Getting Burned Out

[PotentiallyHabitable578]

Hello, everyone. I'm writing this to get help from anyone out there who feels the same way.

This is my story.

I bought the game when it was in 'Beta Than Ever' 0.9 release. That means I've been playing for a bit more than a year now. I've known the game since 2013 and I distinctly remember watching the 'Special Delivery Package' video featured on the front page of the KSP site(that may have been a bit later on). I remember watching KSP videos and getting hyped about it. I remember my first mun rocket that overshot and ended up in orbit between Jool and Eeloo, I remember my first Mun landing, Duna landing, and docking. Eventually, through career mode I managed to land on Moho and Eve, Gilly. Now it seems I've lost all purpose to play the game. I want to, but every time I design a rocket, search launch windows, train my crew, download mods, something makes me stop. I stop in the middle of constructing ships. I've tried out other career modes, ones with specific purposes like great Parkaboy's Plan Kappa. Nothing makes me have a purpose for playing KSP anymore, and yet I desperately want to, too. 

Is there anyone out there who feels the same way?

[boxman]

I have gone through the same myself and sadly I cannot offer anything positve as even after a year+ break I am still in this very same situation. My only hope right now is that 1.1 with multicore support and 64bit will let me create something more "grand" and that it will at least keep me interested again for a little while.

[Columbia]

I get burned out on KSP very frequently, and forcing yourself to play isn't going to help either. There are many games out there, I suggest you find a secondary game to play or activity to do when you're not in the mood for KSP. 

[Frank_G]

Playing a game just for playing it is work, not fun. Whenever ideas and fun leave me, i play something completely different for some time. I do that with all games... Returning after a pause is always refreshing and rewarding. Especially with KSP. 

Currently Elite Dangerous is on hold until 2.1 is released. I also have Witcher III on the agenda and i play Project CARS, whenever i need a quick break. I am looking forward to the new Hitman and Deus Ex titles as well.

 

[Frybert]

As someone who has been playing for years, yes burn out is a real issue. I actually only put in about 3 hours between the launch of 1.0 and last December. And before that I had more periods of burn out. One thing I could recommend is checking out Realism Overhaul.

[Guest]

Yeah, Realism Overhaul helps, and then you get burnt out on that.  Take a break, stop playing, clear your mind.  KSP isn't the be all, end all of games.

[Paul Kingtiger]

Take a break and play some other games.  I haven't played KSP seriously since before 1.0.  But I'm really excited to get back into it once 1.1 comes out.  Likewise I'm looking forward to a break for other games.

[*Aqua*]

My observation is that people tend to get to far into the game, exploring all possibilities, challenge all challenges and go where you can go. Once they have done that they feel they have "finished" the game. The key point is they don't have a goal anymore.

Without a goal you don't have a motivation to do anything.

Take a break, think about something you want to archieve. It must be something you know it isn't easy to do and it must be a specific one. Something broad like "get into orbit" won't do but if you change that to "put a 10 Kerbals Space Station into Eeloo orbit" it becomes far more interesting. Also make sure you pick an interesting goal, stuff you didn't do often. For example what about an station in a low solar orbit where you have to think about heat management?

[eurybaric]

Get FAR and get into airplanes

[boxman]

6 minutes ago, *Aqua* said:

My observation is that people tend to get to far into the game, exploring all possibilities, challenge all challenges and go where you can go. Once they have done that they feel they have "finished" the game. The key point is they don't have a goal anymore.

Without a goal you don't have a motivation to do anything.

Take a break, think about something you want to archieve. It must be something you know it isn't easy to do and it must be a specific one. Something broad like "get into orbit" won't do but if you change that to "put a 10 Kerbals Space Station into Eeloo orbit" it becomes far more interesting. Also make sure you pick an interesting goal, stuff you didn't do often. For example what about an station in a low solar orbit where you have to think about heat management?

There is alot of things squad could do to make this game last longer just by giving us something to explore or tasks to do.

