Doom posting

[Kertech]

So yes crashes can be annoying (like trying to build the same ship 3 times before giving up and going to bed and not picking the game up for a couple of days!) But KSP is still one of the best games I've ever played and there is nothing else equal to it! There are things you can do, if it's a modded instal, remove some mods, it might not be squad. Also obvious things: periodically SAVE your ship in the VAB/SPH! That way you won't lose progres! Also report you bug here and hopefully it'll be resolved! Shouting at the world is constructive, but being part of a solution will benefit everyone. 

Edited June 6, 2016 by Kertech
forgot a bracket+OCD never a good mix

[steve_v]

If you can explain how complaining about people complaining is more constructive that complaining in the first place, please, go ahead.
As for reporting bugs, I have. No dice, unless you count "Known Unity issue, no fix" replies as "constructive".

[p1t1o]

3 hours ago, steve_v said:

If you can explain how complaining about people complaining is more constructive that complaining in the first place, please, go ahead.
As for reporting bugs, I have. No dice, unless you count "Known Unity issue, no fix" replies as "constructive".

Did you just complain about someone complaining about someone complaining? I take issue with that

[Atlas2342]

1 hour ago, p1t1o said:

Did you just complain about someone complaining about someone complaining? I take issue with that

*Complainception* 

Edited June 6, 2016 by Atlas2342

[Brainlord Mesomorph]

(yet another please stop complaining post?)

I’m sorry, but we're not poodleing.  This isn’t “whaaaa, my toy is broken.”

While users can post an infinite number of individual bug reports (apparently!) There still needs to be a discussion of the overall state of the game, and what, if I may call them, failures of strategy and management led to the current state.

I’m a professional software developer so I have insight into the whole version number trickery thing, and what it takes to prep a product, roll it out, and support it.  You may not remember, but this game went very quickly from 0.25 to 0.9, 1.0,[EDIT: I forgot 1.05] 1.1, and now 1.1.2. (by my count this should be around version 0.7) And I don’t know whose idea it was to release version 1.0 as a Unity 4 product, and then upgrade the engine the Unity 5.  That was an accident waiting to happen.

And as I write that, it suddenly occurs to me: They must have known this is going to happen.  They knew that by migrating to Unity 5 was going cause massive headaches, they had a relatively stable Unity 4 build, so they call that, 1.0.  Get out of the prerelease section on Steam, then migrate to Unity5.  If they went to Unity5 first, it would be another six moths to a year before they would have something stable enough to call 1.0.

But what they didn’t count on is  by calling it 1.0 they essentially fired their entire free beta department (you and me). 

And they didn’t count on how angry we would be when our now post-1.0 product is buggier then it was in prerelease.  The game that I love (and I do) is now crashing every 20 minutes.  And I’m certain it isn’t a single thing they haven’t heard from somebody else. 

We’re trying to be patient, we really are.

Edited June 7, 2016 by Brainlord Mesomorph

[Xavven]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. The mere act of posting about the game crashing, I have no problem with. And there have been some so-called "complaining threads" that were fairly level-headed and constructive. But there are also some that do come off as "whaaaa, my toy is broken" and that's simply off-putting to me. I believe the dysphemism for it is "rage quitting."

Please do report bugs and share your experiences with the game. Please don't be "that guy" who rage quits. That is all.

[Guest]

What I find most difficult about rage quitting is smashing only the stuff that needs to be smashed. I usually just go into a general "smash everything" fit, and then later I have to replace the stuff that didn't need smashing, and I get mad all over again.

Edited June 6, 2016 by Red Iron Crown
Easy with the language, please.

[The_Rocketeer]

@Brainlord Mesomorph what does 'poodleing' mean? I've never heard this word used this way!

[Snark]

So, gonna take my moderator hat off for a moment.  I'm speaking here purely as an avid KSP player, as a modder, and (not incidentally) as a professional software engineer with over 20 years of experience in the industry.

