KSP2 EA Grand Discussion Thread.

[Stewcooker]

34 minutes ago, moeggz said:

But they gave a date and some things to expect and then immediately didn’t meet those expectations. 

This is oddly reminiscent of the time when they said that they were slowing down the release cadence so that that they could release better patches. We've had one patch since then. 

I suppose soon we'll be hearing that official communication will be slowing down so that they can spend more effort making good communications. 

[MechBFP]

19 minutes ago, Periple said:

I agree, they talk too much!

They should simply shut down all communications and focus on making the game, dropping patches and updates when they’re ready. The only communication they need are release notes.

Later on if they want to solicit actionable feedback on game balance or mechanics that they can’t get via telemetry then maybe ask about that. But all these announcements, AMAs, dev blogs, bug status updates etc are doing more harm than good. They only add fuel to the fire! 

Nah, there will always be the handful of people who choose to act in bad faith regardless of what happens, they will just find other excuses/methods to continue without any direct communications. The AMAs, dev blogs, etc, are all marketing tools as well and serve as a path to remind potential customers that it exists.

[Periple]

Just now, MechBFP said:

The AMAs, dev blogs, etc, are all marketing tools as well and serve as a path to remind potential customers that it exists.

Given the current sentiment I’m not sure that’s a good thing!

It might be better if everybody forgets about this for a while, and then they re-announce it once it’s in better shape and has some cool new gameplay that KSP1 never did! 

[Pthigrivi]

31 minutes ago, Periple said:

Given the current sentiment I’m not sure that’s a good thing!

It might be better if everybody forgets about this for a while, and then they re-announce it once it’s in better shape and has some cool new gameplay that KSP1 never did! 

I mean, maybe. They’re in a tough position. Im sure they do genuinely want player feedback on what’s working, what isn’t, and what the worst issues are. Community engagement is still really important. This is the big problem with T2s decision to force the launch of an incomplete game though because it throws the devs and any trust the community has in them into question if not under the bus. These folks are all desperately trying to maintain forward momentum and solve fundamental problems that were always going to take time. What really dismays me are folks from the community who have taken it upon themselves to endlessly and needlessly repeat the same meaningless process complaints rather than contribute to the actual, tangible improvement of the game or even allow productive conversation to happen. This kind of uncharitable, vindictive approach can cause at best a much less transparent, less communicative environment or at worst actually succeed in convincing T2 that there is no hope and they should cancel the project entirely. There’s no positive utility in it whatsoever. This is where I separate folks who are honestly and reasonably frustrated but also want the game to get better from folks who are more interested in consoling themselves in malcontent indignation. 

Edited August 26, 2023 by Pthigrivi

[cocoscacao]

1 hour ago, Periple said:

But all these announcements, AMAs, dev blogs, bug status updates etc are doing more harm than good. They only add fuel to the fire! 

I don’t see the point of AMAs, since nothing concrete can be determined from them, but I am good with the rest. 

37 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Community engagement is still really important

Just occurred to me that suggestions don't have voting mechanism like bugs do. Maybe that can be a useful insight. Not sure how many players use the forum though... 

[Periple]

24 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

This is the big problem with T2s decision to force the launch of an incomplete game though because it throws the devs and any trust the community has in them into question if not under the bus.

I’m sure there’s a lot of blame to go around about the launch. I’m still not sure that the big mistake was launching in the state that it was, rather than with managing expectations for the launch. EA games can be very rough and still be positively received if everybody knows what to expect. The problem was that they talked the quality up a lot. 

My expectations for quality and performance were originally set by this developer insights post, and it’s clear that the game did not meet these goals on launch (and arguably still doesn’t). They never made any effort to walk that back.

[Alexoff]

8 hours ago, Periple said:

They should simply shut down all communications and focus on making the game, dropping patches and updates when they’re ready. The only communication they need are release notes.

I think being silent between patches is a bad idea. In order to maintain interest in the game and not unnecessarily anger the fans of the game, the developers should upload videos with the progress of their work. For example, once a month, testers would show how they test science or fly a huge ship to a new star. Instead of showing many pages of lengthy text, rare blurry screenshots and concept pictures, as if work is only at the initial stages of development.

