Fractal Softworks Forum

Starsector => Suggestions => Topic started by: Amoebka on April 11, 2021, 03:05:51 AM

Title: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: Amoebka on April 11, 2021, 03:05:51 AM
Everyone's posting their hot takes on skill balance, so here's mine. The skills are fine, it's the aptitudes that are wrong.

Skills, currently, are grouped into aptitudes mostly based on flavour, and not their gameplay use. An aptitude can have fleet-buffing skills, campaign QoL, piloted ships skills and colony skills all mixed together. Since skills are tiered, this forces players to pick skills they fundamentally don't want to unlock the higher ones. Industry has piloted ship skills at tier 2. Anyone who wants colony skills has to pick a skill that applies only to their flagship. Why is this a thing?

Let's now have a look at the 4 aptitudes:

1) Combat. This one is perfect. Every single skill is about buffing your flagship and nothing else. This is how it should be, no big changes needed.

2) Leadership. Here you have fleet-wide bonuses, officer bonuses, frigate and carrier bonuses (?), colony buffs (??!) and rading buffs (??!). Mostly fine, outside of tier 5 colony stuff.

3) Technology. We have campaign QoL, flagship skills, fleetwide buffs, carrier stuff, phase stuff, loadout bonuses and new ships. All over the place, zero cohesion whatsoever. Yes, flavour-wise, navigation and sensors are "tech stuff", but gameplay-wise they have nothing in common with fleet and loadout buffs.

4) Industry. Campaign QoL, flagship skills, fleetwide buffs, zombie ship stuff, colony skills. No cohesion again. A dumping ground for skills that didn't find a place elsewhere.

Suggested improvement is conceptually simple - make aptitudes defined by their GAMEPLAY effects.

1) Combat remains as is - flagship skills only.

2) Leadership is fleetwide buffs, including officers. Remove civilian hull buffs, remove colony and raiding. ECM and phase corps belong here, not tech.

3) Tech is about more freedom in loadouts, encouraging unconventional loadouts and new ship types. Flagship skills go to combat, fleet buffs go to leadership.

4) Industry is about campaign-level QoL and improvements, including ship salvage and zombie fleets. Navigation and sensors go here, not tech. Flagship skills go to combat. Colony skills are ALL dumped here (I know you wanted them separate so players can't have all 4, this was a bad idea as it forced colony skills into leadership, preventing looping). Alternatively, colony skills are removed entirely and moved to admins (with the admin cap increased for everyone). They are simply too far removed from everything else in the game. Industry players are the ones most likely to want them, but even then I don't think it's optimal to have them there.

If all skills in an aptitude are about the same general area of the game, people will feel a lot less miserable about looping around to get the skills they want, or even getting to high-level ones at all.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: SonnaBanana on April 11, 2021, 03:10:37 AM
No, the amount of tiers and the low level cap are the problems
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: Megas on April 11, 2021, 06:22:49 AM
Combat is miserable for players who frequently change flagships, because player needs to respec every time player changes from a warship to phase ship (and carriers if they were good) and back.  Elite skills make respec (more) expensive, but I imagine even a single point with no bonus xp would add up if respec was done often.  (I cannot waste points if I plan to feed the 2^n costs of colony improvement.)  It should be as free as swapping officers for flagships.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: Sutopia on April 11, 2021, 08:58:00 AM
Combat is still not ideal due to forced picking unwanted skills.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: Alex on April 11, 2021, 10:47:48 AM
Industry has piloted ship skills at tier 2. Anyone who wants colony skills has to pick a skill that applies only to their flagship. Why is this a thing?

This sentiment comes up a bit, and, I mean, I think I understand where it comes from. But - the game is still *primarily* combat-focused. If you're forced to pick a combat skill on the way to other non-combat ones... it's the same idea as Tech 1 being a choice between 2 QoL skills. If you're optimizing hard, you might not get either of them. But since you have to pick *one* of them to get to the higher-level Tech skills, then you can feel ok about picking up a QoL skill - it's not "wasted" since you had to do it. Likewise with the combat skills on Tech/Industry 2 - you're forced to pick them, so even if you want to spend as many points as possible on boosting your fleet or colonies, you'll still end up with some combat skills without feeling like you had to make a sacrifice to do it.

I understand that the flipside is that if you really just didn't want any combat skills at all, it feels like you're forced to pick a skill you're not going to use. But, well, not piloting the ship personally (or even deploying your flagship) is definitely a bit of a fringe style. I get that people do it, and I'm glad it's possible, but it's not the primary design focus, so some things will be a bit rough if seen from that perspective. This is one of them. I hope this makes sense!
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: Sutopia on April 11, 2021, 10:55:58 AM
Industry has piloted ship skills at tier 2. Anyone who wants colony skills has to pick a skill that applies only to their flagship. Why is this a thing?

