Elite: Odyssey

User422479
18 Jan 2024, 3:42am
Artie...and the whole theory will go away once a single new skin will be added into the store.
I just would like to mention that pauses between new things in the store aren't so unusual, it happened in the past.

Perhaps.

Perhaps not.

You are doing yourself a serious disservice to not consider the absence of festive skins a bit odd though, because that has not happened before.

BTW, still waiting on you to publish those alleged indications of rising player numbers that you claim. (Yeah, I have a very long memory)

Until you do, the trend is still going downwards as per the stats that everyone is actually able to see. And that is certainly not a good thing for the game.

You don't have to share, but that comes at the consequence of having no right to expect anyone to believe you.

EDIT: 3am silliness
Artie
18 Jan 2024, 4:09am
Un1korn
BTW, still waiting on you to publish those alleged indications of rising player numbers that you claim. (Yeah, I have a very long memory)

Please point me to the exact post, so I will know the timeframe the statement was valid for. In any case I doubt that I promised to provide/publish any numbers, because I never do that (to avoid possible misinterpretations, as is common).

Edit: Ah, found the post you are probably referring to (August 2023), let me quote for posterity: "....whilst the Elite's Steam numbers may be going down, Inara's numbers for Elite are going slightly up and it's not worse than last year..."
As is clear, I was talking about Inara, not the game and that information was truly correct. I don't care if somebody trust it or not, I am just telling what I see in my stats and anybody can take from it whatever wants.

By the way, I can also play this game - I suppose you are referring to the game stats as seen on the Steam charts (and similar). Those services are known to take periodical samples of concurrent players. Do you know that the actual number of players is truly lower or they are just playing less (thus the lower concurrency)? How? Prove it. Next question - do you know what is the ratio between Steam-Epic-Frontier players and what portion of the entire player base is on Steam? How? Prove it. If you know the ratio, do you know the trend is exactly same (or worse) on the other two platforms? How? Prove it.

Last edit: 18 Jan 2024, 4:46am
Thinder
18 Jan 2024, 4:30am
Un1korn[quote=PikkuMika]

Elite's had a system practically begging for P2W features since June 2016, when Engineers first arrived in the game.

Convenient little packages of materials, anyone? Certainly see that kind of thing in many games to make the grind easier, all for the low price of £8.99 or whatever.



Personally I think that having to farm material for engineering is a good thing, especially for newbies, it pushes players to travel, look for the material, do their home work and researches.

It's fast enough once you know where to look, what to do and how to farm it (like signal loops, Orrere crashed ship or Robigo Mine passenger transport missions).

I keep buying and selling ships which are not necessarily compatible when it comes to modules, I try thing, like using a Keelback in Resource Extraction Site [High], assist the local law enforcement and collect the material left behind by the kills, btw I get the bounties as well...

This game suffers from lack of development, ship interiors, VR for disembarked players, fleet carrier upgrades and engineering and mew ships, but overall, it remains the best in its genre and I always find something to do even so I don't play FPS, which is not the reason why I play ED anyway.

Odyssey? I got it for the Fleet Carrier interior, so the lack of proper VR once disembarked can be a bit frustrating but it still is <> OK.

Compare this to Star Citizen where you grind in game and see all what you got taken away at the next update, not to mention the bugs and crashes, I think ED is rather sorted, plus in VR, excuse me to say but there aren't so many games in the market beating its visual...

I'll give it a solid 7 with "Can do better" mention.

User422479
18 Jan 2024, 5:04am
Artie
Un1korn
BTW, still waiting on you to publish those alleged indications of rising player numbers that you claim. (Yeah, I have a very long memory)


Please point me to the exact post, so I will know the timeframe the statement was valid for. In any case I doubt that I promised to provide/publish any numbers, because I never do that (to avoid possible misinterpretations, as is common).

