Your Opinion

[Demon]

This title has past its planned project date of 10 years via what Frontier had planned. As we've seen a decline in profit and player base, what do you feel is the future?
This is just a feedback post for players such as myself that have been playing from day one.

We do have positive feedback from Frontier that servers will not be shut down any time soon and minor bug will still be addressed but content will be minimal. Is this title worth the time to expect progression on a dedicated scale or just expected to remain as is with no new additions via ships or zoning changes?

Please be respectful with opinions as Open Play might be dead but Private and Solo Play are still a factor for serious feedback.

That being said feel free to comment concerning Elites future?

[Sighman]

Bullpup a écrit :

Or do surveys with very specific questions like Egosoft does eg 'do you think there should be more skill in mining or just keep it automated'.

But they did, and they've done so before:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/focused-feedback-balancing-ship-engineering-material-gathering.592807/


They got 87 pages of suggestions on that one topic.

They're digesting that massive amount of feedback, I'm certain. But the game develops slowly, and people are way too impatient.


Here's an earlier one on the camera suite:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/focused-feedback-thread-camera-suite.582799/

And another, and another, this time on the cockpit brightness and Ody UI:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/focused-feedback-thread-cockpit-brightness.588309/

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/focused-feedback-thread-outfitting-ui-in-odyssey.580307/

And there was one on the Thargoid War too:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/thargoid-war-feedback.613229/

[Demon]

It is quite nice to see the majority of you can "respectfully" give your opinions and feedback as this is not only for current players but new players that may be interested in this title as most posts seem to be about problems and conflicts.
Also try to remember that this is a Steam forum and not an official Frontier forum so years of graphs, stocks, other titles, links to such content, and financial information concerning Frontier Developments current and future titles really are not relevant for peoples opinions concerning Elite Dangerous as is.

As far as doom and gloom, no, the title is far from dead, just one of three server types. As far as my opinion? Maybe you should go back and read the OP again as I believe I was quite neutral if not more positive about server maintenance, longevity, and expectations as well as Private and Solo Play styles.

A lot of people look to these forums for types, styles, and reputation of a product. Remember when Odyssey just about killed this title because of peoples negative opinions? Last I checked Odyssey is running quite well and a post inviting players to share this information can only help those that question it.

Please save you negativity and mockery for a complainers post.

[Sighman]

Demon a écrit :

Maybe you should go back and read the OP again as I believe I was quite neutral if not more positive about server maintenance, longevity, and expectations as well as Private and Solo Play styles.

This is the completely inaccurate part of the OP which caused me to comment:

minor bug will still be addressed but content will be minimal

So I linked to a recent, official, document with the truth in.

Over the past few years Frontier have diversified quite a bit, and that document explains that none of the other games have done as well as expected and so they're going to re-focus on their core games, as well as developing more 'management' style games which HAVE been successful for them. (Coaster, Zoo, Jurassic, etc)

That's potentially great news for Elite Dangerous, because it's the most core of all their titles, although not great news for the CMs and developers who worked very hard on those other titles which didn't perform.

[McGargoyle]

Bullpup a écrit :

There's little point asking the question among those on any elite specific forum, because that's usually frequented by those still playing (perhaps as their main game) and you can sort of know in advance that they're going to be more a little more er, 'optimistic' than the wider set. Add to that social media in general being echo chambers by design that push out those not singing from the collective hymn sheet.

I don't play but do check in from time to time to see if there's some IP sale planned or some Hello Games comeback, and have lost count of the number of times I've been explicitly told to go away, 'let go', or accused of being mentally unbalanced because following a game you don't play is as weird as stalking in real life.

Elite's biggest issue since launch is that the devs seem to not be interested in talking with players and just push out their own stuff which is met with a weird mix of disappointment, bewilderment, resigned acceptance and determination to make a go of what good parts there are because the core premise of the game was so great and if nothing else that's still there.

IF there's another big expac, for me it's almost sure it'll again be not what the core fans want, it might even be actively designed to attract players of other games which I believe is what happened with the decision to make Odyssey a shooter when X4 Foundations has tens of hours of on foot activities and it doesn't even have guns.

TL;DR: It's sooo damn hard to ruin this game for its players, they're not deterred by my doomposting and the devs refuse to listen to my demands to turn Elite into the game that I'm somehow convinced everyone wants (except, of course, the players).