[kdaviper]

21 hours ago, The Aziz said:

I don't know what's worse

Reddit or steam forums.

Either way, the poll results are going to be on the weird side.

As for microtransactions... Items, bundles, in-game currency. That's not gonna happen. Feature packs, new content, also called dlcs, aren't out of the question, never were.

I wonder if they plan on an official mod store like Minecraft uses on bedrock edition 

[DunaManiac]

10 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

I think the tone and graphics are pretty fantastic. This is a game about bug-eyed frogs who go to space. Planetary surfaces need work but thats part and parcel with performance issues. The conceptual basis remains really smart and a lot of the fundamental changes like acceleration under warp are absolutely critical to this game moving forward. The problem from release has been and continues to be an underbaked game with too many bugs to be easily enjoyable. The decision to force the release when they did wasn’t up to any of the individual artists or programmers or even Nate. That was a decision that could only be made by middle and upper managers at T2 and the dev team are victims of their lack of foresight as much as we are. 
 

Honestly yall is this not utterly obvious?

I agree with a lot of points here. However, I do have some objections.

I know this is subjective, but I disagree on the tone and graphics. The graphics really grate on me because everything looks like it's style over substance. I think it could be improved, but that's issue number 137 on Intercept's list. What I like about KSP1 (and this isn't criticizing KSP2, I know it needs time to form a mod scene) is that the variety of mods allow everyone to play. The people who buy the game and smash stuff for 2 hours and never touch it again can buy the base game and leave it at that. For people who desire a more realistic style there's visual and parts mods. Even people who want an ultra-realistic experience can download RSS and RO. KSP2, on the other hand, is really not able to accommodate the way I like to play KSP1 until a similar mod scene exists or colonies get added.

Also with the new graphics I almost feel like we've lost a bit of the KSP1 experience. Not everyone has graphics cards worth hundreds of dollars. Even on the worst Potato KSP1 could run, but KSP2 can't really do the same. I'm not intending this as a criticism, but I feel we've lost part of the culture of KSP1, but that was arguably unavoidable.

10 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

The problem from release has been and continues to be an underbaked game with too many bugs to be easily enjoyable. The decision to force the release when they did wasn’t up to any of the individual artists or programmers or even Nate.

I would agree that this is the case. But how do we know this is really the case? Do we actually have any material proof of this? If we do, great, but if not it's just a hypothesis.

[The Aziz]

1 minute ago, DunaManiac said:

KSP2, on the other hand, is really not able to accommodate the way I like to play KSP1 until a similar mod scene exists or colonies get added.

In other words, modding possibilities of a 6-month old product are smaller than a 12 year old product.

2 minutes ago, DunaManiac said:

Even on the worst Potato KSP1 could run, but KSP2 can't really do the same

In other words, a new game has higher requirements than an old game.

Not exactly groundbreaking discoveries there, you just stated reality, and reality so strong that it applies to literally everything. So what you may have just said is "I like the old game more because it's old".

[cocoscacao]

7 minutes ago, DunaManiac said:

The graphics really grate on me because everything looks like it's style over substance

I'm curious, what do you mean by that? 

8 minutes ago, DunaManiac said:

Even on the worst Potato KSP1 could run, but KSP2 can't really do the same

I have a feeling that the term potato PC has different meaning, depending on your location xD

[Alexoff]

50 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

In other words, modding possibilities of a 6-month old product are smaller than a 12 year old product.

In 10 years, the comparison will also be unfair, because one game will be 10 years old, and the other 22.

[The Aziz]

The younger one will then have enough time to build a modding scene, just like the predecessor.

Cuz I don't think the older one will see much of a growth in the near future.

[DunaManiac]

1 hour ago, cocoscacao said:

I'm curious, what do you mean by that? 

Of course, these are my general opinions, I am by no means trying to project this on everyone, but the reason why I call it style over substance is  because of the overall art style of the game. I do think it's an improvement over the base game KSP1, but I don't like a lot of the aesthetics of the game.

