What happened to increased communication?

[Meecrob]

1 hour ago, steveman0 said:

Just legitimately confused

What are you confused about?

 

1 hour ago, steveman0 said:

People seem to come up with fantastical stories of what the game is and is not rather than listening to the official word.

I said I think Take Two is making a watered-down version of KSP for KSP2, and every official word and release has proven me right so far.

 

1 hour ago, steveman0 said:

It has been a huge factor in the community going all sorts of negative directions unnecessarily. Nothing good comes from doomsaying over assumptions.

Its also been a huge factor that a bunch of the white knights around here don't bother reading what I write and end up taking what I'm trying to say in negative directions unnecessarily. Its a two way street. Nobody is "doomsaying" anything. People are making observations based upon evidence available to everyone. Remember, this is the same company that did GTA Definitive Edition. I'm not trying to start a debate about Take Two, I'm just saying thats a reason I do not trust them.


Edit: Sorry everyone, I don't use emojis, I'm laughing as I type all these replies. To prove I'm not just some grumpy jerk, heres what I did today between my two posts:

 

Edited April 28 by Meecrob

[Pthigrivi]

15 hours ago, Meecrob said:

The base game experience is different. There is way less strategy in the game. No Funds, no XP, no upgradable buildings. Pretty much no choices on anything other than "Which science tree node do I want to unlock next?" You cannot tell me that putting colonies on top of a watered-down KSP is going to make a difference in my rocket design when I have unlimited funds, mass, dimensions and pilots self-loading cargo with full SAS control.

You were never told those things would be in the game. Funds are redundant once we have resources. XP and classes are the biggest source of grind in KSP1 once you have more than 6 kerbals in your program and KSP2 is likely to have dozens if not hundreds. Its a different game. When colonies are released we’ll know more. When Resources are released we’ll have a full game with all of the constraints necessary. Its gonna be a while. Im fine with that. Ive always been fine with waiting so long as the game itself is well constructed. KSP 2 does have issues but a lack of money and xp grind are not among them. 

[NH4Cl Enthusiast]

3 hours ago, steveman0 said:

I'm not trying to argue. Just legitimately confused. People seem to come up with fantastical stories of what the game is and is not rather than listening to the official word. It has been a huge factor in the community going all sorts of negative directions unnecessarily. Nothing good comes from doomsaying over assumptions.

Perhaps you should take a moment to evaluate your own position a bit more critically. I don't mean this as any kind of attack but you're absolutely coming up with fantastical stories yourself. What most of us "doomsayers" are doing is we're looking exactly at what's in the game right now and exactly at what's on the roadmap and I at least am saying (as I can't speak for anyone else), is that most of what we have now is flat and uninspired and we know nothing concrete of the things on the roadmap. At some point the science system was on the roadmap and when it came out, it was just as meh as I was afraid it would be. 

Absolutely nothing on the roadmap gives us any indication that the features will somehow fix the issues we see in the current design. You're looking at an entry saying "colonies and resources will make it more interesting" and you're the one making up a fantasy where these features will somehow be great, even when we know absolutely nothing about how they're supposed to fix the problems. I'm not saying it's not possible but it doesn't look very promising.

What you're trying to argue though is that what we "doomsayers" are saying is somehow "fantastical" and "we're ignoring the things they laid out" while you're just filling up the void with hope and trust and claim that you're the grounded and sensible one. It's a very bad position to have any discussion with you or others who share your point of view when you don't even try to argue your point but instead just make general claims how we're wrong without actually making a counterargument.

If you want to have an actual discussion on this, then let's start from something simple. Please do point out exactly what on the roadmap will fix the issue with replayability? We know we're going to get some more missions but for people who want an emergent, dynamic progression suitable for a sandbox game, what spesifically on the plans you so clearly said we're not taking into account is going to fix this problem and how?

[cocoscacao]

15 hours ago, steveman0 said:

we need more communication to stop people making up what they think the game is going to be than what it is

 

5 hours ago, steveman0 said:

from doomsaying over assumptions.

Currently, we are all operating on the assumptions... That's the problem. Both positive and negative ones are equally valid. 

[Meecrob]

4 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

You were never told those things would be in the game.

No excrements! Thats my point! I am saying how I want those things to be in the game.

 

4 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

Funds are redundant once we have resources.

