KSP2 EA Grand Discussion Thread.

[Axelord FTW]

"We killed the Kraken."
That alone. No. Goodwill gone.

[Alexoff]

[Bej Kerman]

3 minutes ago, Axelord FTW said:

"We killed the Kraken."
That alone. No. Goodwill gone.

Ah, yes. The tried-and-true trick of completely butchering what was said to discredit the developers of something. It worked for No Man's Sky, by Kraken it'll work for KSP 2.

"We're killing the Kraken-- That's a hell of a claim..."

"We're slaying the Kraken! Our ultimate goal is to..." yada yada.

I didn't expect much better from forum users than to kill their own goodwill by coming up with something the developers never said, or completely misrepresenting what was said.

[Axelord FTW]

A whole section about the Kraken, to even suggest defeating it... All bull. The game was not ready, period.

[Bej Kerman]

1 minute ago, Axelord FTW said:

A whole section about the Kraken, to even suggest defeating it... All bull. The game was not ready, period.

They're pretty aware of how brave it is to make the claim they did. But of course you're going to conveniently ignore that if it lets you shift the blame for the chosen release date onto Intercept's shoulders, rather than Take Two. "The developers said they killed the Kraken!" Bull.

[Chilkoot]

44 minutes ago, Axelord FTW said:

A whole section about the Kraken, to even suggest defeating it... All bull. The game was not ready, period.

I mean, they are trying.  They hired a dude with a PhD in physics modeling to help design a new rigid-body engine from the ground up.  Contrary to the hearsay on this forum, KSP 2 is pretty much an entirely new code base, and that's been independently confirmed by people looking under the hood with DotPeek.

I have a pretty good amount of confidence in this team, provided funding keeps coming in from the publisher.

[TLTay]

1 hour ago, Chilkoot said:

...provided funding keeps coming in from the publisher.

You are the funding now.

[Chilkoot]

13 minutes ago, TLTay said:

You are the funding now.

Not nearly enough, unfortunately.  Intercept will burn through the net from EA in months, unless reviews turnaround and sales accelerate.  If T-T cuts off funding, the sub-publisher PD won't have the green to float it for long based on current estimated sales.

This forced release is probably less of warning/line-in-the-sand for Intercept as it was a stem-the-bleeding for earnings reports.  We won't know until we know, but it's unlikely that Take-Two will cut bait on this title yet.  Too much potential revenue when it finally hits consoles - there is 10 years of good will behind the Kerbal name and a few bad weeks of an abysmal EA release won't burn through all of it.

[TLTay]

35 minutes ago, Chilkoot said:

We won't know until we know, but it's unlikely that Take-Two will cut bait on this title yet.  Too much potential revenue when it finally hits consoles

You have more optimism than I have. I think it's in a position where sales will need to cover costs or it's over. Maybe there's a chance.

The thing I find odd is how the positive/negative review count is almost perfectly tracking 50/50 positive/negative, and has been since I started watching around 3k reviews. If they weren't game reviews, I'd swear someone was throwing the numbers to keep it at least 50% positive... I mean, I've checked in on the numbers and have repeatedly seen them within a double digit number of reviews of eachother. The odds are too low to be coincidence.

I'd say it was fans doing it, but frankly there is coordination needed to keep pacing the positive reviews off of negative reviews. I'm not sure what has been going on there, but it seems fishy. Why not 47% positive? 56%?  Why has it been right at the mark and often by fractions of a percent? I'll stop short of pointing fingers, but maybe somebody capable wants this thing to live.

Numbers were roughly valid at time of posting.

[Dantheollie]

17 minutes ago, TLTay said:

You have more optimism than I have. I think it's in a position where sales will need to cover costs or it's over. Maybe there's a chance.

The thing I find odd is how the positive/negative review count is almost perfectly tracking 50/50 positive/negative, and has been since I started watching around 3k reviews. If they weren't game reviews, I'd swear someone was throwing the numbers to keep it at least 50% positive... I mean, I've checked in on the numbers and have repeatedly seen them within a double digit number of reviews of eachother. The odds are too low to be coincidence.

I'd say it was fans doing it, but frankly there is coordination needed to keep pacing the positive reviews off of negative reviews. I'm not sure what has been going on there, but it seems fishy. Why not 47% positive? 56%?  Why has it been right at the mark and often by fractions of a percent? I'll stop short of pointing fingers, but maybe somebody capable wants this thing to live.

Numbers were roughly valid at time of posting.

