Clarity, Metrics, and Players - What is this game's design, anyway?

[Asvarduil]

Foreword: I'm being critical of StarMade. These critiques are because I care - I like the idea of this game, and want it and its developers to succeed. In this game's current state, I don't see this happening.

If you can't stomach someone being critical, or expressing problems with this game, I'm sorry? I'm posting these things because I think someone needs to say these things. That said, let's get started.

Unlike other suggestions - including ones I've written - I have a different type of suggestion. It has less to do with what we players are doing, and more of what Schine proper is doing.

One thing I notice about this game in the years that I've played off-and-on, is that this game generates a lot of suggestions. Some of that is the early access/agile spirit of the dev team and the game itself. A dev team that listens to the community in smart ways is to be commended.

Some of the amount suggestions, however, I think is due to this game's design being at best incredibly unclear.

Depending on who you ask, you might be able to get someone to agree that this game's primary mechanic is either building ships, or flying ships. There's all sorts of other stuff - logic engineering, exploration of a random galaxy, race gates, an attempt at an economy - but ultimately, what this game's intentions are are just not clear. One thing muddying the waters, is that the Fleet system is more or less RTS mechanics bolted onto a block-buildy game where you also fly ships, and shoot weapons at ships, and mine asteroids, and sell items you craft or loot into an economy...

This leads me to two closely-related suggestions for Schine that might affect A) the upcoming power rework, B) the much-vaunted roadmap that comes up when anyone offers criticism of the game's direction - which I am doing, absolutely, and C) the game's direction, whatever it is.

1. Measure the game's success, by how many people are playing.
Corrollary: Measure the game's failure, by how much time people are spending on the forums.
A fun game is one that's played. If you make a design decision, and it leads to people enjoying your game, you've done something well. If people are complaining on your forums, or Steam - both places I've expressed disappointment and suggestions on how to improve this title - the things you are doing aren't making the game better.

2. Decide what game you're building.
In brief, this game is Frankenstein, and not in a good way. It's mismatched parts all bolted into something that is amazing to behold.

A lot of this game's tempo, morale, 'fun', and other problems could be much better solved by Schine asking themselves, 'what are we really trying to accomplish?', throwing out all of the other noise - logic gates, economies, fleets, etc. - and making a great primary mechanic that works well, then making a great secondary mechanic that works well, repeat ad infinitum.

Is this game an RTS? That's Schine's decision to make.
Is this a blocky starship-building simulator? Also their decision.
Is this a blocky EVE Online clone? Ditto.

Conclusion
Pretty much, I have no confidence this game will ever get done, years in. I don't think Schine has a clear direction on what they want, much-vaunted 'plan' aside. I think StarMade is at best a niche game, though better than some others (It's better than Star Trek Online. Holy crap that game is awful.)

I'm not going to call the power-rework a useless thing. I'm not calling planet reworks useless. These are things that make the experience better, and this game needs them. That being said, the improvements that the things being worked on provide, pales in comparison to what we would have if there were a clear vision on what players are doing in this game.

The philosophy 'do anything' or 'make this cater to everyone' isn't making this game 'work'. Evidence is the number of complaints this game generates, and the fact that it seems like more people have fun suggesting things on the forums, than playing the game proper. This is a red flag.

We need a more fun game, and to get to a more fun game, we need its creators to decide what's important. When everything is important, nothing is.

 

[GalactusX]

When I started playing starmade, I was looking for a game that fulfilled 4 things:

1. To have fun.
2. Had an "active community".
3. Feeling of progress in the game, whether with missions, new content, events.
4. Had diversity in content accessible to all players.

At first this game filled the 4 facets ... but over time, I just feel satisfied with two of the points previously named 2 and 4.

Each update brings new content, that is good and appreciable, a steady step forward ... but that step, is almost always preceded by a number of problems, that although some can be solved, others last for a very long time, and that Frustrates the players more and more.

In my most sincere opinion, before moving forward, starmade should focus on establishing a more solid base, solving 99% of all possible issues, making the pillars that support the game completely solid, before adding and / or Modify content of the same.