No they aren't. How are resources limiting my early-game builds similar to how not having much in the way of funds did when starting a new career in KSP1. Currently, when you launch your first craft in KSP2 Exploration mode, you have no limitations other than tech tree unlocks. I can make a 2000 ton vehicle as my "starting" rocket. Does that make sense to you? One of the benefits of all the limitations in KSP1 was so you could REPLAY career mode by choosing different strategies based upon how you wanted to handle the limitations. Exploration Mode lets you "explore" as long as its to what might as well be a flashing neon arrow that says "SCIENCE HERE"

4 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

XP and classes are the biggest source of grind in KSP1 once you have more than 6 kerbals in your program and KSP2 is likely to have dozens if not hundreds.

Just because a feature was not implemented in the best way in KSP1 does not mean it is garbage. Why don't we use this opportunity during EA as a community and discuss the pros and cons of the XP system and how it can be improved or replaced with a different system with similar functionality?

Also, hundreds of Kerbals? That's funny because KSP1 had a built-in mechanism to prevent this and make you more attached to your Kerbals...they cost money to train.

4 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

Its a different game.

THANK YOU!!! Finally someone understands what I am saying!! Now do you get we are arguing the same point? We were told this game was gonna be KSP1 plus colonies, interstellar and multiplayer. We are not getting KSP1 plus colonies, interstellar and multiplayer, we are getting [a different game] plus colonies, interstellar and multiplayer.

 

4 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

When Resources are released we’ll have a full game with all of the constraints necessary.

You will forgive me for not believing this until I see it. I must say I am impressed with the faith many of you have.

 

4 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

KSP 2 does have issues but a lack of money and xp grind are not among them. 

You cannot state your own opinion as if it is objective truth. Are you saying your opinion is more valuable or correct than mine? How much did you spend on KSP2? $50? According to the shareholders, our opinions are exactly equal, lol.

Fake Edit: Wait, you know that Kerbal XP is toggleble, right?

[Kerbart]

32 minutes ago, Meecrob said:

You will forgive me for not believing this until I see it. I must say I am impressed with the faith many of you have.

Memories are short around here. We were told by the community that Science was going to make it a real game with staying power, and the many of us who expressed skepticism in that respect were shooed off. Even if  the dressed down form of Science  (to be fair: I don't mind the dressing down, I think it's superior to hitting three dozen biomes again and a again as more science parts become available) would tire out, by then Colonies would come around.

Well, everyone is tired of Science by now, and the Colonies milestone is far away. We just had the announcement for 2.3, not even the 2.3 patch itself, and from there it will be at least another month (if you're optimistic) or three (if you're pessimistic) until Colonies comes out. Which will, as Resources are missing, tire out within 6 weeks.

The good news is that the game is slowly taking shape and it is improving.

[Scarecrow71]

4 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

We just had the announcement for 2.3

Technically, we just got the following announcements:

• 0.2.2 is on its way
• There is no timeline as to when 0.2.2 will drop
• That there will be a 0.2.3
• There is no timeline as to when 0.2.3 will drop

So there are at least 2 more patches/updates prior to getting 0.3.  It has already been 3 months since 0.2.1, despite being told the patch cadence would be 6-7 weeks so as to help prevent a 10 month cycle for milestones.  Well, 1 month to get to 0.2.1, 3 months (at least) to get to 0.2.2, then say another 3 months to get to 0.2.3, and then another 3 months to get to 0.3, and you have...10 months to get to 0.3.

Dear lord I hope I am wrong.  I hope that the delay to get to 0.2.2 is because of killing major bugs, and to get to 0.2.3 is small and QoL stuff that should be there anyhow.  But color me unsurprised that the company still cannot hit the timelines they keep telling us they want.

[Kerbart]

16 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Technically, we just got the following announcements:

• 0.2.2 is on its way
• There is no timeline as to when 0.2.2 will drop
• That there will be a 0.2.3
• There is no timeline as to when 0.2.3 will drop

So there are at least 2 more patches/updates prior to getting 0.3.  It has already been 3 months since 0.2.1, despite being told the patch cadence would be 6-7 weeks so as to help prevent a 10 month cycle for milestones.  Well, 1 month to get to 0.2.1, 3 months (at least) to get to 0.2.2, then say another 3 months to get to 0.2.3, and then another 3 months to get to 0.3, and you have...10 months to get to 0.3.

