You Have Failed Us

[Nosajimiki]

for what its worth, a lot of us havn't even "left" and never planned too, there's like a handful of people making dramatic exit threads for a variety of (sometimes pretty laughable) reasons and some maybe reading a bit much into that as some kind of "pvper movement", for whatever reason. Of those that really have moved on, not many really have seemed to care enough to mention it.

That said, no 2.0 patch so far has really been worth my time to play online much, because 1; i can't find people with half working scanning systems (still no navigation data feed) 2; i can't build how i want (a lot of decorative/exposed systems and relatively compact/utilitarian guts, look in my CC for an idea), 3; i can't shoot people (or anybodys 2.0 creations for that matter, AI is just broken against anything with new systems in online play as of .334), let alone stop them from just jumping away, beyond building a ship, mining endlessly, and fighting a bunch of isanths, there's pretty much nothing to do that isn't hampered by bugs or broken mechanics.

So myself, probably a lot of other "bitter vets", just dont really have much to do in the current patch beyond figure out what just doesn't work & be disappointed about it. Which didn't take long for a lot of people.

I am probably one of the more active Veterans left... I still log in every few days for a few minutes to add some details to my homebase here and there then logout out of boredom and play cheezy flash games because even that shit is more fun. Pre-update, I played an 3-5 hours pretty much every day because there was always something worth doing. Starmade has been my favorite game for years, so it is hard to walk away from, but also hard to stay since its not really a game right now.

Fucking this.

Less people available to test your game when you cannot afford professional testers = Lower quality product.

To top it all off, almost all of the veteran "minmaxxers" have been driven off the game, this is close to a deathblow as these "minmaxxers" were the only people who were pushing the game to its absolute limits and finding the bugs and balance issues as they did so.

To give you an idea on how bad this is for Schine, allow me to tell you a little story of a man named Veilith.

So back in the days of TAW and other servers around at the time, pretty much every factions vessel were nowhere near what near as effective as they could not have been, along comes Veilith who was probably one of the only people who was pushing the limits of the game at the time and next thing you know he has 12k mass ships massacring a fleet consisting of several 100k vessels from factions who at the time were considered the more powerful forum factions.

Veilith was labelled many things such as a hacker, exploiter and toxic by many people for this, much like how some portions of the community labelled the minmaxers that have packed up from this game after 2.0 as toxic. So Veilith starts sharing his knowledge with others, suddenly we have people like Zyrr, Az1, Non and many others who are pushing the limits and discovering new ways to push the limits of the game day after day. Its safe to say that this "meta revolution" would not have occurred if Veilith kept his mouth shut and kept his methods to himself.

Now translate this into StarMade testing and you see the issues, it was the meta players who got long time exploits patched, it was the meta players who discovered and publicised the spaghetti meta and caused Schine to do something about it, although their solution was terrible at best, its safe to say that if these minmaxers didn't start talking about it Schine would not have even known of the spaghetti meta existing in the first place. Schine themselves have admitted on record that they barley play the game themselves, their lead tester Lancake can be quoted saying he has not played this game outside of testing reported bugs for over 2 years!

So now these players have been driven off, which becomes a significant problem in the long term for Schine as what is left doesnt seem to be interested in minmaxxing and the game isnt gaining any new players who might be willing minmax it. The end result? Balance issues that nobody knows exist, exploits that remain undiscovered and unreported and much more making it into the final release of this game (if that ever happens)

Its a matter of common sense to see what happens when gamebreaking issues are left undiscovered and making it into the final release because nobody has bothered to seek these issues out.

This is a very selective truth, and an important issue in the entire outcry against 2.0 coming specifically from this particular clique.

Some long-term exploits were reported, yes. Some. Meanwhile, they actively used and shared some other bugs (such as laminate armor) to exploited as "tech" used to dominate PvP. And I know because you all invited me to your Discord because I am very pro PvP, and when I stopped playing over the Summer (cause Summer) I still saw all the tech and the attitude was distinctly not "hey look - rail dockers set up like this can cause multiple layers of armor to exist in the same location at the same time - I'm reporting that on phab" it was more like (paraphrasing) "yeah, I am putting 5 layers of clipped laminate armor around my aux power so there's no way it can get popped by a missile with the way clipped laminate interferes with the raytracing calcs. Next battle this new ship will be awesome."

