.22 playtesting being waylaid by mods?

[regex]

I don't think the tech tree will get extra hard, but if it is a tutorial for new players and then they add money to said tutorial, it will then mean that you may not be able to do the same thing you have done. Plus, then they might add mission control and whole other sets of nonsense that will make the tutorial even more expansive. Once it is done, I imagine it will be incredibly simple like all tutorials - you know, Press A to move to the left - This is a rocket, it makes your ship go up. I also doubt that this will even be the tutorial in the end.

I think there is a lot of push-back already regarding the tech tree difficulty. This may influence further development decisions, but I'm not holding my breath. A proper difficulty system coupled with other "campaign" mechanics and a proper tech tree could provide both introductory- and experienced-level gameplay.

[regex]

And about those hardcore players - youve been around for half a year. How could you be talking about hardcore?

I like how you assume forum age == time I've owned and played the game. gg bro.

[AmpsterMan]

I don't know how i feel about the tech tree tbh. I haven't tried to "break" or "beat" the system so i don't know where others might be coming from. However, I must ask. What is the reason a lot of people don't like the tech system?

[Frostiken]

Tech tree is designed to introduce. In other words, it's a tutorial.

Sure. And we're saying that's stupid, shortsighted, and gyping what is currently about 95% of their playerbase. I'm not playing effing career mode so I can power through it to the point where I can get sandbox mode all over again. I'm playing career mode to enjoy a challenge. That their entire core concept and implementation was 'screw you guys, this isn't for you' is disheartening. What are they doing this for? To attract new players? ie: To get more money? So they can spend the money half-assedly putting in more new features we were once pumped for? That's called 'dumbing down', and 'lowering the bar', and maybe even 'selling out'. When we get resourcing, is it just going to be two resources instead of the huge flowchart we saw months ago?

When devs listen to this, sometimes constructive often not, criticism the game ends up changing in ways that alienate even more players which can, and have, caused games to basically self destruct.

Ahahahahahha right.

Because Tribes Ascend, Natural Selection 2, and Mechwarrior Online were such fantastic games, what with all the ignoring of the 'vocal minority' they did.

Oh wait, it turns out the vocal minority knew exactly what the **** they were talking about and the devs ignored them to 'reach a new audience'.

What is the reason a lot of people don't like the tech system?

For me it's because it's dull as hell. They took the science concept and went with the absolute laziest route possible. All it effectively did was add a couple button clicks. There's seriously no depth to it whatsoever. What's the difference between a trip to the moon before 0.22 and a trip to the moon after 0.22? A couple of button clicks. It adds no depth and little difficulty. It reward grinding and exploiting. It punishes you for not doing either. Once you understand how science works, it's almost impossible to play without exploiting it.

Compare it to, say, this: You have to use relay boosters because your little surface probes won't have enough juice to project the signal back to Kerbin. You can store data if you're out of contact with your relays or are running low on power, and need to manage it to stop it from filling up. You are rewarded for engaging in multiple types of science and spreading out your measurements. It takes time to do everything. You have to allocate CPU time to its acquisition before you can transmit it. There's different kinds of science you can use in different experiments, so science to get new structural parts will require different measurements than science to get new engines.

But you know, pushing two buttons thirty times in a row to submit thirty pictures of rocks in about thirty seconds is cool too.

Edited October 20, 2013 by Frostiken

[Specialist290]

I love seeing this mis-guided viewpoint on the forums. Please explain to me how a tech tree forwarded to the playerbase as a "tutorial" for new players is somehow going to get EXTRA HARD when an economy suddenly shows up. I don't think experienced players are going to be at all troubled by an actual economy considering what we've seen of the tech tree. Maybe we'll all have to make three more flights to earn the money to unlock stuff, big deal.

If it's not too much trouble to ask, you elaborate both on the meaning of this statement, and what you think a meaningful challenge to an experienced player would look like? I just want to get your thoughts on why a proper economic system wouldn't be a significant challenge.

[regex]

If it's not too much trouble to ask, you elaborate both on the meaning of this statement, and what you think a meaningful challenge to an experienced player would look like? I just want to get your thoughts on why a proper economic system wouldn't be a significant challenge.

Is it too much trouble for you to ask?