[Bullpup]

Sighman a écrit :

Bullpup a écrit :

Or do surveys with very specific questions like Egosoft does eg 'do you think there should be more skill in mining or just keep it automated'.

But they did, and they've done so before:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/focused-feedback-balancing-ship-engineering-material-gathering.592807/


They got 87 pages of suggestions on that one topic.

These are mostly in the category of 'tweaks, little QoL stuff and balances' not in the 'where is the game going, where will the dev time go going forward' field.

There's little from what I could see that they took much on board from all that besides the awful Odyssey UI (which would never have happened if they'd shown a concept a year before release), the 'progress wiping Thargoi'd war (which again should not have even been on the agenda for the design meeting given how hilariously demotivating it was to anyone older than 5) and crime and punishment (which ended up being as bad for both gankers and victims as before).

This should be a two way process on the big picture, including stuff like how to pay for new stuff and how much more the engine can take. At the very least they would save hundreds of hours doing stuff and then reversing it out, like the EDO exo scanner. It would also shape expectations, like no VR in EDO (so to speak). Egosoft asked its players whether more multiplayer was desirable and acted on the overwhelming 'no' response.

Most devs probably steer clear of their customers unless they want to lose the will to live. The irony here is that for the most part (fringes will be fringes) the majority of ED players were a little vocal/passionate but overall very constructive/mature. But still they shut themselves in their ivory tower and released misfire after misfire.

[funkynutz]

Demon a écrit :

Also try to remember that this is a Steam forum and not an official Frontier forum so years of graphs, stocks, other titles, links to such content, and financial information concerning Frontier Developments current and future titles really are not relevant for peoples opinions concerning Elite Dangerous as is.

As far as doom and gloom, no, the title is far from dead, just one of three server types. As far as my opinion? Maybe you should go back and read the OP again as I believe I was quite neutral if not more positive about server maintenance, longevity, and expectations as well as Private and Solo Play styles.

A lot of people look to these forums for types, styles, and reputation of a product. Remember when Odyssey just about killed this title because of peoples negative opinions? Last I checked Odyssey is running quite well and a post inviting players to share this information can only help those that question it.

Please save you negativity and mockery for a complainers post..

Maybe you should go back and read what you originally wrote?

You're posting factually incorrect, easily disproved rubbish (under the guise of an "opinion"), and then complaining about being called out on your bovine excrement. I mean, how dare people do things like; providing sources that easily disprove your nonsense...?

Frontier have implicitly stated they intend to continue developing Elite, as one of their core titles...

That's more than just keeping the servers running, with minor bug fixes and minimal content as you're trying to claim. We can already see for ourselves that the game is still being actively developed, without needing Frontier to say a single word on the matter. Development may be slow (always has been). It may not focus on things you want it too right now (tough luck), but it's still happening... To claim otherwise, puts you in the doomers and gloomers box of people who's opinion should be ignored.

[1Nf@MOu$( Mr.Thorp )]

yeah man, the OP and its attempt to come across as all smart was blown out of the water by the initial completely incorrect statements made.

THE GAME IS NOT DEAD
THEY ARE ACTUALLY FIXING THINGS
OP COMPLETELY MISSED THE POINTS MADE IN THE RELEASE.
THERE ARE 2900 PEOPLE IN GAME AS I TYPE THIS.

[Sighman]

Bullpup a écrit :

Sighman a écrit :

But they did, and they've done so before:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/focused-feedback-balancing-ship-engineering-material-gathering.592807/


They got 87 pages of suggestions on that one topic.

These are mostly in the category of 'tweaks, little QoL stuff and balances' not in the 'where is the game going, where will the dev time go going forward' field.

There's little from what I could see that they took much on board from all that besides the awful Odyssey UI (which would never have happened if they'd shown a concept a year before release)

The reasons behind the 'awful' UI was explained very well by one of the designers, and that video will still be on youtube.

The way the UI is now, they can add new features without redesigning it all. The buttons resize and shuffle to enable new entries to be shown automatically... just like smart web page design.

Also... the 'new' UI is the exact same UI in Legacy that was used for all fleet carrier interaction, which is where it debuted.

