At this point, will the devs listen to the playerbase even?

[DoomCarrot]

This is not supposed to be offensive, but I have noticed two things in the past few months.

1. The player base is becoming increasingly more outspoken against the new power system. It has gotten to the point of multiple topics a day that rail it, to players on servers basically just ranting about how the devs suck and are ruining their own game, etc.

2. The devs are pressing for the update with little to no new direction or backtracking, despite the overwhelming protests from veteran and noob players alike.

The starmade community is literally in a state of civil war right now, with the devs feverishly pressing for an update that NO ONE wants, while the players become increasingly angrier and more desperate as their qualms with the new system seem to be almost unheard.

i am afraid that this update will literally kill starmade if at least one side doesn’t let go. Either:

A. devs need to scrap this update (and yes their hard work) and start from scratch again or not do it at all.

B. Players need to learn to let go and enjoy the game as it comes. The devs hopefully have a bigger picture and more things planned, and even if they don’t starmade players need to learn to just accept this game for what it becomes, and not tear down the people developing it.

It has become clear that (A) will probably never happen. So I think most players need to just learn to accept this power update. Complaints are valid, but outright ridiculing the dev team and and being irreparably butthurt over this huge change is not going to help things.

i felt this should be said after I witnessed a fairly disturbing exchange on a public server earlier this week.

 

[MacThule]

What I would like to see is how totally fresh gamers, new players without any SM experience, respond to power 2.0.

I am curious about whether it comes off easier without any preconceptions about SM engineering.

 

[DoomCarrot]

What I would like to see is how totally fresh gamers, new players without any SM experience, respond to power 2.0.

I am curious about whether it comes off easier without any preconceptions about SM engineering.

There won’t BE any new players if this problem persists. I have seen people comment things on youtube channels like “Hey this game looks good but is it worth getting?”

To which I have seen veteran players say things like: “No don’t get it, a game breaking update is about to come out and the game is gonna be messed up for a while.”

Things like THAT are what I an referring to. Yes it is fine to say things how they are, but scaring off new players and causing strife between devs and players just isn’t good to do for this game’s success, no matter what.

 

[GDPR 302420]

Schine has fallen victim to the escalation of commitment, they are so invested and have put enough time into their "perfect" power system that they are 100% completely opposed to any suggestion of changing or removing anything involving it.

If Schine continues down this line, this game is doomed to fail. Simple as that.

Even if a majority of the vocal playerbase wants power 2.0 to be changed (or outright removed), Schine had made it clear in their responses:

"Fuck the players of our game, their opinions don't matter, we are going to do it this way"

 

[Batavium]

Yes it is fine to say things how they are, but scaring off new players and causing strife between devs and players just isn’t good to do for this game’s success, no matter what.

The only one person who can either be praised or blamed for the success or failure of StarMade is schema.

Trying to tell the player base how to act or behave in response to his actions is moralistic. Any action the player base has in regards to StarMade. Is always going to be a direct result of the choices made by schema in his regards to StarMade and its player base.

Right now his actions and choices are alienating a large portion of the player base.

In other words you reap what you sow.

 

[MacThule]

I agree, Batavium and it's just unfortunate that the real failure here may be more in the PR department than in the actual game design arena.

That said... an empowered, professional PR effort from a proven team could still easily overcome a lot of the issues as soon as they go to Beta. Beta release has the potential to be a sort of carte blanche for Schine if properly marketed, and I actually sort of suspect that may be in the cards sooner than people think - it's one of the few strong answers that keeps coming up when I wonder at why they are holding back new planets and other known improvements for the "universe update," and why we are now seeing changes slipping into the dev build without even a note to the players about them (looking at the factory changes here). It's almost as if they are so close to their set goals for Beta they are just ignoring the alpha test set at this point and pushing forward to hit that reset with Beta.

 

[GDPR 302420]

Things like THAT are what I an referring to. Yes it is fine to say things how they are, but scaring off new players and causing strife between devs and players just isn’t good to do for this game’s success, no matter what.

