Thoughts on 3.2 and CONCERNE (so it's a rant ofc)

[Lorddarthvik]

My not-so-happy-long-time-backer thoughts. Yes there is a TLDR at the very bottom, you can skip all this.


3.2

Mining: don't have a Prospector, so no idea. Looks fun in vids though.
New ships: own none, so no idea. They look nice though.

Logging out in bed: it works! pretty big deal actually! Persistence is finally starting to live up to what they wanted to have for around a year ago, and it makes a huge difference in what you can do! No more worries about having to fly around time and time again when you want to wake up where you logged out. It's great! My only really positive experience with this patch.

+1 The Golf Buggy still scrapes like a frat boys Honda, but it works pretty well on the moons now! It's a fun little ride. Kinda useless, too slow to to do exploring and such, but fun to do donuts in!
Oh, and I almost forgot. There are guns and armor and colour variations added to shops. And my favorite coat disappeared from the shop in the Grand Barter as you come down the stairs.. I liked that coat. Anyways, does anyone actually care about a few new guns? with these framerates and lag? reeeeeally?


While the framerates aren't as high as before, at least they are way more stable for me, a pretty good 20-30, much less depending on location/#ships/players. No crazy jumps from 40 to 5 and back randomly. Freezes don't really happen anymore, and I haven't crashed the game once yet, although I did 1,5-2 hour sessions even. That's a huge improvement! I notices a lot more graphical issues though. Much less detail at distance, lots of things popping in, textures streaming in late... I didn't use a user.cfg at first, but the one I use now is from boredgamer , I have to re-write it as that is made for low-memory graphics cards, this might be the cause of some of the texture stuff.

There is still kinda nothing much to do for someone with 1-2 starter ships, apart from doing the most basic box deliveries. Yeah, I could beg around for another ship, or a Prospector to try mining, and so on, but that's not the point. You can't just expect any random person to lend you a shipwhen there will be some meaningful consequence for loosing your ships, and we are slowly getting to that point! While I know there is still a long way to go and loads of missions and stuff will be added, it would be nice to have something to do for ppl like me while we wait. Especially now that I could buy literally everything I wanted right from the get go, with my 16500 aUEC.

I can't wait for ship buying to come into play, that would give me a goal to work towards!

Trading runs are not worth it for the moment. getting 250 on a 5500 UEC run is not worth the risk. Mission pay a little better, if you can get one...

As there isn't much to do apart from missions, there don't seem to be enough around!
Doing the P.I. mission (that's probably the only one available) seemed to start a flow of 1-3 missions at least, so while it's the same old as forever, be sure to do it!

At least those basic "UPS guy" box delivery missions work okay now, mostly.

Doing those "dangerous" mission where you have to pick up a black box from a wreck is just really annoying. Fighting my way through 2-3 fully decked out pirates alone is impossible, if I get more ppl to join me, only more pirates appear, and while I get that it's multiplayer blah blah blah, I still do expect to be able to complete at least some of those missions without having to hire someone for something like the cost of twice the mission reward!
Yes, I know I can just fly up to the wreck on afterburners, turn off the ship, take my sweet time to pick up the box, waltz back to my ship and run away, but I don't find that very good design, or entertaining enough to do more than twice. When I do a really really cheap mission for finding and delivering a black box, I expect to get the level of enemies that go with the reward. Which in this case, for the 100 something auec reward, should be a single aurora at most. Not 2 Buccanneers and a friggin Cutlass!

The thing where pirates get spawned in to an area (covalex in this case) depending on who is arriving in what, is still utterly broken. I jumped to the shipping hub, found a player in an avanger being pursued by a gladius and another avenger, and upon my arrival in my 300i, another gladius and an aurora jumped in. That guy just jumped out, and I was left there with 4 pirates chasing me down, while I was on a simple peaceful mission to pick up a damn box for like 200aUEC. So I had to resort to the same routine as before. Get close to my destination, power off, and I was left alone. It was annoying, and frankly ridiculous. If I'm expected to find 3-4 more ppl just to do such small silly mission, in monitored space!, than something is very very wrong in the minds of the designers. I remember them saying this was fixed a long long time ago. Well, it isn't, or still needs "polish", as in "totally rework".

