KSP Weekly: The Solar Visit

[passinglurker]

On 8/14/2018 at 7:42 AM, Deddly said:

You make some very good points, but in this, I believe you are much mistaken. People respond well to constructive criticism but rarely do they appreciate or even pay attention to general negativity. Constructive criticism invites open communication and exchange of ideas and skills, whilst negativity (along the lines of many, but not all, comments in this thread) may make friends of people who already feel a similar way, but alienates a person from the rest of the audience. Most importantly, it alienates the person from the target of the negativity, which defeats the object, don't you think? 

I think that's a load of bunk "constructive criticism" is such a subjective wishy washy term and makes it very easy to dismiss raised issues as being "negative" when it's convenient for you.

We saw this during making history development when asked why some useful parts weren't made part of the core game the excuse was that they were "historical" and wouldn't fit in the main game and then when asked why some historical parts didn't look like the real world equivalent, wasn't balanced right, or simply looked bad the contradictory excuse was that the parts were made to fit in with the core set, and anyone who highlighted that contradiction was cast as being "negative" and "unconstructive" and ignored.

Our problem is we put too much emphasis on constructive to the point that few can realistically reach it or are just denied on flat out BS grounds(and as you would recall at one point I sure tried my hardest to give positive reinforcement, be constructive all that jazz, and you know what? It did NOTHING. So why bother?). After all constructive criticism and valid criticism isn't always the same thing don't you think the latter is more important than the former? Don't you think the validity of criticism should be discussed over it's tone? Honestly I rarely see anything in response to criticism other than someone didn't like how it was phrased talk about being unconstructive...

As for alienation. Like I said If the community did alienate squad at this point it would be a win they've consistently botched things for long enough with little to really show for it. No one has reason to have faith in the quality of future updates, and until they deliver results that prove this otherwise (thereby earning or trust and positivity again) we'd be better off without them so again alienation is a win. Alienation being a win is the consequence of extended long term corner cutting it comes back to bite you when people don't think you hold value to them anymore. Have I made my view on this matter clear?

Edited August 15, 2018 by passinglurker

[Kerbart]

3 hours ago, passinglurker said:

Have I made my view on this matter clear?

Large wall of text, incoherent rambling. In other words: no.

[Serenity]

How is that incoherent rambling? That was a decent post with very good points.I agree with him, just count how many people bother to post anymore in these threads, i count 5-10 max.

[klgraham1013]

9 hours ago, Kerbart said:

Large wall of text

Check.

9 hours ago, Kerbart said:

incoherent rambling

I found it quite easier to understand, regardless of my opinion on the subject.

Edited August 15, 2018 by klgraham1013

[StarStreak2109]

10 hours ago, Kerbart said:

Large wall of text, incoherent rambling. In other words: no.

Well, if I want to be picky, your post is incoherent rambling. You are not using a single complete sentence, whereas @passinglurker used perfectly fine, grammatically mostly unobjectionable English and what he said, did also make sense. May I suggest, that you dismiss his post as being "incoherent" because either your attention span is not long enough to read and understand his post or because it does not fit your world of "any criticism of Squad is negativism"?!?

I do not further want to polarize this discussion, especially since we are wandering off topic.

[Deddly]

14 hours ago, passinglurker said:

 Don't you think the validity of criticism should be discussed over it's tone?

I'm not knowledgeable about art, which is why I rarely contribute to these discussions. I see the previews released in these threads and all I can see is that the pictures are obviously not taken from inside the game, so it probably looks different to what it will do when it finally lands in my KSP folder and I get to see it on a craft. I don't see the details you do. Your criticisms may well be valid. As I say, you make a lot of good points and I imagine the quality of KSP would improve if they did as you say, but I'm totally ignorant in the matter and not at all qualified to talk about normal maps and shaders etc.  I am knowledgeable about human interactions, though, which is why I thought I'd make a comment here. But I appear to have completely misunderstood your point (see below).