I think it is a bit of a stretch to say that the numbers are being manipulated, but frankly, such a thing isn't physically impossible. I think the most likely explanation is that the people keeping the ratings up are those who are still buying the game, despite the popular opinion on it, in order to participate in EA or save $10 for KSP2 Full Release. 

To the people who didn't follow KSP2 development history up to launch, KSP2 is a disaster... they have no reason to favorably review it. Those who favorably review most likely do so for reasons not directly related to its current launch state. 

Either your theory is correct, the KSP fanbase is keeping it 50/50 review wise... Or the KSP2 community isn't that big after all

[Strawberry]

2 minutes ago, Dantheollie said:

To the people who didn't follow KSP2 development history up to launch, KSP2 is a disaster... they have no reason to favorably review it. Those who favorably review most likely do so for reasons not directly related to its current launch state. 
 

I reviewed it positively because I already put in 25 hours and Im having a great time. Honestly while the kracken still exists in the form of wobbly rockets and general bugs, in terms of large builds just deciding to freak out just because I havent run into it yet

Edited February 27, 2023 by Strawberry

[Dantheollie]

9 minutes ago, Strawberry said:

I reviewed it positively because I already put in 25 hours and Im having a great time. Honestly while the kracken still exists in the form of wobbly rockets and general bugs, in terms of large builds just deciding to freak out just because I havent run into it yet

I am glad to hear you are having fun! The wobbly rockets are a big annoyance for me though, and having no auto-strut is quite bothersome. But not bothersome enough to review it negatively 

[basic.syntax]

I would have signed up at $30... but... sticker shock. Will have to see if that wears off over time.   

[78stonewobble]

I'm sorry, but I'm not gonna trust average reviews, when that is partially based on people that think that early access means what they want it to mean, as opposed to what it actually means and people that don't look before buying. I have no use for the opinions of those people and indeed nobody should listen to those people. 


I compared ksp2 3 days into early acess to ksp1 3 days into early access and I'm willing to give it the same 4 years in early access and total of what? 11 years development? 

That's my comparison and my timeline. 


As with KSP1 I prefer a little more game and a little less bugs in my game, before I buy, so I'll wait a bit.

I don't have to buy it any sooner than I feel that now the time is right. 


Choice... it's a wonderful thing, but comes with great responsibility.

Look before you buy is an excellent tip.

[MarcAbaddon]

9 minutes ago, 78stonewobble said:

I compared ksp2 3 days into early acess to ksp1 3 days into early access and I'm willing to give it the same 4 years in early access and total of what? 11 years development? 

That's my comparison and my timeline. 

That's your prerogative but I think it is unrealistic, because the situation was very different. KSP 1 was an indie game from an extremely small team and you were able to almost watch their progress live. Sure, KSP 1 spent a lot of time in EA and then then they added a lot more improvements and features afterwards. But it was also in Early Access a lot faster. It was released half a year after Version 0.0 at a fraction of the time. 

More importantly, the KSP 2 team is a lot more expensive, and it is still a somewhat niche game. I am not sure Take Two will be willing to pay them for 5 more years of development time, or that it would be financially viable to do so at them.  

KSP 1 also started pretty much from scratch. This time you have all the experience of KSP 1 and you know what things ended up working and which didn't. 

Let's be clear, if they had released this in early 2020 for 20-30$ the fan reaction would have been very different.

-------------

Let's not pretend most people who are complaining, are doing so because there are bugs or unfinished features. It's not a big deal that they enabled thermals for a while. Bugs like dropping through the bottom of the Mohole are ok in EA.

What's the problem is that the fundamentals of the game seem unsound:

• Unstable orbital parameters
• SAS (especially on planes but sometimes in orbit) spinning your vessel
• Fuel flow issues
• Maneuver nodes worse than in KSP 1, not just in terms of bugs, but also just from an UI/design interface
• And most of all: the way we got the same exact physics bugs as in KSP 1 in terms of noodly vessels, Kraken attacks and wheel issues. It indicates that they are still using the Unity physics model, which means that it is unlikely that this is easily fixable at this point.

All of those issues are things the dev team should have easily found when playing their own game, and it's the fundament of everything else. It'd be worth to fix fixing those ASAP from a Dev point just because it either impedes other testing (maneuver nodes, SAS) or are things that become harder to fix the more systems you add (base physics system and internal vessel workings).