This sentiment comes up a bit, and, I mean, I think I understand where it comes from. But - the game is still *primarily* combat-focused. If you're forced to pick a combat skill on the way to other non-combat ones... it's the same idea as Tech 1 being a choice between 2 QoL skills. If you're optimizing hard, you might not get either of them. But since you have to pick *one* of them to get to the higher-level Tech skills, then you can feel ok about picking up a QoL skill - it's not "wasted" since you had to do it. Likewise with the combat skills on Tech/Industry 2 - you're forced to pick them, so even if you want to spend as many points as possible on boosting your fleet or colonies, you'll still end up with some combat skills without feeling like you had to make a sacrifice to do it.

I understand that the flipside is that if you really just didn't want any combat skills at all, it feels like you're forced to pick a skill you're not going to use. But, well, not piloting the ship personally (or even deploying your flagship) is definitely a bit of a fringe style. I get that people do it, and I'm glad it's possible, but it's not the primary design focus, so some things will be a bit rough if seen from that perspective. This is one of them. I hope this makes sense!

It's fine to have a combat skill but my choices are the two I wanted least so it's a frustrating experience.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: Amoebka on April 11, 2021, 11:02:13 AM
Tech 1 being a choice between 2 QoL skills. If you're optimizing hard, you might not get either of them. But since you have to pick *one* of them to get to the higher-level Tech skills, then you can feel ok about picking up a QoL skill - it's not "wasted" since you had to do it.

I'm afraid that's not how minmaxer's psychology works.  :D I can forgive navigation because +1 burn at least very indirectly boosts combat (I can bring bigger ships to fights more easily), but getting colony skills to loop leadership is not something I can "feel ok" about.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: Alex on April 11, 2021, 11:52:55 AM
... but getting colony skills to loop leadership is not something I can "feel ok" about.

A fair, but different point! Though that's why one of those gets you a raiding bonus (so it's not purely colony) and I'd like to add an extra bonus to Space Operations. (Probably something along the lines of "as if you held an objective worth 10% DP at the start of combat"...)

Looping is somewhat less of a concern, too; in general I'd imagine it's a less-appealing option most of the time than investing in another line of skills.

It's fine to have a combat skill but my choices are the two I wanted least so it's a frustrating experience.

Perhaps the two options there could stand to be more exciting or at least diverse, hmm...
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: TuxedoCatfish on April 11, 2021, 12:04:58 PM
I strongly feel that combat skills and utility (and especially economy) skills should not be purchased with the same currency. It's a miserable choice to make every single time -- do I want to be effective, or do I want reduced tedium? Pretty much all of the utility skills that are currently in the game would be better off if they were either baseline, or only competing amongst themselves in a parallel system.

I'm more ambivalent on the skills that make you choose between different combat roles. On the one hand, in 0.91 I really enjoyed bringing multiple un-captained ships and swapping command between them according to what the battle at hand needed; on the other hand, I understand and accept the rationale that Starsector is at least partly meant to be an RPG and having the player specialize into particular roles promotes replayability.

I also really enjoy specializing officers into particular roles and how that shapes your fleet -- in fact I think that aspect could be pushed even further, because right now for example the only difference between my perfectly-optimized frigate pilots and my perfectly-optimized tanky/anchor pilots is which skills get upgraded to Elite.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: Megas on April 11, 2021, 03:16:11 PM
What I do not like about Leadership colony skills is they are gated behind permanent officer skills.  If I wanted Ground Operations for raiding rare items (and stability), I have locked skill points into officers for the rest of the game.

At least Automated Ships do not lock the player into Tech, which is the main reason why I took Automated Ships over Special Modifications.  +1 s-mod interests me more than killer Radiant (although killer Radiant is fun), but I do not want to lock out use of Automated Ships for the rest of the game if I want to respec and play around.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: Amoebka on April 11, 2021, 03:21:40 PM
I don't understand why the +2 limit skill is even permanent. The game already allows you to over the limit and handles it properly with the cryopod rescuees. Simply unassign all officers when the player refunds the skill and let the last 2 become unaccessible until the player dismisses somebody.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: Megas on April 11, 2021, 03:24:03 PM
I don't understand why the +2 limit skill is even permanent. The game already allows you to over the limit and handles it properly with the cryopod rescuees. Simply unassign all officers when the player refunds the skill and let the last 2 become unaccessible until the player dismisses somebody.
Not to mention Colony Management in I5R too.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: ubuntufreakdragon on April 11, 2021, 03:43:06 PM
I dislike the new skill system.
The old one was a perfect parallelization, which made it difficult to balance, as you could reach very good and mediocre skills with the same investment.
The new system is a perfect serialization, leaving close to no choice in what you take, also the roll over forces you to complete a category to take 2 tier 1 qol skills like nav and sensors.
I want a tree, or trees, a forest maybe where some skills are based on others and you can take some in parallel.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: Sly on April 11, 2021, 08:26:52 PM
[SPOILERS]

I don't think the skills should be locked behind tiered progression. Any skills that build on another are on separate aptitudes and on different tiers. I find no reason the player can't simply choose whatever skill they want, whenever they have the points to do so.