Dear lord I hope I am wrong.  I hope that the delay to get to 0.2.2 is because of killing major bugs, and to get to 0.2.3 is small and QoL stuff that should be there anyhow.  But color me unsurprised that the company still cannot hit the timelines they keep telling us they want.

My god somehow I thought we already were on 2.2. I agree on the 10 month cycle. And at that point they might make it "the yearly milestone update..."

[Spicat]

26 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

despite being told the patch cadence would be 6-7 weeks so as to help prevent a 10 month cycle for milestones.

I don't remember this, can you provide to where we were told that?

I just remember the first cadence of weeks not months of the first two patches but we were told after those that it won't be the case anymore and no further cadence was given from what I recall.

Edited April 28 by Spicat

[PDCWolf]

4 hours ago, cocoscacao said:

Currently, we are all operating on the assumptions... That's the problem. Both positive and negative ones are equally valid. 

Well... check the news. Which news sell more and convince more people that they're the correct outlook on stuff that happens? positive or negative ones?

At this point, save for like 5 people (which, listing in my head, are always the same), the subreddit in its entirety is convinced the game has been abandoned or left to a skeleton crew to harvest any possible sale. The climate on the "Some Improvements on the Way" thread is "KSP1 devs were better", "Blackrack is so good", "I hope they know about/fix this other bug", "They limited dV to your current vehicles capabilities because they have no idea what the people want from the game", "These posts need to be weekly", "Remember when these were weekly?", "Don't forget Dakota confirmed there's yet another patch before colonies, disappointing", "Devs must not be working full time".

And before the obvious, beaten-to-a-pulp-horse comparison with Hello Games: They had already released Atlas Rises by this point, that's their third major update, and not just that, by the 15 months mark since release they were on the 8th patch for Atlas Rises.

The "let actions speak" spiel doesn't work if there's no actions.

[Scarecrow71]

22 minutes ago, Spicat said:

I don't remember this, can you provide to where we were told that?

I just remember the first cadence of weeks not months of the first two patches but we were told after those that it won't be the case anymore and no further cadence was given from what I recall.

I'll have to go back through all the posts, but I believe in one of Nate's posts regarding For Science! he stated they wanted to be on a cadence of 6-7 weeks for patches, not months.  It will take some time to find it, but I'll go digging.

[cocoscacao]

22 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

The "let actions speak" spiel doesn't work if there's no actions.

What I've gathered from FS and last update is that this game is faaaaaar from finished. In fact, the proper development probably started  after that internal turmoil.

I am questioning the EA as a concept here, since underlying systems are not present. This is gonna be a long, long ride... 

1 hour ago, Meecrob said:

We are not getting KSP1 plus colonies, interstellar and multiplayer, we are getting [a different game] plus colonies, interstellar and multiplayer.

I don't think many of things you mentioned from KSP 1 would play nicely in this newer edition. Totally based on my arbitrary assumptions of course, since we're all in the dark.

Money restrictions aren't really beginner friendly. It is fun when you know what you are doing, but it can also totally cripple newcomers.

XP was a fine concept with a few kerbals floating around, but with colonies... Well, I can't say, cause don't know. 

[Scarecrow71]

1 hour ago, cocoscacao said:

I don't think many of things you mentioned from KSP 1 would play nicely in this newer edition.

I think the modding community would disagree with you considering they gave us colonies, interstellar, resources, extra-planetary launchpads, and a whole host of other things KSP2 is supposed to provide.

1 hour ago, cocoscacao said:

Money restrictions aren't really beginner friendly.

I think Sid Meier would disagree with you, what with his genre-defining game Civilization using money as a basis for most of what the series does.

[The Aziz]

4 hours ago, Meecrob said:

Also, hundreds of Kerbals? That's funny because KSP1 had a built-in mechanism to prevent this and make you more attached to your Kerbals...they cost money to train.

Rescue contracts were an infinite source of new Kerbals (and money, cuz a very basic rocket headed for LKO costs a fraction of contract reward).

And I'm glad that the whole loop around Kerbal xp is gone because before you could get enough crew to have a colony going, you'd have to repeat the same tasks over and over and over again.

If anything they should learn over time.

[PDCWolf]

45 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

(and money, cuz a very basic rocket headed for LKO costs a fraction of contract reward).

