Roadmap? 2020

[JimmyBluEyes]

Is there a content Roadmap for 2020?

[Dark Phoenix]

Nope, the devs will have an internal roadmap, but they have decided not to share, as then people don't get disappointed when things get delayed. More content will be on its way, and they will share what it is when they are ready. For now, follow their twitter and youtube.

[Tomtommer]

The devs also have a state of development stream with a Q&A section every Tuesday at https://twitch.tv/coffeestainstudiosdevs

[Snutt]

There are a few reasons why we haven't put out a roadmap like we previously did.

First of all, we don't want to release anything we're not happy with. When in development if you're coming up to a deliverable and you don't feel happy with it you have two options: either start crunching or delay. We aspire to always pick the later option, which is frustrating for the community if we've made promises in the past saying we will deliver something at a certain time. We've had to delay many times in the past and it frustrates everyone, but it is a necessity for us in the long run.

Another thing is the fact that we want to be reactive and not lock ourselves into a plan that may seem awesome today, but later down the line we might realize there are better alternatives or priorities. An example of this is pipes from update 3. We always had pipes on the drawing board but kind of ditched it until it became such a big meme and we felt like we just had to do it!

Thirdly, unveiling new features and content by showing them off when they're ready has a bigger impact than just by talking about them. Letting people explore the content we put out just makes for a better experience for everyone and it helps us draw new players in.


Now with that being said I know it absolutely sucks not being in the know what's planned, and we're aware of that. We're trying to figure out alternatives for this that also works for us and the way we develop games. But yeah, we try to go more in-depth about this kinda stuff on our weekly dev streams on twitch and hopefully we can give more news soon enough!

[gorfreed]

@sn

Dearest Snutt, if I could make one suggestion for an alternative way of communicating your progress how about this one: I think what is currently the most unSatisfactory (harrr!) for the community is not so much WHAT is ahead for the game in terms of new content but IF and HOW MUCH we can expect.The game is still listed as early access title and while the progression and game mechanics are basically complete, I know that you always planned to have some kind of narrative to mesh it all together. I think what would be really exciting for everyone to know is your assessment of the overall completion of the project. How much work/time do you think will be required to get "there" (the complete, non early-access state)? Where are we at %-wise? How much love do you have left for Satisfactory? No need for you to unveil any new features to let your fans know :)

[Snutt]

It's kinda hard to answer that as well cos we're not fully certain yet ourselves just how ambitious 1.0 is going to end up being. It really depends on how development goes and how much feature creep we end up doing. Update 3 essentially derailed a lot of our original planning and that's bound to happen again. :)

There's still a lot of stuff we want to do tho and there's AT LEAST two more big updates coming apart from general optimization, bug fixing, and dedicated servers.

[Tokashi]

First of all, I do appreciate that you took the time to reply to this post. That already means a lot!

Just do not make it a roadmap for 2020?
You do not have to say, well we going to deliver this and that, this year.

I am a software developer myself and we worked with a client where we did not promise features to deliver on a specific time but we set goals and features we want to implement. Then we broke each feature down to the lowest level and implement each small part on a sprint by sprint time (2 week sprints). End of the day, the client were very flexible on changes and delivering features, this had so much more benefits for both sides, the developers never felt the crunch pressure and client were happy that we delivered features on a sprint by sprint basis. Both sides were very happy. Also, the quality of the product has drastically improved because of a more relaxed feature delivery.

So my suggestion is, share your ideas and possible features that you guys are thinking to implement and currently working on and possible future goals. I love transparency from companies, it has more benefits being more transparent. Share your struggles with us, tell us howmuch time it takes to implement said feature and how did you get around this problems etc.

Just do not promise a delivery date and also explain in detail that these might change over time but we would appreciate that if you guys share your ideas with us, your community will surely share their opinions and together we will have a so much better game.

So many development companies just do not want to share and deliver something that is not always well received by your community or clients because it is not always what they want or needed or desired.

I know you cannot please everyone but surely getting some feedback from your community will always benefit you more.

I will totally understand if you do not deliver a said feature because of time or something else came a long and changed the scope. We just want you guys to share what is in your minds and desires.

I love this game and I for once would love to know more what is still coming in the future even if it is not in 2020.

[SotilaS]

last patch/update was june 24th, not a peep from devs in 2 months.

[Dark Phoenix]

Originally posted by Sotilas:

last patch/update was june 24th, not a peep from devs in 2 months.

