Announcement of power rebalancing timing....

[Dvaren]

Although I appreciate Schine's willingness to work with our community, and consider our input, I have to ask, was it a good idea to announce these sweeping changes so early in development?

If the desirability of Starmade can be roughly reduced to simply (a) building/design of ships and stations, (b) collection of resources, and (c) pvp utilizing these ships/stations/resources.....

....has Shine not utterly halted (a) and (b)?

All of us who are enamored of building and design, which I imagine to be a significant percentage of our player population, are no longer able to build or design anything whatsoever until this update is released, as nothing they build/design will work in the near? future.

Seeing as a redesign of the caliber will likely result in widespread server resets, resource collection, with the exception of immediate need, will bear no fruit either.

The fact of the matter is that Starmade is already bleeding players at an alarming rate, likely because of lack of marketing coupled with poor server performance, which leads me to suspect that any further exacerbating of the problem will result in a compounded purge of existing players.

To summarize, as excited as I am about the proposed changes, and as unwilling as I normally would be advocating for obfuscation of information, I propose that the health and/or state of the game, in this case, should have taken precedence over transparency.....or at least in regards to the timing of the announcement.

Thoughts?

 

[Comradecolonel]

Starmade is bleeding player because there is no point to playing right now. Unless you want to spend a lot of time building toys to play with, there isn't much to do. Battles are still laggy and mostly fought 1v1 since large scale battle (especially with fleet AI) tend to be just chaos. There's no progression to be had unless you are building projects. Add to the fact that some players are just straight up assholes and you get a game that provides no reward for playing it.

Building is great and all but once players get tired of building there is very little for them to do besides make their own fun using the Starmade engine. I can easily understand why most people play this game for a few days. They look at all the other stuff in the game and say, "I don't have the time/energy/skill to build something like that." If you can't get into building right now then there is little appeal to the game. Everything else is super basic and in a lot of cases non-functional.

 

[Brokengauge]

It's just a PROPOSAL, and schine wanted our input.

Not only that, this game is still in alpha. If such a radical change is going to happen, it needs to happen in alpha. If this purely conceptual change is going to supposedly "ruin everything" if it's released sometime this year....then how will it NOT ruin everything of it comes out later?

From what I've read on the forum, and assuming they're going to actually do it, they are going to try and change the system WITHOUT having everyone's ships be totally felched.

Assuming they can placate everyone with that, then this new mechanic seems like it will open the door to a whole new aspect of the design process, and that makes me excited.

OR they'll severely mishandle everything and drive off their entire player base and everyone will shift onto space engineers, skywanderers, and avorion.

But I don't think they'll do that.

 

[Zerefette]

Last time with Power Auxiliares there was some kind of disaster, so this time they want some extra cooperation for it.
Power Aux make capital ship explode for dumb reasons so better the new one than them.

 

[Dvaren]

It's just a PROPOSAL, and schine wanted our input.

Not only that, this game is still in alpha. If such a radical change is going to happen, it needs to happen in alpha.

You seem to have misunderstood my original post. I was not implying that these changes should not be implemented or that they should be, or not be, implemented at any specific time. My intent was to question the timing of the announcement when taking into consideration the effect it will have on the existing player base up to the eventual implementation of the features.

If this purely conceptual change is going to supposedly "ruin everything" if it's released sometime this year....then how will it NOT ruin everything of it comes out later?

Again, the problem I outlined lies with the timing of the announcement, not the features, or the timing of the implementation of the features.

From what I've read on the forum, and assuming they're going to actually do it, they are going to try and change the system WITHOUT having everyone's ships be totally felched.

The devs have stated quite clearly that these changes will completely nullify almost all existing ship designs. I do not know where you've received this information.
[doublepost=1486996415,1486995837][/doublepost]

Last time with Power Auxiliares there was some kind of disaster, so this time they want some extra cooperation for it.
Power Aux make capital ship explode for dumb reasons so better the new one than them.

Although I agree that the power auxiliary redesign was not thought out as well as it could of been, it was a replacement for only one system, and could be retrofitted with relative ease in many designs. Personally, after learning of the changes, I continued building as usual and spent a bit of time retrofitting a few of my larger vessels that used docked reactors.

The changes they are proposing, in my opinion at least, are quite excellent, yet their announcement so far ahead of implementation will likely result in a mass abandonment of this game until there is once again a path to utilizable designs. I believe the framework of these redesigns should have been completed, along with all necessary "set in stone" features, before bringing in the community for fine tuning the end product.

I am far more concerned with the future health of this game than the immediate frustration of a few players over information they may believe they are entitled to. None of us will have any game to play if the devs run out of players, and therefore funding, before release version can be marketed and deployed. Seeing as any exodus of players inevitably leads to a self perpetuating cycle of player exodus, this threat is not negligible.