My fanboy sensors are tingling

 

[Crashmaster]

Disregarding the dev team ignoring all advice pre and post power 2.0, they had the opportunity to elaborate on their 'bigger picture' and how it necessitated power 2.0's peculiar design choices when it was released but they chose to keep their devoted testers is the dark. They had the opportunity to counter the terrible power 2.0 feedback with explainations about the 'bigger picture' and they choose not to. I think they deserve all the aggression and ridicule.

 

[CyberTao]

and why we are now seeing changes slipping into the dev build without even a note to the players about them

Oh no thats normal. Part of dev build testing is figuring out what they changed.

 

[Lecic]

B. Players need to learn to let go and enjoy the game as it comes. The devs hopefully have a bigger picture and more things planned, and even if they don’t starmade players need to learn to just accept this game for what it becomes, and not tear down the people developing it.

It has become clear that (A) will probably never happen. So I think most players need to just learn to accept this power update. Complaints are valid, but outright ridiculing the dev team and and being irreparably butthurt over this huge change is not going to help things.

Defeatism is cowardice.

I refuse to back down from my position even if my criticism of the new system hurts their feelings. I refuse to let the sunk cost fallacy ruin a game with so much potential.

 

[MacThule]

Oh no thats normal. Part of dev build testing is figuring out what they changed.

True. Public Relations is where they are falling down. They could offset a lot of discontent by making sure everyone knows when they do something like adjustable factory numbers that people have been asking for for years.

But... I keep wondering...

where is Duke? Lancakes? Where is everyone tasked with communicating with the public? We've got a new mod who says:

We are still in the process of setting everything up so I'm afraid at the moment I don't have too many answers unless they regard rules. But as finalizations occur I will be joining in.

The silence is starting to feel... enforced, more than negligent.

Purposeful, even.

Pregnant.

 

[Crimson-Artist]

Defeatism is cowardice.

I refuse to back down from my position even if my criticism of the new system hurts their feelings. I refuse to let the sunk cost fallacy ruin a game with so much potential.

 

[Crusade]

Personally, I feel like the game started to suffer the more schine turned more "business" and less "personal project"
Schema alone was creating a game that people adored. I understand that he needed, and may still need help - but as schine (the team, not the engine) developed, schema lost his direction, or was influenced to change direction.

I miss 0.09 era starmade. I feel nostalgic about it, even though it's only a few years ago.

 

[Crimson-Artist]

Personally, I feel like the game started to suffer the more schine turned more "business" and less "personal project"
Schema alone was creating a game that people adored. I understand that he needed, and may still need help - but as schine (the team, not the engine) developed, schema lost his direction, or was influenced to change direction.

I miss 0.09 era starmade. I feel nostalgic about it, even though it's only a few years ago.

I still remember my first world. God I miss the old factories. They were way more fun and rewarding to use even if block schematics costed an arm and a leg.

 

[Coyote27]

I really don't know whether Schema himself is at fault here, if he reads the forums to any meaningful extent or relies completely on intermediaries. But the one thing that I definitely do know is that communication between him and us is essentially broken, and we can't expect him to listen to our concerns if he isn't hearing them, or can't hear them, or is only hearing what he's told through channels that may easily be distorted.
Something's gotta change in order to keep the community healthy. We need a week or a month or however long it takes for Schema to take a break from coding and come here and talk with us, person to person, so he can understand our viewpoints and we can understand his.

 

[LoSboccacc]

to be honest five years ago when the project started and there was no competition in this space I'd be far more vocal about the update. as it is, I'm mostly "meh", there are plenty games to choose from in this exact space.

it sucks, because starmade was the only one with a purely block based system where block count scaled the power of each system relative to the ship, meaning every ship was truly unique in balance, while 99% of the competition just use pre-made turrets and system and they all work the same across the board (which is precisely what chambers are and why I hate them).

as I said in another thread, starmade would be a great finished product with some tweak to config to kill gigantism, proper ai fleet so that a player faction doesn't require 100 players live to go to war, the removal of the shop system so the economy is only feed by player and npc faction miner/factories making war and territory control meaningful, and that's about it

they should finish what's there, package it up as a release then go build starmade 2 exploring brand new way to handle power and systems.

