A week in... 10% still playing

[Alexoff]

1 hour ago, jost said:

This is a stupid question in any case.  Do someone really expect that a team member will say anything bad about their companys products? Most companys don't like workers who tell the customers "Our product is crap at the moment" and would fire them. 
I really don't understand why people ask such silly questions: First (see above) the answer will always be that everythings gonna be allright. But even if the answer would be a more honest one: What's actually the benefit of getting such an answer? The state of the game is not improved in both cases. 

Why ask questions at all? As for the features - we will get them when they are made in the form in which they are made. As for bugs - they will be fixed someday. As for the game, it is what it is. Everything is so clear to everyone.

22 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Getting a smiley face for the forums after people got fired and there's less than 500 people playing your game, half of them mad.

I wonder if Nate played KSP2 during the holidays? Did he enjoy the product that his studio is so proud of? Will we continue to be kept informed about who in the studio will go on vacation?

4 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

I can only see that through posts of other players who seem satisfied with optimisations done so far.

You can only talk about acceptable optimization in KSP2 if you haven’t played other computer games for 50 bucks before February 24, 2023.

8 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

If we get monthly patches that are effective as the last two, then no. It will take significantly less.

Apparently he noticed the resentment of the fans who bought the game.

9 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

If we get monthly patches that are effective as the last two, then no. It will take significantly less.

Well, maybe 3-4 years. If the developers do not add any new features.

[Lyneira]

3 hours ago, jost said:

This is a stupid question in any case.  Do someone really expect that a team member will say anything bad about their companys products? Most companys don't like workers who tell the customers "Our product is crap at the moment" and would fire them. 
I really don't understand why people ask such silly questions: First (see above) the answer will always be that everythings gonna be allright. But even if the answer would be a more honest one: What's actually the benefit of getting such an answer? The state of the game is not improved in both cases. 

I agree with that actually, to me it looks a bit like a question trying to bait some kind of admission.

[regex]

4 hours ago, jost said:

This is a stupid question in any case.  Do someone really expect that a team member will say anything bad about their companys products?

This is very true. Every person who does an AMA in the format we've seen here should be viewed as a company salesperson, and nothing more. Questions will be cherry-picked, softballs answered first, and things related to mostly public knowledge or internally set in stone second. Anything else will be answered in a way that is positive and fluffy or completely ignored.

[jost]

On 4/23/2023 at 6:12 PM, Alexoff said:

Why ask questions at all? As for the features - we will get them when they are made in the form in which they are made. As for bugs - they will be fixed someday. As for the game, it is what it is. Everything is so clear to everyone.

That's not the point. Of course everybody is entitled to ask any questions. This doesn't mean that it's smart to ask any question. And like verybody is entitled to his questions and opinions I'm entitled to think that some questions and opinions are dumber than others. Maybe it's because I'm not a teenager anymore but I don't see the point in asking dumb questions just for the sake  of asking. And any question like "When will you guys finally admit that your game sucks, your developers sucks and your company sucks?" is a dumb question because nobody will answer such question without risking their job.  Which most people won't do no matter how much they hate their job, their company, their boss or their companys products.
A smart question would be something like: Given the current issues with the graphic subsystem how do you expect to implement colonies with a decent performance? Or: There is a ongoing debate on multiplayer and timewrap in the community. Some kerbals are concerned that timewrap and multiplayer won't play nice together. Can you say anything how you want to address such issues? 
The answer will still be mostly PR, but there would be at least a chance in given some insights (let's say 5 to 10 % of the answer) and it would still be a critical question.

[Alexoff]

40 minutes ago, jost said:

That's not the point. Of course everybody is entitled to ask any questions. This doesn't mean that it's smart to ask any question. And like verybody is entitled to his questions and opinions I'm entitled to think that some questions and opinions are dumber than others. Maybe it's because I'm not a teenager anymore but I don't see the point in asking dumb questions just for the sake  of asking. And any question like "When will you guys finally admit that your game sucks, your developers sucks and your company sucks?" is a dumb question because nobody will answer such question without risking their job.  Which most people won't do no matter how much they hate their job, their company, their boss or their companys products.

