moeggz

@Periple The incongruence between what players expect to get out of EA and what devs expect to get out is I think the central point Im trying to make. Especially when they are ostensibly saying the reason for EA is for the feedback the players want to give, and not the actual analytics and bug testing they’re getting. I personally am uninterested in not only doing free bug testing, but paying IG for the privilege of me doing so. When the game reaches the point of more fun than frustrating (which I feel is soon, probably before even the next roadmap update) I’ll hop back for more precise feedback. The broad stroke is science is a good skeleton for the gameplay loop. I agree that science and career in KSP1 was janky and left room for a sequel to iterate on. But so far the answer to the jank is to simplify, and until there is more complexity and restrictions exploration mode feels closer to a sandbox than a progression game. The story driven main missions are way more polished than KSP1, and I think much better at getting players not just to the mun but to the other planets. But the removal of multiple layers of complexity from KSP1 make it, to me, a much less fulfilling gameplay loop.

I understand where you are coming from, but then I’m left with the question of why EA at all. I can’t give specific feedback on the balance of science points and progression without knowledge of down the road features. The reason for EA was listed as player feedback, and from my personal view, other games have been that level of open, have had to adjust things, and not had community breakdown. The reason they weren’t before this update is obvious, but now that they’ve shown progress I feel they can take this step. For me, science is a big step forward and worth playing with to give feedback, but if feedback isn’t possible yet there’s not really a reason for me to play yet as it’s not yet fun on its own legs. When they progress more, or open up about the plan I’ll happily jump back in.

Ok I feel I should clarify some. I’m not asking for the resource spreadsheet and the specs of all the upcoming engines. Ie not the lowest level gameplay plans, as I recognize these are the most likely to change and really for that type of stuff early feedback isn’t helpful. We have the high level gameplay planning, the core gameplay loops and features planned in the roadmap. My request is for the middle level gameplay plans, how those large features will integrate with each other and plans for features too small to get a whole roadmap update named after them. Will we be given a mechanical reason to bring 3 Kerbal on missions? The way KSP1 did it was janky and made a hard to pick up game even harder for new players so I agree it needs to be heavily modified. Even if the answer is as vague as “yes” I can focus feedback on other areas. How exactly will ship building be limited without funds? Lots of routes this can take, and I have thoughts on a few different ways they could do it but I don’t feel any feedback is helpful without some more information. In the first game, Kerbals quickly became disposable. Is this the same design philosophy? I have thoughts on how life support could be integrated, or other systems to give a mechanical reason for rescue missions and flying carefully to not lose Kerbals. And tons more about ISRU and colonies. I get some of these may change, but other EA games I’ve played have all communicated this mid level of gameplay loop and features earlier than KSP2 does (KSP1, Minecraft, the long dark) And I’ll edit the title to a less binary version of my statement, as a heads up to those reading this thread.

@Superfluous J Yeah I hit the enter button early I agree it means guessing, and partially being fluid with the plan as well. Some things may be added, some things may be dropped. But for me it’s hard to put into words how, even tho I’m enjoying science and the progress of the game, how I find science lacking without knowing if those lacking features are planned further down. Absolutely it takes trust, and an understanding community. I feel they have won enough back over that they can start extending that trust back so get quality feedback, but I understand the other point of view on the matter. And also my full post agrees with you, the game has enough of a gameplay loop now I feel bugs should be a priority over features.

