Parts and Circumstance

[Periple]

1 hour ago, Meecrob said:

I just don't get why it would not be advantageous to centralize bugs. if only to encounter one, go to report it, and see its already reported, so you can just click on the hypothetical button so the devs can see the rate each bug is encountered. Like I said, maybe I'm a moron, I dunno.

It’s a behavior issue. It takes time and effort to check if the bug you want to report already has been reported. Most people won’t bother, they’ll just report it, and since they don’t have the training they’ll report it poorly. So you get masses of poorly written duplicates plus a lot of venting that’s not even about any specific bug. That will make it even harder to find out if somebody else reported it, so even fewer people will bother. It’s a vicious circle!

Voting is helpful if the team has problems prioritizing issues, but that’s not the case here either, and won’t be for a quite a while. They know what’s wrong with KSP2! The bottleneck right now is their capacity to fix it. This needs both developers (to fix the bugs) and QA (to verify the fixes and check for regression).  A public bug tracker would just consume the QA resources that are needed for this!

Maybe there will be a time when it will be genuinely useful, but that’s a long way off!

If you really want to help the best thing you can do right now is to be patient and give feedback on requested topics. Maybe the challenges are just for fun but it’s also possible they toss them out to get people to play in particular ways and then talk about their experiences. This would be useful to somebody like Nate who is steering the project’s overall direction! 

[The Aziz]

4 hours ago, Periple said:

This is true, if the game is stable and most bugs are hard to find edge cases, a public bug tracker will have a radically better signal to noise ratio and will be much more useful.

When was the last time you saw KSP1 tracker? It was "stable", as in past 1.0 for 10 years. The "signal to noise" doesn't reflect it.

And when was the last time you saw KSP2 tracker? Right here on the forums? Getting significant improvements specifically to prevent the noise over the last few days? I bet you haven't because you'd probably give your feedback there instead of here.

[Periple]

1 minute ago, The Aziz said:

When was the last time you saw KSP1 tracker? It was "stable", as in past 1.0 for 10 years. The "signal to noise" doesn't reflect it.

KSP1 was never stable!

[Meecrob]

3 hours ago, Periple said:

It’s a behavior issue. It takes time and effort to check if the bug you want to report already has been reported. Most people won’t bother, they’ll just report it, and since they don’t have the training they’ll report it poorly. So you get masses of poorly written duplicates plus a lot of venting that’s not even about any specific bug. That will make it even harder to find out if somebody else reported it, so even fewer people will bother. It’s a vicious circle!

Voting is helpful if the team has problems prioritizing issues, but that’s not the case here either, and won’t be for a quite a while. They know what’s wrong with KSP2! The bottleneck right now is their capacity to fix it. This needs both developers (to fix the bugs) and QA (to verify the fixes and check for regression).  A public bug tracker would just consume the QA resources that are needed for this!

Maybe there will be a time when it will be genuinely useful, but that’s a long way off!

If you really want to help the best thing you can do right now is to be patient and give feedback on requested topics. Maybe the challenges are just for fun but it’s also possible they toss them out to get people to play in particular ways and then talk about their experiences. This would be useful to somebody like Nate who is steering the project’s overall direction! 

My question still stands. Why did they have a dev make a whole entry on how to post bug reports if they don't want bug reports?

[uglyduckling81]

17 hours ago, gussi111 said:

"Let's shoot for 90!"

It will be sad if it happens.

Fingers crossed for patch 3 next week with a bunch of fixes for all the worst problems and a player boost.

17 hours ago, RocketRockington said:

I don't think these numbers are at all meaningful anymore.  First, because now even a small group of players or developers could meaningfully impact the #.  IG leaving thier machines running it all night could be half that number though I doubt they're doing that.

  Second because clearly IG is going to keep KSP2 on at least some form of life support. It seems like they have another Kerbal project cooking so instead of a cancellation from low sales, which would abandon the IP and sabotage the franchise T2 paid for, we may instead see a stealth abandonment, with ever less work being done over longer time frames. 

Your right.

It will be pretty bad if it's down under 100 even with all the Dev PC's left on.

[Periple]

1 hour ago, Meecrob said:

My question still stands. Why did they have a dev make a whole entry on how to post bug reports if they don't want bug reports?

Because fans are desperate to submit them, and telling them how to do it reduces complaining on the forums!

[Meecrob]

I do not agree. It has literally been the topic of an ongoing argument for weeks now. It has not reduced complaints in any noticeable way.

Edited June 2, 2023 by Meecrob

[FTWinston]

If you add various extensible engines named after brass instruments, please consider a future extra extensible one called the Trombone!

Bonus points if it's even weirder than the others, for instance being able to burn while still retracted.

Thanks for the update!