You know, while it's a silly thing to say, as it's alpha and so on, I do kinda understand the ppl who come out of a session like this and shout "Pay to Win!!" . Cos currently, YES it IS! If I had spent the money to buy and fully deck out a Super Hornet or Cutlass or something similar, it would have been a totally different experience. And it's all over the place, with all the missions I tried that weren't the most basic UPS guy missions, I got into a fight I could never ever possibly win. Even the UPS mission were harder with starter ships, which have ladders and you have no cargo space to walk into with the boxes . At least that seems to be fixed, now you can walk up a ladder with box.
Same thing goes for the mining update, which only those can enjoy who either bought a mining ship or have friends that bought the ship and are playing at the same time in the same region and so on so they can lend it to them... and this will happen with every game mechanic update (repairs, salvage, medical, farming, bounty hunting...) until they get ship buying/renting implemented in a way that makes sense for the short reset periods. Currently, the "35 bucks backer" our Dear Leader and a lot of SC fans keep going on about (rightly so), feel like they are left in the dirt and ignored by CIG, as they got very little out of this patch. If they could cough up the 150? 200? bucks for the prospector, they would be happily mining away.
If you still don't get it why I'm saying this, read through this thread. What do you see? Ppl talking about their multi hundred dollar ships being fun. What you don't see is all the players who can't afford to pay for those ships, being happy about this patch. From an outsiders view, this screeeeeems pay to win.
Disclaimer: yes I know that the game is not going to be pay to win, don't @ me bro. But I hope you see what I mean.

The new QT-around-a-planet is kinda... how should I put this... convenient, but also makes the game sort of less. It's too convenient. It makes the Space between things meaningless. Every convenience they add to make travel faster and easier, takes away from the scale, depth and overall gameplay possibilities.
I think that having entry points to planets, from where you have to fly on predictable route for more than 10 seconds, is important. It's where you can lie in wait as a pirate, and worry about what awaits you as a trader... this way more important than those 2-3 minutes you had to "waste" flying down to the planet. There are so many "emergent gameplay" things the old system enabled, that are no nonexistent because by a little bit of planning ahead, you can be away from anyone and anything in 3 seconds flat!
While I do like the fact that I don't have to spend those minutes staring out the window, I think that in the end, it takes away from the immersion, and gameplay. Those were the minutes you had to worry about getting attacked by others. Those were the minutes you could spend marveling at the planets beauty, the systems sun rising behind it, and those would have been the minutes you spent milling about on your ship playing with the drinks cabinet and toilets and whatnot. Those were the minutes that were there to "enjoy" the game, not just to "win" the game.
These kind of convenient "shortcuts" are great in today's fast world where no one has the time to play, but still needs to feel like they did something, get that instant gratification and are "winning". But than again, these are the things that turned great games into "efficiency races". This game has no end-game raids, no level cap to reach... I don't need these shortcuts, and you shouldn't either.

Mouse controls are somehow way more awful than they were. I didn't bother to plug in my joystick cos I didn't expect to play for long, but I remember being okay with the mouse before. Now I could barely hit the pirates standing still! It felt very floaty and unresponsive, the gimbals didn't work, and it was mostly just frustrating (gimbals were not locked in the options, I checked. Did they change all my guns to fixed or something?). Anyways, hits still register randomly, or at least are shown to register randomly, both on the enemies and my ship. So in short, nothing changed since... what feels like forever. Weren't the things that I described the same in like 2.6 even?

