Fractal Softworks Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

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

Pages: 1 ... 42 43 [44] 45 46 ... 50

Author Topic: Blog Posts  (Read 337502 times)

mendonca

  • Global Moderator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1159
    • View Profile
Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #645 on: September 10, 2012, 07:56:25 AM »

For what it's worth, here's my two (or three) cents on respeccing.

(personal opinions only coming from my own view on how I like to play games,  fully appreciate other people have differing opinions, feel free to discuss / shoot me down where necessary :))

In games like Diablo, I can see the benefit. The storyline is very linear (at least Diablo 2 was) and once you get through act 1, into act 2 and on to act 3, you might be at a point where you are thinking you should have taken an extra point in Orthodontics or whatever, instead of that neat-sounding Synesthesia skill.

Fighting those buffed pit fiends and tasting the colour of their skin every time they hit you is no longer a benefit (it was great in Act 1 at low level), and now you have finally reached Barney the Phase Dinosaur, you really need to be able to replace all those lost teeth in a hurry, rapidly and during combat.

It's also very much a game about making a lot of decisions to build a character through a lot of levels very quickly as you advance through stronger and stronger enemies - It's about progression. As the game gets progressively harder, marginal efficiencies in character builds become more and more important to maintain an effective, and fun, character.

This linearity and progression means that it isn't necessarily fun if you get to a brick wall where 1 skill pick is the difference between being able to advance and not.

I remember getting to Diablo on Diablo 2 and my necromancer could not defeat him with my army of skeletons. The difference was literally one skill pick in getting them SOME elemental resistance (confirmed by cheating!). It would have been a 6-hour grind or something, tracing back through boring levels I could easily conquer to achieve this (going up a level or finding a suitable enchanted head). Needless to say, I dropped the game and don't think I ever returned to it at this point. In this case respeccing would have solved this issue for me, and the lack of it was a problem.

In Starfarer, I don't envisage that this will be the way things pan out. After 6 cycles, in your first game, you might be only just coming to terms with how you are wanting to play the game, and your combat build is really hampering your wish to trade as efficiently as possible. But I don't think Starfarer is supposed to be about progression, so much as ... conflict? Change?

The question is, do you allow respeccing, or encourage the player to stick it out / start a new game?

What does the sector look like after 6 cycles? What benefit would there be in the player becoming the person 'they always wanted to be', in the sector at this point? What's wrong with being a grizzled, battle-seasoned commander running a few freighters from port to port - it's still a fun exercise, even if you aren't doing it AS EFFICIENTLY AS POSSIBLE?

What about after 16 cycles when the Cult of Lud becoming a monstrous force in your main trade route, and you decide that there is more to be gained by being that legendary Commander from 12-13 cycles ago, maybe throwing your lot in with the Hegemony? Do you let people flip-flop between trades? How does this affect immersion?

I come from a background of enjoying hard and unforgiving games, like Nethack, Jagged Alliance 2, XCOM etc. and I thoroughly enjoy the aspect of 'losing' and coming at it afresh - and having to start a new game or just sitting by as the world crumbles around me (damn Ethereals). My first thought would be that respeccing is not for me.

I hope, if the world is living and breathing (even if those breaths are becoming less and less strong with each cycle) - then the majority of players will step away from thinking about DPS increases of 2%, and just playing things the way they want to play things and going along for the ride.

Having that push on players to stick with their decisions and ride them out to the end (even if that means their end) is (to me, at least) a positive one for the enjoyment of a game, and should form the basis of the 'vanilla balance' of the game.

I'm not against it if it turns out that it really does add to the game (and in truth, it probably will, as I can only imagine how difficult all the design issues will be to truly say that it won't) - but I wouldn't want it to be the default position for the grand-master-plan of how a typical game should play out.