Even if I think there is a thematic case for skills being tiered where they are, your skills don't exist to tell a story - they simply allow you to perform a given function better. I'm always fond of the flavor text, though.

Anyway, my point is that I think tiers are pointless and aptitudes are only good for organizing skills thematically.

Any challenge in the game can be surmounted without spending a single skill point, and if you think something is so powerful that it needs to be locked behind other skills, then maybe that needs to be re-examined and become something to unlock, instead. Like the Red Planet Shield or the Traverse Jump and Neutrino Detector handouts from the Academy.

Leadership T4, instead of a skill, is probably easily gated by something like "Start your own faction! Now, do you like your officers higher level or in greater number?"

Tech T5? Cool, you built your first Heavy Industry and started your own corps of engineers. Here's your extra slot for a built-in mod. Good work!

Blow up a Remnant Nexus? Here's how to ~control your own robots~, you did it!

Those mechanics are all great ideas, but they're terrible as skills because they screw up your system. With the way you have it set up, skills are just stuff you plug in or pull out depending on your circumstances, after all.

There's plenty of space in the game for cool stuff like the above. Not only is there space, the game is practically begging for the accompanying flavor text to fill in the blank spaces. I thought it was great on the Academy missions, and would have loved to see more.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: Atilla the Bum on April 12, 2021, 02:30:50 PM
I like what Sly is saying a lot. Let the player cherry pick what they want from each aptitude but keep it so that to "double-up" on a skill choice you still need to buy at least one of every skill in an aptitude. Forcing players to pick stuff they don't necessarily want to *complete* their build is always a feel-bad moment.

Now obviously not all the skills are equal so that would require a rebalance of some of them or perhaps a level requirement and/or a in-game achievement like Sly was advocating for the most powerful of skills. Keep skills like this to a minimum but they would add some neat flavor to your character's accomplishments in the sector.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: Megas on April 12, 2021, 02:37:55 PM
Cherry picking skills would make permanent skills hurt less after respec.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: intrinsic_parity on April 12, 2021, 02:47:10 PM
I think cherry picking skills just puts you exactly where the old skill system ended up. All the skills have to be balanced against one another and have to balanced as if you have them straight out of the tutorial, which is impossible, so you end up with a bunch of useful but low impact/qol skills that never get used because other ones are just better. Boring meta-builds emerge where the player just cherry-picks all the best skills and doesn't have to make any interesting decisions.

I personally really like the new system, and I don't mind having to take lower quality skills to get to higher quality skills. It makes for a lot of tough decisions, but tough decisions are good! The real problem is that people are used to getting everything they want from the skill system and not having to make any trade-offs between strong skills or tough choices.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: Amoebka on April 12, 2021, 02:51:59 PM
Boring meta builds emerge regardless of whether skills are tiered or flat. The only difference is that with the tiered system the meta builds include some unavoidable "bad skills" necessary to unlock the higher levels.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: intrinsic_parity on April 12, 2021, 02:55:28 PM
Boring meta builds emerge regardless of whether skills are tiered or flat. The only difference is that with the tiered system the meta builds include some unavoidable "bad skills" necessary to unlock the higher levels.
I think the problem is that in a cherry picking system, the difference between two viable builds is always small changes in low impact/irrelevant skills and the core set of strong skills remains. With a tiered system, you have to make choices between strong skills so there can be very different builds that are both viable because they take advantage of different strong skills that are very difficult to take together. If you could cherry pick, you would just take both strong skills every time. It's much more interesting to me.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: Sutopia on April 12, 2021, 02:55:41 PM
I personally really like the new system, and I don't mind having to take lower quality skills to get to higher quality skills. It makes for a lot of tough decisions, but tough decisions are good! The real problem is that people are used to getting everything they want from the skill system and not having to make any trade-offs between strong skills or tough choices.

So you think it’s perfectly fine to have 4 skill point of tax to get both technology T1 qol skills?
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: Amoebka on April 12, 2021, 02:59:39 PM
Calling flux modulation and special modifications tax for getting sensors is beyond my mortal comprehension. Maybe Alex was right all along, people DO assign vastly different values to skills.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: intrinsic_parity on April 12, 2021, 03:04:59 PM
I personally really like the new system, and I don't mind having to take lower quality skills to get to higher quality skills. It makes for a lot of tough decisions, but tough decisions are good! The real problem is that people are used to getting everything they want from the skill system and not having to make any trade-offs between strong skills or tough choices.

So you think it’s perfectly fine to have 4 skill point of tax to get both technology T1 qol skills?
Yeah, it's called a trade-off. You make a decisions between different things that you want and you don't get them all. As long as the game plays fine without any particular skill (I think it does outside of a couple outliers (ECM) right now), there's nothing wrong with not being able to get a particular combination skills easily. That sort of decision is interesting to me.

I also wouldn't call some of the best skills in the game a tax. I think Alex has done a good job of making almost all the skills useful, there are only a few where I feel like I would have trouble getting a comparable amount of value to other skills.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: Sutopia on April 12, 2021, 03:08:23 PM
I personally really like the new system, and I don't mind having to take lower quality skills to get to higher quality skills. It makes for a lot of tough decisions, but tough decisions are good! The real problem is that people are used to getting everything they want from the skill system and not having to make any trade-offs between strong skills or tough choices.

