Bilderberger
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Posts posted by Bilderberger
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50 minutes ago, WiselessOwl said:
Well I consider the modular system "low probability scenario" as it would require a complete revamp of designer and I'm not sure devs can afford it at this point. So I try to think more about improving current system to make it more compelling.
P.S. Not that I won't be squeaking in joy like kancolle destroyer-chans if we ever actually got modular system lol😂Given the current state of the designer (Which is improving, but still eons away from, well, being actually -done-) and the pace of developments I wonder how long this will take, if it ever sees the end of the tunnel that is.
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1 minute ago, Cptbarney said:
Too be fair it whats they have been doing for awhile now, and comms is important since we are a social species and rely on feedback from others or information from others to act upon or to plan out future actions (consciously or not).
We learn from people talking to us and not just piling something in front of us and hoping we get it etc.
Also people tend to think the worst and speculate heavy without somekind of info and humans without attention tend to seek it elsewhere and/or get angry when they don't (leave/rant/rage etc).
Also what they communicate as well, i know they can't spill everything. But something here and there and more in-depth answers would be fine for smaller things and few major things.
I agree that information is important, crucial even. Which is why I do not understand the way the devs were handling the issue over the last couple of months.
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11 minutes ago, Cptbarney said:
Ye, but the campaign will have a series of hard and soft blocks that will make getting to that number pretty hard in-general. Also depends on the ships i guess.
Too be fair, i rarely use 2inch guns so i never really see it too begin with, but if it does occur fair enough.
If thats the case, thats just plain bloody sad. I assume they will go for 2 more patches before anything more really.
I've come to accept that, but really shouldn't be the case. It's bad enough cd projekt tried to hide their stats for last-gen consoles to push out sales, i'd rather this one not do anything scummy or just continue to give us the valve treatment from now on to be fair.
But i guess your right too be honest.
Oh well, besides spamming and whinging on the forums not much else we can do. Also depends if this is solely the devs choice and/or if higher ups and/or investors are pushing them to rush things etc. Although i doubt it at this point.
Why... just why? What's the deal with communication? I frankly don't get it. I can't wrap my head around it. What's so bad about keeping us informed? Fear of backlash? Don't think keeping ones mouth shut will greatly help either.
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8 hours ago, 1MajorKoenig said:
Yes!
which one? I mean rather than making these look-alike hulls they should be better improving the configurability of the Ship Designer.
Imagine:
- set displacement
- set length to beam ratio
- set flush deck or not
- set freeboard
- select from a couple of bow and stern forms with individual pros and cons
- set speed (and resulting sHP)
- set machinery space based on sHP and selected propulsion technology
- set funnels based on machinery space
- set barbettes freely based on remaining space outside machinery space and not in areas they would not fit (directly on the bow and stern) - you can keep hardpoints in the background for the AI to design ships
- place broken down superstructure elements such as decks, bridge, etc.
- place mast with range finder as a separate module onto the bridge module and make it dependent on the range finder selected
- set directors for any gun type
Now this would give a whole lot of freedom - it is a simple write up nothing sophisticated but as an idea where I would like to see the ship designer go.
And as the AI design argument was brought up multiple times: yes you can leave the more strict stuff in the background for the AI to design, such as combined modules, hard points and such. Just give players more freedom please
I wholeheartedly agree. If this is what we're stuck with, as suggested above (A sentiment I unfortunately share), the game would lose a significant part of its USP.
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1 hour ago, Skeksis said:
I know.
Then all that nations would represent is a flag. I was just trying to think of how many games that have different national properties/traits, actually there’s alot of them, all of them, harder to come up with games that don't differentiate.
Choosing a nation to play its style of ships would be a feature, not only that, it’s the crux’s of the genre and realism. IMO more people would be looking to play a nation and its ship types/styles opposed to picking one based on geographic location alone.
I like to think that Dev’s haven’t got the volume of required hulls yet, heck there’s even a dreadnought 1 hull being pasted as a CA hull. It’s not what we have but more of a case of what we don’t have yet, hull-wise, variation-wise, and it's bring about similarities.