You... can set that manually. If anything there were (and of course, still are and probably worse) very  lax restrictions on re-entry survival, vehicle configuration and such. Making gigabuses to do like 50 tourists/rescues at a time came with no downsides.

45 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

And I'm glad that the whole loop around Kerbal xp is gone because before you could get enough crew to have a colony going, you'd have to repeat the same tasks over and over and over again.

I disliked the kerbal xp grind, but I believe careers with proper bonuses (rather than arbitrary and dumb restrictions) could be very good to incentivize keeping kerbals alive rather than just hiring randos to pilot your septillion dollar flagship mission.

Edited April 28 by PDCWolf

[Pthigrivi]

9 hours ago, Meecrob said:

No they aren't. How are resources limiting my early-game builds similar to how not having much in the way of funds did when starting a new career in KSP1. Currently, when you launch your first craft in KSP2 Exploration mode, you have no limitations other than tech tree unlocks. I can make a 2000 ton vehicle as my "starting" rocket. Does that make sense to you? One of the benefits of all the limitations in KSP1 was so you could REPLAY career mode by choosing different strategies based upon how you wanted to handle the limitations. Exploration Mode lets you "explore" as long as its to what might as well be a flashing neon arrow that says "SCIENCE HERE"

We should probably have this conversation in a separate dedicated thread because it is a really good topic and might be worth revisiting. To keep it short though: if you have resources you already have a mechanism for limiting vessel size and weight, its just the "cost" is measured in resources rather than a separate abstract currency that rapidly looses its meaning and value as you start to develop off-world. You don't need money to solve this in the early game, you can just offer resources in limited quantities at KSC from the start. That way the game has a consistent set of mechanics throughout gameplay. 

9 hours ago, Meecrob said:

Just because a feature was not implemented in the best way in KSP1 does not mean it is garbage. Why don't we use this opportunity during EA as a community and discuss the pros and cons of the XP system and how it can be improved or replaced with a different system with similar functionality?

Also, hundreds of Kerbals? That's funny because KSP1 had a built-in mechanism to prevent this and make you more attached to your Kerbals...they cost money to train.

On EA being a good time to discuss this I totally agree. This could also be its whole own thread. Again to keep the response short the reason KSP1 XP didn't really work was 2-fold: 1) agree with others it was limiting functions like SAS that should be unlocked from the start, and 2) XP requires you to track the progress of each individual kerbal and as Aziz points out repeat many of the same tasks for each kerbal over and over. I think there could and probably should be an expanding set of skills and buffs for kerbals but these should be applied colony wide or game-wide. We wouldn't want a game thats about building multiple colonies and multiple resource mining and science gathering and operations to lend itself to just a few kerbals we grew attached to personally. I think it's very likely we'll have dozens, and tracking XP on an individual basis means a lot of time spent fussing in crew roster menus rather than building and flying spaceships. To apply these kinds of skills colony wide or program wide would just mean adding a specific module or unlocking a skill on the tech tree and it could apply for all your kerbals. We don't yet know how kerbal skills might play out but that would be my recommendation. 
 

9 hours ago, Meecrob said:

THANK YOU!!! Finally someone understands what I am saying!! Now do you get we are arguing the same point? We were told this game was gonna be KSP1 plus colonies, interstellar and multiplayer. We are not getting KSP1 plus colonies, interstellar and multiplayer, we are getting [a different game] plus colonies, interstellar and multiplayer.

You cannot state your own opinion as if it is objective truth. Are you saying your opinion is more valuable or correct than mine? How much did you spend on KSP2? $50? According to the shareholders, our opinions are exactly equal, lol.