For instance, Eve's clouds: I've seen praise for them, but honestly I can't understand it. Its oversaturated, bright color and cotton-candy like texture make it look so... fake. Kerbin's clouds look better, but they still look like a caricature of clouds, like cotton balls in a fairy tale sort of clouds. The brightness on everything, the parts and the surfaces is just crazy high, like its made of glass. All the colors in general are very saturated, which looks good in some conditions but not all the time. The bright colors of spacecraft combined with the solar panels look...wrong to me. It's hard to really explain why.

All this would be great if we had more content, but we don't have it right now and we probably won't for a while. It seems like more effort was put into making it look as bright and colorful as possible to draw in the sort of "fool around a couple times and never touch it again" buyers rather than the game mechanics itself. Even the engines we have right now are unbalanced: capsule + large spherical tank + swerv is capable of reaching most parts of the solar system and is easy to launch, which wasn't really the case in KSP1, unless you were willing to put up with 10 minute burn times.

Edited August 26, 2023 by DunaManiac

[cocoscacao]

@DunaManiac Can't comment the clouds. I have amd rx 6700 gpu, so they are rendered poorly, until fix arrives.

Can't comment Eve also, I haven't visited yet.

Saturation, or reflectiveness? I can agree that sometimes, fuel tanks look ridiculously reflective. 

[Alexoff]

57 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

The younger one will then have enough time to build a modding scene, just like the predecessor.

Do modders agree to do this? Linx decided to make mods for Juno. Are there many categorical optimists, lookingforwarders and thisisonlyearlyacessers among modders?

Matt created video for ths topic

Edited August 26, 2023 by Alexoff

[PDCWolf]

14 hours ago, Periple said:

If you assume bad faith, then is there any statement at all that could satisfy you?

This but for people who post here. Honestly it feels more like "you're arguing in bad faith" is the new "I have nothing to say but I still want to disagree".

13 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

I think the tone and graphics are pretty fantastic.

Subjectively, the art style is deplorable. Everything from Kerbals to rocket engines looks overly plasticky, with blinding levels of bloom. The clouds look disjointed as hell from every system, even lighting, as they're just fullbright white puffs. The only thing that's, subjectively, better is rocket exhaust effects, yet they decided for some reason that they'd give them the wrong shape. It is obvious they're going for cartoony, and even toy-like, but they've overstepped a bit into BabyTV territory, with overly saturated colors and parts that lack any sort of detailing or layering and only have broad, long color lines. In some planets, their color choices are not even questionable, just outright wrong, and I'm sure to be promptly proven right by recolor, remodel and just outright graphical remaster mods coming in. For me, the game just plain and simply looks bad, and thus performance problems are even more unjustified.

Now objectively, yet limited by my own judgement and knowledge. PQS+ from space looks great, but it's being overdriven, and deciding to keep the old system is shooting their own foot. PQS already had problems (still has) in KSP1, where you lose performance when going from high to low orbits (or just going fast and low), specially on atmosphere-less bodies where you can really get close to terrain, and it seems they pushed the detail further without even looking at those problems which have plagued KSP1 ever since they left the old proc-terrain system behind. As of now in KSP2, terrain from orbit looks stellar, but anything closer and it looks bad. Not bad as in "I don't like it", but bad as in clearly outdated in terrain technology when compared to literally anything else that's from around the same age.

Lighting has a lot of potential, even more so if they actually switch to HDRP. However, if they actually plan to fulfill their statement of bringing requirements down, HDRP might not be the way to go, as it has higher base  hardware requirements, which can sour whatever performance headroom they're able to produce. On the other hand, lighting is still severely limited, and doesn't look good in the game when you add the well known overly reflective planetary surfaces, and what seems to be a jarring job at color grading and light balancing. I seriously hope they're not banking on HDR magically fixing their technical problems and/or bad decisions regarding visual design.

