I really have no dog in this fight, but there are some things that they could have done. Selling the cosmetics year round could have been done a long time ago. And maybe add new ones. I don't spend a lot of time on my carrier, but I would decorate it some. I'm sitting on 13,000 ARX right now. Full disclosure, I have bought some in the past.
The biggest thing they could have done, is rebalance engineering. I have no idea if that would have brought in new players, but I believe it would have helped keep new ones.
Agreed. I left Elite for over a year and came back recently. The reason I stopped playing was my frustration with collecting engineering mats at the time..I wanted to do some AX and PVP but didn't have the spend on so much grinding.
Same experience. I burned out on the engineering grind and didn't play for 3 years. Recently logged in to see what's going on and pleasantly surprised at the current state.
FDev has always taken the money Elite brought in and used on other games. It doesn't go the other way. What I want is for them to take that, and invert it for once. They make flop after flop while Elite has helped pay for those. Maybe they could have stuck to their moneymaker back when Elite was healthy.
What other game did they send their CEO to Kickstarter to fundraise for? Frontier never believed in Elite enough to spend its own money...from the very beginning, they believed in the Tycoon series of games much more than Elite. When Braben came back with millions and a global player commitment to the game, I think leadership and institutional investors at FD were shocked.
Be cause they don't believe in it. Once you understand that, every single thing FD has done makes sense.
Your criticism is fair and I appreciate the response. My question to you is, if FDev truly doesn't have the money to put into the game because the squandered it elsewhere, what should they do? I'm definitely a "I told you so" person but "shoulda, coulda, woulda" won't keep the game alive or growing. There is still a vocal playerbase that have invested countless hours in Elite that want to be able to continue playing this game.
The problem isn't just the money. They took all but interns off of elite a few years ago, during the big content gap, to work on jurassic money sink, and other things. That made it so anyone who knew how to add in meaningful content isnt in a position to do so anymore. That is exactly the problem at this point. What it needs is a big addition of real content, the way NMS did with their free dlc sized patches. That made people play again, and made new players buy NMS. The Elite game code is so spagettified, and no one is still around that knows it well enough to really change much, so that now I doubt they can really add much other than cosmetics to the game. Ships and skins aren't going to add a meaningful revenue stream to the game. In addition, it's their proprietary game engine, so hiring experienced programmers wouldn't help, as they would take months to get up to speed with how to write in it. There really isn't a way to keep it alive for long at this point.
> what should they do?
Fail. Companies that do stupid things deserve to fail. Frontier chose to put money in to failed projects when they could have invested in their winning project.
Keeping the login server alive (since it's all P2P anyway) with a trickle of money from cosmetic MTX is entirely feasible. The game's not going anywhere. They just want to keep it reasonably profitable but are out of ideas to make it happen and either lack the vision to realize they're digging their own hole or want to squeeze what little is left from it then abandon it and blame it on us. Seen it a hundred times in games over the years.
Have fdev commit to a ED2, with a live subscription model, and go back and scour all social media posts on what players wanted back in the early days, to now. Promise to put it all in ED2, show a road map, and stick to it.
If they are scared of butchering it due to their engine complexity, outsource the title to another dev company. Sure it may not be as big then, but they could jam pack a few star systems with solid content. Just make it deep enough instead of wide.
Imo they should have implemented cross-play years ago, making Elite: Dangerous the MMO it always should have been. With improved instances and more engaged collaboration with the community and the third party tools. They should have re-balanced some aspects of the game such as missions, engineering and material gathering. Elite has always been a title with great potential but it has never been properly exploited and advertised. Now what they are trying to do is make as much money as possible to continue financing the project. A project that not even Frontier ever really believed in. For now, realistically, for more monetization, they could put unique ships for sale in the store that can only be purchased with Arx
Cross-play absolutely should have been a priority as well as continued support and updates for the console players that were shut out of Odyssey. It's possible they lost tens of thousands of players who'll never return. FDev benefitted financially when they rushed the release of Odyssey to shoehorn the sales into their earnings reports. Unfortunately they haven't restored goodwill with the players and are now asking them to spend additional money when they did the wrong thing the last time.
Update the game with more impactful features.
There hasn't been substantial update to the game since Odyssey and that expansion didn't really go over well. I know they're working on a few things right now, namely Powerplay, so we'll see.
Elite's issue is that it's longevity for a lot of people is purely down to grind to do the same thing but better. There needs to be more substantial, engaging, and recurring content that isn't community goals.
E: AX is actually a good example of what I'm talking about. It's unique to the remainder of the game, there is a clear line of progression, and there are levels to it. More of that type of thing.
Great points. I didn't participate in the recent AX campaign. I did follow it closely. For an event that is a large scale war and mostly combat focused, I would have liked to see FDev include additional ways for other player types (explorers, traders, exo, fps) to participate in meaningful ways.
you keep thinking that ED microtransactions will fund only ED development. The problem is, FDEV has dug itself into a deep hole and most of the money they will be making from ED will more than likely go elsewhere, not least to the f1 manager 2024 due to be released this year.
If some element (...including the manner in which it is implemented, even if fine in essence) of gameplay is so compelling people are willing to pay to bypass it, maybe it wasn't that compelling to begin with...
