Do not make this game die

[Nosajimiki]

... There is a reason why player left, a release wont magically make player come back, at most it will draw some attention.
People don't want 3 types of blocks for shield, 5 types of blocks for power, they don't want to know about farming, factory and stuff just to build or use a decent ship and go pvp. They don't want fancy power management.
But well thats only one thing on the list.
I was right about starmade losing players, and I m ready to bet: if starmade doesn't change the meta dramatically at a point they have to rework / remove most new features (such as jump drive, economy, factories, power etc), the release wont make starmade magically live again...

The only reason anyone is still here despite the game being pretty much unplayable since January is that it is complex. There are simpler space voxel games out there to master, so there is no point in SM shifting gears to compete with niche that is already occupied.

People who play a game like this for more than a few months WANT each system and subsystem to have enough complexity to give them reasons to keep trying new things. I do not agree with all of the new mechanics since many of them defy logic, *cough* stabilizers *cough*, but complexity unto itself is great for the game. "building a decent PvP ship" is not, nor should it be a thing for a new player to do for the same reason a lvl.60 character in any MMO should not have to worry about a lvl.5 coming up and whacking him. Noobs should be able to compete with noobs, and vets can compete with vets, and when a vet comes for a noob, they can always fall back to their HB or join a strong enough faction to protect and arm them as they learn the game's finer points.

 

[chetyre]

Noobs should be able to compete with noobs, and vets can compete with vet

Yea and that would be nice if complete noobs could actually play the game, which isn't really possible today considering you must farm, make factory, and stuff to get a nice little ship.
This is pretty stupid

 

[Nosajimiki]

Yea and that would be nice if complete noobs could actually play the game, which isn't really possible today considering you must farm, make factory, and stuff to get a nice little ship.
This is pretty stupid

I disagree. I started playing just after the game stopped doing the cash factory thing. As an intro to the game, hand-banging an asteroid minecraft style, then building a tiny ass mining ship where I had to fly around asteroids selectively targeting pockets of resources was really fun. It actually helped keep the intro to the game small scale where my first couple of tries at ships were just supposed to be able to survive a wave of xaniths. I was able to PvE and enjoy learning the economics of the game while I figured out what combat mechanics were all about. Then after a while, I learned how waffle mining and mass production worked, and started making frigates and larger using what I learned from those first micromade ships.

If I had the resources from day one to build big, I would have just made giant crappy titans that took 10x as long to design and still gotten wiped from lack of building experience.

I feel that your friction with resource based production comes from already having a sense of scale and good design in your head when they introduced it. If you go into the resource system with no experience with resource management, but tons of experience building larger ships, then it will leave a sour taste in your mouth no doubt. But, when you have to learn it at the same pace you are learning ship building, it adds a lot to the game. Now a days, I can hop on a server and have a 500k battleship in a week because I know just as much about industry as I do about ship design.

When you are just getting started though, it keeps the game fun even when you are still not able to scratch the paint on a PvP battleship.

 

[chetyre]

I m here because I m interested in the game and I want it to live, aka not having 3 servers with a pop>10 players connected most of the time
[doublepost=1532023612,1532023391][/doublepost]I actually think what ruined the game the most is jump drives, I love the idea, but in the reality we just spend as much time traveling, and you just see less people

 

[Alphajim]

You know chetyre, their's a ton of indie games with ten times less players (and by players I don't mean only Steam stats or MP players) which are still living and progressing at their own pace. What you fail to understand is that the game is not dead. Not yet in worst case, or just having a bad time in best scenario. But whatever, if the game fail, then it'll fail. Saying "I've said it" won't change anything. I don't even understand why you're coming back just to say something like that. As if anyone really care if you said it 3 years ago. Well gg, you said something anyone with a little bit of brain would have guessed seeing all the player charts during years.

Anyway, even in the case there was no players (which won't happen as there'll always be some singleplayer / private MP fans of the game), Schine said they have enough money to last a year iirc. Without using all their Steam marketing things and all the internet solutions you can find. So I think we don't have to worry about that. Yeah there's way less players. But no the game isn't still dead.

Excuse me if I mainly sound harsh. Besides the language problems (I'm not english) I became a bit toxic with all the shitstorm that happened during the last year (at least).

 

[StormWing0]

This game isn't dying, this is the most lively I've seen it in a while mostly because players are waiting for the interesting things. Besides F'ing up the setup for power and ATK > DEF issues the game is fine for an indie game. Now if this were post release and this crap was going on I'd be one of those players waiting for the moment I was going to say "I told you so!".

 

[Tolnorus]

Is this a joke? The original poster composed a barely coherent and utterly unfounded attack against a game that is still in alpha development. That's like complaining that the Sistine Chapel is crap because all you've done so far is setup some scaffolding and wash the ceiling so you could begin work.