He he ... oops, maybe that's four or five cents
Logged


"I'm doing it, I'm making them purple! No one can stop me!"

sdmike1

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 820
  • Dyslexics of the world, untie!
    • View Profile
Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #646 on: September 10, 2012, 09:00:39 AM »

Spoiler

For what it's worth, here's my two (or three) cents on respeccing.

(personal opinions only coming from my own view on how I like to play games,  fully appreciate other people have differing opinions, feel free to discuss / shoot me down where necessary :))

In games like Diablo, I can see the benefit. The storyline is very linear (at least Diablo 2 was) and once you get through act 1, into act 2 and on to act 3, you might be at a point where you are thinking you should have taken an extra point in Orthodontics or whatever, instead of that neat-sounding Synesthesia skill.

Fighting those buffed pit fiends and tasting the colour of their skin every time they hit you is no longer a benefit (it was great in Act 1 at low level), and now you have finally reached Barney the Phase Dinosaur, you really need to be able to replace all those lost teeth in a hurry, rapidly and during combat.

It's also very much a game about making a lot of decisions to build a character through a lot of levels very quickly as you advance through stronger and stronger enemies - It's about progression. As the game gets progressively harder, marginal efficiencies in character builds become more and more important to maintain an effective, and fun, character.

This linearity and progression means that it isn't necessarily fun if you get to a brick wall where 1 skill pick is the difference between being able to advance and not.

I remember getting to Diablo on Diablo 2 and my necromancer could not defeat him with my army of skeletons. The difference was literally one skill pick in getting them SOME elemental resistance (confirmed by cheating!). It would have been a 6-hour grind or something, tracing back through boring levels I could easily conquer to achieve this (going up a level or finding a suitable enchanted head). Needless to say, I dropped the game and don't think I ever returned to it at this point. In this case respeccing would have solved this issue for me, and the lack of it was a problem.

In Starfarer, I don't envisage that this will be the way things pan out. After 6 cycles, in your first game, you might be only just coming to terms with how you are wanting to play the game, and your combat build is really hampering your wish to trade as efficiently as possible. But I don't think Starfarer is supposed to be about progression, so much as ... conflict? Change?

The question is, do you allow respeccing, or encourage the player to stick it out / start a new game?

What does the sector look like after 6 cycles? What benefit would there be in the player becoming the person 'they always wanted to be', in the sector at this point? What's wrong with being a grizzled, battle-seasoned commander running a few freighters from port to port - it's still a fun exercise, even if you aren't doing it AS EFFICIENTLY AS POSSIBLE?

What about after 16 cycles when the Cult of Lud becoming a monstrous force in your main trade route, and you decide that there is more to be gained by being that legendary Commander from 12-13 cycles ago, maybe throwing your lot in with the Hegemony? Do you let people flip-flop between trades? How does this affect immersion?

I come from a background of enjoying hard and unforgiving games, like Nethack, Jagged Alliance 2, XCOM etc. and I thoroughly enjoy the aspect of 'losing' and coming at it afresh - and having to start a new game or just sitting by as the world crumbles around me (damn Ethereals). My first thought would be that respeccing is not for me.

I hope, if the world is living and breathing (even if those breaths are becoming less and less strong with each cycle) - then the majority of players will step away from thinking about DPS increases of 2%, and just playing things the way they want to play things and going along for the ride.

Having that push on players to stick with their decisions and ride them out to the end (even if that means their end) is (to me, at least) a positive one for the enjoyment of a game, and should form the basis of the 'vanilla balance' of the game.

I'm not against it if it turns out that it really does add to the game (and in truth, it probably will, as I can only imagine how difficult all the design issues will be to truly say that it won't) - but I wouldn't want it to be the default position for the grand-master-plan of how a typical game should play out.

He he ... oops, maybe that's four or five cents
[close]
that is a nice wall of text you have there  ;D

icepick37

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1788
  • Go.
    • View Profile
Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #647 on: September 10, 2012, 09:41:07 AM »

Yes it is. And I agree with every bit of it.

