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

Author Topic: Catering to newer/casual players  (Read 2395 times)

DanMc

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Catering to newer/casual players
« on: February 25, 2013, 10:21:08 AM »

I recently discovered Star sector, and was really excited for it. The features listed planned for the finished product were what I found myself wanting while playing EV Nova. So I pre-purchased the game and downloaded the beta. I'm loving the game so far, and am really excited for the finished product.

But one problem I'm seeing, one that is persistant throughout most new open-ended space games, is the un-needed complexity. Dont get me wrong I love the in-depth stat system, Mainstream simplicity is the reason I've been playing independent games like this.

For instance, when buying a ship listing every stat can be overwhelming for a player. Possibly use a rating system that crunches the numbers and tells the player the basic idea (e.g armor rating, shield rating). Of corse, still give the player the ability to check out the specifics if they so chose.

Also while outfitting ships, have a rating for how effective the current outfit is for battling different ship classes. Like if you have a ship armed to the teeth with fragmentation weapons it would have a high fighter effectiveness.
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Gothars

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Re: Catering to newer/casual players
« Reply #1 on: February 25, 2013, 10:42:12 AM »

Wow DanMC, you start of intense. I just involuntarily screamed "Nein!" after reading your post title. Poor neighbors.

After reading your idea it's all better though, it's relatable. Here's the thing, though: In earlier versions of the game a simplified system like you describe was implemented. Here's footage.

I don't know the exact reason why it was dropped, but I think it's pretty clear. The interactions between stats and ships in Sector are just too complex to display them in a simple manner and still make any sense. What is the use of showing things in a simple way if they then don't apply in actual combat, at least not in the way a player would them expect to?

By now there are other reasons, like the character system upgrading stats in a very fine-grained manner.  

I believe the best way to go here is to have really informative descriptions. The text should really emphasize the strong and weak points of every hull, so a new player has a real chance of gauging it. The description texts are pretty outdated anyway, there's hope that they proceed in that direction.

Anyway, welcome to the forum :)
« Last Edit: February 25, 2013, 10:47:47 AM by Gothars »
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Erick Doe

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Re: Catering to newer/casual players
« Reply #2 on: February 25, 2013, 10:44:17 AM »

But one problem I'm seeing, one that is persistant throughout most new open-ended space games, is the un-needed complexity. Dont get me wrong I love the in-depth stat system, Mainstream simplicity is the reason I've been playing independent games like this.

The reason I like independent games is the resurgence of old concepts and the fact that these games are not dumbed down for the masses. I enjoy complexity and I feel that most mainstream games these days (well, the last 10 years really) are too simple. So I guess I agree with you there.

I'm just curious why you feel that this game, along with several other open-ended space games, is un-neededly complex? Sure, all the stats for ships are listed in one small window, but you'll soon enough discover what everything does. What makes it too overwhelming? Is it the numbers? Would you prefer to be text-based, kind of how maneuverability is listed as poor / medium / good? Or tooltips explaining the various statistics, like flux?

There's already some coloured text that show if a stat is "bad" (i.e. red), "average" (yellow) or good (green).
« Last Edit: February 25, 2013, 10:45:48 AM by Erick Doe »
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Gabrybbo

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Re: Catering to newer/casual players
« Reply #3 on: February 25, 2013, 11:33:47 AM »

Starsector does this with the ship/weapon/hullmod descriptions that usually allow to understand the role of a ship/weapon/hullmod fairly quickly. Then some practice with it is everything you need.
But yeah, giving a rating for certain aspects of a ship (maneuverability, speed, armament, flux management, defense ...) and then allow a player to go see the raw data could be a very neat idea. So you can choose a ship that seems to fit what you need and then move on to the in-depth stats instead of having to go through quite a bit of numbers to understand how a ship behaves in combat.

By the way, there should be a button that once pressed when hovering the mouse over a particular weapon, a ship or a hullmod makes you go to the respective codex entry, so that you can instantly read more things than the UI can contain in a refit screen.
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Cycerin

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Re: Catering to newer/casual players
« Reply #4 on: February 25, 2013, 11:59:18 AM »

I don't understand why a new player would need to read that say, an Enforcer with three flak cannons and two vulcans (five fragmentation weapons) is good against fighters? You can spend one minute in the simulator and find out. Or you can read the tooltip info on the flak cannon that says it's good against fighters, do two plus two inside your head and work out that fragmentation = good against fighters!

If anything, there could be a second tooltip overlay - for instance, if you mouseover the icon for frag damage, it could say "Fragmentation damage is good against thinly-armored targets like fighters and missiles, but weak against heavily armored targets." and then maybe the overview of how many % damage frag does to shields, armor and hull, to back up the claims in the explanation that came just before it. These sharply defined stat relationships are pretty much the only thing I would call unintuitive about the game.

To try to explain how "discovering complexity" can be fun, say that you made this Enforcer setup to try to figure out how you could make a ship that excels at killing fighters. Inadvertantly you also discover that it's really good at destroying missiles. Then later when you look at "Point Defense" setups on stock variants, you see that there is no such role for a ship setup in Starsector as "anti fighter", because all point defense weapons have a dual purpose - destroying both fighters and missiles. Then even later you might figure out that a weapon like the Phase Beam is actually better at destroying fighters than some point defense weapons might be, simply due to its accuracy. And that's fun!
« Last Edit: February 25, 2013, 12:11:00 PM by Cycerin »
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MindsEye

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Re: Catering to newer/casual players
« Reply #5 on: February 25, 2013, 03:04:12 PM »

I for one am looking for things to get more complex and more involving.The more things I can interact with or control the better the game is.It feels more open ended.One of the things about games like this is it makes me feel like I am playing old school games(EV).In reality tho they are much more complex and I can do a whole lot more than I could with the older games.Guess I may be a bit strange in that I want it to make me feel old school but play more like a sim.If you want simple you can always go back to ev and the like.

Also this game is evolving and alot is probably going to change yet.
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