KSP2 EA Grand Discussion Thread.

[kerbiloid]

2 minutes ago, LoSBoL said:

Yes, indeed they are, yet you keep arguing that T2 will drop a market which they profit from and which is basically a completely different player base. 

If 20% of the low-end player base has robbed a bank  got a third job sold a kidney  gained a jackpot  tried their best and got some money, it will paye for the absence of the other 80% low-end customers.

High-end customers will pay 50 (and probably upgrade).

So, the user base will shrink but the income will stay same.

And as KSP is now far beyond a childish game about little green men, but a math thing, the low-end is probably less important than the high-end.

The nerds who don't want to upgrade will just keep playing their KSP-1, which they already have paid for, and won't buy KSP-1 again in any case.

[SilverWolf]

I’ll throw my opinion in the hat for giggles.

 

I beta tested for Final Fantasy XIV after Garlemald pulled Dalamud down and meteor fell.  2.0 was in development for about two years, because 1.0 was a train-wreck due to performance and interface.  Beta testing occurred in several rounds, where our game progression was volatile.  We spent about a week to two stress testing and bug hunting each round as finished systems were sequentially brought online.  When we were done, and Naoki was satisfied, then he asked us to renew our subscriptions, and I was happy to do so.

From that experience, cross-referenced with videos and forum posts by my fellow Kerbonaughts, I suggest this game is in a very loose alpha.

You cannot morally ask consumers to pay finished-product value for an unfinished-product, let alone a product that is still in alpha, or even beta.  Early access does not mean an alpha or beta release; it means you think the product is ready to launch.  We go through this every time we release an expansion in Final Fantasy; and sure we find some bugs, and a massive hot fix comes out in a week, but at its core it performs well, and is ready to go.

I do not agree that we can soundly compare KSP1 to KSP2.  Squad was a couple of guys in their garage (initially.)  It takes me a long time to do something, even after I decide to throw a whole week at it.  Take 2 is major league.  The expectations are justifiably different, and when you’re this big, you don’t get any passes, because you’re supposed to know better.  I do not have the answer to this question, but I would be curious to know how many manhours went into one game versus the other.  That would be a nice datapoint.

I think this decision to request an exchange of value for alpha test was a financial one, and folly at that.  Here’s what happens next, I think: they’ll get what they have working, call it 1.0, then Interstellar and Colonies will be their own paid DLCs.  I hope I’m wrong.

[LoSBoL]

3 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

If 20% of the low-end player base has robbed a bank  got a third job sold a kidney  gained a jackpot  tried their best and got some money, it will paye for the absence of the other 80% low-end customers.

High-end customers will pay 50 (and probably upgrade).

So, the user base will shrink but the income will stay same.

And as KSP is now far beyond a childish game about little green men, but a math thing, the low-end is probably less important than the high-end.

The nerds who don't want to upgrade will just keep playing their KSP-1, which they already have paid for, and won't buy KSP-1 again in any case.

Were running around in circles, you may call KSP1's market depleted and no more users to sell it to, it isn't and it won't.

Potential players, not gamers! keep coming, and shall be served by T2, that's market differencation. 

The original KSP and KSP2 serve a different maket and clientbase, you think T2 would drop one for the other, I don't think so, let's just agree to disagree. 

 

[tstein]

12 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

If 20% of the low-end player base has robbed a bank  got a third job sold a kidney  gained a jackpot  tried their best and got some money, it will paye for the absence of the other 80% low-end customers.

High-end customers will pay 50 (and probably upgrade).

So, the user base will shrink but the income will stay same.

And as KSP is now far beyond a childish game about little green men, but a math thing, the low-end is probably less important than the high-end.

The nerds who don't want to upgrade will just keep playing their KSP-1, which they already have paid for, and won't buy KSP-1 again in any case.

Low end is what always pays the bills on games. High end gammers always over estimate their numbers. 

[Alexoff]

On 2/26/2023 at 10:26 PM, Bej Kerman said:

I didn't say that. I did say its bugs are way easier to tolerate than KSP 1's.

[snip]

So what bugs mods add? [snip]

Edited February 28, 2023 by James Kerman
Redacted by a moderator

[kerbiloid]

17 minutes ago, tstein said:

Low end is what always pays the bills on games. High end gammers always over estimate their numbers. 

All current low-end KSP-1 users have already bought KSP-1 and don't care if it's available.

The new ones will face the 50 USD fact regardless of their preferences.

The question is not if the KSP-1 market viable. The question is if the KSP-2 market can become viable.

And the existence of KSP-1 is a significant obstacle on its way. Because why pay 50 + upgrade when you can pay 10.

