stop milking career 2.0 in dev blogs

[brittle dragon]

for 2+ years i've seen "career 2.0 is under development and underway!" and tbh its annoying to see "2.0 is coming, but not yet!" every update blog made, it's frankly a shady way to rope people into the circle jerk of "almost being done". Development continues on the current version, it's still being "Patched" and numbers tweaked, but why? If you have a new version "close to being done" that's supposedly a grand overhaul of Career mode. I don't need to see the cost of a laser go from 6000 to 5000, because quite frankly I don't care. We don't need mechanics being added to the current version that you'll have an excuse to "Take time to tweak" for the 2.0 version, because you'll have to hotfix it to 2.0 regardless. It's milking the life spand of the game, and I've seen it with a bunch of other companies that stay in "Betas" and "Early Access" as a facade. To people who criticize me, people like me are the reason you have access to B42 in Project Zomboid and other games and not another 2 years of blog posts.

[reef escarp]

Did you saw the Meltdown preview? That kind of massive update wouldn't be feacible on a game that isn't in "Beta" cause its too disruptive. Staing on "Beta" gives more flexibility to the developement team. Also, they want to complete the Roadmap before saying it is finished

[silk oasis]

maybe for a game that didn't have a massive history before steam

if u don't care for anything save for career 2.0 then stop reading changelog

[inner narwhal]

This is career 2.0, all the updates rn are a part of that

They're taking it one step at a time

[willow summit]

i will add, the dev team has a decent few devs now, who can and do work on different things concurrently. for example the new weapons and mechanics for the meltdown preview were done by one dev, while the changes to game pacing were done alongside that work by another dev

just because other updates are coming out, doesn't mean career 2.0 isn't actively being worked on

[sinful dirge]

Career 2.0 can wait we got pipes !

[silk oasis]

9 women can't make baby in 1 month \👍

[willow summit]

in what world is that statement actually related to what i said

[red moon]

Valid post, sure new weapon may have been needed but the balance changes kinda usless and only really feed the like 10 PvP players this is mostly a joke relax

[silk oasis]

even if there are more people it doesn't mean it'll come faster and not all of them are going to work on the same thing

[willow summit]

oh yeah i misunderstood your meaning

[silk oasis]

what did u think i meant lol

[willow summit]

i did not know what you meant at all

[red moon]

well yes and no, the spread of work means more tings can be worked on at once, only downside is getting compatability

[ocean rivet]

i havent even seen career 2.0 mentioned in "its coming soon" anywhere much honestly

[red moon]

most recent post for 0.29.0

[ocean rivet]

honestly kinda missable

[red moon]

sure but its still annoying to be told an update is on its way for 2ish years now

[sinful dirge]

indie games be like that

[red moon]

sure but if your telling us an update is "in the works" show us

[inner narwhal]

Your overreacting lmao, keeping your players updated is not shady. You sound like you'd rather have a scrap mechanic chapter 2 situation. and if you go to their roadmap bits of 2.0 have already made it into the game. Its also not like the non 2.0 updates like painting or meltdown are small bad updates. People like you are not the reason b42 is out, your the reason stuff gets rushed and we get bad updates

And who cares if we dont have details on more career 2.0 studf, we're still getting updates like meltdown which are huge

AND your complaining about balance changes?? Balance changes don't even effect development time by much especially the minor stuff you complained about not caring about. Without balance the game would be a mess

[ocean rivet]

they got a bunch of voluntaries (or hires?) to assist in balance related changes

its easier than ever

[inner narwhal]

Your complaining just to complain with your arguments for "milking" an update we already have content for and still getting other updates. Get a life.

[red moon]

jesus, relax

[inner narwhal]

He wanna complain with a wall of text I'll respond in kind

[red moon]

talk about overreactions

[willow summit]

i can confirm that i am not getting paid for balance council work, but it also wasn't strictly a volunteering situation. i was approached by walt (pretty much out of the blue) asking if i wanted to join the council

i guess we're kinda interns? dunno

[willow summit]

there is something to be said about not lowering yourself to their level

responding to anger with more anger just makes the situation angrier

[mellow lynx]

what the fuck

[ocean rivet]

dw about it

[silk oasis]

it seems my beautiful analogy is not so beautiful afterall :(

[inner narwhal]

More annoyed than angry, I dislike those kinds of ppl

The devs and community puts a lot into this game

[mellow lynx]

But yeah about the post itself, I do agree, something should generally only be talked about once meaningful work has been put into it.