[Periple]

51 minutes ago, Meecrob said:

I do not agree. It has literally been the topic of an ongoing argument for weeks now. It has not reduced complaints in any noticeable way.

Okay! Of course I've been guessing too, just based on my experience with similar things. It could be that you're right and I'm wrong!

[SmokeFan]

If I would have known this game was in such a sad state...I would have waited. You guys charged me so much for an early Alpha of a game. 

[The Aziz]

Well....

Oh whatever I can't be bothered anymore

[RocketRockington]

11 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

The most valuable thing in the world is reputation. 

Apparently not, since Uber got handed the KSP franchise despite having a terrible reputation, and Squad got shut down despite having a good one.

[LoSBoL]

44 minutes ago, RocketRockington said:

Apparently not, since Uber got handed the KSP franchise despite having a terrible reputation, and Squad got shut down despite having a good one.

SQUAD did not get shut down, nor did it have a good reputation.

[shdwlrd]

@RocketRockington do you believe that both KSP2 and IG is a failure or that only IG is a failure and KSP2 can be salvaged?

[MarcAbaddon]

10 hours ago, Periple said:

KSP1 was never stable!

But KSP 1 was stable. It had bugs, including serious and annoying ones e.g. with landings legs, wheels plus Kraken attacks under specific circumstances, but the game itself was stable - it didn't crash and there is no serious (beyond single vessel) savegame corruption. And unless you threw a lot of mods on it, it was even pretty stable gameplay wise for a long time. In 300+ hours savegame runs I can usually count the number of bugs I encountered on one hand - of course, part of that is knowing what to avoid. 

More generally & I have said that a long, I don't get putting all the blame on the publisher. According to Nate himself the game should have been ready for full release over a year before we even got EA. How much additional time should Take Two give them? I know some delays are common and should be tolerated for the quality, but KSP 2 was getting pretty bad there even compared to the industry standards. If anything, it probably the EA probably helped the release in the long term since it forced them to focus on bugs in basic systems for a bit, before adding more features on top. I also have less faith in the vision and the roadmap because it is very unspecific - sure, there are going to be colonies, interstellar and multiplayer, which is all great, but there was very little specifics how those systems will work. Ask anyone who played KSP 1 for a bit, and they would probably come up with the same features. Making them fun is the challenge, and here the proof is still outstanding. I remain hopeful and am trying to keep open-minded (otherwise I would no longer be on the forums), but at the same time I am a fair bit more pessimistic than some other people on these boards - I think there is a significant chance the game will never get in a decent shape.                          

[Kerbart]

57 minutes ago, MarcAbaddon said:

I don't get putting all the blame on the publisher. According to Nate himself the game should have been ready for full release over a year before we even got EA. How much additional time should Take Two give them?            

BuT ThEy ArE EvIl BeAnCoUnTErS WhO WaNt To KiLl ThE GaMe WiTh MiCrOTrAnSaCtIoNs

You're spot on and this is something that seems consistently overlooked. The problem is a lack of transparency, although one can hardly blame aprivate company for hanging the dirty laundry outside either. Clearly the design process ran into some major obstacles and had to revert a couple of times. Unlike some, I find it hard to imagine there's no good reason for that, I'm sure no one wanted things to go the way they went. But instead of telling us, we were painted a rosy picture on how cool it was going to be and that is where the train went off the rails.

When KSP1 was released it had hardly any functionality. It took years to get to a "basic" game. Of course, it was for free (or close to it, later on), and pretty much peerless which provides a rather large tolerance. KSP2 has in that respect a few major issues that are individually not that big of a deal, but combined result in a large grumble factor:

• A really, really long develop time
• A very immature product that, despite having been developed for years is clearly rushed, incomplete and bug riddled
• A steep intro price
• A long series of updates and sneak peeks suggesting a product in a far more advanced state than actually published ("but they never SAID that..." no, and that's why I wrote suggested and to be so naive to think it was never the intention by IG to hype expectations the way they did)

 

57 minutes ago, MarcAbaddon said:

I also have less faith in the vision and the roadmap because it is very unspecific - sure, there are going to be colonies, interstellar and multiplayer, which is all great, but there was very little specifics how those systems will work.

The good news is that hopefully by the end of the month ("When we said June we didn't mean June 30" — so it's June 29?) we'll get some answers to that. It'll be a good indicator, but at this point I'm going to interpret the promise of an "overhauled science system" as "new instruments replacing the old ones but you will still have to biome-hop and grind the living daylights out of everything"

Whatever colonies will bring us, I'll be pleasantly surprised if it includes all those fancy buildings we've seen previews of. And disappointed, but not shocked if it didn't.

Edited June 2, 2023 by Kerbart

[RocketRockington]

2 hours ago, shdwlrd said:

@RocketRockington do you believe that both KSP2 and IG is a failure or that only IG is a failure and KSP2 can be salvaged?

