Bro this game is dead of players. Focus on SP.

[bigd]

This is what people fear when playing a game meant for multiplayer. Player count drop due to displeasement. SP will attract more players since it doesn't have to rely on other players just to enjoy the game. Please focus on the SP aspect of the game and convert it from MP. Player count right now is 2. I don't want my fun relied on other players.

[Random_Passerby]

Singleplayer is already presented in plans at Trello board. The game is not out of EA yet, not advertised yet, not complete yet. Singleplayer would indeed be cool, that is for sure. But how to show the engine can handle that many players all at once in singleplayer, and then to tune their interactions into balanced ones? Addition is welcome, but the conversion might be a tad too far of a manoeuver from current trajectory. Opinions?

Also - bots. What is lacking in bots?

[GabeTC]

Originally posted by Random_Passerby:

Singleplayer is already presented in plans at Trello board. The game is not out of EA yet, not advertised yet, not complete yet. Singleplayer would indeed be cool, that is for sure. But how to show the engine can handle that many players all at once in singleplayer, and then to tune their interactions into balanced ones? Addition is welcome, but the conversion might be a tad too far of a manoeuver from current trajectory. Opinions?

Also - bots. What is lacking in bots?

I don't think you can show the engine handling players when its highest player count in the last 3 years was 63 players and the absolute ALL TIME high was 227 players 4 years ago. I still think this games goals are way to ambitious for what they are capable of right now would be an awesome space fighting game if they maybe just stopped focusing on the massive useless servers

[Random_Passerby]

So, it did, in fact, manage to show many players flying those 4 years ago? Will it be able to do the same while being fully singleplayer, simulating on players' own computers, and to the same extent? And how fun is it playing knowing you are the only live player in your game?

Of course the answer to the latter for many is "Yes", groups of SP and MP lovers even overlap. But the problem with your proposition is in that it only flips the issue of not wanting to rely on fun from players to AI in singleplayer, requires additional work to implement, reserves of which seem to be stretched.

This is similar to the proposition to downsize - what exactly do you mean under focusing on singleplayer? What are parts of focusing on singleplayer in your mind? As the game is being designed to serve other players to players by being multiplayer, better approach should be in incentivizing them to join more frequently and seeing each other together, maybe? Why a huge burn away from that towards the singleplayer experience? How much effort of that would pay off?

There are AI ships on the server already. Are empty servers with bots not singleplayer experiences?

[GabeTC]

Originally posted by Random_Passerby:

So, it did, in fact, manage to show many players flying those 4 years ago? Will it be able to do the same while being fully singleplayer, simulating on players' own computers, and to the same extent? And how fun is it playing knowing you are the only live player in your game?

Of course the answer to the latter for many is "Yes", groups of SP and MP lovers even overlap. But the problem with your proposition is in that it only flips the issue of not wanting to rely on fun from players to AI in singleplayer, requires additional work to implement, reserves of which seem to be stretched.

This is similar to the proposition to downsize - what exactly do you mean under focusing on singleplayer? What are parts of focusing on singleplayer in your mind? As the game is being designed to serve other players to players by being multiplayer, better approach should be in incentivizing them to join more frequently and seeing each other together, maybe? Why a huge burn away from that towards the singleplayer experience? How much effort of that would pay off?

There are AI ships on the server already. Are empty servers with bots not singleplayer experiences?

While yes there are bots and its basically singleplayer since its very rare you might ever find another player on the server it would still be nice to have actual single player where you could perhaps tweak battle settings and have your own scenarios, I think the dream of massive servers in its current state is hindering further development and scaring away potential players.

When I see this game in its current state for its asking price I just don't see the reasoning to add it to my library and I fear others also will do the same.

Instead of focusing on a stretch goal like that maybe if they focused on just making this the best darn space shooter it could be awesome, and if the budget allowed it to continue as a massively multiplayer game then go for it! But expecting that they will forever keep paying to host those huge servers in it of itself is a ticking time bomb, its going to eventually die possibly before it even ever reaches 1.0 full release.

Its like that other combat space game Angels Fall First, sure it might be dead as far as players go but it has that ability to host your own servers. Even if its dead I can still tell my buddies "hey go buy it lets hop on and we'll be straight knowing the cost we paid is justified and won't disappear if the servers shut down."

So to end this singleplayer needs to be an option sooner rather than later, but the overall scope should shift to making this a more manageable multiplayer experience, if me and the boys could just host a server ourselves and change up some settings we'd be on this every week.

[INovaeFlavien]

It sounds like what you're asking is already on the roadmap for 1.0... custom servers, single-player sandbox, mission editor...

I'm not sure why you're thinking that we're currently focusing on massive servers though. Massive servers are already in, and have been for 4+ years. None of the recent development have anything to do with increasing server capacity. The server capacity was needed to host massive battles, even offline. The networking component is only a fraction of the work involved to have a game support massive battles in the first place. What's important is server architecture and optimization to be able to support hundreds of ships (whether they're AI or players) all while handling physics and gameplay, as it is basically the main "selling point" of our game.

