Fractal Softworks Forum
Starsector => General Discussion => Topic started by: ModdedLaharl on May 03, 2021, 03:36:44 PM
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By Laharl
in this essay i will
Before I begin, let me be a little transparent; I'm going to be very wordy, and very opinionated. There are a lot of things about 0.95 that I'm less than thrilled with, but this is all in the context of how I personally enjoy the game. DP balance and arbitrary incentivization of certain playstyles are things other people have already gone on about, but these things are of less immediate concern to me. I mean, yes, I hate those too, but they're easier to work around and also seem to be generally agreed to be bad already. The reason I have chosen to confront the concept of Story Points specifically is because I find them to be an offensively bad choice of mechanic for this game on a level that goes beyond personal preference, and while I understand the work that went into them and that perhaps no amount of derision will cause their removal, I believe it would be hypocritical of me not to say anything.
I also want to be clear that my purpose is not to bash, insult, smear, mock, or otherwise derisively attack Alex or his game. This is meant as constructive criticism, if impassioned, which is why I will be offering multiple clear examples of how to fix or address everything I bring up, as a matter of courtesy and good faith, and as a demonstration that I am not merely complaining, but actively seeking an improved future.
I am not writing this essay to tell anyone else how to play the game or how to have fun. I'm not some kind of elite or genius or guru, and I have no illusions that I am some kind of authority. In fact, if I do not receive a healthy round of criticism for everything I outline, resulting in this essay receiving multiple edits, I'm going to be rather disappointed. Nevertheless, this is important enough to me, and in my opinion to the game as a whole, that I feel it deserves my time.
This is all my opinion. That should go without saying, but I'm saying this here so I don't have to preface every sentence hereafter with 'in my opinion' or 'I believe'.
Let me begin with a summary: When I heard about the changes coming to 0.95, story points were the one that scared me. I admit this may have prejudiced me, for reasons I'll address in the following paragraph, but I want to be clear that much of 0.95 is in fact lovely and I started my campaigns in it with the conscious intention to be open-minded and give everything a chance. I admit to my potential bias, but I did my best to be consciously aware of it and prevent it affecting my actual opinions.
On a conceptual level, I despise story points. In a broader sense, what I hate is arbitrary mechanics. It'd be like if I started an FTL run and had a magical 'explode enemy ship' button that I could use X number of times a run. It has nothing to do with the rest of the game, I didn't in any way earn it, it actively hurts the entire rest of the game and makes me much less engaged, and it doesn't even have any thematic or mechanical engagement with the game besides, essentially, lowering the level of thought required to play it.
I want to be clear that I'm not criticizing the various systems and mechanics that are accessible via story points; I hate the points themselves. In every instance in which they are found within the game right now, story points do one of three things; devalue an existing mechanic or system, circumvent the same, or directly harm the game's foundations.
This is because, regardless of their balance, story points ultimately are an arbitrary resource; they have no thematic or mechanical fit in the game, and not only that, but they are only a 'resource' in the loosest sense. Credits and experience bars are some of the most famously generic resources and systems in games over time, but they are inexorably worked into how such games function, and almost always have thematic reasons to exist, as well as directly supporting the mechanics borne from them. Experience is perhaps the ripest target, but at least that gives me a sense that I%u2019m growing and becoming more adept. It is, ironically, a far better way to make me invested in my character than story points are.
Story points, however... The easiest way for me to sum them up is to compare them to cheat codes. The kinds I used to abuse a decade or so ago when I began playing computer games. I can distinctly remember the day I realized how much I was cheating myself by using them to circumvent the game, the challenges, the fun presented to me. Story points leave me with that same awful, hollow feeling; and in many cases, the way they're used is barely a step removed from a console command, or in the case of SP disengage, literally equivalent to a console command.
But I'll get to that in a moment. These things do not make me feel like I'm writing my own story, or that my character is having moments of brilliance, or that I've in any way earned something. I imagine that these things were the intent behind them but, in fact, as I'll address later, in some cases they go from merely being meaningless or disappointing to hurting the immersion because of how idiotic they make my character appear to be. In other words, there are multiple cases where these things make the story worse despite their name.
The most offensive thing about this is that Starsector is NOT a hollow or surface-level game. The potential for significantly better mechanics, and more interesting ones, exist at every point where these things are used, and in many cases have already been demonstrated before by well-known mods. More to the point, Starsector is a game that has thrived because of how beautifully those same systems can make you invested without needing to tell you as much. This might be a less egregious point if Starsector were a game developed by some big corporation that paid only lip service to their community, but that's not the case. Alex is deeply involved and very aware of what goes on with his community and the modding community specifically.
There's not even a reason to call them story points. Again, they have a connection to the game about as solid as frog snot; you could call them magical genie lamps and it would be just as appropriate, and in fact would probably be more appropriate given the way they're used. And no, not Robin Williams genie. Will Smith genie.
Enough conceptual whining from me. Let's get specific.
I brought up the SP Disengage earlier, so let's start there. This is one of those circumventing options. The player has a great many options available to them in order to avoid a fight; the player is generally aware of what kind of fleets are in their immediate vicinity and can reasonably predict what kinds of fleets they'll find in a given location (outside of medium warning beacons I mean for Lobster's sake those can be anything from a few frigates to several Ordos).
They have a suite of hiding and running options, get warnings at jump points, and in most cases have to go out of their way in order to meet fleets that pose a serious threat and are immediately hostile, not to mention that if you have a small fleet, you can fight a disengage battle, which has its own well-made mechanics that gives you a fighting chance at escape, and that's assuming you can't just outspeed the enemy in burn level.
This is one of the worst implementations of SP because it allows the players to get themselves into trouble; easily avoidable trouble, no less; and just say 'nah' at no cost or consequence; it severely devalues all the above mentioned mechanics, and basically asks much less of the player's intelligence and thought.
I'm not advocating for hardcore mode here; in fact I'd argue in favor of quicksaves when you touch base or make difficult accomplishments and just reload, personally; but there's no meat here. You rub your magic genie lamp and Will Smith comes out and makes the pirates unable to catch you. I don't feel like I outfoxed the pirates or enemy fleet or whatever; I don't feel like I made good choices and was able to get away with this. I don't feel like I earned my magical carpet ride escape.
You didn't have to use some kind of resource you worked for. You didn't take any kind of consequence. You didn't engage with any of the game's existing mechanics or systems in any meaningful way; you may as well have typed in ForceDismissDialog or EndCombat for all the difference it makes. And the most frustrating part is that this has already been done better.
While I don't personally care for Archaeon Order; it's very well made and I respect the author but it's not my thing; it's worth noting that being caught by a hostile fleet in that mod doesn't immediately mean death. Generally, it means open negotiations, depending on the faction in question and your relationship with them. Another good example can be found in the Underworld mod, the Starlight Cabal specifically, who generally just want you to hand over credits or maybe a nice thing you happen to have. And even if you do get blown to space bits, some other mods make the aforementioned respawn more interesting, and Nexerelin's insurance is also a worthwhile consideration. Barring all of that, it's not even as if it's a hard game over, even if the respawn system is a little lackluster
Hell, if you do want to have a forced disengage option, make it require some meaningful level of thought on my part in terms of preparation, like an FTL blue option. What if, say, I have enough minelayer-capable ships to cover my retreat? Or if my fleet is all or nearly all phase ships, maybe that could also be a reason? Though in that case, how the hell did I get caught in the first place? That's a tangent for later I suppose.
Yes, some of those suggested consequences certainly suck, but it's reasonable to weigh such things against annihilation and make some decisions, and also to be making decisions to avoid having to make that choice. And that's what this kind of mechanic should be, and what any good mechanic should be; something that makes the player engage with the game. To consider their options, relative fleet strengths, possible strategies, what they can afford to lose... Even in the simplest implementation of all of this, it would be better than Will Smith snapping his fingers in a way that completely removes all such engagement, damages engagement in other areas, has nothing to do with the game's mechanics, and isn't even thematic.