I run devlogs for my own game, and the only time I ever mention faraway features is when work on them starts, or if I ever post/update a roadmap. Otherwise I'm relatively silent about it

[silk oasis]

i think it does not help that walt does not show things or give much hint until it is ready

[mellow lynx]

In my game's case it's a level editor, and I can definitely see "A level editor is coming guys!!!" in 20 devlogs over years just turning people away and making me sound lazy.

[mellow lynx]

I get why this is the case but I personally love watching things get worked on from the ground up. Although I can see things getting suggested about to hell and back before they are remotely ready as soon as development begins which makes sense why they'd be sealed off

[silk oasis]

yeah seeing a quick time lapse would be nice

[red moon]

even just a "hey this is what we have worked on for things for 2.0 this month/week" and posting that here AND on the steam forums would go a long way

[mellow lynx]

it's a matter of "how many people do I want to give feedback on this thing as I work on it"

[mellow lynx]

weekly devlogs would be so awesome

I do that for my own game rn and it's such a cool way to track progress

"Oh, I added that thing a month and a half ago"

[proven prairie]

though of course time spent doing that is time spent not making cosmoteer

[inner narwhal]

Also things change, a lot of things do i garuntee

[red moon]

ah yes, a list that has not been updated inover 2 years that says nothing about where in development the devs are at

[mellow lynx]

it definitely depends on how much time and energy you pour into devlogs as well

for me, I just write posts since it's time efficient

making videos is a pretty shitty idea unless you have an actual youtube following

[inner narwhal]

But yall are acting like nothing relating to 2.0 is been talked about when some of it is already out

Be grateful yall even know it's being worked on and be thankful this game gets updates in-between

Because studios larger than cosmoteer's have given myself and many other radio silence on their favorite games for a long time

[red moon]

the most recent thing on that list to have been added is MRT witch was over a year ago now? also nobody here is being ungrateful??? its just more clerity on an updated thats been promised for over 2 YEARS would be nice
Agian, your over reacting to what people are saying, it really is annoying expecally for people like myself whove been waiting for a career overhaul to constantly be told that its coming just for the next update to either be a bunch of bux fixes or balance changes that ultimatly dont effect career much if at all, THATS NOT TO SAY THOSE ARE BAD, its just would be nice to be tossed a bone here, yes the new weapon and feature that comes with it are really cool and going to change how ships are build, but i want a meaningfull career, i want faction battles where i can influince the results, i was the possibilty of even just running a station for another faction and getting a tax cut from it if Walt decides not to go down the player ran factions idea, I want a proper explorations system in the game rather then the "climb the ladder" system where you just move up to the next highest system then "win" sure its good for the first year or so, but its boreing now

[mellow lynx]

Yeah imma be honest, I am starting to really itch for a more meaningful career too

The whole "build bigger ship, shoot bigger gun" is certainly cool, but it gets stale after a while. And the galaxy feels kind of dead - even without "more things to do", it would just be nice for the galaxy to have more life in it y'know? Things like ship and station speech bubbles, messages to the player from factions/groups, conflicts between factions, random ships going mining.. atm the only real life in the game is trade ships moving things around forever

In Avorion, factions can e-mail the player any important info, and if you are close with one, they'll ask you for help in urgent situations. They'll also send messages for declarations of war/ceasefire. Stuff like that is the coolest thing ever and I'd like to see it in cosmoteer.

(I get the appeal but pls no text walls like starsector)

I could yap about other things like boss fights/milestones, but that's for the career 2.0 thread

[inner zealot]

I would love to do weekly devlogs but they take time away from working on the game itself.

I appreciate the feedback, all!

