What can the devs do to help grow the population?

[Zeke Drexel]

What is going on with the game currently that drove away players that we've had in the past years

For me, ED has lost a lot of its magic. I still enjoy flying my ships, and doing random missions, or generally just screwing around at combat zones.

But that's like 2-3 hours a week now, compared to the 3-4 hours a day that I used to put in.

FD don't seem to understand how to harness their own lore to tell engaging stories that get the whole player base involved. The only person who successfully achieved that was Drew Wagar (and to some extent Michael Brookes and Allen Stroud).

I get that ED is a sandbox game, that we can bring our own stories into. But our imaginations also need to be sparked. To find causes worth supporting (or opposing).

Currently all the mechanics in the game are a bit 'so what?' ... so I can affect some BGS, can push and nudge with Powerplay, can help x faction beat y faction in a conflict ... but why do any of that? There aren't any tangible rewards or benefits, besides more credits, or more systems to control ... basically more stuff to manage.

I might sound a bit cynical and that's not my intent - I've been a massive supporter of ED since kickstarter, and that was mostly due to it firing up my imagination of a living, breathing universe. They almost succeeded on that last part, but unfortunately haven't managed to pull it off (yet! I live in hope ...)

 

[Ian Doncaster]

FD don't seem to understand how to harness their own lore to tell engaging stories that get the whole player base involved. The only person who successfully achieved that was Drew Wagar (and to some extent Michael Brookes and Allen Stroud).

No, not really (and that's no criticism of Drew Wagar). We don't have figures for exactly how many players were involved in the finale of Premonition, but the CGs at the midpoint had about 7500 combined participants and some people will have done both. For a game with tens of thousands of active players and millions of accounts, that's a long way from "the whole player base". By comparison the fairly routine trade/bounty CG the following week (with a minor prize) had over 10000 participants and the entirely routine trade CG the week before had over 6000 participants.

The Premonition storyline had the enthusiastic and vocal participation of a decent number of prominent player groups - and certainly the greatest number of sore losers and conspiracy theorists afterwards, which is a pretty good measure of how much the most enthusiastic participants had been invested in the outcome - but in terms of basic participation there have been bigger story events both before and since.

Premonition's prominence came about by marketing it through many of those prominent player groups and giving them options for extra "private" involvement - a potentially powerful strategy but also one which can backfire very badly. Understandable that Frontier doesn't want to play favourites in that way ... though they have managed to achieve some of the benefit without that cost in the current storyline with characters and groups like Hadrian Duval, the Free Marlinists, and Salvation where players have formed groups specifically to support or oppose them.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Engineers is the biggest disincentive to start up the game. It's acting like an entry barrier.

 

[lysan]

Get rid of solo and pg

Never going to happen, it would be more helpful to make open something everyone wants to join.

 

[Zeke Drexel]

No, not really (and that's no criticism of Drew Wagar). We don't have figures for exactly how many players were involved in the finale of Premonition, but the CGs at the midpoint had about 7500 combined participants and some people will have done both. For a game with tens of thousands of active players and millions of accounts, that's a long way from "the whole player base". By comparison the fairly routine trade/bounty CG the following week (with a minor prize) had over 10000 participants and the entirely routine trade CG the week before had over 6000 participants.

The Premonition storyline had the enthusiastic and vocal participation of a decent number of prominent player groups - and certainly the greatest number of sore losers and conspiracy theorists afterwards, which is a pretty good measure of how much the most enthusiastic participants had been invested in the outcome - but in terms of basic participation there have been bigger story events both before and since.

Premonition's prominence came about by marketing it through many of those prominent player groups and giving them options for extra "private" involvement - a potentially powerful strategy but also one which can backfire very badly. Understandable that Frontier doesn't want to play favourites in that way ... though they have managed to achieve some of the benefit without that cost in the current storyline with characters and groups like Hadrian Duval, the Free Marlinists, and Salvation where players have formed groups specifically to support or oppose them.

Fair points.
My perspective might be skewed as I was involved with COR at the time. I'd love to have an idea of player numbers for the Premonition events too.

The one where we chased Salome back the bubble has to be the only time where I've repeatedly come across many dozens of Cmdrs. in every system - so maybe the overall player numbers might be lower than some CGs, I would argue it was the highest player turnout within a short period.

It was nothing less than exhilarating to see so many players active at one time, in every system we jumped into on the way back to the bubble. So many hollow squares (and triangles!) with the system chats going crazy.

I've been following along, but the current storylines aren't really grabbing me yet.