And this brings me to another thing: the flight AI is still really annoying in the PU! They keep stopping to face me, and of we crash a lot, and if we don't, they just fly in whatever direction while facing me and shoot me to hell with their way more powerful ships, and rarely turn their backs to maneuver. Yeah, that might be challenging and whatnot to some ppl, but I do want a proper dogfight! As in WW1-2 style airplane chase type of good oldfashioned dogfight, not this silly spinning around in place bullshit. ( Even CR said that's what he wanted! Why isn't that reflected in the PU AI in any way yet? )
This kind of combat/movement might be the smart and effective thing to do, hell, it could be that the AI is actually smart and recognized that it has the upper hand this way, but it's certainly the most god awful thing it could do. It is anything but fun.
Yes, I am the entitled little bitch who wants his AI enemies to fly around in pretty little loops, making the odd passes at me, but otherwise lining up for the killing! That's what they are there for! Especially in monitored space! I do expect to be able to (easily) take down a single AI aurora with my own, which even has missiles!
If I want a proper really hard fight, and when I expect to be scared of an enemy ship, is when I fight a Player! That's what they are there for!
Basically, I want this to play like Privateer did. Some of the fights were awful and could go on forever, but most of them were great fun! Sadly, currently most of the fight are of the awful variety in the PU.
I'll check into AC to see how the combat AI is actually doing, it started to feel pretty good the last time I played, which was over 3 months ago I think. I found that the PU is always way worse and backwards in that regard.
And plug in that damn joystick, cos the mouse controls are just messed up...





TLDR.:
Stability: Better than ever, no crashed through multiple sessions of multiple hours of playing in PU!
Framerates: mostly playable! (20-30 on mediocre machine)
Content: unless you have a Prospector, bought some of the ships that were added this patch, have at least 3-4 friends you constantly play SC with, or haven't tried the game in like 6+ months, there is nothing new here and nothing new to do. Wait for 3.3, and hope it won't slowly turn into something it shouldn't be, another freakin " modern MMO".

 

[Lorddarthvik]

Spoiler: The worries and "Rant" part. yeah, the one above wasn't it lol

Thoughts and (irrational?) worries about where this game is going:

No, i don't think it's a scam and all those idiotic things haters like to say. But...

Looking back at the development of all these years, I can see a slow but definitive shift in mentality and end goal. It makes me worried.

With this open development, the things that get implemented affect what the player base keeps pushing and shouting for, and in turn, it affects what gets done in the end. Looking at all the interviews and calling devs, ATVs and RTVs, I believe we are past the point where full systems would get totally scratched and redesigned. It happened a few times already, it took years, and I think there is no more time left for that. What gets put in today, while it will get reworked in some ways, and rebalanced, will probably stay and work along the general lines it works by today.
Words like "more convenient way", "streamlined", "refined" and such keep popping up more and more as features start to get worked on for real. This makes me wonder, what will actually make it into the game in the end.

As an example, I believe that if we had properly working persistence (log-in/out included) before we had planets we had to fly around for 10 minutes every time we had to go someplace, the whole QT around planets system would have been much more different. It probably wouldn't need to exist in the first place. Ofc there is still a chance they will take it out, but I can feel the push of the youngretard.. khmm... I mean general player base pushing for more and more generic convenient features that makes life much faster. I hate these kind of features. It ruins immersion, and turns games into a grindfest/race for efficiency. See above for details on why I think this was a terrible mistake. There is a pretty good reason why they would like to go the way of convenient features as well. Time and money.

I remember the vision CR described many years ago. It didn't have instant travel from location A to location B just so you could do your "10 ways to make money the fastest" youtube video guide run!
It didn't have "instantly load cargo so it doesn't take any effort on our or your end" in it. But they are thinking about doing it anyways, because so many ppl asked for it, and it would require no resources to implement at this point.