[brittle dragon]

necromancing my post because somehow we have a glorified weapon rework instead of career 2.0

[silk oasis]

afaik meltdown was mostly celeste's work

[brittle dragon]

also side note, was the whole drones idea just scrapped?

[silk oasis]

boarding

[minor jasper]

Hello @silk oasis, that suggestion is already on the Roadmap: http://roadmap.cosmoteer.net

[silk oasis]

whet makes you think that

[brittle dragon]

dont go flaunting a post that gets changed every update and back it up as "credible"

thats very unreptuable ngl

[silk oasis]

did you read the bottom

why would drones disappear

they haven't even been started yet afaik

[brittle dragon]

yes being able to say "its subject to change" isn't a reputable system, and i didn't say they did, i was just inquiring if the idea was scrapped because there's been no mention of them since roadmap

especially for EA developers who'll stay in EA for 5+ years

[silk oasis]

is this not drones

[brittle dragon]

" there's been no mention of them since roadmap"

[red moon]

Ok?

Neither has hinges those are still on there

[silk oasis]

there have been in #ask-walt

[silk oasis]

nuh uh it's brought up randomly in various channels

same as drones

[red moon]

True

[brittle dragon]

saying "brought up randomly in various channels" isn't credible at all, mentioning it in dev blogs is actually meritable, not a random mention of "it may or may not"

[silk oasis]

thhere are no dev blogs

[brittle dragon]

^^^^

thats my point holy

[red moon]

Meltdown was lead but one of the devs as Air mentions Celeste, Career 2.0 is still being worked on by Tapuck as far as I noticed

[brittle dragon]

imagine that

[silk oasis]

9 women can't make baby in 1 month

[red moon]

#ask-walt message

Do agree a devlog would be nice, but why waist time on that when 5 seconds of using a search bar and looking at the roadmap can answer most things

[brittle dragon]

I don't rely on word of mouth in discords to be anything I can rely on in terms of development, and the roadmap is frequently changed, the whole Meltdown thing was never there when I first saw the roadmap. I just find it frustrating that in 2+ years of playing this, all I've gotten in terms of noticable updates were "new ship designs" added, and now a weapons rework, all whilst hyping up and saying "we're wrapping up the finishing touches on career 2.0" for years+

I play a lot of EA games, and this just seems like the typical path they follow suit down

[silk oasis]

because different devs worked on them?

the "whole meltdown thing" was basically the work of one new dev

[rancid belfry]

It is notoriously hard to predict how long engineering projects, especially software projects, will take due to unforseen challenges. My guess is that because of how big of an update Career 2.0 is, many internal systems need to be reworked to support it, and therefore it can seem like the update is almost done when in fact due to an engine limitation or similar a lot more work is required. And unlike abandonware projects, we have gotten significant updates (heat, new weapons, etc) over this time period. I would just give the devs slack while they work through the technical challenges of this big of a change to the fundamental systems of the game.

[unborn torrent]

they're busy adding the entirety of breaking bad to the game

black market, drug trade and everything from the show

anyways in all seriousness, scope could have also changed due to a different direction for even further polish and or gameplay loop directions and content being decided upon

[rancid belfry]

true, scope creep is definitely a factor here

[low sonnet]

Tons of "features" lots of extra tedium.... but no game lol.

[rancid belfry]

Can you give an example of a feature you would consider beneficial? Cosmoteer is, at its base, a game about making cool ships and flying them around. Personally, I think that the recent changes (new weapons, heat, etc) helps that vision because they give players more types of parts and systems to play around with.

[low sonnet]

Frankly I can't say I like Career mode, so this makes it harder, but let's start with...
-the ability to directly control crew to micro things like fire when the AI is being stupid without having to go through the entire priority system and change multi crew roles. Not the only usage but an example.
-the return of bounty hunter mode (liked it more than career, likely always will)
-the ability to pick when factions you want to appear in your game, to future proof some annoying faction being added
-more focus on imcluding more variety of existing systems, and less on the inclusion on new mechanics (particularly ones that seem to focus on themed designs (you can make 10 more different varieties of lasers in 1/10 the type this new heat pipe/oc crap was designed)
-heavier focus on just getting into it and shooting things. flying back and forth to grab missions/minings/factory ships etc just feels tedious compared to how the game used to be)

For a few

[rancid belfry]

So, would it be correct to say that you are more interested in updates for things outside of ship design? If so, I think that is a valid criticism, but refer to my other message about why we might not have seen that style of new content for a while.