But if you look at this question more broadly, then it can be seen as follows. Dear developers, you have been leading us by the nose for almost four years, promising a completely different thing that you are offering now. Tell me who do you respect more? Us, the buyers, the KSP franchise? Do we really have anything to hope for? Or are you just working off your salary and are more afraid of being fired for your courage, and not for the quality of the game? And the developers say - you are right, fans, we are not afraid of you and we are not very worried about the franchise, we are only afraid of T2 bosses. After all, if we are fired, then where will they take us with such a track record as the development of KSP2? And we will not write anonymous letters to Jason Schraer. This is how I see the dialogue with the developers. There are no heroes among them, not a big surprise. The fact that among them there are no cool developers who can pull out the entire project alone, we have already noticed. Of course, Nertea is cool guy, without him, everything in the game would probably be completely dreary.

[Fletch4]

The dev team is ruining their reputation with the forum users. I think that the team should go radio silent until the next update, and patch all the things that need fixing.

Now, radio silent doesn't mean that they cant listen to input from the users, but no more devblogs and AMAs. Just focus on fixing this prematurely birthed game(in the worst way possible).

[Scarecrow71]

1 hour ago, Fletch4 said:

The dev team is ruining their reputation with the forum users. I think that the team should go radio silent until the next update, and patch all the things that need fixing.

Now, radio silent doesn't mean that they cant listen to input from the users, but no more devblogs and AMAs. Just focus on fixing this prematurely birthed game(in the worst way possible).

Going completely silent would only further alienate the userbase from the devs, which would in turn make things worse.

[cocoscacao]

5 hours ago, Fletch4 said:

and patch all the things that need fixing.

All things?

[AtomicTech]

How many people playing this week?

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

13 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

All things?

I know what you're saying  -- and there is quite a lot 'right' going on.  Music is consistently appreciated.  The largescale restructuring of the various planets (even if we quibble about certain details).  The general direction of the game and feature set they want to introduce.

Many of the ideas are solid  -- procedural wings & other parts.  The Burn Timer (when it works).  Maneuver Nodes (when they figure out what functionality they/we want), Colonies & Resource Management.

Some of the questionable ideas, like 'Science is not much changed from KSP' is a total missed opportunity and questionable design choice that totally shows they were not listening to us.

BUT.

It's all the little 'what' moments; non stable orbits, untuned docking and destructive separation, Part Manager and Flight Report, the flight model, control surfaces going wonky, and all the other, many, many problems with just doing the basics of what KSP did, and not doing it well.  As it stands, there is no predictability of when, where or why things are going to go catastrophically wrong.  That's gotta change.

I think the sideshow is the 'lack of optimization = small pool of available players'.  Its the real, fundamental problems that is the problem.  Fixing Optimization at this point only exposes more people to the frustrating mess that the game is currently.  Yeah, there's a loud crowd demanding better frames... but to what end?

So if we strip out the performance issues - we are left with a weird flight model, no thermals, wonky parts not working as expected, fundamental systems (orbits, MNs etc) not working as expected, SAS that turns off when you switch ships and a bunch of questionable UI choices (PM and FR).  That's the stuff they need to fix

7 minutes ago, AtomicTech said:

How many people playing this week?

Mid week average is about 2% of purchasers

[AtomicTech]

4 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Mid week average is about 2% of purchasers

Ouch.

5 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

So if we strip out the performance issues - we are left with a weird flight model, no thermals, wonky parts not working as expected, fundamental systems (orbits, MNs etc) not working as expected, SAS that turns off when you switch ships and a bunch of questionable UI choices (PM and FR).  That's the stuff they need to fix

Double ouch.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Just now, AtomicTech said:

Double ouch.

Yeah.

I'm choosing to believe (based on virtually no evidence) that they had to break the game to parse out the disparate parts in an EA development track... and that as they start adding in (or unlocking) certain features the whole game is going to come back into focus as something playable.

If I'm at all right about this... they need to hit Science NLT the second week of June.  Which they might be able to do if we see Patch 3 in the next week.

I'm basically on the 'wait for the patch, then check it out again' track.  If Patch 3 can succeed in not liquiding me off within the first hour of gameplay - that alone will be a success.  

I'm not even sure I made it to a full hour with Patch 2

[cocoscacao]

28 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Some of the questionable ideas, like 'Science is not much changed from KSP' is a total missed opportunity and questionable design choice that totally shows they were not listening to us.

While I'm not a fan of clicking a button at a designated area, there are at least gonna be some different, weird shaped science parts, and progression system is overhauled... that is, if I understood latest AMA correctly.

Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to it. I badly need that carrot stick to push me forward. I never liked sandbox.

Edited April 25, 2023 by cocoscacao

[PDCWolf]

28 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I know what you're saying  -- and there is quite a lot 'right' going on.  Music is consistently appreciated.  The largescale restructuring of the various planets (even if we quibble about certain details).  The general direction of the game and feature set they want to introduce.