What we've been focusing on in the recent months / past year is the gameplay loop. We added battle objectives, instead of having just fleet vs fleet. We added ship upgrades, some new weapons (ex.: spinal canon), ship chassis variants, upgraded the guided weapons sytem, etc.. We're now working on a carrier gameplay update, with the carrier being able to deploy squads of AI ships and assigning objectives to them.

Once all of that is done, we'll be moving on to the remaining features of the game (+polish), which includes the single-player sandbox mode as well as the mission editor. They're not our priority _right now_, but they will be once we enter the final phase of development, as they're required for us to implement our tutorials, which we need for 1.0 (by that I mean that we want to build our tutorials with the mission editor).

[Captain Deez]

I've been following this dev since 2006. Release the game.

[omegacon4]

Love the focus on singleplayer. Thank you, devs!

[Zothen]

Originally posted by Captain Deez:

I've been following this dev since 2006. Release the game.

Oh, you mean back then when the sole dev bragged about that one man can make an MMO easily? Yeah, we saw how that went....

[INovaeFlavien]

Originally posted by Zothen:

Originally posted by Captain Deez:

I've been following this dev since 2006. Release the game.

Oh, you mean back then when the sole dev bragged about that one man can make an MMO easily? Yeah, we saw how that went....

Are you sure you aren't confusing me or the project with somebody else's ? I have certainly never bragged or claimed that I could develop an MMO alone "easily". In fact I was pretty adamant from the start that it was a long-term, difficult, part time experimental project that'd take years to develop, and never gave any release date other than "maybe in a few years". As for the "alone" comment, I created a community contributions system and a large part of the development was community based ( art, story, sfx/music etc.. ). Many of the current devs on Battlescape started as volunteer contributors on that project. That MMO project was a hobby of mine, developed part time, and never took any donations or funding or anything. It is ultimately was resulted in the foundation to build Battlescape, mostly in terms of engine reuse and lore.

[Jazz]

Originally posted by INovaeFlavien:

<...>
Many of the current devs on Battlescape started as volunteer contributors on that project. That MMO project was a hobby of mine, developed part time, and never took any donations or funding or anything. It is ultimately was resulted in the foundation to build Battlescape, mostly in terms of engine reuse and lore.

I recognize your effort and passion as admirable, and wish you success!
This game has definitely piqued my interest and put in on my radar

[Shev]

For those looking for a single-player space game; go play the X-series if you can't wait for this one to have it's single-player implemented. Also, why would they go this far into development, only to veer off track and cater to 'the singleplayer community"?

I've jumped into this game as the only player on the entire server during the week; and have had a ton of fun playing all the same with the AI, and the little 'bounty system' in place is fun in that regard too.

I never felt the need to have 50-100 other players in this game with me to 'have fun', the AI ships are quite capable of giving you entertainment.

[Gokki]

I haven't been playing because 1: the game is not finished, 2: there doesn't seem to be any content afaik, only some generic map with some objectives to fight over. No story, no progression, nothing. Just skirmishes. Imagine Homeworld without a campaign - just boring skirmishes each time. I'll follow the game but i won't bother with it until there's "real content" in it. TQFE was my original excitement, and i understand why it isn't it now.

Once the game launches i'll install and play of course, but if all i do is queue into a random match to shoot spaceships and repeat without any progression, galactic conquest or whatever i will get bored and leave in a week.

[INovaeFlavien]

I'm afraid to say that your expectations seem out of sync with what the game is. There's not going to be a story-based campaign nor some RPG progression elements, and I'm not sure why you're expecting that from this game at all since it's not something we've ever promised or mentionned, even on the store page.

Your same criticism about what this game isn't could be applied to other games such as Planetside. You don't have a story, campaign or heavy progression in Planetside either. In many ways you could consider the matches "pointless" too, as they reset, just like in Battlescape. If you're looking for story in those kind of games, it seems like you're into the wrong genre to me.

[Gokki]

Planetside 2 does have RPG progression, and i did play it until i hit a wall. But yeah, i'm glad to have supported the game but i am being upfront as to why i probably won't play a lot of it. I will figure it out for myself once the game releases, of course, maybe i'll enjoy it then!

Unfortunately, games in the genre of "space mmo rpg" don't really exist. EVE Online is the only one that kinda comes close to it but the ruleset and target audience are also not it (it's more of a pvp sandbox than anything else).

[INovaeFlavien]

Story is definitely out of scope, but adding more progression elements -provided they don't require insane amounts of work- is something still on the table. What progression elements would you like to see in the game ? We already have xp, rank, currency (credits/ship points/cosmetic points), weapons & upgrades and by the time the game ships we'll have the achievements, cosmetics, medals etc..