Is Squad ditching the hardcore player?

[dlrk]

Where does Squad now stand on the hardcore, deadly reentry and FAR, type players? Would they like us all to go away, or what?

[Specialist290]

This seems to beg the question that Squad ever deliberately sought to cater to the hardcore crowd in the first place.

[dlrk]

It doesn't matter if they did or if they didn't. It's who wound up liking KSP.

[Wayfare]

I believe Orbiter is that way --->

[Exposure]

...just download one of the modded career trees?

I mean, the hardcore types have to be using mods anyway, so I don't think the act of having to use trees more geared for us is going be much of a problem.

[satcharna]

KSP started out as a game made by a very small team, aimed at fans of simulators like Orbiter. That community got displaced when bigger communities started moving in, such as the minecraft crowd when those streamers started doing their KSP streams. Sadly, with the loss of the Orbiter crowd, the game's focus has shifted to a younger and stupider crowd, which is severely hurting the game's potential, in a very worrisome way.

[dlrk]

Satcharna, that is exactly what I'm concerned with. Hopefully this trend will be reduced.

[boomerdog2000]

How exactly? They've added new harder to reach planets. They are currently working on a version where you will have to pay for your rockets and actually support your space program instead of just doing whatever you feel like in the sandbox mode we are currently used to. They still plan to make a better aerodynamic model which will require major redesigns to quite a few rockets. If anything it sounds like the game will be getting more difficult.

[Wayfare]

KSP started out as a game made by a very small team, aimed at fans of simulators like Orbiter. That community got displaced when bigger communities started moving in, such as the minecraft crowd when those streamers started doing their KSP streams. Sadly, with the loss of the Orbiter crowd, the game's focus has shifted to a younger and stupider crowd, which is severely hurting the game's potential, in a very worrisome way.

Were you honestly expecting a hardcore space sim out of a game about little green men in an oddly downscaled solar system?

[alacrity]

i think we are all forgetting this is version 0.2 not v2.0. I think we are seeing a first iteration of a carreer mode not a model of the final product.

proof of concept is always a thinned down version of the actual event. "hard mode" type mods and systems are a layer of programming that hasn't been totaled vetted yet (not vetted for like dislike, vetted for function. lot math gonna go into re entry damage and the like and this program is ram hungry enough)

bringing out the waffle bat to squad this early in the game does no good. Once v0.8 comes out and there is no hard mode... than start panicking. For now revel in the awsome of the beginning of career mode, and dry because soon we will have to worry about budgets.

Alacrity

[regex]

I, for one, am not at all worried about this topic because KSP is so easily modded.

[dlrk]

i think we are all forgetting this is version 0.2 not v2.0. I think we are seeing a first iteration of a carreer mode not a model of the final product.

proof of concept is always a thinned down version of the actual event. "hard mode" type mods and systems are a layer of programming that hasn't been totaled vetted yet (not vetted for like dislike, vetted for function. lot math gonna go into re entry damage and the like and this program is ram hungry enough)

bringing out the waffle bat to squad this early in the game does no good. Once v0.8 comes out and there is no hard mode... than start panicking. For now revel in the awsome of the beginning of career mode, and dry because soon we will have to worry about budgets.

Alacrity

Deadly Reentry has already implemented reentry damage without a performance hit.

[Parkaboy]

To be honest, the idea of a "hardcore" player is silly, and even harmful to video game as a medium. A good game usually can be played both casually and in a "hardcore" manner by different people and even by the same person. There's no need to call oneself a "hardcore" player other than to look down on people that don't play the game the same way one does. Just let people enjoy the game the way they want to, and don't be surprised by the fact that the developers are trying to reach an audience as large as possible. So far, I don't think they did anything to compromise the game: it's still fun and accessible, without being dumbed down.

[satcharna]

Were you honestly expecting a hardcore space sim out of a game about little green men in an oddly downscaled solar system?

If I wanted a hardcore space sim, I'd look at Orbiter, or whatever other such games there are. KSP isn't that, and it never will be. KSP is about building your own rockets and planes. What I want from KSP is that, but also at least some sense of seriousness. Frankly, I don't see how a garbage jar of goo is a proper research method. They could just as easily have said it's simply a "bacterial culture" or some insects or such. They're catering to a clearly casual audience, and I don't approve of that. KSP shouldn't be super-serious, but it could be a lot better. We haven't even gotten proper re-entry mechanics yet, or the aerodynamics fix, or the resources, all of which should have been completed before launching career mode. That's the thing about game-making, you go for the small, underlying things before the big things.