First off, I would like to say that For Science! has made the game massively more playable, fun, and performant. I appreciate the hard work and dedication of IG when some of the player base (myself included) went from not just critical, but skeptical that we would even see the promised features. The science update proved that skepticism wrong, and I want to sincerely thank the IG team for their persistence. I say this because while part of this post may sound negative, it’s coming from someone who’s genuinely a fan of the game, wants the game to succeed, and appreciates the massive step forward this last update was. All that said, after playing it long enough where I feel I can give a solid opinion, I must say For Science! still hasn’t reached the tipping point of being fun to play for fun’s sake yet. As a tester, and an EA player seeing the game grow, yes. But KSP1 remains more fun at this point. I really would like to share my feedback on the game, but it’s hard to do with the specifics of future features still largely unknown. For instance, how much are resources going to affect the early, mid, and late game restrictions of exploration mode, if at all? There’s a lot of feedback I can give here, but without details on the roadmap beyond just the highest level concepts, most of that feedback is meaningless. KSP1 had a lot of janky complexity. I loved it dearly but career mode was hodgepodged together for sure. KSP2 (seemingly so far) didn’t so much streamline the complexity as outright remove it. It’s rather simple to get to anywhere in the system without unlocking any tech nodes as there’s no restrictions on size, part count, or funds/resources. (I personally prefer no funds and the limiting factor to be resources, as I believe to be the plan.) How I feel those restrictions could be added in an engaging game play loop is something I’d love to talk about, but currently it’s unclear if any such limitations are even being considered. The new and zombie bugs did also sadly affect my gameplay, both with the resurgence of the orbital decay and the loss of orbital lines. Those I see have been clearly communicated to the devs and it is clear they are a priority. I would personally, at this point in development with a “game” now in the sandbox game, rather they focus on bugs for a bit. My larger point with this thought though is that bugs can be clearly communicated, and then addressed. Larger framework decisions and feedback much less so without knowing exactly the plan for interstellar, colonies, and isru. The devs have clearly asked for feedback, and I’m happy to provide it. I just feel it’s hard to give good, actionable or even considerable feedback with so many unknowns for the player community. Had KSP2 launched in this state into EA I feel there would’ve been much less criticism. The game, while buggy and feature lacking, has clear potential, details of quality in the surfaces of the planet, audio design and other areas. Most EA games are very clear about the development process, and I fully understand why they went so quiet with the harsh criticism they were receiving. They knew the only way to win back trust was to deliver, and while there’s still a ways to go for me personally they delivered a great update that won my trust. Now that we have that trust, I feel like it is the time to open up more about the specifics, and then recieve, consider, and implement as they see best fit player feedback. This would include the plans changing slightly as the game progresses and in response to the feedback, and trusting the community to be understanding of that. Again, I don’t want to be too negative. My pessimistic outlook was solidly proven wrong, I’m excited and passionate about KSP and am way happier now having my pessimism be proven wrong and having a fun KSP2. I just please ask that now that trust has been rebuilt some thought is put into how much of the specifics of the coming features can be shared with the community so we can give quality feedback.

Well the wait is over, except I won’t be able to try it until maybe Thursday Excited to give it a go, and excited to read some feedback as I wait patiently for an open evening to try it out.

The docking issues are the bug that keeps me from playing right now. Even after 1.5, and even when I don’t dock as Scarecrow does (which I normally do, even before I started watching Matt Lowne’s content) docking seems to cause issues. Loss of SAS, craft still occasionally flying off when dedocking and crafts that dock seem more prone to the bug where parts of your ship start drifting away causing miss alignment of thrust. I actually landed with an engine like that the week the game launched on the Mun. Was entertaining then less so this far after release. Not everyone uses docking frequently in their gameplay loops, but if you do it does for many of us make the game unplayable in the sense that the frustration outweighs the entertainment of the game. Not that it literally crashes the game. Well I personally don’t know any artist who started drawing lifelike people before they drew people in a simpler style. And the great thing about art is that you can draw however you want. If you have a canvas that catches fire if you draw in an anime style it is an unworkable canvas if that’s the style you like to draw.