 

[Brokengauge]

You seem to have misunderstood my original post. I was not implying that these changes should not be implemented or that they should be, or not be, implemented at any specific time. My intent was to question the timing of the announcement when taking into consideration the effect it will have on the existing player base up to the eventual implementation of the features.



Again, the problem I outlined lies with the timing of the announcement, not the features, or the timing of the implementation of the features.



The devs have stated quite clearly that these changes will completely nullify almost all existing ship designs. I do not know where you've received this information.
[doublepost=1486996415,1486995837][/doublepost]

Although I agree that the power auxiliary redesign was not thought out as well as it could of been, it was a replacement for only one system, and could be retrofitted with relative ease in many designs. Personally, after learning of the changes, I continued building as usual and spent a bit of time retrofitting a few of my larger vessels that used docked reactors.

The changes they are proposing, in my opinion at least, are quite excellent, yet their announcement so far ahead of implementation will likely result in a mass abandonment of this game until there is once again a path to utilizable designs. I believe the framework of these redesigns should have been completed, along with all necessary "set in stone" features, before bringing in the community for fine tuning the end product.

I am far more concerned with the future health of this game than the immediate frustration of a few players over information they may believe they are entitled to. None of us will have any game to play if the devs run out of players, and therefore funding, before release version can be marketed and deployed. Seeing as any exodus of players inevitably leads to a self perpetuating cycle of player exodus, this threat is not negligible.

Sorry, looks like I did misunderstand you, my bad lol.

Although my point about not ruining ppls builds: I wasn't reiterating anything the devs had said. I was merely saying, in effect "if they want to keep everyone happy, then they need to try to not render the vast minority of builds useless."

In an attempt to address the topic at hand: schine has put thought into it, and wants to know what we think about it, and if we want a system like this. It wasn't "this is going into the game now, end of discussion" it was more like "we'd like to introduce this at some point soon, is that cool?"

So I dont think the timing is off at all. They could have spent months making a system, and then brought this up in October, and we would've been like " this is terrible! Why did you even spend time on this without even talking to us first? You could have been fixing AI!" Lol

 

[jayman38]

It is indeed early in development, making this a perfect time to suggest a radical change.

The longer you wait to implement a needed change, the more it will hurt, and the more players will flee.

Make the change now.

 

[NeonSturm]

StarMade has:

nice logic - poor AI
nice ship customization - poor detailing below 2m³
nice ship building - to fly in empty space
​

If SM would open the game for better AI modding and regex allows us to make highly advanced AI scripts with logic, maybe one problem is removed by the community (not shine).

What SM is missing is:

Interactions of logic and environment (where is the closest enemy ship? Is there a station I can dock to?)
reliable control of systems through logic (passives and scanners on stations)
advanced regex programs from the community (AI and a standardized command line for ships for example)

cleaning up the mess and re-collecting useful information in a wiki without offtopic inbetween such as in a forum.​

 

[Gasboy]

Although I appreciate Schine's willingness to work with our community, and consider our input, I have to ask, was it a good idea to announce these sweeping changes so early in development?

If the desirability of Starmade can be roughly reduced to simply (a) building/design of ships and stations, (b) collection of resources, and (c) pvp utilizing these ships/stations/resources.....

....has Shine not utterly halted (a) and (b)?

All of us who are enamored of building and design, which I imagine to be a significant percentage of our player population, are no longer able to build or design anything whatsoever until this update is released, as nothing they build/design will work in the near? future.

Seeing as a redesign of the caliber will likely result in widespread server resets, resource collection, with the exception of immediate need, will bear no fruit either.

The fact of the matter is that Starmade is already bleeding players at an alarming rate, likely because of lack of marketing coupled with poor server performance, which leads me to suspect that any further exacerbating of the problem will result in a compounded purge of existing players.

To summarize, as excited as I am about the proposed changes, and as unwilling as I normally would be advocating for obfuscation of information, I propose that the health and/or state of the game, in this case, should have taken precedence over transparency.....or at least in regards to the timing of the announcement.

Thoughts?

Yes, it was a good idea to announce these sweeping changes in advance.

Do you really think people would like the idea more if it was sprung upon them fully formed, without their input and close to being implemented?

I think this was a test balloon, to gauge our reaction to it. If it was a hostile enough reaction, they could simply can it and maybe find a different way entirely.

I think everyone should give their input so that the change can be made beneficial.

 

[Shaker]

They really should be focusing on adding gameplay features, otherwise have fun play testing your own game

 

[FlyingDebris]

Perhaps it would have been better if they had left their own idea on power for later and started the discussion more as a "we want ideas" thread like has been done in the past.