KSP is still the kind of game where you need to understand orbital mechanics, you need to know what a Hohmann transfer is, and such. Squad are trying to attract an audience that doesn't already know this, and has no interest of learning it either. Much the same thing happened with Spore. We were promised a detailed and very wide sandbox, but executive meddling cut in to bring the game to a wider audience, and the result was a massive flop.

Edited October 19, 2013 by satcharna

[dlrk]

I'm really surprised people are calling Orbiter a hardcore space sim. It's got unrealistic SSTOs, Space Shuttle's with no avionics, etc. Orbiter is just bad.

I agree with exactly what Satcharna is saying. I don't want a NASA sim. I want a game that has some degree of realism and seriousness, because that is fun.

[Superfluous J]

I have no fears about this whatsoever, though I play(ed) Minecraft and I do YouTube videos so my opinion probably won't matter to you.

[korda]

KSP started out as a game made by a very small team, aimed at fans of simulators like Orbiter. That community got displaced when bigger communities started moving in, such as the minecraft crowd when those streamers started doing their KSP streams. Sadly, with the loss of the Orbiter crowd, the game's focus has shifted to a younger and stupider crowd, which is severely hurting the game's potential, in a very worrisome way.

I recall an interview (?) with Harvester, in which he stated that they don't want to make second Orbiter but more 'casual' simulation. I think that they will eventually add stuff like reentry heat or more realistic atmosphere (isn't current model of atmosphere more a placeholder?).

Also to make that game they need money - unless they are willing to work for free - and aiming at bigger group of people means more money. I believe that they are capable of balancing between making it too hardcore or too casual - or between their passion and business.

As for me I never felt that they change feel of game to be more casual / hardcore and I'm here for some time already (before they added map for sure).

[ferram4]

Or alternatively, the continual increase in the number of parts available in the stock game means that new players have a much harder time figuring out what to do at first, which discourages new players from sticking with it in the first place. Hardcore players are formed when you take a player, show them something difficult, but make it clear that there is a way to accomplish that goal. The current tech tree strips out all of the initially superfluous structural parts so that it is more clear to a new player how to accomplish their goals.

I'd love to see more people using FAR or KIDS, but the only people who will stick with the game long enough to try those mods are the ones that don't get overwhelmed with the huge amount of parts when they go into the VAB are stuck sitting there asking "what do I do with all of this?" Career mode clears that up by suggesting (and only doing it through the parts available), "Maybe you should just strap this SRB to the bottom of a Mk1 pod and see what happens."

Don't make the mistake of thinking that players are born into being "naive, stupid, filthy casuals"* and "ultra, leet, MLG-pro, hardcore players;"* one can easily become the other given enough time to become familiar with the game mechanics and what works and what doesn't. Don't make the mistake of thinking that a tutorial (and that is what the tech tree is) has to challenge a hardcore player.

*Note: mocking the perception of each

Edited October 19, 2013 by ferram4
Added note

[Alguien]

Were you honestly expecting a hardcore space sim out of a game about little green men in an oddly downscaled solar system?

Were you honestly expecting a kids game out of a game with semi-realistic orbital mechanics?

I am sure most of the people who are displeased with the direction Squad took wanted a middle term between Spore and Orbiter

They probably could please both parts of the fanbases, but seems more like Squad just wants to ignore the more serious part of the fanbase, actually kinda question if they just want us to leave quietly

[Exposure]

*snip*

I'm torn between the idea that someone managed to take look at pre-0.22 KSP and went "oh, yeah, this game's going try to be somewhat serious" with the little green men and the undersized solar system and the rocket parts found lying by the side of the road (yes, the physics are semi-realistic, but the tone is clearly not) and the fact that I'm pretty sure that I would count as one of those casuals (or, at the least, started out as one of those damn casuals who just refused to learn how to play the game!) you're being incredibly condescending about.

Edited October 19, 2013 by Exposure
I keep making spacing errors that annoy me

[Sundancer]

You have to look at it from the dev's perspective. At the end of the day, this game is their livelihood. If it's a "hardcore" game, the audience will be small but incredibly fanatical. That doesn't generate a great deal of profit.

