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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Author Topic: Skills and Story Points  (Read 91053 times)

SCC

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #465 on: February 01, 2020, 12:52:16 AM »

I think the reason why combat skills can be upgraded to elite is specifically because they rely on player piloting skills, whereas other skills apply they benefit equally, regardless if you are an ace pilot or an armchair admiral.

Alex

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #466 on: February 01, 2020, 09:25:22 AM »

Hi - welcome to the forum, and glad you've been enjoying the game!

It's close what what SCC said, yeah - the "elite" skill levels are mainly there to give the player a "special" bonus for picking something that only affects their piloted ship, so that you can feel like you're getting something you wouldn't get just from a high-level officer, and so that you can feel that - even with relatively few combat points spent - that your character is a capable pilot; in some ways more capable than the officers under your command. And by requiring story points to unlock these - instead of making them just player-only portions of skill effects - it makes this feel more earned.

This really applies even if you're using autopilot, though you'd naturally get more value out of it depending on how much personal piloting you do and how well you do it.

Non-combat skills don't face the same situation where lots of NPCs visibly have them, and you're comparing your character against them - I mean, admins have some of them, and fleet commanders have some some of the fleetwide skills, but it's much more minor - so there's not much point to locking some of the effects behind a story point. Basically, it's less a progression system for skills and more a way of gating access to some of the effects, and this, imo, only really makes sense for combat skills.

Plus, for combat skills, the "elite" effects are usually something cool and particularly powerful, which is easier to get away with because it's still just one ship. For fleetwide/colony skills, the effects would have to be much more restrained, so it wouldn't be as exciting and would probably just feel like a story point "tax" to unlock the full value of the skills.
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jwarper

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #467 on: February 03, 2020, 02:26:00 PM »

I would almost lean more toward using additional skill points for combat elite status rather than using story points.  My thinking goes back to story points originating from the "Destiny Dice" analogy.  I envision story points fitting a more "here and now" type role in decision making.  Something very situational that the player needs to decide on in their current situation.   I like the idea of spending story points on things like escaping superior forces, or a one time add of 30% to the salvage chance of something. The sacrifice here is "Do I spend them now?  Or do I wait until later when I might need them more?"

Combat skills are permanent, and that time based urgency to bank your points isn't there.  You keep getting story points so you can defer spending them on combat skills until it is convenient.   


Perhaps make combat skills cost 1 point and their elite 1 point, while all other skills tracks cost 2 points?  (Each level up granting 2 skillpoints)
« Last Edit: February 03, 2020, 02:31:55 PM by jwarper »
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Alex

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #468 on: February 03, 2020, 02:32:41 PM »

There are plenty of not "here and now" uses for story points - for example, a key one is making hullmods free and permanent - so this isn't an outlier. The reason is particularly needs to be a story point in this case is that an additional skill point is far too high a price, while a story point can always be afforded eventually but still feels like a bit of a sacrifice, hopefully making it feel earned.
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jwarper

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #469 on: February 03, 2020, 02:44:23 PM »

There are plenty of not "here and now" uses for story points - for example, a key one is making hullmods free and permanent - so this isn't an outlier. The reason is particularly needs to be a story point in this case is that an additional skill point is far too high a price, while a story point can always be afforded eventually but still feels like a bit of a sacrifice, hopefully making it feel earned.

Thank you for adding that clarification on your design!  Having storypoints provide smaller benefits here and there will indeed add a lot of variety to the game, I can see how this can "spice up" combat skills a bit more .   ;D     Very interesting, can't wait to see it!
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SonnaBanana

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #470 on: March 31, 2020, 10:57:12 AM »

Any plans for toolbar abilites which will need story points?
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Amoebka

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #471 on: April 06, 2020, 01:58:09 PM »

The bonus experience system seems somewhat counterintuitive. I am allowed to hoard my story points and then use them all at once, right? What happens if I use two 100% return points at once, then. Do I get triple experience or double experience for double the amount of time? If it's the latter, then won't this make the whole system a giant trap? If I keep using all my points only/mostly on refundable things I will end up with years of double experience in the queue but still limited by the double-and-no-higher rate, effectively making the points "free in the infinite term", i.e. not really free at all.
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Alex

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #472 on: April 06, 2020, 02:13:04 PM »

It's the "double time" option; bonus XP is a pool that's drawn from every time you gain XP to double your gains. It may take some time to gain it back, ultimately - but 1) in the short-term, you get enough bonus XP to earn an extra point, and 2) after you get to max level, you'll have some time where you're gaining story points faster due to saved-up bonus XP from uses prior to reaching max level. That may take longer to go through, but it's not infinite, just long-term.

I do get what you're saying, though! But consider that if the rate went up with more points used, the points would be *too* free. The idea here is that you're not giving up anything (or as much, depending on the percentage granted) in the long term, so it doesn't feel like an irrecoverable loss - but that you are still giving up something, i.e. having access to those points for permanent uses later than you would otherwise. It's still a qualitative difference between "can catch up" and "feeling bad because you would always have had more points at any given time if you hadn't spent the story points on sometime fairly minor".
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Amoebka

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #473 on: April 07, 2020, 12:53:24 AM »

So, let's say it takes 1000 xp to gain a point. I then use it on something with a 100% return rate. This means I now have 1000 bonus xp "stored" and every time I gain experience normally I also take the same amount again from the storage until it's empty, right? So I gain 500 xp, gain another 500 from the bank, and now I have another point already. I use it with 100% return again. Now I have 1500 bonus xp stored. I gain another 500+500, spend another 100% point, and end up with 2000 xp stored.