Oh this is all, absolutely my opinion. I've been following KSP for many years and a lot of the information about how KSP2 will be different was out there long before the EA release. We knew money was out and there was no mention of careers or XP so I personally assumed they were out too. I (my opinion) feel as though those decisions--given the eventual scope of KSP2 and for the reasons mentioned above--were actually really smart and gives me much more confidence that when resources are introduced and the game really takes shape it won't be an utter slog to play. KSP2's scope is much bigger and that means a lot of the fuss needs to get cut so bigger things have room to breathe. Of course I don't agree with all of their decisions. I think the LoS comnet system is actually a really great spatial and navigation puzzle that really exploits KSP's unique nature to give depth to gameplay. Its one of those unique gameplay stories that only KSP can tell. I also think not implementing a planetary scanning system similar to SCANsat is a mistake for the same reason. Maybe it will be added with resources, but even now it could be a great way to gather information on biomes and discover anomalies in a much more natural way. It would also greatly improve pacing and the mission tree as right now we're sent on a pretty linear path from site to site and the order doesn't really match up well with actual landing difficulty. It would both be easier for new players and deeper for old players to be asked first to put a satellite in a polar orbit and that would create the natural choice of visiting the discoverables in whichever order you prefered. One of the dev's key goals was to smooth-out  the learning curve and this would help immensely with that. I also think the lack of interest in life support is probably a mistake as time and living off the land are so critical to the future of space exploration and it's a very obvious way to leverage what KSP has going to create great game dynamics. But! Thats just my 2c. 

Edited April 28 by Pthigrivi

[cocoscacao]

7 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

I think the modding community would disagree with you considering they gave us colonies, interstellar, resources, extra-planetary launchpads, and a whole host of other things KSP2 is supposed to provide.

None of those things are the things he mentioned.

7 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

I think Sid Meier would disagree with you, what with his genre-defining game Civilization using money as a basis for most of what the series does.

And GTA uses car theft as it's main gameplay loop... So? These games are unrelated.

[Scarecrow71]

3 hours ago, cocoscacao said:

And GTA uses car theft as it's main gameplay loop... So? These games are unrelated.

You were talking about money, not the core loop.  My point was that money is not crippling to beginners.

[chefsbrian]

14 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

So there are at least 2 more patches/updates prior to getting 0.3.  It has already been 3 months since 0.2.1, despite being told the patch cadence would be 6-7 weeks so as to help prevent a 10 month cycle for milestones.  Well, 1 month to get to 0.2.1, 3 months (at least) to get to 0.2.2, then say another 3 months to get to 0.2.3, and then another 3 months to get to 0.3, and you have...10 months to get to 0.3.

This was my worry, that we'd see a repeat of for science, dropping a milestone every december-ish. Mathed out a similar prediction earlier, in another thread, actually.

On 3/4/2024 at 8:00 PM, chefsbrian said:

The "Multiple updates before Colonies" bit from the bullet point summary is mildly concerning - Obviously its not inherently a bad thing to fix stuff before the next release, but with the Historical update Cadence, that feels to me like its placing Colonies out in... well, December again. Even if multiple means "Two", we've seen a trend of months between material updates, which could still put that release out way late into the year. Teams still struggling to keep things like KERB at the promised cadence after all, much less substantial updates, much less milestone updates.

I do hope that's not the case. The Science update only brought KSP2 to 'significant' gameplay parity with KSP1, and colonies will be the update that objectively makes it mechanically superior. Technically or gameplay wise is still debatable, but KSP1 even with mods didn't handle colonies well - Closest we got was WOLF that just pushed everything offscreen. However, if that milestone is only reached when we're closer to two years of early access than not, I'm going to be very disappointed. We were told that content updates should speed up after For Science, as all the parallel work the teams put together starts paying off, but setting a precedent of a yearly major milestone update would break that expectation, and would put the realistic multiplayer gameplay window with my friends into 2028 (December 2027, plus the requisite bugfix patches for it to actually work ). And while that's purely extrapolation from a limited set of data points, we really haven't been given anything promising to the contrary. After all, we were being shown reentry effects in February at launch, and Science Parts shortly after that.

On the specific topic of communication, I do think its just as much of a substance issue as it is a cadence issue. We've spent the last year and change being told there's plenty of work going on it the background, things are progressing great, our internal builds are so much fun - And then the community asks to see it, and we get crickets. And while I totally understand a reluctance to show off anything you're not dead certain you can deliver, it doesn't add up to a lot of people, because the trend of it actually happening hasn't been there, even before the game released at all. Lemme break it down here.

