Give Squad a break- No more Squad Hate

[ZooNamedGames]

Lately Squad has gotten a lot of negative criticism for the 1.1+ update and what they've been doing recently. I just want to explain what they've done and why, so people can stop giving them so much hate and come to an understanding about their decisions.

Most of the 1.1 hate comes from the game being extremely unstable having frequent krakens, crashes and so on. People have said that the game is unfit for being part of the "release" version of KSP. Another recent point of hate is Squad's recent vacation.

I am going to be explaining each of their recent actions and decisions and explaining why they did them so that people can stop hating on them and start giving them the credit they deserve! I will be honest and be realistic about my comments, I will find the best explanation to everything but where I can't I'll call out the irrationality.

The largest complaint is the amount of bugs in 1.1+. With the engine upgrade, the game become unstable. To be fair, the update was in development for half a year (from November to April) and the entire time people demanded it to be released far earlier than it was ready. So it's a case of impatient greed, we demanded it for months on end and we finally got it, we received a very buggy release, which to be again fair, is to be expected. They essentially had to rebuild the game and then basically bug test it heavily and with a forum upgrade they haven't ever worked with before, it's no shock it's in it's current state. 1.1 is a testament to why the community should not rush the game developers to rush releases because when they do, we receive broken releases.

The best fix for these issues is to simply post your crash/bug reports and move on. Do not complain, simply explain your issue and move on. A lot of the issue stems from player frustration, but players need to know entering KSP, it is a changing evolving creature that is always a work in progress much like Minecraft. Every update brings more content which brings more bugs. Some players simply choose to stay in previous versions, which is ok but it creates community issues. Players staying in older versions request mod support for a version that no longer is available. So you either have to play with whatever mods you have or play stock at which point it would be better to simply play with the stock version of 1.1.2 as it's supported and whatever issues you encounter, Squad will be very interesting in hearing your problems! But again, do not complain!

Don't Complain, Explain!

Another complaint is that the game is in it's release state and therefore shouldn't be this broken, but as I said before, it's a changing creature. So again, every update brings new bugs and they should be embraced as each one you find and report is another found and can be resolved. This update especially should be given additional bug tolerance as it's a complete engine upgrade unlike anything they've ever encountered before. Like Minecraft, every release adds more bugs and the game will continue to be updated past 1.0 which brings new bugs and issues. So be an explorer, when you find a bug, report it!

The last major complaint is that Squad went on vacation after giving us this "broken" version. If you look back at what they did the last half of a year, they have worked they're butts off and even gave into the community's incessant demand for the release and they received mixed reviews (specifically a lot of hate). So everyone should understand that they bent over backwards trying to rebuild the game they had spent years on before in only months. They essentially had the impossible challenge, and they overcame it. As to 1.1.2 and it's instability and how they could've left us with these bugs, the fact is they needed the break (likely more for their personal lives and health than recreational) and they needed to give the game time to locate and find these bugs. When you get mad at the game and close it after something rage inducing happens, your throwing away the only way to solve the problem. They went on vacation to accumulate bug reports so they could release an effective bug fix patch rather than 50 small ones over several days.

Lastly, members need to give Squad a break. A lot of this recent hate towards Squad is occasionally tied in with "moderation action" (I'm not going to discuss specific decisions by Squad as that would violate the rules but I will discuss general events). I simply want to explain the moderators and administrators for this forum are outstanding in comparison to others. I have personally spoken with many of them outside of the forums and they're excellent people. I used to have @KasperVld on my Steam friends list, and it was always nice to have an occasional conversation with  , I also often speak to @Vanamonde, @sal_vager, @DuoDex and @NathanKell, and Nathan has helped me and my team at the Real Space Program out on several occasions so, a specific shoutout to everything Nathan has done for us, you rock man. I have often also desired to join the moderating team, and maybe one day I will, but regardless of whether I'm a simple member of this community or a moderator, I can say that the decisions made by the moderating team is usually fair. I would do the same and if you would consider it from their perspective, you would to. So thank you Squad for your hard work this last 7 months, and thank you KSP Forum Moderating team for keeping this one of the best online communities!

