Stop forcing use of the Frontier Launcher - its just another barrier to put people off the game

ste234

S
There is no reason to have a seperate launcher. Its tarnishes the player experience, is the cause of many frustrations around product registration issues and pushing it on to the player base is one of the reasons many people dont even bother downloading the game, even if they got it free from Epic. As with all of Frontiers game, the prioritising of data scraping and spyware type capabilities over player experience casts a strong negative impression before the player even opens the game. Steam reviews on all the frontier games show how unpopular the forced use of the launcher is yet FDev continues to ignore the player base, their critical reviews and assume people will eventually just fall in line and accept it if ignored for long enough. The reality is that many of these users simple dont buy the game when they see its Frontier as they've heard about the launchers or had prior experience of it and instead choose to take their money and attention elsewhere

My new player experience was downloading the launcher after getting the game free on Epic, reluctantly signing up after a few days of considering it, then finding that the download capability of the launcher was terrible. It was going to take over 3 days to download the game at which point i closed it and gave up on the endeavour. Later i happened upon MinEdLauncher, a fan made app to bypass the launcher (which i've since come to understand is quite popular amongst long term players). Using this fan made app i was able to download the game in a few hours in stark contrast to the official launcher. Were it not for that fan made app, i myself wouldnt have been willing to tolerate the download as performed by the official launcher and would have given up on the game

I think Elite is a great game and i'd love to see it grow or return to its former glory, but i feel like FDev are mismanaging the player experience and creating hurdles that are directly driving players away. The mismanagement around the last update was a good example of this - the launcher was used to force the users to download the 'live' version, even if they didnt want it and removed their installed legacy version without asking if they wanted to keep it. Considering that this was a 50GB+ download for each version, forcing it on uses and making them redownload previous versions they already had shouldnt have been seen as an acceptable course of action. The launcher could easily have been updated to allow it to ask what the users preferred course of action was, to give the option to leave existing legacy installations inplace, but instead the users were made to tolerate the inconvenience and it was assumed that they'd just put up with it. To further aggrevate the situation, the downloads had to be performed via the Official Launcher, rather than steam or epics more robust download / update mechanisms

Today we had updated release of the launcher and whilst i cant comment on its download functionality yet, i notice that it has again been the cause of user inconvenience with it initially being bugged and causing an infinite update loop. Furthermore theres reports of it crashing after changing the language, causing product registration issues, suffering from missing content, collecting hardware info without requesting permission and it triggering security warnings from Windows Defender with it being detected as suspicious. I expect other bug reports will follow as the needless complexity invites it

Please consider removing the launcher or at least make it an optional component. Along with this, allow updates to be performed via the normal Steam or Epic client
 
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Shadowsnog

Shadowsnog
few things for consideration:
fdev launcher was first and the game was made to be launched that way. then came steam and epic. you might as well contact them if they dont want to release their ed players from the need to launch their launcher first and then have to launch fdev launcher. all and all i dont really see the difference in making 2 clicks or 3 to launch the game.

in regards to live being the main download: previously if you wanted to have only live, you would have to uninstall legacy after each update. this made life harder for leg players, but easier for live. which one do you think is preferred to support? unfortunate as it is for leg only players, for me personally this was a tremendous help.

also couldnt help but notice:
fdev is prioritising spyware over gameplay? thats a wild asumption. especially since you got the game for free from the spyware client...
you are saying something about making the game great again, but as you yourself said you are a newbie? what exactly are we talking about? making the game as good as before by removing the launcher that has always been there?
i understand you want to give your words some weight but it should be based on truth at least a bit. this way of doing it doesnt bring you much credibility.

download speed: how long did you let the old download go? i think i vaguely remember it showing some horrendous times at the beginning but the download speed then got up and game was downloaded in hours. i redownloaded the game later a couple times and download time was pretty much the same every time.

update: steam updates my game like all games on steam are updated. i dont know about epic but id suspect it being the same there. might want to check epic settings?

user incovenience with being initially bugged: every commander playing elite has to get used to two things. getting disappointed and bypassing bugs. sad but true. i still consider it one of the best games i have ever played and will continue playing it and will continue recommending it to every space nerd and flight sim enthusiast ill meet.

i hope this reaches you well and that you perhaps reconsider the negative view on the game and will be able to get much fun and happy memories while playing it.
if you ever need help or a wingmate my ingame name is the same as here ;)
o7
 

alexzk

A
+for automatic launcher close once game started. I don't need 1 more browser to eat cpu/gpu which is not enough for game + extra window in alt-tab.
+for automatic launch - click in steam "play" and see game, I would accept delay while it do checks without any window.
 