If we look at other game titles, we have solid bases, and the contents of them, are added when all/mayor possible errors of previous versions have been at least solved in 90-99% ... but the feeling that Now gives starmade, is that certain programming issues endure upgrade after upgrade, and that is a vicious circle that has no end, more content, more issues to fix, more work, less fun.

I know that certain things have to change for the good, but others, according to the way they lead, are going to give a 360º turn to the spirit of starmade (as is the power upgrade): freedom of construction.

I believe that they should solve and finish other facets of the game, rather than make a sudden change to the game ... is like if a person, who all his life drive a car, forced him to ride a bicycle, arguing That the car is not safe ... why instead of forcing that person to have something they do not want, they work to make the system he use more secure, instead of forcing it to change everything he know.

Finally, I want to clarify that I love starmade, but there are certain facets of it, that if they dont change in a certain way, they are going to make starmade have less things that make it "appetizing" both for new players and veterans.

 

[Panik Attak]

well your critiques, to me, seem to point that you missed the point on what a "sandbox" game is, its not suppose to be defined by 1 or 2 features. It's a sandbox game...yes its Frankenstein right now, because they have half done many features in order to give people things to test and give feedback on. Yes, they have been slow to complete their wish lists, but I don't think the overall vision of the game has been lost.

 

[kulbolen]

1. Measure the game's success, by how many people are playing.
Corrollary: Measure the game's failure, by how much time people are spending on the forums.
A fun game is one that's played. If you make a design decision, and it leads to people enjoying your game, you've done something well. If people are complaining on your forums, or Steam - both places I've expressed disappointment and suggestions on how to improve this title - the things you are doing aren't making the game better.

your measurement of success and failure is subjective, and questionable. very succesful games with many players also have very active forum communities, and the dev team for this game has said they dont want a large player base yet.

Is this game an RTS? That's Schine's decision to make.
Is this a blocky starship-building simulator? Also their decision.
Is this a blocky EVE Online clone? Ditto.

is this a "muddy water" do a little of everything frankenstein? thats schines decision to make.

 

[sayerulz]

The games design doesn't seem coherent because its not finished. What schine basically seems to be doing is starting with each of the various aspects of what the game will be and building inward until they all meet into one complete game.

 

[Spoolooni]

The games design doesn't seem coherent because its not finished. What schine basically seems to be doing is starting with each of the various aspects of what the game will be and building inward until they all meet into one complete game.

I'm pretty sure the OP knows that by heart as they've been following this game for 2+ years. The issue we have with the game right now is that the developers are trying to bite more they can chew, introducing heaps of content that seem to escalate the problems with server instability and the game's overall performance. Even their supposed most finished feature of the game being ship building has been strangled by competitive communities, lag inducing exploits and only recently have they decided to "overhaul" the power system yet again.

While I certainly agree that something had to be done, it just feels like we're all in a sinking ship and rather than plugging that hole, Schine's making new ones in the hull and stretching their labor real thin. At this point, I'm simply waiting for power 2.0 and twiddling my thumbs browsing alternatives that just pale in comparison to what Starmade has to offer. To be honest, there's one or two titles on the top of my head that may just steal my interest away from Starmade's but they're all in "close alpha."

 

[Lancake]

The games design doesn't seem coherent because its not finished. What schine basically seems to be doing is starting with each of the various aspects of what the game will be and building inward until they all meet into one complete game.

Pretty much that. Don't want to give a history lesson of Schine so I'll keep it short and generalized.
Schine started out really small (1 person, Schema) and most likely the focus back then was to achieve several technical goals (voxel game, multiplayer support, ...) with no clear end goal for the gameplay aspect besides "minecraft in space".

Right now, we do have a very clear vision of what we want to end up with, and which areas to focus on to get there. Back then though, community influence (which includes new Schine members) is the part that mostly guided StarMade's development...which is a really bad thing. You can't base an entire game by blindly accepting community requests as it would just involve too much work to do it, so you end up cherry picking it which still results in a disconnected game.

... introducing heaps of content that seem to escalate the problems with server instability and the game's overall performance.

Unfortunately, adding content to the game usually affects performance in some way as it adds more to an already complicated program. From what I'm seeing, server performance is improving even, with less crashes than before if the server is well maintained. Hard to give you concrete evidence as we're only in contact with a few major servers. The few recent issues that popped up are for example already fixed and ready to test for the next Dev build.

