasn't aiming at the kind of people they invited.
What I meant was the special treatment at all and denying the invitees to share anything with the rest of us.
Imho this is a poor way of playing the community and get them hyped without actually saying anything.

Back in the days when I was still a pc gamer I frequently visited the Egosoft forums regarding their X games.
When a new game or update was nearing it's release the devs started posting screenshots or crums of information about it.
That was a very nice way to make people enthusiastic, we got some visual representation and bits of information to talk about.
Fdev only tells us that it's going to be exciting without actually giving any real reason to be excited about.

The same happens now with the reports from the invitees.
They tell us that it's impressive but they can't say why.
That's not the invitees fault.
It's the clumsy way of Fdev's communication and pr methods.

 

[dayrth]

it would depend on how, and that tends to be their achilles heel.

you can have a player commitee. then you let the playerbase choose them and optimally agree to take input into serious consideration (i.e., not just with kind words) and to make it a permanent thing with regularity and continuity.

or you can have improv shows, but then you better have something to show.

this whole operation (with all respect to everyone involved) is just clumsy and odd, and quite screams of damage control. as i see it, this was an attempt to gain back some hype momentum and confidence. it seems to have worked for the former (at least on the forum! what a craze!) but it remains to be seen if it will pan out with the latter or if this was a smart/well played move in the mid/long term at all. i'm not at all sure.

bottom line is frontier's marketing department seems to do just like their engineering department: experimentation all along on issues that are actually long solved, with mixed to sloppy results.

I don't think so. It seem to me that the point was to dampen down some of the outcry (there has been a lot), based solely on theorycrafting, but to do it without releasing specific information because they are not ready to do that yet. So what they did was invite a bunch of people who they thought would have an interest in the new features, who would be able to assess the information properly, who would be able to ask pertinent questions and who would be able to disseminate what they thought of it all to a wide audience. In this, it seems to have been quite successful.

People whose opinion I (and I believe may others) respect, have had a chance to see what's being worked on and let us know that it's a big thing and is looking good. They also managed to confirm the 100 people working on ED thing going so far as to say that it does not include support, community management or sound crew.

I don't believe FD were looking for input to design anything, so it has nothing to do with a player committee.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

it would depend on how, and that tends to be their achilles heel.

you can have a player commitee. then you let the playerbase choose them and optimally agree to take input into serious consideration (i.e., not just with kind words) and to make it a permanent thing with regularity and continuity.

or you can have improv shows, but then you better have something to show.

this whole operation (with all respect to everyone involved) is just clumsy and odd, and quite screams of damage control. as i see it, this was an attempt to gain back some hype momentum and confidence. it seems to have worked for the former (at least on the forum! what a craze!) but it remains to be seen if it will pan out with the latter or if this was a smart/well played move in the mid/long term at all. i'm not at all sure.

bottom line is frontier's marketing department seems to do just like their engineering department: experimentation all along on issues that are actually long solved, with mixed to sloppy results.

It screams of whatever you want it too. You see it as a negative thing, thats fine. I am completely neutrul about it apart from the NDA which in my view is silly. I don't really see any damage control probably because I am not overly negative about the game in the first place.

You are seeing it in a very biased way.

 

[Bigmaec]

I still have no idea why this was done.

Inviting people there to show them stuff. Ok, I get that.
"Famous" streamers even, ok, I get that too.
Letting them sign a NDA then so they can't tell about that? Why?
I don't get that part. Building up Hype? No one is building up hype by vague statements.
Is it to just pay OA et al. a nice trip to FD and pay them a Hotel and lunch? Good for them, but I still don't get it :S

 

[Dutchman141]

I still have no idea why this was done.

Inviting people there to show them stuff. Ok, I get that.
"Famous" streamers even, ok, I get that too.
Letting them sign a NDA then so they can't tell about that? Why?
I don't get that part. Building up Hype? No one is building up hype by vague statements.
Is it to just pay OA et al. a nice trip to FD and pay them a Hotel and lunch? Good for them, but I still don't get it :S

Exactly, and tweeting how exciting this event is.
Exciting only to those that are present which excludes 99.9% of the community.
Again, not the invitees fault.

 

[znôrt]

I don't believe FD were looking for input to design anything, so it has nothing to do with a player committee.

of course it's just marketing. i was actually pointing that out, re proposals to 'get random players' as representatives. it was never about the players, but about their expectations, and frontier's image and potentially their supporters (among the playerbase or the gossip scene).

You are seeing it in a very biased way.

criticism is not bias. also, i tend to hand out praise scarcely and only when needed: frontier are adults, professionals moreover. they shouldn't need conditioning like a 7yr old would ...

 

[Thatchinho]

Thanks Golgot for the summaries! And thanks Alec, Stuart et al. for the comments.

I think I'd just like to say a few things about the exercise as a whole. Something like this generally has multiple purposes including:

1 Feedback gathering and product improvement
2 Marketing
3 Doing something special for a few customers

1. Is the key thing as far as I'm concerned. Running new things past a small group before proceeding to larger groups, is simply pretty elementary good practice.