Thats not accurate at all.

Look at their twitter, twitch and youtube.

Also snutt has been around pretty regularly.

[Elo]

@sotilas

As far as I'm aware, they've been on vacation, and even at that they've had several live streams during this period. So saying "not a peep from the devs in 2 months" is a bit unjustified, especially taken into account the world situation, putting a strain on normal development work flow.

@Tokashi
While i love to see a fellow developer commenting on these matter, with at least a bit of understanding of the workflow and effort required to make any piece of software, i think we also have to remember, that when they develop games, they aren't answering to a company. That meaning, they don't have a set list required features that they have to implement, based on a survey or scrum model. instead they have a couple of hundred thousand different opinions on what would make the game better, one from every user, because opinions are like ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, everyone has one.

I think the way they handle it right now, is somewhat beneficial. Yes, we don't get to know what features will be in the game right away. That sucks, because we as gamers would like to be in the know, and be excited for the game that we love.

However, the benefits of, not having a roadmap, vastly outweighs the downsides, as that is the only downside i can see.

Think on it, if they released a roadmap, however careful it might be made, we would start demanding the features implemented at some point, instead of suggesting features that they might not have thought of. Now, I'm not saying that these two are mutually exclusive, and that everyone would act in accordance with what i say here, but I'm sure we can agree that it would be better for suggestions to be made, that might better the game, then stressing out the developers with demands on feature implementation within a certain deadline, if for nothing else, then for the fact that a non-stressed developer has time and energy to look through our suggestions instead of being stressed over a lacking feature that was promised.

As for suggestions on how to solve the transparency issue. I really don't know. These developers have, by far, been the most transparent about how, what, when and where i can expect things. The store page has an almost excessive description dedicated to the explanation of how feature incomplete the product is, how lacking the multiplayer might be and when you might expect the game to be complete. Even on top of that, they help the modding community extensively with knowledge on their code, something very few developers would even waste time on considering. So, in conclusion, if a lacking roadmap is the only bit of transparency missing, when it's reasonably justified, i think we can live with that, seeing as there seems to be no better alternative.

[Sistermatic™]

If no road map, how about a mud map? I doubt anyone with their head around EA is asking for GPS precision here.

[Dark Phoenix]

Originally posted by Sistermatic™:

If no road map, how about a mud map? I doubt anyone with their head around EA is asking for GPS precision here.

We already have that

Its a game in production, the team are working on it, when they have the focus and date, they will share.

[Sistermatic™]

Originally posted by Dark Phoenix:

Originally posted by Sistermatic™:

If no road map, how about a mud map? I doubt anyone with their head around EA is asking for GPS precision here.

We already have that

Its a game in production, the team are working on it, when they have the focus and date, they will share.

OK, so where's that?

As for the other stuff, I'm aware it's a game in production and I don't really need a lecture on what that means or what we can expect.

[Grandaddypurple]

Originally posted by Sistermatic™:

Originally posted by Dark Phoenix:

We already have that

Its a game in production, the team are working on it, when they have the focus and date, they will share.

OK, so where's that?

In this very thread as well as in the many Twitch streams that are also on youtube

[Sistermatic™]

Originally posted by Grandaddypurple:

Originally posted by Sistermatic™:

OK, so where's that?

In this very thread as well as in the many Twitch streams that are also on youtube

Yeah, none of which are mud maps. They're a series of slightly coherent & vague mutterings to avoid accountability for deliverables.

I watched one stream, wasted 10 minutes on cups and t-shirts advertisements and user builds. They're not maps.

Is there any single goto for a rough timeline? Not asking for the source code.

[Grandaddypurple]

Originally posted by Sistermatic™:

Originally posted by Grandaddypurple:

In this very thread as well as in the many Twitch streams that are also on youtube

Yeah, none of which are mud maps. They're a series of slightly coherent & vague mutterings to avoid accountability for deliverables.

I watched one stream, wasted 10 minutes on cups and t-shirts advertisements and user builds. They're not maps.

Is there any single goto for a rough timeline? Not asking for the source code.

Thing is no matter how devs handle their communication on an EA game, there'll always be Karens to complain "game's dead" "players became free game testers" "you promised this but we don't have it" "game's bugged" "why aren't you promising anything" "how dare you take vacations why aren't you my slaves" "I need a roadmap so I can plan what I'll be complaining about in the future"