 

14 hours ago, passinglurker said:

If the community did alienate squad at this point it would be a win

I seem to owe you an apology, passinglurker. I was under the impression that you were hoping a Squad developer would be listening to your suggestions and make changes in the art accordingly. I didn't realise that you actually wanted them to ignore you. In that case, please disregard what I said previously, you're doing just fine.

 

14 hours ago, passinglurker said:

Have I made my view on this matter clear?

You have now, thanks for clarifying. And again, I'm sorry that I misunderstood you.

[Tyko]

1 hour ago, Deddly said:

I'm not knowledgeable about art, which is why I rarely contribute to these discussions. I see the previews released in these threads and all I can see is that the pictures are obviously not taken from inside the game, so it probably looks different to what it will do when it finally lands in my KSP folder and I get to see it on a craft. I don't see the details you do. Your criticisms may well be valid. As I say, you make a lot of good points and I imagine the quality of KSP would improve if they did as you say, but I'm totally ignorant in the matter and not at all qualified to talk about normal maps and shaders etc. <SNIP>

I'm not an expert on graphics either, but I can clearly tell that the surface detail looks more like 2D stickers rather than 3D details. Perhaps this is only an early render before more detail was added. The initial post gave these as examples of what they are doing and didn't say these parts were a work in progress. Given all the errors we saw in the Making History parts, it's fair to be concerned they might have considered this part done.

So, I think it's perfectly reasonable to call out the obvious issues with the parts. If Squad had a history of releasing high quality parts without glitches I may have been willing to assume this was a work in progress because "Squad always does a good job on parts, so clearly they aren't done with this one". Sadly, that's not the case.

Edited August 15, 2018 by Tyko

[Deddly]

1 hour ago, Tyko said:

 I think it's perfectly reasonable to call out the obvious issues with the parts.

Oh, absolutely. I have no argument against that. There's nothing wrong with drawing attention to issues. For example, I still have issues with the wheels and landing gear making some craft bounce about on the runway. It bothers me! It makes me glad to know I'm not the only one. But it doesn't make me happy to see someone say (I quote nobody, but I imitate the tone): "How about you spend some of that dev time fixing the broken wheels that have been an embarrassment since 1.1? Fix your shoddy work before starting something else!"

Even though I have the same issue, I can't see how that would encourage the devs to listen to me. I would rather put it like this:
"I really appreciate the work you guys put into getting the wheels fixed, but unfortunately, some of my craft are still bouncing about on the runway. I hope you can find out what causes that because it kinda ruins the game for me :("

So in this particular case, and borrowing from what you said about the HECS, perhaps a less negative way to put it would be:
"Some work on the HECS is very welcome. Now, I'm no expert in graphics, so maybe it looks different in the game or it's a WIP or something, but I have to be honest and say that the surface details could use a little work. To my eye, they look a bit like 2D stickers instead of 3D details:"

The basic format is:

1) Some sincere commendation, with no sarcasm
2) An admission that I might be wrong
3) The issue, as I see it

I'm not telling you or anyone else how to write, I'm just saying what I personally appreciate to see. And in my experience, that style is more likely to get results from the intended audience.

[Tyko]

2 hours ago, Deddly said:

Oh, absolutely. I have no argument against that. There's nothing wrong with drawing attention to issues. For example, I still have issues with the wheels and landing gear making some craft bounce about on the runway. It bothers me! It makes me glad to know I'm not the only one. But it doesn't make me happy to see someone say (I quote nobody, but I imitate the tone): "How about you spend some of that dev time fixing the broken wheels that have been an embarrassment since 1.1? Fix your shoddy work before starting something else!"

