Losing hope... and faith

I originally replied this in another thread, but felt it was overlooked and off-topic. If my observations are correct, then I hope the devs will take this to heart. Otherwise, all that is left is for me to take my usual advice, and play, or don’t. All you can do in the end.

The more I think about it, the more worried I become, if for no other reason than I’ve spent a fair amount of money on this game. I may be being paranoid but, first a few folks whined about footfall, which is now broken and probably being considered for reworking. Then a few folks complained about settlements and names being taken over, and now bufferzones are being considered. Then people cried about prestige and gleam (again settlemts being taken over), now that’s being considered for change.

I’m noticing a frightening trend, that a few complainers are able to shape the game into some sort of snowflake simulator. Making the devs (for some reason) second guess their choices. I find it hard to believe that people bumping up to other settlements, taking settlements over, hoarding prestige, and taking advantage of footfall, wasn’t something that was already happening pre-release, and also that the devs weren’t aware this would happen (assuming it wasn’t actually intended even, though I doubt that.)

I have been a big supporter of this game, praising it. Bought a friend a copy even.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m just feeling grumpy.

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id say they werent few.

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I would say that the devs are doing a good job of monitoring the community’s thoughts and then using these as ideas for improvements. They are doing the right thing by offering the choice to us with polls.

At the end of the day they haven’t changed anything yet, it is all still in discussion and as long as they take the majority community view instead of the minority all changes should be for the better.

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There is a fine line between listening to your player base and making needed changes and caving in to the demands of a vocal minority. The best guard against vocal minorities is to be vocal yourself, and present your own well thought out views, backed with evidence when possible.

My old mantra was “bs ignored is bs spread”.

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This settlement name thing means a lot to some people. But i get it. You spend all this time and effort building something and name it to reflect your hard work and some random person builds a giant structure just to overthrow you and name your town “The Dude Ranch”.

Footfall, settlement names, prestige, all tie in together in some form and ultimately all of them would need to be looked at if you decide to change one.

Sometimes to stop the bleeding you have to cut a little more. But eventually you heal if it’s done right.

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Perhaps the game came out of early access a little too soon, though I don’t know the ins and outs of game development. Still, the changes that are being made are shifting the game closer to their original vision, not away from it.

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Internal deadlines and from publishers, I imagine.

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Another issue, as well. The forum in any game reflect only a fraction of the player base. Not sure why an opinion poll would be used for development reasons.

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I understand your concern. The thing is that all this issues are known for months or even a year. Can’t really remember the exact timeline, but all examples you have mentioned are changing because they need to be changed. We have complained about that forever. It’s only now that devs have actually time to work on finer details of each of those. That some people complained just now about that and that action is taken now is not that related.

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While I will agree that the number of people that participate in the polls does not equal the total players, I do believe that they do represent enough active players that it is a good approximation of the total. You will probably disagree and could be right. To your question about EA having the same issues, I think we did but with such a small player base maybe they did not happen as often due to the planet to player ratio or got reported directly to the developers. Your point about prestige in EA, they did get complaints about prestige and did adjust it a few times, trying to find the right balance. I think with the new planets and a very different resource distribution, it probably does need to be looked at again.

I personally think the polls are not bad even if the developers do not go with the majority. It does give them some feedback so they can see player’s issues and also suggestions. I think it also gives them a heads up on the reaction they could get from the larger population. I also think the developers have more data than just the forums when they make these decisions. If nothing else, it lets the community know what they are thinking about so we are not surprised when these changes are made.

I do not think the game was ever going to be the same at release as it will be in a year. It is hard to design and test a game for thousands of users when your test population is less than 50. I also expect ongoing content and special events to keep the game from becoming stale for long time players.

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I’ll add my 2c.

  1. Discussing an issue on the forum does not make anyone a snowflake. It should be ok for everyone to be able to give their opinion. If the alternative is just getting frustrated and feeling like you aren’t able to voice yourself, you’ll probably vote with your wallet and quit. I don’t want anyone to quit, even those who disagree with nearly every post I make.

  2. Developers don’t necessarily chime in or listen to every bit of input.

  3. Some of these topics are important to discuss. For example… My post on Spitter eyes. I had something like 200 likes in 24 hours, I’m guessing a lot of folks felt the same way I did. In a game with a couple thousand people, that’s probably significant.

  4. Back to spitter eyes… The dev’s decided not to change anything and sure enough, 3 weeks later, no one uses boon compounds, but hey that’s there choice. But its further proof that not every complaint… even those with a large constituency make a difference.

So to your original point, I think some things change, some things don’t… based on forum feedback. People should be allowed to discuss their opinions, and I’m sure it gives at least some sort of feedback from the community, which I’m sure help the Devs keep a pulse on the community.

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Yeah, I sell all animal parts that I farm on a nightly basis, normally a 100 spitter eyes or so in stock nightly

And a dozen cores, maybe some feathers if I’m lucky

wheres ur shop? need some cores

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It’s on alnitans, called portalis observatory. I have a direct portal from the aquarius or aquatopia hub on serp, my sign says p6 because the owner of the hub has not changed it yet.

Or you can find me near the PS hub on alnitans. I have a big metal observatory easy to see from PS across the water

It’s like voting in the US. If you come to the forums, you can vote. If you don’t, then you probably don’t give enough of a doodoo to participate.

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When I brought up the settlement/name issue with the devs they already had a plan which we discussed. They are working to implement some form of it.

Bufferzones are an additional component and not part of the original design that I was told about.

The devs did not cave to anything in regards to the settlement/name issue. They were aware of it in EA because many of us raised it as an issue. I think once released they really saw the bigger issue around it and finally decided it was the time to fix it.

Additionally, the design they shared did not remove certain components of the overall game dynamic. It was more finding a way to keep settlement sovereignty and solve name competing issues.

I would bet the bufferzone issue is more a solution to just give people a few plots between each other to solve the – they built right beside me complaints.

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I think by your post we can say that you like to overtake settlements. The thing is, this is not an intended feature, since that would make the game PvP. The devs are planning on adding PvP functionality in the future though, but don’t quote me on that. Hope we get some decent PvP though tbh, but only after the PvE is lit.

Just so everyone knows. The game is already PVP. Maybe not in terms of combat but there is player vs player content. Market pvp. Settlement competition. Land grabs,etc…

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Fiscal pvp is best pvp. Coins are great for throwing at people.

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It’s moreso AvP than PvP though, @hole vs player instead of player vs player.