***

Many goods in the airport are sold for higher price than in a city.
And they don't sell cheap equivalents aat the same place just to make poor passengers happy.

[Chilkoot]

14 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

There are examples of poorly conceived UIs, and I certainly don't think KSP 2 is one of them.

I should have been more clear, but in that point I had mentioned the art design in the UI, not the UI itself.  Thinks like icons, fonts, color/contrast, and layout fall into the trap of what my son tells me is jokingly called the "outerspace tryhard" or "futurism tryhard" art style.  It's reminiscent of futuristic themes for WinAmp back in the day that were trying to look hyper-futuristic but were nearly unreadable due to font selection, contrast and layout.  I find the new KSP UI suffers pretty badly from this in pretty much every discrete interface:  VAB, Tracking Centre, Maps and Flight.

There are actual UI elements like overuse of whitespace at the expense of information density that are a problem as well - with the opposite being true for some elements that are far too tiny/dense.  There seems to be no agreement on whether the UI is being designed for couch-and-controller at 10 feet - like the VAB -  or someone sitting 18" from a 27" monitor - like the navball.

[LoSBoL]

17 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

All current low-end KSP-1 users have already bought KSP-1 and don't care if it's available.

The new ones will face the 50 USD fact regardless of their preferences.

The question is not if the KSP-1 market viable. The question is if the KSP-2 market can become viable.

And the existence of KSP-1 is a significant obstacle on its way. Because why pay 50 + upgrade when you can pay 10.

***

Many goods in the airport are sold for higher price than in a city.
And they don't sell cheap equivalents aat the same place just to make poor passengers happy.

So, when is T2 going to pull GTA IV? It's canabalizing GTA V and it's online cash cow. 

[kerbiloid]

8 minutes ago, LoSBoL said:

So, when is T2 going to pull GTA IV? It's canabalizing GTA V and it's online cash cow. 

An online game with ~100 mln users vs the KSP niche game with ~3 mln sold copies?

[tstein]

35 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

All current low-end KSP-1 users have already bought KSP-1 and don't care if it's available.

The new ones will face the 50 USD fact regardless of their preferences.

The question is not if the KSP-1 market viable. The question is if the KSP-2 market can become viable.

And the existence of KSP-1 is a significant obstacle on its way. Because why pay 50 + upgrade when you can pay 10.

***

Many goods in the airport are sold for higher price than in a city.
And they don't sell cheap equivalents aat the same place just to make poor passengers happy.

yet  basically  never any game follow the path you say it is logical.... I can still buy almsot every single game   that steam ever sold (except some that EA forbade to be sold outside their store)

[LoSBoL]

1 minute ago, kerbiloid said:

An online game with ~100 mln users vs the KSP niche game with ~3 mln sold copies?

Look into T2's investments into KSP's franchise, they are public information in T2's financial reports.

Furthermore you can triple sales for KSP1, I didn't say out of the blue that KSP1's market keeps expanding and it keeps getting sold. 

[Periple]

4 hours ago, TheTechnobear said:

KSP 2 taking over is a natural progression... but thats why it had to be at least as stable, and performant as KSP1

It will be. Just give it some time. The bones are solid, the hard problems are solved, it just needs to be finished. Most games look and play more or less like this somewhere between alpha and beta. They're just rarely shown off outside the studio.

[DwightLee]

Well right now KSP 2 is for what I would call KSP enthusiasts, to help test, report, experiment and basically assist while the game is updated to a more playable state.

I am not recommending it to my non KSP enthusiast friends... yet. but I expect I will be recommending it over time.

I am more than happy to be on this journey, but this journey is not for everyone.... yet

[tstein]

56 minutes ago, DwightLee said:

Well right now KSP 2 is for what I would call KSP enthusiasts, to help test, report, experiment and basically assist while the game is updated to a more playable state.

I am not recommending it to my non KSP enthusiast friends... yet. but I expect I will be recommending it over time.

I am more than happy to be on this journey, but this journey is not for everyone.... yet

That is sensible and I did expect  bumps, but when I saw them post content about the  "so many new  facial expressions the kerbals can have" that they would have sorted the BASICS.  The issue is they seem to have a very  bad sense of priority and that worries me a lot.

[DwightLee]

2 hours ago, tstein said:

That is sensible and I did expect  bumps, but when I saw them post content about the  "so many new  facial expressions the kerbals can have" that they would have sorted the BASICS.  The issue is they seem to have a very  bad sense of priority and that worries me a lot.

Oh yeah... I am not upset, but a non-KSP enthusiast might be.