I'm not going to try to address the issue of complaints, or the manner in which they're given, or who complained about complainers, or any of that.  As I say, I'm not speaking as a moderator, here, so I won't concern myself with that.  I do have a lot of relevant technical experience in this area, however, so I'd like to make a few practical points about the nature of software, of software engineering, of shipping a product, and of bugs.

If I'm understanding the points of contention, here (not just in this thread, but also in a lot of similar ones I've seen), the complaints generally boil down to some combination of the following:

• KSP 1.1+ is overflowing chock full of bugs.  So badly that it's broken / unplayable / not possible to enjoy.
• And it shouldn't be, and Squad has been derelict in their duty for shipping software with so many bugs in it.
• And Squad should have done X instead of what they did, because Things Would Have Been Better then.  (Where "X" varies from post to post, but is generally "something different than what happened.")

So, a few observations:

 

"KSP 1.1+ is overflowing chock full of bugs.  So badly that it's broken / unplayable / not possible to enjoy."

Really?  What's your evidence for that?  I'm not saying you're wrong-- simply stating it as an honest question, where's the evidence?

I've seen several people post polls in this forum, asking basically "what's your experience" to get a feel for whether people are playing just fine, or having minor bug issues that don't impact game enjoyment, or broken/unplayable, or what.  And in every case I've seen, the large majority of poll respondents say "works just fine"-- and the next biggest category is "minor bugs, still enjoy the game."  I know that I play KSP just fine, and it works great, and I have a lot of fun doing it.  My last crash was a month ago; I think I've had maybe a couple of them since 1.1 shipped.  In fact, I've actually been getting considerably fewer crashes post-1.1 than pre-1.1.  And from what I've read in the forums, I'm far from alone in that experience.

So saying "the game is broken" is hyperbole, at best.  Anyone who makes such sweeping statements is demonstrably wrong.  They're not helping anything.  You can say that you are having a problem, but not that "the game is broken."

Not only are such sweeping statements not helpful-- they're actually harmful, because they can lead to an "echo chamber" effect in which people just hear this constant refrain and jump on the bandwagon without actually looking at the real issues.  It results in people who actually aren't having bugs erroneously jumping to that conclusion, which causes further confusion and doesn't help anyone.

For example:  consider airplane landing gear.  Lengthy discussion in spoiler section.

Spoiler

Sure, there may be bugs there.  I have to say "may" because I haven't experienced any myself; I haven't had any unexplainable problems with the landing gear at all.  I can land and take off just fine, including on the tier-0 runway, including landing on bumpy terrain.  And I'm not some sort of airplane expert, either (I'm mainly a rocket guy).  I did experience some cognitive dissonance initially ("why the heck do my landing gear keep exploding?!"), but as soon as I got the memo (namely, that "gear is no longer magically indestructible" and "it can only carry a certain amount of weight" and "bigger gear = stronger"), I simply put bigger gear on my planes and the problem was solved.

But let's grant that there are legitimate bugs there, which affect certain people in certain situations.  So, it's a good idea to raise that by posting angry "Landing gear is broken!" posts in the forums, right?

...Except that in virtually every such thread that I've seen, when the other posters in the thread got to the bottom of the issue, it actually wasn't a bug.  The large majority of cases appear to be player error.  "Hey, every time I try to land my 30-ton plane on three tiny landing gear, they blow up!"  Well, yes.  That's a design feature, not a bug.  It means you have to use bigger gear than you used to.  It means that the rules have changed and you have to adjust to the new rules, the same way that rocket-flyers did when the new aero arrived with 1.0.

That's not to play down the people who do have legitimate problems, and I'm sure they're there, and when such a problem does crop up, sure, it's important to provide a useful, informative, reproducible piece of feedback so that somebody can go fix it.  But the cavalcade of people who are simply Doing It Wrong, blaring "the game is broke!" all the time, causes a kind of "echo chamber" in which that becomes What Everyone Is Saying.

And that's harmful-- because it means that people who are getting bitten by a design feature don't realize it, assume it's a bug, and don't learn how to adapt their play to the new rules of the game.

There's nothing wrong with being a vocal proponent of fixing something that's broken.  But please, for the sake of everyone in the forums, could you do this?