EDIT: Wyvern points out that, with missions and sometimes in hyperspace, sometimes fleets just barrel into you. He also mentions that hyperspace just isn't very interesting in general; it could certainly stand to be more interesting. Shad suggests that fleet fresh out of a storm should either not be able to fight, or be forced into a 'drive-by' fight.
There's apparently a forced engage option too but that, while not being as egregious, is similarly pointless if not more so. There's already pursuit mechanics for Lobster's sake. And then of course you have 'make some repairs real quick'. I hope I can just indicate that this devalues the whole point of CR deployment costs and be understood, but I did promise constructive criticism, so as an aside, you could simply, say, buff Hardened Subsystems so that mere deployment costs less CR, or perhaps have certain ship classes that speed up repairs or mitigate CR costs for deployment. There's already a skill that takes away the cost of Emergency Burn, which is a good way to get away from fights you're not ready for, as well. I am assuming, of course, that it doesn't allow you to make up for CR due to missing crew. I've yet to try.
What about SP salvage? This is a devaluing option. Let us consider, for a moment, the 0.91a salvage mechanic. Of the ships destroyed, a certain number will be made available to the player. The player does have a bit of advance awareness about which ones may be up for grabs, since Disabled ships are much more likely to be available than Destroyed ones, but even those do have a chance. A clever mechanic here would be to give the player even a small amount of control over that as opposed to RNG being the end all, perhaps something to do with how much damage per second was done to the hull to signify particularly catastrophic impacts that would split a ship apart (e.g. the impact of a Reaper in a single second versus that same damage spread out over time by a Mark IX), and one person on the forum by the name Ad Astra suggested finishing a ship via EMP damage (I'd argue for 'majority of damage was EMP'); any good XCOM player can tell you that RNG is acceptable if you're able to manipulate the inputs and outcomes in a meaningful manner, which is essentially what I'm on about here. But I digress. Again.
The player considers salvage. There are a lot of choices here to make; taking on a ship immediately costs supplies, and then more for repairs. It requires crew, it'll need outfitting. And the D-mods have to be considered, too; Faulty Power Grid can be devastating on a combat ship, but with every D-mod the maintenance costs come down, and that can be enticing to a player on a budget. This a pretty decent mechanic; room for growth, yes, but decent, deep, and giving the player lots of space in which to think and theorize about both present and future. It's precisely what it needs to be; engaging and worthwhile.
Incidentally, restricting D-mod types doesn't make sense, especially if there's any system in place that's supposed to allow for civilian or logistics ships to potentially put up a fight at all (which there is), so it's kind of nonsense both on a thematic and mechanical level. I'm a bit baffled that the separation was made. I do understand the lack of Compromised Storage on non-logistics ships; such ships generally don't have enough cargo space for that to matter, I suppose, but even though I get that one I'd still argue against its exclusion on a personal preference level. Anyway.
SP Salvage devalues this somewhat; from what I understand, it doesn't actually reduce the normally available salvage (though it sure as hell feels like it), but it's another one of those things that feels like a child's crayon drawing in an art museum. This adds nothing to the salvage mechanic system as a whole, besides making it easier I suppose, and at worst makes it less meaningful as well, since your new options are in fact just limited to using Will Smith, and it also matters less how you choose your targets if you're hunting for a particular hull. And once again, existing mods have repeatedly demonstrated how this can be done better.
I already mentioned that giving some control over Destroyed VS Disabled would be appropriate, but for more concrete examples, Vayra's Sector brings us ghost ships. Now, this mechanic within VS is currently somewhat simple; you either have marines or don't; but assuming you do, it's a risky decision. You have no idea what might be aboard this thing. Do you take the risk? And once you do find out, do you keep it?
Mods like RogueSynth and Starship Legends add some spice as well; no two ships are alike, so salvage choices become more meaningful. This Enforcer has fewer D-mods, but the other Enforcer just so happens to have an SSL reputation that improves armor and weapon health, although it also worsens PD accuracy, so that's worth a thought. This Hammerhead has a RogueSynth variant that increases ballistic damage and rate of fire but also cuts in the flux, and on top of that has Faulty Power Grid; can I work with that? Can I work around the cons enough to make use of the pros? In fact, something like this is good for reasons that go beyond salvage; iterations on existing hulls incentivize new strategies. Yes, a perfectly acceptable Hammerhead build might be HACs and Harpoons, but if you get one that has some interesting bonuses, perhaps you'd be more keen on exploring loadout configurations you normally wouldn't. Again, this would be a good thing; engaging and worthwhile. This is where you can have multiple mechanics and systems in the game directly strengthening each other in terms of their fullness and richness.
And it's not as if this is barren ground for ideas. Here's some freebies: If you want ships to be salvageable at different levels, that's a great way to incentivize highly specialized tools like the Salvage Rig, or things like specifically trained crew, or perhaps a type of hireable professional.
Perhaps, if a desperate captain really needed that one hull from this battle, 'attach' it to an existing salvage-only ship, like the Salvage Rig, (read: mothball both ships, effectively), and tow them slowly back to a port with heavy industry, and pay to have it welded back together.
Perhaps introduce the concept of D-mods that are resistant to restoration, or a special suite of D-mods that are particularly nasty and costly to remove. Hell, introduce more D-mods in general, I'd say. Pristine ships are supposed to be noticeably good, yes? I mean, I%u2019ll note that ships tend to get somewhat stingy amounts of OP; what if you pumped up the base OP on all of 'em, but then D-mods cut into OP, or if there was an OP reducing D-mod?
Those three ideas are all things that not only make the salvage mechanic itself deeper and more interesting, but also make the rest of the game matter more in its context and asks more of the player in terms of engagement and considering their options and other game mechanics. A player who comes across, say, a Salvage Rig will think about what that could mean for potential salvage; a player who's been salvaging a lot is going to be thinking about Salvage Rigs, to reference the first idea. Good systems encourage and strengthen each other; they make each other engaging and worthwhile.
My point is that there's fertile ground here for mechanics that actually engage with the game (get used to that one) and have to do with how it works, and ask of the player to make careful considerations that have to do with everything else going on. It makes everything matter more in context, weaves together existing mechanics, makes the game deeper, and gives the player more and more interesting and meaningful decisions they can make. These things are paramount and are what make a glorious and long-lasting game, or anything for that matter. These things are why I started playing Starsector, and indeed many other games. Moving on.
So what about those built-in hullmods? Well, if you've been paying attention, you already know where I'm going with this. This is one that I'd argue borders on harming the game itself, but let's call it a combination of devalue and circumvent. The game has an incredibly deep system for ship customization, and Ordinance Points represent just how much you can get out of a given ship. While I was inclined to say that most ships have a stingy amount, the solution was NOT to summon Will Smith to magically bind hullmods to the ship for not so much as a single point; which, given what any half-awake player will pick, lets them save tons of points on particularly good or mandatory hullmods. Excellent, being being less awake and exercising less mental effort during loadout design was exactly what I wanted. (it wasn't)
There's a conversation, of course, about making certain hullmods less stupidly good and/or less mandatory, but that's a separate conversation and probably ends with needing to improve the AI, which sorely needs to be done.
It goes without saying why this circumvents the mechanics, but how does it devalue them? Well, it means that the entire system for shipbuilding requires less thought, less consideration. It means less because you can now 'cheat' it out of quite a bit of value. Once again, I'll point out how uncomfortably close this is to just flat-out cheating.