1. Remove wobble replace with Kitbash like solution that still models stress between joints and punishes badly created crafts while allowing large structures and ships assembled with lots of docking ports in orbit to still be fly able. (may be lower on list if 1.5 wobble doesn’t cost too much on performance and is as rigid as it looks) 2. QOL changes and bug fixes I’m sure are in the works, parts manager being accessible for a single part by right clicking, make delta-v accurate and plannable for different atmospheres, TWR being more visible both in VAB and on staging during flight. A color picker with hex values (that you can type into on the ui) and able to click to match a different part. Transfer window calculator with alarm clock. Bring back the parachutes on Kerbals. Movable and customizable UI, an option to move most or all of the ui to a separate monitor would be a dream. Please let us type for maneuver nodes as well, instead of just dragging. Docking camera as a default camera angle. Hotas support, I love planes but hate flying with a keyboard. All of these I feel like are either actively being worked on or are planned, just giving my support that I would rate these as high priority. 3. Life support. @Pthigrivi had a great post detailing an interesting but not overly complicated life support. I really do feel like it’s needed to separate the gameplay and user stories of manned missions and probes. It also helps balance out “max timewarp to fill all of my resources” by having a negative affect on any active manned missions. Make a gameplay reason to take care of manned kerbals on deep space missions, and a reason to send rescue missions. 4. Robotics and electric propellers. More procedural parts, particularly fuel tanks. Modifiable engines would be nice, but I don’t think that’s as common an opinion. 5. Proper boat and submersible parts and propulsion, and a gameplay reason (science biome) to explore the oceans in the Kerbol system. 6. Much further down the line, the gameplay benefit of visualizing delivery routes to colonies may seem small for the effort it will take, but I for one would love actual craft flying the delivery routes. Like starfield not making space continuous to save a lot of developer effort for seemingly little gain led to negative feedback, this change helps so much in immersion I still think it’s worth doing even if it doesn’t much change gameplay. 7. Comnet/scanning improvements. Make the UI in map view more clear with the comnet and how far different relays and antenna can transfer data. Preferably even some information on the part description (this antenna can reach Kerbin from the mun/Duna/Jool etc. ) I do hope scanning for resources makes a return, hopefully even with a telescope system to discover the further planets and especially the other star systems. 8. Some basic script writing for some automation. Not full on mech jeb but the programming in Juno was nice. 9. Functional IVA views and movement, with EVA construction. 10. Capybaras. Or lower on my priority, but a “test” option alongside “fly” when launching craft would make hard modes without quick loading actually possible. Very hard to do when, even in KSP1, you’re not actually sure how the ship will load into the game. Test mode gives no science or resources, but also doesn’t cost anything. But I’d also take capybaras. Thanks for asking for feedback, it’s really appreciated. I hope some of common ones can go into consideration. Edit: forgot about recovering spent stages! That would probably swap out 10 for me and a test view goes to 11. I’m happy with a time rewind, or a higher range of physics for stages with a probe core but I would really like to be able to recover lower stages and boosters.

On the subject of Shadow Zone’s interview I do think both Shadow Zone and Nate gave a good interview. I think it was professional from both sides. Like others, some of the explanations of what happened in the past leaves me a little confused. For instance running into unexpected problems that take longer than you think to solve is a totally understandable problem. However there’s no need to say the game is nearly finished and so fun it’s a production issue if it’s not nearly finished. Even if it’s hard to predict how much longer it will take to be feature complete, knowing how playable the game is at a given time seems easy, and there was no need to oversell that. All that said, I appreciated how in this interview the communication about the future of the game was different to how that has been done in the past. I personally vastly prefer this I undersell style, and if the game talks for them with For Science! I think they can still regain community trust. Even with the gaps in the explanation, this was Nate clearly understanding how he (unintentionally) contributed to the erosion of trust, said that it was reasonable to be frustrated, impatient, and to have low trust in the devs, and then said this coming update will speak for what has happened over the past 10 months. That’s a major step forward in being transparent. If the update doesn’t live up to the expectations, well they know and we know that KSP2’s image and potential sales will probably not be recoverable. If it does, I for one will wear my dunce hat for being overly pessimistic, admit where I was wrong, and enjoy the update and get hyped for colonies. I want a performant, bug free, and expanded Kerbal game way more than I want to win an argument or to know the exact causes of the slow start to development. I’m pessimistic on some things because being pleasantly surprised things went better than I expected is a lot easier for me to process than the reverse. I appreciate and agree with the view that the vocal frustrations come from a place of passion. I really hope For Science! makes me have more passion for playing the game than for talking about it.

Wow you added a lot tot the conversation with that comment.