Edit: Ah, found the post you are probably referring to (August 2023), let me quote for posterity: "....whilst the Elite's Steam numbers may be going down, Inara's numbers for Elite are going slightly up and it's not worse than last year..."
As is clear, I was talking about Inara, not the game and that information was truly correct. I don't care if somebody trust it or not, I am just telling what I see in my stats and anybody can take from it whatever wants.

By the way, I can also play this game - I suppose you are referring to the game stats as seen on the Steam charts (and similar). Those services are known to take periodical samples of concurrent players. Do you know that the actual number of players is truly lower or they are just playing less (thus the lower concurrency)? How? Prove it. Next question - do you know what is the ratio between Steam-Epic-Frontier players and what portion of the entire player base is on Steam? How? Prove it. If you know the ratio, do you know the trend is exactly same (or worse) on the other two platforms? How? Prove it.

You really are being deliberately obtuse aren't you?

No, I cannot give you numbers on Epic players. Yes, I know that the means the Steam Chart site takes its numbers is far from perfect.

I cannot prove they are accurate no. And you cannot disprove it in kind.

And I have acknowledged this much.

You are missing the bloody point though.

Tell me, what other metric do I, or most anyone here, actually have to go on, when it comes to current player numbers?

That's right. There isn't one.

And in the absence of anything more accurate that does make what I'm citing, the Steam Charts website, the most accurate source of information we have here by grace of it being the only source at hand. If you are unable to understand this, you shouldn't be trying to talk about this in the first place. It is very basic citation skills that we are looking at here.

The moment I am shown something better and more accurate is the moment I will cease mentioning it. But to date nobody has been able to do this.

Now I will concede, as I'm not unreasonable, that you are correct about what you said about your own site here, and for that much, I apologise.

However, on the matter of gleaning information on how many people might be playing this game currently? Well I've already explained.

If you cannot understand how the matter of this kind of citation works after that, then we have nothing more to discuss.

Last edit: 18 Jan 2024, 5:10am
User422479
18 Jan 2024, 5:07am
Thinder
Un1korn
PikkuMika

Elite's had a system practically begging for P2W features since June 2016, when Engineers first arrived in the game.

Convenient little packages of materials, anyone? Certainly see that kind of thing in many games to make the grind easier, all for the low price of £8.99 or whatever.




Personally I think that having to farm material for engineering is a good thing, especially for newbies, it pushes players to travel, look for the material, do their home work and researches.

It's fast enough once you know where to look, what to do and how to farm it (like signal loops, Orrere crashed ship or Robigo Mine passenger transport missions).

I keep buying and selling ships which are not necessarily compatible when it comes to modules, I try thing, like using a Keelback in Resource Extraction Site [High], assist the local law enforcement and collect the material left behind by the kills, btw I get the bounties as well...

This game suffers from lack of development, ship interiors, VR for disembarked players, fleet carrier upgrades and engineering and mew ships, but overall, it remains the best in its genre and I always find something to do even so I don't play FPS, which is not the reason why I play ED anyway.

Odyssey? I got it for the Fleet Carrier interior, so the lack of proper VR once disembarked can be a bit frustrating but it still is <> OK.

Compare this to Star Citizen where you grind in game and see all what you got taken away at the next update, not to mention the bugs and crashes, I think ED is rather sorted, plus in VR, excuse me to say but there aren't so many games in the market beating its visual...

I'll give it a solid 7 with "Can do better" mention.



Honestly, agreed.

Highly unpopular opinion but I think it's less grind and more an "I want it now" mentality with a lot of gamers.

It's hardly unique to ED players and they're no exception to a general lack of patience either.
User422479
18 Jan 2024, 5:13am
One thing I will add for Artie, as I think I need to remind folk.

I look at Steam charts as an indication of trends.

Not total numbers.

Because frankly: No shit Sherlock that not everyone plays on Steam. I know because I don't!
Adam 'The detective' Štefánik
18 Jan 2024, 6:27am
And guys, dont forget on DRM free version-right from Frontier but I guess that will be very small number
Talon Avex
18 Jan 2024, 7:09am
My 2 credit thoughts on how long Elite has:

We have seen tons of MMORPGs come and go over the years. After giving it thought, I'd to share this idea: We're becoming the space-based version of EverQuest.