[toric5]

at least for me, and the people i have talked to, its nothing to do with that. it is instead anger about their buisness practices. EA DLC is one thing, but it only really hurts the consumer. still, i would rather have that than know that the employees have been mistreated to a large extent, multiple great modders taken from the community by squad, seemingly to have a good job doing the work they were doing before, only to be used and thrown away.

[Tig]

" Don't Complain, Explain! "

Or, if I may, try to be part of the solution. 

 

I've been trying to assist @sarbian and @Padishar with narrowing down just one issue of the game, namely the stutter caused by the memory garbage collector.

@sarbian's thread were most of the GC discussion is taking place:

@Padishar's MemGraph which although not a total fix is a big step towards mitigating the issue:

It's a complicated issue.  Kerbal is built on Unity which in turns relies on Mono, and frankly, improvements could be made to all 3... I have no doubt Squad will be taking a look at their code to help, but they still have to operate within the framework the game is built upon.  Also, some modders out there are more cognizant of how their mods will interact with garbage collection than others.  That's not a shot at Squad, Unity, Mono or Modders.  It is what it is.  So either ***** and moan about it or try to help solve it.

That's just one issue.  Find one you care about.  Find others who care about it.  Try to fix it or at least help provide Squad with the data they need to fix it.

I'd also like to point out that I very much doubt that when Squad first started developing this game they thought they'd be maxing out high end cpus, that their program would need to handle 8GB+ of active memory usage, that they game would grow into what it has.  Yes, I'm sure they're appreciative but at the same time probably wonder what kind of a monster they created kreated.

 

PS. Well it is a bit of a shot at the garbage collector in the old version of mono.   

Edited May 24, 2016 by Tig

[J.Random]

Ah. Yet again, criticism is equated to hate. Beautiful.

[ZooNamedGames]

Just now, J.Random said:

Ah. Yet again, criticism is equated to hate. Beautiful.

Issue is, most of the "criticism" I see is in the form of hate. They are not beneficial and making attacks towards Squad do not benefit the game whatsoever.

I'm referring to topics like this one-

 

[m4v]

NO.

[J.Random]

8 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

I'm referring to topics like this one-

...and surely you can point out "hate" in it, right? All I see there is frustration of a paying customer who may or may not have been in a "we want update NOW" bandwagon but still ended up with a defective product in his hands.

[ZooNamedGames]

Just now, J.Random said:

...and surely you can point out "hate" in it, right? All I see there is frustration of a paying customer who may or may not have been in a "we want update NOW" bandwagon but still ended up with a defective product in his hands.

He's complaining about the issue rather than reporting it and then continuing to complain of moderation action. He's playing modded which is his own fault as to the defects.

Referring back to, "Don't Complain, Explain!".

5 minutes ago, m4v said:

NO.

?

[severedsolo]

8 minutes ago, J.Random said:

Ah. Yet again, criticism is equated to hate. Beautiful.

Except criticism for the sake of criticism is pointless. As others have said, be part of the solution.

I'm not going to point fingers and single anyone out, but I've seen long standing members of this community recently post threads asking questions like "are we going to get a fix for xyz" - without in anyway contributing to the solution, or helping the devs actually track down the problem in the first place.

Criticism is fine if you have a way around it/ can help. - For example - landing gears suck, Squad were told they sucked throughout pre-release, they acknowleged they sucked, they released while they still sucked. Do I like it? Of course not. You don't hear me banging on about it though, because it's not going to change anything, and I don't have a solution..

2 minutes ago, J.Random said:

All I see there is frustration of a paying customer who may or may not have been in a "we want update NOW" bandwagon but still ended up with a defective product in his hands.

Horses for Courses. The game basically works for me, no major issues, no game-breaking bugs. I would hardly call it defective. The thread you are talking about just complains his last thread is closed (and broke the rules as Kasper pointed out). The thread that was closed previously literally just went "are the devs on holiday, this game is broken" - not exactly helpful.