That is not "meta." Used in that way, "meta" player is basically a euphemism for a player who actively seeks out and exploits bugs to dominate MP servers for lulz... oh, and sometimes even reports them when they are too well known to be useful, or legitimately game breaking.


In a good faith dialogue, when someone responds to a rambling WoT ('How to I know there's gold in them hills? Well let me tell you a little story about a man named Jeb...") with a civil request for clarification about one specific point not clearly supported, most earnest people will take a few seconds to respond briefly - at least once - with a tl;dr summary in case they had not come through as clearly as they had intended.

It's an interesting response to tell the person "if you read" (directly implying that they didn't or can't read, rather than admitting that it is humanly possible that an important point may have been somewhat unclear) while never actually clarifyng how, for example, a fun story about Veilith teaching someone how to effectively exploit bugs in MP (some of which were reported) somehow invalidates the fact of a game being in Alpha as proper cause for a major overhaul after years of testing.
[doublepost=1518497320,1518497138][/doublepost]

I agree. I agreed when you first made that point. It is a good point. I was only referring specifically and explicitly to people saying they were leaving based on what has happened to the community and drama over 2.0.


Except not at all when they explicitly state they haven't played at all in a while and are leaving entirely because some people are waging a perpetual drama campaign here.

These two quotes actually touch on the BIG reason why Schine's lack of communication is a problem. If Schema did more to interact with the community and talk with us about HOW to fix problems, then openly reporting bugs would be more of a thing. I know multiple exploits that I don't report because I've seen enough of how he handles them to know ahead of time that his solutions will be it regardless of if it hurts the game in other areas.

Using the Laminar armor example: it would be characteristic of Schine to try to "fix" that bug by removing doors and force fields instead of fixing damage propagation between entities... so if you value doors more than you care about laminar armor, then why would you take the risk of reporting it?

 

[Micro753]

... and plenty of other games in the same genre which are superior to StarMade in both development and community.

I keep hearing this, but no one has given an example. Which games are just like StarMade but superior?

 

[Mered4]

I keep hearing this, but no one has given an example. Which games are just like StarMade but superior?

The only one worth mentioning is Avorion, but it falls short in multiple respectz. The rest are in the "getting there" stages
Though it could be argued that SE is quite well off, and SkyW has a better outlook

 

[CyberTao]

I mean, most people avoid saying the name of other games to avoid being called a shill, but if you want some idea;
Avorion, Spengies, Skywanderers, and even From the Depths all have a decent enough building system.
Skywanders has compact logic via micro blocks (a denied feature for SM) and a lot more control over rails/rotors/hinges/moving bits. The aforementioned micro blocks also help insanely with detail, so even small ships look good. The main downside here is that its locked off in closed alpha atm.

Spengies is a hassle to build in, but at the end of it all they actually have nice looking ships. The blocks are large, but the equipment and functional blocks, along with half constructed blocks... honestly I've seen a lot more breathtaking ships made in Spengies than SM these days, and it's also a lot more mod friendly, even if it lags like shit.

Avorion is special because of its build system. Freeform blocks and the ability to just save and scale up a ship is honestly desirable. It tends to fail in the sense of nothing to do but SM is in the same boat tbqh, and it takes longer to build in SM so it feels like more.

From the Depths is the weird outlier thats more about the sea and airplanes than space (though it is there). It's there for those who like complexity. Balancing the center of lift, mass, recoil, propulsion. Engine setups, laser configurations, Cannon loadouts. Its quite a monster of complex and personalized builds. Sadly it doesnt have much of a MP, and most of the fighting is done via AI, but you can easy get on with a friend and have a scrap or two. I would not have bought and given away 5 copies if it wasnt worth looking into.


Then you have the other options, like the X series for Single player empires, Sins of a Solar Empire if you want quick fights and whatnot. I bring these games up because thats what the community was based on, people who played Sins, the X series, free lancer, or even Starpoint Gemini. People who played some great SP or old space games and wanted to experience something like that here. People wanted to build their own ships and just go.