This is a great example of missing out on gameplay and a chance for progression.
Be realistic for a second: even if they put in the option to manually put cargo into your ship, if you you have the option to load the cargo into the ship instantly, all the time, would you not do it all the time? Maybe apart from 1-2 times you want to try to do it by hand just to see how it looks, you probably would. Otherwise you are wasting time doing something that gets tedious fast.
How about, instead of giving you the "instant" option every time, we turn this into a kind of goal to achieve? Do enough manual loading in the beginning and you make enough money to hire help that is slow, later buy robotic helpers to do it faster, with less clicks and less input on your end, and in the end, afford to have you own loading droid on you larger ships that would do it automatically and really fast? That is content. That is gameplay, progression, a goal to reach for. And you get the convenience in the end, but you don't just get the easy way out right from the start!
But this requires them to program and model and design. It takes time and money. And with lots of ppl voting for "instant gratification" instead of manual loading, they might decide they will drop it. Maybe promise to add it in later for the hardcore gamers. But by then, it will be too late, and it will turn into the one-time gimmick.
For a lot of people that want to see something that resembles games like Privateer, without small goals like that, this game will slowly turn into EVE. Which is the one thing they, and I don't want.
Think about it, it will have a huge universe, with a similar "safe zone"-"outside space" mechanic, it will have the dynamic markets, it will have all the same elements like mining, salvage, combat, piracy, and so on. One could easily say, it has the same things! If you can do everything the same fast efficient way you can do in EVE, then why bother?
What makes it really different, is How it plays! It's all great fun for some to get a second job as an active corp member and such, but I certainly don't want that kind of game. That's why I'm not paying for EVE, and payed for this instead! This is supposed to be as hands-on as possible. I don't want to see that pushed aside just because ppl want more efficient ways to do shit.

I sort of see them slowly making compromises. I see them taking shortcuts that "we" ask for. And I'm not happy about it.
I think they are getting tired. Tired of all the hate, all the being late, the constant flow of fake news and hit pieces, all the shouting and pushing for a "full release", that it will never get done, and all that bullshit. It must be awful to work like that, knowing that lots of ppl passionately hate what you do, constantly lie about what you accomplished, and even when something gets done, it just means more angry shouting from the supporters about it being not what they wanted. (see above. I know I'm guilty just like everyone else...)
I hope this kind of "progress" stops. I really hope this "modernized" thinking of "doing what worked for others" gets dropped and they go back to making a proper game instead, just like they were doing. Something you might call "oldschool", with actual gameplay you actually have to actively play, not just sit and watch and conveniently click a few buttons and have the game play itself for instant gratification.
This is what makes Elite (and EVE) utterly boring for me, and basically a second job in the end. Apart from a few new things added every year, that are fresh for a day or a week at most, they are efficiency races, and you have every tool for them to be. You try to find the best paying route, the best paying mission, the best paying bounty, that fastest possible route, anything that is the fastest with the highest payout. Otherwise you wasted your time, because progression means just that, getting more money for better things. What you need to do to achieve this? Basically nothing. I can do full trade runs with take-off and landing in Elite without looking up from the Youtube video on my tablet for more than 5 seconds, and that is only so I can read the number of the landing pad I got. To get rewarded, doesn't require effort. It requires only a time investment.
I don't think that is fun. That is the definition of having a boring job lol!
Once you learn what pays the best in the current patch, there is literally nothing else left to do until you reach your goal of buying the ship you wanted, or getting to where you wanted first. (with every system looking mostly the same, even exploring gets dull in Elite, although it's still the least "for efficient grinding" thing and the most "for enjoyment" of the few things you can do in that game). I don't want this to be the only thing in SC. I know it will be part of it. I know there will be best routes, and best ships for roles, and best whatever for the moment. But that doesn't have to mean you gotta do the same thing as everyone else, because there is nothing else to do!