My point is in relation to how the tech tree is viewed by the devs at this point in time. Right now it is supposedly balanced to introduce, so a new player will unlock parts at a reasonable learning pace and an experienced player will blow through it. Adding an economy onto the tech tree under that paradigm will not add any additional difficulty for the experienced player aside from maybe a few more flights to farm some cash and if made too demanding may actually hamper the new player.

As for what a meaningful challenge to an experienced player would look like, I would have to say something that had a meaningful tech tree that didn't reward science hand-over-fist coupled with other gameplay and difficulty elements (tweaking awarded science, money, farmable resources, etc...) that ramp up the challenge as desired. Right now mods provide that; I'm actually perfectly happy with that and I will always use mods in KSP to alter the game to the difficulty I want and I think everyone should take that approach.

[Specialist290]

Fair enough. Sounds like we actually have pretty similar views, at least from what I gather. One of these days I'll have to write down my own thoughts somewhere, but that's a discussion for another topic.

[malkuth]

Think you should relax a little regex. Seriously. It's ok to have an opinion. And everyone is intitled to one.

Calm down man. It will be alright.

And yes adding an economy to the game adds a little more challenge. Your correct though that all it does is slow you down maybe 3 missions or so. But considering I developed a mod based on a mission based economy system. I do understand it a little bit.

It's ok I understand what you want. But don't be rude man. It's going to be ok.

[Exposure]

S

Because Tribes Ascend, Natural Selection 2, and Mechwarrior Online were such fantastic games, what with all the ignoring of the 'vocal minority' they did.

Oh wait, it turns out the vocal minority knew exactly what the **** they were talking about and the devs ignored them to 'reach a new audience'.

Alright.

XCOM Enemy Unknown, Deus Ex Human Revolution, Saints Row IV.

For every game with a vocal minority that was right with their complaints there's another game where the vocal minority ended up being generally wrong about their concerns. Video game development isn't exactly something where you can have one size fits all solutions, because each game has different issues that need their own solutions.

EDIT: Good grief man, the current science system is already newbie-unfriendly enough, and you want that to be the stock system?

[regex]

yes adding an economy to the game adds a little more challenge.

This post and your earlier post implied that what we're all forgetting is that difficulty will be added. Difficulty will not be added under the current introduction paradigm, grind will. Until and if the introductory thinking is dropped we'll be faced with a fairly mediocre career mode in regards to advanced players. As I see it you can specify an introductory game mode and make career truly meaningful for new and old alike, or you can continue to cripple career mode by making it an introductory experience for new players.

[malkuth]

Completely understand your frustration. And hopefully the devs find a nice balance for vets and beginners. But again seems hard to judge a system that is not totally intact or complete. So it's hard to balance on a game mode that is basically sandbox with free science unlocks.

It will get there.

[regex]

It will get there.

It's not going to "get there" just by adding an economy, there's a ton more work to be done other than just adding money into the equation. This is why I called your earlier post "misguided".

[OtherDalfite]

I can completely agree with the OP's post. I've been with KSP from the beginning, and the hardcore players that started KSP up and spread it around are now being abandoned by simplistic hand-holding gameplay changes. In R&D, there is hardly anything really to do other than grind. There is no edge that you can get, only going to as many places as possible. No specialization, no specifics, just "science" which consists of right clicking on something and then flying home. For all the noticeable changes, I really hope they got a truckload of things in the "behind the scenes" part of the game.

Also, would it kill the devs to try and build a ocean generation type that didn't drop my usual 60+ FPS down to below 15?

EDIT:

Completely understand your frustration. And hopefully the devs find a nice balance for vets and beginners. But again seems hard to judge a system that is not totally intact or complete. So it's hard to balance on a game mode that is basically sandbox with free science unlocks.

It will get there.

If the devs are having a tough time dealing with our criticism, maybe they should be more open in their plans. Right now as it seems everyone is locked in the closet until about halfway through the update. What we need is to know Squad has a plan and that they will follow through. They're at a point with KSP where money is the last of their problems, surely they should be able to be open with their community that feeds them, right?

Edited October 20, 2013 by OtherDalfite
Adding on.

[Frostiken]

EDIT: Good grief man, the current science system is already newbie-unfriendly enough, and you want that to be the stock system?