If there's a complaint to levy, it's that the development cycle is very slow. Read the Endgame Goals document. https://starmadedock.net/threads/starmade-endgoals-all-parts.29380/
Measure StarMade against that. Is it done? Is it close to done? They just recently (that is, two weeks ago) finished the final part of Builder. The next update begins development of Explorer. That leaves four entire portions that haven't yet been touched. Yes, it is an unplayable game, because it is incomplete. Despite this, somehow we are having fun playing it. I think it's fair to say that most of the community right now is full of builders, which is appropriate seeing as that is the part of the game that is most developed.

I watched Minecraft grow-up this way. It took years, but Minecraft is finally an interesting game with much depth, a far cry from the hollow voxel builder game that it was at its beginnings. StarMade has the same potential and I'm eager to see it realized. My only hope is that Schine finishes it in less time than it took Michelangelo to finish his work in Rome.

 

[chetyre]

Here is a quick sum of the comments I have found here:

Top comment:
I suck at making even small ships, this is daunting D:

Other comments:

I don't like that at all ! Too complicated, design will be a nightmare for builders. Sad face...


Nice and clear explanation. But what does it change in the game? I think I will start sweating harder now when my shields fall in battle. And while I'm battling I need to play engineer and pilot now? Do I have even time for that? Where's R2D2 in the game when you need one!? Starmade is growing more complex and vulnerable each year.

RIP starmade, this is looking like the dumbest update ive ever seen despite all its intended horrible features, i wonder how broken it will be on launch lol Im sorry but what was wrong with the old system? The tech point system is given a very vague irrelevant description, they also mentioned enhancing the stealth system? So they are redoing that too? WHY? Targeting specific systems in a ship is also really dumb since armor lacks any ability to stop anything with decent firepower and only really works to increase your armor pool and thus decrease hp damage. So targeting the enemy's reactor will be the most effective way to destroy the ship. I would much rather have my aux power blocks. Also the ship that he cut up to show the interior design was laughable. He says building one giant reactor means that he would have to make the stabilizers farther away, why is that a bad thing? Volume is infinite and all this is does is encourage larger and larger ships, especially considering the power model is linear now. They also talk about increasing jump range so this means they are removing logic drives, is it their goal to stop player's creativity and innovative designs by forcing them to adhere to dumb mechanics created by players and devs who don't know how to play the game? "You are surely jumping for joy right now" 7:58 No, no im not, the players already figured this one out my friend and you are simply forcing them to adhere to a less convenient and less efficient system. After reviewing this change with a lot of the high level pvp players in this dying community, a lot of them are considering quitting at this point. Its been hard to hold a pvp group together for 4 years and this looks like its going to be its end.


CLEARLY I m not the only guy here thinking this stuff is killing the game,
[doublepost=1532116886,1532116830][/doublepost]you guys are stuck in your own echo chamber because people with different views have just left the game
AKA: selection bias

 

[Alphajim]

RIP starmade

Stopped seriously reading at this. You still haven't understood anything.

CLEARLY I m not the only guy here thinking this stuff is killing the game

Yeah and ? Clearly I'm not the only one here thinking you don't make any point regarding what you think is worth playing or not. The fact you don't like it don't means it's bad. That's a pretty stupid mind. In that case any other game in the same genre is trash as I don't like their smaller scale / goals.

you guys are stuck in your own echo chamber because people with different views have just left the game
AKA: selection bias

Can say the same about you. You are stuck in your old "that game's sinking" mind. And basically, a small game community is composed of bias who like the niche of the game. Actually I like having different PoV.

Ah and

*
Top comment:
I suck at making even small ships, this is daunting D:

Other comments:

I don't like that at all ! Too complicated, design will be a nightmare for builders. Sad face...

this makes no point at all. I can see plenty of trash political messages in FB, being in a top liked rating of a post. And it still is trash. Even if it's not in FB, being a top rating on any open community isn't representative at all.
Plus making a small ship is even simpler

We can continue all you want you know. Just because you're convinced that the game is trash for you, don't make you saying the truth. And because the ones being here like the game (or want it to be finished one day), your opinion isn't more than your opinion. Be more open-minded : whether or not you like the actual game, others like it. So let us play in our "daed geam".

 

[Reilly Reese]

But sadly the most expressive other PoVs were trolls or aggressive selfish guys.

:Casually dismisses alternate and opposite opinions as trolls or selfish guys:

 

[God mode]

Here is a quick sum of the comments I have found here:

Top comment:
I suck at making even small ships, this is daunting D:

Other comments:

I don't like that at all ! Too complicated, design will be a nightmare for builders. Sad face...


Nice and clear explanation. But what does it change in the game? I think I will start sweating harder now when my shields fall in battle. And while I'm battling I need to play engineer and pilot now? Do I have even time for that? Where's R2D2 in the game when you need one!? Starmade is growing more complex and vulnerable each year.