I want this game to be what I was told it would be. Slow, deep, inconvenient. Decision and actions to have consequences. Jump to a system without reading the news about pirates camping there, you fucked up... Get caught by a patrol on your way to a planet cos you were expecting to have everything work for you while you do nothing, you're dead bro... Follow someone for weeks, learnd the day and time and the route this guy takes to the planet every time with his cargo of spacediamonds, you win big for the effort... Scan the system night after night after night to finally find a secret jump point to a system where you can grow spaceweed on your farmship at 10x rate, you win big for the effort...
Have the chance to think "oh, I like the swirly clouds on this planet, I might come here more often" because you are not pushed into a rush with all the "efficient" ways of grinding credits. Stuff to actually enjoy without the need to "progress", or while slowly progressing.
Not ways to avoid that content.
Not ways to skip all that for the "profits" or "wins" or ease of instant gratification.
I want to suffer through the early times, with slow travel, manual loading, shitty shields, small cargo bays, and all the rest of it, to Earn the rewards, and feel rewarded for it! And I want You to "suffer" and "'waste your oh so special precious time" along the same lines, and Earn your rewards the same way, whatever those might be.
(yeah, not really thinking of ships though, as a lot of you already got fleets the size North Korea would be jealous of. As Montoya said it many times, it's your loss. To me, those will be a huge part of the rewards, more game to play for me lol)


So lets bring up the common argument ppl make in defense of zero effort instant gratification. This is the generic slap-down to when someone criticizes the way games are not games anymore and require zero effort from the player to move up in a (competitive) game.
" But dude, you could probably do all that in slow and inconvenient ways, just like the way you wanted it, while others can do it the way they want to do it, in this case, faster and waaay more efficiently with absolutely zero effort! I don't see the problem here, everyone gets what they want..."

If you still don't see the problem with this in the context of Star Citizen, after all that above, I don't have anything else to say to you on the matter.

TLDR for spoiler:
I'm worried that CIG will slowly turn this into a generic meritless MMO in their rush to deliver on game mechanics and "conveniences/streamlined features", that requires as much effort as any other modern MMO. That is Zero.
I don't want that to happen, that's not what I backed for.
Also, I'm starting to feel more and more aggravated by the fact that cheap asses like me don't get to play 80% of the content in patches, cos can't afford 200+ dollar ships... It's starting to get to me I think.
If I don't get to play around with those, fine. At least give me back the missions and trading that was already working then!

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

Thanks for the TL;DR's, I have to go to work in 16 minutes so that really helped.

I'll read the whole thing later, but i'll say this: I appreciate it's frustrating not being able to play all parts of the game available just because you have not pledged on ship X and that there is a risk that the game may not come out exactly the way we expect - but we can only wait and see what comes out and, the mechanics for the ships you do have will come along be it the Vulture or the Hull B - For so long the only mechanic we had was ship to ship combat, that was it - and if the crowd funder had not been so successful that all it would have been, so really we are victims of our own success... we are getting more, but its going to take longer to get there.

i'd lend you a Prospector in the PU if I had one, jump on Chat i'm sure someone would be happy to provide.

Such progress has been made with stability in 3.2 it's clear thats where the dev time was spent, rather than adding more content and leaving the patch shaky, but even then we are so far from even having half of the mechanics in game that ranting about it now is like shaking your fist at a field of wheat for the burnt toast you might be served in a restaurant in a months time once the wheat has been harvested, dried, ground, baked into bread, delivered to the restaurant, sliced, toasted, buttered and served to you.

The burnt bit may never happen, try not to worry about the wheat until Beta when it has been made into bread.

 

[CosmicTrader]

@Lorddarthvik Great critique.

TLDR for spoiler:
I'm worried that CIG will slowly turn this into a generic meritless MMO in their rush to deliver on game mechanics and "conveniences/streamlined features", that requires as much effort as any other modern MMO. That is Zero.
I don't want that to happen, that's not what I backed for.
Also, I'm starting to feel more and more aggravated by the fact that cheap asses like me don't get to play 80% of the content in patches, cos can't afford 200+ dollar ships... It's starting to get to me I think.
If I don't get to play around with those, fine. At least give me back the missions and trading that was already working then!

Excellent reply....
Most of us are beginning to feel this way...At least I & my best friends do.