People came here cause they saw potential and the chance they might be able to find enjoyment like they found in those games. We all know it wont go in as deep as those games, but moddability and custom servers were once something people could do (something we lost ;w;7 )


But now starmade pales compared to any of those old games. Hell, I'm more inclined to play X3AP again than I am to play SM, and that game is autopilot the game. A lot of the potential that people saw is being chipped away, and while its good that Schine has some form of image for the game, it's starting to look inferior to even Spengies.

I went off topic. I dont know what I meant to say. Read this however you like cause I know you will anyways.

 

[Nosajimiki]

I think this entire outline really underscores one point very well. While not alone in it's genre, SM WAS the closest to having a viable pvp system. It had wars and politics and rival factions, etc which no one else in the genre could touch. With PvP now broken, it has no edge, which I think was red's point. Maybe schine can polish the whole 2.0 system up to be be as fun as 1.0 was, and the game finds enough fresh players to recover, but if he can't make it as performant or more so as 1.0 it will never regain that edge.

 

[The Judge]

Yeah Starmade is just "there" now, nothing makes it stand out from its competition. It's just boring as of now, and I'm not sure the universe and weapons updates will change that.

 

[FlyingDebris]

A lot of the bitter vets come from a time when starmade really stood out opposed to other games, but between slow development, increasing amount of bugs or systems that simply "don't work" in the release builds, or systems that are going in the wrong direction of a playable, complete game, Starmade has been surpassed and is at this point well on its way to the pile of failed projects unless a major change happens. Many of us who have been around long enough to understand how Schine operates would be very surprised to see any change at all, and if it does change, it will likely be too little too late.

 

[Blakpik]

...I know you were trying to be really witty there, but you undermined your joke when you confused Austria with Australia. One is a continent, the other is a country in Europe.

Not sure if you're joking or if you're just massively uneducated. But let me just say that I made no mistake and I'm not an Austrian.

 

[YamiHikari]

Not sure if you're joking or if you're just massively uneducated. But let me just say that I made no mistake and I'm not an Austrian.

I'm not joking. Arnold Schwarzenegger is Austrian.
[doublepost=1518697851,1518697493][/doublepost]

Both are countries.

haha. I was waiting for someone to say that. Australia is actually both a continent and a country.
[doublepost=1518698288][/doublepost]

I'm not joking. Arnold Schwarzenegger is Austrian.

And I just realized that you were NOT trying to make a Schwarzenegger joke when you said Australia. My bad.

 

[Nosajimiki]

I'm not joking. Arnold Schwarzenegger is Austrian.
[doublepost=1518697851,1518697493][/doublepost]
haha. I was waiting for someone to say that. Australia is actually both a continent and a country.
[doublepost=1518698288][/doublepost]
And I just realized that you were NOT trying to make a Schwarzenegger joke when you said Australia. My bad.

Hmmm you seem to be missing this piece of context:

There is a somewhat notorious (if not major) faction in this game called LAS (League of Australian S###posters). While you may see Autrians as being the more infamous "s###posters" globally, within the SM comunity, the Australians are kind of a special tier of forum warrior. Since I don't want to put too much inappropriate language into further illustrating their stance, you can read thier profile in this less moderated forum The League of Australian Shitposters, and you'll better understand the nature of the inside joke.

 

[Bladeriker]

Well RedAlert_007, that is your opinion, and you are entitled to it. Your prospective regarding Power 2.0 is clearly from a PvP-Meta, which at best only represents 33% of the total player base of SM.

From a ship designer prospective (PvE/RP), Power 2.0 allows for new and interesting designs of ships. The last patch allowed for even greater design possibilities.

While your arguments are all fine and good from a PvP prospective, they hold no weight for those of us that are not interested in PvP. Factually, why should a player playing in a PvE/Single player universe be concerned with what the Pirates or other NPC's spawn in, if they do not like it they can change it on the fly.

Your arguments seem to be solely based on the current imbalance caused by the Power 2.0 patch and the future weapon patch, to PvP player exclusively. As someone who is not interested in PvP why should I be concerned with someone spawning in a ship within 10 mins of joining a server, that can one shot my ship when that is factually never going to happen to me?

