What happened to increased communication?

[NexusHelium]

22 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Yes, you are trying to dunk on me.  Not cool to call me out specifically when I'm not the only one who was pretty sure nothing would come out until tomorrow.  Thanks for that.

On that note, I was wrong.  Close, but still wrong.

Oh. I’m really sorry if it sounded like that. You were just the one who said it to me so you were the one I kinda impulsively put a name on. Really wasn’t trying to attack. You aren’t the only one who hasn’t said that. But you’re right. That wasn’t cool of me.

Sorry if it rubbed you the wrong way. Genuinely didn't mean to.

Edited April 25 by NexusHelium

[Kerbart]

15 hours ago, NexusHelium said:

I don’t think the problem is really that they’re not looking at it. I’m sure they have, but either the code doesn’t work with what they’re design ensues (for better or for worse no one knows but intercept right now)  or that they have looked at it and have chosen not to take inspiration from it.

You're right, and I have no illusions that in reality it's not that easy. But; perception is reality, and for many the question is why the game does have all these bugs that were already solved in the first version. And as hard as some of these issues are to solve, it's not unreasonable either to expect these kind of already-solved problems to be solved, especially more than a full year after the initial release that had a top-dollar asking price. It doesn't help—again, perception—that Intercept decided for most of that time period to simply ignore those errors and not do anything about them.

None of that might be rational or reasonable, but the end result is that an uptick in satisfaction has a short lifespan as long as those standing grudges haven't been addressed.

Edited April 26 by Kerbart

[The Aziz]

6 hours ago, Kerbart said:

Intercept decided for most of that time period to simply ignore

If I had a shot every time I saw that I'd be a hopeless drunk by now.

[NH4Cl Enthusiast]

18 hours ago, steveman0 said:

Just want to throw in my perspective since it contrasts with the following discussion that the biggest factor for me was the vastly improved gameplay progression the exploration mode introduced. I got KSP 2 on its initial 0.1 release but only really played ~5hours before putting it down. The science and mission progression in FS were the hook I needed and these were substantially better than the original.

I found KSP1's tech tree progression did not provide much push to actually explore the system much and the career missions were quite repetitive. I lost interest before I left Kerbin's SOI. KSP2's requirement to complete the missions and go interplanetary for the science to progress made it much easier to commit to bigger missions. It didn't have as much of a barrier to it as I felt in 1.

There's so much more to do and think about with those bigger missions that makes for good fun. I'm not self-motivated in sandox games as well as some, so the structure here provided the enthusiasm to experience it.

I'm genuinely curious though, have you played through the progression path more than once? Were you or do you honestly see yourself being equally engaged with the missions on second or third playthrough? 

My problem with the way it's done now is not that it's not engaging or fun on the first time but that it seems to lack any longevity. 

[The Aziz]

I have played through KSP1 career more than once. It was all the same every time.

[Fizzlebop Smith]

1 hour ago, The Aziz said:

I have played through KSP1 career more than once. It was all the same every time.

Each person is entitled to their own opinion, but (beyond the initial startup phase) I have never had a KSP1 career  playthrough be even remotely the same.

Sure, Specifics regarding a mission may have parallel..

Take tourist here, gather reading from there. However, with contract configurator & subsequent contract content, many missions on prompted by most recent activities.

However, If you ignore that mission to put a satellite around Jool, and instead head over to Duna you will be prompted to explore vastly different locations. 

and.. will see different things.  Find different discoverables.

One playthrough I focused on placing as many bases on as many bodies as I could. With refueling stations and extraplanetary launchpads.

Mining exotic resources & using LP / OSE to fabricate Colonies on site.

Another I decided I would skip the elaborate mining / rocket manufacturing & instead did small mining stations with orbital converters for refuel.

Another playthrough I made a ton of planes and explored every inch of kerbin.

 

As it stands now. The game stagnates quickly and has zero replay with regard to a career approach.

It seems from the outside.. and no experience I'm coding.. that excrements could have been added easily & would ensure an endless amount of replay.

Having a ratio of local missions VS greater amounts outside of Kerbins SOI could weight the game so to encourage pushing out system without taking the balls of what made career so much fun in KSP1.

Edited April 26 by Fizzlebop Smith

[NH4Cl Enthusiast]

1 hour ago, The Aziz said:

I have played through KSP1 career more than once. It was all the same every time.

But what about KSP2? Is it not also all the same every time?

[Scarecrow71]

1 hour ago, The Aziz said:

I have played through KSP1 career more than once. It was all the same every time.

24 minutes ago, Fizzlebop Smith said:

Each person is entitled to their own opinion, butI have never had a KSP1 career  playthrough be even remotely the same.

I'd like to point out that these aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.  Everyone plays different from everyone else, so what one person experiences may not necessarily be what someone else does.  What one person sees as the same thing all the time may not be what someone else sees.