1. Don't jump to the conclusion that what happened to you is a bug in the game.
2. Do bring it up-- not as an angry "it's broke!", simply as a "Here is what happened to me, is this a bug?"
3. ...and provide plenty of relevant information when doing so, including a screenshot, and the relevant stats of your craft, and the list of what mods you're running.

 

"Never mind that it works fine for you or umpty thousand other people.  It's broken for me and I'm upset about that."

Well, of course you're upset.  I honestly can't blame you.  KSP is really fun, I've been playing it for years, and if it got to a state where it was so badly broken I couldn't play it, then I'd be upset, too.

However, again, please be careful about laying blame.  Lengthy explanation in spoiler section, but the TL;DR is:  It's okay to be upset.  But please don't blame Squad unless it's demonstrably their fault.  And in many cases (e.g. your problem is game crashing, and you are running any mods at all), then that is not the case.  Reproduce the crash in pure stock before you call it Squad's fault.

Spoiler

Let's say you have an aggravating problem in which the game keeps crashing to desktop.  How sure are you that it's actually Squad's fault?  (Hint:  If you're running any mods at all, then you're not.)

I've had a remarkably stable experience with the game, post-1.1.  Considerably fewer crashes than pre-1.1.  Works great.

But then, I run pretty close to stock, compared with an awful lot of KSP players.  I'm not any kind of purist, I simply happen to like the stock experience and prefer to just gussy it up a little rather than completely overhaul it.  I'm running fewer than a dozen mods, and none of them are "big".  PlanetShine, Kopernicus, SpaceY (a parts pack with no code in it), NavBall Docking Alignment Indicator.  A half-dozen of my own mods (none of which are really huge).  And that's about it.  No MechJeb, no KER, none of the big mods that really get into the guts of the game.

And running KSP with such a light mod load works just fine for me.

And I see an awful lot of KSP players out there who routinely play with dozens of mods installed.

And mods can cause crashes.

So if you're having crash problems, my first question is:  are you running stock?  Pure stock?  Because unless you're running pure stock, how do you know that it wasn't the mod causing the crash, rather than KSP itself?

And, if you aren't running pure stock... you're not doing yourself or anyone else a favor to complain about crashes.  Because not only is it not obvious whether the crash comes from KSP itself, but it's not "actionable intelligence"-- the KSP devs can't really do much with "some random user running some random collection of mods that the KSP team didn't write had a crash."

If you can reliably reproduce your crash in a stock game, then by all means report the bug to Squad in their bug tracker.  Mention it in the forums, so other users know about the issue.

But until and unless you do that... you're not in any position to point the Finger Of Blame™ at anyone.

 

"It's Squad's fault that there are so many bugs, and we should be mad at them."

I've ranted at this at length elsewhere, so I'll skip much of it here, but my response to that boils down to:  Bugs happen.  It is mathematically impossible to ship software without bugs in it.  It's just a matter of how many you ship with.  There are a lot of factors that go into that, but they come down to two things:

• People.
• Time.

If you can throw a couple of hundred engineers at the problem, with a comparably sized QA staff, then you can ship a really polished product.  Or if you can spend years and years working on it, you can also get your bug count really low.

But when you're a tiny indie game company with like half a dozen developers, and you have to push things out in months rather than years, there simply isn't the time to turn out software with six nines of reliability.  Cannot be done.

When you shell out your US$20 or $40 or whatever, what you're buying is the result of a tiny team of passionate, dedicated, hard-working people who are doing the best they can.  And I think they've done a pretty good job.  I say this as a professional software engineer with over 20 years of experience in the industry, in companies large and small.  I have a pretty good idea of what "crap" looks like, and I contend that KSP isn't it.

If you are a professional software engineer (and I know I'm not the only one here!) and differ with this opinion, then great, let's have a discussion. 

But if you're not in the industry, then with all due respect, you are in no position to have the slightest clue about what Squad "should" be able to do, and you're not helping anyone by pointing the Finger Of Blame.

You can legitimately say that "I don't like the experience I have as a player."  You can vote with your wallet, and decide that US$20 or $40 or whatever was too steep a price to pay for the thousands of hours of entertainment you've gotten from the game, and warn your friends away, if you like.