Whereas making the game accessible to us "younger and stupider" players enables them to keep shifting copies of the game, thus allowing them to put more work into the game and/or work on other projects.

What's the problem anyway? If you want a hardcore game, download the mods that make it so. It's as simple as that. Making the game so hard that a complete novice can't enjoy it is counter productive so what games are all about.

[FenrirWolf]

So what are the OP's concerns? What's causing him to imply that the game is leaving behind the hardcore crowd? Why does he claim the FAR and Deadly Reentry crowd are being driven away? I don't understand any of this.

[dlrk]

I'm going to once again reiterate that if KSP is dumbing down to reach a more casual audience, they should look at MS Flight. They should look at Star Wars Galaxies as well, for that matter. This silent majority of simple, casual gamers that developers catering towards does not exist.

[satcharna]

Or alternatively, the continual increase in the number of parts available in the stock game means that new players have a much harder time figuring out what to do at first, which discourages new players from sticking with it in the first place. Hardcore players are formed when you take a player, show them something difficult, but make it clear that there is a way to accomplish that goal. The current tech tree strips out all of the initially superfluous structural parts so that it is more clear to a new player how to accomplish their goals.

I'd love to see more people using FAR or KIDS, but the only people who will stick with the game long enough to try those mods are the ones that don't get overwhelmed with the huge amount of parts when they go into the VAB are stuck sitting there asking "what do I do with all of this?" Career mode clears that up by suggesting (and only doing it through the parts available), "Maybe you should just strap this SRB to the bottom of a Mk1 pod and see what happens."

Don't make the mistake of thinking that players are born into being "naive, stupid, filthy casuals" and "ultra, leet, MLG-pro, hardcore players;" one can easily become the other given enough time to become familiar with the game mechanics and what works and what doesn't. Don't make the mistake of thinking that a tutorial (and that is what the tech tree is) has to challenge a hardcore player.

You miss the point entirely. The problem isn't that the tech tree is a poor tutorial, it's that it's a tutorial in the first place. Instead of simply making a proper tutorial (for instance a few dismissable notes on your first few missions that explains how to put a rocket together, and how to get into orbit with a probe, and then unlocking manned spaceflight), they've opted to turn the entire tech tree into a poor tutorial. I showed the game to my sister, she built a rocket, flew it into the ocean and killed Jeb, and then had no idea what to do. She, by pure accident, put a parachute on the next one, but had no idea how staging worked, so she ended up just spinning around with a rocket engine on full thrust in one end and a parachute in the other. She eventually splashed down in the ocean, and had earned enough science at that point to unlock the next tier. She didn't even know how to recover her craft, since the game never told her, and when I showed her the new recover button, she still had no idea how to actually unlock new parts in the research centre.

What the game needs isn't a poor tech-tree tutorial and then the additional tutorial for orbital mechanics and basic game interface they will no doubt need, it's a proper, stand-alone tutorial. It isn't that hard to give situational pop-ups for the first launch or two to explain orbital mechanics, how to recover a craft, how to unlock new parts, and so on, and the end result is a lot more satisfying for the new player. Furthermore, make it toggleable in the options menu so it doesn't bother experienced players.

That way, you could have a pleasant learning experience as well as a logical stock tree. For some incomprehensible reason, Squad opted to not do this.

[hoojiwana]

The direction that Squad seems to be taking KSP in is a bit of an odd one. 0.22 and career is supposedly a way to help ease new players into the game without confusing them, and yet there is zero explanation of the new science system in game. Nothing at all. A new player is just supposed to stumble through the game with nothing mentioning you can actually right click your Kerbals to do science and plant flags, or that biomes are actually a thing. To a new player KSP is just as hostile as it ever was, and for experienced players there is what, stock subassemblies? Certainly not the tech tree as explained by HarvesteR on a number of occasions.

The game is undergoing a bit of an identity crisis, the developers don't quite seem to know what they want to do with it. It is a game with a funny (if childish) tone combined with simplified rocketry and orbital mechanics, and seems to be veering towards those that prefer the wacky nature of the game very strongly. Who is the game currently being marketed at? Who is the audience based on gameplay principles? I wouldn't say they were the same, and Squad seems to be alienating a vocal portion of their fanbase.

So yes I think they are ditching the "hardcore" players, and even those that don't quite want realism but like the game as it is.