Even though I have the same issue, I can't see how that would encourage the devs to listen to me. I would rather put it like this:
"I really appreciate the work you guys put into getting the wheels fixed, but unfortunately, some of my craft are still bouncing about on the runway. I hope you can find out what causes that because it kinda ruins the game for me :("

So in this particular case, and borrowing from what you said about the HECS, perhaps a less negative way to put it would be:
"Some work on the HECS is very welcome. Now, I'm no expert in graphics, so maybe it looks different in the game or it's a WIP or something, but I have to be honest and say that the surface details could use a little work. To my eye, they look a bit like 2D stickers instead of 3D details:"

The basic format is:

1) Some sincere commendation, with no sarcasm
2) An admission that I might be wrong
3) The issue, as I see it

I'm not telling you or anyone else how to write, I'm just saying what I personally appreciate to see. And in my experience, that style is more likely to get results from the intended audience.

I really appreciate you taking the time to explain how many of us are not providing criticism in the way you approve of. It's possible that people are overreacting. On the other hand, parts issues have been a problem since beta and the wheel issue has been going on for over 2 years and I think that it's not unreasonable that people are a bit fed up with it 

(that worked great! thanks for the advice)

In all seriousness... I get your point and people do get a bit worked up at times... I just wish we saw more progress on some of these issues. When new parts show up that look low quality I do have a WTH moment.

Edited August 15, 2018 by Tyko

[Kerbart]

10 hours ago, Boyster said:

How is that incoherent rambling? That was a decent post with very good points.I agree with him, just count how many people bother to post anymore in these threads, i count 5-10 max.

 Don’t think structural criticism is really required, is it? I’m sure you can handle the truth: it just wasn’t a good post, sorry.

[KraterKreator]

On 8/10/2018 at 11:00 PM, doudou said:

Hello community!

Thank you Squad for these improvements, but why not get inspired by Ven's gorgeous models? it's graphic!

All Glory to Ven's Revamp!

[Burning Kan]

Played a little bit with the new behavior of the landing legs and must say well done, pretty well done

edit:much better than the last, still wonky)thx @SQUAD

Edited August 16, 2018 by Burning Kan

[klesh]

1 hour ago, Kerbart said:

I’m sure you can handle the truth: it just wasn’t a good post, sorry.

 

I like how you've determined your opinion is objective truth.

[StarStreak2109]

7 hours ago, Kerbart said:

 Don’t think structural criticism is really required, is it? I’m sure you can handle the truth: it just wasn’t a good post, sorry.

Incoherent rambling and a post being "not good" are two different things tho... And whether a post is good or bad is pretty much in the eye of the beholder...

[hieywiey]

Would it just be more effective to just abandon Porkalike and do a new style, this way it will be more consistent?

[passinglurker]

1 hour ago, hieywiey said:

Would it just be more effective to just abandon Porkalike and do a new style, this way it will be more consistent?

As I said before in terms of practical consistency porkalike already comprises the single largest block of parts, and his style is readily emulatable it's not like he was the only one who could do it(just look at all the stuff nertea, cobalt, and other modders pump out) it's essentially the fewest number of parts you need to make to achieve consistency, and therefore the least amount of work. (really compared to AAA modern game assets his hand painted style isn't too much to ask for).

Redoing EVERYTHING(including the space center buildings cause pj made his style fit with b9's) would be much more work the only way to come out ahead is to either abandon consistency, or cut quality drastically (neither of which should be acceptable to this community)

So in the end porkalike is the only way that makes sense unless you are going beyond porkalike levels of quality it's just not worth the investment of manpower.

[Tyko]

2 hours ago, hieywiey said:

Would it just be more effective to just abandon Porkalike and do a new style, this way it will be more consistent?

I'm not sure what the benefit would be. There are many porkalike models and many seem to like that style. Why redo a bunch of parts that people are happy with. Seems easier to just bring all of the older parts up to that standard. Also, many stockalike mods are designed to match porkalike. they'd all have to change too.

[FleshJeb]

I appreciate the efforts and am somewhat appalled by the negativity of people. This is outright middle-school bullying, and it's ridiculous behavior coming from adults.

