Let's give SQUAD our point of view.

[vasya pupkin]

... KSP is beginning to show signs of sprawl - expanding outwards farther and faster than it is expanding upwards. Because modmakers have been so expert in their expansion of core gameplay features (I could list them ad infinitum: MechJeb, FAR, EVE, Kethane, KAS, and so on...) that the devs appear to no longer have any interest in taking these matters into their own hands.

- i'll oppose that your opinion. Although i am a newbie in this game, i am already realized that KSP perhaps had never made it to current state of development had it not provided such good and flexible mechanism for making add-ons. IMHO, so many add-ons drew to the game so much attention of general public of players that it made possible further continuation (and not the least from the financial point of view) of KSP. In the mood of old russian saying which i put on title of my reply: IMHO all the improvements to the game might had been not possible not because squad developers are unable to master them, but because to develop, test and implement all possible ideas, that already done by 3rd parties, entire lifetime of limited number of squad team wont be enough.

As for me, squad might just buy the code of desired ad-ons into official KSP just to save their and our time (though they don't have to).

Edited May 13, 2014 by vasya pupkin

[Duxwing]

ARM did a few things under the hood that I really admire. However, the introduction of things like asteroids and the SLS parts smacks to me of effort that could have been better placed elsewhere. Why are we adding things to do in the middle of space when we have so many moons and planets with nothing to do on them except gather soil and plant flags? Perhaps if they had integrated the ARM concept itself better into the current science implementation I'd be more forgiving, but as it stands asteroid collections serves no purpose with respect to features already implemented. It exists on the periphery that doesn't need so much attention at this point. Thus when I say they are building out, I am saying that such features (while entertaining and certainly deserve their own merit) represent a misplacing of development resources.

ARM added 3.75m parts like those of the popular KW Rocketry mod, exemplifying the subsuming you want.

-Duxwing

[stupid_chris]

This is the first thread of this sort that I see that isn't actually full of entitlement, ridiculous demands, or even unrealistic expectations. I tip my hat to you.

Most of what you're saying is true. The game is starting to add more and more features, without actually taking the time to polish the existing ones, who are very often left in what feels like a "rough draft" state. This doesn't yet feel alarming to me as the game is in heavy development. I'm not sure it's the best working technique, as adding some more features atop others often complicates the changes to made when you want to smooth it all out, but it's one way to get there.I'm not quite sure what's supposed to come after contracts. Multiplayer seems very far off yet, and adding it next would be way too rushed IMO. I can only hope and see that they'll start going over what they have done and trying to bring those elements towards more polished features that actually feel like they might end up in the final version without any touchups.

This is all valid concerns, not going to lie. But I've still got some faith that the devs can make the cut. Not going to lie that it wouldn't take much either to lose what's left of this trust.

[BudgetHedgehog]

How much fun have you been having with asteroids and the claw?

To be honest, none at all, because the Claw seems to bug out and destroy any and every ship its attached to and the 3.75m decoupler crashes the game every time it's used (unless you personally modify it's settings). I've intentionally avoided asteroids because of these issues.

Don't get me wrong, I love the other updates to the game that ARM brought - the new physics between joints, (slightly) improved manoeuvre node logic, new parts that meant we didn't need Whackjob-esque lifters to launch heavy things into orbit - but personally, if one of the main focuses of the update (the Claw) is inherently unstable, why bother including it? Why not devote the time to either A, improving existing features or B, making it not unstable?

Edited May 12, 2014 by ObsessedWithKSP

[DoToH]

[...]

Squad shouldn't aim so much for career but first create a base for that.

^This^ is my point of view about the current direction of development efforts.

More core features means more opportunities for missions/contracts/whatever they want on career mode

[Bartybum]

The resource implementation looked like a completely grindy mess and I am quite happy that didn't make it into stock, especially if any of it would have been "required" play.

Tell me, what part about resources makes it a requirement for you to use? You either bring a mining rig along to refuel your ship or you don't - there's no alternative. That argument holds absolutely no water whatsoever.

[wasmic]

Tell me, what part about resources makes it a requirement for you to use? You either bring a mining rig along to refuel your ship or you don't - there's no alternative. That argument holds absolutely no water whatsoever.

There were talks about having to go to Eve to get Blutonium to even unlock the RTGs.

[wasmic]

To be honest, none at all, because the Claw seems to bug out and destroy any and every ship its attached to and the 3.75m decoupler crashes the game every time it's used (unless you personally modify it's settings). I've intentionally avoided asteroids because of these issues.

Huh? I've never had these issues at all. Have you tried reinstalling the game? They work fine for most people.