Factually all ships, PvE/RP/PvP are having to be completely retrofitted from the ground up, and it does not matter who is playing with them, they either get upgraded or they will rot in obscurity. This kind of massive change is not unheard of in Alpha stages of game development, and the Beta has not arrived yet.

I for one have not had an issue ONE with the current Power 2.0, it is allowing me to use more of my ships internals for other systems, as well as create new and interesting designs. There are many things I had to get use to, but after trying them out I found them to my liking. This is from a Ship designer/PvE prospective.

The old adage goes. "If you are not happy with something, why are you still using it, when no one is forcing you to?"

 

[FlyingDebris]

Well RedAlert_007, that is your opinion, and you are entitled to it. Your prospective regarding Power 2.0 is clearly from a PvP-Meta, which at best only represents 33% of the total player base of SM.

From a ship designer prospective (PvE/RP), Power 2.0 allows for new and interesting designs of ships. The last patch allowed for even greater design possibilities.

While your arguments are all fine and good from a PvP prospective, they hold no weight for those of us that are not interested in PvP. Factually, why should a player playing in a PvE/Single player universe be concerned with what the Pirates or other NPC's spawn in, if they do not like it they can change it on the fly.

Your arguments seem to be solely based on the current imbalance caused by the Power 2.0 patch and the future weapon patch, to PvP player exclusively. As someone who is not interested in PvP why should I be concerned with someone spawning in a ship within 10 mins of joining a server, that can one shot my ship when that is factually never going to happen to me?

Factually all ships, PvE/RP/PvP are having to be completely retrofitted from the ground up, and it does not matter who is playing with them, they either get upgraded or they will rot in obscurity. This kind of massive change is not unheard of in Alpha stages of game development, and the Beta has not arrived yet.

I for one have not had an issue ONE with the current Power 2.0, it is allowing me to use more of my ships internals for other systems, as well as create new and interesting designs. There are many things I had to get use to, but after trying them out I found them to my liking. This is from a Ship designer/PvE prospective.

The old adage goes. "If you are not happy with something, why are you still using it, when no one is forcing you to?"

Where did you pull that 33% statistic from?

As a ship designer, the update has trashed my ability to make pretty ships because it forces design choices and limits what sort of systems you can put where. Read some of my other posts on the matter for a few long lists of specifics.

As for playing PvE, there's literally no game if you play PvE and it becomes a building simulator. On top of that, this game has been kept alive through its multiplayer, where that will happen to you regularly.

Of course, you seem more intent on dodging the question of game balance instead of meeting it head-on. Saying something doesn't affect you is in no way a good argument when it affects anyone who wants to touch multiplayer.

Once again, we must repeat that none of us arguing against the power changes care about refitting ships. We've always been perfectly willing to, and will continue to be. Even if we were, alpha is still not an excuse for poor game design, especially when you've been in alpha for more than half a decade.

Congrats on not having any issues with 2.0. Perhaps it's because you play Singleplayer/PvE and thus have no interaction with the community at large or more challenging situations.

As to that 'old adage', we're sticking around because we desperately want to see the game we've devoted so much time to succeed, and are just trying to help.

 

[CyberTao]

"If you are not happy with something, why are you still using it, when no one is forcing you to?"

I'm surprised anyone would consider this a wise saying. Advocating that you should just give up, I can only imagine what would happen to the world if that were true.

 

[Sachys]

...

As somebody who plays PVE, RPs some and does PVP as a neccesary (and fun component) of online play (and probably having learned in that order)... as somebody who specialises in building stations - ones that can survive reasonably well to PVP standards... the current power updates have completely destroyed building stations.

Not only are my design choices now extremely limited (goodbye strong multi-ring stations, fleet ready warp gates and so many more great things that are now simply not possible at all, or not possible without building in a certain design aesthetic, which is pointless anyways due to the problems brought up by others with new OP needle ships), but there just doesnt seem to be any point.

Sure I could sit in SP and make something slobberingly "eye-candy", but without anybody to see it, use it or try tearing it apart...


[doublepost=1518732237,1518732173][/doublepost]

I'm surprised anyone would consider this a wise saying. Advocating that you should just give up, I can only imagine what would happen to the world if that were true.

Ever been to Scunthorpe?