You check out FTL at all?
Logged
“I [may] not agree with a word that you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”
- Voltaire

Iscariot

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 852
    • View Profile
Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #648 on: September 10, 2012, 10:02:09 AM »

Yes it is. And I agree with every bit of it.

You check out FTL at all?

Yes and yes. I've been really into roguelikes as of late; it's a good genre to make a comeback.
Logged

The idea is that the various tech levels represent different - not "better" - ways to do things.

Wyvern

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 3784
    • View Profile
Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #649 on: September 10, 2012, 10:03:04 AM »

One thing I might suggest: instead of aiming for "enough points to cap out two aptitudes", aim for that plus maybe three to four points - that way, if someone puts their first two points in combat aptitude and then changes their mind, they aren't locked out of the top level of whatever they do chose to pursue.  Plus, personally, I'd find it much more interesting to be able to pick up a little bit of some side interest, than to feel that I need to focus exclusively on capping out whatever my main things are.
Logged
Wyvern is 100% correct about the math.

CrashToDesktop

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 3876
  • Quartermaster
    • View Profile
Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #650 on: September 10, 2012, 11:58:19 AM »

Nice wall of text, very interesting.  Read it all, and I have to agree. :)
Logged
Quote from: Trylobot
I am officially an epoch.
Quote from: Thaago
Note: please sacrifice your goats responsibly, look up the proper pronunciation of Alex's name. We wouldn't want some other project receiving mystic power.

Alex

  • Administrator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 23986
    • View Profile
Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #651 on: September 10, 2012, 12:20:18 PM »

Pet peeve: a "wall of text" means there are no paragraphs.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, guys. Lots of food for thought here.

One thing I might suggest: instead of aiming for "enough points to cap out two aptitudes", aim for that plus maybe three to four points - that way, if someone puts their first two points in combat aptitude and then changes their mind, they aren't locked out of the top level of whatever they do chose to pursue.

That, to me, is exactly what the soft cap is.
Logged

Thaago

  • Global Moderator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 7173
  • Harpoon Affectionado
    • View Profile
Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #652 on: September 10, 2012, 12:33:08 PM »

My 2 cents on repseccing:

Respeccing makes sense to me in the context of retraining: people can get better at some things while getting rusty at others. However: you can only retrain what a person knows, not who they are. From my perspective this means that aptitudes could not be retrained, but skills might be.

I would support having the option of using a respec point once per level (how much this would do is an open question), but they could not be banked. This represent how people can change in the moment, reacting to new scenarios. Can't bank change for a future date :P.

This would make sense in the context of a soft cap: the levels keep on coming, but after a short while all they let you do is gradually shift your character, rather than become a god.
Logged

Hyph_K31

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1605
  • O' Hear My Name and Tremble! Ug Ug.
    • View Profile
Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #653 on: September 10, 2012, 12:49:30 PM »

Spoiler
My 2 cents on repseccing:

Respeccing makes sense to me in the context of retraining: people can get better at some things while getting rusty at others. However: you can only retrain what a person knows, not who they are. From my perspective this means that aptitudes could not be retrained, but skills might be.

I would support having the option of using a respec point once per level (how much this would do is an open question), but they could not be banked. This represent how people can change in the moment, reacting to new scenarios. Can't bank change for a future date :P.

This would make sense in the context of a soft cap: the levels keep on coming, but after a short while all they let you do is gradually shift your character, rather than become a god.
[close]

+1

That seems "right" to me.
Logged

"GEDUNE, stop venting in front of your classmates!"

