What happened to increased communication?

[Spicat]

1 hour ago, PDCWolf said:

This is a fallacy.

No that’s a fact, AAA games are not $50.

I don’t care that millions are buying indies, or during sales, that doesn’t mean AAA are not priced at best at $60 and at worst at god know how much.

[PDCWolf]

18 minutes ago, Spicat said:

No that’s a fact, AAA games are not $50.

I don’t care that millions are buying indies, or during sales, that doesn’t mean AAA are not priced at best at $60 and at worst at god know how much.

You can price an AAA release at $300, your sales will be very near 0, thus the obvious conclusion that AAA games are not $300, the seller wants that, it's not gonna get it, just like PD is not getting $50 for KSP2 in its current state from a lot of people.

For the record, in my region they priced it at $3.

[Spicat]

6 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

You can price an AAA release at $300, your sales will be very near 0, thus the obvious conclusion that AAA games are not $300, the seller wants that, it's not gonna get it, just like PD is not getting $50 for KSP2 in its current state from a lot of people.

For the record, in my region they priced it at $3.

Well then "AAA price" is a nonsensical term that doesn’t mean anything because that mean $3 is AAA priced.

[Scarecrow71]

43 minutes ago, Flush Foot said:

Uhh... when did you start counting for that? About a year before EA came out?

I have to agree with @MechBFP here.  I don't know the exact timing, but there was some serious turnover and replacement of the developers at one point.  Nertea didn't join until about a year before EA dropped, and Blackrack came in after.  So while we all like to complain about the length of time this has taken (6 years total to this point), I think the true staging point is about a year, maybe 18 months, before EA dropped.

[Flush Foot]

8 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

replacement of the developers

Alright... devs changing is your starting point I suppose ~2 years is possible... I was only thinking about the studio-changeover in 2020/2021

[moeggz]

3 hours ago, Fizzlebop Smith said:

Exploration was *advertised* as the culmination of Science & Career yet failed to capture ANY aspect of career.

Yup. It seems like from going through the colony mega thread it won’t approach in a meaningful way a  culmination of career and science until the exploration update, after colonies and after interstellar. 
 

I like science points. And I like the expansion and better quality of the hand crafted missions in KSP2 over test x part in y situation of KSP1.

But it’s not career mode at all until there is a gameplay reason to build efficient rockets. They say rockets won’t be “free” but only really talk about resources in regards to fuel and late tech tree parts. If there’s never a reason to use a SRB over a liquid fuel stack with an engine this game may not be for me. So until they communicate clearly about what resources will be needed for, and how the player will be credited them (ie please have some incentive to not timewarp for maximum resources) the best I can do is *hope* that “rockets won’t be free” includes some player incentives to build cheap and efficient. 
 

Thats three major updates down the road. For Science! was a big step forward but didn’t nudge me at all to play more after trying it for a few hours, or to update my negative review to a positive one.

The CMs hyped that they have some good communication in the pipeline, so here I check the forums at lunch for a week or so to see if it’s worth me staying around. No news or bad news and I’ll be away from the forums and Reddit for months again.

[Fizzlebop Smith]

There was a quote I am going to steal (with permission) from a steam user that was meant to illustrate the dissonance between the two titles..

"You used to play a pioneer, now you just throttle after ancient aliens looking for the next 'killroy was here' location"

[calabus2]

20 hours ago, Spicat said:

Totally off topic but it's funny to me that everyone keeps saying that. Have you seen AAA price lately? They are at $70 (and now $80 on console) and it's not even talking about all the absurdity next to it, like with the ultimate edition that can crank the price up to $120 to have the full game.

There are some that still sell for $60 (still not ksp2 price tho) fortunately, but it's getting rarer.

Yeah you are right. $70 seems to be the new $50 these days. 

[Pthigrivi]

6 hours ago, NH4Cl Enthusiast said:

You also do seem to think that by default if there are previews or sneak peaks communicated, there will be a significant amount of things shown in those communications which will be cut or altered to the point of aggravating the audience. And this to me is really interesting. In fact you don't seem to think that they are capable of communicating in a reliable and truthful manner. Because if you did, you wouldn't be presenting your argument in the first place. I want to point out that you are specifically talking about people's reaction to a situation where the devs are showcasing stuff that ends up being cut or altered or fail to meet expectations. To me it sounds like a pretty legitimate thing to complain about.