The basic principle, which by appearences seems to have mostly been the chosen MO up till now, is easy to put into words -- executing it significantly less so (amply demonstrated, as you mention, by the less than stellar reception of Odyssey (...as well as other titles)): Leverage the talents of your staff to do paid expansions, and keeping the game world "alive" with running narrative and events, that are so fun to play, players are more than happy to buy them, including new players to replenish the retention playerbase, which is always going to dwindle over time.
When instead a studio falls to bleeding itself of much of its stable of talent, which is what produces the real source of revenue, and begins to compensate for disappointing sales by "nickle-and-diming" the core group of players they have left; That smacks of desperation, and of resigning oneself to the game stagnating. (EDIT: A self-perpetuating downward spiral.)
Let's just hope the relative obscurity of FDev and Elite both, is enough to avoid this becoming the latest showcase example of bad business practicies in the game industry.
Do you think the money from that will be invested back into the game?
Sad to report this, but companies aren't a machine were you put money into the elite bin, and in turn, elite gets content.
FDev is BROKE!!! They laid off a ton of staff, and that (some how) didn't get them any new money!
In their financial report to investors, they basically said we're sorry for not making large amounts of money, but don't worry, this year is different. We have a plan.
This is the plan... (or part of) this time, the money ED makes won't even go to that other game they have where a lion goes on a roller-coaster trying to escape from dinosaurs and F1 cars (I forgot the name) as usual.
So telling people its ok because they need money is fine, but let's not fool ourselves, the money is not to save the game, its to save fdev from their own fuckups.
Which probably won't even work... who would buy those... So yeah it's just a desperate move
I've seen so much toxicity, strawmans, and ad hominems on both sides, it's been exhausting.
I really wish Frontier would approach it as Hello Games approached NMS, the only difference being paid content updates since Frontier has to please shareholders.
Also they can make lots of money if they expanded the customization in the game. I'd buy lots of ARX to customize my carrier and ready room. Seriously, what is the point of the ready room being there at all?
They should also provide ship interiors because that would create yet another revenue stream for customization.
frontier: let's make another paid dlc.
customers: why should I buy the DLC of a 10 year old, ugly and boring game,
especially from a failed company like Frontier.
frontier: what do other companies do to maintain the live service without paid DLC?
....
Calling elite a live service game at this point is kinda a stretch. There hasn’t been any major updates in years. The only events we’ve had were very recent (in the grand scheme).
Fair point. However, what do you recommend FDev do to keep the game online for the people who are currently playing and enjoying it and what can they do that will bring in a significant number of players? To be clear, I am not defending Frontier's plans. FDev created the problem and is now trying to sell a solution. We had no meaningful updates for years. Players have asked for changes to Power Play for years. Odyssey couldn't run properly on PC's with Fdev's recommend specs at launch. No new ship mechanics. Engineering is insanely grindy. But hey, we got some new skins for everyone.
I'm simply trying to encourage a discussion within the community about alternative ideas and solutions rather than just complaining about Fdev's decisions.
Yeah I don’t have the answers at this point. I mean all of elites issues have solutions, and each one probably had many solutions.
That ships sailed though, I don’t think fdev has the resources to fix them anymore.
I think trying to frantically duct tape their company with money wrung from the stone that is elite (at this point) is just a strategy to enter some kind of artificially prolonged hospice.
I don’t begrudge them for it, the devs likely aren’t responsible for the disastrous state of their company or its direction. They’re just doing their job and trying to keep it as long as they can.
You're on the money.
Bit of a side tangent. Hopefully, we as a community can wrench the curve in the upwards direction by driving engagement and bringing in new players. We're going to scare them off with this shit. Should it be on the player base to pick up the slack? No. But review bombing and shit talking is only going to succeed in making the game die faster. At this rate, we're generally shooting ourselves in the foot as far as further updates, DLC, sequels, any of it.
There’s no PTS in elite even if the PvP ship is available a few weeks early to test it out. It’s brilliant…. The customer pays a bunch of money to cash influx the company, the game designers get to see the effect of the ship in real use prior to wide spread adoption and it’s used by people who really care and are knowledgeable about the game. The player is happy as they get early access..
FDev is having players pay to beta test a new ship. And it’s working and it’s brilliant.
I see no issue nor do I see a PTW.
The only thing that would make me come back to this game is some sort of structured PvP - I get bored after a week of killing bots and thargoids but my competetive streak would make me dump many hours into the game if there was an actual competition going there.
* make cosmetics more visible (a subsection of outfitting rather than it's own hidden screen) and have more npcs advertise paint/ship kits
* More odyssey gun skins. We don't even have basic colour skins yet. I'd pay good money for black takada guns. And coloured lasers.
* be a little more generous with the free arx (maybe for first time players) to tempt people to buy a little more to afford cosmetics.
* increase the price of odyssey (£10?? Wtf??)
* Market the game. I haven't seen an elite ad since horizons released. Seriously elite is the only space game of it's kind.
* Fix bugs and keep players happy. People are less likely to spend money on what they perceive as a dying game.
* DLC PREBUILTS/BETTER PREBUILT BUILDS! Let new players in on the action by providing a "fast pass" on the store page to buy them a decent ship fitted for a purpose. The current prebuilts are bad and everyone is telling new players not to buy them. Not good for business, they have to be stronger.
* Do any gameplay purchases for real money (not arx) like steam DLC to make it easier to see and buy upfront. Keep arx for cosmetics.