Dri

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1403
    • View Profile
Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #654 on: September 10, 2012, 01:17:03 PM »

Have you decided wither or not you'll remove the negative part of certain hull mods now that you have to invest into unlocking them? I think it would be somewhat of a bummer to finally unlock one of the really good hull mods and have it still suffer from a pretty hefty downside. =x

Such as removing the flux dissipation penalty on augmented engines and the turret turn speed penalty on advanced optics.
Logged

FalseDead

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 49
    • View Profile
Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #655 on: September 10, 2012, 09:53:00 PM »

I would kinda like to see the benefit's be a little random

Sure have some "locked in" Benefit's for choosing a class/skill/aptitude, but also have a sacrifice to the random number god



Every level of skill/aptitude could, rather than providing a fixed percentage or whole number improvement, give a series of random random rolls:

1) to choose a minor benefit from a associated Skill/Aptitude list( Example, Mechanic's having a list including: increased ordinance, reduced ordinance cost, improved hull integrity, improved flux capacity Etc..)

2) type of improvement ( whole number or percentage)

3) amount by which it is improved

4) random chance for second benefit (repeat step 1-3, do not pass step #3 do not collect 200 dollars)

This would make each playthrough be unique and represent each character learning at his own pace

Plus it would prevent, the game from stagnating later on if done without a hard cap


Edit: plus imagine what a great modder "cough" Okim "cough" could do with such a system....
  
« Last Edit: September 10, 2012, 10:01:09 PM by FalseDead »
Logged

YAZF

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 116
    • View Profile
Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #656 on: September 11, 2012, 12:17:01 AM »

And believe it or not, this game is still in alpha state.

This brings up the question, "Is the game going into beta now?" I thought I remembered somewhere Alex saying all the combat stuff would be Alpha and the heavy campaign stuff would be beta.
Logged
Dear Alex,
There should be a battlestation/star fortress fight in the main menu mission mode.  :)

Thana

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 289
    • View Profile
Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #657 on: September 11, 2012, 02:00:01 AM »

This brings up the question, "Is the game going into beta now?" I thought I remembered somewhere Alex saying all the combat stuff would be Alpha and the heavy campaign stuff would be beta.

I doubt it, since we're still at the single system, no real trade, no taking over of outposts etc. stage in the gameplan. But maybe, just maybe, it'll start in an update or few from the next one.
Logged

Gothars

  • Global Moderator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 4403
  • Eschewing obfuscatory verbosity.
    • View Profile
Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #658 on: September 11, 2012, 03:19:32 AM »

Normally, for a game to go into beta it must be feature complete. The beta-phase is just bug fixing, balancing and polish. So we are still many releases away from that.

What's still to come before beta, from the old roadmap:


A full character creation system and skills (next release)
Officers & crew
Establishing outposts on planets
Blueprints and ship/weapon manufacture
Trade & exploration
Faction relations
Raiding core worlds and outposts

Construction Rig, Repair Drones – repair ships mid-battle and build temporary weapon platforms around captured objectives
Munitions Ships/Drones – rearm you ships mid-battle
Mines!

Logged
The game was completed 8 years ago and we get a free expansion every year.

Arranging holidays in an embrace with the Starsector is priceless.

Thana

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 289
    • View Profile
Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #659 on: September 11, 2012, 07:10:28 AM »

Normally, for a game to go into beta it must be feature complete. The beta-phase is just bug fixing, balancing and polish. So we are still many releases away from that.

What's still to come before beta, from the old roadmap:


A full character creation system and skills (next release)
Officers & crew
Establishing outposts on planets
Blueprints and ship/weapon manufacture
Trade & exploration
Faction relations
Raiding core worlds and outposts

Construction Rig, Repair Drones – repair ships mid-battle and build temporary weapon platforms around captured objectives
Munitions Ships/Drones – rearm you ships mid-battle
Mines!

That is, indeed, the textbook definition. Whether Alex & co. are going by that, remains to be seen. If they are, you're absolutely right that we won't see the game in beta shape any time soon. On the other hand, I've seen a number of games use the designation "beta" for when the skeleton structure of all the important stuff is in place, so that could conceivably be the case within a few updates.

Ultimately, it's just semantics, though - the point is that the game isn't going to be finished any time soon, but it is going to keep rocking more with every update we get, and that's the main thing as far as I'm concerned.  :)
Logged
Pages: 1 ... 42 43 [44] 45 46 ... 50