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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: About as much fun as getting my teeth pulled.  (Read 19722 times)

Hyph_K31

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Re: About as much fun as getting my teeth pulled.
« Reply #15 on: December 23, 2013, 06:19:06 PM »


I apoligise in advance for what may be an incoherent half-rant.

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Fun come in all shapes and sizes. In my opinion, the fun of Starsector is in the challenge. Not all games are easy, and StarSector is in an odd place, for some being extremely difficult and for others posing very little challenge at all.

You can look at many successful and brilliant games and point out features that may not necessarily be called fun - for instance, almost game that involves expenditure. In the end, CR is a cost that may be paid for with supplies or credits. No one likes to pay.

CR is no different to a stamina bar, health bar or hunger bar. The only real difference is in how we feed it and how we look at it.

Hunger bar gets too low? You die.

Health bar gets too low? You die.

CR gets too low? You'll probably scrape through.

I believe that as it stands, CR provides at least temporarily a barrier to strive against. And striving to survive, is very much in the spirit of StarSector. This is dystopia, after all.

---------

And now I shall sleep, as perhaps I should have done before posting this.

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PCCL

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Re: About as much fun as getting my teeth pulled.
« Reply #16 on: December 23, 2013, 06:26:14 PM »

the implementation of CR has been controversial indeed....

I suppose I'm by far the minority here, but I think the current implementation of CR is way too easy for my liking

I do agree with this though:

Quote
If you wanted to add in things like this, you should have finished the rest of the game first

the CR currently is like adding survival elements when the only way to get food is raiding the lairs of sabretooth tigers. Maybe addition of trading and contracts to some extent before CR would've been a good idea
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boogada

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Re: About as much fun as getting my teeth pulled.
« Reply #17 on: December 23, 2013, 06:51:06 PM »

I like the idea of CR, without it you could deploy your whole fleet for every engagement with no consequence.  I feel having to gauge your opponent and pick the appropriate number of ships to deal with them adds to the game.

Of course, I wouldn't disagree with an option to either turn it off or adjust how much CR deployment costs as a difficulty setting.
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Hotshot3434

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Re: About as much fun as getting my teeth pulled.
« Reply #18 on: December 23, 2013, 10:21:22 PM »

Although at first I disliked CR because it left me with little to no options. I had to constantly seek battle in order to provide supplies, which cost more supplies, leading to a circle of frustration. Finally I realized that my old play style of "get as many ships as possible with as many crew you can hold and do battle as often as possible" was just plain wrong. You need to slim down your forces to essentials, use tactics, and just plain think about your situation. In the end I found it to be a large improvement to the game to meet the goal of a tactical space combat game and less of a mindless romp around space in an overpowered fleet.
« Last Edit: December 23, 2013, 10:23:05 PM by Hotshot3434 »
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ciago92

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Re: About as much fun as getting my teeth pulled.
« Reply #19 on: December 23, 2013, 10:53:46 PM »

You need to slim down your forces to essentials, use tactics, and just plain think about your situation. In the end I found it to be a large improvement to the game to meet the goal of a tactical space combat game and less of a mindless romp around space in an overpowered fleet.

This is exactly why I love CR. It rewards smart play and punishes steamrolling over everything. You can't just hit the deploy all button any more and I heartily approve of that.
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Bjørn_in_the_Sector

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Re: About as much fun as getting my teeth pulled.
« Reply #20 on: December 24, 2013, 03:01:49 AM »

I feel that it's a question of adaptability. If you have adapted your playstyle to this content (which has been around for a while, now, to be frank) then you're good to go. I joined this community right after CR was implemented, and I sucked. REALLY sucked. I couldn't do anything, because I wasn't wise to the complexities of the game. I figured that campaign wasn't for me. So I tried missions and mods (all perfectly legitimate ways to play games - look at titles like LOL and DOTA. They evolved from mods of World of Warcraft, and missions are an integral part of the game) until I felt ready to dive back into vanilla. It was a step up from exerelin, now that I wasn't able to mine supplies and therefore forget about CR, but it wasn't as steep a learning curve, as I had already mastered (ha ha, yeah right) the combat and running away mechanics. People who complain about CR have a good point - that it's a very steep learning curve. However, there are perfectly legitimate ways to get around it and still have boatloads of fun. It's a challenge, but a surmountable one, and that will always give me more satisfaction than rolling round as a god of war (I'm looking at you, COD and BF4).
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Aik

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Re: About as much fun as getting my teeth pulled.
« Reply #21 on: December 24, 2013, 04:24:48 AM »

I never played a version of this game without CR and possibly because of that I don't see what everyone's so unhappy about. It seems fine to me...
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736b

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Re: About as much fun as getting my teeth pulled.
« Reply #22 on: December 24, 2013, 04:35:49 AM »

Certainly not everyone is unhappy about CR: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=7194.0
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Megas

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Re: About as much fun as getting my teeth pulled.
« Reply #23 on: December 24, 2013, 07:21:48 AM »

