[Video] Open letter from community to Elite Dangerous

[gooddoc]

The way I see it, all these problems are directly attributed to the design of the game. One of the greatest selling points of ED is that you, the Commander, can play the game as you want to. There is no right way, no wrong way, no rails to follow, no set path that must be adhered to. Subsequently, every Commander plays the game slightly differently than every other Commander. What does that mean, simple, everyone has different gripes, different requirements for the game, no matter how major or trivial they are.

Heck, FD could remove PvP, PP, multi-crew, wings, squadrons, even Open entirely and it wouldn't effect the way I play the game. But I know that others cherish those parts that don't interest me but I know those aspects of the game are pivotal for many other players.

So where does this leave FD - well unfortunately up a certain biowaste infected creek without a means of propulsion. Whatever they do, they will upset part of their player base, whatever they introduce will undoubtedly upset part of their player base. If they turn on the communication bandwagon, then too many here will speculate and try to second guess FD (even if FD are quite clear in what they say). If FD remains mute then the members of the community will complain about not knowing, how are they possibly going to survive in this world without knowing the direction a computer game is heading.

That's a good deduction of the game.

I've said before, I seem to play a unique style, as I rarely come across (or notice) bugs that seem to be infesting the game. Yeah, the last update was the worst yet, as even I couldn't do Mining until they fixed Edmund's 'Black Adder' bug - but they did that reasonably quickly.

I appreciate that other's aren't so lucky & their style is seriously hampered by bugs & the length of time to get them fixed.

It's up to FD to continue forward how they wish despite what any group or individual thinks or posts on forum's. I've got used to that now & just wait until updates arrive while doing my own thing - when the dust settles.

I've had excellent value for my money spent on the game (which is more than could be said about the Dino Park!).

If Frontier had a meeting today & said "....you know what? STUFF 'EM!!!, let's close the game down & concentrate on the other titles...."
sad though I'd be, I'd look back & say 'that was money well spent'.

End of the day, there's a lot of stuff in ED that I wouldn't touch with a barge pole, but blazing my own trail keeps me playing whatever updates appear.
That, to me is what Frontier are up against. They'll never be able to please even half of the community all the time, no matter what they do!

 

[Rubbernuke]

Everything you said can be used to describe cqc and/or multicrew.

Exactly. Its a troubling pattern. Another is Galnet Audio. How does its introduction sit with lore being scaled back now? Its a perennial case of 'nice idea at the time'. FD could stop adding new things and develop what they have they'd improve the game far beyond adding any dubious new content. Just join things up, balance things, fix gaping exploits. The foundations were always there, its just FD keep on building foundations and not actually the rest.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

My mission screen has been accessible 1/10 attempts. Tbh I stopped counting it's probably closer to 1/15. I can't turn in any of the missions I had and I can't take new ones. Blue screen crashes everytime I'm in a conflict zone taupe cobra at least half of the times I try to get past the menu. I'm on PS4 so all of those problems. I've had my canopy blow out when I'm not even in combat. I've exploded (combat at >50% hull).

I've stopped keeping track. But I can say with 100% certainty that if these problems are persistent when the paid update comes along, my money will be spent elsewhere. FACTS

Yup, i acknowledged consoles have problems right at the start of my post. Consoles have always been the red haired stepchild for ED. Check out the Fortnite forum as well, same issues there, consoles have way more bugs, to the point of it being unplayable for many.

It confuses me. Consoles are in theory easier to develop for. Standardized hardware, standardized configurations, standardized software. In thoery, PCs should have way more problems than consoles.

So, yeah, sorry to hear its unplayable for you, but generally speaking, talking about PC here, as most people are on PC.

 

[Riverside]

You would have. But they haven't. And they haven't improved after repeated outrages and open letters.

One would think there comes a point where you understand no matter how open letters people write, how many rage quit posts they make, nothing will ever change.

With zero complaints or feedback or whining, whatever it is described as, there is no opportunity for the opinion to be noticed and acted upon.
With greater than zero feedback there is a greater than or equal to zero chance that it will be acted upon.

I don't agree with many of the complaints raised in this thread but I wouldn't complain about the complaints

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Many of us have been here for a long time, and maybe a lot of Frontier might be thinking that "this happens all the time" but I don't recall an "Open Letter" from nearly all the major community contributors, app developers, streamers and influencers, with associated petition of 2000+ signatures about Frontier's lack of communication before.

It's all gone so quiet since Ed left.

There have been a few open letters, not from just those mentioned, although there is some cross overs between authors.

Again, while the requests in themselves are reasonable, we all want more stable releases, we'd all love more open communications, don't get your hopes up that anything will change, and don't assume that just because people are getting antsy or if FD don't change anything it means that the game is dying/will die (DOOOOOOM (TM)).

 

[Rubbernuke]

It would just be nice to get some acknowledgement of these issues instead of the mealy-mouthed close ranks responses we get from Zac.

Zac and the other CMs are just doing their assigned jobs, and I expect they are just as frustrated as we are because they are as powerless as us.

What needs to happen IMO at least is an ongoing beta where we log problems and game changes are thoroughly tested, concepts are put to people before they are even coded because players know how exploits can operate. Rather than bottle anger for later, use the enthusiasm people have and let them guide the game, or at least make its game loops more resillient and resistant to problems.

 

[cheesenbiscuits]

That's not completely true. An MMO like Elite (or at least that's what Elite aspires to be) lives or dies based on the health of its community (numbers and quality/depth of the engagement). Everyone with some engagement with any dimension of the game will tell you that during the last 6 months or so the game has hemorraged a lot of veteran players, not only decreasing the number of total players (which can be balanced by new people) but undermining many long-standing player groups.