 

"Okay, there are bugs, but they should have <done something different than what they did>."

I hear this kind of statement frequently.  The <something different> varies from post to post.  They should have kept it in experimentals longer.  They should have used a different version numbering scheme.  They should have gone to Unity 5 earlier.  They should have gone to Unity 5 later.  And so on and so forth.

Next mini-rant on the topic in yet another spoiler section, but it boils down to:  all the evidence indicates that these are smart, hard-working people who are doing their best.  Software development is hard, and shipping software requires dealing with many constraints that people outside the industry (or even outside the particular company) can't appreciate.  So before playing armchair general and saying that Squad should have done something different than what they did, consider how it is that you know better than they do how to run their business.

Spoiler

It boils down to this:  If you believe that Squad's software management and release strategy is egregiously wrong-- and you think you know better than they do-- then on what do you base that assumption?  Are you in the software industry?  Do you work at Squad, and have visibility into all of their various constraints?  It's easy to be an armchair general.  It's easy to point a finger at what they did and say "this thing they did here is bad, and they should have done this other thing instead."  But if you have no insight into why they did that (hint: you don't), then you're in no position to judge.  The <something different> you're proposing could have been worse.

For you, me, or anyone who doesn't work at Squad to really be able to say "they totally screwed up and should have done something different," then essentially we'd have to believe one of the following:

1. They're masochists who enjoy being lambasted.
2. They're a bunch of evil jerks who don't give a darn about the player base.
3. They're a bunch of incompetent fumblethumbs who couldn't code their way out of a paper bag.

I think we can safely dispense with #1.  Nobody wants to ship a buggy product.

#2 certainly exists in the world... but from the enthusiastic engagement that I've seen from Squad staff here in the forums, I really don't think that's it.  I've never seen such a friendly, engaged company.  Time and time again I'll see a player post a problem, and an actual developer will jump in and answer their question personally.  That's not just refreshing, it's astonishing.  I've never seen that level of commitment to users from any other software company.  They're batting that one out of the frickin' park.

And as for #3... sure, there are incompetent coders out there in the world.  But I have seen zero evidence to suggest that anybody at Squad fits that category; quite the contrary.  For one thing, as a modder, I've done a fair amount of poking around in KSP's internals, and I've had a lot of technical discussions in which Squad devs joined in, and I have to say that they've done a solid job.  Not perfect, and sure there are some rough edges here and there where KSP shows that something had to be turned out in a hurry-- but by and large, they're technically very impressive people who do good work.

Look:  Nobody's perfect, including Squad.  I'm not saying they never make mistakes.  But they're skilled, smart, hard-working people who are operating under time and manpower constraints, and very often in software development there are hard choices where the best you can do is pick the lesser of two evils.

If you don't know the reasons that went into particular decisions, you're really not in any position to judge.  So maybe tone down the rhetoric a little?

I don't work for Squad, so I don't know any better than you do what happens inside the company.  All I can do, like you, is look at the externally observable evidence and results.

And what I've seen looks like a company that's doing things just fine, given the constraints they have to work with.  Not perfect, certainly, since nobody is.  But pretty darn reasonable, all things considered.

Doesn't mean I'm necessarily right ...just the opinion of a 20+ year veteran software engineer, for what it's worth.

 

 

[DChurchill]

25 minutes ago, The_Rocketeer said:

@Brainlord Mesomorph what does 'poodleing' mean? I've never heard this word used this way!

I expect that he's been hit by the Forum Profanity Filter^TM  

[JoeNapalm]

 

Just going to throw out there that doing a full, clean reinstall takes less time than a doom posting, if you have any kind of reasonable internet.

If you haven't done that, first, you should stop mid-rant and do so. Would probably prevent 90% of the frustrations being vented here.

If you've done that, and you're still having issues, my condolences -- you're not one of the people I'm talking to, right now.