HappyMoonMonkey

HappyMoonMonkey
Automatic launch is available if you change the launch modifiers in steam or epic. Just add /edo to the modifiers and your game will always load live Odyssey skipping automatically through the FDev launcher. Problem solved.
 

alexzk

A
HappyMoonMonkey said:
Automatic launch is available if you change the launch modifiers in steam or epic. Just add /edo to the modifiers and your game will always load live Odyssey skipping automatically through the FDev launcher. Problem solved.
Click to expand...
Still have to alt-tab from popping up game and close launcher, isn't it ? Old launcher was stuck until main game window, so I could click Play, then X and it was closed when game is up. This one will abort launch and close itself.
....well, just another trash main stream, I have to do that for all other games except SWTOR which has "autoclose" checkbox. 1 more game is not big deal.
 
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radekcz

R
I agree with the opinion that the launcher can be cumbersome. However, I do not fully agree. I use the launcher for EDO because I bought the game directly from Frontier. I don't particularly like launching Steam, connecting to their social network, and then launching the EDO launcher. I prefer to start the game bypassing the Steam platform, which only gets in the way in this case.

I don't like the situation when I buy a game on a platform like Steam, and after launching the game, I have to go through additional actions (registration, login, entering codes, etc.). Why is that necessary when everything is in my profile (e.g., on Steam)?

It should be understood that the publisher may not necessarily want to share profits with Steam, Epic, etc., and agree to their imposed conditions. Also, some players may not like these mass platforms.

In games like EDO, the launcher is necessary because it is a multiplayer game, and some level of control over player interactions is needed to achieve the desired quality. Without registration and "tracking," it would be limited to just single-player mode.

As we remember, ED was initially created as a standalone platform. Later, ED was integrated with Xbox and PS, which was a very challenging task - reconciling all three platforms with their different organizational and legal requirements. As it turned out, it all worked out. I suspect that there might be some difficulties in integrating with Steam or Epic. These are probably technical challenges, possibly minor ones. The launcher and separate accounts give Frontier the freedom, and no one imposes requirements on them. They can "control" players according to their own rules. I believe that in the case of multiplayer games, such "control" is justified because people can sometimes be very unpleasant to each other, and such situations need to be addressed (account bans, barriers in the form of payment requirements for new accounts, etc.) :cool:
 

Brrokk

Brrokk
ste234 said:
There is no reason to have a seperate launcher. Its tarnishes the player experience, is the cause of many frustrations around product registration issues and pushing it on to the player base is one of the reasons many people dont even bother downloading the game, even if they got it free from Epic. As with all of Frontiers game, the prioritising of data scraping and spyware type capabilities over player experience casts a strong negative impression before the player even opens the game. Steam reviews on all the frontier games show how unpopular the forced use of the launcher is yet FDev continues to ignore the player base, their critical reviews and assume people will eventually just fall in line and accept it if ignored for long enough. The reality is that many of these users simple dont buy the game when they see its Frontier as they've heard about the launchers or had prior experience of it and instead choose to take their money and attention elsewhere

My new player experience was downloading the launcher after getting the game free on Epic, reluctantly signing up after a few days of considering it, then finding that the download capability of the launcher was terrible. It was going to take over 3 days to download the game at which point i closed it and gave up on the endeavour. Later i happened upon MinEdLauncher, a fan made app to bypass the launcher (which i've since come to understand is quite popular amongst long term players). Using this fan made app i was able to download the game in a few hours in stark contrast to the official launcher. Were it not for that fan made app, i myself wouldnt have been willing to tolerate the download as performed by the official launcher and would have given up on the game