 

[Michael]

My not-so-happy-long-time-backer thoughts. Yes there is a wall of text.

I totally agree that as a new player with basic starters there is still not much you can do in the PU. All i can reply is "Soon".

I think (also its nothing official) that we might be able to buy ships in 3.3 or 3.4 (there was a hint in one of those yt videos).

Mining is really fun from my experience in the ptu (don't have a prospector too) especially as a tier 0 implementation.
There are some points to improve. Also features to separate beginners from advanced users would be nice.

mouse controls: ESP seems to cause some trouble, maybe it is activated? But i can't say much about mouse controls.

QT: i get the point that for pirates splining might be an issue and i agree. Maybe we will have some kind Interdiction "magnetic" bubble which will suck in traveling ships? IDK we will see
But the old QT around planets was plain boring and really annoyed me. So for "peaceful" players its a big improvement.

I also hope that CIG will find something which will make QT a little bit more challenging, maybe you'll need to avoid stuff by side strafing or actually having some kind of "mini game" to increase accuracy.

 

[Dethanor]

I get most of these frustrations. It is hard to wait for the game we have all looked forward to for so long.
I do have trust in CIG that they want this to work as badly as we do, so have always given them the benefit of the doubt.

I have recently had many conversations with my gamer friends who know I backed this a long time ago and are basically waiting for my endorsement before they jump on board. And even with the noticeable improvements in this last patch i still tell them to wait.
Yesterday I was talking to a buddy who like me has played a lot of elite dangerous. This game is everything he Is looking for and he is super keen to get involved. He asked the million dollar question, is it worth the asking price now and I had to still answer no.
I explained that because I followed the project so closely and for so long I could see the improvements with each patch. And therefore was happy with the progress. But in all honesty, if I started now and did not know or experience what had come before, I would most likely be disappointed.

However. I did point out that the pace of progress has increased dramatically, and that each new patch made the game more complete. I am happy to wait and know that I will spend am obscene amount of time in this game over the years.

Would I recommend star citizen to my casual game friends? No. But ask me again in 3 months...

I totally get the concerns about the new player experience. And the issue with not being able to test a new feature if you don't own a specific ship. But honestly I would rather that they get everything in before they go back and adjust the learning curve/new player journey.

I think the tipping point for this will be the ability to scale. I long for the day we have more than one system and really can't wait to see what travel between stars looks like. Hopefully this is getting closer and I can invite my friends to come join in and recruit them to TEST.

 

[Printimus]

You're looking for apple juice at a lemonade stand.... 3.3 was focusing on getting mining up and running, and CIG did just that. Sorry theres not much for you to do in the game with only starter ships, but maybe try playing with your fellow testies. Go on a random adventure with one of us, doesnt matter what it is, just do it.

 

[Lorddarthvik]

You all made some pretty good points, thank you for that!
I guess the best thing coming out of this for me so far is that while we wait and get frustrated and disillusioned, there are always those who pick you up! That's why Test is Best!
I'll go get a beer to calm my nerves and wait for the next round of patches. Maybe find some ppl to mess with later. Cheers! :beers:

 

[DirectorGunner]

shrugs

 

[BUTUZ]

Trading and missions been broke for a while. I mean whats the point doing 200uec box missions that take 15 minutes or more? No point in grumbling about it just have to wait for them to fix it I suppose.

The whole point of having starter ships is just to start out on the smallest lowest paid missions - that's what the game is going to be. Did you not realise that? Hopefully in the future when they bring much more variety to missions as well as transporting ore and scrap and fighter escort for those professions it will be much more fun to start out and do missions as no one wants to lug one box around or shoot up the same 3 ships 10 times an evening.

 

[Vavrik]

I think that for people who are looking for a game right now, there isn't much in SC yet. Too many things are at sort of "stage 0 placeholder implementations", like trade, mining, combat etc. Once we get through this, they can start to develop the mission back story, balance the payouts, scale the game, etc.