 

[Royalswissarmyknife]

13 hours ago, DunaManiac said:

Honestly, my original opinion about the game remains unchanged. It's buggy, ultimately failed as a sequel, and there are times when I wonder whether players who share my strategy are even part of the intended audience. It feels like there's a weird mix between "haha kerbal go boom" reflected in the graphics and overall feel, and a realistic, methodical management game as reflected in the (unknown and unimplemented) colony gameplay. KSP1 has somewhat of the same problem but KSP2 exacerbates it by emphasizing the cartoonist aspect so much. 

Past is past, I believed we would've at least had science by now, and a much faster development. Part of me wonders whether things could ever have been different. But it seems like this entire project was flawed from the start, and even in an ideal world, we would've gotten the same result.

We just have to wait for a new indie dev to create the next big space game.

sadly gonna be a long wait.

Edited August 26, 2023 by Royalswissarmyknife

[Vl3d]

54 minutes ago, Alexoff said:

Do modders agree to do this? Linx decided to make mods for Juno. Are there many categorical optimists, lookingforwarders and thisisonlyearlyacessers among modders?

Matt created video for ths topic

So because you brought it up.. KSP1 with Simplex Kerbalism, Parallax and EVE with weather is for me, hands down, the most breathtaking space exploration game ever made. Nothing in gaming comes close to working through the engineering complexity of sending a spacecraft to Duna, Eve or Jool and doing an atmospheric entry through the clouds and storms.

Edited August 26, 2023 by Vl3d

[Royalswissarmyknife]

Just now, Vl3d said:

So because you brought it up.. KSP1 with Simplex Kerbalism, Parallax and EVE with weather is for me, hands down, the most breathtaking space exploration game ever made. Nothing in gaming comes close to working through the engineering complexity of sending a probe to Duna, Eve or Jool and doing an atmospheric entry through the clouds and storms.

Exactly you cant just use "Modded Ksp-1" there is so much variation .

I personally love KSRSS and BDB and other mods that allow me to see how history could have gone.

You cant compare Ksp-1 modded to Ksp-2.  it's like comparing Ksp-1 to Juno new origins and using that to say how good Space Flight Simulator is.

[Alexoff]

3 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

So because you brought it up.. KSP1 with Simplex Kerbalism, Parallax and EVE with weather is for me, hands down, the most breathtaking space exploration game ever made. Nothing in gaming comes close to working through the engineering complexity of sending a probe to Duna, Eve or Jool and doing an atmospheric entry through the clouds and storms.

I saw flights in the RSS with principia, this trajectories are something incredible. Extreme realism, but not for me

[Pthigrivi]

58 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Lighting has a lot of potential, even more so if they actually switch to HDRP. However, if they actually plan to fulfill their statement of bringing requirements down, HDRP might not be the way to go, as it has higher base  hardware requirements, which can sour whatever performance headroom they're able to produce. On the other hand, lighting is still severely limited, and doesn't look good in the game when you add the well known overly reflective planetary surfaces, and what seems to be a jarring job at color grading and light balancing. I seriously hope they're not banking on HDR magically fixing their technical problems and/or bad decisions regarding visual design.

Yeah I mean it is subjective. I love the kerbals themselves and the part and planet design. Terrain could use work up close but I know this is a big performance hog. The clouds are to me completely fine for now, but yes over time I'd love to see some more layering, cirrus and big puffy cumulous, lenticulars and derechos, maybe even especially on Jool. I do agree with you that the lighting is probably the biggest current detractor visually and I'd love to see that look richer and less bloomy over time. I don't think photo realism is what we're after but something that looks softer and more natural would be a big help.

[Periple]

23 hours ago, Vl3d said:

They did not over-hype the initial release. Quite the contrary.

If they hadn’t over-hyped it, people wouldn’t be disappointed in it. They are, therefore they did.

[cocoscacao]

37 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

lenticulars and derechos

Man, I just googled that. Wow 

[Alexoff]

Does anyone remember this video? Just a day before release.

8:20 - ... we will discover things that need to be adressed more agressively and there should be updates now on the weeks not months time scale traffic...

9:35 - we have succeeded gloriously in overhauling the first time user experience and in making the interface smoother, more interactable, more communicative to the player...

19:55 -... .... .... <died from cringe>