Anyone who can't grasp concepts like 'using a satellite to communicate' and 'storing data for later' is probably too thick to be playing this game in the first place. I don't see anything there that's unintuitive whatsoever.

If we're going to dumb the game down from here on out than how about we just add mechjeb-style auto-orbit, auto-dock, and auto-land features by default.

Edited October 20, 2013 by Frostiken

[shadowsutekh]

If the devs are having a tough time dealing with our criticism, maybe they should be more open in their plans. Right now as it seems everyone is locked in the closet until about halfway through the update. What we need is to know Squad has a plan and that they will follow through. They're at a point with KSP where money is the last of their problems, surely they should be able to be open with their community that feeds them, right?

No, because the community has pushed them away in the past when Harv said something that everyone blew out of proportion and took massively out of context. Being open with the community is a fine line, and neither side has toed it correctly yet.

Everyone also seems to forget that KSP is not and should not be Take on Mars, or anything like it from a stock standpoint.

It is a user friendly game that introduces space, and space flight with fairly realistic mechanics.

This game is as complex as the user wants/can make it.

It is a game first, a simulator second. Don't forget that.

Also this is a reminder to stay civil and lay off the personal attacks I've seen begin to creep up in the thread. Don't make us close this because of an inability to stay civil.

Edit: For anyone that wants a source on an official stance of KSP vs a simulator like Orbiter, ect. click here

Edited October 20, 2013 by shadowsutekh

[zzz]

picture

Looks intresting. Is this something real or just mockup?

[ScramblesTD]

Anyone who can't grasp concepts like 'using a satellite to communicate' and 'storing data for later' is probably too thick to be playing this game in the first place. I don't see anything there that's unintuitive whatsoever.

I think his point was that the science system isn't introduced properly, and no explanation is given to the player as to how the system actually works. Of course this is merely it's first iteration, so that's subject to change.

The fact that they just throw parts at you and don't explain how they work or where they should be used is a bit off putting at the moment. Particularly for a new player. This can, of course, be easily remedied by a training mission or tutorial in the final game.

There's a pretty big logical gap one must leap over when you equate "dumbing the game down" with "explaining basic gameplay concepts".

[OtherDalfite]

No, because the community has pushed them away in the past when Harv said something that everyone blew out of proportion and took massively out of context. Being open with the community is a fine line, and neither side has toed it correctly yet.

The reason the community freaked out over the DLC thing was because HarvesteR wasn't ready for lashback. I had hoped the developers might possibly learn from that mistake and be brave enough to face the community again. Do they just want to silently push away the vocal audience and do things the easy way? As the direction of KSP seems to be going, and what I have heard from Maxmaps, fleshing out gameplay is not even a priority right now. All that is being focused on from what I see is luring in "new players" ie: potential customers.

[stupid_chris]

The reason the community freaked out over the DLC thing was because HarvesteR wasn't ready for lashback. I had hoped the developers might possibly learn from that mistake and be brave enough to face the community again. Do they just want to silently push away the vocal audience and do things the easy way? As the direction of KSP seems to be going, and what I have heard from Maxmaps, fleshing out gameplay is not even a priority right now. All that is being focused on from what I see is luring in "new players" ie: potential customers.

Pushing it forward like this is not the way to do it either. As shadowsutekh just said, this is a fine line to walk, and better be careful on how to do it then go forward and screw up again. The community has very volatile proprieties and I understand the developers for being careful. As far as I can see, they're not pushing anything away, they are just being reserved on to what they reveal and what they don't. Saying too much gives people expectations, and therefore potential disappointments.

[Frostiken]

There's a pretty big logical gap one must leap over when you equate "dumbing the game down" with "explaining basic gameplay concepts".

I'm not the one who said that the tech tree was for newbies. That was Harvester.

[spikeyhat09]

just chill a bit guys. the tech tree is a alpha test. every version you've played was really just a payed alpha test build. the tech tree is (most definitely) not set in stone, and it will most surely change before KSP 1.0. so can we ease up on the butthurt?

[tdubic]

If is game to easy for you instal this mod

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/kerbaleconomy/

It is Kerbal Economy mod, now parts actually cost you some money. you can chose between easy, normal and hard.

This game is in development so we need to be patient ( I`am not). I understand frustration, it is sad that some random guys do better stuff on game than original team. Moderators are always ahead of them.