 

-Jn-

[The_Rocketeer]

@Snark not that I disagree with your whole post - much good advice - but the 'KSP Since 1.1' poll I conducted (which I think is the only one that directly tackled the 'how often are you experiencing bugs' question) actually only showed a very small majority (<55%) having 'infrequent' bug problems, and a very large minority (>35%) having frequent bug problems. To dismiss these complaints out of hand for lack of evidence, or even suggest that such evidence doesn't exist, is a bit unfair.

Edited June 6, 2016 by The_Rocketeer

[DChurchill]

2 minutes ago, The_Rocketeer said:

@Snark not that I disagree with your whole post - much good advice - but the 'KSP Since 1.1' poll I conducted (which I think is the only one that directly tackled the 'how often are you experiencing bugs' question) actually only showed a very small majority (<55%) having 'infrequent' bug problems, and a very large minority (>35%) having frequent bug problems. To dismiss these complaints out of hand for lack of evidence, or even suggest that such evidence doesn't exist, is a bit unfair.

So what is it you want to happen?

[The_Rocketeer]

@DChurchill, in what sense? I want the devs to bring out a bugfix release as soon as it's ready and not before... beyond that, mostly I just want forum posts to be accurate and fair rather than inaccurate and unfair. << this read as a bit accusatory which it wasn't supposed to be.

And, so far as possible, kindness would always be good too.

Edited June 6, 2016 by The_Rocketeer

[Wallygator]

A possible constructive intervention here would be for a new forum section be established called 'General Complaining".  When a complaining thread is discovered, it can be moved into this new section by a moderator.  

The benefit of this would be that when anyone needs to get their "fix" regarding reading about complaining, they know where to go and that ALL the threads will be there with out the clutter of other non-complaining threads. Also, complaints would then be filtered out of the general discussion section and the propensity of a "fanboy pile-on" suffocating a valid complaint would be reduced.

I think this a pretty good idea - with the caveat that there is a bug reporting process and tracker, blah blah blah... just in case someone wants to report details of an error instead of general complaining.

All the above said, I do not advocate a clampdown on general complaining - complaints are a good temperature check regarding overall community satisfaction. More complaints helps drive up squads motivation to undertake improvements --> Because many complaints are not just bug related.

[DChurchill]

Just now, The_Rocketeer said:

@DChurchill I want the devs to bring out a bugfix release as soon as it's ready and not before...

This is the only reasonable answer, I expect that's exactly what they're doing. Poodling why things happened or why didn't things happen about anything else isn't going to do anything. I don't think anyone is dismissing complaints out of hand but at some point, you have to turn on the noise filter.

"This is broken! How did it happen?"

"It's being worked on."

"It's still broken! Why?"

"They're working on it."

"But it's broken!"

Ad nauseam.

[The_Rocketeer]

@DChurchill I'm glad you approve, but did u mean to suggest that my comments about accuracy and fairness weren't reasonable?

I agree with your general point, but I don't think that 'complaints about complaints' is really a solution - this sort of response just draws out the thread. Before my polls I was guilty of the same (check the last few pages of the pinned Grand 1.1 Discussion Thread), but I decided that rather than prolong the debate, it would be better and more constructive to simply gather attitudes in one place by poll. Of course the polls then drew their own fire from various malcontents.

I still think by far the best way to deal with these rage-quits or flamers is just to ignore them if you disagree and let them fade away. The best responses (and the only really valid ones) are those that offer advice about how to resolve the issue or that simply state it's a known bug and Squad are aware. Moaning about people moaning just makes an awful lot of moaning, and I think nearly all of us are pretty sick of moaning in general (yes the irony of this sentence isn't wasted on me, but what can a guy do?).

[Malich]

18 minutes ago, The_Rocketeer said:

@Snark not that I disagree with your whole post - much good advice - but the 'KSP Since 1.1' poll I conducted (which I think is the only one that directly tackled the 'how often are you experiencing bugs' question) actually only showed a very small majority (<55%) having 'infrequent' bug problems, and a very large minority (>35%) having frequent bug problems. To dismiss these complaints out of hand for lack of evidence, or even suggest that such evidence doesn't exist, is a bit unfair.

but this comes down to what they are considering as bugs. The lower strength landing gear is not a bug as such but if people keep blowing up their gear and voted as "regular bugs" it's not an accurate poll. 