In other words, I keep generating bonus experience faster than I can spend it every time I use anything with 75% or 100% return rate. This means that unless I spend one 0% point for each one 100% point (and one 25% for each 75% one, or any combination of the two that averages at 50% total), I'm never actually gaining it all back.

I guess if permanent story point sinks are so good I will want to use them all the time this isn't an issue, but it might be. Just going by the blog post, I would probably want to spend most my points on hullmods for destroyers, which is 100% return rate. This means I either have to use 0% points on things I don't like that much or accept that I'm losing effieciency. If I only ever spend story points on 100% returns and nothing else they are effectively 50% returns instead.
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Alex

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #474 on: April 07, 2020, 09:17:24 AM »

I guess if permanent story point sinks are so good I will want to use them all the time this isn't an issue

They are, yeah! Consider that the goal of this mechanic is to encourage otherwise low-powered uses of story points that you'd feel forced to skip otherwise, that is, to make those uses at all competitive with the uses that are permanent sinks.

(Hullmods now grant bonus XP based on their OP cost, btw, regardless of hull size, so more expensive ones grant less. But that's not a huge change. It wasn't 100% for destroyers at any point, btw - the 100% you saw on the blog post screenshot was for two hullmods and two story points. A bit confusing, but the tooltip does explain it in-game.)
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Goumindong

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #475 on: June 06, 2020, 04:15:09 PM »

So in the "OMG there is totally going to be a phase capital" post. Which i don't believe is happening i had the idea that some hull mods might end up being story point only. My thought was that this could be used for specific hull mods that might otherwise be abusable in order to give them a more significant cost(rather than being able to install them whenever you needed them you would have to dedicate the ship to it). The thought came about because of the idea of the phase fields on a capital. You generally would not want to be able to let any ship simply install phase fields and drop its sensor profile negative because such a thing is just "better insulated engine assembly".  But by making this a story point addition you would be faced with real consequences of that decision.

My thought would be to go one step further and require additional requirements.(as you have to get your hands on the the thing in the first place). As an example. Whenever you scrap a ship that has a relevant built in hull mod* (edit) and is pristine with >69% CR you get a single use hull mod associated with whatever you scrapped and can then install that hull mod on whatever ship you want for a story point.

Alternately others could have special requirements. Do you want to remove the safeties on a capital ship? Well only the LP are going to do that for you(and only if they like you) and its going to take a story point. Do you want to upgrade a ship into a militarized hegemony auxiliary? Well you better have a hegemony commission and you better spend a story point.

*Lets say, Advanced Targeting Core, Drive Field stabilizer, Heavy Ballistics Integration, Shielded Cargo Holds, Salvage Gantry, Phase Field as examples


Annnyway. Is there any thing like this in the works/planned?

Edit: you could even require multiple copies such that each ship you scrap gives 1/2/4/8 copies of the mod and installing that mod requires 1/2/4/8 copies (8/8/8/8 for ATC) of the hull mod. So in order to give your paragon negative sensor profile you would have to cut up 4 harbingers or 2 dooms
« Last Edit: June 06, 2020, 04:22:03 PM by Goumindong »
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SonnaBanana

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #476 on: June 09, 2020, 08:43:24 PM »

The combat aptitude is the most story point hungry aptitude. Contrast this with Leadership, which doesn't use a single story point.
At max level, if a player maxes out Leadership, they will at most spend only 5 story points on skills. They leaves them with (10?) story points remaining.
Could any problems arise from players having an easy large reserve of story points? Or do Leadership skills/Aptitude (and to a lesser extent, Technology and Industry) provide new choices which require story points?

In the next release, carriers will stop having officers because new carrier skills don't need officers to provide bonuses.
This in turn, will reduce the cost of pure carrier fleets because players will have less officers in carrier fleets.
Making new carrier skills provide bonuses to carriers with officers would give players reasons to not reduce officers in carrier fleets.
(Not saying they should stop providing fleetwide benefits, only that they give an additional small, flat bonus)

Other than the two concerns about Leadership potentially being overpowered, I think the the system is solid enough.
(If you will allow permanent logistical hullmods which doesn't count towards the two-L-hullmod limit  :P)

-snip-

I asked him this before, Alex doesn't have any plans for anything like that.
« Last Edit: June 09, 2020, 09:09:45 PM by SonnaBanana »
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SCC

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #477 on: June 10, 2020, 12:49:09 AM »

There's at least one carrier skill, but that's all I know of. It's also a tier 1 skill (the other choice being helmsmanship), so it probably doesn't give much benefit.
Reading the blog post, it seems that a skill can only be elited (upgraded with a story point), if it's a personal skill. I guess the reason is that the player should consider how much he wants to spend on any given personal skill individually, because the benefit is proportional to his own proficiency at piloting ships.

Alex

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #478 on: June 10, 2020, 09:30:41 AM »

Annnyway. Is there any thing like this in the works/planned?

There isn't, sorry :) A phase capital, on the other hand, hmmm...

Re: story points and skills, investing in any of the aptitudes creates more opportunities to spend story points. For combat it's obvious with the elite skills. For leadership, one of the skills grants your officers an extra elite skill (or you get more officers), so in either case, that's more points that could be spent there.

There's more than one fighter-related personal skill.
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SonnaBanana

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #479 on: June 10, 2020, 09:34:21 AM »

Annnyway. Is there any thing like this in the works/planned?

There isn't, sorry :) A phase capital, on the other hand, hmmm...

Re: story points and skills, investing in any of the aptitudes creates more opportunities to spend story points. For combat it's obvious with the elite skills. For leadership, one of the skills grants your officers an extra elite skill (or you get more officers), so in either case, that's more points that could be spent there.

There's more than one fighter-related personal skill.
That's good enough...
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