Now hear me out before you start to boo, please hear me out.

Everquest (EQ) has been going since 1999. It still pulls players to it today. The player population is no where near what it was in the early 2000s, but they are loyal. The graphics are clunky, especially in the old zones of the game. The UI is a TOTAL mess. World of Warcraft (WoW) was supposed to kill it, but EQ is still here.

In fact, WoW still has a VERY strong player-base and it's about 20 years old as well.

Do EQ and WoW have the same huge player base they once did? No, but it's enough for the parent company to make a profit and pay for the server electricity.

I see the same thing possibly happening with Elite: strong, loyal player base that buys enough ARX to keep it afloat. As long as the game creates enough money to cover the power on the servers and the bandwidth, Elite will stay online.

Now, do I have any faith in Frontier and its current business plan? Not overly. The Warhammer release was a joke. Now, it may be different for some of you, but I saw no public relations push before it came out (other than maybe a couple of online ads on Steam). On Steam, it was averaging less than 1300 players a day as of a month ago. No Holidays push and no real PR blitz on release. I cannot comment on the game mechanics, but it would not surprise me if there were issues as well (much like with the release of Odyssey).

Someone screwed up. If Elite goes away, it will more than likely be at the hands of managerial ineptness. Personally, when there were job reductions at Frontier, I would have started the cuts with the Public Relations and Advertising teams first. Warhammer should not have been the opening day bomb it was.

Frontier needs to focus on its current core of games and put out one QUALITY game a year (based on technical, visual and overall player satisfaction). The company should also give more than basic support for current games (example new ships or new weapons). Otherwise, it may be time for Frontier to sell itself or sell some of its properties. If they sell themselves or some of the games, I'm not sure who I would like to see take over.

While we're at it, yes I know Elite is an older game. Still, I think it's worth supporting. I'd like to see more community goals. We pretty much haven't seen anything since mid to late December. I'd like to see the Frontier Community Managers start doing things with the Elite community again. I'm not calling for a completely new expansion or / DLC (finish getting the bugs out of Odyssey, please!). What I would like to see is some new items. A new ship would be nice. Ready to fly basic AX ships would be nice.

Land bases or letting the players create / own bases would have to be an expansion. Same with giving us more places we can walk (in-ship, anyone? Maybe more places in space stations?). Elite still has ways to grow, but the window to make it happen is closing. Also, I have to question Frontier management and its ability to plan and manage not only Elite, but itself as well.

If you made it this far, thank you for listening to my ramblings.

Last edit: 18 Jan 2024, 7:14am
Thinder
18 Jan 2024, 9:15am
Talon Avex

Do EQ and WoW have the same huge player base they once did? No, but it's enough for the parent company to make a profit and pay for the server electricity.

I see the same thing possibly happening with Elite: strong, loyal player base that buys enough ARX to keep it afloat. As long as the game creates enough money to cover the power on the servers and the bandwidth, Elite will stay online.


They need more than just surviving. For example, the VR market is growing, they already have the base to develop it further, they could capture a fair chunk of this market, so if they finish the Odyssey "on foot" part with proper VR support, it will help.

Also, when you look at some other game producers (I'm thinking about World of Warships/tanks/airplanes etc), you can buy Premium ships, instauring a Premium system to get (for example) ships interior and Carrier upgrade would also go some way to help their finance and pay for further development.

I would buy ships interior or even Premium ships from them, the quality of the work is already there, we know what they can do, it's a matter for them to decide what and when to do it but one thing for sure, stagnation kills games.

I agree with the managerial part of your comments, the rest of the team produced what we have and it is quality even if incomplete
Artie
18 Jan 2024, 12:47pm
Un1korn....
If you cannot understand how the matter of this kind of citation works after that, then we have nothing more to discuss.