EDIT: oops, doublepost. Sorry.

[BudgetHedgehog]

Huh? I've never had these issues at all.

The laundry list of Claw bugs can be found in the bug forum and I was talking about the decouplers PhysicsSignificance being, well, significant. Unless you personally edit its cfg file, you run the risk of crashing the game if you use it. Reinstalling will not fix it because it's a problem with the parts themselves and them being inherently unstable.

[Dodgey]

Tell me, what part about resources makes it a requirement for you to use? You either bring a mining rig along to refuel your ship or you don't - there's no alternative. That argument holds absolutely no water whatsoever.

Yes you are correct in part but you are missing the point. Like it or not Squad is a small team with limited resources. In a perfect world they could implement as many features as possible. But this isn't a perfect world, if resources we found to be grindy and not fun by the devs chances are a lot of people would find it not fun also. Why waste time working on a mechanic which would most likely not be fun for a lot of people. Not to mention the question of why would the devs want to work on something they don't find fun. What would that do for the quality of the product, and that goes back to the fact that this isn't your game it's the devs, they will put what they think is fun in the game and you have no right to say they shouldn't.

Just to touch on the issue of people saying that every time they suggest something mods are thrown at their face I don't think that you understand the meaning behiend what those people are doing. They see someone make a suggestion for a feature for the game, logically they conclude that that person finds that feature enjoyable. They offer mods as a stop gap, saying you don't have to wait for the devs to implement that feature, have fun now.

Well there it is, a mostly unprovoked rant fueled by common misunderstandings and lack of information I see pop up time and time again. It was not written in anger or spite, or aimed at one individual, but to inform those who are mistaken.

[r4pt0r]

Yes you are correct in part but you are missing the point. Like it or not Squad is a small team with limited resources. In a perfect world they could implement as many features as possible. But this isn't a perfect world, if resources we found to be grindy and not fun by the devs chances are a lot of people would find it not fun also. Why waste time working on a mechanic which would most likely not be fun for a lot of people. Not to mention the question of why would the devs want to work on something they don't find fun. What would that do for the quality of the product, and that goes back to the fact that this isn't your game it's the devs, they will put what they think is fun in the game and you have no right to say they shouldn't.

Just to touch on the issue of people saying that every time they suggest something mods are thrown at their face I don't think that you understand the meaning behiend what those people are doing. They see someone make a suggestion for a feature for the game, logically they conclude that that person finds that feature enjoyable. They offer mods as a stop gap, saying you don't have to wait for the devs to implement that feature, have fun now.

Well there it is, a mostly unprovoked rant fueled by common misunderstandings and lack of information I see pop up time and time again. It was not written in anger or spite, or aimed at one individual, but to inform those who are mistaken.

agreed. i for one am glad resources wont be stock.

[BudgetHedgehog]

Why waste time working on a mechanic which would most likely not be fun for a lot of people. Not to mention the question of why would the devs want to work on something they don't find fun.

Well, multiplayer will not be enjoyed by more than a few people and IIRC, Harv said it was even impossible and talk of it got you banned a year ago. Yet, here we are with 0.24 and them building the groundwork of mulitplayer.

[Dodgey]

Well, multiplayer will not be enjoyed by more than a few people and IIRC, Harv said it was even impossible and talk of it got you banned a year ago. Yet, here we are with 0.24 and them building the groundwork of mulitplayer.

Why won't it be enjoyed by more than a few people? Ok sure, Harv said it was impossible, he was proven wrong, show me where he has said that it isn't/wasn't/won't be fun in anyway/shape or form. That's the difference, the reason it wasn't happening was because it was believed to be technically impossible, not due to fun.

[Red Iron Crown]

Well, multiplayer will not be enjoyed by more than a few people and IIRC, Harv said it was even impossible and talk of it got you banned a year ago. Yet, here we are with 0.24 and them building the groundwork of mulitplayer.

I'm not sure only a few people will enjoy multiplayer, it seems to be one of the more popular requested features, and the KMP mod seems to be very popular.

That said, I don't think I'd ever play multiplayer, not really sure how a mp sandbox game is going to work.

Edit: ninja'd

[BudgetHedgehog]

Because it will not be used by more than a few people. I get that feeling from reading the various posts about what people want in future updates, their wish-lists etc.

Granted, he hasn't said he doesn't think it's fun, but I just wanted to point out that the devs can be wrong. Sure, THEY might not enjoy it, but looking at the popularity of Kethane, EPL etc, I'd say resources are enjoyed by more people than multiplayer (of course, I don't have any directly relevant numbers, but the Kethane thread has 4621 posts, the KMP thread has 1940. Granted, post count is hardly a precise method of determining number of downloads but it's a start).