So you think it’s perfectly fine to have 4 skill point of tax to get both technology T1 qol skills?
Yeah, it's called a trade-off. You make a decisions between different things that you want and you don't get them all. As long as the game plays fine without any particular skill (I think it does outside of a couple outliers (ECM) right now), there's nothing wrong with not being able to get a particular combination skills easily. That sort of decision is interesting to me.

I also wouldn't call some of the best skills in the game a tax. I think Alex has done a good job of making almost all the skills useful, there are only a few where I feel like I would have trouble getting a comparable amount of value to other skills.
Good skills are not excuses for taxing good synergy skills people used to pick together.
Combat tree is the only tree that gets nearly no tax and sometimes synergies picks along the way but not for any other tree.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: SCC on April 12, 2021, 03:18:40 PM
Combat tree is the only tree that gets nearly no tax and sometimes synergies picks along the way but not for any other tree.
Combat has no pairs that synergise, so depending on what you are flying, half of the tree is useless to you. If anything, it's sad that if you want the most possible combat power, looping around in combat is worse than going for all other trees.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: intrinsic_parity on April 12, 2021, 03:20:20 PM
To reiterate:
The real problem is that people are used to getting everything they want from the skill system and not having to make any trade-offs between strong skills or tough choices.
I don't expect to be able to have all the things I had in the last release.
Instead I look at what I can have, and then try to decide what I want the most, and what I'm willing to give up. I try different combinations and have different successes and struggles. It's fun.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: Atilla the Bum on April 12, 2021, 03:39:58 PM
Yeah, it's called a trade-off. You make a decisions between different things that you want and you don't get them all. As long as the game plays fine without any particular skill (I think it does outside of a couple outliers (ECM) right now), there's nothing wrong with not being able to get a particular combination skills easily. That sort of decision is interesting to me.

I also wouldn't call some of the best skills in the game a tax. I think Alex has done a good job of making almost all the skills useful, there are only a few where I feel like I would have trouble getting a comparable amount of value to other skills.

There are already trade-offs built into the system, its both the maximum points I have (15) and the fact that you have to choose between 2 skills. When I spend a point there is an opportunity cost of spending it anywhere else too. If I have to spend points in an aptitude in a skill I don't want to get a skill I do want that's not a trade off that's a tax. Taxes suck.

I do agree that not all skills are made equally so there would have to be some rebalancing and/or some special way of unlocking some of the more dominant skills I just think a linear tier system is the wrong way to do it.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: Serenitis on April 13, 2021, 01:05:01 AM
QoL skills being 'trapped' behind anything is bad.
QoL skills being forced into some mockery of a 'choice' is bad. (Mockery because you will always pick the QoL over anything, explicitly because its QoL. So, it's never a choice.)
Being forced to pick between one QoL skill or another is bad.

Here's where it's difficult.
Everyone has a different idea of what QoL is. Everyone assigns different values to the same things because they want different things out of the game.
Everyone wants to do different things in different ways, but now some of them are finding it really difficult to do that. Or in some cases straight up can't do that.
This is why the current skill system has caused such a fuss.
Not everyone can consistently pick what they consider to be QoL skills any more, and that introduces a degree of frustration. Especially when you are 'forced' to spend your very limited amount of points on things you're either not really interested in, or would be counterproductive to what you want to do in order to get them or other skills that you are interested in.

lol @ this
(https://i.imgur.com/jeafAv0.png)
[close]

Someone gave a description of the 'old' system which was really great: "Perfect Parallelisation".
You could take multiple skill sets in parallel, and it didn't matter what you were trying to do there was always a way to support that so long as you had points available.
Balancing this is hard. But it doesn't need to be perfect, only 'good enough'.
The previous setup wasn't perfect, but it was far more flexible that what we have currently. And if combined with the respec ability, this balance would have a much wider margin for 'good enough' since choices are no longer permanent.

Balancing the current skills is easier if you only balance for a very narrow view of player activity, which is what has happened.
And all the players who didn't care very much for being shoved into that narrow box are now unhappy with being shoved into a narrow box that previousy they could have avoided entirely.