And the real kicker is that this; the concept of taking a given hull and 'making it better'; is perhaps one of the most explored territories in modding out of the ones I'm going to bring up, next to colony-related mods. HVBs and IBBs offer many unique takes on better versions of existing hulls, of course, but RogueSynth and Starship Legends are much more direct examples. And if you really need a direct upgrading system, there are admittedly more obscure mods like Extra System Reloaded (By Iridescens) and Colony-Based Campaign Content (By Cabbs) that have treaded this ground in significantly better ways; in ways that actually meant something in game context, that required half an ounce of effort.
I would criticize those two mods for being player-facing only; that is, the AI gets to use none of it (at least the last time I tried them), but neither seem to be fully done in any case. Despite this, what they offered me in terms of ability to customize and upgrade my fleet was much more worthwhile, and actually weaved in with the existing mechanics. They were a bit lacking in meat and needed work, yes, but they were better than Will Smith.
Officer/player skills are currently a mess and it looks like they might be under fire for changes so you'd think I wouldn't comment on elite skills. I'm going to anyway.
The concept of acquiring particularly elite personnel; and becoming one yourself; is fine. But the game already has mechanics by which you could access such things. Particularly high wages are a given, but rather than simply hiring such officers for small fortunes, that's where very difficult missions have a chance to tempt the player with rewards. You can also reward exploring this way, such as with that one salvage event where you find an officer in a cryopod and wake him up and he's just so chuffed at being alive he joins you; such officers won't always be amazing, but sometimes... And yes, that one specific example is in the game, so it feels concerning that the opportunity for more engaging methods was recognized yet not fully explored.
As for how the player themselves become an elite? Considering this is a permanent change to the main actual player, it should of course be quite difficult to acquire such a thing. Using 0.91a as an example, what if I saved up three of my level up points to become an elite in salvaging? That's a relatively simple example, and it's also a decent reason to do to more things; snap off the level cap, thus continuing to reward the player with experience for the things they do, which they can then invest in becoming a legend, which they ought to be by the time they get into their two-hundredth 500DP invasion war fight thing.
Yes, I'm aware that fleet sizes were made smaller, but it was done artificially and arbitrarily in a way that feels at odds with the already existing systems that account for size, such as maintenance, and seems to have been a poor attempt among many others at incentivizing smaller ships when, again, examples already exist of better ways to do that. I don't want to go into that as well, considering it's not the point of this essay and deserves a few pages of its own, buuuuut I'm going to anyway for just one paragraph because it's very dear to me.
Bring back combat-level terrain. I'm aware this existed at one point, and apparently confused the AI. It baffles me that the solution to this was apparently to just can the system and not, say, improve the AI that repeatedly demonstrates why it needs improving. Nebulae having an effect on sensors and movement is good, Secrets of the Frontier demonstrates an actually interesting way to incentivize holding tactically useful points, asteroids are already sometimes a problem in fights so an asteroid field with tons of them and bigger ones would make cumbersome ships much more of a liability (and also incentivize 'mining' type weapons if you wanted!), debris fields can do something similar, electrical storms FTL-style could be an interesting challenge to work around... Oh yeah, and teaching the AI how to flank, which is what small, fast ships should be doing. I could go on for some time and if anyone wants to hear I will gladly write an entire second essay on the topic that gets a lot more specific. But let's get back to my main point.
I'll take a second to potshot the idea of bribing inspections costing a story point; for Lobster's sake, it already costs me credits if not a fight, and with the new contacts system there could easily be other costs involved; maybe a favor I need to do for some Hegemony official; and this is another one of those accursed situations where for some reason I am incapable of taking a simple, obvious action; saying 'yes'; without the help of Will Smith.
This doesn't make me feel clever or like I'm writing my own story or like I earned... Well, anything. This makes me feel like I'm being asked to identify with a self-insert character who has brain damage and can't take painfully obvious actions if I'm out of cattle prod charges. I apply this exact same feeling to pretty much every use of story points regarding contacts, as well. I go on about this a bit more when I address bonus experience; but let me be clear; the idea of the new contacts and mission systems is excellent. Bravo, Alex, sincerely. Now please remove all the thrice-forsaken story points so that I'm capable of interacting with it without needing to taze my POV character into using the tongue in his head.
Additionally, I didn't notice that bit in the changelog about promoting from your crew; I experienced that blind, and it hurt me deeply. For a few precious seconds, I was genuinely excited. What was this new system I had been unaware of? Had there been some new changes to crew? Could I raise and nurture this potential-filled young officer? But no, my hopes were dashed, as once again I was being asked for a story point to say 'yes', and once again I found myself in a situation where the moment in which I became filled with joy to experience another one of the lovely deep mechanics that drew me to this game in the first place turned out to be a cardboard box that Will Smith has to open for me because apparently the meatsuit I inhabit for this game can't figure out scissors.
And then there's colonies. I don't really mind the nerfs; sure, they were strong. Personally I never managed to make them broken or all that strong but maybe that's because I avoid using AI cores. If that's the case, and you'e balancing them around AI usage, you clearly do not have enough consequences for AI usage. If it becomes grindingly hard to make colonies without AI after this, that'll have been a mistake. But that's okay, because you gave me the option of having Will Smith sprinkle his fairy magic all over my colony to make it better.
And by okay I mean please make the pain stop. This should have been the easiest one to avoid inflicting story points upon. I mean, do I even need to point it out? Mods that expand the player's power to build and to create, that deepen and complicate and flesh out the colony system and so much more have existed for a long time. Several different kinds have come and gone, and the big players are still here, and have integration with most other mods. Sir Hartley's lovely Industrial Evolution is perhaps the prime example, but it would be untoward of me to not also mention Boggled's Terraforming and Station Construction or Kentington's DIY Planets, as well as the touches Nexerelin places upon it, and also to pay at least lip service to the five or so other mods that dip their toes in this territory in some form or another. But no, none of that, apparently I'll just magic my miners happy and give them pickaxes made of their hopes and dreams.
And finally, bonus experience. Look, if you want a way to encourage the player into certain actions, or give them ways to become stronger faster, you already have perfectly good ways to do that organically without Will Smith. Let me reference Starship Legends again for a moment; I would gladly fly halfway across the sector for a famous derelict cruiser if it happened to be one I particularly cared for, or if I was hurting for a ship whose role the derelict could fill, and for a variety of smaller reasons as well. You don't need to use the promise of faster level ups to encourage the player, unless skills are overly dominant, which arguably a couple of them are, but I digress. If you really want to give the player a way to grow faster, congratulations, 0.95 already grants you the tools.
Sure, you could blow that station away and send a marine raid in to get that prisoner. But, alternatively, you could make some friends on the black markets or among the faction's government, do a couple of favors for people (Hint: your big chance to point the player in the direction of other things here that you want them to notice) and in return an arrangement gets made and the prisoner gets handed off. Not only could you make that worth more experience, but you wouldn't even have to, since it generally involves more effort and they'd be picking up more experience anyway. But hey, you do want to reward the path of more than usual resistance, and experience isn't an awful way to do that. Shouldn't be the only way, but it's not a bad present.
EDIT: Thaago pointed out that my rhetoric is a bit circular in this area, and he has a point. The crux of my argument regarding colonies and bar events is that story points are being used as a paywall where a paywall has no business existing. It does not make sense that I need story points to interact with characters when there are already costs and consequences in these spots; or, for where there's not, there so easily could be. Considering how weak and disconnected story points are, it admittedly isn't much of a paywall unless you get into the fractal costs colonies have, which is just... That alone should be an indicator how poor an idea it is, but I digress. I was not exaggerating, however, in my statements of how idiotic it makes my character look and how grossly unimmersive that is, that if I don't have a story point, I'm incapable of taking what you would think would be very basic courses of action. It'd be like requiring me to use a story point to allow a cargo scan, or to buy trade goods. That's not a story, it doesn't feel good, it's not rewarding, it's... Frankly pretty stupid, and it has no business existing when Starsector already has better options that could have been used as cost or incentive even if you only ever used things in 0.91a without putting any more work in. My thanks to Thaago for correcting my emotional tangents that were muddying my point in these regards.
