To revert or not to revert - or ...

[KerbMav]

... the inexplicable need of some players for the game to be "harder" (for everyone) - or let us say less forgiving - by design.

This particular issue is not the first instance nor is it the first game in which I come across this phenomenon.

Yes, the revert flight function wipes all errors made during launch or even construction with no repercussions whatsoever (as long as the craft was not switched or the game reloaded).

Every other day I read a post by someone wishing for a redesign of the revert function, because it makes the game to easy and failure does not mean anything that way.

Now, I am not pondering the question if reverting is a good or a bad thing, but the question why some players want the developers to remove features, that may lower the negative impact of errors, but which can simply be ignored by the individual player and not used if a more difficult level of gameplay is wanted?

tl/dr: Why must games be designed "harder" for everyone when some players cannot ignore the easy road?

[jwenting]

There's a class of people who're such control freaks they can't live without dictating how other people they've never met and never will meet should live their lives, down to controlling how they play their single player videogames.

There's another group who have no self control whatsoever and lament the fact that there's the constant temptation of (in this case) the revert option when they don't want one for themselves.

Both scream and rant that "something should be done about it". They're a vanishingly small minority, but sadly there's a third group, the kids who just can't help but agree to everything negative because they think it makes them popular to be "part of the crowd".

Simple solution of course if you don't want to revert flights is to not do it....

[samstarman5]

I wouldn't let such people bother you since they do not make policy for the game, and Squad has their own mission in mind for the game.

As far as reverting goes, I use it when I am testing new creations such as landers or assemblies. When it comes to the final product, what happens happens, and stays. Reverting is my version of experimental testing.

Edited August 21, 2013 by samstarman5

[Seret]

tl/dr: Why must games be designed "harder" for everyone when some players cannot ignore the easy road?

If the game is "harder" they feel it gives their achievements more validity. What they seem to overlook is the fact that in a single player game (especially a sandbox one), the only person you have anything to prove to is yourself. If you're getting enjoyment and satisfaction from the game then you've "won".

[karolus10]

I like revert flight option, It's allowing for testing concepts without impacting the game (it just never happened) .

[ASnogarD]

I would rather have a 'simulation mode' where the player can elect to simulate a launch OR launch for real, in simulation you can revert to pad or cancel simulation and in the event of a disaster you will auto revert to pad type of thing... in the real launch there is no revert option.

This allows for testing and ironing out the kinks yet still leaves the consequences of a botched job looming over your heads, the best of both worlds.

I do feel reverting does take a bit out the game, for example its nearly pointless to worry about launch pad disasters and escape towers as any disaster can simply be reverted until the whole craft is perfected. There is no concern about the crew, if the craft blows up then simply revert... simulation mode could be made in such a way you can only simulate x amount... a launch, or landing but not the whole mission.

For example: One could enter simulation mode, select Mun SOI, 30k orbit at 90degrees, 0 eccentricity and simulate Mun landings / operations. Take it a bit further and remove the Muns nice texture and replace it with a uniformed grey because its a simulation, to see the real Mun surface you would have to actually get there.

A even more extreme step would be to be required to use a scan (like ISA) to get details about a planet/moon to use in the simulation... so you would need to gather data to simulate a mission, so you you could perfect a 'real' mission.

[Epthelyn]

I would rather have a 'simulation mode' where the player can elect to simulate a launch OR launch for real, in simulation you can revert to pad or cancel simulation and in the event of a disaster you will auto revert to pad type of thing... in the real launch there is no revert option.

This allows for testing and ironing out the kinks yet still leaves the consequences of a botched job looming over your heads, the best of both worlds.

I do feel reverting does take a bit out the game, for example its nearly pointless to worry about launch pad disasters and escape towers as any disaster can simply be reverted until the whole craft is perfected. There is no concern about the crew, if the craft blows up then simply revert... simulation mode could be made in such a way you can only simulate x amount... a launch, or landing but not the whole mission.

For example: One could enter simulation mode, select Mun SOI, 30k orbit at 90degrees, 0 eccentricity and simulate Mun landings / operations. Take it a bit further and remove the Muns nice texture and replace it with a uniformed grey because its a simulation, to see the real Mun surface you would have to actually get there.

A even more extreme step would be to be required to use a scan (like ISA) to get details about a planet/moon to use in the simulation... so you would need to gather data to simulate a mission, so you you could perfect a 'real' mission.

Hyperedit + Revert Flight

All Revert Flight does is move back time a few hours. You might as well just consider it a simulation where, at the end, time continues from the point where the simulation started.

[KerbMav]

The game does not force anyone to revert. Switch to the space center after a botched flight and (in a near to far future) you will have lost budget and Kerbals "for real".

Reminder: I know, my fault, I made the thread title what it is, sorry - but revert flight was just meant as an example.

If there are two options - the easy and the hard route - why should the developer have to take the easy route out of the game or create an alternative that will double the time needed to get things done (sim mode first, than once more for real e.g.)?