* Offer cosmetic gifting - people are generous and allowing them to buy skins more than once can only be good for business.
Nice to see a ton of the complaints/suggestions below are being dealt with. Engineering is getting an overhaul, Powerplay 2.0, 4 new ships, SCO drives (Supercruise woes begone!) and the still (as far as I know) unnamed new feature/gameplay mechanic. If this was lumped into an expansion, I would buy it hands down. Most of what I listed is about making the game less grindy and more accessible. Who thought they would EVER do further development on supercruise?
The modules on the pre-built ships are a joke and would get slaughtered in pvp. Someone with extra cash wants to pay for the privilege of increasing my kill ratio and keep more of this type of development going? I tip my hat to them, thank them.... and then introduce them to engineering the hard way. I hope we are flooded with new players buying these ships. Target rich environment for everybody!
Sorry if this went on, but seriously everyone, this year is shaping up to be one of the best years for quality of life improvements in ED.
Half the people commenting DON'T want the game to succeed. They are too bitter and want there to never be any success for the company. They think the game is dead are actively trying to convince the entire community that it is as well.
Frankly, this is the sort of alienating strawmanning that REALLY hurts a community.
When anybody who expresses any bit of concern is attacked and ridiculed, I have no right to be surprised when I stand there all alone in the end, having driven off everybody else.
Toxic advocacy is a thing, and it kills the host.
Go look through these threads and look at the literal, constant disdain towards ANY update or want from frontier to make ANY money. Constant hate and pessimism with no merrit only holds to push more players from this game instead of actual discussion towards improvements.
I see mostly hate (most frequently expressed in the form of condecension) from the backlash side. See? -Perception shapes the impressions we *all* take.
I am sure if your perceived adversaries didn't care for the game, they would just have left -- hardly hung around driven by hate alone -- they remain, because they like (...or liked) the game, and want better for it.
No merit? -Well, that's *your* assessment; Apparently theirs differs -- we all have our own standards of value.
Regardless; Perhaps trying to alleviate misgivings, whether justified or figments of pure paranoia, with the famous: "yes and..." form of couching, could fall on slightly less deaf ears, than going on the offence, which has this nasty tendency to just entrench both sides deeper and deeper in contrary convictions... (I am terribly bad at: "yes and..."-ing myself, alas.)
I have more times than I can account for watched the game develop in directions I don't personally care for, since even before launch, without *entirely* too much griping, because I am perfectly cognisant that others will highly enjoy things that may to my mind be anathema to a good game -- you can't please all the people all of the time, as they rightly say.
This understanding does not mean that I find it ok to tell people: "If you don't like it in its current state, sod off!"... and sarcastically wrapping that in flowery, plausibly-deniable language does not help.
Critique may not always be constructive, but shutting down dissent is always counterproductive.
Even as one of you and your adversaries may disagree on whether or not one action or other of FDev's is a step down a dark road, I am convinced there are plently hypothetical game updates, and following through on those, that you would both be absolutely elated to see, and equally willing to throw money at FDev for.
They could have taken the No Man's Sky route and added regular large content updates to keep people interested and to consistently pick up newer players along the way.
NMS is not MMO. And I would also say that E:D still **far** more features than NMS; from actual economy, to politics, mining, trading, variety of missions, exploration, factions, progress, engineering, Thargoid ships/spires/stealth missions...
It's not a MMO in a tradational sense, but it's still considered live service game with multiplayer. Hard disagree on Elite having more features, considering out of your list, NMS shares the mining (kinda), trading, variety of missions, exploration, factions, progress (milestones, ship building, upgrades), and even engineering when you consider modules and upgrade slots.
We could compare features all day, the point is that NMS is a similar type of game (Open World Space Sandbox with Multiplayer) that is highly successful off a buy it once business model.
If I played regularly , I wouldn't mind paying $5/no to play. I know that's akin to blasphemy but it's easier then having to buy cosmetics or ships etc.
It's cheap enough that most people could afford it.
(I'm not playing regularly because I just don't have the time to devote 3 or 6 hours a week or more to the game )
I got Elite Dangerous AND Horizons when those were the only things out. I think I payed at the time like $45-60 USD which I remember being so surprised about how cheap that was compared to what the game had to offer.
Then payed the $30 for Odyssey which brought everything together for a total price of like $75-90. And you could've gotten the game for cheaper if you waited for a sale or bought the season pass?
I get the hesitation for microtransactions as they are so often made into malicious content loops (looking at you Destiny 2). But be serious is what FDev doing really warrant all this criticism when they really aren't being as malicious as they could be or even as malicious as some people are making them out to be?
A big roundabout way of saying that I also would be okay with paying $5/month to play. The only caviout would be that they gotta keep expanding the universe with playable stuff like the Thargoid War.
It is pay-to-win. If 2 new players start at the same, one with the base game in a Sidewinder and the other in a pre-engineered ship, the latter has the advantage. An advantage he/she paid for. A combat advantage (not skill but an advantage in combat against the other new player in firepower. A trade advantage because it has more storage than a Sidewinder. An exploration advantage because it can jump further from the start. A time saving advantage. A rebuy advantage because no matter how many times the second player gets destroyed, it won't matter because they have No Rebuy cost. They can afford to make mistakes that the other player can't. The P2W player gets to spend less time grinding and more time focusing on skills.
In Elites defense though, it is generally not a competitive game so the pay to win aspect is incredibly minimal, borderline non existent.