Also:

That said, I don't think I'd ever play multiplayer, not really sure how a mp sandbox game is going to work.

And there we go. That's my beef with multiplayer. Of course, MP is doable and enjoyed by people so it obviously has been shown to work, but it's space travel. To quote Frostiken on reddit:

it kind of underscores that in a game involving pseudo-realistic space distances, it might as well be a single-player game even with multiplayer. "Let's go to the Mun." "Okay, oops, I messed up my burn and now I'm 20 degrees inclined and don't have enough fuel to fix it." "Well that was fun."

And to quote myself on reddit:

Yeah, it might be fun and useful if bases or stations could be built, but the stock game is laughably inept at building those

Edited May 14, 2014 by ObsessedWithKSP

[technicalfool]

Well, multiplayer will not be enjoyed by more than a few people and IIRC, Harv said it was even impossible and talk of it got you banned a year ago. Yet, here we are with 0.24 and them building the groundwork of mulitplayer.

Banned, or just threadlocked? Only, from my conversations with the various mods here and on IRC, they don't seem to be the ban-happy type.

[Dodgey]

Because it will not be used by more than a few people. I get that feeling from reading the various posts about what people want in future updates, their wish-lists etc.

As you said, talking about it a year ago got you banned. This is because it was talked about so much, I wasn't here at the point but from what I've seen it might be the single most requested feature. Multiplayer was announced a few months ago now, people know it's coming, so why would they put it on their wish list? Unless that is you are talking about before it was announced. The same goes for resources, it was in the works for quite a while, when I joined up if I hadn't read the wiki or WNTSL I would never of known about it. But when it was announced it wasn't happening at this point in time the forums exploded.

Ok, for the sake of argument I will concede that resources are more popular than multiplayer. Then my argument goes to it's the devs game, yes it's not a smart idea to do that, but if the devs don't enjoy what they are working on then the quality will suffer. The feature won't get fleshed out as much as other features and would be degraded due to that. I won't (too late now) bring up the EULA though, as I see it as a cop out in this perticular situation.

Just so you know starting off you argument of why a point is true by saying "because said point is true" is not a good thing to do (though I might of misunderstood your wording), again no anger or hate, just trying to prevent some annoyance in the future.

Edit:

With regards to your added part there I am curious as to how it would work myself, though not knowing how it would work is hardly an argument against it. I don't see what's wrong with station and base building fundementally, it could use some major fleshing out but I don't think it is fundementally flawed.

Edited May 14, 2014 by Dodgey

[regex]

Tell me, what part about resources makes it a requirement for you to use?

No part of it seemed required, that's why I put an "if" in my statement.

That argument holds absolutely no water whatsoever.

Which one, the theoretical I postulated about resources maybe being "required" gameplay or resources looking like a completely grindy mess? Personally, I'd say neither are complete sieves given that no one really knows what the devs have planned and EXPL/Kethane give us a pretty decent idea of how gameplay with that system might have looked.

[BudgetHedgehog]

It won't be enjoyed by some people because it won't be used by some people. People can't enjoy something they're not using. I may have worded it slightly incorrectly or unclearly, but using != enjoying.

I will concede that it is the devs choice and they should develop what they feel is right and enjoyable for them. There's no doubt that if they develop something they don't enjoy, the quality will suffer, which is why, personally speaking, I think MP is not the thing to be concentrating on right now. I think they should be working on fixing/improving current things like the Science system and career in general, aerodynamics or really just any of the promises they made early on. Not the things that are unworkable now due to the direction KSP has taken, but again, to quote Frostiken:

We're still awaiting a damage system, we're still awaiting nuclear engines that don't run on rocket fuel, we're still awaiting reentry heating, we're still awaiting a fixed aerodynamic model, we're still awaiting crew actually doing things and flying the ship themselves

I think they should be concentrating on those and not on something they considered impossible a year ago, but that's just me. Although granted, they are just building the very basic framework of MP but again, I just feel their time could be better spent doing something else.

[Dodgey]

The same could be said about resources, or new space plane parts, or career mode. Sure some won't use it, not everyone will. I for one don't use career mode. It's not as if they are just concentrating on MP full bore. I think so far only one dev has been involved on server side stuff from looking over the dev notes (and as you said). I don't think that it will happen within the next 4 months if we are lucky. It's going to be a long term goal, not something they push out over 4 odd updates like career. They will continue to work on those things you mentioned, we are waiting on a lot of things, at the moment they are working on the scope of the game, after that? Who knows, we might get a space plane update in 0.26.