And furthermore, I consider that gated skills must be destroyed.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: SCC on April 13, 2021, 01:26:45 AM
If I were to rate all the skills...
(https://i.imgur.com/3DMali0.jpg)
[close]
The previous setup wasn't perfect, but it was far more flexible that what we have currently. And if combined with the respec ability, this balance would have a much wider margin for 'good enough' since choices are no longer permanent.
Old system also had that issue that you had to make no sacrifices in order to get what you want. Well, at least I didn't have to. Might as well remove all the skills and make all the effects of them a part of the base game, it wouldn't have made much difference to me.
My 0.9.1 skill distribution
(https://i.imgur.com/HJJBAoq.png)
[close]
I hope Alex will buff tier 5s and perhaps maybe also tier 4s.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: Megas on April 13, 2021, 04:22:34 AM
Ever since s-mods ruined the idea of rebuild-and-replace lost ships, and Restore still costs way too much, I consider Field Repairs non-negotiable QoL.  Without it, I would reload the game after every casualty.  Of course, since Field Repairs takes too long to remove d-mods, I would reload the game if I take more than a few casualties.  Basically, Field Repairs extends the reload criteria from losing a single ship to losing several ships.  If Field Repairs were faster, and/or made Restore much cheaper (or s-mods transferred from one ship to another), I would be okay losing more than a few ships in a fight.

Too bad Field Repairs needs four points to unlock.  It is somewhat bearable since I also have a fondness for colony skills (meaning I take Industry 5 since it is just one more point after Field Repairs), except the ones in Leadership are blocked by permanent officer skills.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: Serenitis on April 13, 2021, 06:23:48 AM
Old system also had that issue that you had to make no sacrifices in order to get what you want.

The old system did have sacrifice in it.
That 091 character build you posted has quite clearly sacrificed all colony & maitenance skills.
Those things might not have had much value to you, hence they don't 'feel' like a sacrifice. But they still were.
Every player is different, and values different things. Which is where the 091 skills system was far superior in enabling that variety.

This is the core of the issue.
Having choices between things that are buffs, or enable/tradeoff certain playstyles is fine.
Having choices between those things and a QoL, or two QoLs is not.
And every single player has a different idea of what a 'buff' and 'QoL' is. (And bear in mind here that the players define what these are for themselves.)
It's literally impossible to balance in the context of this game no matter how you approach it or what you do. Which is why its causing such a problem, and will continue to do so so long as there is a linear/serial/tier progression of requirements.

The only way I can see the 'tier' system working at all it to ditch the hard requirements, and unlock an entire 'tier' based on the number of points spent regardless of where they are put.

I want every single player, current and future to be able to pick up this amazing game and play it however they like without feeling as though they've been 'forced' to do things a certain way, or restricted from something they wanted to do.
The 095 skills system as it stands does not allow this.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: Megas on April 13, 2021, 06:46:40 AM
One advantage of 0.95 is respec.  If I decide to farm cores and put up with the downsides, I can get rid of the colony skills if I had them before.  I could not do this in 0.9.1a.

That said, respec is expensive with elite skills, and few skills cannot be respec away.

However, I do not like the warship/phase split in combat and tech.  I liked combo stuff like old Power Grid Modulation in 0.9.1 (minus x4 shift that shafted PPT of phase ships).
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: SCC on April 13, 2021, 07:47:02 AM
The old system did have sacrifice in it.
That 091 character build you posted has quite clearly sacrificed all colony & maitenance skills.
Alpha cores do colonies better than me. As for maintenance, I fear not losing a % of profit when searching for blueprints items, I always came to the core with bays full. Being able to efficiently defeat almost any enemy does that. The lack of salvaging does hurt somewhat in that regard, but I have been able to find decent blueprint sets in all my 0.9.1 games. So I guess that is the one sacrifice I made, not getting all blueprints, but only most of them (unless I raid factions, then it goes back to all of them). It still meant there never was a reason to pick anything but this skill set (well, except for piloting carriers, which I don't really bother with. If I was piloting a carrier, some combat skills would lose value, so I'd say even someone with a carrier preference could get by with a similar set).
And every single player has a different idea of what a 'buff' and 'QoL' is.
I, for example, consider approximately 0 skills, past or present, as "necessary" quality of life stuff.

I want every single player, current and future to be able to pick up this amazing game and play it however they like without feeling as though they've been 'forced' to do things a certain way, or restricted from something they wanted to do.
The 095 skills system as it stands does not allow this.
Biggest issues I know of is that combat is worthless for double dipping (although you can still be an ace pilot, combat is no longer the most important part of it) and that Industry might not be about salvaging/exploration enough.
It's a shame that the new system doesn't bring skills that are stronger than old skills, besides Phase Mastery and Derelict Contingent.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: intrinsic_parity on April 13, 2021, 08:06:34 AM
I haven't found any skills I can't live without. There were some I thought I couldn't live without, but I tried playing without them and realized it wasn't as drastic as I thought it would be.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: Thaago on April 13, 2021, 11:37:31 AM
I haven't found any skills I can't live without. There were some I thought I couldn't live without, but I tried playing without them and realized it wasn't as drastic as I thought it would be.

Pretty much this. All skills, no matter how good they seem, are optional. So far every time I've picked the "wrong" skill I've been surprised at how workable it is if I try and take advantage of it. Even Fighter Uplink (T3R) instead of ECCM works fine with the right build (IE a fleet that doesn't care about ECCM at all that uses fighters). Is it stronger? Ehhh probably not (otoh, ECCM is getting less good in the .1). But it does work.