[Flipflops]

5 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

The nerds who don't want to upgrade will just keep playing their KSP-1, which they already have paid for, and won't buy KSP-1 again in any case.

Oh crap that's me. I can afford an upgrade and KSP2 but there is zero chance I'll buy this until it surpasses KSP1 in features and modability. 

 

Edit expanding on this: I believe EA is for testing new game features, getting new games to market, building playerbases and the kind of bug testing only large amounts of users can do (system compatibility for example). 

EA in the case of KSP2 does not add any new features, there is no new game play, it is a sequel for a tried and tested game and most importantly of all; ANY amount of QA can see this is broken from the start and needs significant patching to be playable and releasable as an EA title.

Edited February 26, 2023 by Flipflops
I thought of a reasonable discussion point, rather than just spamming rubbish

[78stonewobble]

I didn't buy ksp1 until it had much more game in it, than it's earliest releases and that was the right decision for me.

 

I didn't mind it being available for others with more patience for bugs, lack of features and poor performance. 

 

It's the same for ksp2 for me.

 

Ps: Also I do think 50 $ is a bit much for early access, but that's a take it or leave it kind of thing. 50 $ would be too much for early versions of ksp1, but much more reasonable at arond eg. Ver 0.9 of ksp1. 

 

It's not for me yet, especially with my aging computer, but I don't mind it being available for others. 

 

[snip]

Edited February 28, 2023 by James Kerman
Redacted by a moderator

[katateochi]

When I first loaded up KSP (0.16) many orbits ago I was presented with something that was clearly incomplete and buggy, with a rough and strange interface. Yet even though every 3rd launch would be to the desktop, I was instantly hooked. There was the hint of possibility lurking underneath all that incomplete UI which made me want to find work-arounds and solutions to the game's shortfalls.  KSP 1 was a new frontier and I think that makes you ignore a lot in the name of exploring something new.

To expect that same "new frontier" feeling from anything with "2" in it's name is folly, so I didn't expect KSP 2 to make me want to explore the game in the same way. But I was hoping for more visual wow, not for my first thought to be to check if it was in ultra-low res because...what's with the font?  The UI elements along with the font makes me think of old point and click adventure games from the 90's.

I was expecting issues/bugs, not missing features from things that had become quite polished features in KSP1. 
Just picking on two things; action group interface and orbital markers. Those had both been the focus of much discussion, feedback and testing. There was a clear design spec based on years of work and community feedback. Why do we have something (in the case of the action groups) that looks like a place-holder and (with orbital markers) are missing key functionality? It's disappointing. 

Trying to stay positive, this as early access with scope for improvement, but....didn't we just do that?

[Bej Kerman]

10 minutes ago, katateochi said:

I was expecting issues/bugs, not missing features from things that had become quite polished features in KSP1. 

Ignoring KSP 1's lack of persistent thrust and broken impulsive maneuver nodes?

[Dantheollie]

On 2/24/2023 at 2:39 PM, RW-1 said:

I've played with 2 for a bit.

I do think it was overpriced for the EA as well. Which I think is fueling some of the hate out there.

I was around during the early days of KSP as well, I think I paid $39 on sale once, got add ons for free.

But I can't see justifying $52 (w/tax) for an early access title. There are those who say 1.0 release will cost more, in that case everything in this version should be patched, fixed, etc. 

On the fence about a refund, because it ran decently on my potato, and optimizations can only improve that as time goes on, but will it go on? If they decide to pull it, well ...

Tough times.   It's early adopters buyers remorse.

I'll likely end up keeping it, as least it runs. My only complaint is screen res (adjusted the .json file) but the tiny font's are almost unreadable ... 

MSFS newest would barely run on my potato and it ran $90, definitely refunded that and will have to await a new ring to play on that farm.

 

Haha! Before the KSP-times, I used to think MSFSX was the pinnacle of graphical quality. Now, the newest flight sims and KSP2 (despite its terrible performance on my admittedly much better computer) floor it! Hope you get your new computer set-up soon! 

[DwightLee]

I do not believe it is overpriced for the full game that is coming, including science, progression, colonies, resource management, interstellar and multiplayer. Which is what I purchased.

I purchased it with my eyes fully open that these features would not be available for some time, and the early access would be quite buggy and unoptimized.

It shocks me how many people did not have their eyes open.

[DunaManiac]

1 hour ago, Bej Kerman said:

Ignoring KSP 1's lack of persistent thrust and broken impulsive maneuver nodes?