There's a possibility of course, but practically I don't think so.

First, T2 would need to say 'we're going to give this to yet another developer to salvage'.  They clearly didn't diagnose the problems at Star Theory very well the first time they tried to salvage this project - I'm not sure they really know what they messed up that time either.  Then, the new developer would have to stop dev while they evaluate what can be salvaged and what can't.   The fanbase would be further dissappointed and waiting around.

And T2 is clearly not willing to be that patient 

Ultimately that's why we got this mess of an EA, in my view.  And unlike others, I don't blame them for it - it's an impossible situation.  They've been promising a game for years, the project is clearly not going well despite all the extra time and resources, there's no appetite to give another set of developers a crack - to them KSP is not such a valuable IP that it's worth taking even more time to get it right - so the only option is to bite the bullet on a release and hope miracles happen post launch.

[dr.phees]

> When I hold back on such items

Haha!

You didn't hold back at release! You made everyone expect and buy a very underperforming game at a premium price. Funny how holding back didn't come to your mind back then. But I guess getting all those 50 $ was your thing. And also interesting how this biggest point of critique is never talked about.

I am still writing this game off for now. I don't think you will be able to cram in all your goals with an engine so underperformant, but I still seriously hope you can.

Best of luck to the team!

[Redneck]

On 5/31/2023 at 3:42 AM, jost said:

Well people have bills to pay. I think it's quite entitled to assume that people would risk their job because of such a thing.

oh so you are ok with them selling you a game that didnt work? Hang on a sec let me start up unity i got some games to sell you. You ok with that right?

[jost]

4 hours ago, Redneck said:

oh so you are ok with them selling you a game that didnt work? Hang on a sec let me start up unity i got some games to sell you. You ok with that right?

I'm not ok with the publishers pricing and communication politics.  But it's not a big issue since the game can be refunded. 

At this point I wouldn't buy KSP2: Too buggy and it wouldn't even run on my potato. I'm fine with buying a new rig but at the moment I wouldn't even know what Hardware I should take ( because the recommended is way over my budget).

I'm also not ok with entitled gamers who want the developers to risk their job or working "full hardcore" for a video game. Several times in my career I told my boss when I wasn't happy with a decision. Never ever did I complain about it to the public since I wouldn't risk my income on it. Thus I don't blame KSP2 developers for doing the same.

Both opinions are not mutually exclusive.

[Redneck]

Just now, jost said:

I'm not ok with the publishers pricing and communication politics.  But it's not a big issue since the game can be refunded. 

At this point I wouldn't buy KSP2: Too buggy and it wouldn't even run on my potato. I'm fine with buying a new rig but at the moment I wouldn't even know what Hardware I should take ( because the recommended is way over my budget).

I'm also not ok with entitled gamers who want the developers to risk their job or working "full hardcore" for a video game. Several times in my career I told my boss when I wasn't happy with a decision. Never ever did I complain about it to the public since I wouldn't risk my income on it. Thus I don't blame KSP2 developers for doing the same.

Both opinions are not mutually exclusive.

you didnt answer my question. its a simple yes or no

 

[Vanamonde]

Everybody wants the game to work. The only disagreement is about the best way to reach that state. Do we really need to get so very mad with each other about it? 

[Vanamonde]

Lots of angry comments removed. Make your points about the game rather than each other, please. 

[Superfluous J]

On 6/3/2023 at 3:45 AM, dr.phees said:

You didn't hold back at release! You made everyone expect and buy a very underperforming game at a premium price.

Interesting. They didn't make me do that.

10 hours ago, Redneck said:

oh so you are ok with them selling you a game that didnt work?

Yes. Because (as I said above) no one made me buy it. I looked at the game, looked at the price, and decided to pass.

[Periple]

14 hours ago, Redneck said:

oh so you are ok with them selling you a game that didnt work? Hang on a sec let me start up unity i got some games to sell you. You ok with that right?

Okay I probably shouldn't wade into this but I'll unpack it anyway.

1. They didn't sell you a game. They sold you early access to a game. 
2. The early access does work. I flew a plane to Duna! How could I have done that if it doesn't work?
3. You can easily get an accurate read on the state of the EA in less than 2 hours playtime, within Steam's refund window.

If you think $50 is too much for what you get, then you shouldn't buy it, or if you did, you should refund! If you kept it, in my opinion that's on you!

I will be disappointed if they won't be able to sort out the performance issues, fix the bugs, and deliver on the features promised in the roadmap. But I'm not mad at all that all that isn't there yet, and I'm happy to wait another six months or a year or however long it takes for it!

So although you didn't ask specifically me, I can't answer your question because the premise is flawed on two counts: what they sold me isn't a game, and it does work. It's like asking "did you stop beating your wife" when you've never been beating your wife in the first place!