Ok having now watched the interview I have a few more comments. I appreciate both Matt for asking some tough questions and Nate for his straightforward responses. I’d like to affirm his comment that the negativity and worry was directed at the game and not at any individual, at least from me. And if science does the show part of show don’t tell I’m fairly confident they’ll win back most of the community. My one little gripe is that it was said EA was chosen for player feedback. This still doesn’t make sense to me, I really feel they had to know how broken the game was at launch (heck the previews weren’t early access keys to the game but come here and play on these very powerful and known spec computers) but if science is good I can leave that in the past. My feedback would be if you really want EA for feedback please start taking some universal requests and also communicate a bit more before updates. The wobbly conversation I think has been directed by feedback and I appreciate that. And I like the parts manager, but please please bring back opening a specific part by right clicking. That I think is as near a universal request as exists. And it’s much easier to steer development in line with feedback if the feedback is open before all the programming is done. By this I mean if you want feedback on colonies start telling us how colonies work sometime before it launches. That said, I see how until this point there hasn’t been as much to have feedback on, and if balancing and ideas bounced off the community after science is released are impactful on development this gripe will mostly go away. Thanks for this more open communication, thanks even more for going “underpromise overdeliver” as we approach the delivery part. I’m excited to play For Science! (Gotta respect the ! Lol) If it’s good I hope to be one of the critical voices that you all have won over.

I haven’t had a chance to watch Matt Lownes interview yet but I fully agree the space creator presentation was worth a watch and very appreciated. There have been some toxic comments for sure, but I really appreciated the admittance that the trust breakdown came from the discrepancy of promised features and the current state. Some comments from IG made it seem (unintentionally I’m sure) like they thought the negative views some had for the game were unreasonable. Acknowledging that they were not unreasonable and how they (unintentionally) contributed to those views being formed was very appreciated. Pairing that with delivering a date for content being added was wonderful news. Now I’m still going to wait for the release for final judgement, but if science is performant and low on bugs I’ll be very happy and ready to edit my steam review and start enjoying the game. Because, as I’m glad they clearly see, the majority of negative feedback came from the lack of progress. Fix that, and you’ll see, I believe, a majority come around. And then they can talk as much or as little as they want because even tho the communication occasionally led to gripes, those gripes wouldn’t exist if the game was fun. That’s the fundamental issue, not communication strategy, and when that’s fixed things will get a lot more cheery I think.

Yeah to be clear I like it as a stop gap over the noodles we have right now, but I don’t want it to stay permanently.

@PDCWolf I was talking about the argument in general. We both fully agree wobble has to go, I’m happy with autostrut as a stop gap but would rather full rigid body. I just see a lot of people saying that they game has to have wobble for the engineering restraints of building. I’m pointing out that you can get that without wobble. I think I’d rank my preferred solutions as 1. Rigid body with stress limits. High for vertical stack of same size, medium for size changes, and low for horizontal attachments. This makes it not just a building step of adding a part but affects how rockets and planes are flown. (If you try to take a 6g turn with wings that are too long they shear off type of thing) With some ui indicator so the player knows when a joint is over stressed and soon to break. 2. Rigid body no stress limits 3. Auto strut. So you’d but 2 above 1, but on the big debate on wobble I think we’re pretty close. I think presenting 1 as a compromise to those who don’t want to give up the engineering challenges wobble presents is a way to increase the odds Intercept actually fully removes wobble.

People say this but I really would rather have bad designs punished by breaking instead of wobbling. plenty of bridge building games have a ui effect showing which joints are over stressed by adding an heat map to the joints and displaying critical points to the player. I don’t know why ksp can’t just have a view like that that player can toggle when their rocket keeps exploding and they don’t know why.

This is what I’ve been able to find after digging Space Creator Day KSP2

I think that’s fair and where I’m at too. They already got me to buy in to hope and be disappointed. That said if the update is as described I think it’ll finally take KSP2 past KSP1, and I’ll board the hype train then. But keeping my hope low until I can actually play it.

Hey this is nice. December is quicker than the majority of expectations, if this is good this can start to change the tide of public opinion. Excited to redownload and give it a spin.

Im not really too active on the forums right now. But I missed something here, what’s SA?

@Carraux We as the community have given them a lot of time to right the ship. I believed them at launch, and was even a pretty happy customer until they put it on sale before making any progress. Actions speak louder than words, there’s no reason to believe what they say when they haven’t delivered anything yet.