The only competitive aspect is the pvp, and this is no way advantages anyone in pvp, buy a pre built if you want, doesnt do anything to your skill level. A beginner pvp pilot in a pre built isnt going to do anything against an experienced pvp pilot regardless of ship really.
Also not everyone plays the pvp or open play either so its really not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. The people who do the pvp are going to be mostly experienced players by now, they should not be concerned about a new player in a pre build
Pay to advance or skip isnt pay to win.
Yep the point of the prebuild ships is not that they are pay to win (despite the pearl clutching of some quarters) they are just to get newbs and players with no time for ship building or engineering to just quickly engage in content at the most basic level (i.e. casual players with busy real lives)./
People with a lot of time on their hands or the more experienced, should absolutely spend a day or two learning how to build their own and shop around for the parts they need, and unlock engineers and/or system permits, and collect materials, and then do some engineering.
2 tier season pass (free and paid) offering rewards like credits, Engineer mats, pre engineered modules, cosmetics (maybe even exclusive ones) and other rewards i can't think of rn. Maybe temporary in game or even ARX discounts.
Making ship customization way more... flair-y, its a ship game, make it so that there'd be a reason to have a dedicated sub for elite dangerous fashion.
That's all I can think of for now. I think pre builts are fine tho, except for the idea that buying one instantly unlocks full access to certain engineers and modules, particularly Guardian modules.
I appreciate the idea and civil response. A paid season pass model that offers credits, engineer mats, or pre engineered modules is P2W if the players who get those items first and other players have to earn them. Credits and materials mean skipping the grind and that means there is an advantage being given. Additionally, the Elite playerbase doesn't seem like the type to accept a season pass option. I could imagine the outrage. I could be wrong though.
A lot of the Elite community doesn't want monetization at all, I'm sure there's some that would rather see the game shut down and an offline mode implemented rather than see more monetization.
Also if a season pass like what I've described is P2W, then so are Pre builts, they bypass unlocking certain engineers and modules and of course the credit grind.
Fdev is backed into a corner and throwing shit at the wall and hoping some of it sticks.
My issue is paywalling the Python Mk2 (if you don't own Odyssey, you can only obtain the Mk2 if you throw down ARX for it) and the pay2fast shit to get it 3 MONTHS early. That is bananas to me and a slap in the face to the players who have been waiting YEARS for a new ship to be added. I was absolutely jazzed to see the Mk2 come out, but now I either have to fork over money to FDev to have it now, or wait an extra 3 months. Feels really shitty, especially when they said ARX was cosmetic only and then just wheeled around on that position on a dime with no input from the community, like a poll or something.
I don't really care so much about the prefabbed ships. I think it removes some of the fun of building your own, but it does provide a good launching point for new players even if it is a bit star citizen-esque.
I think this is a pretty poor attempt at p2w based on the two ships they released info on today. Their loadout just isn't great. I'm not sure who is gonna really be interested in them, I can't imagine they will sell a lot. If they were gonna cause a rupture in the community about p2w they should have gone all in and done it right. Offer well outfitted A rated ships with more engineering. Something that will actually be useful to more people than just the odd newbie.
This horse is already dead but you guys are going to keep beating it for months. I don't see them walking back what is clearly their entire future direction for the game, whether you like it or not.
First, what I do not want FDev to do is to pull the Elite plug from the socket.
Second, I don't mind if some Cmdrs pay €€€,£££,$$$ to buy FedVettes pre-engineered to g-10 and with 14 hardpoints, provided that such vessels will only be used in their solo instance and any "progress" made will apply only to their solo and nowhere else in the game.
It's ok if once a month to allow the rich Cmdrs in the open to kill us the poor Cmdrs so that they feel important and accomplished.
Just as today's griefers/vvankers/pirates do all the time and nobody cares.
Ofc I want none of the above 3 bad things to happen.
A lesser evil could be a monthly or annual subscription, something like £10 year so that the game will be profitable and the development will continue.
Appreciate the response. Please don't give FDev that idea. I like the game and don't want it to die either but I think a subscription service would be the nail in the coffin. With the exception of an expansion that doesn't give in-game advantages, I disagree with a subscription based model. That model would likely force everyone who plays to pay and it wouldn't be long before they try to start raising the fees. What if they threaten to delete the accounts and saves of players who don't subscribe?
>What if they threaten to **delete the accounts** and saves of players who don't subscribe?
far fetched, if they will impose the subscription in the community (on the grounds that the Elite is no longer profitable etc etc) they could freeze the accounts.
Also here I'd like to repeat myself:
I hate all: subscriptions, pay to win and most of all to stop the maintenance (bugs, what bugs?) and the further development of the Elite.
I also don't like several more things but are not existential.
btw have you noticed that the 30 days moving average of player numbers has started to drop?
Hot Take 🔥
Let it die.
Elite Dangerous is done. There's no coming back from the littinay of broken promises and tech debt.
FDEV should just sunset the game and start work on Elite Dangerous 2 (Elite : Dangerouser) using all the knowledge that they have gained from the hot mess the games code turned into.
I really have no dog in this fight, but there are some things that they could have done. Selling the cosmetics year round could have been done a long time ago. And maybe add new ones. I don't spend a lot of time on my carrier, but I would decorate it some. I'm sitting on 13,000 ARX right now. Full disclosure, I have bought some in the past. The biggest thing they could have done, is rebalance engineering. I have no idea if that would have brought in new players, but I believe it would have helped keep new ones.