 

[Manticore]

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

Thanks for reminding me... I was just about to log in.

Oh; game's dead!

 

[TNTDany]

Focus on group/multicrew play. More emergent gameplay mechanics, more ships/vehicles to earn, bring variety to the scenery. Introduce base building to populate the galaxy. Make us fight and defend our cities.

 

[Manticore]

Focus on group/multicrew play. More emergent gameplay mechanics, more ships/vehicles to earn, bring variety to the scenery. Introduce base building to populate the galaxy. Make us fight and defend our cities.

How about an all out war with the Thargoids? We've had a lot of smaller "wars" and Thargoid incursions but an all out, rip-roaring bubble-wide battle-space would maybe help.

It's so hard to get a decent new war online these days.

All those permit-locked systems in Col 70 Sector around Witch Head nebula can be the Thargoid bubble and we can just go to town. A good, new war may suffice.......

Hey! Someone just gave me free ARX!

 

[Deleted member 182079]

Focus on group/multicrew play.

From a purely selfish perspective and as a player who prefers to be on my own when playing the game, they're already focusing way too much on these janky things given the underlying networking solution they picked for Elite doesn't really lend itself all that well to MMO type stuff.

 

[Old Duck]

Focus on group/multicrew play. More emergent gameplay mechanics, more ships/vehicles to earn, bring variety to the scenery. Introduce base building to populate the galaxy. Make us fight and defend our cities.

From a purely selfish perspective and as a player who prefers to be on my own when playing the game, they're already focusing way too much on these janky things given the underlying networking solution they picked for Elite doesn't really lend itself all that well to MMO type stuff.

I'm okay group / multicrew play IF frontier also adds NPC crews that can perform the same tasks, albeit not as great as a human can. I'd love to have an NPC crew on my ships (even if it's just a single copilot on my Cobra). But then that begs the question, just what would these crewmates (NPC or human) do? Elite was designed as a single pilot game, with multicrew tacked on later as a half-baked, mostly meaningless addition. Even the mighty "big three" can be fully run by a single player, making those ships not feel that much different than a starter Sidewinder. Star Trek Bridge Crew, Elite is not.

 

[[VR] Bac Ho]

I'm okay group / multicrew play IF frontier also adds NPC crews that can perform the same tasks, albeit not as great as a human can. I'd love to have an NPC crew on my ships (even if it's just a single copilot on my Cobra). But then that begs the question, just what would these crewmates (NPC or human) do? Elite was designed as a single pilot game, with multicrew tacked on later as a half-baked, mostly meaningless addition. Even the mighty "big three" can be fully run by a single player, making those ships not feel that much different than a starter Sidewinder. Star Trek Bridge Crew, Elite is not.

Spot on . I think FDev missed a trick, they should look at the older Elite titles when you needed a crew just to fly some of the larger ships.

Come on, you are flying a Corvette or Clipper with a crew of 1 . We can't even get a NPC crew to sit in the empty chair next to me in a ship, now that is something I would pay for than a dodgy ship skin or a fortnite like player skins.

 

[Old Duck]

Spot on . I think FDev missed a trick, they should look at the older Elite titles when you needed a crew just to fly some of the larger ships.

Come on, you are flying a Corvette or Clipper with a crew of 1 . We can't even get a NPC crew to sit in the empty chair next to me in a ship, now that is something I would pay for than a dodgy ship skin or a fortnite like player skins.

Well, _ I _ am not, as it ruins my immersion to be on a giant ship all alone like Beverly Crusher in "Remember Me". These days I fly small ships, with a couple of exceptions (the Type-9 as a dedicated hauler is a bit more believable as a large yet mostly empty of people type of ship). I spend most my time in a Cobra or Eagle, because these feel like the best fit for the game that ED was designed to be.

Meanwhile in X4, I can just stand on the bridge and issue orders to my ship's designated captain, who in turn issues orders to subordinates who actually fly the ship. This makes me feel like a proper commander giving commands, rather than just Ensign Crusher always destined to pilot the ship myself regardless of my rank. Of course, as a skilled pilot, I can (and often do) take direct control over any ship and do a better job at flying it than most of my NPC crew.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

After 36 weeks logged on to the main account from 14 DEC 2014 (6,048 hours) over seven years, I have spent more time in Elite than flying RL aircraft.

The game needs more than just a few tweaks.