My point is at this point in time I do not think that the development of the game will be severely affected by MP development. Not that that would be a bad thing in my opinion.

[rtxoff]

to quote Frostiken: We're still awaiting a damage system, we're still awaiting nuclear engines that don't run on rocket fuel, we're still awaiting reentry heating, we're still awaiting a fixed aerodynamic model, we're still awaiting crew actually doing things and flying the ship themselves

Well who is we ?? There are gamers awaiting all this features and there are ones that don't. I prefer to choose with features i am gonna play with and because of this the moding system now is perfect. No i do not wan't deadly reentry. No i do not care about realistic aerodynamic models. Yeah i like fuelless engine and this mod i will install. Why do people want to force them to include some feature others maybe dislike? What is the problem with installing mods for this and have it your way?

[shizophrenic]

This discussion drifts more and more into why/when is that and that mod/Feature not in game/in game.

If i understand the opening post right you could shorten it to "What is your opinion : more Content or polishing up existing"

My answer would be : Bugfixing, and i think they do a good Job at that (i haven't found any critical bug)

good mix of both.

What seem Squad IS doing mostly right now? imho adding Content

that leads to the question What are their reasons and criteria to doing it?

i can only guess. and here my guesses

from a game dev Point of view every Feature/Content they add will have Impact about the Setting, complexity, Image, game flow, "feel" and (quite important) difficulty of the game. Right now they have a Status that finds more acceptance than they ever expected to have. they would be stupid to topple that found Balance.

Additionally they have to consider the PC's the game should run on.

they have always to consider that they have limited resources. They aren't Blizzard that could throw a Team of the whole size Squads KSP-Team to put in something nice to have.

also they wouldn't waste resoures on improving Features that may be have completly redone when they add new Content. it is simply more efficent to add more(all) Basic Content and then finetune/improve the Basic concepts so that all works together smoothly.

When you add something (fully or partially) from a mod it has just to fit into the stock game and ... well i can already hear the hiss of flame(throwers) getting lit up in the Forum. also you have consider legal rights.

and maybe they think like me that upgrading visuals should be done as a finishing touch.

[Javster]

I agree with a lack of direction. If any one you have played BTD 3/4/5, or any tower defense game for that matter, you'll be aware of the concept of upgrading. Let's say a tower is a feature. IMO Squad are building too many towers, but not upgrading them. Instead, they seem to be leaving the modders to upgrade their towers.

Also, their lack of consistency is a bit weird: 1 year ago, you'd get banned for mentioning multiplayer, with several official statements saying it's not possible. Now Squad are actively developing it (well at least one dev is)

Yes, circumstances change, like with resources, where they said it wasn't fun and they dropped it.

No. No it isn't.

Mods are not an acceptable replacement for terrible endgame, or half-implemented features. The constant reply being trotted out whenever people ask about improved aerodynamics, in-situ resources, etcetera etcetera, is 'just get the mod for it!' I'm worried that soon, that will be the official response as well.

Imagine with a car:

I want seatbelts!

You can buy them in your local garage, now run along and don't bother us again.

While mods are easy to install, they could be even easier: look at Prison Architect. A game in Early Access. (a single update release every month, although that's not the point), and installing a mod is as simple as checking a box. So is (de/)activating it.

Final point: Personally, I think they should aim at finishing off the Alpha, where it can be considered playable without any mods. This should not be a polished version by any means, but any feature that's implemented should be complete. Beta should then be focused on adding new features.

Edited May 14, 2014 by Javster

[Stargate525]

Also, their lack of consistency is a bit weird: 1 year ago, you'd get banned for mentioning multiplayer, with several official statements saying it's not possible. Now Squad are actively developing it (well at least one dev is)

No, don't you remember? We've always been at war with Eastasia. They never said it was impossible and wouldn't be implemented! Perish the thought! /sarcasm

I wouldn't mind the doubleback if they hadn't then gone and scrubbed every mention of their previous excuse from the forums and the dev comments. There's being wrong, and then there is retroactively editing your past statements to make it look like you never were.

[Javster]

No, don't you remember? We've always been at war with Eastasia. They never said it was impossible and wouldn't be implemented! Perish the thought! /sarcasm

I wouldn't mind the doubleback if they hadn't then gone and scrubbed every mention of their previous excuse from the forums and the dev comments. There's being wrong, and then there is retroactively editing your past statements to make it look like you never were.

That's pretty much censorship. Then they say "it's always been on the cards for when the game was finished" BUT WAIT, didn't you just say it was impossible??