Problem is, for people with an Aurora or other starter ship, there isn't much of a way to make money with those ships right now, other than whatever missions there are, or whatever trade they can do. And basically that's what is really in the game at the moment. I mean there isn't a lot to explore or do otherwise. That gets awfully grindy very quickly at the moment, and I don't really see that changing much until like Q3 next year. That's not so bad really. That's a year from now basically.

 

[Vavrik]

You're looking for apple juice at a lemonade stand.... 3.3 was focusing on getting mining up and running, and CIG did just that. Sorry theres not much for you to do in the game with only starter ships, but maybe try playing with your fellow testies. Go on a random adventure with one of us, doesnt matter what it is, just do it.

Yanno what, that is about the best advice I've seen on the topic. Totally agree.

 

[Montoya]

I can't wait for ship buying to come into play, that would give me a goal to work towards!

Sounds like this one line right here is the solution to every single problem you are currently having.

 

[Montoya]

I do kinda understand the ppl who come out of a session like this and shout "Pay to Win!!" . Cos currently, YES it IS! If I had spent the money to buy and fully deck out a Super Hornet or Cutlass or something similar, it would have been a totally different experience.

You have a unique definition there. You define Pay 2 Win as the ability to explore and play all the different aspects of this alpha. Essentially, if you have the money, you buy the best ships and win the right to play hours and hours in the alpha!

Personally I dont see that as winning anything, I see people putting 100's of hours into testing this alpha as self inflicted torture. :D

I strongly suggest that anybody who intends of being here for the long term avoid spending all their free playing Star Citizen alpha!

Go play Far Cry, Eve Online, Destiny 2, Warframe, Elite Dangerous and tons of other great games!

Trust me on this, you guys putting in hundreds of hours here will burn out and rage quit long before this game goes to beta!

I have seen people lose their minds and quit because some small detail nobody cares about got changed.

Do you know that some people rage quit and refunded because the original Cutlass design had three engines at the back, and when it was finally released, it only had two?

Im serious.

It sounds stupid now, but for some early backers this was a make or break issue for them.

The same way that something feels like a major issue now, we will look back at it and wonder why people were so mad.

The new QT-around-a-planet is kinda... how should I put this... convenient, but also makes the game sort of less. It's too convenient.

A great topic here. This game is in flux, nothing is set in stone! All too often we will see some game mechanic introduced, then refined as time goes on. Way too many people lose their minds when a new system comes in because it was not what they imagined. My advice is to let CIG fiddle with this game and only truly bitch about things when we near the end of beta!

I am one of the people that hated the fact that it took 20min to get to the surface.

I MUCH prefer the current system. Sure its fun the first 10-20 times taking the slow route, but after a few hundred hours in this game, you will go insane when it takes you 20min to reach some shitty outpost selling bags of poop.

You still have the option of slowboating it, nobody is forcing you to take the fast way!

Mouse controls are somehow way more awful than they were. I didn't bother to plug in my joystick cos I didn't expect to play for long, but I remember being okay with the mouse before. Now I could barely hit the pirates standing still! It felt very floaty and unresponsive, the gimbals didn't work, and it was mostly just frustrating

ESP is not working at the moment. This is what made it easy for us normies to hit things.

And this brings me to another thing: the flight AI is still really annoying in the PU!

The answer to this and so many other criticisms is the old and boring "but its alpha..."

Yeah, I know, its a non answer, but the roadmap shows combat AI at 78% completion, so we are almost there.

Flight combat sucks.

I refrain from having an opinion until they tell me AI is completely finished, then I evaluate and make a video with praise, or screaming about refunds!

I'm worried that CIG will slowly turn this into a generic meritless MMO in their rush to deliver on game mechanics and "conveniences/streamlined features"

I have warned so many people about this issue: You can either sit back and let them make the game the way they see fit, or you can come in right now with your own preconcieved notions of what you believe this game should be like, then lose your mind and rage quit again (for the 5th time) when it turns out that the <insert game mechanic> is not turning out how you imagined it would be in your head.

