Honestly this is the best most performant patch they have released, and I'm genuinely excited about every feature here (yes I love master modes too).
There's obviously still bugs, and server performance still hits you like a truck, but I didn't expect any changes on that this patch.
Can't wait for 4.0 and hopefully the smoothness to be common rather than just for the first 15 mins of a fresh server (before everyone spreads out).
Server meshing will hopefully help with server performance but even before that I was positively surprised how well the servers manage to chug along now. Even lower FPS servers can be surprisingly playable.
Yeah agreed, I was playing the early PTU versions and it was rough, but in live I feel like interactions have less delay than they did in 3.22
My favorite thing so far has been server crash recovery. It has come a long way where, instead of waiting 10 minutes for the server to recover, they've gotten it down to around a minute.
At the worst, if you get stuck on a server that encounters a crash loop, you'll at least have short windows of opportunity between crashes to make it to your ship's bed so you can safely logout and switch servers.
30ks are almost a thing of the past.
It's pretty great, isn't it? I wish they implemented the mission system rewrite before implementing it as right now crash recovery might leave you trespassing in a middle of armed soon-to-be-hostiles but that'll come. It's nice not having to worry about the servers as much at least.
Oof, that is definitely something to be aware of.
That, and we had a bunch of soft-deathed NPC ships with valuable cargo that despawned (right as we were lining up to offload cargo) because of the crash recovery.
But honestly, I'll still take that over a 30k.
Oh yeah, that's definitely a step forward. Hopefully this issue should be fixed with 4.0 since they're working on making missions compatible with the replication layer. Few more months if everything goes as planned.
One edge case that I really want to see the team nail down is crash loops. In the EPTU build of 3.23, we noticed situations where recovery effectively acted like a rewind feature, but didn't actually prevent the cause of a crash from happening.
Having to experience a handful of the same crashes during a single play session is pretty painful.
After getting caught up in the hype of Citizen Con and regaining a little bit of hope lost throughout the years this patch turned out to be... an experience to say the least.
I'm really happy with all the technical improvements so far - game is running better than ever, is more stable and the replication layer recovery, while not perfect, works pretty well. I did stumble over few issues but none of them were really game breaking and after years of SC being what it is, that's something I can deal with.
As for the feature/gameplay changes and additions, my experience was rather mixed. This post turned out to be way longer than I initially planned so I'll put a TL;DR at the end.
UI still suffers from the "cool" factor and at times is even less readable than the old one. I can't wait for options to customize the colors and get rid of the awful ghosting effect. I really wish CIG employed an experienced UI designer who realizes the importance of usability. Accessibility consultant also wouldn't hurt (I feel bad for people with vision impairment).
New mobiGlas is alright. Still has a ton of wasted space and the heart beat sound on the main screen is annoying as hell but it's functional (as long as you don't switch to a different color mobi).
(Mini) Map could be better - it's working fine but the stupid blue holo art style not only can be an eyesore but also makes the whole thing less readable then it should be at times. Also, trying to use the map inside a Distribution Center kills my framerate for some reason.
Flight UI is not great. We lost some info (either completely or partially), gained crap ton of useless and view obstructing markers, labels and other nick-knacks. QT icons are way worse - they are less recognizable and harder to figure out at a glance, especially with additional movement and animations used on them.
One good thing I can say about it is that coupled/VTOL/landing gear/G-SAFE toggles are finally easily identifiable. It's a simple change that should've been here from the start (hell, it wasn't even a problem back in 2.0) but hey, we finally got it.
New FPS UI is pretty great. HUD looks good and provides a lot of useful info (we finally have a compass!) - a really great update. Looting screen isn't particularly bad but it has some issues. It feels kind of messy (yeah, it's readable but there's something about it that I needed time to actually get used to it) and the switching between your main loadout and armor space doesn't seem like the best idea (or maybe just implementation).
It also isn't consistent. You can use Click and Shift + Click for some actions (in the direction from the container to your equipment) but other times you can only drag the items (when putting them back for example). This really needs some tweaking as right now, I still prefer to use the normal inventory screen when it works.