Especially if you compare it with server performance of several years ago...tiny ships relative to what the game can run now, yet a crash every 10-ish minutes with more than 5 players online. I know those times really well as it's the reason why I joined the testing team, to help bring issues to light. Even back then I realized that Schine wasn't an all knowing entity, and they couldn't fix what they didn't know.

While I certainly agree that something had to be done, it just feels like we're all in a sinking ship and rather than plugging that hole, Schine's making new ones in the hull and stretching their labor real thin.

Glad it's a feeling as they can be wrong ^^, not entirely sure what you're referring to when talking about "new holes" though.

 

[therimmer96]

Duke has said design documents will be released.

When is that going to happen?

8th March 2017

 

[Asvarduil]

Pretty much that. Don't want to give a history lesson of Schine so I'll keep it short and generalized.
Schine started out really small (1 person, Schema) and most likely the focus back then was to achieve several technical goals (voxel game, multiplayer support, ...) with no clear end goal for the gameplay aspect besides "minecraft in space".

Right now, we do have a very clear vision of what we want to end up with, and which areas to focus on to get there. Back then though, community influence (which includes new Schine members) is the part that mostly guided StarMade's development...which is a really bad thing. You can't base an entire game by blindly accepting community requests as it would just involve too much work to do it, so you end up cherry picking it which still results in a disconnected game.

Unfortunately, adding content to the game usually affects performance in some way as it adds more to an already complicated program. From what I'm seeing, server performance is improving even, with less crashes than before if the server is well maintained. Hard to give you concrete evidence as we're only in contact with a few major servers. The few recent issues that popped up are for example already fixed and ready to test for the next Dev build.

Especially if you compare it with server performance of several years ago...tiny ships relative to what the game can run now, yet a crash every 10-ish minutes with more than 5 players online. I know those times really well as it's the reason why I joined the testing team, to help bring issues to light. Even back then I realized that Schine wasn't an all knowing entity, and they couldn't fix what they didn't know.

...

First things first. It's possible to be very aggressive with criticism. I want to start by saying - thanks for working on this game. Your efforts, and those of the entire Schine team, are very appreciated. The game we have, is better and more stable than the game I bought for $9.99 a couple of years ago. My purchase, and that of others, had some positive impacts, apparently.

I need to note, that I'm not complaining that people are working on the game, or that there is a plan. As noted - these are commendable things. These are good things. These add value to the game for both creator and player.

What I am complaining about is that there's a ton of work going into this game, yet as a player I still see an experience little different from a few years ago, where:

- The main thing you do is build ships...
- ...But it's so risky to do anything involving ships, that it's really better not to in the first place...
- And you're doing a lot of avoiding conflict, in huge, procedurally generated galaxies...
- ...That, by the third planet or third station, you've literally seen all there is to see, of.

- You can play with other players...
- ...But you'd be wise to secure your own base, as it's invulnerable, and you can't easily be griefed
- ...You'd also be wise to dock your ships to this base, for the same reason.
- ...Which makes playing with other players just too dangerous. It's safer to go alone and be avoidant.

- There's a crafting system...
- ...But the sheer amount of legwork one needs to do is staggering to create competitive ships or bases
- ...You have to do boring things, in order to be competitive
- And, in general, it's possible to have more fun with this game, by walking away and posting on forums about how you're not having fun with this game.

- You can build fleets! But...
- ...Your supply of crafted blocks will be strained still more to create and maintain drone fleets
- ...If you don't have a fleet, someone with a fleet can easily defeat your poor cobbled-together ship, which means joining a server means that you're starting from a position of deep disadvantage
- ...Worse than all of that, Fleets are putting play duties into the AI, and away from the player. The player, instead of doing cool things, is now doing less things.

- It's possible to leave your ship and explore worlds in person, but...
- ...Planets only have ores.
- There's only placeholder ground gear
- Really, you're vulnerable outside of your base, or your ship. You literally have no reason to get out from a risk-reward perspective.

This game is a rather huge tech demo. It's very ambitious, which is good, and shows off the talent of Schine's programmers, and QA folks (your role in finding and addressing bugs in this tapestry is thoroughly non-trivial.)