[red moon]

Issue is BH made it look like Cosmoteer was going to be a roughlike when BH was just there as something to do, there are plans to bring back BH but that will just be it's own gamemode

Anways that's a topic for a diffrent discussion, if you have ideas amd feedback to give I'd suggest making a new post

[low sonnet]

No I'd love things added to ship design. The thing is they don't need to be different systems. I was just giving an example fo each catagory.

I'd rather see 10 different new lasers, 10 new projectile weapons, and 10 varients of engines that basically anything they've added in 2 years

I'm not a fan of the logic of "mods will fix it" personally.

[willow summit]

i mean. that's basically what overclocks did

[low sonnet]

I feel like they are trying too hard to make "unique" stuff... when I'd rather have "more" stuff

No overclocks added a bunch of convoution, for no reason other than to be different.

[willow summit]

?

[low sonnet]

?

I'd rather there be 4 different small shields, than some convoluted toggle with a heat system that annoying to deal with.

More systems that are "i can add this thing to my ship" and not "I build my ship around this system"

[willow summit]

i guess we'll just have to disagree then, because i find the constraints of the heat system fun to deal with, and prefer each thing being more unique

[low sonnet]

I personally rolled back to 0.29

to udnerstand how much I care for it

[willow summit]

plus, having more parts for everything means a lot more work for the artists and a lot more bloat to deal with when building

[low sonnet]

If modders can do it in their spare time (and often do a better job of it) then getting paid to do it seems acceptable to me.

I'm sorry but the whole OC and heat system for me is just a flop. The only thing I'm looking forward to about it is the ability to toggle it off.

[willow summit]

well, i like it, and most other people seem to like it, so it appears to be here to stay

[low sonnet]

I'm not convinced most people like it

There a poll somethere?

I feel like every ship that uses it looks like a brick.

[red moon]

That's every ship??

[silk oasis]

useless bloat

actually just for mods

[red moon]

It's a 2d game, you only have a handful of shapes you can make and woth most weapons being surfacemounted there needs to be open space to place them

[low sonnet]

it's almost like in a pc interface you can have dropdown menus :P

[silk oasis]

rimworld does not have 500 smgs for the same reason

[low sonnet]

No one plays unmodded rimworld.. for a reason

[silk oasis]

if 99% of them don't do anything or do something super similar they just waste space

[silk oasis]

and when they mod it they don't use 99% of the options

[low sonnet]

99% of all firearms in the real world are pretty damn similar too ;P

But people collect the hell out of them

[silk oasis]

good thing we can reduce tedium in games

[low sonnet]

"add tedium"

[red moon]

Also, again, if you have criticism for the current stat of the game and/or the new update please make a new post

No need too hijack a preexisting post

[low sonnet]

Tedium = heat system and oc'ing.. less tedium = just build the component you wanted in the first place, and give it the appropriate costs.

w/e dude, you were the one that steared it that way.

[silk oasis]

flat upgrades are extremely boring

small vs large weapons have intentionally different stats and playstyles

small can often be better than large

[ocean rivet]

basically yeah

[low sonnet]

Doesn't need to just be a "flat upgrade" though ton of varibles you sould tweak to make it "different enough" again just like rw weapons.

[silk oasis]

a modder would have done it already then

[low sonnet]

I'm just not a big believer in "modders will fix it" in gaming.

[silk oasis]

vanilla should have not have bloat, many other similar games have this

it adds no value

[low sonnet]

And I just disagree with that. I think the "vanilla" in games should have a ton of options, then let the player decide from there.

[rancid belfry]

Air's point is that adding "a ton of options" doesn't really increase the variety as much as one would expect. Imagine 10 different HL weapons, each with the same damage per second but different rates of fire and damage per shot. You would just use the best one because they all have effectively the same usecase and there are no meaningful advantages / disadvantages to differentiate them. Therefore, your 9 new weapons don't add any options for the player at all.