Well, I just wanted to point out that (not) backing the arguments with numbers works both way:
- I didn't back my statement with publicly verifiable numbers, so people may not trust me. That's fair.
- You didn't back your statement with publicly verifiable numbers and it's based only on an assumption that total daily players on all platforms somehow correlate with hourly concurrent users on Steam. Which may or may not be true, it's not backed by any data. So people also shouldn't trust this statement, by the same logic.
User422479
18 Jan 2024, 5:07pm
Artie
Un1korn....
If you cannot understand how the matter of this kind of citation works after that, then we have nothing more to discuss.


Well, I just wanted to point out that (not) backing the arguments with numbers works both way:
- I didn't back my statement with publicly verifiable numbers, so people may not trust me. That's fair.
- You didn't back your statement with publicly verifiable numbers and it's based only on an assumption that total daily players on all platforms somehow correlate with hourly concurrent users on Steam. Which may or may not be true, it's not backed by any data. So people also shouldn't trust this statement, by the same logic.

I was going to write a lengthy post in rebuttal.

But honestly? You're showing yourself as utterly incapable of understanding this. You're not worth my time.

Yes, I know the feeling is mutual. So no need to say it.

I'll be deleting my acount. This game's community is throwing itself, the way I see things across this website, the forum and Reddit, amongst other smaller platforms, into the proverbial ditch and I am starting to wonder why I came back at all. Bickering all around.

Morbid curiousity, I guess.

We have our respective opinions and they clash hard. We're allowed that much and that's okay. Neither of us, it seems, are the sort to back down, so it's pointless keeping this up. Don't take this as me agreeing or conceding, however.

I don't on either count.

I just know that this is a complete waste of our time. Again, I know that feeling is likely mutual.
Artie
18 Jan 2024, 6:17pm
Un1korn
But honestly? You're showing yourself as utterly incapable of understanding this. You're not worth my time.

You are correct, I am unable to understand how people can take numbers reflecting one thing and claim from these another thing without any other supportive data, making such conclusions like an absolute truth. A statement "a number of concurrent players of Elite on Steam is decreasing" is perfectly valid, backed by the data. A statement "a number of (all) players of Elite is decreasing" is however just an assumption that concurrent players also reflect the total players and that Steam numbers also reflect other platforms/stores. All this based on no (supportive) data at all. Stating that "trend of total players" is same as "trend of concurrent Steam players" is wrong for the same reasons (it's the very same assumption). As a stretch, because there are players from all platforms/stores on Inara and as my sample is wider than on Steam charts and as I have not only the concurrent players, but also daily totals I can make an assumption that a number of players/trends on Inara reflects a number of players/trends in the game. But that will be obviously also wrong and thus I am not making such statements. Are overall numbers of Elite player decreasing? Or are stable? Or are even increasing? Nobody but Frontier knows for sure.

I am certainly not trying to drive you out, we are just reasoning about the player numbers, data and conclusions taken from them.
Talon Avex
19 Jan 2024, 6:45am
Thinder

They need more than just surviving. For example, the VR market is growing, they already have the base to develop it further, they could capture a fair chunk of this market, so if they finish the Odyssey "on foot" part with proper VR support, it will help.


I totally agree with you. Personally, I would love to raid and clear out a base while in a stable VR mode. It would put the game back on the radar of the general gamer, IMHO.

Thinder Also, when you look at some other game producers (I'm thinking about World of Warships/tanks/airplanes etc), you can buy Premium ships, instauring a Premium system to get (for example) ships interior and Carrier upgrade would also go some way to help their finance and pay for further development.

I would buy ships interior or even Premium ships from them, the quality of the work is already there, we know what they can do, it's a matter for them to decide what and when to do it but one thing for sure, stagnation kills games.


Honestly, I would be fine with things like new ships and even the Viper IV via paying / ARX if it meant additional development of VR, interiors and other things. Things other than paint jobs, weapon colors and engine exhaust colors would be EXTREMELY NICE. Totally agree about stagnation.