There was a mod ~2 days after early access by someone previously completely unfamiliar with the game which adds AP/PE indicators while adjusting your maneuver node. And I just can't wrap my brain around the fact that either the Devs didn't seem to think that missing it was an issue or that they didn't pick such a low-hanging but juicy fruit.

[IncompetentSpacer]

20 minutes ago, 78stonewobble said:

I'm sorry, but I'm not gonna trust average reviews, when that is partially based on people that think that early access means what they want it to mean, as opposed to what it actually means and people that don't look before buying. I have no use for the opinions of those people and indeed nobody should listen to those people. 
 

 

Plenty early access games out there have excellent ratings despite their early access state* and we have had early access games for over 10 years now so I find the claim that people rating KSP2 badly because they "don't know what early access is" a somewhat weird claim to make.

*Including KSP1 when it entered early access status on steam back in 2013 - a time when very few early games were present on Steam. 

[tstein]

1 hour ago, IncompetentSpacer said:

 

Plenty early access games out there have excellent ratings despite their early access state* and we have had early access games for over 10 years now so I find the claim that people rating KSP2 badly because they "don't know what early access is" a somewhat weird claim to make.

*Including KSP1 when it entered early access status on steam back in 2013 - a time when very few early games were present on Steam. 

That is true, I gave alreayd as an example   and repeat for peopel to  try watch videos of Kenshi history.... a very very long EA period, but they NEVER allowed the game to accumulate that many bugs and that bad performance . They were more professionals (while being only  2 part time dudes).

[78stonewobble]

3 hours ago, IncompetentSpacer said:

 

Plenty early access games out there have excellent ratings despite their early access state* and we have had early access games for over 10 years now so I find the claim that people rating KSP2 badly because they "don't know what early access is" a somewhat weird claim to make.

*Including KSP1 when it entered early access status on steam back in 2013 - a time when very few early games were present on Steam. 

In the first month on steam KSP1 had gotten 189 review. Mostly positive. 

In the first 2-3 days on steam KSP2 has gotten almost 6900 reviews. Quite a few negative. 

That makes me suspect that the first players and reviewers were a relatively niche group, who kind of knew what they were getting into at that time, where as the 36 times amount of reviews and attention of KSP2, makes me suspect it's a much wider group. 

Also, I've seen the complaints made. 

EDIT and PS: And yeah, there are some early access gems out there that play like almost finished games, but that's never a guarantee in early access. 
 

Edited February 27, 2023 by 78stonewobble

[tstein]

Just now, 78stonewobble said:

In the first month on steam KSP1 had gotten 189 review. Mostly positive. 

In the first 2-3 days on steam KSP2 has gotten almost 6900 reviews. Quite a few negative. 

That makes me suspect that the first players and reviewers were a relatively niche group, who kind of knew what they were getting into at that time, where as the 36 times amount of reviews and attention of KSP2, makes me suspect it's a much wider group. 

Also, I've seen the complaints made. 
 

Not only that, but the review takes always into account the expectation. Expectation includes knowing it is indie vs a full studio,  includes knowing how long it has been  done and includes  "is it the first time something like that is made?", and includes price. There is no way around it. KSP 2 had more going for it than KSP 1, so expectations were higher.

 

Take for example  Sons of the Forest that is in EA now.. is a situation alike KSP, a follow up on a game that was indie. Does it have a lot of of flak upon it? No.. it doe snot because  the game delivered the expectation  of the quality difference from the indie game (the forest) to this  new game. It is still an EA, with lots of things to  improve (like usability), but the core of the game is working well.  That is a successful EA and prove that EA can be successful .

 

[78stonewobble]

23 hours ago, tstein said:

Not only that, but the review takes always into account the expectation. Expectation includes knowing it is indie vs a full studio,  includes knowing how long it has been  done and includes  "is it the first time something like that is made?", and includes price. There is no way around it. KSP 2 had more going for it than KSP 1, so expectations were higher.

 

Take for example  Sons of the Forest that is in EA now.. is a situation alike KSP, a follow up on a game that was indie. Does it have a lot of of flak upon it? No.. it doe snot because  the game delivered the expectation  of the quality difference from the indie game (the forest) to this  new game. It is still an EA, with lots of things to  improve (like usability), but the core of the game is working well.  That is a successful EA and prove that EA can be successful .

 

But not eg. developer company change, restarted development, pandemics and their effects, the implicit benefits of being small and indie versus a full studio etc.? 