I have no argument with the first part of your post because I actually do think negative feedback on the merits of actual content is great and useful and totally warranted. I just think it can be done politely and without taking any of this quite so personally as some seem to. Maybe Im wrong and they really do feel personally wounded by this, but it feels to me kind of hyperbolic and hyperbolic arguments don't mean much.

This last bit though I do disagree with, mainly because Im in a creative field and doing this kind of work is rarely a linear process. If you're really vetting and testing and and seeing what works and what doesn't there will be lots of things that appear one way as WIP and emerge completely differently as a finished product. That ability to make big changes along the way is really important to producing good work, but folks watching from the outside or only seeing small snippets might not understand how you got from A to B. Normally thats fine, but given how folks tend to react to being shown one thing and being delivered another I wouldn't blame them at all for just keeping everything under wraps. Making creative and practical changes to better the end-product doesn't make you a liar, but there are a great many folks here who will find a way to frame it that way and thats a drag for all involved. 

2 hours ago, moeggz said:

Yup. It seems like from going through the colony mega thread it won’t approach in a meaningful way a  culmination of career and science until the exploration update, after colonies and after interstellar. 
 

I like science points. And I like the expansion and better quality of the hand crafted missions in KSP2 over test x part in y situation of KSP1.

But it’s not career mode at all until there is a gameplay reason to build efficient rockets. They say rockets won’t be “free” but only really talk about resources in regards to fuel and late tech tree parts. If there’s never a reason to use a SRB over a liquid fuel stack with an engine this game may not be for me. So until they communicate clearly about what resources will be needed for, and how the player will be credited them (ie please have some incentive to not timewarp for maximum resources) the best I can do is *hope* that “rockets won’t be free” includes some player incentives to build cheap and efficient. 
 

Thats three major updates down the road. For Science! was a big step forward but didn’t nudge me at all to play more after trying it for a few hours, or to update my negative review to a positive one.

Yeah totally. I may have said this here on another thread but for me KSP2 probably won't return as my main gaming obsession until resources are implemented. I still kinda wish they would swap interstellar and resources for that reason, but I know resources is probably the hardest gameplay nut to crack so its gonna be a while anyway. 

Edited April 16, 2024 by Pthigrivi

[Fizzlebop Smith]

I work in an engineering field. When we promise a product we provide an estimated scope of work.

The condition the product is in at various phases of development is detailed within this scope.

Also is a degree of acceptance criteria on what can deviate from various spec.

Once the creative direction is decided, we are required to work within the constraints and guidelines provided in our "scope of contract"

Which is the EA guidelines. More than that it is the proposed mission sstatement produced by

T2 / PD

 

The problem I have with the creative types like to change their mind.

1. I subcontract massive art projects and have never once see a creative person behind the contract... let reality or physical sway them.

Often once that final vision has been realized. It is as good as set in stone. With financial constraints being what ultimately decides whether that vision changes.

"Ugh.. adding that 30' cantilevered coffee cup will add $22,000 to the project" kind of things

2. It suggests that there is no concrete vision that the *team* can agree on. That may not be the case, but to think the creative director will deviate so greatly from the original vision that it will not be recognized / accepted .. and means that it is more of a dream than a vision. Still so Ephemeral that implementation has not even been considered yet.

Once large undertaking of code has been taken toward a vision, it is hard for me to (with my limited code knowledge) imagine it becoming something sufficiently unlike what was "promised"

3. This is not often the case when the changed creative visions results in something people can agree is a *better* product.

But the point of this remains communication and all of our chapped butts could be salved with a simple

 

"We have a couple different directions we are thinking of taking the colony / resource / font options for the future. As we are undecided on a concrete plan of attack, here are some pictures of the pretty models we will be using"

 

So as this discourse has went several rounds with no real resolution I will say. You are entitled to you opinion. As I am mine. It likely goes to the way thay I was raised "speak up" was something I was told frequently.

Speak up for yourself,   nothing will change unless you say something,   be vocal or get stepped on... etc etc.

My overly verbose commentary aside. The majority of this has been civil. As is much of the commentary left on this forum.

There may be the occasional posting removed, once in a great while a devolution into toxic reprisals...

But by and far, this forum is filled with civility AND different views.

Thank you for participating in the spirit of this exchange.

 

 

Edited April 16, 2024 by Fizzlebop Smith

[steveman0]

7 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

You can absolutely like the update and have fun and hundreds of hours in it, but reception is a measurable fact and oh boy. Reviews barely budged up to mixed from mostly negative, and there was another influx of negatives with that. The subreddit started automatically (by humans, not bots Dakota) downvoting KSP2 content again, media coverage was null. Sure, the player numbers jumped, but only to a quarter of the peak, and rapidly went back to <5% of original players, and half of KSP1. Also, the constant "complaining about complaining" and dwindling of activity tells you that even here the reception wasn't that good.