Thinder I agree with the managerial part of your comments, the rest of the team produced what we have and it is quality even if incomplete


(Now bringing out my soapbox)

To me, FDev has squandered its early success.

On the programming side, the downhill slide really started with Odyessy. When consoles were relegated to a backwater, an almost non-supported area of the game...that ticked off a solid side of the player base. Bugs that are just now getting corrected (or haven't been touched in 2+ years) reflect badly on the game and company.

Odyessy, especially in the beginning , did not live up to the near over-hype it was given. Now, you see situations like Warhammer gets almost no fanfare in the gaming industry. I think after the PR fiasco of Odyssey, the near radio-silent promotion of Warhammer is just as bad.

In the end, this reflects on FDev itself. To me, management overall is clueless, especially over the last two years (and I think I just insulted clueless management everywhere with that last remark). Revamping starts at the top and this company needs it in the worst way. Shareholders should be screaming for heads.

With all of that said, do I continue to play FDev gaming properties? Yup. Do I plan on doing anything like buying additional ARX or other games from them in the near future? Not really. Give me better quality with more options and FDev can count on being supported by its respective playerbases. Until then, they will continue to bleed cash.

On a side note: I find it funny that my earlier comment about community engagement and CGs being a bit lacking was made a few hours before the lates CG was announced. Talk about timing, LOL!

Last edit: 19 Jan 2024, 10:55am
Thinder
19 Jan 2024, 9:04pm
Project MEGITSUNE

The MEGITSUNE (Vixen) is an engineered Kellback tasked with collection of bounties, Escape Pods and Manufactured Materials in Resource Extraction Site [High] by assisting the local Law enforcement ships.

The idea was to use a cheap, relatively maneuverable cargo ship with some combat ability, moderate shielding and a small (16) cargo capacity coupled with a Collector Limpet Controller.



The evolution of her upgrade and engineering were meant to achieve the best balance possible between survivability, mission capability, combat/mission persistence and overall efficiency.

I tested her at different levels of engineering and it quickly became apparent that shielding wouldn't be enough during the collection phase, after being attacked twice by Anacondas.
(Note that nothing triggered the attack, I had no bounties or fines against me).

Even with the intervention of the System Authority forces present, the attacker had time to cause structural damages, so a fighter became a necessity to distract a threat long enough to escape.

On the basis of the last field test, this tactic works, the fighter attract the attention of the local Law Enforcement ships as well, I was even able to take down an Imperial Courier on my own, but she was at her 3rd upgrade aiming at making her more survivable.

Speed is part of the survivability equation, the Power Plant, Power Distributor and Thrusters are Stripped Down to gain weight, as she is, MEGITSUNE is faster than a stock Imperial Courier or Vulture, it is relatively easy to escape an attack by accelerating if you leave the spot soon enught before getting damaged.
Stock Keelback.

Standard Shield.

Shielding have been largely improved over the stock Keelback, fist with engineering, then tests were also conducted with a 5A Prismatic Shield Generator + Thermal resistant X 5l + Force Block.

Optimized Prismatic.

I'm still unsure about which configuration I'll use in the future, they both are assisted by 3 Shield Boosters () and a Class 3 Shield Cell Bank (Rapid Charge).

It is possible to go through the mission with any of those two shields without too much problems, but the standard shield can go down faster, and you will have no defense against cargo breach by lack of slot in any case.

Upgrade and engineering potential.

Gains in maneuverability:

38.62-143.02-21.45 vs 30.48-101.59-17.27°/S
Prismatic
38.16-141.32-21.20
>>>

Gains in speed:

286[429M/S 223[356M/S
Prismatic
283[424M/S

Last edit: 19 Jan 2024, 9:13pm
Minonian
19 Jan 2024, 9:53pm
The only drawback with 16 T cargo bay only you run out limpets way too fast, and have to head back way too often. Not ideal.

2-4x more is optimal. Of course it depends on how long someone willing to stay on grinding but the general idea is the more time you have to spend running back and forth the less time efficient you are.

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Anything about the Elite:Odyssey release version.