Maybe Squat team have become lazy. There are lot of stuff that can be added to the game, and does not require a lot of effort.

They can add 30% more parts just in one day, just changing scale factor, and other factor in CFG files you can get parts that just missing in this game.

this game is in public alpha from 2011 if they continue in this speed, game will not be finished by 2018. Squad is smart. When you buy finished game you play this game for few day or weeks, if you buy unfinished game, you can play this game for years until game is finished, because there will be always something new after every update, and this new stuff call us to play game over and over again.

So every new update should be bigger if they wont us to be interested over and over again.

[glacierre]

I am currently playing the stock tree, but I will definitely like if the tree and the science will be fully and easily modable.

It could radically change the way challenges are done in KSP, right now you can either upload an scenario or set a dozen rules for what is possible or not. Instead, we could now start making challenges/stories, like go to a specific part of the moon with limited parts, where you get enough science points to unlock level two and the science message gives you a clue for looking somewhere else.., etc. You can basically write up a story for the people to play and discover.

[sharpspoonful]

For me it's because it's dull as hell. They took the science concept and went with the absolute laziest route possible. All it effectively did was add a couple button clicks. There's seriously no depth to it whatsoever. What's the difference between a trip to the moon before 0.22 and a trip to the moon after 0.22? A couple of button clicks. It adds no depth and little difficulty. It reward grinding and exploiting. It punishes you for not doing either. Once you understand how science works, it's almost impossible to play without exploiting it.

Compare it to, say, this: You have to use relay boosters because your little surface probes won't have enough juice to project the signal back to Kerbin. You can store data if you're out of contact with your relays or are running low on power, and need to manage it to stop it from filling up. You are rewarded for engaging in multiple types of science and spreading out your measurements. It takes time to do everything. You have to allocate CPU time to its acquisition before you can transmit it. There's different kinds of science you can use in different experiments, so science to get new structural parts will require different measurements than science to get new engines.

-picture-

But you know, pushing two buttons thirty times in a row to submit thirty pictures of rocks in about thirty seconds is cool too.

Minus the unneeded attitude, I'll agree with this viewpoint. I played the career mod for all of 4 hours and immediately lost interest. I do like the addition of SCIENCE!, and the extra parts and utilization of old parts, but I dislike the way science has been utilized. I feel like the tree needs to be reworked a bit, and is a rough first draft of how they want to shape the Tech Tree.

And thats ok,

AS THIS GAME IS STILL IN ALPHA.

Allow me to repeat that.

THIS GAME IS STILL IN ALPHA.

Look, I'm not exactly the most skilled at this game and I've been playing for all of 3 months now, but the development and responsiveness of the devs thus far has been pretty much unmatched by any other developer out there. They update you weekly, with meaningful and semi-informative progress reports. They post and pay attention to the forums. They poll you on the peripheral content (i.e. spaceport). I'm scratching my head to come up with another developer that has had an approach like this and I really can only think of Bungie, and DICE before the EA buy.

And we as the community should have talks like these; fleshing out opinions and sharing our ideas and thoughts about issues and different installments. That's how innovation happens. But the moment you become married to your opinion is when it no longer a discussion. Thats when it becomes a flame war and, and is beneficial to no one. So be open to differentiating ideas and for #$%'s sakes, remember that all in all this is the dev's game. Whether or not they listen to us is not our option. That's theirs to make, at the price of their success.

Edited October 20, 2013 by sharpspoonful
Minor editting, And I derped words.

[zzz]

I'm scratching my head to come up with another developer that has had an approach like this and I really can only think of Bungie, and DICE before the EA buy.

This is because you look in the wrong direction. You need to look to other "indie" "early access" "buy alpha" developers, there plenty of this and all have similar approach. It's popular way of funding this days (and in base it's nice because( potentially) can make some intresting things happen which is was impossible by "classic" way).

About "this is alpha" - "whining" is based on analysis of decisions and approaches.

People don't think this is finished state but think they see direction of development and they don't like it. (I, personally, do not care)

If you see as someone begin to paint room by pink and you don't like this color - not need to wait when he finish painting -

You will try to say - "hey, what are you doing? I don't think this is good idea"

And there you with your - "stop whining, it's not finished yet"

Edited October 20, 2013 by zzz