Bullpup a écrit :

This should be a two way process on the big picture, including stuff like how to pay for new stuff and how much more the engine can take.

Before the game launched they asked players if they wanted a monthly fee, or the Arx store for cosmetics. I think you can probably work out which of those players chose.

The same engine is used for Jurassic World, Coaster Tycoon and the Zoo game. Seems pretty flexible.

[funkynutz]

1Nf@MOu$( Mr.Thorp ) a écrit :

THERE ARE 2100 PEOPLE IN GAME AS I TYPE THIS.

On Steam... Which is probably only about 10% of the playerbase.

There's been more than 1400 through Shinrarta Dezhra in the last 24 hours, 1300+ through Tionisla, there's about 1000 players in one of the Thargoid control systems, 700 in one of the Thargoid invasion systems... (according to Inara, which also only shows a small sub section of the player base).

There's obviously some crossover there and with the Steam figures...

But what about Steam players who don't actually launch the game through Steam so they don't show on the tracker?

What about Epic players? If just 0.1% of the people who got a free copy on Epic are active, that's about 11000 players (epic giveaway was responsible for approximately 11 million copies, nearly 3x as many as had sold on Steam at at the time - rather neatly making arguments about Steam being the biggest platform; pointless at best).

What about players who bought the game directly from Frontier? I don't actually remember seeing sales figures for the year the game was available, before it came to Steam...?

Sighman a écrit :

Before the game launched they asked players if they wanted a monthly fee, or the Arx store for cosmetics. I think you can probably work out which of those players chose.

Technically, it wasn't the ARX store originally...

It was just paid cosmetics without an extra currency system (and you could even use Steam wallet funds to buy ship skins directly).

ARX wasn't introduced until late 2019/early 2020... ish... I don't remember the exact date but that's close enough...

Thinking about it... I did actually prefer the old method.

Selling a handful of junk digital trading cards on the Steam market, and going to steam.elitedangerous.com (no longer a valid link) to buy a new skin was great. Quicker than farming 400 ARX per week, and I didn't have to spend real money to get skins faster (but it was still an option).

[Swans]

Hootman a écrit :

I just saw a couple of articles the past few days that noted that ED had put out some sort of financial or mission statement, probably for their board or investors, that outlined that they are refining their focus AWAY from it's attempt to do "gamey games" and focus on the "management sims", and ED :)

"Frontier's move to diversify its game portfolio during the last five years, including through third-party publishing and new games in 'adjacent genres,' has not delivered the anticipated success," the company wrote.

"Frontier plans to continue developing and supporting Elite Dangerous, its F1 Manager franchise, and Realms of Ruin. The latter will receive new content, including paid DLC, and the company said it expects sales “to build over time”.

Website link [www.videogameschronicle.com]

Website link [www.gamesindustry.biz]

In other words, their attempt to branch out into third party devs and "gamey games" over th e last 5 years didn't turn out as expected, so they're going back to what works and is profitable.

ED is basically their roots, and it appears to me that the level of support for ED is not costing them so much they may even be using profits from the other sims to support ED. Considering ED doesn't bring in anywhere NEAR the amount of cash as the tycoon sims, I think that shows that they do consider ED an integral part of their portfolio.

While we would certainly like to see the level of effort put in that they put into the tycoon games, I personally feel good that they are considering ED a basic part of their company. I think this is good.

ED's future is tied to that of the business. But, yes, they did put out an RNS - with their profit warning - to the effect they'd continue supporting ED. For the record, their RNS says:

"Frontier is therefore pleased to confirm three future CMS games with one releasing in each of the next three financial years - FY25, FY26 and FY27. Alongside this we will continue to develop and support our portfolio of existing games, including Elite Dangerous...."

But what 'support' means in reality is anyone's guess and I don't believe FD even yet know, and I'll explain why.

To know what will happen with a business's IP you need to look at what's happening with the business. Frontier's ongoing leadership failings have trashed the company value, severely limiting what they can achieve. I would not be surprised if the SP hit £1 before improving because FD simply have not been able to release content that people want, and they have none in the pipeline. This, coupled with the misguided over-expansion post-PZ, has put the company in a precarious place (cash burn rate is high) and they must reduce opex by a significant amount (they are talking about a 20% opex reduction). To add to this pain, their two main institutional investors have dumped their stock. So, it's a perfect storm for Frontier and very unclear how/when they can recover since the bombing of their latest release, making it four under-performing releases in a row, and their name is now toxic among investors, any share chat will tell you that. Cutting opex alone will not drive strong recovery, they need a pipeline of content that people want to buy.