...
I want every single player, current and future to be able to pick up this amazing game and play it however they like without feeling as though they've been 'forced' to do things a certain way, or restricted from something they wanted to do.
The 095 skills system as it stands does not allow this.
Biggest issues I know of is that combat is worthless for double dipping (although you can still be an ace pilot, combat is no longer the most important part of it) and that Industry might not be about salvaging/exploration enough.
It's a shame that the new system doesn't bring skills that are stronger than old skills, besides Phase Mastery and Derelict Contingent.

I've noticed that, from a combat perspective, all the skill trees have one 'noncombat' skill upon wrapping around before getting to the good stuff. Combat is the worst offender though I agree because other trees have QOL of niche things as the 'wasted' skill, strike commander is 0 value except for something like a legion or Odyssey. Otoh, max combat Odyssey meta for skills!
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: Amoebka on April 13, 2021, 01:05:38 PM
Idk, getting both tech 2 skills seems much more important for Odyssey than combat.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: D00D on April 14, 2021, 03:35:28 AM
Just my 2 cents on combat skill looping, yes half the skills are useless to you if you pilot a certain type of ship but there is one important thing that the player can do that AI cannot. Hop between ships in battle, so you can go in with a phase SO ship that causes maximum havoc, then come in as a heavy capital once the job is done.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: TaLaR on April 14, 2021, 03:57:03 AM
Hop between ships in battle, so you can go in with a phase SO ship that causes maximum havoc, then come in as a heavy capital once the job is done.

You could in 0.91, but due to mutually exclusive skills this doesn't work nearly as well in 0.95.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: D00D on April 14, 2021, 04:01:15 AM
Hop between ships in battle, so you can go in with a phase SO ship that causes maximum havoc, then come in as a heavy capital once the job is done.

You could in 0.91, but due to mutually exclusive skills this doesn't work nearly as well in 0.95.

That's exactly what I meant. To make use of mutually exclusive skills once you got them both, just use two radically different ships to benefit from both in a long battle.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: SCC on April 14, 2021, 04:03:27 AM
I don't think there's a point to ship hopping in the first place. You want your flagship to be as strong as possible, not have multiple flagships (or, at least, not have multiple flagships that are of different class), and going full combat is suboptimal for that. There are many ships that you can spend the whole battle in and for those, it's better to spend 5 points (maybe 6, if you like battlecarriers, I guess) in combat and the rest elsewhere, to make this one ship as strong as possible.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: TaLaR on April 14, 2021, 04:32:41 AM
That's exactly what I meant. To make use of mutually exclusive skills once you got them both, just use two radically different ships to benefit from both in a long battle.

I takes whole 15 points build to optimize for single ship (5-7 tech, 5-8 combat, 3 leadership, industry 4 are most likely breakpoints).

If you just load up on all mutually exclusive combat skills, you'd be mediocre at piloting multiple ships. I'd rather be good at piloting one + have some points spent on fleet-wides.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: Megas on April 14, 2021, 05:01:04 AM
I don't think there's a point to ship hopping in the first place. You want your flagship to be as strong as possible, not have multiple flagships (or, at least, not have multiple flagships that are of different class), and going full combat is suboptimal for that. There are many ships that you can spend the whole battle in and for those, it's better to spend 5 points (maybe 6, if you like battlecarriers, I guess) in combat and the rest elsewhere, to make this one ship as strong as possible.
If flagship takes too much damage or runs out of PPT, then player might want to hop ships to avoid dying.

Also, sometimes, I feel like piloting a phase ship, and other times I want to hammer things with a battleship.  Respecing frequently to scratch those itches can be expensive.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: Jasticus on April 14, 2021, 07:19:18 PM
I really haven't had an issue with either of the skill trees, as I've just played with what was available. However with the comments that I've seen here, I'm wondering if some sort of compromise can be done due to various playstyles. Myself, for example - in every game I play I'm always interested in building things up, so naturally I'm drawn towards making colonies. As was said by Alex, this is a combat focused game, but that doesn't mean that there are other facets of the game that others like myself enjoy... and mods only make them better.

I'm thinking to allow anyone to get any skill they want right away. Don't lock it behind anything. They can obviously be linked to the four categories, but give those their own individual boost. The base skill will be ok, but it needs to be improved with story points for it to be really good. Story points can either become even more valuable or the amount you get can be slightly increased per level - and maybe even an option to spend an ever increasing amount of credits to get them. Unless that is already a thing and I just haven't found it yet.

The process:
So... you start a new game, and Helmsmanship is definitely the first thing you want. So you dump your first skill point into it. It gives +10% Maneuverability and +2% top speed. Doing this also gets you +1% universal weapons damage for picking a 'Combat' skill. You can dump up to 4 story points into Helmsmanship to boost it up to the full +50%/+10%, which will also unlock the Helmsmanship elite skill of the permanent 0-flux speed boost when not generating flux, and put you at +5% Universal Damage. You could potentially split it further and make everyone choose a path - Maneuverability only, top speed only, or the average mix of both like it currently is?