However, I don't really care what the game looks like. After 5000+ hours, I don't even look at the textures anymore--I play on absolute minimum graphics settings to increase performance, even though I don't have to, and fly by instruments almost exclusively

Now, if they were to do graphics pack DLCs that have the option of making KSP look like Borderlands or Fortnite (boo, hiss), I'd be totally down for it. KSP to me is a Saturday morning cartoon with realistic physics.

[passinglurker]

32 minutes ago, FleshJeb said:

However, I don't really care what the game looks like.

Then you don't care if it's pushed to look better.

[Vanamonde]

54 minutes ago, passinglurker said:

Then you don't care if it's pushed to look better.

We care if it's done rudely and insultingly. 

As for myself, though, I also put my parts together and fly them places rather than go over their surfaces with a magnifying glass. 

[passinglurker]

40 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

We care if it's done rudely and insultingly. 

Good thing that isn't the case here. Credit is given where credit is due and criticism is given where criticism is due. No more no less.

42 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

for myself, though, I also put my parts together and fly them places rather than go over their surfaces with a magnifying glass. 

And again if one is so apathetic to the way things go then they really have nothing to add to the discussion.

[Deddly]

Just now, passinglurker said:

And again if one is so apathetic to the way things go then they really have nothing to add to the discussion.

I don't agree with that. As you yourself said, we should talk about the validity of the arguments. That means people on both sides of the issue get to comment, otherwise it is one-sided and skewed. 

[passinglurker]

3 minutes ago, Deddly said:

I don't agree with that. As you yourself said, we should talk about the validity of the arguments. That means people on both sides of the issue get to comment, otherwise it is one-sided and skewed. 

While this is true apathy is not a valid argument. Status quo would be a valid argument, aggressive optimization at the expense of style would be a valid argument, rd-alike would be a valid argument, beale-alike would be a valid argument, wanting anything at all would be a valid argument but simply not caring isn't/wasn't/never will be a valid argument.

[LoSBoL]

5 hours ago, hieywiey said:

Would it just be more effective to just abandon Porkalike and do a new style, this way it will be more consistent?

Porkalike has been abandoned. A pretty big sign on the wall was when @SQUAD released the unfinished Porkjet parts to the community in december 2016 to play with. The sentence was added that they 'may' continue its development.
In the mean time half a dozen modders did an excellent job in creating a vast number of porkalike parts for everybody to enjoy, and they are even being enjoyed by many today.

Other design changes have been made by @SQUAD which basically show that the porkjet design legacy isn't going to being continued by @SQUAD, which shouldn't be a problem because if you want to, the legacy has been covered completely by modders to everybody's liking, except for some who can't accept changes, keep reminiscing the past and souring the weeklies.

Maybe @SQUAD should indeed make a statement about not continuing Porkjet style, nobody will be bothered because the alternatives are better then SQUAD would provide, we can have one final topic for the ones who want to keep ranting and then maybe they can get over it and get on with their lives.

[StarStreak2109]

1 hour ago, Vanamonde said:

We care if it's done rudely and insultingly. 

As for myself, though, I also put my parts together and fly them places rather than go over their surfaces with a magnifying glass. 

So the argument is, that to some players quality is irrelevant as long as the game runs halfway smoothly... Well, while I would say that I rather have a smooth game than a super-detailed one that melts my computer, this clearly is not the case. Why should we have a bunch of rocket parts that look like they were made out of plastic when we can have some nice looking parts with some effort put into it, that add so much more to the game.

The point of many of the criticizers was that with some effort put into the textures we could have a consistent, performant and nice looking texture set. Not that people don't care about the textures, because a) they either don't notice them or b) they have such a lousy computer that they have to turn down their quality slider all the way...

Oh and yes, I do watch my models from up close, for instance when I'm EVA'ing or docking or performing other precision manouvers in game. Then bad model quality turns me off. Actually, now that I think about it, that already starts in the VAB...

Edited August 16, 2018 by StarStreak2109