We all knew AoS would tank, FD knew, hence the refunds and price reduction even BEFORE it was released. F1 is on Game Pass already, which is largely unheard of. So what's going to generate revenue in place of these duds and how long to develop it? Their restructure of course means letting go a lot of staff, which raises the question of, 'to what will they assign the remaining staff?'

It's very clear that FD's desire to have a seat at the AAA table has failed, primarily due to a culture of mediocrity and lack of understanding that market, so IMO they would do well to focus on the management/building games that they do really well. e.g., PZ, JWE, PC etc., Which FD alluded to in their RNS. These assets provide a solid base from which FD can stage recovery and, hopefully, we'll see a buyout at some point, but I don't think that will happen while Braben is still president and holds a chunk of stock, as the takeover would be too painful. ED's a niche game and its future is going to be defined by what is the most likely revenue raising IP to which FD can assign their significantly reduced number of developers, marketers, and all the other people who support a product.

FDev's value is just 4% of what it was 2 years ago, and Braben himself is now worth less than a moderately successful property developer! It's very rare a company falls from grace this fast, so ED's future is pretty much a roll of the dice at this point, because FD have not shared their restructuring plans. The fact they have not shared them means they do not know what they are, because if they did, you could be sure they'd have shared the detail alongside their profit warning, or at least to combat Friday's universal analyst downgrade. No news, is bad news, because if they had any good news, they'd most certainly have shared it by now rather than see a continuous run on shares. I believe their NOMAD has also deserted them.

TL;DR - the company is on the rocks with limited cash prospects due to huge cash burn with no revenue. That is why no one at all can tell you the future of ED, not even anyone in FDev today.

I do hold Fdev BTW, but only 500 shares, I bought 10,000 at IPO and sold most once it was a ten-bagger, but slightly missed the peak. Even though this is a trivial amount of stock held as a recovery play, I still follow FDev, primarily to enjoy the soap opera! I am hoping for a takeover who will replace execs and radically reform the company, because I do think FD can have a future with the right leadership in place.

[Con.RoXP]

Elite always left a "Minimum Viable Product™" aftertaste in my mouth, despite all these hours I've put into it without planning on stopping (Edit: didn't age well lmao)

Case in point, what did the community ask for? Atmospheric worlds and legs. What did we get? Tenuous "atmospheres" (= no clouds or weather, no aerodynamics impacting the flight model and countless planets still not able to be landed on), and legs with a side of a gaslighting campaign regarding why, apparently, we don't actually want ship interiors because it'd get boring (lol, lmao even).

What got us into this mess though was the horrible launch state of Odyssey that drove a lot of people away (the game's concurrent players have never been as low as after the Odyssey launch disaster). That unplayable state prevented people from finding out that the on-foot missions are great fun and very in-depth when it comes to stealing or sabotaging settlements without tripping the alarms or killing someone.

What the game now needs, imo, is something big that will make headlines, draw people back in and (now that the game is in a playable state) will make them realize the quality and value Odyssey brings to the table via those missions + whatever that big thing would be. So instead of working on their flagship title with an already established community, the vast majority of which is begging for a reason to come back, they spent time, money and human resources on developing that Warhammer game literally no one asked for. Truly mind boggling.

That's my opinion regarding the current state of Elite and Frontier. All we can do is wait and see.

[Sighman]

♥♥♥.RoXP a écrit :

Elite always left a "Minimum Viable Product™" aftertaste in my mouth, despite all these hours I've put into it without planning on stopping.

Case in point, what did the community ask for? Atmospheric worlds and legs. What did we get? Tenuous "atmospheres" (= no clouds or weather, no aerodynamics impacting the flight model and countless planets still not able to be landed on).

I'm only familiar with atmo worlds in 2-3 other space games. NMS warps you to the surface through a sort of jumpdrive, hiding everything until you're close. Starfield doesn't even do that. SC - no idea, but it only has 1 star system and everyone is very excited about getting a second one.