 

[KiloZulu]

I've been away from the game for ages at this point. The announcement of power 2.0 made me decide to stop building until it was finalized. In the time since, I looked back over my time with the game and realized just how stagnant the development of the game feels. It really feels to me like Schine has hit a wall, and they can't seem to get beyond the ship building aspect in order to make the rest of the game. There was so much other content promised just around the corner...years ago.

Power 2.0 might've been critical to the game's future development and content, it's not my place to say otherwise, but it has come at a costly price, I think. It took so long to produce that my holiday from the game became a retirement. I realized that I'd moved on only after a friend brought up the game in conversation (about failed indy games.) This is the first time in a couple of months that I checked in on the website. I think it'll be a good long while before I come this way again.

 

[CyberTao]

Ever been to Scunthorpe?

Is that a fancy restaurant?

 

[Micro753]

Many of us who have been around long enough to understand how Schine operates would be very surprised to see any change at all, and if it does change, it will likely be too little too late.

Well, there was a time where they were getting updates out every other week. If they can get 2.0 balanced, polished, etc. and get the weapons update playing nice with it quickly, then the game could easily recover. Right now, the old weapons system doesn't fit well with the power, so there isn't much point in trying to learn or mess with the new system. Only time will tell...

 

[Valiant70]

Not all vets completely hate the new power, most are just sceptical about it. at least I am :u

*builds an effigy of the missing agree button and hits it with a truck*

I'll probably like it once the weapon update's in, and Schema fixes all the stupid parts of both updates. For now, it's tolerable.

 

[Nosajimiki]

Well RedAlert_007, that is your opinion, and you are entitled to it. Your prospective regarding Power 2.0 is clearly from a PvP-Meta, which at best only represents 33% of the total player base of SM.

From a ship designer prospective (PvE/RP), Power 2.0 allows for new and interesting designs of ships. The last patch allowed for even greater design possibilities.

While your arguments are all fine and good from a PvP prospective, they hold no weight for those of us that are not interested in PvP. Factually, why should a player playing in a PvE/Single player universe be concerned with what the Pirates or other NPC's spawn in, if they do not like it they can change it on the fly.

Your arguments seem to be solely based on the current imbalance caused by the Power 2.0 patch and the future weapon patch, to PvP player exclusively. As someone who is not interested in PvP why should I be concerned with someone spawning in a ship within 10 mins of joining a server, that can one shot my ship when that is factually never going to happen to me?

Factually all ships, PvE/RP/PvP are having to be completely retrofitted from the ground up, and it does not matter who is playing with them, they either get upgraded or they will rot in obscurity. This kind of massive change is not unheard of in Alpha stages of game development, and the Beta has not arrived yet.

I for one have not had an issue ONE with the current Power 2.0, it is allowing me to use more of my ships internals for other systems, as well as create new and interesting designs. There are many things I had to get use to, but after trying them out I found them to my liking. This is from a Ship designer/PvE prospective.

The old adage goes. "If you are not happy with something, why are you still using it, when no one is forcing you to?"

Wow, how long have you played this game? This update has thrown walls up in front of PvP, PvE, and RP alike. Cubefied systems mean you can no longer effectively build interiors because you need to fit giant square chunks inside of ships that you may otherwise want to be sleek, and you can no longer use exposed systems as a major part of your aesthetic.

Take this little guy for example: This is an old MercDragon RP frigate that has a 100% explorable interior (4 decks tall that span front to back). The systems are all build into the walls and little nook and crannies all over the ship and used as decoration so you can literally go everywhere inside of it, (engine room, reactor room, weapon maintenance shafts, bridge, crew quarters, etc.) This is impossible in the new system where system blocks need to be cubes to maintain integrity so they have to span a certain height, width, and length, and can not be distributed to make them more hideable.






[EDIT] PS: I know they are not the best interiors (old design), but the case of this ships having a full interior makes it a good example of RP building.

 

[FlyingDebris]

Well, there was a time where they were getting updates out every other week. If they can get 2.0 balanced, polished, etc. and get the weapons update playing nice with it quickly, then the game could easily recover. Right now, the old weapons system doesn't fit well with the power, so there isn't much point in trying to learn or mess with the new system. Only time will tell...

Doubtful anything will improve, given that the game's development has been on a steady decline for years now.