Also if you look at earlier dreadnought era, there's not that many cruiser and destroyer variations, there maybe some RL restricting elements aswell.
I sincerely hope that anything we've seen so far is nothing compared to what this tool is supposed to look like once it is properly polished and done. There are so many quirks, I don't even know where to begin. We've got armor, armor schemes, hulls, lacking hull customization or customization in general, tid-for-tad +- XYZ% improvements, bulkheads, the campaign... ugh. I like to think that one day all of this will be of no importance and we all come together and laugh about how bland this now magnificent designer once was. I sincerely *want* to believe. But I don't. Time-wise I cannot see it happen. As I've said earlier, I am open for conviction, nothing is impossible, the game is not done yet, but... yeah. From my point of view it's either a long journey of early access or a half baked release. Let us all hope it's going to be neither.
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1 hour ago, Skeksis said:
For this part...
Styles should be nation based. What this does is that it ensures replayability, play one nation building style, then play another nation ship building style, the whole time battling different styles, different ships, different nations, very good this way.
If to have freedom to across-dress nations, it would reduce all styles to the 'year of', very bad.
Worst for the campaign too, ships may start to look the same, for every nation, for every class, for every battle, that is called 'rinse and repeat' gameplay, no thankyou to that boredom please.
However Custom Battles should only be limited to the mind's eye, that's for sure!
Frankly, we already have that. As of right now, once you've built one ship, you've basically seen everything the period had to offer. Of course there are exceptions to the rule but, as many people already stated, in most cases you simply end up with the same design.
To me the designer is quite bland. It was intriguing for the first few hours or so, but it lost most of its charm soon afterwards. So many fundamental issues ought to be fixed, yet I can't see it happening anytime soon. So much time has passed, so little has been done. Bulkheads for instance. Members of the community pointed it out months ago and still, we haven't gotten any kind of confirmation, besides, of course, the surprise that people actually consider it an issue. Furthermore, the fact that the devs are as transparent as the North Korean government when it comes to the future of their game doesn't make it any better.
Excuse my pessimism, I am open for conviction, but experience has taught me otherwise.
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58 minutes ago, Steeltrap said:
I have FREQUENTLY stated that I do NOT expect "100% realism", as though that would be possible regardless.
What I DO want is patently ABSURD situations to be addressed. By which I mean aspects that are SO far removed from ANYTHING within even a very generous and broad definition of "reasonable" or "accurate" or, dare I say it, "at least makes some sort of sense". THOSE I want addressed.
CLs and CAs that are nigh indestructible because of MAX bulkheads while the pre-dread BB next to them is sunk by 2 hits that cause flooding in the bow and stern and apparently the BB had no transverse bulkhead? Yeah, that's patent garbage. Pre-dreads even of the late 1800's had VERY substantial transverse bulkheads bow and stern (go look at a few in Wiki, for example). So how has this remained in the game since I started playing it, even being asked "What's wrong with bulkheads?" by Nick himself not long ago. Really? Are you serious? It's only been mentioned a few hundred times over the past 12 moths or so, LOL.
How about your 12" AP rounds that can ricochet from the bow of a CL at 2km yet the same 12" gun firing HE never, ever ricochet? How does that work? If the armour can deflect the shell with greater pen, how can it NEVER deflect that with less pen fired from the same gun? Doesn't bother anyone?
@Mindstrip has done a fantastic job of capturing the problem with ship manoeuvre, too, something that's been raised many, many times.
I'm genuinely curious to know how often everyone is playing. What battles are you playing? Do NONE of you find it diminishes your interest in the game when you can predict with near certainty the result of battles as soon as you check the armour and bulkheads of the enemy capital ships? Or the other often commented upon core issues that remain unaddressed and, often, unacknowledged? Or the AI that has individual ships/divs sailing towards you, sometimes to daftly short ranges, even when they don't have torpedoes, only to turn around and sail away, the only discernable purpose of which appears to be some arcane naval hokey-pokey of which I have until now remained ignorant?
While I agree modding might be nice, I suspect the sorts of things we're discussing here WON'T be subject to modding as they're absolutely core elements.
Either way, I've no intention in putting my faith in mods. Relying on others to fix substantial issues that ought not be present is, to my mind, unacceptable.