 

[Tikanderoga]

I'm okay group / multicrew play IF frontier also adds NPC crews that can perform the same tasks, albeit not as great as a human can. I'd love to have an NPC crew on my ships (even if it's just a single copilot on my Cobra). But then that begs the question, just what would these crewmates (NPC or human) do? Elite was designed as a single pilot game, with multicrew tacked on later as a half-baked, mostly meaningless addition. Even the mighty "big three" can be fully run by a single player, making those ships not feel that much different than a starter Sidewinder. Star Trek Bridge Crew, Elite is not.

Now that's the thing: NPC/Crew don't do ANYTHING!
Look at the fleet carrier. You can't even get them to fix and refuel the owner's ship on their own.
Carry some tritium from the cargo to the tank? Unimaginable!
Plot 2 or more jumps in a row? What are we paying you guys for!?!
It's nice to have a name and a pic up there to keep the seat warm, but I'd expect them to do something too. Currently, if I don't do it, it's not happening. I have to plot the jumps, I have to refuel the carrier, and the deck hand needs to be told to go and fix and refuel my ship that I just skid along over 4 landing pads.

Get rid of solo and pg

And make PvP able to opt out? Deal!

 

[Rock-Hermit]

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.

I think you've summed it up there. The player events pre-2020 were epic in scale and creativity, with Distant Worlds being the most epic event of all. Post-2020 there's been nothing (certainly nothing in the same league as those string of Horizons era events we were lucky to experience). There seemed to be something big happening in the community every few months back then, and most making big headlines in the gaming mags. Odyssey's "player content" is as you say, mind numbing livestreams of farming settlements and shooting npcs in the face, one after another. No innovation, no original thinking. That's down to two things imo; 1. EDO content is bare bones and there's very little to build an epic event around, and 2. all the best community content creators have moved on and no one has stepped in to continue the rich history of player events of the past.

The OP asks what can be done to bring people back to the game. My guess is something like Distant Worlds 3, or a followup to the Premonition event i.e. something that gets players actively interested in a story that plays out in game and has actual real time consequences. CGs and Galnet narratives will never cut it imo as they'll never fire the imagination like the events of the past did, they'll never make the headlines like DW2 did.

 

[SteveWW57]

Get rid of solo and pg

Please explain how this will help the game and not have a detrimental effect by driving some players away. Why should solo and pg be denied to players who want the ability to play in the environment they want?

Steve 07.

 

[Bigmaec]

I think you've summed it up there. The player events pre-2020 were epic in scale and creativity, with Distant Worlds being the most epic event of all. Post-2020 there's been nothing (certainly nothing in the same league as those string of Horizons era events we were lucky to experience). There seemed to be something big happening in the community every few months back then, and most making big headlines in the gaming mags. Odyssey's "player content" is as you say, mind numbing livestreams of farming settlements and shooting npcs in the face, one after another. No innovation, no original thinking. That's down to two things imo; 1. EDO content is bare bones and there's very little to build an epic event around, and 2. all the best community content creators have moved on and no one has stepped in to continue the rich history of player events of the past.

The OP asks what can be done to bring people back to the game. My guess is something like Distant Worlds 3, or a followup to the Premonition event i.e. something that gets players actively interested in a story that plays out in game and has actual real time consequences. CGs and Galnet narratives will never cut it imo as they'll never fire the imagination like the events of the past did, they'll never make the headlines like DW2 did.

The current Odyssey makes it difficult to have large scale events happening, as Odyssey is rather small scaled itself.
But if we get Thargoid on foot combat or something like megaship/fleet carrier boarding I can imagine having new interesting events driving the plot.

 

[Manticore]

The current Odyssey makes it difficult to have large scale events happening, as Odyssey is rather small scaled itself.
But if we get Thargoid on foot combat or something like megaship/fleet carrier boarding I can imagine having new interesting events driving the plot.

I'm not doing EDO on the PC as I have been replaying EDH on PS4 for some years now. My PC Cmdr is in stasis somewhere on another hard drive and I'm waiting for EDO on PS4 (I can wait).

What you say about the scale of EDO is a bit troubling, not having played it. When EDO does hit consoles I'm going to be reading a lot of reviews before deciding to go to it.

That being said, now that there are "boots on the ground" and fleet carriers as you state, more Thargoid contact would make for worthy content.

Absolutely! But let's have that as part of a full-scale good, new war against Thargoidkind. Tons of action to be had there...........

Total war.....

War I tells ya....

War!

War!

War!

 

[Episparh]

Was giving CMk4 to everyone proposed, yet?

 

[Frop]

Was giving CMk4 to everyone proposed, yet?

Yes, but most people voted for the Imperial Courier, that's why it's one of the Winking Cat rewards.