With that said, I am of the opinion that parts of the KSP1 career mode are the same all the time.  You start with nothing, have to grind out science to unlock the first few nodes, then launch to the Mun.  It's only after the Mun - in my own experience, not anyone else's - that the game starts to deviate from previous playthroughs.  And as @Fizzlebop Smith pointed out later on in his post, it boils down to the contracts you select or the flights you undertake.

11 minutes ago, NH4Cl Enthusiast said:

But what about KSP2? Is it not also all the same every time?

I think that, at least for now, it is.  The contract system in KSP1 - although broken and not very beloved by all - at least changes up the missions you undertake.  All basically the same - go here, test that, build this, etc. - but the parameters change enough to at least make some people think "I wonder what happens if...".  KSP2, on the other hand, has a very rigid set of missions to undertake with zero chance for deviation.  The story missions all have to be done in the order they are presented, and there aren't any randomly generated ones.  The side missions can be done in any order, but again, they aren't random but very strict and rigid in what you have to do.

My hope is that KSP2 will, at some point, have a system that is akin to what KSP1 has, but on a larger and better scale.  A guy can hope, right?

[NH4Cl Enthusiast]

16 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

I'd like to point out that these aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.  Everyone plays different from everyone else, so what one person experiences may not necessarily be what someone else does.  What one person sees as the same thing all the time may not be what someone else sees.

 

Exactly and that's why I'm genuinely asking if people really feel the new system is not repetitive. I was never a fan of the KSP1 system either, it was unbalanced and quite boring. But it did allow for some variation in the gameplay which seems to have been replaced with a hand crafted but incredibly rigid mission progress. Not really a fan of that either.

I guess my hope lies still in the modding community.

[The Aziz]

1 hour ago, Fizzlebop Smith said:

The game stagnates quickly and has zero replay with regard to a career approach.

Can't believe this argument is still being used.

I mean yeah sure maybe it does. But perhaps it's because it ain't finished? Call me back when we're at 1.0. with colonies with almost complete freedom in their placement (and related missions), two additional solar systems (and related missions), and resources (and related missions).

My gods the first public release of Terraria had 3 bosses and playthroughs ended at Skeletron. Look where it is now. Same can be said for any early access game across the last decade and a half. They become less repetitive when more content arrives, I don't think that's something I have to explain.

The autogenerated missions are as boring as procedurally generated planets would be, and that's why they're gone. But also, it's because a slighty different gameplay loop is planned than just sending a 158th tourist to space (why bother, they're not paying anything) or send another useless piece of scrap metal into designed orbit for no reason. That's no incentive to exploration. A handcrafted mission to scan for anomalies, and once found, to land (and perhaps, drive to the location because landing zone is too difficult, has steep slopes or large rocks or near bodies of liquid) to discover an interesting geological formation or an artifact, that will give you some hint about the history of the place or planet? Yep that sounds better.

Handmade is better than generated.

[Scarecrow71]

18 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Can't believe this argument is still being used.

I mean yeah sure maybe it does. But perhaps it's because it ain't finished? Call me back when we're at 1.0. with colonies with almost complete freedom in their placement (and related missions), two additional solar systems (and related missions), and resources (and related missions).

While I can't speak for anyone else, I think the big issue here is the lack of missions available.  I also think that the story missions are too rigid, which can hamper gameplay.  Don't get me wrong - we have missions to go to the Mun, to go to Minmus, to go to Duna, and other bodies.  Some are story, some are side, and all do encourage exploration.  But are there enough of them?  And is it possible to have the devs implement some form of randomness to them so it isn't the same "drop a lander on Dres" or "get a Mohole in one" every time out?  I think that is where the issue with the gameplay resides.  Not that the game isn't playable, but that after the first run-through there just isn't enough there to make people (some, not all) go through again OR to keep playing.  I mean, as bad as the KSP1 contract system was, it was at least random enough to keep some people playing.

I do agree with you that colonies and interstellar and resources should all provide more gameplay options, as well as (hopefully) missions.  But the same question about replayability will remain if those missions are all rigid and stagnant.

[Fizzlebop Smith]

34 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

While I can't speak for anyone else, I think the big issue here is the lack of missions available.  I also think that the story missions are too rigid, which can hamper gameplay.  Don't get me wrong - we have missions to go to the Mun, to go to Minmus, to go to Duna, and other bodies.  Some are story, some are side, and all do encourage exploration.  But are there enough of them?  And is it possible to have the devs implement some form of randomness to them so it isn't the same "drop a lander on Dres" or "get a Mohole in one" every time out?  I think that is where the issue with the gameplay resides.  Not that the game isn't playable, but that after the first run-through there just isn't enough there to make people (some, not all) go through again OR to keep playing.  I mean, as bad as the KSP1 contract system was, it was at least random enough to keep some people playing.

