What can the devs do to help grow the population?

[Alec Turner]

I don't want to harken back to the Kickstarter videos in a "they didn't deliver on this" kind of way, but despite its predecessors, on-foot gameplay was very much on the cards from the beginning.

Don't get me wrong, on foot was an obvious (and necessary) addition, and I'm sure it took a lot of work to do, but Odyssey needed more for the rest of the game too so it wasn't just about that (perhaps some new ships at the very least?). And it needed to connect the two better. And yes, we did of course get thin atmospheric worlds too ... and boy was I excited for that, and I can't for the life of me tell you why I found it such a let down. I really thought flying a Cobra across a fresh landscape under blue skies would be a transformative experience, but in the end I just found it a bit meh. Sorry FD.

If I focus on just one thing for a moment, something that was so compelling and special that every games mag on the planet was talking about it, and even actual RL astronauts were tweeting messages of encouragement. The Distant Worlds expeditions. When I think of pre-Odyssey Elite I think of things like this. Vast, epic journeys through space. Multi-month long commitments to a journey into the unknown. Tales from a hundred different commanders all swept up in something way bigger and more important than just point scoring game loops.

But ... when I think of Odyssey I'm afraid the first things that come into my mind are a dozen indistinguishable livestreams of people running around with machine guns going pew pew, yay, I captured the flag. It's boring rubbish. It's not big, it's not epic, it's not capturing anyone's imagination, it's not memorable, nobody's talking about it and nobody's gonna remember it.

In answer to questions 3 and 4 again ... I don't know how exactly but Frontier need to bring back that sense of wonder.

 

[Frop]

If I focus on just one thing for a moment, something that was so compelling and special that every games mag on the planet was talking about it, and even actual RL astronauts were tweeting messages of encouragement. The Distant Worlds expeditions. When I think of pre-Odyssey Elite I think of things like this. Vast, epic journeys through space. Multi-month long commitments to a journey into the unknown. Tales from a hundred different commanders all swept up in something way bigger and more important than just point scoring game loops.

But ... when I think of Odyssey I'm afraid the first things that come into my mind are a dozen indistinguishable livestreams of people running around with machine guns going pew pew, yay, I captured the flag. It's boring rubbish. It's not big, it's not epic, it's not capturing anyone's imagination, it's not memorable, nobody's talking about it and nobody's gonna remember it.

DW was nice, but I also remember looking at the EDSM page and seeing that two thirds of the commanders never even made it halfway through the expedition.

As for big and epic, what part of pre-Odyssey Elite covered that exactly? The ship CZs weren't and aren't much better. And if the first thing that comes to mind is a dozen livestreams of people doing "pew pew" (which kind of does show your preference with regards to desired gameplay), you actually did remember it.

 

[tomimt]

Which is another thing Fdev could do to boost the player numbers.. reduce the price in a sale.

At the moment there are two things they can do: fix the game and try and give the players something unexpectedly good.

When you think about it, releasing something that is broken isn't a death sentence despite it might look like that. There are examples of games that were berated on initial release, but the devs were willing to go and fix their games as well as deliver to their players something they wanted to see. Two good examples of such games are Fallout 76 and No Man's Sky. Both had a lacklustre reception, but the devs kept at it and now both those games have a better reputation and a healthy player base. Even Cyberpunk is seen in better light nowadays thanks to patching.

 

[Pigletslastand]

At the moment there are two things they can do: fix the game and try and give the players something unexpectedly good.

When you think about it, releasing something that is broken isn't a death sentence despite it might look like that. There are examples of games that were berated on initial release, but the devs were willing to go and fix their games as well as deliver to their players something they wanted to see. Two good examples of such games are Fallout 76 and No Man's Sky. Both had a lacklustre reception, but the devs kept at it and now both those games have a better reputation and a healthy player base. Even Cyberpunk is seen in better light nowadays thanks to patching.

sincerely hope that Fdev follow suit!

 

[He$$eeTant]

I find CGs fun.