[NotaKlutz-42516]

Agreed. I believe Squad has worked hard to meet impatient, greedy demands.

[J.Random]

8 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

He's complaining about the issue rather than reporting it and then continuing to complain of moderation action.

Is that your definition of "hate"? OK.

8 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

He's playing modded which is his own fault as to the defects.

"It's his own fault" argument. Nice.

9 minutes ago, severedsolo said:

Criticism is fine if you have a way around it/ can help. - For example - landing gears suck, Squad were told they sucked throughout pre-release, they acknowleged they sucked, they released while they still sucked. Do I like it? Of course not. You don't hear me banging on about it though, because it's not going to change anything, and I don't have a solution..

I see a fallacy here. Whatever critics do, they're labeled as haters and pitchfork bearers. I shall once again remind you about 1.0. Before the "release", people asking Squad to stay in Beta were labeled as haters because "it's too early, we don't know what it will look like, Squad will deliver, etc." After the "release", critics were again labeled as haters because "what's done is done, it's too late, get over it, etc." Same happens with 1.1 prerelease, the only difference is there was no "before" thread - just because nobody knew the test will end so soon. I know I would create such a thread if I knew beforehand that Squad's going to "release" it in such state.

[ZooNamedGames]

12 minutes ago, J.Random said:

Is that your definition of "hate"? OK.

"It's his own fault" argument. Nice.

I see a fallacy here. Whatever critics do, they're labeled as haters and pitchfork bearers. I shall once again remind you about 1.0. Before the "release", people asking Squad to stay in Beta were labeled as haters because "it's too early, we don't know what it will look like, Squad will deliver, etc." After the "release", critics were again labeled as haters because "what's done is done, it's too late, get over it, etc." Same happens with 1.1 prerelease, the only difference is there was no "before" thread - just because nobody knew the test will end so soon. I know I would create such a thread if I knew beforehand that Squad's going to "release" it in such state.

He made attacks towards Squad, so yes that's hate. Not to mention his complaints don't help anything.

We need constructive critics, people who are willing to help fix the problem. People like the one mentioned simply say there's a problem, but we need them to explain the problem and let us fix it. Just saying there's a problem does nothing, we need effort. Being a good critic implies you want the critiqued item to be better, and simply calling out the flaws does nothing.

[severedsolo]

2 minutes ago, J.Random said:

Same happens with 1.1 prerelease, the only difference is there was no "before" thread - just because nobody knew the test will end so soon. I know I would create such a thread if I knew beforehand that Squad's going to "release" it in such state.

 I'm not calling anybody a hater or a pitchfork bearer. I would argue it's your right, even your duty to point out issues as you come across them, for everyone's sake. Nobody, squad included, wants the game to be buggy. What I'm saying is, don't just go "the game is broken fix it" because that doesn't help anyone.

What does a thread saying "You should all be fired for closing my unhelpful thread" contribute to fixing these issues? It's just white noise, and we could do without it, so the devs can focus on proper player feedback (not saying the OP was not a proper player, just that his feedback was... unhelpful).

 

 

 

[Brian444444]

I guess the only thing I would add here is that it has become the norm across all software, games, O/S's, whatever really to release without solid testing. Now we can argue the definition of "solid" testing, but that is what the norm has become. As consumers of these products its HIGHLY frustrating after YEARS of this practice to not be irritated when you sit down with all these great promises and its only 25%-50% functional and the expectation is that the consuming public essentially acts as beta testers. This isn't a shot at Squad but everyone that makes software. I can't tell you the last time I saw a release of software that was for all intents and purposes bug free or even close for that matter.

While Squad isn't doing anything different than anyone else in the market place in this regard that doesn't make it any less frustrating for us the consumer. But if Squad is at fault anywhere here in my mind its that they didn't resist the community pressure to release something that wasn't ready.