[muted scarab]

More choices =/= more meaningful choices. Imo good games are about meaningful choices.

I think this game extracts an impressive amount of depth out of a relatively limited inventory of parts, which is a good thing to my way of thinking

[rancid belfry]

Variety (and by extension challenge) in this game comes from being able to orient your ship design towards many completely different playstyles (like flanker, rammer, kite, etc), and having the parts to execute that strategy effectively. Having many parts that all support the exact same playstyle doesn't work toward this goal.

Also, we should really move posts. Can you create a new post with your thoughts and we can continue there?

[past finch]

I have the exact opposite viewpoint; I do not think we need many near-identical variants of parts.

[mellow lynx]

I will say, one of the most difficult things about getting into Starsector was the sheer variety of weapons in vanilla

it was totally overwhelming and it took me a really long time to actually understand which guns in the pile I should be using

the overclocking mechanic is great because it adds way more variety and depth to ship design in an elegant way, without overwhelming and avalanching the player with parts. Every part has a distinct and very specific purpose in Cosmoteer and it's why I love it so much, deriving complexity and elegance from seemingly simple components

A lot of mods (to absolutely no one's surprise) are also quite unbalanced and completely turn the game on its head to the point it's not fun anymore. Building a giant ship with the modded turbo-gigadestroyer 9000 on it and watching it blow up enemies is fun for about 5 minutes but at that point why are you even playing the game?

Anyway I don't really understand the hate for the meltdown update, I'm going to join the rest of the community in saying that it rocks, cause it does!

[unborn torrent]

that isn't tedium, you're just given access to extra functionality on existing options
at the cost of structural integrity and being more likely to burst into flames

and it being completely optional to go either no overclocks, partially overclocked, or entirely overclocked

also makes more sense that something of same fundamental functionality, and of same size to be an alt version

like an overclock, rather than an entirely new weapon

and said functionality can also give players a reason outside of just the standard form to try out weapons they don't usually use

the game practices restraint due to how boring it would all get if we all had options that filled every single combination of stats possible

rather than archetypes and sub archetypes of weaponry

there's a reason in games with such things as assault rifles, there's like 50 of them
but you know for damn sure nobody is gonna use 80% of them, literally ever outside of for the memes or because the game rewards them in some artifical way for doing so(like use this exact weapon for this reward)

[past finch]

Precisely.

[wise trench]

Out of curiosity, which part is tedious? I have a feeling that you're complaining about a new, fiddly system to manage, while a bunch of items with similar dynamics but a sliding scale trade-off of stats is more to your taste. Would you say that description is accurate?

Meanwhile, a lot of the other people here think that a bunch of fundamentally identical parts with slightly different performance, like thrusters, for example, are tedious because you can just put them in a spreadsheet and find the best one, before ignoring the rest entirely.

[muted scarab]

The guy you’re replying to left the server because he didn’t like the meltdown update

[wise trench]

Actually left? Ah well.

[brittle dragon]

https://giphy.com/gifs/batman-laugh-the-dark-knight-A363LZlQaX0ZO

we no longer see it anymore

was this a blessing or a curse

[blissful seal]

it's shrimply because career 2.0 was separated into 1.5 and 2.0, with 2.0 now being far down on the roadmap

[loud lark]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the current officialy announced objective of Career 1.5 already include both mechanics and ideas that were initially planned for Career 2.0 and others that weren't here before
Let's also be fair and notice that regularly, the size of the Career 2.0 project keep increasing from both dev new ideas and the community demands & feedback (like those you can find in the "What potential features are you guys hoping for Career 2.0).
As said previously, the game is frequently updated with sometime entire new mechanics (Meltdown being the most recent example) and things that where actually planned in the roadmap, including some from Career 2.0 (storms, MRT…).
.
For Meltdown popularity, the only problem I heard peoples speak about is the Meltdown drag change, increased velocity of Oc Canons shots & hit-scan Oc LB compared to their base variant, which make becoming skilled in manual piloting a lot less rewarding than before, especially for PvP players.
.
I have no problem with the return of a previous game-mode, but the question we have to ask ourselves about then is program bloating (thought, to be fair, the game is less than 2G) and compatibility (might be a bigger problem).
However, I’m against adding Laser Blasters +1 upgrades, 4 versions of the Large Canon with damage and RoF being the only difference, or roof-mounted IB just to increase the number of options. Balance issues aside (especially for the last one), these are just plain boring with the result that one or two versions that will always be better than the near-identical alternatives, that would serve only to artificially increase the game content without any significant increase in depth.
I’m not against modules for weapons or new mechanics, though, as those add real depth to the game.

