Ok, clickbaity title but you know how internet works. Can we get some clarification as to where we heading now? Star Citizen was just the right game for me personally. I loved pretty much everything about how it worked and positioned itself. Not a full blown DCS like sim, but definitely not Fortnight either. It had just the right depth to be appealing enough for both causal players and dedicated enthusiasts. For whatever reason it's quickly becoming a game for completely different type of gamer after more than decade of development. I would really like to hear some genuine developer response as to why SC is suddenly turning from a niche but glorious product for very specific audience to something that can appeal to broadest masses? It's a crowdfunded product after all. We have a right to toss a few questions, aren't we? I've seen this happening to Tarkov when in suddenly blew on twitch back in 2019 or so. When niche small-unit-tactics milsim overnight invented extraction shooter genre and instantly forgot it's core audience (that funded the game in the first place) in favor of little CoD Timmy's. Now I'm sensing a familiar scent here and it makes me very worried. FPS is slowly becoming an arcade pew-pew. Scope glint in 30th century? We solved this back in WWI. Backpack reloading? Managing resources to mitigate risks in combat is now not necessary? Flying is rapidly going in the same direction... Master modes, well... It's a very shallow arcade pew-pew now with barely any depth to it. In SC core gameplay loop is flying. No matter how deep and intricate might other gameplay loops be - if flying is shallow and boring, I have no reason to care about anything surrounding it. Be it base building, economy and trade or whatnot. Everything in SC revolves around Space travel. If I have no room to grow as a pilot after 30 minutes playtime, why would I bother? Is making skill floor and ceiling as close as possible really the intended outcome?! It's not like it was easy to become untouchable ace-level pilot before. Now it seems no one will be ace because there is no room to grow. I've made a few threads. Salty post about CIG shitting on sim pilots and PvP crowd, and then a more refined summary of why I think that actively tutorialising deeper gameplay mechanics is a better way to achieve accessibility than dumbing everything down to idiot-proof levels. Two of those, salty as they may be, been in hottest topics on Spectrum for like 48 hours. And yet no developer decided to show up. As a dedicated combat and PvP pilot + enjoyer of pretty much anything with intricate gameplay be it Arma or Dwarf Fortress I'm genuinely contemplating just selling my fleet and moving on with my gamer life after seeing all this recent changes. P.S. If you're looking forward to "account age" shame me with "It was always going to be like that, filthy newcomer" - don't bother. I very closely watched the project since first days of kickstarter and jumped in wallet-first when I decided it's ready enough for my taste. I remember initial pitch, yet I haven't completely disconnected from reality. So I'm not expecting hundreds of star systems with how much the scope of project expanded and level of detail increased. This however is why it's even more staggering to see such crucial things like flying being degraded into a puddle when other parts becoming more fleshed out and detailed.