People who are "hating" are just frustrated and everyone expresses themselves differently. But I do agree that we need to do our best as the community to chip in and work with squad to get these issues resolved. It is what it is and just complaining isn't going to help the situation one bit. I have entered a bug report. Yes it is time I could have spent doing something else, but if I don't tell them they aren't going to know its a problem. There are too many O/S's, too many differences in hardware, too many mods, etc..., etc... for a realistic expectation of thorough testing without the cost of the game being outrageous.

Patience grasshoppers.

[steve_v]

We had an opportunity for constructive criticism - the pre-release. The game was released anyway, the issues raised through constructive criticism remaining addressed. Therefore pitchforks.

[J.Random]

@ZooNamedGames, who are these "us" you're referring to, demanding for a rushed releases and then fixing bugs in a commercial proprietary product? If you're part of "us" and have a say in this organization, tell them I don't like "us" and "us" should stop asking for rushed releases. Thanks in advance.

26 minutes ago, severedsolo said:

I'm not calling anybody a hater or a pitchfork bearer.

This thread identifies criticism as "hate".

26 minutes ago, severedsolo said:

What does a thread saying "You should all be fired for closing my unhelpful thread" contribute to fixing these issues?

It was "I would be fired if I released like this and go on vacation", not what you said. Again, I see no hate there, just frustration. And however (un)helpful it is, it's still a feedback.

I think both of you are under impression that the game is still in Early Access. Telling people to "report and move on because it's unhelpful" implies "and nobody cares" as well - at least the "move on" part does. The only false argument this thread lacks is "everyone in game industry does it". No, this thread has everything now.

Edited May 24, 2016 by J.Random

[ZooNamedGames]

12 minutes ago, J.Random said:

@ZooNamedGames, who are these "us" you're referring to, demanding for a rushed releases and then fixing bugs in a commercial proprietary product? If you're part of "us" and have a say in this organization, tell them I don't like "us" and "us" should stop asking for rushed releases. Thanks in advance.

This thread identifies criticism as "hate".

It was "I would be fired if I released like this and go on vacation", not what you said. Again, I see no hate there, just frustration. And however (un)helpful it is, it's still a feedback.

I think both of you are under impression that the game is still in Early Access. Telling people to "report and move on because it's unhelpful" implies "and nobody cares" as well - at least the "move on" part does. The only false argument this thread lacks is "everyone in game industry does it". No, this thread has everything now.

Pointless criticism and telling them "they'd be fired" is hate. Frustration is just a second away from insults. Frustrated comments are not effective feedback and is better left unsaid.

The game is in constant development. It is continuous alteration, and with new content comes new bugs. Complaining that something is broken does nothing, we need to know the problem so we can fix it. Complaining your car doesn't drive well doesn't do anything for the mechanic, but telling him your tires are flat is a problem he can fix.

 

[Gaarst]

Fixing bugs is what a pre-release is made for.

1.1 has bugs that should have been fixed in the pre-release, there is no excuse for that.

When one on the major feature of 1.1 that we have been sold is the new wheels mechanics, and when that feature is buggy as hell 3 patches after (.0, .1 and .2) there is something wrong. And don't get me started on the VAB crashes which simply prevent me and others from playing the game.

I'm complaining that something is broken because it should not be broken. Pre-release was the time for constructive criticism and we all see how that turned out.

Edited May 24, 2016 by Gaarst

[Scourge013]

Long term lurker, few time poster.  But I've followed KSP's development closely since buying the game (since version 18 something or other--the build before going to Steam IIRC).  I've been around a while in other words.  While "hating" Squad is certainly inappropriate, Squad has done some things that deserve criticism...and despite that criticism being structured, persuasive, and, well, prominent in the KSP community, Squad hasn't been very receptive to it.  This does deserve frustration on the part of the community towards Squad.  Not hate. Frustration.  Similar emotions, perhaps, but ultimately very different.  Long-timers like me might be frustrated at some persistent patterns of behavior that Squad has refused to change despite being detrimental to the ongoing KSP project.

