Foreword: Anything mentioned in this post is a suggestion of an idea. I'm not asking that these ideas be implemented exactly as written. It is assumed that Alex will modify or decline any idea as he see's fit. This post is for Alex, so I will also not be replying to anyone but Alex. Feel free to comment if you'd like to add anything but keep in mind that Alex is the final arbiter and likely has a better grasp on the ins and outs of game development so if you have objections to my ideas, commenting about it is rather pointless....but if you feel like Alex doesn't have the intellect to reach the same conclusion as you, feel free to criticise as you'd like.
The Short:It would be great if we could easily create campaigns with customized values to suit the level of difficulty and reward we enjoy most, to add variety by trying to play the game different ways, and experimenting with different levels of balance. This could also be of aid in finding balance profiles and gameplay styles that players tend to enjoy.
What Exactly?A custom campaign mode where the player can change values via a slider, a seed value so players can easily communicate their full setting profile, and recommended presets for setting profile archetypes that best suits a certain player such as
New Player, Default, Easy Progression, and
Hard to start off with which can be fine-tuned for later patches, and an option to add/remove presets using seed values, including adding the current settings of a live campaign). It would be best if the 'customize' window is hidden by default so new players aren't overwhelmed, with a checkbox to show customizable settings for the players who wish to delve into that. Extra: an options menu for live campaigns whereby players can adjust settings which can be adjusted in a live campaign. If using a preset or seed to change it, omit any setting not changeable in a live campaign.
Suggested customizable options:
(note: a category listed in plural means just a single suggested slider option, but each category listed is an individual suggested slider option itself)
-Name of custom campaign settings
-Reward scaling for the different mission types
-Difficulty for the different mission types
-Frequency of the different mission types (including up to 0, ie: no missions of that type)
-Fleet sizes and number of fleets for the different factions (including the player's)
-Global damage modifier for the different factions (including the player's, and also affection auto-resolved combat)
-Scaling base cost of weapons, commodities, data, special items, blueprints, and ships.
-Scaling sell value of weapons, commodities, data, special items, blueprints, and ships. (% of base cost)
-Drop rates of weapons, commodities, data, special items, blueprints, and ships.
-Reputation scaling for acts of aggression, trading, missions, and assisting fleets in combat.
-Experience gain for the player, combat officers, and administrators.
-Scaling for fuel, CR and repair costs.
-Chance of player ships being disabled rather than destroyed.
-Chance of additional d-mods for recovered player and enemy ships.
-% recovery rate of the different ship sizes (with cost rates scaled respectively).
-Deployment Point cost of the different ship sizes.
-Maintenance and Deployment impact of d-mods.
-Frequency of pather, pirate and hostile faction planetary events.
-Impact of planetary stability events
-Starting wealth
-Spawning chance of specific officer attitudes. One slider for each, scaled against each other:
[Spawn chance of [Attitude]] = [Weight Value of [Attitude]] / [Sum of all Weight Value]
Where [Weight Value] is some arbitary positive integer range of 0 to >0.
-Spawn frequency and quality of debris fields.
-Spawn frequency of hyperspace storms.
-Spawn frequency of random events such as distress beacons and derilicts.
-Spawn frequency of scavanger fleets and etc.
-Size of 'Universe'.
-Density of system groups.
-Min and max density of systems within a system group.
-Density of core systems.
The Long:1) Although a properly enterprising fellow can go into the game files and edit some things, this is laborious, can only support one setting profile at a time, and is obviously inaccesible to the less tech savvy or time restricted. Mods can ease the burder, somewhat, but it still doesn't offer the ease of use and accessibility of a feature implemented into the core game, especially with features that mods cannot easily create, or create at all. And mods all rely on someone doing the work. If there is plenty of interest but no modder available or interested in creating it, there is nothing.
2) I enjoy playing with very hardcore difficulty settings, from harder-than average difficult to true roguelike hardcore nightmare difficulty as well as bullet-hell type combat messiness, where a single errant shot can end it all. I play games like Diablo2/3 and PoE on high difficulty hardcore, where you can spend weeks building up a character who can die and disappear from this world in a split second. (Whereby 'hardcore' game mode means that you have only a single life)
I realize that this preference is rather extreme, but I know I'm not alone in wanting a greater challenge than the default options available. A strong indicator interest in this would be the prevalence of such custom game create settings in roguelikes that have had large cult followings and have lasted for up to over a decade, Dwarf Fortress being the perfect example, and the popularity of hardcore difficulty settings in ARPGs like Diable2/3 and PoE.
And this can go in both directions. New players can also meet a more forgiving, relaxed and rewarding game, reducing the pressure of trying to learn a new game with punishing penalties, ie: losing ships they're attached to from a momentary mistake, and long-time but less skillful players (a large and important portion of most cult community) can enjoy a more relaxed experience tailored specifically to their preferences.
3) Large scalar changes to these values can create a whole different meta, or in other words, whole different game. Players can create a campaign where trading is the only truly profitable enterprise, or progression is slower paced, the player is less likely to be fleet-wiped and faction events have larger impacts on the flow of the game so its more like a story, or scavenging can become a proper way-of-life, or factions are a lot more resistant to player interference, or larger ships are rarer and/or more expensive to employ and a well built fleet of smaller ships is more important than just getting bigger ships and better weapons, or the game focuses more heavily on planets and politics, or the outter systems are the wild wild west, or etc etc...
This game has so many different aspects to it, and many of them can be explored in many different ways. By changing the settings with which each campaign is built upon, players can force themselves to into a new meta with which they can strive their best against rather than setting up arbitrary rules that they can easily break during a moment of weak will. Although the difference may seem insignificant to some, it actually has a huge effect on motivation. Just look at the post-secondary education industry. There is plenty of accessible literature for those who have the know-how, the motivation and the discipline to teach themselves nearly anything they want, but how many people are actually self taught? People are way more motivated to 'play the game' in a fabricated game environment with which they have no control over.
4) It should be self-evident that test servers for players are highly useful in the development of video games. Putting the controls of the 'test server' in the player's hands will allow the community to help itself find what they find most fun, giving Alex feedback on more than just what's currently apparent in the latest release. If the game also sent back the data on [duration of game session] and [total time spent] on certain seeds, it would be invaluable for shaping the default game modes into both more enjoyable experiences as well as experiences that players are willing to invest a lot of time into. This kind of data is also crucial for tailoring the game for the different types of players that play or MAY play the game. That second part is very important for the success of a game. The game has to be able to retain the interest of new players, and I personally feel like the introduction for new players in this game can use some work. The game-mode that players start off with is, in my opinion, too punishing and places too much pressure on a player that is still brand new and learning the game. Finding the right balance for each group in the player base is very difficult, especially for new players. There has to be just the right amount of punishment, reward and learning curve to keep the largest common denominator of players interested in the game. And then after that, there has to be enough variety and interaction to turn interested players into long-time players.
So my suggestion is that rather than limiting the play-testing to just the one or two game-modes of the current release and the less accessible option that is modding, why not allow players to freely and easily explore the field of possibilities themselves and get hard data back on who plays what and what tends to work and what doesn't? I'm sure it would much less biased, a much more populous and more efficiently consumed dataset than community comments...in addition to the other points I've made, of course.