 

[Captain Fortius]

Defeatism is cowardice.

Death before dishonor!

In all seriousness though. It's one thing that most of US don't like / want / care for this power update.
But, as it has been said many times, all these distance formulas, reactor beams and stabilizers are super confusing to a new player. Especially when you keep it in mind, block building games attract a fair amount of children besides the hardened thirty-something sci-fi nutcase.

Not just that, but it goes against the one greatest aspect of starmade by telling you to build in a certain way (the latest news post even proudly emphasizing that phrase!).

That aspect is Complete creative freedom.

Pretty much the only reason I'm not playing one of the numerous other spaceship building games out there, because this is the ONLY one that doesn't limit my possibilities with bloody prefabricated parts.

Today, it's my reactor's shape. Tomorrow, I can only put tiny turrets and engine assemblies on my ships, that someone else already designed in my stead.

In defense of the need for a power update, (though not necessarily the current method) the most compelling point I heard is that "linear power generation is not very interesting"

-To which, I'd respectfully answer: It doesn't need to be. As I can chuck down a big chunk of thrusters in the space I made for them, so should I just fill up my reactor assembly with power blocks and call it a day.

Want a good power update?

-Reactor blocks should just work like capacitor blocks. Said capacitor blocks stay in the game.
-Aux blocks go away, because they are NOT auxiliary.
-All reactor chamber effects inherently added to every ship.
-RENAMED because a reactor chamber is a room in which the reactor assembly is housed.
-What effect is on at what strength ATM is decided by a power allocation menu. (Could be like the weapons menu, or a collapsible extension of the action bar)

-Profit: We avoided the highly exploitable new power formula, we don't advocate any ship shape over any other, and we don't have giant glowy off-switches in our ships. With a free pick amogn the ch****r effects, my ship can fly faster when I want it to fly faster, harden it's shields when needed, or be extra shooty or salavage-y. -Without needing to waste space and mass on several complete spare reactors! Keep in mind, it's all still limited by the corresponding physical blocks I placed (thrusters, shields, cannons, salvagers).

 

[Dire Venom]

One of the devs mentioned a while back that Schemas design philosophy is to throw the plate out (so to speak) and then regard the raw feedback through binoculars.

(Rather than actually speaking to the consumer of course, because who ever does that?)

Maybe the latest trend in shoe companies is to Chuck random shoes at people till they accept it.
Idk

They seem to learn all the wrong lessons from the raw feedback, "Islands are encouraged" = "Ugly forced off cancerous growth down the length of your crew quaters and bridge"

How does one make that leap in logic?

 

[Captain Fortius]

My best guess is aliens.

I honestly wouldn't know. My boots are based on half a century old designs, so I'm not quite in the loop.

 

[JinM]

There won’t BE any new players if this problem persists. I have seen people comment things on youtube channels like “Hey this game looks good but is it worth getting?”

To which I have seen veteran players say things like: “No don’t get it, a game breaking update is about to come out and the game is gonna be messed up for a while.”

Things like THAT are what I an referring to. Yes it is fine to say things how they are, but scaring off new players and causing strife between devs and players just isn’t good to do for this game’s success, no matter what.

Look, Starmade might be promoted when it has more than the new power and weapons.

Did you allready know, that the dev wants to wait with making the game attractive, until it is in a more finished state? Last word I heard was that they want to wait until it's ready for a bigger audience. They don't want a lot of players right now.

It's likely that new planets and the updated faction as well as missions will be the goal. So now have a guess how long that will take to implement? I say more than 6 months, 8 to 12 months is very likely.

Okay so power hits in February. Now tell me if there will still be veterans left to complain on social media, after they played with the new power for over 6 months, or left the game earlier.

Do you think the power complaints will still be there in the third or fourth quartal of this year?