There are multiple ways to interet reception. Static metrics like a Steam rating is just one and it is plagued with it's own issues. The best way to understand is to read what people are actually saying and the response in posts following FS was extremely positive.

It should come as no surprise that many still did not update their Steam reviews as the game is still not finished. This is a huge factor for many who rate on Steam. You have to dig deeper to isolate feedback specific to the patch itself and thaf was quite positive. There is no arguing the 0.1 release was botched. Their marketing failed heavily in that regard. But FS showed that they are moving in the right direction. Keeping their heads down in face of all of the unreasonable vitriol makes sense as no amount of communication will alleviate emotions originating out of pure impatience.

6 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

I agree that quality should be provided over quantity.  I also agree that you can't just go fast-fast-fast because people want you to.  But at some point they need to move with haste.

I see this as a direct contradiction. You can either go fast, or carefully. At least on that linear spectrum. Unless you want to add "cost" on as a point to a triangle, there are only ever two options. For a game targeting a life matching or exceeding the original, carefully will pay dividends over the lifecycle compared to short term haste.

Despite what the marketing had us believe about 0.1, my thinking aligns with @MechBFP in that development proper started much later than many wish was the case. I find the payoff for quality comes much later in the development cycle than the team is in now. Once many of the past mistakes are wrapped up, I would expect content pace to move faster as they will no longer be held back by the technical debt of the early alpha mistakes.

[Pthigrivi]

1 hour ago, Fizzlebop Smith said:

The problem I have with the creative types like to change their mind.

No I totally get this and it is a fine balance. You do have to be practical about how and when you change things. Im an architect so I see both sides of it. Since Wube has a pretty stellar perception among fans I thought I'd use this recent Factorio Friday Facts as an illustration (Full text here). Basically the story was they had a whole planet designed but after seeing it in action it just felt boring so they dropped most of the initial design and started from scratch. I think the result is pretty awesome.
 

Quote

The first impressions
- kovarex

The things described so far work quite well and were not mechanically touched since the initial design. But the rest didn't have such a straightforward creation story.

When I was doing the historically first playthrough of the planets content in January 2022, everything was different.
I visited Fulgora as the 3rd planet. At that time it was a pristine desert planet. The only things special about it were the lightning, the islands, one new ore, and a few new recipes. Each island only had 1 resource, and water only existed on certain islands as water springs (like oil), but all of the resource mining, the processing, and the usual intermediates were all the same as on Nauvis.
And since it was the 3rd planet already, I started to feel worn out from the repetition of doing the same old mines, smelting, circuit production, oil refining etc.

At this time I started to feel skeptical about the whole expansion. It felt like the problem of per-planet repetition is not really solvable, and the whole idea of the expansion is fundamentally broken. Not a good place to be.

This problem of repetition was relevant to basically all the planets so it felt hard to solve. Giving up was just not an option, we had to try to improve things one step at a time, and hope for the best.

Since Fulgora needed some revamp and as I felt desperate, I was very open to wild changes. The first idea was a nuclear option and it sounded something like this:

"Remove the resources and just put some trash that some aliens have dumped on the planet, it could be directly transformed into any basic resource through assembling machines, so the game would be shortened and the repetitive parts removed."

This would already be an improvement, but Earendel took it a step further in a way that made everything fit together nicely. This was an amazing opportunity to integrate the recycler into the game.

Up until this point the recycler was mostly just a "quality recycling resource sink tool".
However, if the resource you're mining is made of some high-level scrap and the recycler just transforms it into all kinds of intermediate products in a fixed ratio, then the gameplay could become much more interesting.
The challenge wouldn't be getting the resources, but dealing with the flow of random/mixed products, sorting them, handling the excess, etc.
This proved to be a viable idea, and step by step it led us to the current state of the planet.

...
 

Conclusionkovarex

This planet is an excellent example of why development behind closed doors for some time was a good idea. We could experiment and make decisions that would normally be viewed as extreme, like overhauling how an entire planet works.

This allowed us to transform one of the most repetitive planets into one of the most novel ones. Since we were doing similar kinds of drastic changes all over the place, the original overall desperation described earlier is now long gone.
I'm not saying that everyone will enjoy the expansion, but now at least we do. This is quite an important requirement for a good game, isn't it?

