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Are there any reasons why Intercept Games wouldn't want to do polls or beta tests for KSP 2, to make it a better game at launch?


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Some comments removed. Please don't insist that you know others motives for doing things. Just because others disagree does not mean they are dishonest. Keep it polite, please. 

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@VanamondeI'm kinda surprised (even though I probably shouldn't be) that this post had comments that had to be moderated... If you'd like you can delete the post or hide it (if it's possible to hide it?) so it doesn't have to continue to be moderated, as people have nicely answered my questions, so there's not much need for the original post anymore, for me at least. So it's up to you, if it would make it easier to moderate. :D

EDIT: You could also lock it if you want.. Which I only just remembered you could do.. Would probably be a much less destructive way than the other suggestions...

Edited by Derpiesaurus
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On 5/24/2022 at 1:38 AM, Superfluous J said:

Because there is scant evidence that polls and beta tests make a game better at launch.

Betas can be good for shaking out problems with server load by increasing it incrementally rather than letting everyone in all at once for games where it's relevant. Doesn't always help, but it's one legitimate reason to crowd-source your testing with a beta release. Of course, I don't think that's at all relevant to anything Intercept is doing with KSP2. So yeah, there would be little to no value in beta test as far as getting player feedback goes.

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Well, yes and no. No QA team can never find as many issues as thousands of players and that is a fact. And knowing how creative this particular playerbase is, there will be bugs found in situations the devs could've never think of. Thing is, it still won't help with the release that much. It will be either delayed (again) to iron out some of the most problematic bugs, or left as it is, to be fixed in a future update™. The latter is more likely to happen, as it won't be much different from the game being released without any open betas.

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30 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Well, yes and no. No QA team can never find as many issues as thousands of players and that is a fact. And knowing how creative this particular playerbase is, there will be bugs found in situations the devs could've never think of.

Problem is the QA team files reports for every bug, the community not only mostly doesn't but also turns 9 out of 10 bugs into bad PR.

Edited by Master39
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I think it would be pretty cool if KSP 2 had a similar beta as elden ring did. It was a closed beta for network testing and some more well known youtubers from that niche were invited and allowed to stream/make videos.

The overall effect was:

  • Substantial but not overwhelming amount of testers
  • Testers were dedicated players more than capable of spotting undesirable changes (balance) and bugs
  • Bugs would typically have video reference helping make them reproducible
  • There was a limited time where the community got to see a small portion of the game and its mechanics played in a manner similar to how anyone would be playing.
  • Lots of free PR
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With beta, there are two extreme situations for many. If the game is already playable then many players will decide not to buy the release version, but stay on the beta version. This is wasted money! And if the beta is buggy, then the PR will be bad, because the game was supposed to be released in the spring of 2020 and the question arises - what did they want to release then and what have they done over the past two years? But most likely, a couple of months before the release, the game will be given to several YouTubers and they will fly to Mun and somewhere else. Something similar happens with 99% of games, open beta versions for finding bugs are very rare, especially in T2.

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20 hours ago, Alexoff said:

If the game is already playable then many players will decide not to buy the release version, but stay on the beta version. This is wasted money!

Well, that's assuming that you can get access to the beta in the first place without putting down some money for the full game, which is how KSP 1 was sold prior to the "1.0" release.
Of course, IMO KSP 1 wasn't ever truly "Finished" to my personal standards, it's got plenty of placeholder stuff left in there (just look at career mode, and the mission builder that everyone forgot about in 2 months).

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3 hours ago, SciMan said:

Well, that's assuming that you can get access to the beta in the first place without putting down some money for the full game, which is how KSP 1 was sold prior to the "1.0" release.

Paying for beta testing is too cheeky, although some companies do this for those who pre-ordered the game in the ultra deluxe edition. I hope KSP 2 will not come to such a disgrace.

3 hours ago, SciMan said:

Of course, IMO KSP 1 wasn't ever truly "Finished" to my personal standards

In hindsight, I would say version 1.2 was the most complete, made by fans of the game before they left the company in 2016. After that, there were few good innovations and many bugs, many still have not been fixed.

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1 hour ago, Alexoff said:

Paying for beta testing is too cheeky, although some companies do this for those who pre-ordered the game in the ultra deluxe edition. I hope KSP 2 will not come to such a disgrace.

In hindsight, I would say version 1.2 was the most complete, made by fans of the game before they left the company in 2016. After that, there were few good innovations and many bugs, many still have not been fixed.

I quite liked 1.3x also. At the same time stock dV, inventory, alarm clock were all pretty solid stock features. 

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Open beta testing is never really beta testing at all, not for any game, it was just for hype. Kerbal 2 does not need the hype, so I really do not expect open beta. As far as actual testing goes, I suspect they have ( or can have ) all they require.

 

( by not needing hype, those that are likely to purchase a game like Kerbal Space 2 out the gate already know about it and are waiting for it. ) 

Edited by DwightLee
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1 hour ago, DwightLee said:

( by not needing hype, those that are likely to purchase a game like Kerbal Space 2 out the gate already know about it and are waiting for it. ) 

I disagree. I know a lot of people playing elden ring who either never played dark souls or actively disliked dark souls. Hype boosted their presence massively and thr 1 month heavy hitting ad campaign to make awareness for it's existence with amazing trailers definitely had a hand in that.

Edited by mcwaffles2003
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To me the public 'open beta' option  is not much more than a way to sell an unfinished product (and, hopefully, not get roasted for selling a clearly unfinished product), as a way to generate publicity and cash to continue development.  KSP2 just doesn't need that. 