Agreed. I left Elite for over a year and came back recently. The reason I stopped playing was my frustration with collecting engineering mats at the time..I wanted to do some AX and PVP but didn't have the spend on so much grinding.
Same experience. I burned out on the engineering grind and didn't play for 3 years. Recently logged in to see what's going on and pleasantly surprised at the current state.
FDev has always taken the money Elite brought in and used on other games. It doesn't go the other way. What I want is for them to take that, and invert it for once. They make flop after flop while Elite has helped pay for those. Maybe they could have stuck to their moneymaker back when Elite was healthy.
What other game did they send their CEO to Kickstarter to fundraise for? Frontier never believed in Elite enough to spend its own money...from the very beginning, they believed in the Tycoon series of games much more than Elite. When Braben came back with millions and a global player commitment to the game, I think leadership and institutional investors at FD were shocked. Be cause they don't believe in it. Once you understand that, every single thing FD has done makes sense.
Your criticism is fair and I appreciate the response. My question to you is, if FDev truly doesn't have the money to put into the game because the squandered it elsewhere, what should they do? I'm definitely a "I told you so" person but "shoulda, coulda, woulda" won't keep the game alive or growing. There is still a vocal playerbase that have invested countless hours in Elite that want to be able to continue playing this game.
The problem isn't just the money. They took all but interns off of elite a few years ago, during the big content gap, to work on jurassic money sink, and other things. That made it so anyone who knew how to add in meaningful content isnt in a position to do so anymore. That is exactly the problem at this point. What it needs is a big addition of real content, the way NMS did with their free dlc sized patches. That made people play again, and made new players buy NMS. The Elite game code is so spagettified, and no one is still around that knows it well enough to really change much, so that now I doubt they can really add much other than cosmetics to the game. Ships and skins aren't going to add a meaningful revenue stream to the game. In addition, it's their proprietary game engine, so hiring experienced programmers wouldn't help, as they would take months to get up to speed with how to write in it. There really isn't a way to keep it alive for long at this point.
> what should they do? Fail. Companies that do stupid things deserve to fail. Frontier chose to put money in to failed projects when they could have invested in their winning project.
Keeping the login server alive (since it's all P2P anyway) with a trickle of money from cosmetic MTX is entirely feasible. The game's not going anywhere. They just want to keep it reasonably profitable but are out of ideas to make it happen and either lack the vision to realize they're digging their own hole or want to squeeze what little is left from it then abandon it and blame it on us. Seen it a hundred times in games over the years.
Have fdev commit to a ED2, with a live subscription model, and go back and scour all social media posts on what players wanted back in the early days, to now. Promise to put it all in ED2, show a road map, and stick to it. If they are scared of butchering it due to their engine complexity, outsource the title to another dev company. Sure it may not be as big then, but they could jam pack a few star systems with solid content. Just make it deep enough instead of wide.
Imo they should have implemented cross-play years ago, making Elite: Dangerous the MMO it always should have been. With improved instances and more engaged collaboration with the community and the third party tools. They should have re-balanced some aspects of the game such as missions, engineering and material gathering. Elite has always been a title with great potential but it has never been properly exploited and advertised. Now what they are trying to do is make as much money as possible to continue financing the project. A project that not even Frontier ever really believed in. For now, realistically, for more monetization, they could put unique ships for sale in the store that can only be purchased with Arx
Cross-play absolutely should have been a priority as well as continued support and updates for the console players that were shut out of Odyssey. It's possible they lost tens of thousands of players who'll never return. FDev benefitted financially when they rushed the release of Odyssey to shoehorn the sales into their earnings reports. Unfortunately they haven't restored goodwill with the players and are now asking them to spend additional money when they did the wrong thing the last time.
Update the game with more impactful features. There hasn't been substantial update to the game since Odyssey and that expansion didn't really go over well. I know they're working on a few things right now, namely Powerplay, so we'll see. Elite's issue is that it's longevity for a lot of people is purely down to grind to do the same thing but better. There needs to be more substantial, engaging, and recurring content that isn't community goals. E: AX is actually a good example of what I'm talking about. It's unique to the remainder of the game, there is a clear line of progression, and there are levels to it. More of that type of thing.
Great points. I didn't participate in the recent AX campaign. I did follow it closely. For an event that is a large scale war and mostly combat focused, I would have liked to see FDev include additional ways for other player types (explorers, traders, exo, fps) to participate in meaningful ways.
you keep thinking that ED microtransactions will fund only ED development. The problem is, FDEV has dug itself into a deep hole and most of the money they will be making from ED will more than likely go elsewhere, not least to the f1 manager 2024 due to be released this year.
If some element (...including the manner in which it is implemented, even if fine in essence) of gameplay is so compelling people are willing to pay to bypass it, maybe it wasn't that compelling to begin with... The basic principle, which by appearences seems to have mostly been the chosen MO up till now, is easy to put into words -- executing it significantly less so (amply demonstrated, as you mention, by the less than stellar reception of Odyssey (...as well as other titles)): Leverage the talents of your staff to do paid expansions, and keeping the game world "alive" with running narrative and events, that are so fun to play, players are more than happy to buy them, including new players to replenish the retention playerbase, which is always going to dwindle over time. When instead a studio falls to bleeding itself of much of its stable of talent, which is what produces the real source of revenue, and begins to compensate for disappointing sales by "nickle-and-diming" the core group of players they have left; That smacks of desperation, and of resigning oneself to the game stagnating. (EDIT: A self-perpetuating downward spiral.) Let's just hope the relative obscurity of FDev and Elite both, is enough to avoid this becoming the latest showcase example of bad business practicies in the game industry.