RIP starmade, this is looking like the dumbest update ive ever seen despite all its intended horrible features, i wonder how broken it will be on launch lol Im sorry but what was wrong with the old system? The tech point system is given a very vague irrelevant description, they also mentioned enhancing the stealth system? So they are redoing that too? WHY? Targeting specific systems in a ship is also really dumb since armor lacks any ability to stop anything with decent firepower and only really works to increase your armor pool and thus decrease hp damage. So targeting the enemy's reactor will be the most effective way to destroy the ship. I would much rather have my aux power blocks. Also the ship that he cut up to show the interior design was laughable. He says building one giant reactor means that he would have to make the stabilizers farther away, why is that a bad thing? Volume is infinite and all this is does is encourage larger and larger ships, especially considering the power model is linear now. They also talk about increasing jump range so this means they are removing logic drives, is it their goal to stop player's creativity and innovative designs by forcing them to adhere to dumb mechanics created by players and devs who don't know how to play the game? "You are surely jumping for joy right now" 7:58 No, no im not, the players already figured this one out my friend and you are simply forcing them to adhere to a less convenient and less efficient system. After reviewing this change with a lot of the high level pvp players in this dying community, a lot of them are considering quitting at this point. Its been hard to hold a pvp group together for 4 years and this looks like its going to be its end.


CLEARLY I m not the only guy here thinking this stuff is killing the game,
[doublepost=1532116886,1532116830][/doublepost]you guys are stuck in your own echo chamber because people with different views have just left the game
AKA: selection bias

Nearly everything you've complained about misses the mark entirely. Too complicated? No, too simple. The stealth improvements are good. Targeting systems is good. Armor has been improved. You've raised non-issues and ignored the true problems.

The old power system definitely had room for improvement. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good either. Replacing it was not the mistake; replacing it with what we have now was. The new system is better in many ways, but it has major problems which have yet to be addressed. If those were solved, it would actually be a fairly good system.

 

[Alphajim]

:Casually dismisses alternate and opposite opinions as trolls or selfish guys:

True, I'm removing it ^^
Even though I didn't meant every opposite PoV, just the most easy to see as they were litterally everywhere.

 

[Tolnorus]

I suck at making even small ships, this is daunting D:

I'm sorry to hear that you are daunted by ship creation. It does seem to take a bit of practice to do it well. In the short time that I have played, my largest ship is no bigger than 20 blocks on an axis. Only recently have I begun designing a large ship with a convoluted hull and complex interior. It is a huge undertaking! I am still building the outer hull, and haven't even gotten as far as considering color.

I don't like that at all ! Too complicated, design will be a nightmare for builders. Sad face...

Constraints drive design and complexity; such is the nature of structure. I find the complexity of design fascinating, especially when my creation serves some kind of need, like gathering a resource or moving it from one place to another. While I can only speak for myself, my instinct is that builders are generally fascinated by problems and enjoy rising to the occasion to solve them. This certainly is not exclusive to StarMade.

You can do quite a bit with a 9-block reactor, and it's a great way to examine how reactor chambers work because the chamber size is 1. If we're missing anything right now, it's a well-populated community bin of ships using Power 2.0. Since that update, people have even been posting their pre-Power2 designs, presumably because they were huge works in progress and they wanted to share the finished product rather than redesign the power system first. I imagine many folks are working to refit their old designs with Power 2.0 now, and we have even seen a few posted in the last few days.

Both New Power and New Weapons have issues, but, again, this game is in alpha development, and we are all essentially alpha testers. Our feedback is critical for the game to be well-developed and carefully tuned. What we see now is the messy between stages. Every iteration is going to be broken, or misaligned, or malfunctioning, or incomplete, to some degree or another. This is expected! Complex games do not emerge from the mind of a creator fully formed. If you don't like the way the game works, then by all means let the developers know. But feedback needs to be specific. Saying simply, "I don't like it because it sucks," is not helpful and doesn't even communicate your misgivings. Every criticism should contain a specific complaint as well as a suggestion for how it could be better. Otherwise, you're only venting, and while I recognize the need for this, bumping a forum thread from years ago to remind people that you are still unhappy is only going to make folks learn to ignore you because you aren't saying anything new and interesting. That's not a great path.

 

[The Judge]

Starmade has existed in Alpha for like 5+ years, if that's not a huge red flag that this game is gonna fail in the long run, I don't know what is. The playerbase is going to continue to wither (like it has for the past several years) , even past the universe update. Maybe the supposed future advertising is going to change that, but that's only going to work on people who haven't heard of Starmade (given they're all not at Skywanderers already).

Edit: Also Starmade's always gonna be buggy as fuck since its way to ambitious for the engine its built on (not counting all the bad design choices independent of the engine choice)

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Not sure why all this arguing is still going on but as a fan who's been on and off of this game a few times, I figure I'll add a third perspective.