There's a lot of factors involved, which people might not be privy to or indeed ignore, [snip]

Edited February 28, 2023 by James Kerman
Redacted by a moderator

[tstein]

Just now, 78stonewobble said:

But not eg. developer company change, restarted development, pandemics and their effects, the implicit benefits of being small and indie versus a full studio etc.? 

There's a lot of factors involved, which people might not be privy to or indeed ignore, just as you did. 

The dramas of development studios are not my concern, they were a failure of the people involved so  I should NOT take them into account as alleviating factors. It is as  if someone  morbidly obese  said " dude, give me a break, I ate a cake  last week'.. A large studio   has more resources they can and SHOULD deliver better quality, that is not even remotely  open to discussion

[78stonewobble]

23 hours ago, tstein said:

The dramas of development studios are not my concern, they were a failure of the people involved so  I should NOT take them into account as alleviating factors. It is as  if someone  morbidly obese  said " dude, give me a break, I ate a cake  last week'.. A large studio   has more resources they can and SHOULD deliver better quality, that is not even remotely  open to discussion

[snip]

To me that's like a poor hotel review, because the weather was bad at the location, which doesn't happen often, but absolutely can happen (and everyone knows it can happen). 

Edited February 28, 2023 by James Kerman
Redacted by a moderator

[tstein]

23 hours ago, 78stonewobble said:

So you will willfully ignore factors that objectively influence development, so you can rationalize your feelings and now biased review that you base on your deliberately chosen unrealistic expectations? 

[snip]

The weather being bad in a specific day  is out of control of the  hotel. Now if the hotel was built in a place where it rains   300 days per year, YES it is  a fault of the guy with this dumb idea! Beign PROFESSIONAL means you need to  think ahead and be prepared. The drama of the studios were  fault of HUMANS INVOLVED IN THE PROJECT!

 

My expectations are not unrealistic! They are very realistic. Just look at so many other projects that have been handled professionally!  Again look at other examples of EA, this is among the WORST EA examples of not  indie developers ( indie means 2-3 people sometimes part time, not 50 people full time job).

Edited February 28, 2023 by James Kerman
Redacted by a moderator

[Monkey8EA5T]

So, I've owned KSP since waaaay back in the beta days, and I thought we were over alot of the issues/bugs that we had back then.

KSP2 launched. Oh, how I was wrong.

Several things, which I'm sure have already been said, but just wanted to add my 10-pence worth to the ongoing thread...

1. Noodley rockets. Come on, this is a big obvious issue, which I would have expected to be realised as an issue BEFORE releasing into EA?
2. Delta V, expected burn-time, thrust-to-weight (TWR) figures - all stuff, that we took for granted in KSP, now missing/hidden. I appreciate, it's EA, but this is basic functionality by now in KSP1 - how can it be missed from this early a stage of development?
3. Manoeuvre node - terrible. I appreciate, the lack of trajectories in other Sphere of influences may be a bug, but how can having LESS control over the nodes actually have made it past the development stage?
4. Cost - I know it's been said, but £50 is a lot of money for an EA title. I appreciate, we are paying for a product which will probably increase in costs by the time it gets to final release, but even then, this is a lot of money!

All-in-all, I feel a little let down on what has been delivered at this stage, after pushing back 18 months from when it was originally suggested it may launch (god knows what mess we would have got at that stage had it released on time!) Have we been stone-walled with an old release version for some reason (they had to deliver something, rather than push back dates again) do you think?

I just get the feeling we are being shown and promised a lot more than what was delivered. Yes, these will get addressed in time, but it feels a massive step-back in comparison to KSP1 at the moment.

(Not had any performance issues as such; just kraken attacks when staging (separators,  not), but frame rates have been pretty consistent on my own PC (3070ti, AMD-5600x, 64GB RAM, Win 11).)

Hopefully I'll change my mind in the coming weeks/months.

Cheers,

MB

[MarcAbaddon]

I think there are two aspects to consider here.

Firstly, is KSP 2 a good game (taking into account it is early access)? For answering that question the previous drama is completely irrelevant. In the same way as I wouldn't care if my surgeon screwed up because he had a bad day. Or how I wouldn't accept my baker selling me burned bread for full price since he didn't get a good night's sleep.

Secondly, does the current dev team still have a chance to make something great out of what they have now? For this part the history is relevant. But with the lack of previous transparency and at least part of the current dev team leadership being the same as the leadership which had the drama with Star Theory... I think it is ok to be at least doubtful.

But in the end the next few weeks and months will give us a definitive answer. They either start making good progress or it is looking grim.