The thing with ED is, in glide you still have control of the ship and you can see the whole planet laid out below you. Given how frame rates can drop severely when you're looking at a large patch of bio, what do you think would happen if you saw half a planet worth of vegetation as you approached it?

♥♥♥.RoXP a écrit :

What the game now needs, imo, is something big that will make headlines, draw people back in and (now that the game is in a playable state) will make them realize the quality and value Odyssey brings to the table via those missions + whatever that big thing would be.

This I agree with. I keep mentioning the spire sites, but unfortunately a large section of the community is anti-thargoid (and not in a good way.)

[Reggit]

Everyone seems to fancy themselves as some sort of corporate financial analyst these days...

It's a game.
Play it if you enjoy it...
...Don't if you don't.

Everything else is a waste of breath.

[Con.RoXP]

Sighman a écrit :

♥♥♥.RoXP a écrit :

Elite always left a "Minimum Viable Product™" aftertaste in my mouth, despite all these hours I've put into it without planning on stopping.

Case in point, what did the community ask for? Atmospheric worlds and legs. What did we get? Tenuous "atmospheres" (= no clouds or weather, no aerodynamics impacting the flight model and countless planets still not able to be landed on).

I'm only familiar with atmo worlds in 2-3 other space games. NMS warps you to the surface through a sort of jumpdrive, hiding everything until you're close. Starfield doesn't even do that. SC - no idea, but it only has 1 star system and everyone is very excited about getting a second one.

The thing with ED is, in glide you still have control of the ship and you can see the whole planet laid out below you. Given how frame rates can drop severely when you're looking at a large patch of bio, what do you think would happen if you saw half a planet worth of vegetation as you approached it?

I specifically didn't mention in my previous post for earth-like or ammonia worlds to be landable as I understand the limitations behind those.

However, all the empty ice, desert, Mars-like worlds with thicker atmospheres should be. On the surface the same barren rocks we have now but with proper atmospheres, weather and the flight model being impacted by the thickness of the atmosphere and aerodynamics. I don't think that is unreasonable.

Volumetric effects and lightning strikes are already in the game. Sure they might need some more work to be implemented in atmospheric worlds but I remember when Lagrange clouds were about to release in Beyond and we all got excited because we thought they were "prototyping" that stuff in order to eventually be used in atmospheres.

[enderbeta]

Sighman a écrit :

♥♥♥.RoXP a écrit :

Elite always left a "Minimum Viable Product™" aftertaste in my mouth, despite all these hours I've put into it without planning on stopping.

Case in point, what did the community ask for? Atmospheric worlds and legs. What did we get? Tenuous "atmospheres" (= no clouds or weather, no aerodynamics impacting the flight model and countless planets still not able to be landed on).

I'm only familiar with atmo worlds in 2-3 other space games. NMS warps you to the surface through a sort of jumpdrive, hiding everything until you're close. Starfield doesn't even do that. SC - no idea, but it only has 1 star system and everyone is very excited about getting a second one.

The thing with ED is, in glide you still have control of the ship and you can see the whole planet laid out below you. Given how frame rates can drop severely when you're looking at a large patch of bio, what do you think would happen if you saw half a planet worth of vegetation as you approached it?

♥♥♥.RoXP a écrit :

What the game now needs, imo, is something big that will make headlines, draw people back in and (now that the game is in a playable state) will make them realize the quality and value Odyssey brings to the table via those missions + whatever that big thing would be.

This I agree with. I keep mentioning the spire sites, but unfortunately a large section of the community is anti-thargoid (and not in a good way.)

Star Citzen is like Elite Dangerous. You see everything as you’re entering and exiting. It has atmosphere with things like rain as you’re going in and out. You can also walk through the interiors. There isn’t much there yet other then being able to go to turrets and depending on the ship sick bay (spawn point) and beds to log off from to save your position. You can also fly ships into other ships for docking.

There is a lot of promise but it isn’t so far ahead that Elite Dangerous couldn’t snake it from them. Elite already has the universe. It just needs to flesh in more.

They already have the first person aspect. They already have the flight model. They just need interiors, boarding of ships for piracy, repelling of boarders and space marines for the good guys. Maybe add salvage for good measure. It could build on top of odyssey and be amazing.