This is a repost from Evocati, so if your a green blooded guak you may have read this already. You can hail the open universe as a technical achievement, sure, but to say Star Citizen is an enjoyable game, at the same standard as any other multiplayer PVP gun game is a joke. WE. NEED. A. COMBAT. TEAM. Not a turn with the gameplay team. We need a team DEDICATED to fixing this mess. Its been put off for FAR too long, and now you have so many minor changes that theres no focus or direction. We, the combat community, were once your most active and loyal playerbase. Now you've taken our money, ruined our fun, and told us "we'll get around too it, maybe". We've TOLD YOU how to fix it, we've SHOWED you charts and videos. Its time to take our feedback and make something of it. Not one small change every 3 months. We need to start banging this out and getting this done or else Star Citizen is going to be known forever as "the space game thats played on the ground". Now you might say (as someone in EVO did): "Chill! Its alpha!" "Chilling" has gotten us here: absolutely nowhere. Combat has been on a steady decline for almost 3 years. Its time to start telling management (not the devs, the management) that we're tired of waiting for our universe. They claim that they have so much on their plate that they cant stop and fix core systems cause they need new content to show off to avoid being called a scam [this isnt slander on the game, we all know the looks we get in broader gaming forums] , yet also talk about how they have all these new foundational systems to make things easier, and they have a large pool of talent now, and are hiring more. So where is the progress? The song and dance has gotten old. "Look at all this new stuff!" but its all broken, tier 0 janky mess AND the old stuff that worked is busted and on the backburner cause gasp they need something new this quarter for PC Mag or Kotaku to talk about. No one cares about new art assets when the play experience is abysmal. No one cares about new gameplay mechanics when there is no incentive to do them and/or they dont function. And when we post in here, Spectrum, the forum for feedback, all we get is people saying "but 67% want exploration!" and "ALPHA ALPHA ALPHA" over and over again. Its tiresome. We report bugs, they come back. We make huge presentations, and hear nothing but "well take it into consideration" and/or they do the opposite. We volunteer our time and say "put us to work! we beg you!" and get 2 weeks of inconclusive testing and then "well see you next quarter, maybe, if we feel its a priority". In my opinion, its time to start using the Evocati as a true test server: keep it up and running so we can put in the time to figure out the specifics. The broad strokes should be obvious by now, even if the majority (the casual/PVE playerbase) doesnt realize its good for them and whines about it constantly. We need skill to come back, we need a skill gap that has a learning curve, we need combat to feel rewarding or else the project is dead in the water. Is mining, exploration, cargo and other jobs important? Sure. But combat ties everything together. You fight over profitable roid fields, you fight to keep your cargo from pirates, you fight the Vanduul when you get lost exploring, you fight in deathraces, you clean up salvage afterwords... WE NEED THIS. IT IS A PRIORITY. Footnote: Dave, Baior, John and every dev I have had the pleasure of talking to has been passionate and driven to make this the BDSSE, but someone (or a group of people) at the top are preventing them from making the game great by trying to keep up the facade that the game is already great. Its not, no matter what promotional material they put out or what "progress" they say we've made this quarter. If you are having fun now, thats fine. But there are alot of us who demand more out of this project than a relaxing romp around the (singular) star. EDIT: This is now the second unpinned post when sorted by top, just under 3.0's PTU deployment thread. If that isnt telling, I dont know what is. EDIT 2: This is what a brand new player had to say about combat right now, to 600+ people watching him on Twitch. Its not only a problem made up by people who liked 2.6.3, or people wanting 1.3. Its a real problem. https://clips.twitch.tv/IntelligentVainPuffinNononoCat https://clips.twitch.tv/GlutenFreeMoistAppleBrainSlug EDIT 3: Noobifier enters the discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8NsXTFpld0 FINAL Edit: From Todd Papi, on auto-gimbal supremacy: "We've created a team specifically for these issues to improve our combat/gameplay experiences. Turrets, gunplay, components, combat will all be looked at in order to bring us at our final balance to make the game feel fun. This isn't some brand new team hired on, just a group of people being labeled as such made of people already on." THANK YOU PAPI! You have saved the game from being a mediocre roleplaying sandbox. It will be a challenge but Im anxious to see how they improve the way fighting in space, air and ground feels. Imagine a game with a FPS competitive scene, a space ship e-sports scene (a world first) AND a roleplaying scene, all in one package? THAT sounds like the Best Damn Space Sim Ever to me.