In conclusion, I think it's pretty clear what my objections are to story points. My personal usage of them so far has basically always been as a 'screw you button', where I refuse the consequences of bad decisions on my part, usually getting away from fleets I had full warning about, or salvaging ships because I did a poor job of commanding and outfitting and they got blown apart, and I can't say I feel good about it. Now, of course, you might say 'But Laharl, nobody else seems to have a problem with them'. And, well, first off I'9d say you're wrong, but secondarily, people aren't very good at knowing what they want. Most people just want more of whatever's in front of them; see every failed nostalgic kickstart project for proof; and I think story points are being glossed over as acceptable partially because of how good some of the things locked behind them are, and also because frankly it's just not hard to get lots of them, which ironically means they devalue themselves at the moment. I wrote this because I genuinely believe that if the missed potential is pointed out, a lot less people would be okay with story points.
It could be that I'm completely wrong and making an unnecessarily wanky pseudo-philosophical argument because the game is trending away from what made me love it. I accept that, but I also sincerely believe that I'm on the right path when I say that, overall, story points devalue this game and remove both the desire and the need to engage with the beautifully built mechanics and systems it has. I sincerely believe that huge potential yet lies in this game and in Alex, and that many of the ideas I've presented herein represent that. If anything I've said helps this game to grow, even in a small way, then this was worth my time and I will consider that a victory, however small.
bloody hell posting this makes me nervous i have no idea if i'm actually a raving idiot
EDIT: Why the hell does modifying this post turn every apostrophe into some kind of %2019 garble?
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Hm. This... is very interesting feedback.
I can definitely get behind some of the stuff here - there are a lot of interactions where the 'story point' option is just... why do I need a story point to take this blindingly obvious course of action? (For me, the worst offender here is that one Luddic Church vigil fleet that you have to get out of your way to scan a thing. Somehow it costs a story point to offer them supplies? Why?)
For the disengage, though... that one's kindof tricky. Because, yes, normally you have all sorts of options and warnings for avoiding a hostile fleet. And then sometimes the plot (or in rarer cases pure RNG) drops, say, a Luddic Path armada directly in your way, zipping towards you out of the fog of hyperspace at a storm-boosted burn 30. There is simply no way to avoid that short of literal prescience: if you've played the mission before, or happen to have saved your game at the right time, then you can just... not be there. If you didn't? Welp. Have fun with that.
(Then again, I'm not a fan of the current iteration of hyperspace travel anyway. Yes, sure, it accomplishes the goal of making sure you can't just set a course and then tab out for a bit. But it doesn't do so in a way that's engaging or interesting; you don't have ghost ships surfacing from the fog of deep hyperspace, you just have a tedious little dodge-the-storms-or-hold-s mini-game. It's not fun. I'd almost prefer the entirety of hyperspace was replaced with a narrative interface - Plot course to Zagan system! Captain, we're picking up hostiles! Spend fuel to outrun them? Close in and engage? Comm up and bribe them to leave us alone?)
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I personally like the chaos of hyperspace travel, and admittedly I'm actually a fan of the idea that sometimes things can just *happen*. Having said that, there're ways to address your point. Off the top of my head, perhaps engage protection for fleets coming in or out of jump points for a few seconds, or not allowing fleets that are getting tumbled by storms to engage. I'd also emphasize those things I mentioned regarding Archaeon Order and the Cabal.
"you don't have ghost ships surfacing from the fog of deep hyperspace"
And THAT is a bloody lovely idea. Hyperspace could definitely stand to be more interesting!
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I would much agree with most of what's written (yes, I read the whole thing!). Story points being magic gameplay bypassing things at their core hurts gameplay.
@Wyvern I think the 30 speed warpstorms are a separate issue, and I'm pretty sure there was a thread last year about how the current impementation of the storms is not ideal. But there are actually mods that let you negotiate with hostiles. There are gameplay mechanics which could be used, like bribes, or tossing some cargo etc, or just plain "kill 100 FP" for a guaranteed disengage.
Ideally, there should be more engagment types and more ling between hyperspace burn and ship behaviour. Fleets riding the storms cannot just stop on the map, so why should they stop in battle? Make it into a drive-by shootout between 2 fleets instead, with the storm riding fleet forced to burn ahead without possibility to fully stop. But I digress.
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To me story points are far more interesting that just save scumming. Even for a very experience player, there are lots of situations where 30+ hours can be lost in an instant with virtually no warning (usually involving hyperspace storms bouncing fleets into you at speeds you can't possibly avoid, but there are lots of situations where terrain makes it nearly impossible to avoid fights). Instead of eliminating the consequences of my decision for free by reloading an old save, I can now eliminate them for the cost of some long term fleet or colony power, which is at least some tangible cost that isn't explicitly cheating by save-scumming. The game isn't a rogue like that's balanced around losing a lot as a means of learning the game IMO (I do enjoy and play lots of rogue likes), and I don't think it's very fun to play it like that. You have to play safe to the point of not having fun (IMO) to reliably avoid all the things that can instantly wipe you.
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I agree with Laharl and I also agree with this:
To me story points are far more interesting that just save scumming.
Save scumming sucks, especially when saving/loading takes a non-trivial amount of time.
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I think that you're right on most counts. It's obvious Alex created story points as a means of defining your character, but they do not do that adequately. If they were rarer, and involved in specific scenarios with multiple outcomes that permanently changed your characters, they would do so. But as it stands they're more or less bonus points that make you win more, so to speak.
I don't entirely agree with how much you slam story points on their impact in ship customization. While it's true that building in several essential hull mods is a no brainer, even in doing so you still have plenty If things that demand your attention. You never feel like you have everything you want. I would go as far as to say the problem isn't in the fact that you can build them in, but that there are hullmods in the game that are considered "necessary", like hardened shields. That sort of thing removes creative thought from ship building far more than story points ever could. In fact, having them become after thoughts with building them in might even free up the player to try new builds while still being end game viable.
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I don't entirely agree with how much you slam story points on their impact in ship customization. While it's true that building in several essential hull mods is a no brainer, even in doing so you still have plenty If things that demand your attention. You never feel like you have everything you want. I would go as far as to say the problem isn't in the fact that you can build them in, but that there are hullmods in the game that are considered "necessary", like hardened shields.
I save most of my points for colony improvements, due to 2^n costs! When I need 32 or 64 points for just one more improvement, I hoard points just in case I am crazy enough to do it.
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In response to SafariJohn and intrinsic_parity: While I agree with your points, I think that SP is a particularly fault attempt at bandaging over the actual problem there. I make notes about potential better solutions, both existing and theoretical, in the essay itself, which I think would better serve. I also think that deepening the tactical layer with more... Well, STUFF in it would make disengage battles more viable.
In response to HUcast: I agree with you that simply building in the 'mandatory' hullmods does give you some more design space while still being viable. However, I think that SP as a system is a particularly poor means of achieving that particular goal. I go into a lot of detail about mostly existing methods that would allow for such things, as well as criticizing both the stingy amount of OP and that some hullmods are simply too necessary due to the current limitations of AI behavior.
I'd actually be willing to write an entirely new essay regarding approaches that could be taken with the tactical layer, both loadout and actual battles. There's a lot I have to say and a lot of potential there, I believe.
In response to Megas: Honestly I can't fathom why SP colony improvements exist. The mods regarding colony content are so rich that I'd get metaphorical diabetes from them.