 

[NeonSturm]

New Perhaps it would have been better if they had left their own idea on power for later and started the discussion more as a "we want ideas" thread like has been done in the past.

OR Perhaps they should have posted a thread in the suggestion forum as a new user and let the shine staff bump it constantly :p

I think the problem is not Shine, but the forum information exchange organisation.
Peoples responding to each other easily creates 30 pages of text which few are reading as a whole.

If every post needs to select exactly one other to reply to, peoples could only ever reply on the OP.
If they reply to another, they automatically make this post the OP of another (linked sub-)thread to which their post gets moved.

And then everybody could have 1 post in which he updates his current opinion with all recent experiences to give an accumulated feedback.
The posts which span 28 pages would be mere change-logs if they are not replies to a sub-thread.​

 

[Ghent96]

Schine has already made quite a habit and reputation of driving away the vast majority of its players and community. Why should we believe they will stop now?

This is not really early in development. Starmade has been around about 4 years. 3 that I've known it. Thousands of ships have been designed and redesigned after thrust changes, after turret changes, after docking changes, after more thrust changes, after armor and hit point changes, after center of mass changes... ad nauseum. Most of those designers and builders have thrown up their hands and left.

The rest of us are about to leave.

Yes, the ultimate problem remains that they keep making ship design and building more complex while creating little gameplay, or removing gameplay, and providing no content and/or making it difficult for players to create content. Advance build mode helped, but then they made it more cumbersome and take longer / more keystrokes with radial menus. We as players struggle to create factions, economy, AI, NPCs, custom blocks and textures without the appropriate tools and foundations, so that we can have in-game content and things for us and fellow players to do on a server besides just build... and Schine ignores us and keeps overhauling fundamentals. They're schizophrenic with their development, and it's killing off their community.

Yes, it's bad timing, but it's also a bad idea.

 

[Stormraven]

I think you're missing the silver lining here.
For those of us who love to build, NOW is the time to get cracking on a lot of our big projects in single player mode.

Now is the time to start a few BIG ships, and start playing with logic. Get a ship to 70-80% completion, then move to the next. When the power update comes out, you'll be able to polish off several ships at once and import/share them wherever you like.

 

[Snowtiger256]

But what if some of us just can't muster the will to keep building, tinkering and working on stuff while waiting for the devs to kick out the update, IF it even ever gets ready to be released? Personally, I want to build ships on the intention that I will get to use them in-game, and not just to have them floating around my build space as beautiful scenery enhancements, waiting to be finished just because of an update that may never even come out.

I'd rather use that energy and time on something else entirely, and get back in the game if and when that update does drop, just to see if it's worth the salt to start working on stuff again. The same goes for my previous projects, if the devs decide to implement the update as it is detailed and they end up breaking EVERY entity in the game we have so far built, and not only those, as the update would also break EVERY prefab entity from pirate ships and stations to derelicts and trading posts. Refitting and rebuilding those will already be a daunting task, that will surely require a lot of time and effort as well.

I'm having enough trouble trying to muster enough will and energy to keep building my current projects, due to personal reasons, and now the devs hitch up another boulder onto my shoulders with this proposed update. I'm contemplating on if I should just keep going with all of this load or tossing it aside and waiting it out until I can see if it's worth picking it back up again...

 

[NeonSturm]

Schine has already made quite a habit and reputation of driving away the vast majority of its players and community. Why should we believe they will stop now?

This is not really early in development. Starmade has been around about 4 years. 3 that I've known it. Thousands of ships have been designed and redesigned after thrust changes, after turret changes, after docking changes, after more thrust changes, after armor and hit point changes, after center of mass changes... ad nauseum. Most of those designers and builders have thrown up their hands and left.

The rest of us are about to leave.

Yes, the ultimate problem remains that they keep making ship design and building more complex while creating little gameplay, or removing gameplay, and providing no content and/or making it difficult for players to create content. Advance build mode helped, but then they made it more cumbersome and take longer / more keystrokes with radial menus. We as players struggle to create factions, economy, AI, NPCs, custom blocks and textures without the appropriate tools and foundations, so that we can have in-game content and things for us and fellow players to do on a server besides just build... and Schine ignores us and keeps overhauling fundamentals. They're schizophrenic with their development, and it's killing off their community.

Yes, it's bad timing, but it's also a bad idea.

EXACTLY

With logic, it's nice, but I don't want to build 1990's PCs which break on unloaded chunks.
Advanced build mode is nice, but I cannot make my own scripts for it (place blocks @±xyz with orientation ±xyz arguments(# # {abc}) …)
regex allows us to build AIs, but you can't transfer current/target angles of your ship's pitch/yaw/roll from and into logic.
factions are nice, but it's too demanding to be an active member in a bug-ridden game or if you have some real life / other games installed
… to be … continued …
… continue … to be …​