While you ignore the fact that KSP2 is missing a lot of features that KSP1 currently has, (Ore-mining/resource gathering, science and career modes, thermal effects, quite a few missing parts, various QoL features that KSP1 currently has) that are a lot more important gameplay-wise than those two. A lot of what KSP2 offers above KSP1 at the moment are purely graphical improvements (better UI, graphics in general, KSC). Albeit this will be added sometime in the future,™ when exactly is up in the air, and need I remind you, these were all promised at launch. When it comes to the actual meat and potatoes of the game, the features, these are quite empty. And to your point, KSP2's maneuver nodes are even more frustrating than KSP's. What makes this worse is that this is the foundation we're supposed to be building off of before all that other stuff becomes possible, and if already the foundation is rotten, how can we build more?

To be honest, the whole point of the sequel was to resolve the bugs that KSP1 couldn't fix due to the bad code-base, and the whole point of the delays was to grant the time for the developers to get it perfect. And did intercept succeed in either of those two points? As a side-note, one of the most annoying bugs I've encountered in KSP1, jumping landing-gear, appears to have made its way into the sequel.

Edited February 26, 2023 by DunaManiac

[78stonewobble]

I'm sorry, but I don't think it's fair to compare a game that has been developed for 11 years with 4 full years of those spent in early access with one 3 days into it's early access (and a troubled start due to corporate shenanigans and a pandemic). 

 

That said, it's absolutely valid to want to opt out of the early access and wait til it's more to ones liking as I am doing too and also did with ksp1. 

[raptor30]

Well I want to believe the game will be fine in time... but after reading this post on reddit made by a dev that works in unity and has experience in it I kinda lost all hope. Here is the link to the reddit post and I recommend to read the comments cause A LOT of unity devs are answering  and are explaining what is going wrong with the game code:

And I like to quote what this user said in that subreddit:

PerepeL

· 3 hr. ago

Another Unity dev here, agree with you on what you said, have two more cents.

Parts wobbling exactly like in KSP1 means they never touched default physics, most likely just copy-pasted from the first version. They could've made somewhat dynamic rigid bodies colliders and calculate tension at given joint points if you want them to be breakable, and even without diving into unity/physx source code, with default functionality. Nope, did nothing. Not even speaking about SAS being able to shut down feedback loops, which is not easy, but definitely possible. Nope.

And bugs like KSC leaving planet with your vehicle most likely means they do reparent objects on scenes (which you should avoid as much as possible), and that they managed to love up that logic (meaning there's likely a total mess in a scene structure). This just reeks of amateur devs having no idea what they are doing.

One hope is that they'd get some budget from sales and hire one or two guys who knows what they are doing...

[Bej Kerman]

1 hour ago, DunaManiac said:

need I remind you, these were all promised at launch

And you're just going to forget how transparent Intercept has been about EA like that? Those 2019 "promises", assuming they said anything about promises, are outdated and invalid. Look at the up-to-date facts. They focused a lot more heavily on fundamental problems like high-speed collisions and calculating constant thrust trajectories, rather than taking the Squad route of adding mediocre feature on top of mediocre feature and keeping players interested through exploiting a short-term interest in novelty updates. Squad had 0 excuse to deliver planets six years before even thinking of adding a dV indicator. Zero! You are entitled to think what you think but frankly the last thing I want to see is KSP 2 doing what Squad did and keeping a playerbase through novelty updates. Again, Squad added planets before they had the smegging readouts needed to determine if you can go to them. Half a decade before you had said smegging readouts! Half a decade of functionality < novelty! That's disgusting, frankly! And I'm happy Intercept is focusing on these foundational features than things that are useless without that foundation! Just look at NERVs, Squad never added a different, less dense fuel source for them, and that ended up breaking them. NERVs could consume liquid fuel as if they were something a lot less dense, and could share it with other engines. That made them simply broken and frankly I'm surprised that I nor anyone else noticed this nor were more fussed about this. Gross mistakes like that being avoided is PRECISELY why I've been awaiting KSP 2 and I'm getting exactly what I wished for. A foundation that isn't grossly undercooked. A game whose pricetag deserves to not be negative.

1 hour ago, DunaManiac said:

While you ignore the fact that KSP2 is missing a lot of features that KSP1 currently has

Gameplay elements are missing but at least Intercept has bothered to include fundamental elements of the foundation like non-impulsive maneuvers and persistent thrust. Given that Squad managed to do something as daft as add ion engines and not for one second think of adding the persistent thrust needed to use them properly, I heavily doubt KSP 1 deserves its current price tag. KSP 2 is missing gameplay features, but at least it's functional unlike KSP 1 where people have gotten so used to all the places it's broken in that the slightest bit of criticism towards it riles up people and their sentimental attitudes to KSP 1.