I find myself in the "some bugs but not enough to spoil my fun" camp. I get a get a couple of CTDs for every 8 or 9 hours of play time, usually early on in a session such as my first EVA or my first revision to a larger design. Its frustrating I agree and part of me wishes Squad had fixed it before releasing. I'd have been happy puttering on with 1.0.5 for a bit longer. But we all saw the forum users complaining every time 1.1 was pushed back regardless of how many bugs were being reported. Sometimes any parent is going to cave and give their kid something if they complain enough even if they know it will cause more problems in the long run just to get a moment (or 3 weeks in Squad's case) of peace to gather their wits and get ready for the next round.

Do "Its broke.... fix it" posts help? No.

Do "You're broke, fix yourself" posts help? No.

Do "I'm having XYZ problem, this is my bug report, anyone go any clues?" posts help? ... Maybe.

The game WILL get fixed. When it gets fixed depends on how much useful information Squad has to work with (Not a 20 year software engineer but accident investigations are part of my job and its a similar concept). "It's broken" tells them nothing. "On a clean install if I try to put a 3 way symmetry  round a part that is itself 4 way symmetry the VAB explodes and Jed dances the Macarenna!" gives a very specific, reproducible method that they can look in to.

to my mind, and this is my opinion only, complaining about the problem, complaining about Squad and complaining about the complaining is part of the problem, not the solution. It's clogging the forums, its diluting the useful information.

Please, please, please for the love or god and puppies stop with the complaints and start with the information!

[Brainlord Mesomorph]

52 minutes ago, Snark said:

And it shouldn't be, and Squad has been derelict in their duty for shipping software with so many bugs in it.

THIS.

As a professional developer. THIS. 

Yes, bugs happen, but just don't ship it yet.

Edited June 6, 2016 by Brainlord Mesomorph

[DChurchill]

1 minute ago, The_Rocketeer said:

@DChurchill I'm glad you approve, but did u mean to suggest that my comments about accuracy and fairness weren't reasonable?

Not at all. I was pointing out your reasonableness and agreeing.

These kind of threads are the boards attempt to moderate itself. No one want's to stifle anyone, it's just that lots of people are getting tired of it. Thus my question, what do you expect to happen? If it's anything other than what you answered, it's unreasonable and unlikely to happen. All that's been acknowledged. Yes, it's broken. Yes, it's being fixed. What else is there to say?

 

[regex]

1 minute ago, Brainlord Mesomorph said:

Yes, bugs happen, but just don't ship it.

So basically the customer never gets the product they paid for?

Seems legit (as a professional developer).

Edited June 6, 2016 by regex

[DChurchill]

2 minutes ago, Brainlord Mesomorph said:

THIS.

As a professional developer. THIS. 

Yes, bugs happen, but just don't ship it yet.

Sorry, I think you're wrong here. Especially since 1.0.5 is still there.

[severedsolo]

35 minutes ago, The_Rocketeer said:

@Snark not that I disagree with your whole post - much good advice - but the 'KSP Since 1.1' poll I conducted (which I think is the only one that directly tackled the 'how often are you experiencing bugs' question) actually only showed a very small majority (<55%) having 'infrequent' bug problems, and a very large minority (>35%) having frequent bug problems. To dismiss these complaints out of hand for lack of evidence, or even suggest that such evidence doesn't exist, is a bit unfair.

Not gonna argue with your figures, but you do have to take into account that people are less likely to take to the forums/complain/look at/vote in polls about bugs when everything is working ok.

I don't really have a point, just pointing out human nature I guess.

Edited June 6, 2016 by severedsolo

[DChurchill]

6 minutes ago, regex said:

So basically the customer never gets the product they paid for?

Seems legit (as a professional developer).

You pre-ordered duke nukem, didn't ya.

[regex]

Just now, DChurchill said:

You pre-ordered duke nukem, didn't ya.

Hah, no, but I remember the lesson I learned from Mechwarrior 2 to this day.