The game is announced, the community goes wild. we're shown a bunch of cool stuff. Crickets, corporate drama, some date shuffling, and we don't really see much of anything. For the most part the community understands this, as we're being told that we're getting a full release of KSP2. Nearing the dates, it becomes an early access, and most of the stuff we've been talking about for the years between announcement and now is pushed out to roadmap. The community is disappointed but understanding, and takes the reassurances that what is launching will be absolutely solid as solace. The community then gets the first release of the game, and its pretty bad. We're told it'll be fixed up right quick, and the launch window features will be coming shortly. Then its not fixed up quick, and the launch window features are pushed out almost ten months. When asked to explain this both along the way and afterwards, we're more or less told that its because of parallel development in various features that'll speed up the content cadence. But we're given at most some extremely surface glances of this parallel content, and its extremely difficult to actually identify any signs of meaningful progress. The community requests more information and expresses discontent with what is being provided so far, and is promised some level of improved and expanded communication, but with no commitment to any specifics. At the same time, existing communication avenues dry up, providing even less insight into the active progress of development. This triggers another round of communication concern and inquiry, to which the community is told that all the work time has been put into planning out the next levels of work, and therefore communications can't be prepared just yet. This is followed up by information that suggest the patch cycle is stagnating, not accelerating in its timelines.

Those last two parts is where it starts to fall apart, because its a bit of a leap for someone to accept that "We have multiple parallel development streams making content" and "We have nothing to talk about because we're planning what we will be doing next" are both true at the same time. If you've had a year of parallel development streams, it doesn't make sense to the average person that you have nothing to show for it across all the streams - While corporate communications is reluctant to talk about anything meaningful that might end up not getting added, the people who already paid just want to understand what the development team is doing and where it might be going, even if they hear that a thing is later cut for non-viability. But if you can move past that and accept that first combination condition, then the patch cycle appearing to be on the same timeline as the last one doesn't add up, suggesting that at a minimum, the parallel development chains aren't going to yield any meaningful increases in patch rates.

Effectively, and likely with no malice, the community now has years of being overpromised and underdelivered to, and the scope of those overpromised and underdelivered situations have been coming in smaller and smaller - First it was the entire thing, then parts of the thing, then update cadences, now patch cadences, now communication cadences - Every step feels like its been backwards to many. And I do want to be clear that it is "Many" and not "All" - I don't speak for the whole community, but discontent doesn't have to, not on its own. This isn't an element of the community being told "You won't get this" and then being mad, this is that element being told "We'll do better" and then not getting anything better, over and over and over - Even if the rest is fine, that group is entirely in their rights to be angry about it at this point, because they're feeling lied to. And I think it shows in the cancellation of the KERB and its reception - People for the most part agreed it wasn't working and were ok with it going, the discontent was that it was the only remaining reliable communication path, and that's the thing we keep asking for.

Most of us salty folks don't care if we get communications every week, two weeks, month, or even three months - Within reason, we don't want the game to reach that 2028 date in my quoted post . But what we do want to know is that if you come out and say "First of every month, meaningful update", that I can swing in on May 1st and see something that's actually of substance to the game. Not a filler dev article though, I guarantee you that we'd prefer 2 paragraphs and a screenshot of one singular colony feature sliver or a long piece that ends with "None of that worked so we went to the drawing board" over 10 paragraphs and math diagrams about how clouds in gas giants work IRL but why Jool doesn't do it the same way. That might be cool, but its completely irrelevant to the roadmap we want to hear about. The last thing I want to hear is "We'll provide updates on our plans to provide updates two weeks from now" and then come back in two weeks to hear "So we've discussed the initial plans to create a cadence for communications that'll provide details, but we're pushing out that information a few more weeks, check back later".

KSP2 is in a bit of a do or die scenario - Not the game as a whole but its communications. You need to decide publicly and vocally, whether you will actually provide more meaningful information and details on a meaningful schedule, or will you prefer to work quiet and just roll in whenever you feel your ready. Trying to play the middle ground of "we'd love to we're totally working on it and doing it" without delivering is just making the whole thing look worse and throwing a lot of doubt on it. You're setting yourself up No Mans Sky style, nodding along to nice sounding things that people ask about without the seeming ability to deliver. You can look at is as "Look how much damage a single comment about development streams has done to expectations" as a reason to clam up, or you can look at it as a reason to speak more to explain what context was missing from that comment as to the actual development streams. But you need to make a decision.