Problems I have with CR:
  • Battleships (and some cruisers) are often impractical.  They are slow, eat lots of Logistics, need a hideous amount of supplies to recover CR, and recover CR slowly without stations.  Frigate or destroyer swarms are usually most effective.  If enemy fleet is too powerful for AI to handle, send a ship one at a time and pilot each one yourself (and show why speed, range, and kiting are king in this game regardless of ship size).
  • Player needs lots of ships to mitigate CR.  After one or two battles, ships are too winded to continue, and player must either switch to another ship or run back to home for repairs.  Replacement ships bigger than frigates requires Leadership/Fleet Logistics.  Right now, a fleet is best used as extra flagship lives or pack mules, not as fellow comrades-in-arms in battle that are too dumb to live.
  • Player needs freighters to carry the loot salvaged after defeating one fleet as big or bigger than the player's, without exceeding capacity.  Then a third of the supplies looted will be consumed to fix your ships.  10 Logistics needs to be set aside for freighters and four Oxen (because freighters are slow).  Oxen used for freighter(s) means the player has one left to speed up any other cruiser or battleship he may have.  Freighters should be used for trading or supply runs, not an obligatory bag of holding for basic functions.

Quote
I like the idea of CR, without it you could deploy your whole fleet for every engagement with no consequence.
This is one thing I dislike about the game now, as I am now forced to get Leadership/Fleet Logistics to get backup ships.  Even without backup, I still need Leadership/Fleet Logistics 3 for one battleship (or a squad of frigates) and pack mules to carry all the loot from large fleet battles.

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"get as many ships as possible with as many crew you can hold and do battle as often as possible" was just plain wrong.
And that is a shame.  It should be a viable playstyle like it used to be.

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and that will always give me more satisfaction than rolling round as a god of war
I have the most fun rolling around as "a god of war".  After I struggle and claw my way out of low level weakness, I want to step on everyone as a high level demigod, even on other high level demigods.
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Zelnik

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Re: About as much fun as getting my teeth pulled.
« Reply #24 on: December 24, 2013, 11:21:54 AM »

Accusing people of not having mental prowess to grasp a mechanic is rather insulting. I get the mechanic and understand why it's there.

I don't understand why the devs made it a priority (it's not at this stage), they should have focused on bug fixing, universe building, economy , missions, and adding more ships.

I don't understand who would ever believe taking control of the ship away from the player is a good idea. IF YOU WANT TO LOSE CONTROL, PLAY DRAGON'S LAIR

I don't understand why, for some mysterious reason, if you leave combat with a perfect victory and zero losses, your CR drops like a stone, and somehow your weapons and engines simply stop working.

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Erick Doe

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Re: About as much fun as getting my teeth pulled.
« Reply #25 on: December 24, 2013, 11:28:40 AM »

It is not a priority. It is a crucial part of (future) gameplay. The pieces are laid one by one and will fit together nicely, eventually. You can not blame developers for intoducing and testing out gameplay features in an alpha build. Even if a feature may seem out of place now, it may work nicely when more / new gameplay features are introduced. If it didn't work like this, we wouldn't receive any updates at all.
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Megas

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Re: About as much fun as getting my teeth pulled.
« Reply #26 on: December 24, 2013, 07:54:07 PM »

Quote
IF YOU WANT TO LOSE CONTROL, PLAY DRAGON'S LAIR
Dragon's Lair was fun when it first came out in arcades (before operators cranked difficulty to unfair levels years later).  Probably because it was unique at the time.  Certainly a break from various video games and pinball machines.  Space Ace, not so much.

Of course, I understand your point, I think.  You hopefully input the correct move at the correct time.  You do, you live.  If not, you die embarrassingly and/or humorously.  Either way, you enjoy the show as a spectator, briefly.  Like Shadowgate or Zork, once you solve the game, there is little left to do other than find the many embarrassing ways to die.

In case of Starsector, you watch in horror as the enemy picks off your crippled non-combat ready ships one-by-one.
« Last Edit: December 24, 2013, 08:08:26 PM by Megas »
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Linnis

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Re: About as much fun as getting my teeth pulled.
« Reply #27 on: December 24, 2013, 08:42:00 PM »

Alex has allready said he will tone down cr cost for deployment. After that, i think it will be fine...  I dont recall this game ever trying to be an arcade shooter. 

Its still easy as hell tho, maybe for once, use your head?
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Thaago

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Re: About as much fun as getting my teeth pulled.
« Reply #28 on: December 24, 2013, 09:13:05 PM »

CR values are being tweaked for the next release: half the deployment costs (roughly), half the recoup rates. Should iron out a lot of things.

I'm surprised more people don't complain about the "slow fleet after successful escape" bug now THATS a kick to the nuts.
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BillyRueben

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Re: About as much fun as getting my teeth pulled.
« Reply #29 on: December 25, 2013, 06:43:30 AM »

I'm surprised more people don't complain about the "slow fleet after successful escape" bug now THATS a kick to the nuts.

I feel like a lot of people never actually attempt the retreat option. There are only a few on this forum that enjoy the pre-"whoop everything's ass" section of the game, so the retreat isn't a necessary option.

Personally, that bug is probably the most annoying one I've ever run in to in this game, and I cannot believe that it wasn't fixed quicker.
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