[gritty dagger]

you simultaneously don't want them to keep mentioning future updates in blog posts, but now get mad that they AREN'T mentioning future updates??

[red moon]

No original career 2.0 was split in two basically

Original roadmap

Realistically we've yet to complete anything on the roadmap yet as all the things that have been "done" were added onto the roadmap, things like crew construction, build and battle, and most recently Meltdown

[tawny pewter]

crew construction was on that road map, second to last of the phase 0

[bold haven]

Perhaps what you want is more concrete "here's what we did for Career 2.0 since last time" updates.

[loud lark]

problem of doing that would be that if for instance they have to remake a whole chunk of it 'cause of unforseen problems, then if they anounce it it feel like it's getting further away and if they don't you wonder why when that feature felt so close to being accomplished

[brittle dragon]

idk what implied I was "mad"? I don't want EA devs lying about roadmaps, because that's how they end up getting abandoned, was the whole point of this sub originally, and it led to them not saying 2.0 was "Right around the corner" anymore, which we can see now in hindsight, wasn't true at all. I enjoy the game and everything, but it got to a point of telling my friend "Yeah we'll play another campaign whenever 2.0 comes out", year after year, and it's not this game that's the only perp of doing that. I only type in here whenever I go to see if anything ever came out, which is like every 6 months or so

[gritty dagger]

Giving you the benefit of the doubt that that wasn’t an attempt at diversion: I am sorry for not using a more precise word than mad, what I meant upset or dissatisfied.
Based on Walt not having a way to donate to him, and based on my interactions with him, I don’t believe Walt to be the type of person to try to lie on devblogs. To me it seems he’s trying to remind people that they are still working on it, which seems fitting for a blog about development. It’s not like I control the definition of a devblog though, so that’s all just my opinion; so I didn’t clown on you until I saw you contradicted yourself by asking for the devs to give status updates about future updates, which is what you wanted them to stop doing for carrier 2.0.
From my perspective, it seems like you only want the devs to give status updates for a select few things on the roadmap. This is a really silly stance to take, so I kinda made fun of you for it. I probably would have been more respectful by asking you if this really was your stance, but then again, you were repeatedly disrespecting Walt by comparing him to an EA dev.

[brittle dragon]

I mean..? I'm not just pointlessly saying that for the fun of it, or even in a degrading manner, it's literal fact. The whole "Contradiction" wasn't even that, either? Like I said, the whole point of the sub was to bring attention to something that was promised for going on years at that point, with constant "Just around the corner!", once that stopped, it makes you ponder how true it was. It felt like "Career 2.0" was a way to extend the lifetime of sales. "we no longer see it anymore
was this a blessing or a curse" implies that it may or may not even be in the works anymore, so as I implied, it goes both ways, in that thankfully we aren't seeing a lie anymore, and we may yet sadly never see it come to fruition. I never said the game wasn't fun or I wasn't looking forwards to career 2.0

[gritty dagger]

let me cut down my evidence and reasoning for now, since you didn't tackle the actual point of my argument: you don't want statis updates on carrier 2.0, but you want statis updates on other things on the roadmap. Is this really your stance?

[keen crater]

Career 2.0 is more actively "in the works" that it ever has been previously, for whatever that's worth. I do get the frustration - things have seemed to butt in-front of Career 2.0 on the roadmap

[uneven grove]

When you see Career 2.0 coming next on the roadmap but meltdown update jumpscare pushes it further 💔

[dense swan]

I don't mind getting a broader in-game content offering before certain things are solidified with a big release