And that's the end of my rant from a community perspective. From a personal perspective, I find it disappointing and frustrating that a fully funded and well staffed studio full of professionals are struggling to meet the standards that indie early access games set in the early 2010's, before anyone even knew how to do any of this. There was this indie game called Kerbal Space Program managed to make frequent and meaningful communication updates to its users, while also having frequent and meaningful content patches and enhancements. These updates were relatively small, simple, not particularly heavily edited, and even included stuff that ultimately didn't come to pass that still informed the community as to what the focus at the moment was, and where things might be going. I am getting more and more of the feeling that our "Communications" are being treated as investor statements and press statements rather than being intended for us.

[DoomsdayDuck555]

11 minutes ago, chefsbrian said:

even included stuff that ultimately didn't come to pass

Are you talking about multiplayer?

[cocoscacao]

6 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

My point was that money is not crippling to beginners.

You started playing KSP 1 in career mode? Congrats to you. I did it with Science.

Edited April 29 by cocoscacao

[MechBFP]

8 hours ago, chefsbrian said:

This was my worry, that we'd see a repeat of for science, dropping a milestone every december-ish. Mathed out a similar prediction earlier, in another thread, actually.

On the specific topic of communication, I do think its just as much of a substance issue as it is a cadence issue. We've spent the last year and change being told there's plenty of work going on it the background, things are progressing great, our internal builds are so much fun - And then the community asks to see it, and we get crickets. And while I totally understand a reluctance to show off anything you're not dead certain you can deliver, it doesn't add up to a lot of people, because the trend of it actually happening hasn't been there, even before the game released at all. Lemme break it down here.

The game is announced, the community goes wild. we're shown a bunch of cool stuff. Crickets, corporate drama, some date shuffling, and we don't really see much of anything. For the most part the community understands this, as we're being told that we're getting a full release of KSP2. Nearing the dates, it becomes an early access, and most of the stuff we've been talking about for the years between announcement and now is pushed out to roadmap. The community is disappointed but understanding, and takes the reassurances that what is launching will be absolutely solid as solace. The community then gets the first release of the game, and its pretty bad. We're told it'll be fixed up right quick, and the launch window features will be coming shortly. Then its not fixed up quick, and the launch window features are pushed out almost ten months. When asked to explain this both along the way and afterwards, we're more or less told that its because of parallel development in various features that'll speed up the content cadence. But we're given at most some extremely surface glances of this parallel content, and its extremely difficult to actually identify any signs of meaningful progress. The community requests more information and expresses discontent with what is being provided so far, and is promised some level of improved and expanded communication, but with no commitment to any specifics. At the same time, existing communication avenues dry up, providing even less insight into the active progress of development. This triggers another round of communication concern and inquiry, to which the community is told that all the work time has been put into planning out the next levels of work, and therefore communications can't be prepared just yet. This is followed up by information that suggest the patch cycle is stagnating, not accelerating in its timelines.

Those last two parts is where it starts to fall apart, because its a bit of a leap for someone to accept that "We have multiple parallel development streams making content" and "We have nothing to talk about because we're planning what we will be doing next" are both true at the same time. If you've had a year of parallel development streams, it doesn't make sense to the average person that you have nothing to show for it across all the streams - While corporate communications is reluctant to talk about anything meaningful that might end up not getting added, the people who already paid just want to understand what the development team is doing and where it might be going, even if they hear that a thing is later cut for non-viability. But if you can move past that and accept that first combination condition, then the patch cycle appearing to be on the same timeline as the last one doesn't add up, suggesting that at a minimum, the parallel development chains aren't going to yield any meaningful increases in patch rates.

Effectively, and likely with no malice, the community now has years of being overpromised and underdelivered to, and the scope of those overpromised and underdelivered situations have been coming in smaller and smaller - First it was the entire thing, then parts of the thing, then update cadences, now patch cadences, now communication cadences - Every step feels like its been backwards to many. And I do want to be clear that it is "Many" and not "All" - I don't speak for the whole community, but discontent doesn't have to, not on its own. This isn't an element of the community being told "You won't get this" and then being mad, this is that element being told "We'll do better" and then not getting anything better, over and over and over - Even if the rest is fine, that group is entirely in their rights to be angry about it at this point, because they're feeling lied to. And I think it shows in the cancellation of the KERB and its reception - People for the most part agreed it wasn't working and were ok with it going, the discontent was that it was the only remaining reliable communication path, and that's the thing we keep asking for.

