Is Squad ditching the hardcore player?

[FenrirWolf]

Complaints about what? 0.22? It's been how many days since release? They work really hard in the run up to release, they're probably taking a well-earned break and/or doing some team-building. Chill.

Not to mention that 50% of the complaints they get contradict the other 50%. Decisions on where to go from here aren't gonna be made in the course of 3 days.

[satcharna]

If that's what you think whoever's been telling you about SC never actually got very far in playing the game.

The 2kmx2km limit is honestly far more punishing than it is "helpful".

I have played the game. They actually bumped me up to a free digital deluxe edition because I whined about getting a refund so much. I got the refund soon after that. The 2x2 limit does present challenges, and I like that, but the main issue the game has also stems from that, and it's that after a certain point, there's nothing to do. Cooperation between different cities doesn't work like we were told it would, and every city pretty much has to be self-contained.

SC13 went bad because of the DRM sure, but the smaller city sizes had nothing to do with dumbing down. The real reason behind the smaller sizes was due to the increased complexity of the various resources they were moving around. Larger cities would make the minimum requirements exceed most PCs.

That's what I'm talking about, though. They made cities smaller, because old computers couldn't play the game well, and it was done specifically to bring the casual crowd who are playing on the old family computer from 2005 into the target audience.

[boomerdog2000]

Boomer, they're being completely silent about the career mode concerns. Right now, the top post on the forum should be posted by Squad and be a response to the feedback on career mode.

It's been 3 days, cut them a little slack. I'm sure they're watching and figuring out the best way to improve the tech-tree because there's no reason for them not to be. It is in their best interest to improve the game as much as possible before they actually call it done and they know that. How many people do you think bought those other games just because they were buying a name? KSP has no such name yet.

[Lheim]

Lheim, do me a favor, don't speculate about the kind of guy I am(and why you capitalized guy, I have no idea, and I'm not going to speculate). My concern derives from the fact that Squad is plowing ahead and not responding to feedback. That's it. Tutorials would be a great idea, and I wouldn't object in the least.

My concern is Squad's silence in the face of feedback. That's it. I really do not appreciate the personal attack.

Alright, sorry.

The question still stands, though. What aspects in particular are you thinking could be ratcheted up, or why? It helps to be specific.

Also.. I don't see Squad being silent. Harv is always responding in threads on new features.

[Sundancer]

This statement can be posted only by a person who has never played a major AAA release catering to long term player base.

Hardcore gamers are the 1st to come and bring the casuals after.They are the ones giving constructive feed back, troubleshooting and most of the times testing without complaining. I will give you an example of really good space sim/game ruined bad before its even out, because it tries to cater to the casual base-> X:Rebirth just watch it burn , sadly.

You have a point in that the long-term fanbase (I'm loathe to use the terms hardcore and casual) are the ones who will pretty much always instantly buy any new game and then do most of the testing and feedback. But there's no money in that, and that's what game development companies do. Make games to make money.

People need to get over themselves and stop thinking that whichever company they like is making a game specifically for them. Using your example, the X series has been going on for quite some time now and has developed an incredibly dedicated fanbase. They're also the only dev team I know that's been able to consistently better themselves every single game, with very few faults to speak of. But before X:Rebirth was announced and publicised, how many people did you know that knew about X? Pretty much all my friends are gamers and before I mentioned it, no one had heard of it.

It was the same with The Elder Scrolls. Arena and Daggerfall were (and still are) fantastic games, but before Morrowind barely anyone had heard of the series. Even then it took Oblivion to come out for the series to really take off. Then they come to Skyrim and remove a lot of features that made the games such a hit with the established fanbase and there was a rift in the community. Half of them were saying "This is so awesome, I can get lost for hours" and the other half saying "OMG it's rubbish" because they took out attributes/skills.

Then you take a step back and realise that Squad, like Egosoft and Bethesda have to make money. We're lucky that we can mod our games into what we want them to be. With KSP you can use mods to increase difficulty. I'm sure with X:Rebirth we'll be able to mod in new playable ships.

For the record, X:Rebirth is a new beginning as the name suggests. It's not part of the X:BTF, X2 and X3 series, hence it not being X:4. We only got to pilot one ship in X:BTF as well, if you recall. They added more in as the series progressed.

[Exposure]

To be fair, i am sure that descriptions were said to be placeholders back in the day. And personally i am with satcharna, the descriptions aren't really helpful at all (could said the same about the community "ADD MORE BOSTERS!" thing too)

Honestly a proper tutorial would do far more than just changing the descriptions IMO, since with a tutorial one could actually demonstrate some things important to know in the game than just saying them. (Though even with that, some description changes to explain a bit as to the purpose of one engine over another or why this part may be useful would be appreciated)

It's why I like MechJeb, it helped me grasped the concept of stuff like Hohman Transfers and how docking translations worked by essentially demonstrating them for me. Then I could fully understand and get peeved at how inefficient MechJeb is doing it and be better able to learn how to do it by myself since I now had a good mental image of how it should look.