Any 'beta' testing needs to be done by a group of people that can generate quality feedback and reports.  Most of us just don't have the time, skillset and/or patience for that.

I have done software bug reporting (not games) as a side responsibility, and it can be very difficult and time consuming to identify how to recreate any given 'anomaly'. You then have to document it well enough so that the 'fixers' can have a fighting chance of identifying the underlying causes.  

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OK here's a further thought I've had regarding this. Perhaps we should put together a list of features we want tested if the KSP 2 developers DO release a public beta of some sort.

For me the top of the list is rover wheels, landing legs, and aircraft landing gear.

In KSP 1, I avoid rovers if any other option makes sense to use, because they're a nightmare to configure in a way that doesn't cause the thing to just flip over at what seems to me to be the slightest provocation. I can't even do what the auto mechanic in me says to do and give it a proper alignment (the wheels on all road vehicles are intentionally set "not quite straight" in multiple axes because it improves vehicle handling, toe in/out makes the most difference but there's also camber and caster to consider, and all 3 angles need to be considered at all 4 wheels on an AWD vehicle for it to not wander all over the road or have a tendency to flip over), because the game says "let me fix that for you" and just zeros out all the angles.

Heck I might take a swing at making my own rover wheels with round grip pads and BG Robotics motors, that might end up working better (but I don't like that because it increases the part count, something I'm constantly fighting to reduce for many reasons). And in a video game like KSP, having a "pan car" type suspension (aka not really having a suspsension) might not be all that bad of a thing, but it does mean things happen faster (the vehicle would respond practically instantly to changes in how much weight is on a particular wheel for instance).
Further testing is required on my end, and I'd have to figure out how to make springs and shock absorbers (maybe servos pushing the control arms down similarly to how a torsion spring works?).

I WANT to like using rovers, but I just can't. It's also similar to why bikes don't work as a method of transport for most citizens of the US. We've designed our entire nation's road network around the automobile, and distances between things are larger in general. That 2nd bit is the one that bites you in KSP 1, you might land in one spot but the next biome is say 10km away, and I don't wanna drive that long with that much risk. Because of the way KSP 1 simulates things (no random part failures, rocket engines that can be infinitely throttled between 0 and max thrust, infinite restarts of said rocket engines), rovers don't make a heck of a lot of sense if you don't have a lot of gravity to deal with, or if you have an atmosphere to enable you to make electric-powered VTOLs using the BG Robotics parts.

So what I find myself doing is building rocket or aerodynamic VTOL craft (which I collectively refer to as "biome hoppers"), and placing a science lab in orbit to cache and process the experiment data collected with said biome hopper.
Sure, this doesn't work on Tylo, because of the combination of high gravity and no atmosphere, but that's about the only planet that has that issue. Of course, Gilly has the opposite problem, no atmosphere and not enough gravity, but I'll still not use a rover there because the gravity's so low that I just can't make the wheels do anything (not enough friction with the surface).
But those are the only two places where this approach doesn't really work. The rest of the solar system is up for grabs, all without using rovers.

Now that covers rover wheels, but what about the other things I mentioned. Well, I have a lot less to say about them, but it's important nonetheless.

Landing legs, well the obvious thing they need to fix is that a craft will skid across the surface if that surface is anything but perfectly flat and level. If I put down somewhere, and my lander doesn't tip over, I wanna stay there, dang it!
Secondly but still very importantly, no matter how many craft with landing legs are docked together on the surface, there should be no combination of events that doesn't involve some form of propulsive force (aka rocket engine or RCS) that results in the entire construction being bewilderingly catapulted away from the surface for no observable reason. Yes, I'm aware they "fixed" it, except it didn't quite totally eliminate it, so it still happens. So that means they need to go back (again and again until it stays fixed) and fix it until it stops breaking.

Aircraft landing gear, well maybe this would be solved by solving the issues with rover wheels, but it sure would be nice if aircraft landing gear didn't sink partway into the runway on spawning for no good reason.
It would also be really nice if aircraft landing gear didn't have some positive feedback loop in the suspension that makes it so the thing just never stops bouncing (did someone replace the shock absorbers with Flubber? No seriously, that's the best explanation I can come up with for what's going on there).

Fix those things, and fix the various exploits with fairings service bays and cargo bays, and I'd be quite a happy camper with KSP 2.
What I mean by those exploits and bugs with fairings service bays and cargo bays is that right now it's really inconsistent, sometimes it lets you deploy something when you shouldn't be able to, sometimes it prevents you from doing that when you should be able to, and sometimes it lets you do what you intend one moment and then prevents you the next time you load the same exact craft.
Just make it act consistently and I'd be happy.

Edited by SciMan
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Well, I was basing my use of the term "Fix" in reference to the state things in KSP 1 exist in compared to the state I hope they exist in, in KSP 2.

So, "fixed during the process of developing the sequel" is what I meant. Hope I've cleared things up.

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On 6/8/2022 at 10:10 PM, The Aziz said:

Um... They don't need to fix anything. There's nothing to fix if it's done right from the start.

When was the last time you saw a game that had nothing to fix after release?

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Couple of times, or at least me personally didn't notice any problems, dunno about others.

Point still stands, if it's not broken, why fix it? If there are no problems with colliders, friction, grip because it's been developed properly (and not as workaround that had to be done after engine upgrade) along with actual terrain that works like a terrain, not like some flat sheet with varying amount of ice on it (read as: less gravity==more ice), then I see nothing to be fixed. After all, part of the reason this game is in development, is to not have many issues that flooded the predecessor.

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