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I'm pretty sure story points are intended to be a means of circumventing game rules, and for a game like Starsector (unlike FTL), I think it's a good thing to be able to do that every once in a while. I think the only real problem is that story points are so easy to earn that we can circumvent rules as a matter of course, instead of only when we really need to.
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I'm pretty sure story points are intended to be a means of circumventing game rules, and for a game like Starsector (unlike FTL), I think it's a good thing to be able to do that every once in a while. I think the only real problem is that story points are so easy to earn that we can circumvent rules as a matter of course, instead of only when we really need to.
This is of course telling about how I like my games, but my feeling is that if breaking the rules of the game is a good thing (outside some kind of meta context of course), then it points to flaws in design. I'd furthermore note that many of the places SP show up don't have to do with circumvention but with, to paraphrase myself, tazing my stupid meatsack of a character into taking basic actions.
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Maybe the problem in certain cases is that the options to circumvent the regular rules are tied to the points, instead of tied to dedicated alternatives?
Instead of using a story point to escape an ambush, have an option to do something like a 'Tactical drive field collapse' or something similar that can't be done again until you both get to a shipyard and purchase a supply limited(as in, planet Y only makes X per cycle) item. It's there for when you really need it, it makes more sense, and it can't be spammed.
For speech checks, why not tie that to faction reputation or fleet size? It's easier to threaten a pirate when you have an Onslaught. It's easier to talk your way out of an inspection if you're well known and liked. But don't do it too often or they might call your bluff.
Hull Mods is a whole other can of worms, especially considering so many are considered 'Essential' for many people. Maybe the problem in that case is that too many of them are straight benefits over sidegrades.
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Maybe the problem in certain cases is that the options to circumvent the regular rules are tied to the points, instead of tied to dedicated alternatives?
Instead of using a story point to escape an ambush, have an option to do something like a 'Tactical drive field collapse' or something similar that can't be done again until you both get to a shipyard and purchase a supply limited(as in, planet Y only makes X per cycle) item. It's there for when you really need it, it makes more sense, and it can't be spammed.
For speech checks, why not tie that to faction reputation or fleet size? It's easier to threaten a pirate when you have an Onslaught. It's easier to talk your way out of an inspection if you're well known and liked. But don't do it too often or they might call your bluff.
Hull Mods is a whole other can of worms, especially considering so many are considered 'Essential' for many people. Maybe the problem in that case is that too many of them are straight benefits over sidegrades.
What you're talking about is essentially what I'm arguing in favor of. Having actual mechanics and parts of the game woven in to interact with instead of magic points. It doesn't become a circumvention of the rules if it's part of the rules.
Tactical level balancing is a long, long road, which again, I may write a second essay about.
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If not for colony improvements or the historian charging 4 SP per colony item I may want (he offers them instead of blueprints if all are known), I would spend a lot of SP on s-mods. At first, I planned on burning two points per ship (I took Automated Ships instead of Spec.Mods.), until I saw how much colonies can consume. In the end, because Doom is overpowered with new skills, I only s-modded Hardened Subsystems to about a dozen phase ships.
I spend story points mainly on the following: colony improvements, s-mods, recovering my ships (guaranteed recovery can be difficult), mentoring officers, and elite skills. I also like to reserve some for the historian. Legion XIV blueprint is only available through the historian. And I like to reserve some points for respec.
Burning five points to create a stable point in the system would be nice if I found a good system to colonize without one, but there was no need for my current game.
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I read 90% of that and I'll disagree on a few levels, though I will commend your thought process (and no you're not a raving idiot :))
SP Salvaging, to which you mean getting ships. This was one of the most complained about mechanics in the game prior to 0.95 and I'm glad SP addressed it. As it was (and still is to some extent), whether a ship is "disabled" or "destroyed" is predetermined when you enter the battle space. It doesn't matter if you hit a ship with a Vulcan or Reaper for a parting shot, its fate is sealed. Now, why it's this way is important: if the player had a modicum of control over whether a ship was disabled or destroyed (and therefore had a greater chance of recovery), the most efficient way to play would be to solo everything that had a ship you wanted. If there was some measure of skill involved in order to get a disabled status, and since you can't control AI allies to the precision necessary, the min/maxers out there would either try to solo fleets, have to modify ship loadouts to Nth degree before "important" fights, or save scum until they got the desired result. None of these options are "fun."
Not that I'm not sympathetic, I've advocated for something similar in the past, but I see the logic. SP give the player a greater chance at the desired outcome given they had little control over the outcome to begin with. Where I might tweak the system is paying a SP before the battle to designate a "high value" target or some such that would give it a higher chance for recovery. Generally speaking, I know which ship I would like in a fight and if there are multiple, I'll be spending multiple points! But as far as making ships recoverable due to player skill, that is simply a non-starter due 90% of the battles being fought between AI. You can argue for better AI but that's a much bigger issue.
Re: S-Mods. S-Mods are a sidegrade to what we had in 0.91 and to while certain hull mods are obviously more "automatic" than others, it's no better/worse in my opinion that Loadout Design 3 that just gave a flat bonus to OP. There was no thought to that or meaningful choice if you simply picked up the skill. From my vantage point, S-Mods are just part and parcel with an evolving loadout feature for the game. You are never forced to build in any hull mod and I find that S-modded enemy ships are not that common. If gives the player a slight advantage if they choose to invest in maxing out their fleet and it makes you think about permanent alterations to a ship, which can have long-lasting consequences on ships that stay with you the whole game.
On the whole, I don't think you're wrong but I don't think you're particularly right, either. I've enjoyed how they've been implemented, though the rate and uses of them are definitely in the "first pass" stage of a major game mechanic (i.e. there's some ironing out to do). I think if the game was simply littered with SP options (most of them rather impactful), their value would actually improve. As it is, I save them for "big" decisions and rarely use them in the smaller, more mundane ways I think they were intended to be used for in the early game. I mean if they were everywhere and each one could have major implications on a run, you'd be tempted to use them more and the glut of SP that you get early wouldn't feel like a bad thing. You call it genie magic or cheat codes but it's more like choosing where to aim your shot to me. If everyone has a 6-shooter in a crowd of enemies, you have to prioritize your targets. The problem is that the player has a machine-gun right now so they can be a lot less discriminating!
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(For me, the worst offender here is that one Luddic Church vigil fleet that you have to get out of your way to scan a thing. Somehow it costs a story point to offer them supplies? Why?)
Personally, this specific situation (and others like it where you have to spend a story point for your character to remember how to use their tongue.) were the points in the game that story points felt like a bad system.
Using the ludd vigil fleet as an example of how a good chunk of SP choices could be reworked:
Currently you have two options to deal with them, 1: Kill them. 2: Spend a story point and some supplies,
I'd propose the following options, 1: Kill them. 2: Give them a large quantity of supplies to have them move away and repair. 3: Spend an SP to reduce the number of supplies they want, with you being able to stack this choice to eventually have them leave for "free".
The idea behind my proposal, is that the first two options are logical, and make sense in a realism sense. But the third option, of spending SP to reduce the supplies needed, potentially even to nothing, would be the equivalent of passing a "speech check" in other games.
Basically, this means that SP are your "speech check" equivalent, so rather than having a rng chance to persuade characters, you can spend an SP to guarantee that result.
Also having it cost multiple SP to get them to move for free, ties in with how easy it can be get a large stock of SP stored away. And as this is a "relatively major" thing, you'll have to spend a few SP to get it for "free". A counterpart to this, is negotiating a higher delivery contract for example, that should only cost 1 SP, as it's a much more minor "speech check" equivalent.
In short: make SP usage in conversations a "speech check" equivalent, with the number of SP used to pass a check scaling with how important/hard what you are doing is.
Where I might tweak the system is paying a SP before the battle to designate a "high value" target or some such that would give it a higher chance for recovery.