Disregarding all the other aspects to it, that in itself is a good thing, and I'm glad to see FD following a sensible (and proven) approach.

I don't know that much about some of the people that went but the ones who I'm more aware of certainly have the qualities that you would want from people in that kind of exercise (capability to represent more than just their own view, coherent and logical arguments, an appreciation of realism and practicalities, etc.). Personally I would have liked to have seen someone like MadRaptor or Baton there to represent the planetary geologics and biologics discovery side of things*, but not everyone can go, and overall it looks to have been a good choice of people for a good outcome from this side of the exercise (which I can only assume that people actually want to go well, regardless of whether that constitutes them seeing that things are looking good, or seeing that they're not, and providing useful, constructive and actionable feedback to FD).

Thanks to everyone for the info on how the feedback was taken and FD's attitude throughout. It certainly matches (if not exceeds) that which would be expected from a team which want their product to be well received and successful.

2. Marketing is highly dependent on how it goes, but NDAs are always going to be there for something like this. So long as box 1 is well ticked, then ticking the marketing box is also a good thing. Ultimately marketing, if done right is also important for the ongoing success of a product, so there's no way I would expect (or want) FD to not have a marketing side to the exercise. Again though looking at the group of people who went, there is a good variance in the market reach of the people there, which again provides a positive general inidicator about the whole thing.

3. A bunch of decent people who make a positive contribution to the community got something a bit special. All good there in my view and despite being envious, I'm very pleased for those that went.

Now don't get me wrong, there's a few things that I have specific concerns about*, which I would like to know more about and feed in on, but that doesn't in any way detract from the current exercise, and I have to say that I'm in no way frustrated by the NDAs that are in place, as ultimately the exercise wouldn't happen without them.

Overall, I'm glad to see a good approach being taken, and the reports of how it was conducted are certainly very encouraging. The proof's in the pudding as they say, and I've certainly been around enough to know that how things go at an event can contrast hugely with what actually happens afterwards, but at the moment I have to say it looks like a good job all round, so thanks again to those that went and to FD for doing it.

 

[Alec Turner]

Thanks Golgot for the summaries! And thanks Alec, Stuart et al. for the comments.

I think I'd just like to say a few things about the exercise as a whole. Something like this generally has multiple purposes including:

1 Feedback gathering and product improvement
2 Marketing
3 Doing something special for a few customers

1. Is the key thing as far as I'm concerned. Running new things past a small group before proceeding to larger groups, is simply pretty elementary good practice.

Disregarding all the other aspects to it, that in itself is a good thing, and I'm glad to see FD following a sensible (and proven) approach.

I'm don't know that much about some of the people that went but the ones who I'm more aware of certainly have the qualities that you would want from people in that kind of exercise (capability to represent more than just their own view, coherent and logical arguments, an appreciation of realism and practicalities, etc.). Personally I would have liked to have seen someone like MadRaptor or Baton there to represent the planetary geologics and biologics discovery side of things*, but not everyone can go, and overall it looks to have been a good choice of people for a good outcome from this side of the exercise (which I can only assume that people actually want to go well, regardless of whether that constitutes them seeing that things are looking good, or seeing that they're not, and providing useful, constructive and actionable feedback to FD).

Thanks to everyone for the info on how the feedback was taken and FD's attitude throughout. It certainly matches (if not exceeds) that which would be expected from a team which want their product to be well received and successful.

2. Marketing is highly dependent on how it goes, but NDAs are always going to be there for something like this. So long as box 1 is well ticked, then ticking the marketing box is also a good thing. Ultimately marketing, if done right is also important for the ongoing success of a product, so there's no way I would expect (or want) FD to not have a marketing side to the exercise. Again though looking at the group of people who went, there is a good variance in the market reach of the people there, which again provides a positive general inidicator about the whole thing.

3. A bunch of decent people who make a positive contribution to the community got something a bit special. All good there in my view and despite being envious, I'm very pleased for those that went.

Now don't get me wrong, there's a few things that I have specific concerns about*, which I would like to know more about and feed in on, but that doesn't in any way detract from the current exercise, and I have to say that I'm in no way frustrated by the NDAs that are in place, as ultimately the exercise wouldn't happen without them.

Overall, I'm glad to see a good approach being taken, and the reports of how it was conducted are certainly very encouraging. The proof's in the pudding as they say, and I've certainly been around enough to know that how things go at an event can contrast hugely with what actually happens afterwards, but at the moment I have to say it looks like a good job all round, so thanks again to those that went and to FD for doing it.

Quick! Close it! Close the thread now!!!!
(I love a happy ending)

[haha]

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Edit ...

Spoiler

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

criticism is not bias. also, i tend to hand out praise scarcely and only when needed: frontier are adults, professionals moreover. they shouldn't need conditioning like a 7yr old would ...

I never said criticism was biased. But saying stuff stinks of damage control, when it really doesn't is very much a biased view point and not a criticism.

You don't need need to be positive or negative. Criticise what needs to be criticised (like the NDA which doesn't make much sense and is neither positive or negative thing to say). But leave your biased negative opinions at the door (like the damage control statement) well that is how you should act if you abide by your own standards that is.