Good luck selling Elite to new potential customers once they realise that the structure of the game's community is slowly falling apart. And seeing that we're facing other 12 months of relative silence, I don't see how this is gonna improve.

We’ve been doomed more times than I can remember.
Seeing as previous reports were wildly exaggerated,why would this be any different?
I’m not sure the term “game breaking bugs” is entirely accurate. My game isn’t broken.

 

[JosiahD]

Sorry but I will NOT be signing this petition. While I respect a number of those responsible, there are several others involved for whom I have no respect whatsoever and I will never support anything they're involved in as I do not trust their motivations. While their names are associated with such initiatives, I will never support things like this. And I don't actually care what those individuals may think of me as a result. As much as I support the likes of Yamiks and OA and a couple of the others, the particular individuals I refer to don't speak for me and in this 'community' open letter, they do not represent me.

 

[The Nephilim]

"The following Commanders who fill roles as community leaders, content producers or otherwise contributed to these requests. "

Really? Who elected them???

 

[gooddoc]

It would just be nice to get some acknowledgement of these issues instead of the mealy-mouthed close ranks responses we get from Zac.

This forum used to be quite decent when it first launched, with much interaction & feedback between the community & the Frontier Staff.

Sadly, as the years passed, the forum has become soo salty & vicious & with that the interaction & feedback is all but gone.

 

[Urbanski101]

you mean this one

https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/dbbxeb/_/f231gi2

Source: https://old.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/dbbxeb/community_requests_to_frontier_developments/f231gi2/


As with everything. your personal data is FAR more important than any game or community trying to do something.

Well that is shady as ****

Though I agree with the sentiment of the petition and fully support putting pressure on FD to fix the game and their comms policy, this is clearly just a phishing exercise.

There has been a couple of incidents recently relating to groups going outside of the game to gain an advantage in the game. Clearly there are some very unpleasant elements in the ED community (much as there are in most online games) and they seem to have escalated the scope and insidious nature their activities, this petition being a prime example.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

This forum used to be quite decent when it first launched, with much interaction & feedback between the community & the Frontier Staff.

Sadly, as the years passed, the forum has become soo salty & vicious & with that the interaction & feedback is all but gone.

What's far worse than the salt is the passive aggressive "well take it or leave it because its not changing / up for discussion". Everyone being nice is accepting that.

 

[gooddoc]

What's far worse than the salt is the passive aggressive "well take it or leave it because its not changing / up for discussion". Everyone being nice is accepting that.

Which in my opinion, this salt has driven away all that forum feedback, we used to get in years gone by.

 

[Duke Spartan]

“....but I don't recall an "Open Letter" from nearly all the major community contributors, app developers, streamers and influencers”

I am already suspicious of self appointed titles and people who think they know what’s best for me but what in the world is a “influencer” in this game? And “major community contributors” as long as we’re talking about it.

 

[Speedcuffs]

Meh. Hope some good comes from all this.
Off to play Skyrim and Red Dead for a few days.
Don't all fall out with each other while I'm gone.

 

[Stigbob]

Meh. Hope some good comes from all this.
Off to play Skyrim and Red Dead for a few days.
Don't all fall out with each other while I'm gone.

Give open x-com a bash, workls on touchscreens and you can resize the window however you like and all sorts of other funky gubbins. (I like your new avatar).

 

[Ian Doncaster]

That's not completely true. An MMO like Elite (or at least that's what Elite aspires to be) lives or dies based on the health of its community (numbers and quality/depth of the engagement). Everyone with some engagement with any dimension of the game will tell you that during the last 6 months or so the game has hemorraged a lot of veteran players, not only decreasing the number of total players (which can be balanced by new people) but undermining many long-standing player groups.

And yet, curiously, various quantitative indicators of veteran player involvement are generally stable or increasing.

Hyperspace jumps in the bubble by people who use a 3rd-party tool: ignoring the small spike around the April release, basically stable over the last six months.

Squadron activity: overall higher than at 3.3 release on most leaderboards, top-scoring squadrons generally scoring similar now to then

Traffic levels for Colonia region: slightly up since April, even allowing for DWE2-related distortions making April unusually quiet

Engineering progress for Colonia region: stable for last six months (ignoring spikes of activity from people deliberately pushing blueprints beyond "personal use")

Community Goal participant levels: slightly up on six months ago


Obviously these are just samples, and don't cover every sort of gameplay or veteran player. But there's no sign of the game losing vast quantities of players on any of them.

 

[zimms]

"Look at this thing someone else made" arguably isn't that much of a contribution.

I've no issues with the guy, I'm just aware that there's gold in them thar clicks.

I know you love to belittle other people and always add a little condescension to your posts.

But talking about OA like he's some kind of parasite who only wants to enrich himself by (ab)using Elite is beyond disrespectful and stupid, sorry to be so blunt.

I'm no marketing expert, nor do I have access to any numbers, but I'm sure people like OA or Isinona have not only done a lot for the community, but Frontier as well and created some serious revenue for them.

 

[Stigbob]

I know you love to belittle other people and always add a little condescension to your posts.

But talking about OA like he's some kind of parasite who only wants to enrich himself by (ab)using Elite is beyond disrespectful and stupid, sorry to be so blunt.

I'm no marketing expert, nor do I have access to any numbers, but I'm sure people like OA or Isinona have not only done a lot for the community, but Frontier as well and created some serious revenue for them.

Youtubers are the least nourishing type of vegtable.

 

[FatFreddysCoat]

Gotta love all the defenders in this thread who somehow think the level of bugs in this, and previous, patch are acceptable. When you’ve got to the point that having a ship kit for the cutter completely breaks the game as you can’t jump, there needs to be more attention paid.