I could go on (and on, lol), but won't because I've said it all before. I do have a LOAD of pictures to highlight all sorts of elements, but I don't think I can be bothered. I'm sure some of you will be happy to hear it, LOL.
Just to be clear, in case people haven't noticed it in other posts I've made, I do NOT expect these things to be resolved quickly or immediately. That's NEVER been my point. What I WOULD like is to have some clear statement as to whether those core elements are more or less as the devs are expecting them to remain with the exception of some minor adjustments here or there, because that's what's important to me.
It's not how quickly things are addressed, it's whether the devs consider (and ideally acknowledge) that these ARE problems TO BE addressed.
Hope everyone's safe and well.
Cheers
Especially the last part, at least for me, is quite important. As of right now, I am still unsure about the current status of the game. One man's expectation on this forum appears to be another user's absolute nightmare. Yet both seem realistic in their respective vision, because the devs never explained as to which audience they wish to cater. Having at last *some* form of explanation as to where our journey is heading might alleviate the pain of not knowing what is yet to come. As it stands right now, many expectations are detrimental to each other and clearing up some of the mist surrounding these can appear to bear fruit in the long term as it, at least in my mind that is, avoids not only building up false expectations but also the anger if the former were "made" - Because let's be real here, expectations do not always revolve around actually made promises - and not fulfilled.
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I wonder, what will this game set its focus on? Will it try to stay close to reality or will it go a more *creative* rout? I fear it can only be one thing or all the other.
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Splendid!
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Just now, Shaftoe said:
Yeah, and I am telling you why you're not investors. Lol.
It's just that.
In a strictly legal sense, yes. May the lord smite me for using the word. You're right though - it might cause confusion. I shall change it immediately. As I said: In the field of economics, you might be an investor, even though you are not - legally.
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1 hour ago, Shaftoe said:
In legal sense, returns =/= product, and while sometimes a product may be part of "the returns", it's usually not the only outcome of an investment deal (because why would you make an investment deal when you could just buy it?) - but it is usually the one and only outcome of purchasing.
Both have their official interpretations. By legal definition, which is the prevalent one, buyers are not investors, as the relation between parties to a contract is drastically different.
While you may not have been talking about contracts, when you are become party to a deal, any sort of deal, it begets a contractual relationship between you and the other party, regardless of whether or not it's written on paper. That's just the wat it is - you may not like it, you may actively disagree with it - still, the fact stands, because our society has decided that it shall.
Our society has a vast number of rules applying to different forms of contracts, and rules for ordinary purchases are drastically different from rules for investments. Therefore, claims that "we are, in a sense, investors" are simply baseless. This is what your logic looks like:
Because actually being an investor (with proper status as such) is just not the same as being "something of investor" (a glorified, but nonetheless ordinary buyer).
I think we are talking past one another. I referred to the economic definition of an investor, not the legal one. I did this with purpose as I wanted to illustrate an issue.
First off: When I meant investor, I am referring to the following definition - The consumer invests his money into a project he wishes to gain utility from. You are actively investing your income with the intent to gain utility. What/How/When you gain utility I cannot say. Therefore, in the fields of economics, consumption is a form of investment.
I do not argue against contracts, nor the way society handles contracts. I also do not refer to investor rights or consumer rights. I refer to the issue of incomplete contracts and the problems that arise from them.
As I mentioned above, in practice, contracts cannot specify what is to be done in every possible contingency. Many people here, including myself, bought the game upfront, yet this was consensual. And this is perfectly fine, why would it not? The issue is rather, as I said, contracts cannot cover everything. Certain situations and issues may arise, situations such as prolongation, an undesirable feature revamp, you name it. This, combined with asymmetric information, creates an atmosphere, a shroud, of uncertainty. We could even drive this further and go on about worst outcomes, implications, etc.
This is not relevant however. My point is the following: Said shroud of uncertainty makes life harder for our "investors", buyers, consumers, who spent their money in anticipation of an upcoming game which they hopefully will enjoy. Of course they did it voluntarily, it was their risk, but you don't want to leave them hanging in like this as an atmosphere of uncertainty concerning ex ante investments (general investments) is economically inefficient. So, what could we do if we wanted to alleviate the worries of our customers? Just give them some information on how things stand - I do not demand complete access to all information available but a bit of signalling really would not hurt.