This is an idea i really like, would be a good change imo.
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Re: S-Mods. S-Mods are a sidegrade to what we had in 0.91 and to while certain hull mods are obviously more "automatic" than others, it's no better/worse in my opinion that Loadout Design 3 that just gave a flat bonus to OP. There was no thought to that or meaningful choice if you simply picked up the skill. From my vantage point, S-Mods are just part and parcel with an evolving loadout feature for the game. You are never forced to build in any hull mod and I find that S-modded enemy ships are not that common. If gives the player a slight advantage if they choose to invest in maxing out their fleet and it makes you think about permanent alterations to a ship, which can have long-lasting consequences on ships that stay with you the whole game.
There is one huge disadvantage of s-mods instead of Loadout Design 3. You cannot build new ships with those s-mods (without wasting more story points). This means if player does not want to add s-mods to new ships, he must recover ships lost in battle, and those ships will probably need a very costly Restore to make them pristine again, unless player has Field Repairs. But Field Repairs works slowly, only good for a ship or two at a time.
If not for Field Repairs (which I still think takes too long to remove d-mods), I probably would be complaining every other post about how losses in combat are devastating and replacing or restoring ships are too expensive.
Restoring Ziggurat (from alpha site) to pristine is extremely expensive, well over a million credits. I used Field Repairs to make those d-mods go away.
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This is of course telling about how I like my games, but my feeling is that if breaking the rules of the game is a good thing (outside some kind of meta context of course), then it points to flaws in design.
Exceptions to rules are rules themselves. In a lot of ways, I think SP is analogous to king's castle in chess (or perhaps pawn promotion would be a more appropriate analogue). I think I might see what you're saying though. A perfect game should have few, simple, elegant rules that don't require exceptions. FTL is a good example because experts (and only experts) can reliably beat it in spite of it relying heavily on RNG. Starsector is very different though. It's an RPG (meaning complete failure isn't really an option) and it's much more complex due to a vastly larger scope (meaning it's impractical to polish the rules to the point where they always work out perfectly).
I'd furthermore note that many of the places SP show up don't have to do with circumvention but with, to paraphrase myself, tazing my stupid meatsack of a character into taking basic actions.
Sure, I can agree with that, along with plenty of your other specific points. Generally though, most of your complaints seem fairly minor to me, even when I agree. That's just me though.
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I think you have some valid points about story points devaluing certain aspects of the game like sensors/stealth, and there are certainly some places in the story where story points are used clumsily.
A lot of your critique boils down to simply not liking their being a unified resource that is awarded alongside XP that gives free stuff. Which is fair enough: its a bit of a weird abstraction of general levelling systems. Most leveling systems gives levels or skill points or attribute points etc in exchange for doing game actions on top of usual awards. Some free bonus that has to do with intangibles instead of tangibles: story points are the tangible reward counterpart to that. It doesn't help that the same resource that gives tangible benefits is also the analog of 'luck points' or 'hero points' from tabletop RPGs that allow for rerolls in bad situations (avoiding fleets, emergency repairs, and recovery of ships). Its a LOT to cram into a single unified system.
It would be like in an RPG if the GM gives me a hero point every fourth of a level that I could instead exchange for gold. There a breaking of the 4th wall which is pretty strange: hero points have to do with me the player adjusting the narrative, but gold is something my character earns! It feels better when those two things are kept separate and helps immersion.
But at the same time a lot of your points lack substance beyond not liking there being a unified resource. The sections on promoting officers and using story points for colonies is especially egregious... its disguised with will smith genie references (which are funny, I did laugh) and hyperbole about the player character being incompetent and lots of twisty sentences, but there isn't actually any argument in either of those paragraphs for why those are bad other than 'story points are bad'. As these same specific instances are being implicitly used as evidence for story points being bad (as thats the thread title), thats not good enough: its a circular argument.
Taking my stab at trying to interpret, I'm sorry if this mischaracterizes: you want there to be specific resources and actions that the player needs to do to get benefits rather than a general resource. Eg: officers from the fleet would require a text minigame or something to 'mentor' them. Ship improvements should require hunting down unique ships. Colony improvements should require building a particular sequence of buildings, etc, instead of their being a unified 'free stuff' resource. In some ways I agree with you: each of those examples would offer increased immersion and might be fun to figure out. But in other ways I disagree because I think a lot of things would just become a grind or have obvious solutions after the first playthrough that are not fun to do but just autopicks. Conversation options in particular that offer benefits... yes they could have some other tradeoff or have some other requirement, but thats just a matter of doing a cost/benefit analysis once, and most of the options in game are purely beneficial autopicks (because they cost a free stuff point).
There's also a benefit to having a unified resource: the actions have an exchange rate that needs to be considered. The battle get out of jail free isn't free, it costs me an S mod. The conversation options that are 'no brainers' actually aren't: they cost a resource. Etc. That to me is engaging because I need to balance the uses and the situation changes.
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First off, I think your post is good feedback. As opinion, as you say, some people are going to disagree, but it is thought provoking, and appreciate the effort that went into it and a number of your points seem quite valid to me. I can agree that some uses are not up to a sufficient standard, with potential for improvement, but I don't think the idea in and of itself is necessarily bad. Execution can vary, but I have seen similar things used successfully elsewhere.
On a conceptual level, I despise story points. In a broader sense, what I hate is arbitrary mechanics. It’d be like if I started an FTL run and had a magical ‘explode enemy ship’ button that I could use X number of times a run. It has nothing to do with the rest of the game, I didn’t in any way earn it, it actively hurts the entire rest of the game and makes me much less engaged, and it doesn’t even have any thematic or mechanical engagement with the game besides, essentially, lowering the level of thought required to play it.
Personally I don't see story points being any more arbitrary than an experience bar and skill trees. I would also argue that in the case of story points, you did earn them, in the same way that you earned skill points and progression down skill trees. Certainly there were enough posts stating there were not enough of them that Alex hot fixed an increase to the gain rate post level 15. What the appropriate rate of earning is certainly up for debate and likely going to depend on personal preference.
However, to say you don't earn them, is like saying you don't earn credits in the game either. By definition, story points have something to do with the rest of the game, you can't get them without actually doing something significant in game that gets you experience points. Arguably, credits are earned easier than story points - you can get those by simply sitting in your ship orbiting a planet, with a commission or for the first few cycles of the game.
I've seen similar concepts done in a number of other pen and paper games, like fate points in Fate, or hero points in Pathfinder, or force points in Starwars D20. The later two examples are explicitly refreshed by leveling, although doing cool stuff in story can also have them be awarded by the GM. Kind of like how the story line in Starsector hands out story points in a few places. Fate points in Fate let you occasionally declare things about the situation at hand, briefly pulling overall narrative control into the hands of the player instead of the game master.
They're all arbitrary in a sense, but do provide a limited resource that lets you go above and beyond on occasion, breaking the rest of the normal rules, and thus letting the characters feel more special and unique because they're breaking the rules the NPCs can't. Simply because they're the main characters of the story taking place.
I want to be clear that I'm not criticizing the various systems and mechanics that are accessible via story points; I hate the points themselves. In every instance in which they are found within the game right now, story points do one of three things; devalue an existing mechanic or system, circumvent the same, or directly harm the game's foundations.
Experience is perhaps the ripest target, but at least that gives me a sense that I’m growing and becoming more adept. It is, ironically, a far better way to make me invested in my character than story points are.
How do you see story points as a difference from skill points, a limited resource generated by the gain of experience, and spent to devalue existing mechanics (industry tree fuel logistics for example) or circumvent mechanics (transverse jump in the tech tree circumvents a large amount of potential encounters on the campaign map, and makes smuggling or escape in systems trivial in many cases)? "Directly harming the game foundations" is a bit more of a nebulous term to me, I'll admit.