I've also mentioned Cyberpunk a few times. They've utterly reinvented the perk tree and loot drop system--two of the most core elements in an RPG--much for the better. But if early on they said "Oh yeah btw we're just going to remove most of the value of randomized armor and clothes will basically be cosmetic" people would have thrown even more of a fit. They wouldn't have any of the first-hand play experience to realize wandering around looking like a spazoid because some random tshirt had a better AC stat isn't actually good gameplay and since the game is all about cybernetic modification it doesn't make sense in that world anyway. In the end cleaning up the messy, incomplete release and implementing those kinds of major overhauls took 3 years. When it comes to some of these creative processes sometimes you've just got to try things and see if they work. Sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you don't, and yeah its not efficient and it takes a long time, but in the end it's the only way new ideas can be made to actually work. 

[The Aziz]

Problem with CP77 was that it was hyped by both fans and devs for long years before it was out. Like, it was announced 8 years before release. And it still released as version 1.0  in a sorry state despite huge budget, big team behind it and whatnot. Yes there was more game to it (because first person action games tend to have that) but the technical state was so bad that the team started issuing refunds even on consoles, which very rarely happens. Only version 2.0 brought it back to glory, but it really should have been the 1.0 that was stellar (even though it had a reportedly compelling story, Keanu Reeves and a classic Porsche on day 1).

We're not there yet. Mostly because of that little "0" at the front of game version.

[PDCWolf]

8 hours ago, Spicat said:

Well then "AAA price" is a nonsensical term that doesn’t mean anything because that mean $3 is AAA priced.

I mean, fair enough, it kinda is nonsensical to assume every game is worth the same just because "reasons". AAA itself is a very badly defined term. Is it budget? team size? depth and complexity? Something to do with publishers? It probably had a meaning at some point, now all "AAA" means is "I'm throwing my money away for a subpar, rushed, MTX ridden product", save for very counted exceptions, of which none I remember are above $60, much less on sales.

Again, you can price an "AAA" product at whatever price, you can collude with other publishers and media to normalize said price (specially since they're mostly on a country with no laws against that), but if people don't believe it's worth that, they're not gonna pay that price, and it is kinda what's happening. The only exception will probably be GTA VI, but that game has been so overhyped it stands no chance of matching expectations.

4 hours ago, steveman0 said:

There are multiple ways to interet reception. Static metrics like a Steam rating is just one and it is plagued with it's own issues

 

Like being a place where people can write their opinion without 50+ messages being deleted.

4 hours ago, steveman0 said:

It should come as no surprise that many still did not update their Steam reviews as the game is still not finished. This is a huge factor for many who rate on Steam. You have to dig deeper to isolate feedback specific to the patch itself and thaf was quite positive.

Since the FS! release to today, if you filter by 2 hours playtime (the refund window), 57% of the people that bought the game, or hadn't opened it till then, left a negative review. And from the total (2000 reviews in that timeframe), 500 of them kept their review negative, or made a negative review.

4 hours ago, steveman0 said:

Keeping their heads down in face of all of the unreasonable vitriol makes sense as no amount of communication will alleviate emotions originating out of pure impatience.

Ah yes, "14 months to change a font" is vitriol and impatience.

 

[cocoscacao]

4 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

Ah yes, "14 months to change a font" is vitriol and impatience.

I suspect it isn't that simple. However, that could be one of the topics for "increased communication". Talk about development on a current pain point, without spoiling the colonies, or other new stuff in general... Instead of we can't wait to share what we've been working on

Edited April 17, 2024 by cocoscacao
Added a sentence. In italic, no less

[The Aziz]

I suppose unlike many people in threads like this one, devs don't like to repeat themselves on matters that had already been covered. 

[cocoscacao]

1 hour ago, The Aziz said:

I suppose unlike many people in threads like this one, devs don't like to repeat themselves on matters that had already been covered. 

Indeed. 3 months ago. I suppose some work has been done on it. Or isn't. It can be either way, and it would be nice to have an update on the current situation. Yet, there isn't one... Which begs the question... What happened to increased communication?

Edited April 17, 2024 by cocoscacao

[Superfluous J]

1 minute ago, cocoscacao said:

What happened to increased communication?

Seems like they decided against it.

Were it me, I'd just post one thing a day: "Still nothing to report, enjoy your increased communication!" but I'm not trying to sell games and that would probably be a bad idea.