I am talking about Principal-Agent Problems, not the legal status of a buyer.
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47 minutes ago, Shaftoe said:
Actually, you both are incorrect...
Investor is a party that enters in agreement with a project owner (investee), providing a considerable amount of funding, in exchange for substantial monetary or other material returns at a later date, specified in a written contract. Additionally, investors may require other forms of compensation, like demonstration of their images/mentions (i.e. advertisement) on an end product, or ownership rights to a certain technology that's being developed.
We are most definitely NOT investors. We are purchasers. And even if we pre-order the game, or buy a game that is still in early development, it DOES NOT change our legal status, or the nature of this contract. As per this (generally) unwritten contract of offer and acceptance, developers take upon themselves the obligation to provide us with access to the product - either when it's ready (purchasing after release and pre-purchasing), or before the release (alpha access). While there may be some perks for those who sign up earlier, in reality we - the buyers - are not at freedom to determine the exact contents of the contract, we are not entitled to receive any monetary returns or to demand inclusion of our images/mentions in it, etc.
See the difference?
Investment activity in an economical sense is the allocation of money (or comparable goods and services) with the expectation of benefit (eg. returns) in the future. Purchasers are, in a sense, investors too, as they allocate their monthly income to further optimize the utility they gain from the products they buy.
I never talked about contracts, now did I? We invest money because we expect a return of some sorts. Economically speaking, we are investors. Given the fact that the money we pay upfront is presumably used to further finance developing we might even drag this further. But we shall not, for the time being. Most contracts, in practice, cannot specify what is to be done in every possible contingency. This may lead to a series of Hold-up issues which, as a consequence, eventually, leads to a series of inefficient (and also unpleasant) outcomes and situations
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2 hours ago, TotalRampage said:
Well technically you paid for early access to help test the game. If you wanted a full game you could have waited for release.
I do neither agree nor disagree with this stance but I must confess that I dislike this point as it eliminates all kinds of criticism, because, well, you agreed to buy an incomplete game.
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On 6/28/2020 at 3:32 PM, ArtifaX said:
Well, i think we are passed the time when studios "just worked" and did not communicate much before release. That is a fine way if you do game end to end and release it before collecting money from players.
This one (and the industry as a whole nowadays) is doing it in a different way. People essentially pay for a promise in part to be able to see the game early and hopefully influence the outcome. We are no different from investors, on top of which we also provide free testing of the product. So i think a fair bit of comms is required (not to mention the fact that studio claims to listen to community).
And to be honest, coming up with a weekly post about progress is not that time consuming (especially if any form of proper dev process is organised).
As for the "small team" argument, there are a lot of examples of 1 man projects having better comms. It does not have to be elaborate, but it has to be present regardless of how many people are working on it.
We are no different to investors because we are, in fact, investors. Literally. Albeit not in a strictly legal sense.
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I deeply despise the degree of asymmetric information we're facing. And I also think that's the core of the issue at hand. Fortunately, some of it has been lifted recently. Yet, so many questions remain - I need not tell what systems ought to be improved as many people have already contributed many good and precise arguments concerning said issues, gunnery, armor and the like.
I think many of us have the impression that our input (as a community) is more or less ignored. And this might very well be the case - or not. Obviously, the devs cannot reveal everything they have planned. That is impossible. Still - I think there is a lack of communication. Let me give you an example.
Concerning gunnery and speed penalties - Many of us have made points about it, they spent much of their spare time researching and analyzing data to improve the situation. Perhaps the devs read them and decided to rework the system. Perhaps they did not. We do not know. We cannot even say whether many mechanics are final or not.
Are they really solely working on the campaign right now, something they've told us would take yet another 6 months, just weeks before the official release ought to have happened? Or are they also working on something else? Maybe they've put the data to good use and they're cooking one of the best armor and ballistic systems. Or maybe they call the current Status Quo a day and leave it at that.