I do agree with you that colonies and interstellar and resources should all provide more gameplay options, as well as (hopefully) missions.  But the same question about replayability will remain if those missions are all rigid and stagnant.

Yep. In a nut shell. I don't necessarily need this today.. tomorrow. But I do want to see discussions on it.

How to they plan on injecting longevity into the ganeplay?

Do they think go here drop bubble, make colony will satisfy or replace missions?

Any plan at all to implement procedural elements?

What is planned regarding this massive interstellar void. Colonies and Resources is not the answer to this question. 

Like all things. There is little to no mention of what is in store for that aspect of the career gameplay loop.  It is definitely something that could use some attention in this "increased communication" we are asking for.

[Icegrx]

2 hours ago, The Aziz said:

Handmade is better than generated.

While I agree with this statement, they need to come up with some better handmade options. 

I can only visit the same POI’s so many times before I am bored. 

while generated missions get repetitive fast, there’s at least a reward for doing them continuously. Steady stream of cash and science. 

what we have now are single playable missions with one time payouts. I’m over running the exact same missions each play through in order to progress the tree. 

We need a dynamic way of generating science besides the exact same missions. I don’t think we need procedural generated missions per say. But if colonies just adds a handful new missions of the same variety we have now, I’m going to be disappointed. 
 

 

[RileyHef]

While official mod support for KSP2 has barely been mentioned lately, I do wonder how much the dev team is secretly relying on the community to create additional missions to fill the gap being mentioned on this thread.

KSP1 had quite a few mission-related mods that improved my experience. I also have heard of a mission editor mod already being worked on for KSP2. I could very easily see the dev team essentially saying "do it yourself" or "here is a Modding tool we can provide to create/share missions" down the road. I doubt they will create a generated mission system or enough hand-made missiosn to satisfy the more seasoned playerbase.

This seems to be their attitude towards Commnet so far. It sounds like they have no intention to pursue that feature themselves. Other features like Science archiving has been mentioned, but modders beat them to it with a pretty solid tool already. By the time the dev team prioritizes many features, such as mission creation, I bet the community will already have a better answer implemented already. 

[DoomsdayDuck555]

15 minutes ago, RileyHef said:

It sounds like they have no intention to pursue that feature themselves

in the interview a month ago they stated that many devs wanted proper commnet but they needed to prioritize milestones first.

[RileyHef]

1 hour ago, DoomsdayDuck555 said:

in the interview a month ago they stated that many devs wanted proper commnet but they needed to prioritize milestones first.

Right, that interview is what helped me draw this conclusion. The interviewer actually mentioned that modders can do it and Nate agreed.

 

"Eventually, IF THE MODDERS DON'T GET TO IT, I'd love to revisit commnet." - Nate Simpson.

 

Well, there are already 2 commnet mods and one is making significant strides as a more robust tool than what we had in vanilla KSP1. What incentive would the dev team have to retread a native commnet in several years (after the last milestone update of multiplayer finishes) if the community already has access to one via mods?

[Flush Foot]

I just hope, especially before we go Interstellar in v0.4, that a stock 'alarm clock' comes back into the game!

I know expect that modders have already corrected that oversight, but I prefer to play pure-vanilla (at least during the dev phase) so it is easier to do reproducible, uncomplicated bug-reporting for the devs.

[steveman0]

8 hours ago, NH4Cl Enthusiast said:

I'm genuinely curious though, have you played through the progression path more than once? Were you or do you honestly see yourself being equally engaged with the missions on second or third playthrough? 

My problem with the way it's done now is not that it's not engaging or fun on the first time but that it seems to lack any longevity. 

I haven't played through them multiple times nor do I have plans to. I very rarely replay past games as I almost always have new ones on the backlog that I could play instead.

I don't see why replayability is a concern though. Even with what we have now, there's over 100 hours of content finishing the missions they provided if you don't rush it and we know there are plans to continue adding missions. By the time they are done there will be hundreds of hours of content and little reason why I would want to go back and do it all again.

It's perfectly fine to me to be "done" with a game in that regard. I think there's plenty more to the game that will make for good entertainment anyway that doesn't require replaying from scratch at least through to the end of EA. There's plenty of time to consider changes if they end up being needed, but I'm not worried.

[Icegrx]

1 hour ago, RileyHef said:

What incentive would the dev team have to retread a native commnet in several years (after the last milestone update of multiplayer finishes) if the community already has access to one via mods?

I typically try to stay as mod free as possible, I’m not against mods, but I try to keep them to a minimum. It’s such a hassle ensuring a particular mod works with game version X.zz.25

Plus the performance cost of running mods, ensuring things like additional UI’s stay cohesive to the stock UI’s 

and finally if I do feel like installing a particular mod, ensuring it’s compatible with other mods I may have. 