As was mentioned before; while StarMade will probably never be a top tier block buster title, this game can't actually "fail" or "die" until Scheme pulls the plug. In the past, Schema has expressed that he isn't making this game to get rich, compete with Minecraft/other games or anything like that. He's simply an artist trying to bring his ideas into the light. As a fellow artist, I can respect that.

As long as he doesn't give up on his dream of simply making the game, it will continue to grow. How far and for how long, depends on him. So until he releases a finished product or says "Screw it! I'm done with this!", we would all be wise to remember what this game really is and accept it as such. Stick around and see what the team comes up with. ...or don't; it's your choice.

Yes; newer, "better" games may be around the corner. Some players will get tired of waiting on StarMade and go seek out those games. Then again, there's no rule that says you can't go play your chosen game now and then play StarMade (if you're so inclined) when it's finally finished.

 

[MacThule]

Starmade has existed in Alpha for like 5+ years, if that's not a huge red flag that this game is gonna fail in the long run, I don't know what is. The playerbase is going to continue to wither (like it has for the past several years) , even past the universe update. Maybe the supposed future advertising is going to change that, but that's only going to work on people who haven't heard of Starmade (given they're all not at Skywanderers already).

Edit: Also Starmade's always gonna be buggy as fuck since its way to ambitious for the engine its built on (not counting all the bad design choices independent of the engine choice)

Yeah! It's fail as fuck!

Bad dev choices, bad bugs, bad engine, bad forums, bad progress, bad alpha (beta is gonna be even badder - the worst. You're gonna hate it.).

Also... been around way too long, and everyone knows how bad that is. If you don't, let me tell you - it is bad. Three thumbs down.

We should all just quit and head over to a kickstarter abortion that has no playerbase, a forum full of tumbleweeds (just my personal posts in this forum alone substantially exceed half of that community's sum total forum activity), no gameplay other than wandering around the ships we've made, and made a kickstarter promise to include donors' ships in the release game if they paid enough money... no matter how much they suck...
[doublepost=1532131236,1532130090][/doublepost]Damn... Raiben is like all over that game - or at least their official channel.

Wonder how much money he gave them.

 

[Reilly Reese]

Damn... Raiben is like all over that game - or at least their official channel.

Wonder how much money he gave them.

He helps work on SkyWanderers so....

 

[GalactusX]

I think I can not add anything, that has already been said here, everyone has their point of view, we all have a bit of truth, and we have our reasons to say what we say ...

We say what we say because we like to play starmade, and it angers us, to see that something that a few years ago (even with many errors), was something very funny, but that with the passage of time, it has become a pain of head, something that has no feet or head, something that over time has made things very convoluted, something that has lost its essence.

Many of the players' proposals have been ignored, and many others have been executed in the worst possible way, making players feel like mere spectators of design decisions, which have cut in half (or even more) their reasons for keep evolving, improving, having fun and in short, playing.

I, like many other old players, has seen the evolution of starmade, slow but firm, and I think we have been disappointed, to see how in only 1 year, many of the things that "called us / attracted" have changed 360º, disappeared or been forgotten and not improved.

Do not confuse my words, I do not say that starmade is dead, I still like it, I only say how I feel about starmade, many things could have been improved or added, but the paths taken, in many aspects, have not been the most successful.

 

[chetyre]

I must say the fact we don't need jump drive anymore on ships, or the fact we don't need wedges/tetra etc, is good stuff.
I m not saying there was no step in the right direction during all this years, I just think it should focus even more on making it easy for each player types, today players who don't like to build don't have many choices.
I like building and I understand your point about complexity, (you can check my builds, I like this kind of features too), but the game was more played before, because people could just join a server and in few minutes get a good ship to play and pvp,
[doublepost=1532160403,1532160331][/doublepost]For example shipyard was a step in the wrong direction imo, even if it was a good idea for long term players and builders

 

[Alphajim]

I imagine that if the community is being smaller and smaller is just because of a wrong understanding of what is this game. Like, I knew about this game via a MC site, as I was bored of galacticraft. When I read this game was basically MC in space, I was attracted. I'm still attracted (even if recent changes are not an improvement, to not think about recoil), but some others had other expectations about "MC in space". So it started with a great hype, which is now down because of time and people understanding better what this game wants to be. Plus those who don't like changes and then quit. Think about Mass Effect: Andromeda or No Man's Skies, it's kinda the same here imo.

For example shipyard was a step in the wrong direction imo, even if it was a good idea for long term players and builders

Can you explain that please ? I don't get why, as it's really nice to be able to design a ship without having all the blocks required !
You still have to build the shipyard, but a relatively small shipyard with a minimum decoration isn't really expensive (except the station spawn). And for now you don't really need'em.