Many of the ideas are solid  -- procedural wings & other parts.  The Burn Timer (when it works).  Maneuver Nodes (when they figure out what functionality they/we want), Colonies & Resource Management.

Some of the questionable ideas, like 'Science is not much changed from KSP' is a total missed opportunity and questionable design choice that totally shows they were not listening to us.

BUT.

It's all the little 'what' moments; non stable orbits, untuned docking and destructive separation, Part Manager and Flight Report, the flight model, control surfaces going wonky, and all the other, many, many problems with just doing the basics of what KSP did, and not doing it well.  As it stands, there is no predictability of when, where or why things are going to go catastrophically wrong.  That's gotta change.

I think the sideshow is the 'lack of optimization = small pool of available players'.  Its the real, fundamental problems that is the problem.  Fixing Optimization at this point only exposes more people to the frustrating mess that the game is currently.  Yeah, there's a loud crowd demanding better frames... but to what end?

So if we strip out the performance issues - we are left with a weird flight model, no thermals, wonky parts not working as expected, fundamental systems (orbits, MNs etc) not working as expected, SAS that turns off when you switch ships and a bunch of questionable UI choices (PM and FR).  That's the stuff they need to fix

Mid week average is about 2% of purchasers

The thing is adding more features with the current performance budget... yeah no, that wouldn't work at all. I really don't buy the idea that once CBT (lol) comes into play, the game will magically work and have enough performance budget to add all the other features. I think the small patches (yes, small, and removing stuff from scenes is not a graphical optimization) are because they're working on a refactor or some other actually big change to push better performance.

If they're not doing that, and they really want to patch this thing up from its current state, then CBT needs to be a miraculous godsend.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

59 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

The thing is adding more features with the current performance budget... yeah no, that wouldn't work at all. I really don't buy the idea that once CBT (lol) comes into play, the game will magically work and have enough performance budget to add all the other features. I think the small patches (yes, small, and removing stuff from scenes is not a graphical optimization) are because they're working on a refactor or some other actually big change to push better performance.

If they're not doing that, and they really want to patch this thing up from its current state, then CBT needs to be a miraculous godsend.

So - if I recall the Dev Blog about it, correctly, there is a Big graphic rework going on; totally different system.  It's a good read, but it really does only tickle the interest - and leaves us wanting more info.  Still - there are a host of associated discussions in the thread where they talk about planets being better optimized - but also a lot of new tools to make places more interesting, to boot.

Re: adding features... I'm making a huge presumption based on a couple of things from the AMA that suggest that they had to strip out a LOT of the work they'd done to follow the EA Roadmap.  Basically, up to the point the decision was made, they were making a singular, complete game.  Once EA was decided, they had to strip parts out / hide / deactivate - whatever the correct term is - to present the game in stages.  I'm hoping that this turns out to be a self-correcting problem... but it's just a hope.

The only 'refractor' (if I understand the term correctly) vis systems is stuff like fuel flow calculations, heat modeling and other features that were not quite ready for prime time or gobbled up resources.  From Nate, that's a separate parallel process.

But the need to keep marching down the Roadmap is that EA is flat boring.  Unless you REALLY like legos, I guess.

Edited April 25, 2023 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[PDCWolf]

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

So - if I recall the Dev Blog about it, correctly, there is a Big graphic rework going on; totally different system.  It's a good read, but it really does only tickle the interest - and leaves us wanting more info.  Still - there are a host of associated discussions in the thread where they talk about planets being better optimized - but also a lot of new tools to make places more interesting, to boot.

Re: adding features... I'm making a huge presumption based on a couple of things from the AMA that suggest that they had to strip out a LOT of the work they'd done to follow the EA Roadmap.  Basically, up to the point the decision was made, they were making a singular, complete game.  Once EA was decided, they had to strip parts out / hide / deactivate - whatever the correct term is - to present the game in stages.  I'm hoping that this turns out to be a self-correcting problem... but it's just a hope.

The only 'refractor' (if I understand the term correctly) vis systems is stuff like fuel flow calculations, heat modeling and other features that were not quite ready for prime time or gobbled up resources.  From Nate, that's a separate parallel process.

But the need to keep marching down the Roadmap is that EA is flat boring.  Unless you REALLY like legos, I guess.

CBT is the name they gave to the system that's going to replace PQS+ for terrain. 