Here are the behaviors as I see it/heard others describe them:

1) Closed testing of Release Candidate builds.  In a lot of respects, the run up to 1.1 was the ONLY time Squad did it half-way right...they released a public Beta branch on steam to collect information on bugs and hiccups from the general KSP community to get fixes in.  For most of the game's life, release candidate-type builds were only made available to a select few Twitch and Youtube personalities, who were mostly under non-disclosure agreements.  There are some pure testers in the "Experimental" group but whatever playable experiments they are doing, too, remained under wraps. Their job (Experimental testers, particularly the media personalities) seems to be not to test the game, but to create media showing a more or less bug free experience, to promote the game and the new features coming out in that update. Many times I recall certain personalities explicitly mentioning that they'd encountered bugs, but refused to elaborate saying that they've told Squad of the bug and expect it to be squished by the time we ordinary folks get the build.  Who knows how much follow through there was on that.  It's very frustrating to watch promotional content instead of gameplay content.

2) Despite testing, critical bugs affecting basic game play slip through into almost every build...and lay unaddressed for months.  A prime example would be the bugs with the temperature gauges from 1.0.x.  The new heating concept was one of the major (and completely untested in terms of the larger KSP community) features in the 1.0 update.  The very thing that would let you know you are overheating CAUSES THE GAME TO CRASH.  A single play-test launch of a re-entering rocket seems like it would have caught the issue...seeing as many players encountered the bug literally on their first post-update launch.  I remember a very frustrating Twitch stream I was doing on launch day playing the same launch over and over and over until a helpful chat member told me that I needed to turn the gauges off because they caused a critical memory leak.  This bug existed FOR MONTHS and essentially removed a critical part of the game from the experience for that whole time.  Very frustrating.

3) Engine Denial.  KSP's vision was always too grand for a 32-bit game.  There existed an opportunity for a good long while to use Unity 4's 64-bit engine and/or Unity 5's engine almost a year before 1.1 even started work.  Squad appeared to hem and haw at the idea of upgrading the thing, despite the smoother experience this would have created for users--and I'm not including the users who would mod the game--I've always considered people who mod the game to exist outside of valid complaints in regards to KSP stability.  But still, extending Early Access to implement a new engine was a realistic expectation, but they reflectively chose not to do it, for reasons that still elude me.

4) Recent KSP build create that unique "I wish I had something I already have" feeling.  At least for me.  When I first came here I had a game, that while less feature complete, was much more polished.  Sure there were bugs in all versions of KSP, but right around when they introduced the Science-only career mode, the game was pretty good.  It was well polished...the bugs were present, but didn't get in the way of every trivial or routine task.  They weren't something you had to deal with until you stumbled across them by accident.  And you could always revert your save and deal with it that way.

Now the story is different.  Bugs are present in EVERYTHING.  First it was re-entry heating and the heat gauges mucking things up...something you have to deal with EVERY time.  Now taking off and landing a plane or just driving a rover around, the new wheel system is terrible (and what's more is that there were previous incarnations during the beta-phase of 1.1 where wheels seemed objectively better to me...).  I find myself pining for previous versions of the game, just before version .90 where bugs were less in your face.  It's very frustrating to see the game experience decline so dramatically from what we can remember.

So yeah...I don't hate Squad.  But I'm frustrated with them.  I haven't played KSP for a long time in a long time.  Just little sessions every now and then...I encounter some well-documented bug on the forum and stop playing days or even weeks in the hopes the game updates.  But I know from experience it will be months.  That the community at large won't play test the update and that ultimately I'll be drawn back to the game by a heavily edited Scott Manley video, only to experience disappointment that some glaring technical issues were created or remain unfixed.  How else would you recommend that I (and others with a similar viewpoint) feel towards the developers?

[Majorjim!]

30 minutes ago, NotaKlutz-42516 said:

Agreed. I believe Squad has worked hard to meet impatient, greedy demands.

Nope. They set an arbitrary release date of last Christmas. Nobody forced them to do anything. I want to make that clear, for clarity.

[m4v]

15 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

The game is in constant development. It is continuous alteration, and with new content comes new bugs. Complaining that something is broken does nothing, we need to know the problem so we can fix it. Complaining your car doesn't drive well doesn't do anything for the mechanic, but telling him your tires are flat is a problem he can fix.