The problem is, this game isn't really engaging. This game, as it is, actively works against engaging a player. Heck, one time I even attempted to play against the game by joining a server, and pursuing a 'bandit' playstyle, where I go around, look for unsecured ships, and try to loot goodies from others. I still got bored and walked away.

Going further, look at that list up there. There's a few games in that. This is where my complaints come from - this game is trying to do so much, that it's doing badly at all the things it's doing.

My suggestion, simply put, is to take one facet of this game, and make it awesome and feel great, and rewarding to players. Then, choose another one - do the same. So on, so forth.

As it is, this is a game that I really only boot up, in order to see what's done...then, set it aside for months at a time, because there's nothing to do. I'd like for that reality to change.

 

[djthekiller]

First things first. It's possible to be very aggressive with criticism. I want to start by saying - thanks for working on this game. Your efforts, and those of the entire Schine team, are very appreciated. The game we have, is better and more stable than the game I bought for $9.99 a couple of years ago. My purchase, and that of others, had some positive impacts, apparently.

I need to note, that I'm not complaining that people are working on the game, or that there is a plan. As noted - these are commendable things. These are good things. These add value to the game for both creator and player.

What I am complaining about is that there's a ton of work going into this game, yet as a player I still see an experience little different from a few years ago, where:

- The main thing you do is build ships...
- ...But it's so risky to do anything involving ships, that it's really better not to in the first place...
- And you're doing a lot of avoiding conflict, in huge, procedurally generated galaxies...
- ...That, by the third planet or third station, you've literally seen all there is to see, of.
- You can play with other players...
- ...But you'd be wise to secure your own base, as it's invulnerable, and you can't easily be griefed
- ...You'd also be wise to dock your ships to this base, for the same reason.
- ...Which makes playing with other players just too dangerous. It's safer to go alone and be avoidant.
- There's a crafting system...
- ...But the sheer amount of legwork one needs to do is staggering to create competitive ships or bases
- ...You have to do boring things, in order to be competitive
- And, in general, it's possible to have more fun with this game, by walking away and posting on forums about how you're not having fun with this game.
- You can build fleets! But...
- ...Your supply of crafted blocks will be strained still more to create and maintain drone fleets
- ...If you don't have a fleet, someone with a fleet can easily defeat your poor cobbled-together ship, which means joining a server means that you're starting from a position of deep disadvantage
- ...Worse than all of that, Fleets are putting play duties into the AI, and away from the player. The player, instead of doing cool things, is now doing less things.
- It's possible to leave your ship and explore worlds in person, but...
- ...Planets only have ores.
- There's only placeholder ground gear
- Really, you're vulnerable outside of your base, or your ship. You literally have no reason to get out from a risk-reward perspective.

This game is a rather huge tech demo. It's very ambitious, which is good, and shows off the talent of Schine's programmers, and QA folks (your role in finding and addressing bugs in this tapestry is thoroughly non-trivial.)

The problem is, this game isn't really engaging. This game, as it is, actively works against engaging a player. Heck, one time I even attempted to play against the game by joining a server, and pursuing a 'bandit' playstyle, where I go around, look for unsecured ships, and try to loot goodies from others. I still got bored and walked away.

Going further, look at that list up there. There's a few games in that. This is where my complaints come from - this game is trying to do so much, that it's doing badly at all the things it's doing.

My suggestion, simply put, is to take one facet of this game, and make it awesome and feel great, and rewarding to players. Then, choose another one - do the same. So on, so forth.

As it is, this is a game that I really only boot up, in order to see what's done...then, set it aside for months at a time, because there's nothing to do. I'd like for that reality to change.

So from this i agree with pretty much everything, and the only thing i find interesting anymore is where is the next unfactioned ship, where is the faction module of it, and then do i have enough firepower to pen the shields, and if i dont push it into somewhere where only i know -inside of my "box" station which is invulnerable and then make a giant gun that would strain my resources just to kill off a ship, use the parts from that ship to make an even bigger weapon...
and then i spend all my time either in CBS or singleplayer either making new ships that i dont fill with any systems because the power system hangs in the balance
i dont want that to be the meta anymore,
so lets make a new meta, where we dont get giant updates with blocks, lets work with what we have for now, and just work on improving one part at a time.