Most of us salty folks don't care if we get communications every week, two weeks, month, or even three months - Within reason, we don't want the game to reach that 2028 date in my quoted post . But what we do want to know is that if you come out and say "First of every month, meaningful update", that I can swing in on May 1st and see something that's actually of substance to the game. Not a filler dev article though, I guarantee you that we'd prefer 2 paragraphs and a screenshot of one singular colony feature sliver or a long piece that ends with "None of that worked so we went to the drawing board" over 10 paragraphs and math diagrams about how clouds in gas giants work IRL but why Jool doesn't do it the same way. That might be cool, but its completely irrelevant to the roadmap we want to hear about. The last thing I want to hear is "We'll provide updates on our plans to provide updates two weeks from now" and then come back in two weeks to hear "So we've discussed the initial plans to create a cadence for communications that'll provide details, but we're pushing out that information a few more weeks, check back later".

KSP2 is in a bit of a do or die scenario - Not the game as a whole but its communications. You need to decide publicly and vocally, whether you will actually provide more meaningful information and details on a meaningful schedule, or will you prefer to work quiet and just roll in whenever you feel your ready. Trying to play the middle ground of "we'd love to we're totally working on it and doing it" without delivering is just making the whole thing look worse and throwing a lot of doubt on it. You're setting yourself up No Mans Sky style, nodding along to nice sounding things that people ask about without the seeming ability to deliver. You can look at is as "Look how much damage a single comment about development streams has done to expectations" as a reason to clam up, or you can look at it as a reason to speak more to explain what context was missing from that comment as to the actual development streams. But you need to make a decision.

And that's the end of my rant from a community perspective. From a personal perspective, I find it disappointing and frustrating that a fully funded and well staffed studio full of professionals are struggling to meet the standards that indie early access games set in the early 2010's, before anyone even knew how to do any of this. There was this indie game called Kerbal Space Program managed to make frequent and meaningful communication updates to its users, while also having frequent and meaningful content patches and enhancements. These updates were relatively small, simple, not particularly heavily edited, and even included stuff that ultimately didn't come to pass that still informed the community as to what the focus at the moment was, and where things might be going. I am getting more and more of the feeling that our "Communications" are being treated as investor statements and press statements rather than being intended for us.

Earlier in the thread I made a post saying I could go into a rather lengthy post about their communications to date, and this post essentially is that lengthy post, although being more polite about it than I probably would have been if I had wrote up something similar.

I am getting quite impatient with the development so far and I am expecting lots of progress to made in relatively short order because they really haven’t done anything *directly* to reset that overall arching expectation since the game was announced.

Now keep in mind I have enough experience in life to know that they are never going to be able to meet those expectations because there clearly was years worth of delays, but if they want the community to be perpetually liquided at them they are certainly accomplishing it by refusing to directly acknowledge that there were years worth of delays to this project. 

Edited April 29 by MechBFP

[Scarecrow71]

5 hours ago, cocoscacao said:

You started playing KSP 1 in career mode? Congrats to you. I did it with Science.

Are you being intentionally facetious here?

You stated "Money is crippling to new players".  I countered with Sid Meier using money in Civilization as an example to prove it isn't, and your response was to mention the gameplay loop.  I again countered by stating I was responding to your comment about money, not the gameplay loop, and you completely ignore that by saying "Congratulations for starting in career mode".

Let me be perfectly clear:  Money is NOT crippling to new players.  Money, resources, funds, cash, moola - whatever you want to call it - is a basic element of most games.  It is not crippling to new players because we are all taught in every game we play that some mechanic limits what we can or cannot do.  And even in Science mode, you still have to deal with Science Points, which are a form of currency in the game.

[Flush Foot]

20 hours ago, The Aziz said:

If anything they should learn over time.

At least / especially if they spent some quality time in the same location as the 'veterans' (be it at the KSC, another colony, a 'basic' station, maybe even "any crewed vessel"), listening to their stories, asking them questions, etc.

Heck, you could have a few 'epic veterans' and park them in a "University Colony" through which you cycle new recruits to then spread that expertise to more and more outposts.

[Flush Foot]

9 hours ago, chefsbrian said:

<snip> Lemme break it down here.

<snip / bump>

@Dakota, @Nerdy_Mike I think that @chefsbrian's response is a very fair synopsis of many community-members feelings / experiences, if you'd like to give it a read.