Next up you want to pick up Energy Weapon Mastery, so with skill point 2 you get that. It also grants +2% Sensor Range for picking up a technology skill. Again a choice, damage boost per level, or increased range, or a mix of both? Then the mastery skill of -10% flux when it is done, and you'll also be at +10% sensor range.

Skill point three goes into Phase Mastery because you found one of those early and want to play with it. Same as the previous two, with options for reduced cooldown or reduced hard flux generation, etc etc.. The universal damage can increase to 6%, and would cap out at 25% unless it was capped at say, 10% and another skill was boosted, like increased shield strength or armor.

This way, if I was actually ready to start a colony, I could finally get one when I was level 13 or 14 and not be forced to get one at level 5 if I wanted to go into the Tier 2 Leadership tree, for example.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: speeder on April 16, 2021, 11:21:28 AM
I am an outlier of this game...

I don't like combat very much, I mean, the combat in this game is brilliant and one of the reasons I come back to it, but what made me buy the game way back into 0.6 something was the fact the market had just got introduced in the game, and I am a sucker for trading games.

The 4x elements (specially if you have "exerelin") just made it better.

So that is the thing, for me this is a sort of "first person" 4x + trading game, I don't care much for the (fun) combat.



Still this let me realize the problem with the new skill system is exactly this: it was made with only one playstyle in mind, and destroyed all others.

For example, why colony skills require you to reach level 20 and not get any combat or tech skill? Because colonies right now are the reliable way to build megafleets of the ships you actually want, so to prevent combat-focused players from mowing down the entire game with super ships, colony-boosting skills for that kind of nerf.

Same applies to some other playstyles (for example players that just love smuggling... what is the issue with smuggling? it is that they can rack up ridiculous amounts of wealth quickly and go around buying the best ships right off the bat).


Fixing the balance of the game would be one thing but... this is not what this thread is about, this thread is about the new skill system.

If the next iteration keeps the tiers and choices, what it should do is plan things in a way that certain players can always get all skills they want without feeling penalized, for example it should be possible to get 4 colony skills with some spare points for other stuff, it should be possible to be a super smuggler and have a few spare points, it should be possible to make your entire build around having a fleet of carriers + fighters, etc...

One of the most easy ways to do this is split each aptitude into two "playstyles" when desining, for example industry can have half of the skill slots (one for each tier) dedicated to "industrialist" players like I am, and the other half to "smuggler" players.

Tech you can easily split one half into QoL skills to buff exploration and whatnot, and the other half to buff more combat-oriented buffs (like phase ships, shields, energy weapons), this way people won't even complain about having to respec if they change ship, if the guy IS a combat-nut player he knows he can safely pick 1 skill of each tech tier and be always prepared for any ship, with the downside he won't have the exploration buffs for example (assuming he also spent the rest of his points in combat and/or leadership aptitudes).



Another way to do this is what people suggested previously, and resemble a bit the old system: have the "square" with the aptitude icons, have a number that shows how much points you spent on them already, and unlock tiers based on how much that number rises, so you can make something like require 5 points for tier 5 skill first time, 8 points for tier 5 skill second time.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: SCC on April 16, 2021, 01:13:26 PM
I don't really want to make a new thread for it, but neither I could find a general skill suggestion thread, so I'll post here.
Gunnery Implants should replace Ranged Specialisation entirely. In GI's place, Power Grid Modulation could fit nicely, with flat cap and vent numbers (say 1000/2000/3000/4000 for the former and 50/100/150/200 for the latter) so while it would benefit all ships, it would proportionally benefit low-tech more. Or just port PGM without changes like that.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: intrinsic_parity on April 16, 2021, 01:31:49 PM
Colonies can make way more money than you need without any skills. The colony skills are entirely unnecessary.

I think the idea that the player should get whatever they want is flawed. Having to make choices between different things that you want is a good thing, and makes for interesting decisions.

Also, I'm not sure about another dissipation/cap skill, we already have up to +20% to both stats from T4L and +10 vents/caps from T5L. You can make SO frigates with like 900+ dissipation. I like ranged specialization, I just think it needs a little buff, either increased damage, increased ranges where it is effective, or some utility buff like beam specific buffs.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: speeder on April 16, 2021, 06:03:31 PM
Colonies can make way more money than you need without any skills. The colony skills are entirely unnecessary.

I think the idea that the player should get whatever they want is flawed. Having to make choices between different things that you want is a good thing, and makes for interesting decisions.

Also, I'm not sure about another dissipation/cap skill, we already have up to +20% to both stats from T4L and +10 vents/caps from T5L. You can make SO frigates with like 900+ dissipation. I like ranged specialization, I just think it needs a little buff, either increased damage, increased ranges where it is effective, or some utility buff like beam specific buffs.

At least for my playstyle I am not making ANY choice, at all.