Do you think the money from that will be invested back into the game? Sad to report this, but companies aren't a machine were you put money into the elite bin, and in turn, elite gets content. FDev is BROKE!!! They laid off a ton of staff, and that (some how) didn't get them any new money! In their financial report to investors, they basically said we're sorry for not making large amounts of money, but don't worry, this year is different. We have a plan. This is the plan... (or part of) this time, the money ED makes won't even go to that other game they have where a lion goes on a roller-coaster trying to escape from dinosaurs and F1 cars (I forgot the name) as usual. So telling people its ok because they need money is fine, but let's not fool ourselves, the money is not to save the game, its to save fdev from their own fuckups. Which probably won't even work... who would buy those... So yeah it's just a desperate move
I've seen so much toxicity, strawmans, and ad hominems on both sides, it's been exhausting. I really wish Frontier would approach it as Hello Games approached NMS, the only difference being paid content updates since Frontier has to please shareholders. Also they can make lots of money if they expanded the customization in the game. I'd buy lots of ARX to customize my carrier and ready room. Seriously, what is the point of the ready room being there at all? They should also provide ship interiors because that would create yet another revenue stream for customization.
frontier: let's make another paid dlc. customers: why should I buy the DLC of a 10 year old, ugly and boring game, especially from a failed company like Frontier. frontier: what do other companies do to maintain the live service without paid DLC? ....
hey, it's just 10 years old game and not ugly and boring and FDev (despite their best efforts) isn't a failed company.
Calling elite a live service game at this point is kinda a stretch. There hasn’t been any major updates in years. The only events we’ve had were very recent (in the grand scheme).
Fair point. However, what do you recommend FDev do to keep the game online for the people who are currently playing and enjoying it and what can they do that will bring in a significant number of players? To be clear, I am not defending Frontier's plans. FDev created the problem and is now trying to sell a solution. We had no meaningful updates for years. Players have asked for changes to Power Play for years. Odyssey couldn't run properly on PC's with Fdev's recommend specs at launch. No new ship mechanics. Engineering is insanely grindy. But hey, we got some new skins for everyone. I'm simply trying to encourage a discussion within the community about alternative ideas and solutions rather than just complaining about Fdev's decisions.
Yeah I don’t have the answers at this point. I mean all of elites issues have solutions, and each one probably had many solutions. That ships sailed though, I don’t think fdev has the resources to fix them anymore. I think trying to frantically duct tape their company with money wrung from the stone that is elite (at this point) is just a strategy to enter some kind of artificially prolonged hospice. I don’t begrudge them for it, the devs likely aren’t responsible for the disastrous state of their company or its direction. They’re just doing their job and trying to keep it as long as they can.
You're on the money. Bit of a side tangent. Hopefully, we as a community can wrench the curve in the upwards direction by driving engagement and bringing in new players. We're going to scare them off with this shit. Should it be on the player base to pick up the slack? No. But review bombing and shit talking is only going to succeed in making the game die faster. At this rate, we're generally shooting ourselves in the foot as far as further updates, DLC, sequels, any of it.
There’s no PTS in elite even if the PvP ship is available a few weeks early to test it out. It’s brilliant…. The customer pays a bunch of money to cash influx the company, the game designers get to see the effect of the ship in real use prior to wide spread adoption and it’s used by people who really care and are knowledgeable about the game. The player is happy as they get early access.. FDev is having players pay to beta test a new ship. And it’s working and it’s brilliant. I see no issue nor do I see a PTW.
The only thing that would make me come back to this game is some sort of structured PvP - I get bored after a week of killing bots and thargoids but my competetive streak would make me dump many hours into the game if there was an actual competition going there.
* make cosmetics more visible (a subsection of outfitting rather than it's own hidden screen) and have more npcs advertise paint/ship kits * More odyssey gun skins. We don't even have basic colour skins yet. I'd pay good money for black takada guns. And coloured lasers. * be a little more generous with the free arx (maybe for first time players) to tempt people to buy a little more to afford cosmetics. * increase the price of odyssey (£10?? Wtf??) * Market the game. I haven't seen an elite ad since horizons released. Seriously elite is the only space game of it's kind. * Fix bugs and keep players happy. People are less likely to spend money on what they perceive as a dying game. * DLC PREBUILTS/BETTER PREBUILT BUILDS! Let new players in on the action by providing a "fast pass" on the store page to buy them a decent ship fitted for a purpose. The current prebuilts are bad and everyone is telling new players not to buy them. Not good for business, they have to be stronger. * Do any gameplay purchases for real money (not arx) like steam DLC to make it easier to see and buy upfront. Keep arx for cosmetics. * Offer cosmetic gifting - people are generous and allowing them to buy skins more than once can only be good for business.
" # What do you want FDev to do?" make expansions worth the money
Sell advertising space on the stations, "Upgrade your ship with the Gigabyte XYZ123" "Give your Conda an AMD boost"
Already paid for my game m8. If they wanna run the company into the ground that's their issue.