I do dislike the hit- and killmarkers (yes, I know they existed before) as I feel they cheapen the experience and make for a "must have" feature whenever PvP combat is concerned (especially over long distances or in an environment with limited visibility) - "just turn it off" is not an argument as it's a big handicap to however turns it off.
Interaction UI... I'm gonna be honest, I really don't like this one. The constant F is annoying and even if you turn it off, interaction name is still visible. Auto selection is really annoying - it often highlights items on the edge of the screen even if I try to aim at something right in the middle of it. It also makes accessing the old "thoughts" menu more fiddly, even though it's a way faster and better way to do some stuff (like inspecting or placing an item).
Shopping "cards" are big, ugly, have a lot of empty space while providing very little info and just feel like a step back compared to the old system.
FPS Combat is good. Weapons changes feel fun for the most part, enemies are active and aggressive, increased TTK doesn't seem to be a problem. I did enjoy my experience so far, except for the fact that some missions seem to spawn enemies indefinitely - it's not even difficult, just stupid and doesn't really fit with the "immersive universe" we're suppose to play in.
Distribution Centers are kind of cool to check out but don't really bring much to the table as far as interesting gameplay is concerned at the moment.
Master Modes and flight changes - I'm going to be honest, there's no way I can give this a fair shake as I disagree with the whole idea on a conceptual level and I already disliked their previous attempt from 2.0 days. It's especially "funny" that not only is CIG going back to a flight model they already tested and decided against, they are also bringing it back using the same arguments for why it's needed in the first place.
I did try to get used to it and I did try to look at it fairly but despite that, I really don't like these changes.
I'm not going to write an essay on what, why and how since it doesn't really matter - CIG is in a push towards 1.0 and they will stick to a direction of their choosing (well that and they don't visit this community). I just wish they didn't waste the last 2-3 years making yet another flight model instead of committing to and tweaking the existing one, like they promised when patch 3.14 (?) was released.
Also... while I was never particularly interested in space-combat, new changes made me certain that I'll be staying away from it for good. There's no point in wasting your time on something you don't enjoy.
New EVA is great. I did have to get used to it for a few minutes but it's a much smoother experience. Probably the most polished and the best designed part of this patch.
I could live with a mixed patch - it wouldn't be the first time with this project. I am however a bit concerned about the future of SC. Not necessarily on whether it's going to get finished but rather if the game that comes out will be something I'll want to play.
It's not just some of the changes from 3.23 and .1 that are the cause of this worry. Some of the dev's actions and words since Citizen Con make me wonder whether the direction of the project didn't change away from what I backed all those years ago.
I might just be getting jumpy and distrustful due to the already mentioned "closeness" of 1.0 requiring them to actually commit to specific design decisions instead of redesigning stuff every few years. Hopefully, it's just a temporary issue on my part.
I want to stay positive and keep looking forward to what's in store in the future but it's not as easy as it was 5 or 10 years ago. The next few releases will most likely be a make or break for me and that's a pretty rough spot to be in after all this time.
I really wish CIG released their updated design docs on each gameplay pillar to see what they're planning - the stuff we have now is years old, often outdated and without any actual details. It's not a situation a game in "open" development should be, especially after this many years.
Flight and new interaction UI are not great and need a lot of tweaking before I'll be happy with them. Rest of the changes are pretty good.
FPS and DC gameplay are in a good place for now, EVA is great, MM and flight... please no.
I'm starting to wonder if SC isn't changing in a way I'm not happy with and if I'll keep playing after release.
For me, basically, this. Articulated all of the points I would want to, far better than I could have. Great summation..
Really the only difference was I used to genuinely like flying my ships, that for me was the "goal". MM has made them less "fun" overall at the moment and they feel "arcadey" for lack of better description. I just don't enjoy them now.
Just to add to my main post - I think my main problem with MM (though I use MM as a catch-all for all of the changes implemented with this patch) is that it forces players into doing things in a way already possible with the old system. The problem wasn't with jousting, fighting from afar etc - most of it had to do with CIG not teaching people how to fly and utilize all of the mechanics properly.