I want colony skills, this means I will get all industry, no choices there at least.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: ubuntufreakdragon on April 16, 2021, 06:34:36 PM

I hope for a tiered system which offers more than 2 choices per tier and doesn't force a roll over to take a second tier 1.
Some tree like system, where you need to take at least x lower tier skills of which are y form the tier directly below and at least one skill needs to be a direct predecessor.
I want at least 40 skill points for some finer degree of choice.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: Serenitis on April 17, 2021, 02:39:06 AM
At least for my playstyle I am not making ANY choice, at all.

I want colony skills, this means I will get all industry, no choices there at least.
Same.

It just doesn't matter what other 'choices' exist. If they are given in opposition to the thing I specifically want to do, then they will never get chosen.
And total number of potential choices I have to make will be lower.
This is why adding arbitrary 'choices' explicitly reduces the amount of choice in the game.
All it does is make one specific way of playing 'the one true way', and everything else is ignored at best.

If the player happens to like this particular way of playing, then of course they're not going to see any problems here. Nothing is getting in the way of what they want to do, and many things are rewarding them for playing 'the one true way'. ("I'm alright, I've got mine.")
If the player does not however, then they're not going to be very happy. There are many arbitrary and entirely manufactured blocks to overcome, if they can be overcome at all. And a general feeling of being 'punished' for daring to not like playing 'the one true way'.

And there's other questions...

If the skills were entirely open, what would be stopping the 'choice' players from just choosing the different things they want?
Why is allowing 'QoL' players to have fun less valuable than allowing the 'choice' players to have fun?
How does allowing 'QoL' players to pick thier favoured features (whatever they may be) in any way degrade the fun of the 'choice' player in a single player game with no interaction at all with other players?
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: Megas on April 17, 2021, 03:50:47 AM
Colonies can make way more money than you need without any skills. The colony skills are entirely unnecessary.
Sounds like colony skills are underpowered, unless you are including alpha AI for unlimited colonies.

(Currently in my game, I have a fairly crappy planet seed, so I am still looking for a better place to put permanent colonies while not letting my temporary colonies grow too big to abandon.)

At least for my playstyle I am not making ANY choice, at all.

I want colony skills, this means I will get all industry, no choices there at least.
I cannot touch Ground Operations in Leadership because I do not want to lock my skills into officers.

While I like to get both Industry 5 skills, double-dipping Industry for that is too frivolous (four wasted points), and I am mulling over which of the two I would get.  Leaning toward Industrial Planning because it hurts less to respec away.  (If I get six colonies with Colony Management then respec away, I need Alpha cores to satisfy the lowered limits, and I have no alphas on hand in my game.)

That said, Industrial Planning looks real weak as a player skill, good only on a no item run.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: Sarissofoi on April 17, 2021, 04:08:49 AM
For me Industry is early game skills. Its pretty powerful in this regard but only valid early in leveling where making money is more important than power in combat.
Cheap travel, plenty of salvaged loot and fuel, free repairs and better salvaged ships.
After I get rich(which don't take  that long) and find place worthy colonisation i switch to my combat build which is Tech + Leadership. As I am bad on combat I leave combat alone.
Tbh some skills are completely useless for me(don't use phase ships for example).
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: intrinsic_parity on April 17, 2021, 08:28:47 AM
Colonies can make way more money than you need without any skills. The colony skills are entirely unnecessary.
Sounds like colony skills are underpowered, unless you are including alpha AI for unlimited colonies.

(Currently in my game, I have a fairly crappy planet seed, so I am still looking for a better place to put permanent colonies while not letting my temporary colonies grow too big to abandon.)
It's more that colonies make a ton of money. They definitely make more with skills, but there's just no need for that much money in vanilla. It also helps that admins will give you skills on half your colonies at minimum, and Cores can give you fulls skills as admins or just major income boosts in industries/structures.
Title: Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
Post by: Ad Astra on April 17, 2021, 11:43:41 AM
There are many arbitrary and entirely manufactured blocks to overcome, if they can be overcome at all. And a general feeling of being 'punished' for daring to not like playing 'the one true way'.

This is very real, I can see there's some kind of intention to make the player be torn between a choice and another, but those choices are not the ones that should be.

You want a player to mull over what kind of playthrough they are going for, what will they be specializing in, not "cheaper supplies or cheaper fuel?" WHAT? WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? How do you justify that being a "this or this" kind of choice? I want to make a cost-efficient fleet, ok just buy something to do with broken ships, some colony skills over there and some salvage skills AGAIN aaaand there you go, cheaper fuel AND supplies. Woooow! Yeah, nope.

There's a reason why skill trees are trees, branches, options, specialization or diversification. Choices ascend in power as investments are made, choices ascend in specialization as choices are made, they ascend in "coolness" and flavor as commitment to a certain build is solidified.
When you look at a tree you want to think "where do I want to be by the time I rise to the max level" As it is right now I constantly ignore free skill points I have cause "meh". I don't have an awesome top tier skill I'm seriously looking forward to get.
As it stands, only tech tree T5 skills are what the "crown jewel" of a skill tree should be, a more traditional skill tree with more nodes can be built instead of piling up bonuses one next to another, and they can be properly explained below, right now explanations are probably confusing for new players, there's just too much stuff going on.