Story points, however... The easiest way for me to sum them up is to compare them to cheat codes. The kinds I used to abuse a decade or so ago when I began playing computer games. I can distinctly remember the day I realized how much I was cheating myself by using them to circumvent the game, the challenges, the fun presented to me. Story points leave me with that same awful, hollow feeling; and in many cases, the way they're used is barely a step removed from a console command, or in the case of SP disengage, literally equivalent to a console command.
That strikes me as a question of overall difficulty then. I can use "cheat codes" (i.e. modify game files) to make the game harder as well. Many mods and the game itself can be tuned to one's desired difficulty level. Many, many people use the save and reload functionality, and I do as well depending on my desires for how I'm playing the game at the time. Some uses of story points mitigate the potential losses a human being can cause through mistakes (being inattentive, literal misclicking F instead of D while piloting an Onslaught, etc), which I prefer to save and reloading. Having played through an iron man respawn or two, respawning is not always the best use of my time. However, I feel risking something and failing forward, is overall better gameplay instead of reloading the exact same fight 3 times, and story points at least in theory can help facilitate that, as another resource you can lose instead of your entire fleet. Yes, they do make the game easier, but so do skills, credits, commissions, and a host of other things you can earn by playing the game.
If the game is balanced with them in mind, then I can't see it as a cheat code, it's an resource you're expected to use. Currently, I'm pretty sure you're expected to spend story points on hull mods for a number of your ships to be able to handle end game triple Radiant fleets or the <new redacted> end game bounty with a classic fleet composition (as opposed to say, Derelict Contingent or Phase Mastery/Systems Expertise solo chain Doom). Whether the game is currently balanced and at the correct level of difficulty with them is a different question, but in principle, it should be possible. Rate of gain is a large part of tweaking that.
But I'll get to that in a moment. These things do not make me feel like I’m writing my own story, or that my character is having moments of brilliance, or that I’ve in any way earned something.
This is fair. I have used story points on some of the non-violent story line options, but there's no real way to change the overall story line. On the other hand, branching story lines in computer games are a gigantic pain and take massive amounts of effort relative to the payoff players get from it. As for feeling having earned it, that I still feel is related to the number you have on hand. If players received 1 story point per level, and 1 per 4 million XP after 15, I'd bet spending a story point would feel far more earned.
I do feel building in hull mods with story points is basically saying "This ship is important to me". For most players, I'm willing to bet they don't double or triple s-mod every ship they get their hands on throughout a run. Again, rate of gain can adjust how significant that particular feeling is to me.
There's not even a reason to call them story points. Again, they have a connection to the game about as solid as frog snot; you could call them magical genie lamps and it would be just as appropriate, and in fact would probably be more appropriate given the way they're used. And no, not Robin Williams genie. Will Smith genie.
I could see them as luck points perhaps, in the case of guaranteeing recovering a derelict or escaping without a fight. Although improvements to industries and ship hull mod integration strike me as not lucky. Main character points, or single player game points perhaps.
At the end of the day, these are a resource which not intended to scale exponentially with stage of the game like credits or ships, but are more of a slow but steady gain (at least past the first 6 or 7 levels) for actually doing things which earn you XP. Past a certain point, credits become meaningless, you have access to all the ships you could possibly want, which would trivialize certain problems. Who cares if your fleet blows up when you can replace the whole thing from what I've got sitting in storage and constantly producing more. Bribes for the Hegemony? Sure, I've got tens of millions.
It's a completely different feeling when you have 30 or 45 story points invested in your fleet at end game in 0.9.5a than end game in 0.9.1a, where all ships were interchangeable. It becomes much more of an investment than merely the ships. That is likely hours of effort poured into the fleet that you can't simply replace at the drop of hat. Or spending a story point on bribing the Hegemony feels far more costly than spending a million credits. That right there does feel like a story change, as that's literally preventing a war with Hegemony solely through you ability to fast talk or charm the inspectors, which by rights should is an incredible feat of persuasion. I mean, the alpha core can't seem to convince the Hegemony to stay away and save themselves, so how does a mere mortal as yourself do so?
As noted at the beginning, I agree not all options are good enough at this point. There's room for improvement, but I don't think it's necessarily the wrong direction. As noted by others, I feel the campaign version of Starsector (as opposed to missions selected from the main menu) is closer to a pen and paper RPG in progression than a rogue-like FTL or Hades. A campaign is intended to be much larger investment, and thus it should be really, really hard to reach a respawn condition, as it's potentially hours of progression lost. Losing something valuable, but less than the sum total of the run is a much better balance point in a game like this, in the same way that spending a hero point is much better option than a random string of critical hits dictating a Pathfinder character died in some meaningless side encounter. It's a real cost, but its not the whole game, and making you reach for the reload button.
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I lean towards not liking story points, but there is enough for the things I want(s-mods, elite skills, mentoring, historian) so I do not mind too much.
Just jumped in for 2 notes.
There's a conversation, of course, about making certain hullmods less stupidly good and/or less mandatory, but that's a separate conversation and probably ends with needing to improve the AI, which sorely needs to be done.
Some of the quirks of the Ai can certainly be super annoying.
You mentioned "improving the AI" pretty casually, I think it's worth emphasizing that generally is a massive amount of work for possibly minimal gains.
You are never forced to build in any hull mod and I find that S-modded enemy ships are not that common. If gives the player a slight advantage if they choose to invest in maxing out their fleet and it makes you think about permanent alterations to a ship, which can have long-lasting consequences on ships that stay with you the whole game.
While using s-mods is not mandatory, the game has to be adjusted with people having them in mind.
Capitals can get ~90-100 free OP, that's a ton of extra capacity+venting that'll make a very noticeable difference.
The new redacted threats are already a PITA to fight for conventional fleets with full 3 s-mod ships.
Without mods I'd guess only frustration or doom/SO/monitor/paragon cheese is left.
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Perhaps introduce the concept of D-mods that are resistant to restoration, or a special suite of D-mods that are particularly nasty and costly to remove. Hell, introduce more D-mods in general, I'd say. Pristine ships are supposed to be noticeably good, yes? I mean, I%u2019ll note that ships tend to get somewhat stingy amounts of OP; what if you pumped up the base OP on all of 'em, but then D-mods cut into OP, or if there was an OP reducing D-mod?
I particularly like this. D mods aren't enough of a penalty IMHO, you can easily remove them and perfect ships aren't exactly rare. Make D mods more ubiquitous and OP reducing and the mechanic becomes worth it. I also like the idea of having a proficiency in salvaging and not just RNG. Oh you found a paragon floating in deep space? Well, you can take it but it has 8 Dmods because you suck. Likewise a player investing heavily in salvage tech (For want of a better term) can make a living by flipping ships they've found.
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I just think that "circumventing rules" (ie, avoiding a battle that you shouldn't, salvaging a ship that shouldn't be salvageable) as opposed to "investing experience" into your character or ships (ie, colonies improvements, mentoring officers, elite skills, etc) should cost a LOT more story points.
Maybe 5 points for a single ship salvage and 10 points to avoid a battle. Then it would properly feel like making a decisive genius action borne out of experience.
As for hullmods, what if they cost 1SP per 10 OP? Baking in expanded mags to your Onslaught: 1SP, Heavy armor: 4SP.
Story points were supposed to give you a "get out of jail" card to avoid loosing all you fleet in unfair battles, and they do that. But they also further increased the value of your ships because of the SP invested in them. In that regard they are a failure to address the core issue: precious ships cannot escape battles quickly enough to be saved in case of trouble, disengagement battles are un-fun, and unwinnable.
Unlike rogue-lite games, Starsector doesn't reward risk taking, and has a very "all or nothing" combat system. That's a tough combination that needs mitigating tools such as story points, however blunt a solution they are at times.