Sure, some things had to be tweaked and would change as new features come online (armor, engineering gameplay etc) but with MM we're back to having to balance everything from 0 yet again. It's honestly baffling how often they'll go "yeah, we'll tweak stuff and it'll be great" only to change their minds and spend years working on a completely new approach plagued by tons of new (or even the same) issues.
While I don't like it, I just hope they'll actually stick with it long enough to get it to a reasonable state. Changing a flight model every few years is a waste of time, money and effort - especially this late into development.
Honestly? I'm loving it. The biggest improvement for me was getting rid of those awful PIT menus that were ugly and sometimes hard to use. The new system is way more usable, and I'm tweaking the mappings on my controller to see what feels the most usable.
The improvement to EVA is also phenomenally good. You move a bit faster, there's more precision, and traversal between EVA and ship is much smoother. As a salvager that gets in and out to scavenge cargo holds, this is a big deal to me.
The character customizer is also really fun to use, and feels pretty intuitive to use. There's still work to be done in explaining what all of these vertices do, but I think the customization is a lot more flexible.
Some pretty nasty bugs emerged in 3.23 and 3.23.1, but it seems like the team is making pretty good progress on improvements? So, there's that.
I have a question about your first point - do you mean just the personal thoughts menu or the whole first person interaction system? If it's the latter does selecting items work fine for you? For me it tends to select things I'm not interested in (or even ones outside of my field of view) so I'm curious what's your experience with that.
I mostly meant the old system where all options were just a bunch of floating neon text. It was...functional, I guess, but the new system is so much better from a controller perspective. It's not perfect yet, things like elevator buttons are still in a weird spot, but most things are a lot easier to deal with.
I see, thanks for clarifying. I play with keyboard/mouse when on foot and find using it to be more clunky (just in a different way than the floating text) at the moment - hopefully it'll improve with 4.0.
Ii think it's really really great. Some issues here and there but overall nice.
Been playing since 3.15 I think, this patch is by far the biggest one and more importantly pretty smooth compared to previous ones. Development pace has picked up as well. If they keep this up I might even see 1.0 before I retire 👍🏼
Yeah, it definitely feels like a real possibility these days. As much as I appreciate the efforts of the skeleton crew we were stuck with, bringing the whole studio back to SC makes a huge difference.
Some big improvements, only annoyance has been some desync like not being able to see friends
Running the game on NixOS and hasn't crashed once, it's never been this smooth. Been waiting 10 years for the project to be in this buggy version of an alpha.
Native build next year? Pretty please?
Master modes is definitely different and it's going to take a little bit of getting used to it. I'm not hating it, but there are things that I don't like that I'm hoping get tweaked.
Some of the changes do feel like they're trying to simplify controls for something like a gamepad/controller... especially since they'll want to attract console players to SQ 42 (have we heard anything official on whether they're trying to get a console version ready for release on Xbox/PS, etc?).
As far as I know the only confirmed thing was Sandy asking people about interest in a console version during one of the bar citizen meetups. I've seen some mentions about leaks but I don't know much about them nor put much trust in them for now.
We also need to remember that making the gameplay gamepad friendly isn't necessarily a sign of a console release - people have been playing SC with pads for years now. We already went through months of discussions about making the flight and space-combat as controller neutral as possible back in the day.
What's weird about MM and current flight model is that a lot of things team isn't currently happy with, according to Yogi, sounds like tweaks that would make the whole thing feel close to what we had before 3.23 which makes me kind of confused on what was the point of doing all this. I dunno, maybe the end result will be different enough that it would be impossible with a single mode system. All we can do right now is give feedback and see what comes of it.
I haven't been really able to get into playing it. All the servers seem overloaded right now. I get on and fly around in MM for a bit and then when i try to take a mission from the contracts app it doesn't show up in my log. I was lucky to finally get my F7A reward after several days of logging in to see "no missions completed" for the Overdrive Initiative check.
I'm really enjoying the new UI, especially the minimap. That was one thing I honestly never expected to ever come to SC, but having it makes a huge difference especially to players who may not be familiar with where to go to find specific stuff in cities.
The FPS is so smooth right now. I'm getting less choppiness and more smooth gameplay. Dunno if that's a server thing or a game optimization thing but hopefully they keep it up and keep it in this zone for as long as possible.