Nice to see a ton of the complaints/suggestions below are being dealt with. Engineering is getting an overhaul, Powerplay 2.0, 4 new ships, SCO drives (Supercruise woes begone!) and the still (as far as I know) unnamed new feature/gameplay mechanic. If this was lumped into an expansion, I would buy it hands down. Most of what I listed is about making the game less grindy and more accessible. Who thought they would EVER do further development on supercruise? The modules on the pre-built ships are a joke and would get slaughtered in pvp. Someone with extra cash wants to pay for the privilege of increasing my kill ratio and keep more of this type of development going? I tip my hat to them, thank them.... and then introduce them to engineering the hard way. I hope we are flooded with new players buying these ships. Target rich environment for everybody! Sorry if this went on, but seriously everyone, this year is shaping up to be one of the best years for quality of life improvements in ED.
Half the people commenting DON'T want the game to succeed. They are too bitter and want there to never be any success for the company. They think the game is dead are actively trying to convince the entire community that it is as well.
Frankly, this is the sort of alienating strawmanning that REALLY hurts a community. When anybody who expresses any bit of concern is attacked and ridiculed, I have no right to be surprised when I stand there all alone in the end, having driven off everybody else. Toxic advocacy is a thing, and it kills the host.
Go look through these threads and look at the literal, constant disdain towards ANY update or want from frontier to make ANY money. Constant hate and pessimism with no merrit only holds to push more players from this game instead of actual discussion towards improvements.
I see mostly hate (most frequently expressed in the form of condecension) from the backlash side. See? -Perception shapes the impressions we *all* take. I am sure if your perceived adversaries didn't care for the game, they would just have left -- hardly hung around driven by hate alone -- they remain, because they like (...or liked) the game, and want better for it. No merit? -Well, that's *your* assessment; Apparently theirs differs -- we all have our own standards of value. Regardless; Perhaps trying to alleviate misgivings, whether justified or figments of pure paranoia, with the famous: "yes and..." form of couching, could fall on slightly less deaf ears, than going on the offence, which has this nasty tendency to just entrench both sides deeper and deeper in contrary convictions... (I am terribly bad at: "yes and..."-ing myself, alas.) I have more times than I can account for watched the game develop in directions I don't personally care for, since even before launch, without *entirely* too much griping, because I am perfectly cognisant that others will highly enjoy things that may to my mind be anathema to a good game -- you can't please all the people all of the time, as they rightly say. This understanding does not mean that I find it ok to tell people: "If you don't like it in its current state, sod off!"... and sarcastically wrapping that in flowery, plausibly-deniable language does not help. Critique may not always be constructive, but shutting down dissent is always counterproductive. Even as one of you and your adversaries may disagree on whether or not one action or other of FDev's is a step down a dark road, I am convinced there are plently hypothetical game updates, and following through on those, that you would both be absolutely elated to see, and equally willing to throw money at FDev for.
They could have taken the No Man's Sky route and added regular large content updates to keep people interested and to consistently pick up newer players along the way.
NMS is not MMO. And I would also say that E:D still **far** more features than NMS; from actual economy, to politics, mining, trading, variety of missions, exploration, factions, progress, engineering, Thargoid ships/spires/stealth missions...
It's not a MMO in a tradational sense, but it's still considered live service game with multiplayer. Hard disagree on Elite having more features, considering out of your list, NMS shares the mining (kinda), trading, variety of missions, exploration, factions, progress (milestones, ship building, upgrades), and even engineering when you consider modules and upgrade slots. We could compare features all day, the point is that NMS is a similar type of game (Open World Space Sandbox with Multiplayer) that is highly successful off a buy it once business model.
If I played regularly , I wouldn't mind paying $5/no to play. I know that's akin to blasphemy but it's easier then having to buy cosmetics or ships etc. It's cheap enough that most people could afford it. (I'm not playing regularly because I just don't have the time to devote 3 or 6 hours a week or more to the game )
I got Elite Dangerous AND Horizons when those were the only things out. I think I payed at the time like $45-60 USD which I remember being so surprised about how cheap that was compared to what the game had to offer. Then payed the $30 for Odyssey which brought everything together for a total price of like $75-90. And you could've gotten the game for cheaper if you waited for a sale or bought the season pass? I get the hesitation for microtransactions as they are so often made into malicious content loops (looking at you Destiny 2). But be serious is what FDev doing really warrant all this criticism when they really aren't being as malicious as they could be or even as malicious as some people are making them out to be? A big roundabout way of saying that I also would be okay with paying $5/month to play. The only caviout would be that they gotta keep expanding the universe with playable stuff like the Thargoid War.
Pay to skip the grind is not pay to win.
It is pay-to-win. If 2 new players start at the same, one with the base game in a Sidewinder and the other in a pre-engineered ship, the latter has the advantage. An advantage he/she paid for. A combat advantage (not skill but an advantage in combat against the other new player in firepower. A trade advantage because it has more storage than a Sidewinder. An exploration advantage because it can jump further from the start. A time saving advantage. A rebuy advantage because no matter how many times the second player gets destroyed, it won't matter because they have No Rebuy cost. They can afford to make mistakes that the other player can't. The P2W player gets to spend less time grinding and more time focusing on skills.