At the end of the day this is Chris Roberts vision, not mine, not yours.

I predict space combat will be dumbed down big time! This game needs to appeal to the masses, not the 35 elite dogfighters out there that insist the game must be hard!

Anybody here that is not capable of accepting the fact that this game might be dumbed down a lot should go sell their stuff on the grey market right now!

Also, I'm starting to feel more and more aggravated by the fact that cheap asses like me don't get to play 80% of the content in patches,

This takes us back to my comment in my previous post, but also be prepared to accept that this will only get worse!

Data running, stealth missions, bounty hunting, capital ships!

Capital ships being released will be a huge day for us! But the other side of that is 1000's of backers will be saying "wtf am I supposed to do? I dont have an Idris!".

The bottom line here is what I said earlier, and that is if you spend too much time focused on the fine details here in the alpha, you will go insane!

A bunch of guys in chat asked me the other day: "Montoya, how come we hardly see you playing Star Citizen?"

Its because I value my sanity! :D

I don't want to rage quit because they removed the third engine from the Cutlass!

When we get into a solid playable beta, you bet your ass Im in there every day!

Until that day comes, Ill be doing what I have been doing so far, making friends, looking handsome in videos, shilling hard for that Aurora and looking at pictures of kuglof!

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

Do you know that some people rage quit and refunded because the original Cutlass design had three engines at the back, and when it was finally released, it only had two?

B-but... the cutlass got three in the rework!

If only they'd waited it came back round again D-:

 

[Harkonan]

We are in alpha testing, and in doing so I feel ships with newly created mechanics roles should be available to all at least for limited time.
To test a new mechanic, you need as many people possible testing thus said mechanic. Pay walling this testing is counter productive in my opinion. I also feel giving everyone the ability to test a new mechanic might increase sales overall.

I don't get the P2W comments people make however. There simply isn't anything to "win".

 

[Blind Owl]

I strongly suggest that anybody who intends of being here for the long term avoid spending all their free playing Star Citizen alpha!

Go play Far Cry, Eve Online, Destiny 2, Warframe, Elite Dangerous and tons of other great games!

Amen to this. I rarely play, and for many of the reasons you listed. My time is valuable, and the little that I can devote to gaming will be devoted to something I enjoy playing. Right now SC isn't where I choose to sink my time. I cannot wait for this game to come to fruition. I love everything about it. I interact with the TEST community (A little much one might say), I continue to purchase ships and support the project; but play? Naw man. All y'all with the time and constitution for such endeavors can continue to product TEST. I'll sit back, sip on my beer, watch all of Montoya's vids, and continue to bitch about my lack of piloting skill, haha.

 

[Montoya]

We are in alpha testing, and in doing so I feel ships with newly created mechanics roles should be available to all

and they should call it... PTU!!!!

Oh wait.. :stuck_out_tongue:

 

[Harkonan]

and they should call it... PTU!!!!

Oh wait.. :stuck_out_tongue:

That would assume the majority of gamers use public test servers. They don't.
So if the goal is to stress test a game mechanic, your best bet is to allow the most people access to that mechanic.

We're not talking about giving people something for free here. We're talking about the most efficient way to test and collect feedback to improve the system. Hindering access to a core game mechanic in alpha via paywall just isn't smart IMHO.

Imagine EA charging alpha testers money to use the medkit mechanic in Battlefield 5 ... people would have lost their friggin minds.

If I can't justify it for one game studio, I won't justify it for another. In alpha testing, core game mechanics should be accessible to everyone for testing. Otherwise don't have open testing or claim it is an alpha build...

 

[Montoya]

That would assume the majority of gamers use public test servers. They don't.

Is the PTU shut down or does that stay open? I never checked.

It would make sense to simply leave the PTU open so people can simply get their fix!