1 hour ago, steveman0 said:

I don't see why replayability is a concern though. Even with what we have now, there's over 100 hours of content finishing the missions they provided if you don't rush it and we know there are plans to continue adding missions. By the time they are done there will be hundreds of hours of content and little reason why I would want to go back and do it all again.

While this may be great for you, and that’s awesome! 

A sandbox game should have endless replay ability. While we do have sandbox modes for such things, I really enjoy a sandbox game with progression.

This severely lacks progression replay ability in its current format. There’s really only a single direct path to progress the tech tree and that severely limits ones desire to do it multiple times.

Ive ran dozens and dozens of KSP1 campaign runs, there’s many different ways you can approach it and progress. I’m on my 4th full KSP2 run currently and it’s getting old fast. 

Edited April 26 by Icegrx

[NH4Cl Enthusiast]

9 hours ago, steveman0 said:

I haven't played through them multiple times nor do I have plans to. I very rarely replay past games as I almost always have new ones on the backlog that I could play instead.

I don't see why replayability is a concern though. Even with what we have now, there's over 100 hours of content finishing the missions they provided if you don't rush it and we know there are plans to continue adding missions. By the time they are done there will be hundreds of hours of content and little reason why I would want to go back and do it all again.

It's perfectly fine to me to be "done" with a game in that regard. I think there's plenty more to the game that will make for good entertainment anyway that doesn't require replaying from scratch at least through to the end of EA. There's plenty of time to consider changes if they end up being needed, but I'm not worried.

I get that, I'm the same way with most games and in general I'd rather take a well crafted 100 hours instead of 500 procedurally generated drivel. KSP is different for me and I know for a fact that it's different for a lot of people so from that perspective the replayability is a major concern. I must have played at least a dozen playthroughs from scratch with different mods and goals in mind. 

That's also for many people a huge issue regarding IG's communication. We don't know at all what kind of design we'll be even getting at the end. Will there be a storyline? Several? Continuous updates bringing more missions regularly? A new system with colonies to complement the current science experiments? Rebalance of tech tree at some point? Is interstellar required to unlock the most advanced tech? What's the plan on replayability in general? Nobody really knows. 

[Spicat]

4 hours ago, NH4Cl Enthusiast said:

Continuous updates bringing more missions regularly?

I don't know about how much regularly but they did say that they will add missions in the future. They even have a dedicated dev that will do those new missions.

[Meecrob]

On 4/23/2024 at 4:44 PM, NexusHelium said:

May the person with the more accurate outlook on the game win 

From the bottom of my heart, I hope you are correct and I am wrong, but it seems illogical to me to assume that Take Two cares more about KSP and its legacy than making money right now (knowing it will upset lots of players).

 

On 4/23/2024 at 10:32 PM, Pthigrivi said:

This is over the top. The same roadmap is still there—colonies, interstellar, resources, multiplayer.  At each stage we can gauge the deliverables. Folks don’t get fresh info for a couple months and we’re all back to chicken little acrimony. How about a little chill. 

I am not upset in the slightest, just calling it as I see it. How about you read what I posted instead of arguing points you want to argue but I never mentioned? I am talking about the fact that the scope of KSP2 has changed from what we were told it was going to be. 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.

I don't need to wait until colonies drops to "gauge" if they have added in features they took out on purpose, and didn't say they were adding back in.

Edited April 27 by Meecrob

[steveman0]

1 hour ago, Meecrob said:

I am talking about the fact that the scope of KSP2 has changed from what we were told it was going to be.

How so? The roadmap has been published for a long time and the content on it fixed more or less since the beginning. 

1 hour ago, Meecrob said:

No Funds, no XP, no upgradable buildings.

The first was never announced as a planned feature as far as I'm aware, resources were always planned to fill this role. The other two have no word one way or another. I think you're just assuming these things while ignoring the plans they laid out. There is a ton of room for strategizing around colonies and how you'll pursue interstellar travel given the requirements for it in the cotext of finite resources and dependencies on colonies to accomplish this.

If anything, we need more communication to stop people making up what they think the game is going to be than what it is. There has been doomsaying left and right despite many of things like this that fly in the face of many of the gameplay goals laid out as a part of the roadmap.

[Meecrob]

14 minutes ago, steveman0 said:

snip

My argument is simple. You need to read it with an open mind as opposed to one that wants to argue people you see as "anti-KSP2." Its like 6 inches above this reply. I've got better things to do on this fine Saturday than teach people English reading comprehension. Please report this post for being mean...it'll give me some peace and quiet from the peanut gallery.

[steveman0]

9 hours ago, Meecrob said:

My argument is simple. You need to read it with an open mind as opposed to one that wants to argue people you see as "anti-KSP2." Its like 6 inches above this reply. I've got better things to do on this fine Saturday than teach people English reading comprehension. Please report this post for being mean...it'll give me some peace and quiet from the peanut gallery.

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.