[cocoscacao]

16 minutes ago, Superfluous J said:

Still nothing to report

If I had nothing to report for 3 months, I'd be fired. Majority of us probably. So something is bound to be cooking in there. They decided against it? That's fine. You write a post about it. We will keep radio silence for the next N months, due to blah blah. They get a bunch of negative comments on it, not like there's a difference now, and life goes on. You at least expect, not to expect anything. You at least, for once, get a statement that is backed up.

[NH4Cl Enthusiast]

11 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

This last bit though I do disagree with, mainly because Im in a creative field and doing this kind of work is rarely a linear process. If you're really vetting and testing and and seeing what works and what doesn't there will be lots of things that appear one way as WIP and emerge completely differently as a finished product. That ability to make big changes along the way is really important to producing good work, but folks watching from the outside or only seeing small snippets might not understand how you got from A to B. Normally thats fine, but given how folks tend to react to being shown one thing and being delivered another I wouldn't blame them at all for just keeping everything under wraps. Making creative and practical changes to better the end-product doesn't make you a liar, but there are a great many folks here who will find a way to frame it that way and thats a drag for all involved. 

 

This is absolutely true and I agree, but I think I didn't bring my point across very well. The process is subject to change but what you choose to disclose about it should always take that into account. Don't say anything unless you're either willing to commit to it or you know it's not changing anymore. And even in creative work you have some things you will commit to and especially in game development you can totally show WIP things as well. It's just there's a difference between building hype and actually communicating about your development process.

A professional game developer should also be able to commit to a fairly regular update cycle, especially during EA and be able to tell at least something interesting about what will be coming soon and then stick to that. IG has already lost a lot of trust and they're not exactly gaining it back much. 

[Superfluous J]

41 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

If I had nothing to report for 3 months, I'd be fired. Majority of us probably

Then we should be glad we don't work for IG because then no one would be working on the game.

I agree with you that they should just say "Look we don't have anything public to say and won't until we release the next update and we don't know when that will come out. Sorry but that's life go outside and touch grass or something" but that's apparently even worse PR than continuing to say they'll communicate and then either not communicate or communicate "wrong" or whatever.

Edited April 17, 2024 by Superfluous J

[The Aziz]

41 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

If I had nothing to report for 3 months

I don't think fanbase has the legal right to fire anyone.

41 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

They get a bunch of negative comments on it, not like there's a difference now

Exactly so what's the point? More importantly, what's the point of repeating the same thing over and over like a broken record if all they're going to get is complaining?

Look at KERBs. There were barely any difference between the last two reports, because, really, not much can change in two weeks, so the frequency was reduced to bring some visible results.

[cocoscacao]

20 minutes ago, Superfluous J said:

but that's apparently even worse PR

Yeah, totally plausible. It's just getting tiring, and then frustrating...

15 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

I don't think fanbase has the legal right to fire anyone.

No where in my post I suggested anyone should be fired. No where in my post I suggested they aren't working on anything. Quite the contrary. Please stop quoting out of context.

18 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Exactly so what's the point? More importantly, what's the point of repeating the same thing over and over like a broken record if all they're going to get is complaining?

They're making the same mistake over and over again, so I'm complaining over and over again.

19 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Look at KERBs. There were barely any difference between the last two reports, because, really, not much can change in two weeks, so the frequency was reduced to bring some visible results.

A small step forward still gives you some insight. I don't expect these things to be magically resolved instantly.

[cocoscacao]

46 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

the frequency was reduced to bring some visible results.

Ah, so the frequency was reduced... and they promised to increase it... The title of this thread 'n all.

[steveman0]

9 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

Since the FS! release to today, if you filter by 2 hours playtime (the refund window), 57% of the people that bought the game, or hadn't opened it till then, left a negative review. And from the total (2000 reviews in that timeframe), 500 of them kept their review negative, or made a negative review.

I'm not sure the point of this even.  Not playing more than 2 hours is barely enough to get a feel for any of the changes.  You might barely hit tech tier 2 if you rushed in this time, maybe a couple of launches.  This is precisely the correlation I would expect to see of any game.  If you come in with negative impressions and don't give it a chance, of course your impression won't change.  On the other hand, if you filter reviews above 2 hours, that is players who legitimately invested in the patch to try it out seriously, you find reviews are 79% positive.  That's a massive turn around compared to the 57% lifetime value. 

This is mirrored in the many posts I've read from players who actually played into the exploration experience: reception of the new features is positive.  The team just needs to keep up the good work and more sour takes will turn positive when they give it a legitimate chance through future updates.