 

[Pigletslastand]

I find CGs fun.

Yeah that was a really good move, glad they brought them back and more lore stuff like the winking cat stuff is great to promote engagement, Fdev are doing a lot right at the moment, there is a lot to praise.. the game is just still creaking and breaking constantly that stops one from being happy with it.

 

[nemolomen]

I like my friends to much to do that to them.

I also bought the game for a friend and gave another a GPU so that they could play it. the first doesn't really have time to play yet an the second plays every day...

 

[Kotoku]

Seen quite a few 'got fed up with star cit now back to Elite' stream titles and other comments lately.

For some the grass is always greener elsewhere, until they discover the lawn beetle and end up knee deep in cow manure.

But to answer the OP, if fdev continue working on the game - as they have for something like 7 years now, on and off - people will keep picking it up. It's always going to be niche though.

Not true, there's more that's 'got fed up with star cit, still won't reinstall ED/EDO, onto other games now'

 

[Sighman]

Not true, there's more that's 'got fed up with star cit, still won't reinstall ED/EDO, onto other games now'

Yep sure but they were never going to stick to one game in the first place. (Does anyone? I know I've played almost nothing but ED this year, but that's the first time I've done that since I bought myself a ZX81 in 1982.)

 

[alexzk]

DW was nice, but I also remember looking at the EDSM page and seeing that two thirds of the commanders never even made it halfway through the expedition.

I think that is because it uses mutual exclusive mind sets.
Those people who loves parties and big expeditions will get boring in 1 week at most. And those who can fly for years - they don't need others. Simple as that.

 

[alexzk]

I would like to see less those "2x sits" or "4x sits" and more things for solo play - like NPC pilot can follow on my ship to jail so I just board there instead APEX, can assist me on the ground and/or cover from air.
Some more binding between Ody <--> Horizons. Right now it looks like separated games. Some crossing tasks would be cool. For example, you could start from using Maverik to repair ship by hands when landed.

 

[Bob McBobblehead]

Sell love potions at stations causing a new state called population expansion.

 

[Barking_Mad]

The current state of the game is halfed-baked. For me essential funcionality and content is missing.
So I'll return if FDEV enable Full VR in EDO, access to all type of planets including gas giants and cloud layers to all appropiate planets, base building and mining camps, new ships at least ten and new mining SRV.
I think this is possible but the development is one of the slowest I've ever seen.

Ohhhkay.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

With the release of Odyssey and update 9 (bringing the first ever new SRV), we saw very little change in the playerbase overall count. Population spiked initially at release, of course, but then went back down to what it was in late 2019 and early 2020. Update 9 barely made any change at all. The population is stable to where we're not seeing in drastic increase or decrease. This worries me as I do like this game and want it to do well. But at the same time those population trends are troubling and could potential hint at an issue with the game's direction. We also saw similar behavior with Horizons. We had a large spike, then a drop off. This is a pretty normal behavior for this game where we have a sudden spike on "major" releases, then a sudden drop.

1. What is going on with the game currently that drove away players that we've had in the past years
2. Why did Odyssey's new features/offerings (not talking about bugs, just the features) not have a greater impact on the game
3. What can the developers do to bring in new players/increase new player interest
4. What can the developers do to bring back older players who are not playing

Now I do recognize that the pandemic helped boost numbers. But to me I really want to see this game's population grow. So what do you think the answer to the above 4 questions are?

A complete purge of....zzzzTCLICK____CARRIER LOST

 

[Ralph Vargr]

I still haven't found even a great game yet. They are all flawed.

I found poker.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

To me this is simple.

1. Release Odyssey on all available platforms.
(Maximise the existing playerbase.)

2. Introduce Cross Play and Cross Save.
(Unify the existing playerbase, make it platform agnostic.)

3. Direct marketing campaign featuring the new gameplay and cross play features.
(Grow the playerbase beyond the existing hobbyist PC market, similar to what Microsoft did with Flight Sim)

4. Flesh out multi-crew to allow more ways of playing together outside of the traditional game loops. Focus on features that allow for more Sandbox, RP, and emergent gameplay. (Improve the multi player experience)

5. Reduce the grind in all areas.
(Improve the overall experience, remove barriers to entry/enjoyment)

You mean, spend money?