I think Elite is a great game and i'd love to see it grow or return to its former glory, but i feel like FDev are mismanaging the player experience and creating hurdles that are directly driving players away. The mismanagement around the last update was a good example of this - the launcher was used to force the users to download the 'live' version, even if they didnt want it and removed their installed legacy version without asking if they wanted to keep it. Considering that this was a 50GB+ download for each version, forcing it on uses and making them redownload previous versions they already had shouldnt have been seen as an acceptable course of action. The launcher could easily have been updated to allow it to ask what the users preferred course of action was, to give the option to leave existing legacy installations inplace, but instead the users were made to tolerate the inconvenience and it was assumed that they'd just put up with it. To further aggrevate the situation, the downloads had to be performed via the Official Launcher, rather than steam or epics more robust download / update mechanisms

Today we had updated release of the launcher and whilst i cant comment on its download functionality yet, i notice that it has again been the cause of user inconvenience with it initially being bugged and causing an infinite update loop. Furthermore theres reports of it crashing after changing the language, causing product registration issues, suffering from missing content, collecting hardware info without requesting permission and it triggering security warnings from Windows Defender with it being detected as suspicious. I expect other bug reports will follow as the needless complexity invites it

Please consider removing the launcher or at least make it an optional component. Along with this, allow updates to be performed via the normal Steam or Epic client
Click to expand...
Maybe it does useful things? Mine just said it was compiling a hardware report, presumably to make the game run better.
 
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ste234

S
Thanks for your response Shadowsnog, i think you've misinterpreted some of my points though so ill clarify. I dont have a negative view of the game at all, i think its fantastic.
I've taken the time to explain my criticism in the hope that the feedback will help FDdev make the experience more appealing to new and exisiting players. The launcher is off-putting. Whether it was added first or not, the player experience should be the priority and theres been ample time for that to be refined and streamlined since the game was published to Steam and Epic, were it the priority. As for my spyware comment, i said they were prioritising spyware type capabilities over player experience, thats not based on an assumption, its based on the fact that the launcher collects data without requesting the users consent (hardware surveys). I also said i'd like to see the game grow or return to its former glory. I've observed that the game once had many more players than now and that new player growth seems to be stalled, even after the game was given away free on Epic and has been offered at discount on Steam. This is a real shame and i think were the process to install and maintain the game more streamlined and the annoying, buggy launcher removed, that more people would be willing to sit through the download and get to discover the game and the great community around it. As for the download in the launcher, its all good and well if it goes faster than it says, but i dont honestly think many people would leave it running for 1 or 2 days to discover it didnt take 3, most people would see that and move on. Its not multithreaded and its hugely rate limited compared to steam or epic, thats why MinEdLauncher was able to perform the same download in just hours rather than days. Finally, I do consider myself a newbie, but i've clocked in 484h 55m so far so i'm also clearly a fan of the game and not just someone looking to run it down
 

Zieman

Zieman
For what it's worth, I don't want to use Steam or Epic or other bloatmalware in between my games and me, so for me the removal of the Launcher gets a hard NO.
That said, if Steam & Epic versions can be done without the Launcher, I guess that would be nice.
 

alexzk

A
Zieman said:
For what it's worth, I don't want to use Steam or Epic or other bloatmalware in between my games and me, so for me the removal of the Launcher gets a hard NO.
That said, if Steam & Epic versions can be done without the Launcher, I guess that would be nice.
Click to expand...
Yes, that was asked exactly.
"No launcher for steam".
I have to use Steam as it makes life easier to run Windows games on Linux. So I'm +/- ok with steam, I already made scripts to jail it once I launched game until I unlock it again.
 

HappyMoonMonkey

HappyMoonMonkey
Shadowsnog said:
i tried this and doesnt work. (steam)
Click to expand...
My bad. I also use /VR which adds steamvr into the mix and autoruns but instead you can use /autorun and /autoquit

I tried both epic and steam new launcher with these and they still work.

Through steam the launcher helpfully gives me a message that I'm logged in with XXX account and a button to "log in with Steam". With /autorun you don't even need to press this button. Just wait.
 
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