Right now all the bodies in the system are completely barren besides a few generic biomes that only has the purpose of gaining generic science in career mode. What they should do is add some depth to the system and give us a reason to go explore with rovers or build bases on planets. There is not even anything to learn about the history of the kerbal system as apparently. Meanwhile in real life it is all about exploration, the search for life and in general learning about the solar system. There is so much potential wasted because they refuse to add any depth to the planets/moons.

[Curveball Anders]

56 minutes ago, boxman said:

There is alot of things squad could do to make this game last longer just by giving us something to explore or tasks to do.

While this is true, there's also a lot that can be gained by just handing out some new toys and then stand back and observe what strange and beautiful (and sometimes plain weird) stories, contraptions, plans and generic madness the users (and modders) will create (and share with each other).

The beauty of an open story is that it's, well, open

 

[Fearless Son]

I might recommend the Challenge Forum as a way to keep things interesting.  If you are bored and want to do something else, by all means go and take care of yourself, but if you are looking for things to keep doing, that is a great place to find them, particularly if you enjoy engineering and planning challenges.  

As for myself, I have been playing since about 0.15, and still not accomplished half as much as you have.  I guess I tend to burn slower and steadier, since I am still enjoying myself.  

[Hysterrics]

I'm very much so burned out on stock KSP. I'm trying to move on to RSS/RO now.

[quasarrgames]

6 hours ago, PotentiallyHabitable578 said:

Hello, everyone. I'm writing this to get help from anyone out there who feels the same way.

...I remember my first mun rocket that overshot and ended up in orbit between Jool and Eeloo...

Nothing makes me have a purpose for playing KSP anymore, and yet I desperately want to, too. 

Is there anyone out there who feels the same way?

1. that's umm...quite an overshoot.

2. You're worried, right? You want to make your missions awesome and memorable. You want them to go exactly a certain way. But all this planning takes some of the joy out of them, and you lose motivation. Am i right? If so, i'd say JUST DO IT! Make an awesome mission you've never made before! Do something crazy! if not, continue to step 3

3. find a niche of the game that you can get into, to try and perfect your skills. I was burnt out, then i discovered SSTOs, and now im not.

4. do take a break from the game though. It'll rekindle your mind and get ideas flowing. 

5. Remember that feeling you had at the beginning of ksp, that wonder and pride at every little accomplishment and discovery? Yeah, that's not coming back. Dont bother trying. Doesn't mean you can't enjoy the game, just means that you shouldn't expect a perfect experience from it.

[Wallygator]

Find some other way to enhance your curiosity.

RSS/RO/RF/R...X  was a saviour for me.  Amazing what having real world references did for enhancing my creativity and desire regarding the design of more realistic missions. It's not easy,but it's also not that hard. Just takes a bit more thinking and planning.

[Tourist]

After all you've done, I'd say you have played all the game has to offer... and that's fine, no entertainment media is intended to keep you entertained indefinitely. As it is I think KSP offers many many more hours of entertainment than pretty much all other games on the market. During the same time that I've been playing KSP I've played, finished and sometimes, replayed the following AAA games;

Dragon Age Inquisition 1.5 times

Xcom: Enemy Within 1.5 times

Bloodbourne 1.5 times

Xcom 2 1.5 times (but with a number of restarts.)

Fallout 4 1.5 times

Witcher 3 1.5 times (you can see a pattern emerging around how far I get on a replay.)

Total War: Attila 0.5

Total War: Shogun 2 2 times.

FarCry 3 1 times

FarCry 4 0.5 times

 

And probably a number of other games, which I'd forgotten too. Now, I'm also a bit bored, having done everything on the KSP bucket list. But the fact that I've played through, and exhausted the replay value on all of the above, In the same time that KSP has kept me entertained I think says something. So, yeah, probably time to move on....

.... until 1.1

Edited March 10, 2016 by Tourist

[Snark]

For me, three things:

• Mods
• Forums
• Modding

Mods:  Typically, each time I start a new career, it's with some new combination of mods (generally with at least one that I haven't tried before).  Examples include:  RemoteTech.  Outer Planets.  New Horizons.  Karbonite & Karbonite+.  Atomic Age.  SpaceY.  UKS/MKS.  TAC-LS.  That way, each new career is different from the one before.  I also generally start a new career with a definite goal in mind that I've decided on as my "done" condition.  Thus, all the time spent playing the career game is working towards some goal, rather than just meandering around.