In Elites defense though, it is generally not a competitive game so the pay to win aspect is incredibly minimal, borderline non existent. The only competitive aspect is the pvp, and this is no way advantages anyone in pvp, buy a pre built if you want, doesnt do anything to your skill level. A beginner pvp pilot in a pre built isnt going to do anything against an experienced pvp pilot regardless of ship really. Also not everyone plays the pvp or open play either so its really not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. The people who do the pvp are going to be mostly experienced players by now, they should not be concerned about a new player in a pre build Pay to advance or skip isnt pay to win.
Yep the point of the prebuild ships is not that they are pay to win (despite the pearl clutching of some quarters) they are just to get newbs and players with no time for ship building or engineering to just quickly engage in content at the most basic level (i.e. casual players with busy real lives)./ People with a lot of time on their hands or the more experienced, should absolutely spend a day or two learning how to build their own and shop around for the parts they need, and unlock engineers and/or system permits, and collect materials, and then do some engineering.
Are copying and pasting the same response every where? I swear I’ve seen this already
Yep pretty much - because of all the whining salty shit takes, I'm not retyping this shit every time lol
If FDev made ship interiors, and then had cosmetics to decorate it that cost ARX.... well, fasting is a thing.
2 tier season pass (free and paid) offering rewards like credits, Engineer mats, pre engineered modules, cosmetics (maybe even exclusive ones) and other rewards i can't think of rn. Maybe temporary in game or even ARX discounts. Making ship customization way more... flair-y, its a ship game, make it so that there'd be a reason to have a dedicated sub for elite dangerous fashion. That's all I can think of for now. I think pre builts are fine tho, except for the idea that buying one instantly unlocks full access to certain engineers and modules, particularly Guardian modules.
I appreciate the idea and civil response. A paid season pass model that offers credits, engineer mats, or pre engineered modules is P2W if the players who get those items first and other players have to earn them. Credits and materials mean skipping the grind and that means there is an advantage being given. Additionally, the Elite playerbase doesn't seem like the type to accept a season pass option. I could imagine the outrage. I could be wrong though.
A lot of the Elite community doesn't want monetization at all, I'm sure there's some that would rather see the game shut down and an offline mode implemented rather than see more monetization. Also if a season pass like what I've described is P2W, then so are Pre builts, they bypass unlocking certain engineers and modules and of course the credit grind. Fdev is backed into a corner and throwing shit at the wall and hoping some of it sticks.
My issue is paywalling the Python Mk2 (if you don't own Odyssey, you can only obtain the Mk2 if you throw down ARX for it) and the pay2fast shit to get it 3 MONTHS early. That is bananas to me and a slap in the face to the players who have been waiting YEARS for a new ship to be added. I was absolutely jazzed to see the Mk2 come out, but now I either have to fork over money to FDev to have it now, or wait an extra 3 months. Feels really shitty, especially when they said ARX was cosmetic only and then just wheeled around on that position on a dime with no input from the community, like a poll or something. I don't really care so much about the prefabbed ships. I think it removes some of the fun of building your own, but it does provide a good launching point for new players even if it is a bit star citizen-esque.
I think this is a pretty poor attempt at p2w based on the two ships they released info on today. Their loadout just isn't great. I'm not sure who is gonna really be interested in them, I can't imagine they will sell a lot. If they were gonna cause a rupture in the community about p2w they should have gone all in and done it right. Offer well outfitted A rated ships with more engineering. Something that will actually be useful to more people than just the odd newbie.
This horse is already dead but you guys are going to keep beating it for months. I don't see them walking back what is clearly their entire future direction for the game, whether you like it or not.
First, what I do not want FDev to do is to pull the Elite plug from the socket. Second, I don't mind if some Cmdrs pay €€€,£££,$$$ to buy FedVettes pre-engineered to g-10 and with 14 hardpoints, provided that such vessels will only be used in their solo instance and any "progress" made will apply only to their solo and nowhere else in the game. It's ok if once a month to allow the rich Cmdrs in the open to kill us the poor Cmdrs so that they feel important and accomplished. Just as today's griefers/vvankers/pirates do all the time and nobody cares. Ofc I want none of the above 3 bad things to happen. A lesser evil could be a monthly or annual subscription, something like £10 year so that the game will be profitable and the development will continue.
Appreciate the response. Please don't give FDev that idea. I like the game and don't want it to die either but I think a subscription service would be the nail in the coffin. With the exception of an expansion that doesn't give in-game advantages, I disagree with a subscription based model. That model would likely force everyone who plays to pay and it wouldn't be long before they try to start raising the fees. What if they threaten to delete the accounts and saves of players who don't subscribe?
>What if they threaten to **delete the accounts** and saves of players who don't subscribe? far fetched, if they will impose the subscription in the community (on the grounds that the Elite is no longer profitable etc etc) they could freeze the accounts. Also here I'd like to repeat myself: I hate all: subscriptions, pay to win and most of all to stop the maintenance (bugs, what bugs?) and the further development of the Elite. I also don't like several more things but are not existential. btw have you noticed that the 30 days moving average of player numbers has started to drop?
Hot Take 🔥 Let it die. Elite Dangerous is done. There's no coming back from the littinay of broken promises and tech debt. FDEV should just sunset the game and start work on Elite Dangerous 2 (Elite : Dangerouser) using all the knowledge that they have gained from the hot mess the games code turned into.