 

[Deleted member 182079]

DW was nice, but I also remember looking at the EDSM page and seeing that two thirds of the commanders never even made it halfway through the expedition.

As for big and epic, what part of pre-Odyssey Elite covered that exactly? The ship CZs weren't and aren't much better. And if the first thing that comes to mind is a dozen livestreams of people doing "pew pew" (which kind of does show your preference with regards to desired gameplay), you actually did remember it.

Have to say I agree with @Alec Turner there, even though I'm not really the exploration anorak type (my playstyle is decidedly multirole and I switch a lot between activities so DW was never on the cards for me).

Borann was epic for sure - you had FC owners hauling miners back and forth, you had pirates (I dabbled in it a few times), gankers (fought them with @Bigmaec to protect player miners), fellow miners helping each other out. All thanks to a credit... well I won't call it exploit but... fountain - but still, player numbers were high and it felt like a lively and varied place.

Then there were the Interstellar initiatives - I remember the first one at the Guardian sites, once I sat idle in my SRV watching an 8v8 wingfight between Spear and Harry Potter's gang delivering a lovely laser show 15km away, now and then I'd join in to take pot shots (I only brought a Cobra 3, spent the entire week in the system without changing ships, and fitted that depending on what I wanted to do, it was great). Gankers were a key ingredient as I was playing cat & mouse with them, sometimes in SC, sometimes at the Guardian site. I'm far from a PvP player by the way, though I always enjoyed sparring with them even though it usually meant I either ate a rebuy or merely managed to escape.

The Gnosis incident was great (first ever Hydra encounter, the misjump was a bit of a damp squib but Thargs attacking the megaship live was awesome I don't know why we never got that again since afaik), so were the early Xeno CGs in the Witchhead, a good mix of AX combat pilots, AX explorers, gankers, and FC ferrimen.

The CZs are too gamey and they all play out the same way. I've been at a recent CG and it felt very arcadey, like a mini-game - and players sticking out as they were the only avatars jumping around the place like in Halo. I also feel (unlike with ships) that I gimped myself by playing with a gamepad (most players probably use more accurate/faster M&K) so I'd be constantly respawning and staring at a Vulture with a countdown timer every 30 seconds. I'm not saying fun can't be had there, but it's just... very different. Even ship stuff doesn't seem as busy as it used to be - maybe people simply copped on and just switched to Solo, but even sys chat seems less lively. Unless I just picked a bad time/CG no idea.

 

[lysan]

Give me a bunch of quests like all the other MMOs - it's the voice-acted quests (even the silly side-quests) in games like ESO that really draw me into those worlds. These quests should give the Bubble a sense of history, lore, culture, etc, rather than just being tens of thousands of bland "I've seen this all before" systems.

I do understand that these kind of missions are a costly endeavor, however the first EDO mission was a hit and a lot of players loved it, even if it was a simple mission.

When you design a game the player can play for years you need to have a good foundation, and if you take RDR as an example the basics are good and they are so good that many players still play the game years after release. Hunting, Bounty hunting, fighting the law etc.

Lets take Bounty hunting, because you could use the same mechanics in EDO.

1. Track down a target (we already got that)
2. Dead & Alive (we only got dead)
3. Mechanics to fixate a person, in RDR you can use a rope, in EDO it could be a type of Handcuff
4. Mechanics to carry a person and store the person in our SRV/Ship
5. None lethal weapons (stun gun?)

Until FDEV flesh out the basic mechanics the game will be half-baked.

 

[lysan]

Not true, there's more that's 'got fed up with star cit, still won't reinstall ED/EDO, onto other games now'

But you're still here...?

 

[Northpin]

In my case the answer to no. 4 is give free ARX just for logging in.

This is already happening
albeit only up to 25th