I dislike that. I really do. I do not ask for much but I think some clarification is direly needed!
As Doug already mentioned, certain members have invested incredible amounts of time and effort into this project. But will they continue doing so? Are people willing to take an investment if the shroud of uncertainty grows ever larger?
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Intriguing idea.
I'd like to know more about politics and research as well as the things you already mentioned.
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1 minute ago, SiWi said:
I think it goes back to the problem I once mentioned:
they don't want to sauer they reputation on steam with a early campaign version that gives the game a reputation as "broken".
Wouldn't the best course of action be to release the campaign before their steam release?
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5 minutes ago, Nick Thomadis said:
We have a lot of work to do to get campaign to a playable (interesting and fun) state. We don't want to raise expectations and don't want you to be disappointed, so this is why we cannot state any definite dates regarding campaign. Before offering the campaign we must finish several preparations for releasing the game on Steam Early Access.
That sounds rather... vague. Maybe it's also just my aversion to information asymmetry.
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5 minutes ago, Aceituna said:
I am sorry but I just have to ask: What about the campaing?
Quite the elephant in the room.
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4 hours ago, Cptbarney said:
It also means we get to bug test it, and add a good amount of features to it before steam release, id rather this game not get mostly negative as most peeps just look at the recent review section to see ofts blue or red.
Also it allows us flesh out the mechanics because they will be very bare bones when they come out. Although with a 3-man team this will take time so we will have to just be patient really.
Honestly, I don't understand why we shouldn't see a first campaign candidate before release. Is it really necessary to forcibly tie a first campaign release to the steam release? As of right now, I think the campaign is where the game will either shine or fail and I fear many current issues regarding balance and expectations are directly or indirectly tied to said campaign and its mechanics.
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Which, judging from so many conflicts in this forum raging on, should be rather sooner than later as I suspect that many current issues are directly tied to the lack thereof. I think we should keep calm and wait for the developers to do their... thing.
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9 minutes ago, roachbeef said:
This exactly. Currently, nobody gives a shit about ship range, reliability, crew requirements, crew comfort, ship seaworthiness in bad weather, floatplane capacity, or command space.
Not having the campaign gives players bad habits, and then they clutter the forum with unrealistic complaints.
Indeed. I truly wonder if and when we will receive new information concerning the current state of the campaign.
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5 hours ago, DougToss said:
The game is not ready for steam because we are told over and over again that gunnery, protection and mobility - the core systems - are placeholders. If the armour and gunnery is completely out of whack, and I believe that it is, get it right and build from there.
Same with campaign. The game right now is teaching players to build ships that would not be practical or affordable in any campaign grounded in reality. There is a reason that every navy in the world didn't exclusively build massive ships with 20" guns.
Frankly, I think this is the reason as to why we "need" the campaign. It gives context and limitations, something the Naval Academy Missions, or Custom Battle for that matter, do not. I think having that context, the environment, one could say, attached to the process of ship design, that's when things start to get interesting.
It does not need to be a full Steam release but a first candidate should very well be accessible to us. Or at least a little bit of information on how things stand, just so we know what we're up for (aside from the already existing information).
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If only we knew...
Alpha-12 en route!
in General Discussions
Posted
No one here wants to play a rushed game and no one here realistically coerces the developers to release their game. I think what most people *really* want is just being spoken to. I mean, does anyone here actually think this kind of communication is beneficial? If you make the point that the devs should remain mute because the fan base might not like their ideas (Which is.... a bolt assumption) then why make this game accessible in the first place? Naturally unrest is growing, and rightfully so. Development IS slow, promises WERE broken, and if all of this was not enough, communication remains absolutely terrible. Frankly, I get it, yeah, things don't always go according to plan, you don't say. I am able to stomach and condone a lot IF it is communicated properly. IF you can't achieve your goals multiple times, you might want to tell the people you work for as to *why* things didn't work out and tell them as to *why* they should remain faithful to you regardless of your previous failures. You'd be surprised how understanding people can be. Alternatively, you can say nothing and let people guess so we can enjoy discussions about whether the project failed for political reasons, maybe it was Aliens, maybe the CIA was involved, who knows.