Again, if that system is not some kind of miracle that frees up 100 frames per second on a middle ground spec, then the game just doesn't have the performance budget for the big features they want to put in. I mention I'm not entirely in disbelief it might be an actual miracle solution because we all know performance frees up once you get to space, but, colonies will be on the ground, interstellar ships will be huge, orbital colonies will be huge as well, there'll be a logistic layers working numbers in the background, and then multiplayer... yeah, it really needs to be a miracle.

Refactoring is restructuring the code without changing functionality. It's supposed to improve many aspects of the code without altering its external facing functionality. One of the areas of improvement is performance. As you can see, this assumes that their code can actually be refactored, that there's gains to be obtained from that, and that they'd be willing/need to do it.

[Scarecrow71]

36 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

CBT is the name they gave to the system that's going to replace PQS+ for terrain. 

Again, if that system is not some kind of miracle that frees up 100 frames per second on a middle ground spec, then the game just doesn't have the performance budget for the big features they want to put in. I mention I'm not entirely in disbelief it might be an actual miracle solution because we all know performance frees up once you get to space, but, colonies will be on the ground, interstellar ships will be huge, orbital colonies will be huge as well, there'll be a logistic layers working numbers in the background, and then multiplayer... yeah, it really needs to be a miracle.

Refactoring is restructuring the code without changing functionality. It's supposed to improve many aspects of the code without altering its external facing functionality. One of the areas of improvement is performance. As you can see, this assumes that their code can actually be refactored, that there's gains to be obtained from that, and that they'd be willing/need to do it.

I'm still waiting to see the performance enhancements they made with patch 2.  I'm still running at 20 FPS with no visible improvement.

[Alexoff]

1 hour ago, PDCWolf said:

CBT is the name they gave to the system that's going to replace PQS+ for terrain.

I think it's a great idea to start reworking parts of the game after release. I think T2 can recruit more specialists to remake large parts of the game and call the result of their work KSP3.

[J.Random]

1 hour ago, PDCWolf said:

CBT is the name they gave to the system that's going to replace PQS+ for terrain. 

Erm. No? My understanding is that quads aren't going anywhere. CBT is just an algorithm for fast(-er) splitting/merging of terrain components at the LoD (PQS level) borders.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

1 hour ago, Scarecrow71 said:

I'm still waiting to see the performance enhancements they made with patch 2.  I'm still running at 20 FPS with no visible improvement.

I got 3-5 on average - but I'm running at 4k.  The work they did in the immediate environment of KSC was noticeably improved - but orbit looking at a planet?   Not much better 

But if you think about it, going from 15 to 20 frames is a significant percentage increase 

[Scarecrow71]

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I got 3-5 on average - but I'm running at 4k.  The work they did in the immediate environment of KSC was noticeably improved - but orbit looking at a planet?   Not much better 

But if you think about it, going from 15 to 20 frames is a significant percentage increase 

That is a decent increase.  But I've been at 20 FPS since launch day.

[PDCWolf]

2 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

I'm still waiting to see the performance enhancements they made with patch 2.  I'm still running at 20 FPS with no visible improvement.

The "improvements" applied only to the lowest setting, and were entirely based on removing objects from view. They didn't make anything better, in fact, they made everything crappier to farm a couple extra frames.

2 hours ago, Alexoff said:

I think it's a great idea to start reworking parts of the game after release. I think T2 can recruit more specialists to remake large parts of the game and call the result of their work KSP3.

Yeah, specially since they could apply all they've learned from KSP2, which is copying KSP1 but worse. Maybe we could get a playable full release on like KSP4.

1 hour ago, J.Random said:

Erm. No? My understanding is that quads aren't going anywhere. CBT is just an algorithm for fast(-er) splitting/merging of terrain components at the LoD (PQS level) borders.

Wording in the following post suggest it's a "next-gen terrain system", that will replace PQS+.

 

[J.Random]

1 hour ago, PDCWolf said:

Wording in the following post suggest it's a "next-gen terrain system", that will replace PQS+.

I don't care about their "never been done before" bs. Read the paper.

[PDCWolf]

22 minutes ago, J.Random said:

I don't care about their "never been done before" bs. Read the paper.

Would've been fun for that document to show up in the proper thread at the proper time.

At the very least, I'm resting my argument on directly quoting them. Whether it solves stuff or is a pile of bullcrap, we'll see.

[RocketRockington]

8 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Mid week average is about 2% of purchasers

2% of the peak player base right at launch.  That's not the same thing as purchases.  Based on # of reviews, the game has likely sold somewhere in the 300k range (big error bars here of course, factor of 2x either way).  So peak daily players are more like  0.2% of purchases.