[Crush]

The biggest danger for KSPs further development right now is Squad getting frustrated with the vocal minority of whiners while not noticing the silent majority who thinks that they are on the right track.

Edited October 19, 2013 by Crush

[Skyrunner27]

To be fair, i am sure that descriptions were said to be placeholders back in the day. And personally i am with satcharna, the descriptions aren't really helpful at all (could said the same about the community "ADD MORE BOSTERS!" thing too)

Most parts have what they do in the name the description yes is useless, but if you can't tell that an engine launches you and a fuel tank holds fuel your probably or a winglet stabilizes your rocket not going to space today.

[SkipSpikowski]

In the day and age where you can Google anything, does it really matter what the part descriptions are or whether there is a manual? Are you people from 1997?

[satcharna]

The biggest danger right now for KSPs further development right now is Squad getting frustrated with the vocal minority of whiners while not noticing the silent majority who thinks that they are on the right track.

Sorry, no. The majority don't care for the tech tree, that much is obvious. No other patch has brought this many complaints, and you have some of the most active and well known modders out promising to FIX the tech tree. Not change it, fix it. The tech tree as it is is a big mistake, and one that Squad will need to correct. The game needs a proper tutorial, not a career mode disguised as one.

[Sof]

They did have tutorials in the past.

There was a way to have a step by step on how to land on the Mun and other tutorials.

They took them out because they got outdated quickly. It was a hassle to keep going back and changing them for each update so squad removed them.

[Seret]

The biggest danger right now for KSPs further development right now is Squad getting frustrated with the vocal minority of whiners while not noticing the silent majority who thinks that they are on the right track.

Indeed. You're lucky the devs even read the forums at all. The signal to noise ratio here is not great, they could be a real distraction.

[boomerdog2000]

Nevermind too off topic.

[dlrk]

As I've said repeatedly, history hows that when developers cater to a silent majority, it is usually discovered to late the silent majority doesn't actually exist.

[lajoswinkler]

I can't believe all the hatred and bitchiness Squad is getting every now and then. They are doing a remarkable job. You try making a game and not only worrying about the program code, but also about the implications and strategies of it.

[hoojiwana]

In the day and age where you can Google anything, does it really matter what the part descriptions are or whether there is a manual? Are you people from 1997?

Developers intentionally not explaining gameplay concepts through the game itself and relying on the community to do it for them is incredibly lazy and downright unprofessional.

[Lohan2008]

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.

KSP is such a small game engine > I am even surprised that ANYONE can call themselves "hardcore".

Most hardcore belong to the 'I landed on Duna' with tier 2 gear /whiners. I am not even sure if I am suppose to be impressed.

I feel like shouting at the computer screen MOVE OUT OF YR MUM'S BASEMENT !!!

[shoveycat]

This assumption seems to be heavily based on solely this one update, as far as i know, every other game has either had no effect, or raised the difficulty

Some people seen to be jumping to conclusions.

Edited October 19, 2013 by shoveycat

[korda]

I think there is no reason to change description of parts, it would be better to add some information on part type (since a lot of parts work same way anyway).

But hey! Wasn't this discussion on concerns about KSP getting less hardcore? Or maybe you just want whine about everything...

[satcharna]

Developers intentionally not explaining gameplay concepts through the game itself and relying on the community to do it for them is incredibly lazy and downright unprofessional.

*cough*dwarf fortress*cough*

I feel like a jerk for asking but which parts do people actually have trouble knowing what they do?

I don't have a problem, but new players do. When a part description is just "it's a thing we found in a junkyard", and the name says that it's a winglet, people assume that it acts like the other winglets, rather than what it really is and does, which is, as it seems to me, pretty much nothing. There are worse parts out there, but isn't this already quite bad enough?

[boomerdog2000]

Developers intentionally not explaining gameplay concepts through the game itself and relying on the community to do it for them is incredibly lazy and downright unprofessional.

Who said anything about intentionally not explaining them? The games still in development, most of the things they would be explaining could be changing.

[Exposure]

*cough*dwarf fortress*cough*

For those of us who don't play a niche game, can you explain this?

[boomerdog2000]

Odds are it was a popular game with little to no instruction. Perhaps Minecraft would be a more current example.

[Sof]

Who said anything about intentionally not explaining them? The games still in development, most of the things they would be explaining could be changing.

Exactly.

They did have tutorials before but they took them out.

A lot of the fun to be had with KSP at the moment is through trial and error.

Later once the game has got a lot more complex, squad will probably add a tutorial explaining all the different aspects. Whereas now, where everything is subject to change and you don't have to worry about funds or dead Kerbals, you can just experiment without penalty or look online for the time being.

[shoveycat]

IN my opinion, the beauty of the Community Made Tutorial is that the barrier to entry is high enough to weed out people who just want to see explosions, yet low enough to allow people who genuinely want to play, play