Why should a game be designed in a way to only allow that one way to play, if the players have the freedom to choose for themselves, which way they like more and do so? (Something I think is very important, especially for any single player game.)

(Political and religious discussions are prohibited on these forums, so I will swallow down an example from that direction and keep it to myself.)

[SRV Ron]

To revert or not to revert is currently a player's decision. I find it good for testing purposes when I find something is not working prior to launch. It is also good at saving Kerbals when something goes horribly wrong during a launch.

As far as for future versions;

In Sandbox mode, it should remain as it is now.

For Career mode, it should remain available until you actually launch. If you have to use it prior to launch, there should be a cost penalty to your KSP budget for having to return the rocket to the VAB for repair. Still, that cost should be less then the cost of a launch failure.. After launching, it should be disabled forcing you to use abort to save your Kerbals and hit you with the cost of a failed mission.

[Anton P. Nym]

There is a type of player who thinks "Harder = better", who takes the pleasure of mastering a game's mechanics one step further and thinks that games should be made deliberately hard to master in order to make that mastery rarer and thus more "valuable". To a certain degree this is necessary; very few people would enjoy a game that simply plays itself out and requires no effort at mastery to succeed. But this can be taken to the extreme of deliberately making mastery so difficult that few players would be willing or able to attain it because the time required is too great an investment for them. (Or the reward is just not enough to make them feel the investment is worth it.)

There are plenty of games where this makes sense; the competitive games, for instance, that pits the mastery of players against each other, need that mastery gradient to be a challenge for players. But for a sim like KSP I just don't see the point in going out of the way to make it tougher.

-- Steve

[Levelord]

There's a class of people who're such control freaks they can't live without dictating how other people they've never met and never will meet should live their lives, down to controlling how they play their single player videogames.

There's another group who have no self control whatsoever and lament the fact that there's the constant temptation of (in this case) the revert option when they don't want one for themselves.

Both scream and rant that "something should be done about it". They're a vanishingly small minority, but sadly there's a third group, the kids who just can't help but agree to everything negative because they think it makes them popular to be "part of the crowd".

Simple solution of course if you don't want to revert flights is to not do it....

This is exactly what I believe too. Poor player discipline and them demanding that the devs to change the game around that lack of discipline. Then they pretend to say it's all about difficulty, but in reality they can't even handle something as simple as self-control.

[swiftgates24]

People who want to remove revert flight are crazy. There is a simple way to fix it - don't use it. There is nothing stopping them from clicking "Space Center" and not "Revert Flight".

[RoboRay]

in reality they can't even handle something as simple as self-control.

People who want to remove revert flight are crazy.

Insulting people who's opinions differ from your own is not a very effective way to bring them around to your point of view.

In any case, while Revert Flight makes sense in a sandbox game, I don't think it has a place in Career Mode.

Edited August 21, 2013 by RoboRay

[Seret]

not a very effective way to bring them around to your point of view.

While you're quite correct, there's not really anything to be gained by bringing them around to the opposing viewpoint, since those people have no power to make changes to the game.

[bsalis]

But for a sim like KSP I just don't see the point in going out of the way to make it tougher.

The game needs a measure of difficulty though. It's actually part of the appeal of the game really. Compared to many mainstream games watered down for broad appeal.

The issue is around some wanting to see the game changed so that all must conform to their personal hard-mode view of things. Which is silly.

[magnemoe]

Insulting people who's opinions differ from your own is not a very effective way to bring them around to your point of view.

In any case, while Revert Flight makes sense in a sandbox game, I don't think it has a place in Career Mode.

No as you anyway can test the designs in sandbox and load craft file into Career.

Yes this require that you have an design who don't just work half of the times because of an unstable launcher or to thigh dV budget.

Note this will make Career Mode very easy, however downloading crafts from the spaceport would be even easier.

You can not stop fools from making an mess.

[RoboRay]

there's not really anything to be gained by bringing them around to the opposing viewpoint

If you prefer to talk at people rather than to them, that's your choice.

[magnemoe]

Hyperedit + Revert Flight

All Revert Flight does is move back time a few hours. You might as well just consider it a simulation where, at the end, time continues from the point where the simulation started.

Yes, only difference is that with revert you can live with an unstable launcher. However for me launchers either work or they don't as I tend to use to many struts.

However you have always been able to quicksave on launchpad.

The revert function made the game harder for me during my last mission. I found an critical bug in my design while I was in orbit, as I had been back to WAB to verify this I could not revert so Jeb had to use the lander and return to spaceport for recovery.

And yes I do an lot of Hyperedit + Revert Flight simulations. Countless landers has tried to reach Eve orbit. Some with amusing results like the one who broke all landing legs on landing but landed safely on its engines all the times. Landed on an 12 ton design, could go lower but it would reduce the safety margins and require an harder landing spot.

