Where did Master Modes come from? What was the problem, and why was this deemed the solution?

Well, first off, I think, the fact that we're working on a live game, the issue is that we should always be looking at, even if we've got a system that's out in the wild, evaluating it: does it deliver the gameplay that we want, that the community wants, that Chris wants? So when we looked at the combat as a whole, and we're talking a long time ago now, I was probably still on Star Citizen, it was probably pre-Squadron when we started talking about Master Modes. A lot of the combat that we saw across the broad spectrum of the community, not just the new players and not just the very well experienced players, but the broad spectrum, basically became jousting, and we felt that we could do better than that. Now, I know that there's a lot of discussion points around Master Modes where we're talking about lowering the ceiling cap. That was never the intention; that's not our inspiration. Our intention really is to try and create a system that is fair to use for all players, that allows players to come on and still feel like they can engage in the game and compete, but still reward the very best pilots. And Master Modes, the iteration that it is today, has been through probably 20, 25 iterations of different tweaks and changes, and we want to try this and we want to try this. And even the iteration that we're going live with in 3.23, that's not the end. That's just the beginning of that process. We will put it live. I already had a meeting literally this morning to discuss with Yogi spool times between SCM and NAV, or what are we going to do with snub fighters that don't have a quantum drive? Do they have a NAV mode? And I was like, well, yeah, they should do. So the expectation is that Master Modes came from the goal to try and improve the overall flight experience for both combat and non-combat in the game, so that if you want to be a space trucker, that's cool, you can switch in, or if you want to be a trader or a miner or combat. So it's about taking something and making it accessible to new players, that has a lot of depth for existing players to then take advantage of. And really, that was the inspiration. There's never really a moment in time where you start going, this is a problem, we just need to fix it. It's more about you evaluate these systems over a longer period of time and then start to think of solutions about how to improve it. And then those solutions grow and grow into a new system that you go, oh, this could be a solution that we could do. And with Master Modes, you mentioned all the times that we've talked about it, but we've also done several tests with the community before we've even got here, outside of just the 3.23 Evocati and PTU. We tested it in Arena Commander. We tested it with players a long time ago. So this is the result of a lot of effort and work by a lot of people to get it where we are now. And I believe in it. And now it's about getting it to the broader audience, and then we evaluate that feedback and we tweak it and tune it and get it to where we think it could be. Because I think you always have to change the foundation before you can start. You either have to do revolution or evolution. And I think with the previous system, the evolution wasn't going to give us what we wanted from the end result. So we had to go slightly back a bit to then go forward.

To be honest, I've been playing Master Modes for a long time in Squadron, getting a feel for it. Does it feel right? Sometimes you have to sit with a feature and play it and get the everyday scenario. You can't just take half an hour and go, oh yeah, it's approved. You have to play the game and play it for yourself in all the different scenarios and then make a judgment, and then get that feedback, and then we can tweak and improve.

I think the interesting thing as well is, because it's been going for quite a while and obviously we've been playing it internally a lot, we've had a lot of very passionate pilots, aces and pilots at the company, who at first felt averse to the change, like some people in the community are as well. But it's been amazing seeing them playing with it, spending time with it, and coming around on it and going, actually, this is really fun. I prefer this now. So it's been very cool seeing that process happen internally, and it's going to be interesting to see how it develops in SC as well.