 

Squad knew of all the problems before releasing it, there is a bug tracker full of that information y'know. If Squad releases a broken game despite all that constructive criticism and information then what else there's left to do than complain about Squad's lack of professionalism? They should have held the release and leave the pre-release branch open, but they didn't. Whatever hate they now have they brought it to themselves and deserve all of it.

And we need to complain and whine because that's the only way the people of Squad that pulls all the strings will take notice, they aren't part of the development team and they don't give a crap about your "constructive criticism".

Edited May 24, 2016 by m4v

[J.Random]

29 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

Pointless criticism and telling them "they'd be fired" is hate. Frustration is just a second away from insults. Frustrated comments are not effective feedback and is better left unsaid.

 Stating the obvious and comparing working conditions is hate? Seriously? "Frustration may lead to insults" doesn't mean "frustration is insults" either.

29 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

The game is in constant development. It is continuous alteration, and with new content comes new bugs. Complaining that something is broken does nothing, we need to know the problem so we can fix it. Complaining your car doesn't drive well doesn't do anything for the mechanic, but telling him your tires are flat is a problem he can fix.

First, the car metaphor. In this case, the car is a solid black box, and when it dies in the middle of your ride, the only thing it says is "0xc0000005". When asked for a debug, less black-boxish version of a car, developer answered with "no can do". Now, you mention this "us" (or "we", I'm not sure if it's the same one) organization again. Are they going to fix this specific problem? I thought not. Second, complaining is the best some people can do - you can't expect everyone to be a car mechanic. Saying "we don't like your feedback, therefore we don't want it, report and move on" is kinda bad business practice.

Edited May 24, 2016 by J.Random

[The_Rocketeer]

3 hours ago, severedsolo said:

I've seen long standing members of this community recently post threads asking questions like "are we going to get a fix for xyz" - without in anyway contributing to the solution, or helping the devs actually track down the problem in the first place.

Criticism is fine if you have a way around it/ can help. - For example - landing gears suck, Squad were told they sucked throughout pre-release, they acknowleged they sucked, they released while they still sucked. Do I like it? Of course not. You don't hear me banging on about it though, because it's not going to change anything, and I don't have a solution..

'Are we going to get a fix' questions are totally legitimate. People play the game, they see something broken, it bothers them, they want to know if it'll get fixed. Why is this not acceptable? 'Long-standing members of this community' have probably been living with these bugs for as long or longer than anyone.

We don't have any responsibility for being part of the solution at all. Regardless, simply pointing out weaknesses in Squad's product is being part of the solution, because it identifies them for Squad's attention. Bug reports are a way for developers to outsource quality control, nothing more. As consumers, it's our legitimate right to complain about being used to job by people we're already paying to do the job themselves!

2 hours ago, J.Random said:

I think both of you are under impression that the game is still in Early Access. Telling people to "report and move on because it's unhelpful" implies "and nobody cares" as well - at least the "move on" part does. The only false argument this thread lacks is "everyone in game industry does it". No, this thread has everything now.

Right on.

2 hours ago, ZooNamedGames said:

Pointless criticism and telling them "they'd be fired" is hate.

No it isn't. Hate is going to Squad's offices and posting flaming turds thru the letterbox. Hate is egging Squad's cars. Stop being so hyperbolic. It's a letter intended to make a point, and that makes it - drumroll please - NOT pointless. Just because you don't approve personally and would like to make a public expression of how 'in the club' you feel doesn't make you right.

[Kevin Kyle]

I know a few devs and all Im going to say is that they are people just like the rest of us only we expect miracles of them. Thanks dev team for all you have done and thanks to all that contributed as well. Im more than willing to give then a break. If I never played KSP again, it would still be one of the best values I ever got in this crazy world we live in. Ever!

Edited May 24, 2016 by Kevin Kyle

[ZooNamedGames]

If you all have a better suggestion then I would rather see you attempt to make your own game and make your own solutions. It's their product, and therefore their decisions.