It’s like they picked the worst of both worlds. Talking a lot at times but only about insubstantial stuff (amas with softball questions, dev insights into features that were supposed to come a brief window after launch) And then trying to change to a “under promise over deliver strategy” without acknowledging or wrapping up the loose ends of everything they’ve already discussed (reentry heat video was supposedly supposed to come out 11 days ago, has since then not been even acknowledged) all the while not actually delivering everything. It’s like they keep flip flopping on how much to talk thinking that’s the reason the player base is grumpy when, if the game was making progress, they could talk a lot or not at all and many would be happier. Because the communication style isn’t the reason for the backlash, the state of the game is the reason.

I think I agree with @chefsbrianthat we need a paradigm shifting update (ie science) to move the community forward. What you see as spamming I see as meticulous detail gathering. There were a few posts where I wasn’t inclined to post transcripts or all the details of a link (again, infant and also not wanting to be accused as a liar if I slightly misquoted something) and @PDCWolf put the time and effort into actually laying out all the details. These detailed lists were appreciated not just by me but by other commenters. I don’t mean to pick on your shared disagreement with each other, I just want to say that it’s very easy (I’ve done it myself plenty) to put people in boxes and I do believe that both of you are genuine and want the best for both KSP, and the community. @Periple good catch! I tried to find stuff he posted here but he didn’t use his username here much and as that was under intercept games it didn’t come up. Still just all guess work, so I’m not trying to lay blame at any individual’s feet, but the contrast of those very confident statements and what we actually got is a core source of much of the distrust. That was a check they couldn’t cash, but hopefully science is for the sake of the game, and I think it’d lighten the mood here a little bit. Also, the phrase “trade resources” with other players is one I had forgotten about. That would imply a space race type multiplayer version that still would involve some cooperation. I’d love for there to be a straightforward “versus” and “coop” mode where multiple players are working together on one space agency but trade implies a third type of distinct but cooperative space agencies.

Absolutely! And I appreciate your even temperedness and desire to mend rifts. I agree @PDCWolfand @Pthigrivi are both genuine and both want the same thing, a good KSP2. I’ve had productive conversations with both of them, and I hope they’d say the same of me. And absolutely, we’re all human. I’m typing out most of my responses with one hand while my infant sleeps, id rather not be held to every thing I’ve ever said and I want to extend the same kindness to others. My point that you quoted me on was just that this is why the debates are so circular. What some see as intentionally antagonistic behavior I don’t, some keep repeating their comments because similar questions keep getting asked. The fact that the response is negative about KSP2 is a reflection of their genuinely held opinions about KSP2, and not from a desire to derail every thread or spread misery, at least how I see it.

I feel it is relevant to point out that the latest disagreements on this thread happened when someone disagreed with me that KSP2 is less playable with less features than KSP1, an opinion I don’t think many will disagree with. The debate then went, ”no it’s not fair to compare it as it is now to KSP1” which, why? As a consumer it absolutely is. Doesn’t matter how much work went into the 2024 Honda civic, if it’s worse in many ways than the 2023 you can’t fault the customer for sticking with the old model. ”you must compare the games at their same point in development.” ok, KSP1 wins here easily as it was finished in the timeframe ksp2 had before launch. ”no silly, you have to compare them from the exact time in launching in ea” ok, in 6 months ksp1 made major feature progress and KSP2 has stalled. ”no no no that’s not how it works software development is measured by effort not time” Which I guess means work smarter not harder, but this is where I lost the desire to keep this particular discussion going. When a commenter continually moves the goalposts and disregards your valid points is when you get people like @PDCWolf commenting a lot about “the same old topics” because someone is, to us, straight up ignoring what we are saying because it’s inconvenient and moving the goal posts. [Snip]

@Periple agreed but again all of his comments were clearly defending and positive about the devs. And even being shocked that science isn’t out isn’t necessarily negative “they’re so good I really thought they’d have it by now” type of way. Im not as interested in the specific percentage of blame between parties, we will never really know. My gripes are with publishong decisions as a whole, not trying to make anything personal. But if it’s at least an accurate statement, that science was internally expected within 6 months, what has gone wrong since launch? (also I tried to give you a thumbs up but I guess I’ve added too many today lol)