[Levelord]

Insulting people who's opinions differ from your own is not a very effective way to bring them around to your point of view.

In any case, while Revert Flight makes sense in a sandbox game, I don't think it has a place in Career Mode.

It's not insulting, it's the plain truth. If other people can play a perma-death mode in KSP now, what's preventing others from doing the same? It's down to lack of discipline because that's the difference between playing an effective perma-death game and complaining to the devs to change optional game features around their own selfish needs.

Why does it matter what others do in a single player game? I've pointed this out so many times and yet the proponents keeps dodging the answer. That to me, is insulting.

[Seret]

If you prefer to talk at people rather than to them, that's your choice.

Just pointing out that there's really nothing at stake. So why even couch it as an argument?

[HarvesteR]

This is a little known fact, but it is actually possible to disable the Revert options completely in your game if you want. The option exists, it just hasn't been added to the game UI yet.

Open your persistent.sfs file in your save folder in a text editor.

Look for a section called Parameters, and a section called Flight inside that.

You'll find two options, one called 'CanRestart', which regulates the use of the 'revert to launch' option, and another called 'CanLeaveToEditor', which regulates the 'revert to VAB/SPH' option. Set those to False and the revert options will be gone.

As for my personal take on this: It's a single-player game, play it however you think it's most fun.

Cheers

[KerbMav]

This is a little known fact, but it is actually possible to disable the Revert options completely in your game if you want. The option exists, it just hasn't been added to the game UI yet.

Ah, so something for the launcher/upcoming difficulty levels/settings?

Betting the dreaded "what difficulty are you playing on" will then follow the "do you use mods" question.

As for my personal take on this: It's a single-player game, play it however you think it's most fun.

That's what all of us want to - only some players do not even want the option to do it differently then they do.

[Geschosskopf]

... Now, I am not pondering the question if reverting is a good or a bad thing, but the question why some players want the developers to remove features, that may lower the negative impact of errors, but which can simply be ignored by the individual player and not used if a more difficult level of gameplay is wanted?

tl/dr: Why must games be designed "harder" for everyone when some players cannot ignore the easy road?

There are many reasons for this, but here's the main one:

Most people have a strong tendency to ascribe their own values and motives to everybody else, whether in real life or in games. Now combine this inherent human trait with the type of gamer who measures his self-worth by "beating the game" (however that is defined) on the hardest difficulty, in the shortest time, etc., so he can say "I'm better than you." Because this guy has fun playing this way, he assumes everybody else does, too, so for a while he thinks his accomplishments make him king of the community. But eventually he discovers that other players do things differently. This is a huge blow to his self-esteem, not only because now he can only measure himself against the minority of like-minded players instead of the community as a whole, but also due to the realization that most other players don't even care about his accomplishments.

As a result, this player starts lobbying to change the game, to force everybody to play his way. Part of this is sheer egoism, so everybody else will have to take notice of him and he can feel genuinely superior. And part of it is the misguided belief that it's for the good of the other players, whom he thinks would have more fun if they played his way; if they won't do so voluntarily, he'll make it so they don't have a choice.

Basically, it's exactly the same thing that you see all the time in real life from most politicians, just directed into the harmless venue of gaming instead of out where it can do real damage.

[Levelord]

There are many reasons for this, but here's the main one:

Most people have a strong tendency to ascribe their own values and motives to everybody else, whether in real life or in games. Now combine this inherent human trait with the type of gamer who measures his self-worth by "beating the game" (however that is defined) on the hardest difficulty, in the shortest time, etc., so he can say "I'm better than you." Because this guy has fun playing this way, he assumes everybody else does, too, so for a while he thinks his accomplishments make him king of the community. But eventually he discovers that other players do things differently. This is a huge blow to his self-esteem, not only because now he can only measure himself against the minority of like-minded players instead of the community as a whole, but also due to the realization that most other players don't even care about his accomplishments.

As a result, this player starts lobbying to change the game, to force everybody to play his way. Part of this is sheer egoism, so everybody else will have to take notice of him and he can feel genuinely superior. And part of it is the misguided belief that it's for the good of the other players, whom he thinks would have more fun if they played his way; if they won't do so voluntarily, he'll make it so they don't have a choice.

Basically, it's exactly the same thing that you see all the time in real life from most politicians, just directed into the harmless venue of gaming instead of out where it can do real damage.

Your post is worded more elegantly than what I can put forwards, but this is essentially what I've been trying to explain too

[borisvolodnikov]

As for my personal take on this: It's a single-player game, play it however you think it's most fun.

^This. The sandbox experience and single-player nature of this game mean that it really can be everything to everyone. Some people just like to build stuff, and care less about getting punished for making mistakes flying; MechJeb is for them. Some people hate building the craft and just want to fly missions; they download pre-built craft that are known to fly.

Play it the way you want to play it, and be glad YOU get to decide what aspects of the game are fun, and which can be discarded.