Forums:  For me, talking about KSP is almost as much fun as playing KSP.  I love the community here, I like being helpful, I enjoy answering people's questions.  I probably spend at least as much time on the forums as I do in the actual game.  Hanging out in the forums a lot helps to turn KSP into more of a social activity, which helps to keep it fresh and interesting for me.

Modding:  Just started writing mods a few months ago.  I found that it's incredibly fun.  I can actually make this game do what I want it to.  That's an incredible rush.  It's fun to actually produce the mod, then it's fun to post it and feel a warm glow as literally thousands of people download it and have fun with it.

...so, maybe not for everyone.  But that's done it for me.  Two years in and haven't gotten tired of KSP yet. 

[Hysterrics]

1 hour ago, Wallygator said:

Find some other way to enhance your curiosity.

RSS/RO/RF/R...X  was a saviour for me.  Amazing what having real world references did for enhancing my creativity and desire regarding the design of more realistic missions. It's not easy,but it's also not that hard. Just takes a bit more thinking and planning.

Yeah, I've seen videos of RSS/RO and the idea of having to use kOS for a predetermined landing sequence is just so intriguing to me.

I've started my RSS/RO career yesterday. I made some sounding rockets but unfortunately go stuck at a point where I couldn't get any more science. I cheated in a little bit of science and went on to now at sub-orbital. It's certainly a fun experience and is worth trying out. It gets you a nice sense of accomplishment.

[boxman]

6 hours ago, Curveball Anders said:

While this is true, there's also a lot that can be gained by just handing out some new toys and then stand back and observe what strange and beautiful (and sometimes plain weird) stories, contraptions, plans and generic madness the users (and modders) will create (and share with each other).

The beauty of an open story is that it's, well, open

 

That as well would of course help as well and is another area where it has dissapointed lately. They used to say they wanted to not go too wild with prefab stuff like for example entire cargobays as that would limit creativity compared to giving us the tools/parts to build our own and used some examples of how the community used docking ports in all kinds of unintended creative ways.

But sadly what has happened is entirely opposite. Since .18 with the docking port update, we have really not been given much individual parts and instead they have released a bunch of cargo bays, instead of giving us simple things like a hinge, piston and/or ball bearing which could have so many unlimited uses that would boost creativity besides just making cargobays.

Not even parts like simple transparent panels that can be used as windows have we gotten. These would be great for making our own bases without slapping on some pods and would also be great for making more unique rovers.

Docking ports was just one very simple part and yet opened up so many new possibilities in the game. We really need some parts like that again that could have unintended uses or could in other ways make our creations more unique.

Edited March 11, 2016 by boxman

[ThatGuyWithALongUsername]

Happened to me a few times. Play something else for a while and come back to it.

[Superfluous J]

If you really want to do a thing, nothing can stop you.
If you really DON'T want to do that thing, anything can stop you.

If you're constantly getting stopped from playing KSP, you don't really want to. As many others have said, go play something else for a while and don't come back to KSP until you have something you WANT to do in it, other than "play KSP."

In no way is any of this bad. It's natural, normal, and expected.

[Commissioner Tadpole]

5th Horseman hit the nail right in the head. I suffered a lot of burn-outs as well, and your best bet is to leave KSP on the side while you play something else. Eventually, your interest in it will rekindle and you'll be back to it in no time!

I suffered a minor burnout as well a little time ago, after thinking my Laythe expedition won't work/is pointless, so I just decided to play Driver: San Francisco, and now I feel the urge to continue setting up the expedition again. Bye-bye, study time.

[GeneralVeers]

I've had The Burnout happen to me more than once, and not only in KSP, and in fact not only in computer games.

Fact is, the brain needs variety. Log out of KSP and do something else once in a while.

[Vim Razz]

I tend to play for a few weeks or months, then go off and do something else.

KSP has been pretty unique, though.  I've never returned to any game as often as I've come back to this one.

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

I've actually been playing Nolimits for a bit recently.  It's perfectly fine to have a burnout.