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I'm not advocating for hardcore mode here; in fact I'd argue in favor of quicksaves when you touch base or make difficult accomplishments and just reload, personally; but there's no meat here.
It's quicker, yet more consequential to spend a story point.
The player considers salvage. There are a lot of choices here to make;
My choices:
Do I want this ship? If not, scrap.
Do I want this ship only a little and d-mods are inconsequential? If not, scrap.
Do I have enough fuel to take the ship back? If not, scrap or leave it be.
Crew, supplies and outfits aren't choices when salvaging, as salvaged ships I didn't already have in my fleet spend time mothballed until I go to my base of operations, where I will easily enough acquire enough supplies and crew to run the ship, and where I have all the weapons I need to make it work. And if I needed to take one more spreadsheet ship not to miss out on some ships I want, I would take it, toss it into the pile of all of my spreadsheet ships and forget about it for the rest of the game. Salvage rig isn't much different from freighters or tankers.
I feel like you're more complaining that base salvaging is too simplistic, than that there's a story point option to recover ships.
Incidentally, restricting D-mod types doesn't make sense, especially if there's any system in place that's supposed to allow for civilian or logistics ships to potentially put up a fight at all (which there is), so it's kind of nonsense both on a thematic and mechanical level. I'm a bit baffled that the separation was made. I do understand the lack of Compromised Storage on non-logistics ships; such ships generally don't have enough cargo space for that to matter, I suppose, but even though I get that one I'd still argue against its exclusion on a personal preference level. Anyway.
Combat d-mods on spreadsheet ships would be freebies (though it doesn't really matter for civvies now, since there's no maint reduction anymore) and compromised storage is a freebie on a combat ship (-1 burn sometimes hurts, sometimes doesn't).
RogueSynth and Starship Legends]
I don't like that I have to complain about SL, when Sundog already knows what are my issues are and that the mod simply is not for me, but alas. This is less for salvaging and more for ship customisation. SL did not make my ships more personal or let them be better through more effort. It let them acquire random traits that are randomly beneficial or harmful at random intervals. The best you can do is make all your random traits on random ships positive. It doesn't make ships personal, quite to the contrary: it takes away control from me and overlays a static noise of traits on my ships and I can only hope that good traits are the important ones and the bad traits are not. At best it's ignorable, at worst it's irritating. Sorry Sundog.
As far as I understand, RogueSynth is similar, but with a set of traits, instead of traits being entirely random.
If all you want is to tell me that it's okay to have suboptimal ships, then I have to tell you that base game d-mods are doing it just fine for me.
For other mods that upgrade your ships with credits... with credits... That comes back to not being a cost at all, really. Well, I assume other mods you mentioned make ships better with credits, I never played them. Story points currently are more precious than credits.
It goes without saying why this circumvents the mechanics, but how does it devalue them? Well, it means that the entire system for shipbuilding requires less thought, less consideration. It means less because you can now 'cheat' it out of quite a bit of value. Once again, I'll point out how uncomfortably close this is to just flat-out cheating.
I like s-mods more than +OP from Loadout Design. It makes my ships more personal, because I have to spend some pretty valuable resource on them and upgrades are per-ship only (though s-mods become a bit annoying late game and for industry players). Of course, all OP boosters could also be removed. That would probably prompt a rebalancing of many ships and hullmods. I would say that it would be a bit strange, to have no option to expand on so important aspect of fitting your ships.
As for how the player themselves become an elite? Considering this is a permanent change to the main actual player, it should of course be quite difficult to acquire such a thing. Using 0.91a as an example, what if I saved up three of my level up points to become an elite in salvaging? That's a relatively simple example, and it's also a decent reason to do to more things; snap off the level cap, thus continuing to reward the player with experience for the things they do, which they can then invest in becoming a legend, which they ought to be by the time they get into their two-hundredth 500DP invasion war fight thing.
I'm actually surprised you complain about some skill points requiring 1 1/4th skill points and not about them costing skill points at all, if you have an issue with them. Anyway, it's mostly because personal skills don't provide any story point sinks by themselves, so they can be elited to alleviate that.
Yes, I'm aware that fleet sizes were made smaller
Are you sure you really played the 0.95a update? Heh.
I'll take a second to potshot the idea of bribing inspections costing a story point; for Lobster's sake, it already costs me credits if not a fight, and with the new contacts system there could easily be other costs involved; maybe a favor I need to do for some Hegemony official; and this is another one of those accursed situations where for some reason I am incapable of taking a simple, obvious action; saying 'yes'; without the help of Will Smith.
I'm guessing that bribes cost SPs to make them have more consequences. Bribing expeditions and inspections seemed cheap enough previously.
And then there's colonies. I don't really mind the nerfs; sure, they were strong. Personally I never managed to make them broken or all that strong but maybe that's because I avoid using AI cores. If that's the case, and you'e balancing them around AI usage, you clearly do not have enough consequences for AI usage. If it becomes grindingly hard to make colonies without AI after this, that'll have been a mistake. But that's okay, because you gave me the option of having Will Smith sprinkle his fairy magic all over my colony to make it better.
I wouldn't mind AI inspections being ubribeable, period.
(Then again, I'm not a fan of the current iteration of hyperspace travel anyway. Yes, sure, it accomplishes the goal of making sure you can't just set a course and then tab out for a bit.
But I do travel by just tabbing out for travel! I did in 0.9.1 and I still do now, though now I slap Solar Shielding on all of my ships because whether I steer manually or just beeline it, storms are obnoxious, especially for bounty hunters. I kinda wish I could start out with Janus device, it makes exploration less tedious. It's also a reason why I never played with mods that put Remnants in hyperspace; not only those fleets would be fairly easy to deal with, they also would interrupt me and have to check in on situation more.
Where I might tweak the system is paying a SP before the battle to designate a "high value" target or some such that would give it a higher chance for recovery.
SS is not a casino, I don't want to pay to get (un)lucky. If I get really unlucky and don't win anyway, then I get no salvage at all.
You call it genie magic or cheat codes but it's more like choosing where to aim your shot to me. If everyone has a 6-shooter in a crowd of enemies, you have to prioritize your targets. The problem is that the player has a machine-gun right now so they can be a lot less discriminating!
I always thought of SPs as player character's time. I promote a crewman to an officer because my PC spent time on that. I mentor an officer, or rather, my PC spends his time on that. I can dupe some pather because my PC spent reading up on Ludd that one time. SPs as time isn't even far off from how it works, anyway.
Without mods I'd guess only frustration or doom/SO/monitor/paragon cheese is left.
Or the Radiant.
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I agree with the assessment that story point are simply too ubiquitous. I never had less than 30 and spent them at (what I felt was) a liberal rate.
For me a good change would be to
- get less story points by just leveling.
- have the amount of story points required to do certain things be more fine grained, as Tarti explained.
- have other things besides leveling generate story points. It should not be repeatable actions (that you could farm) but certain milestones. For example, getting your first capital ship, your first colony, your first successful escape, your first time being caught smuggling. That would incentivize players to explore all aspects of the game, I believe.
It is probably too much to ask, but it would
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Maybe 5 points for a single ship salvage and 10 points to avoid a battle. Then it would properly feel like making a decisive genius action borne out of experience.
I already rarely consider either of these options worthwhile. If avoiding a battle was 10 points, I'd just go back to loading a save.
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(ISS Laharl): Taking hull damage, captain.
To FooF: You make an excellent point regarding salvage destroyed VS disabled that I hadn't considered. Still, I think the other alternatives I offer are enough to give the player meaningful choice without incentivizing unfun options; but I do admit that my suggestion regarding control over disabled VS destroyed doesn't seem workable under current conditions. Given that I've already advocated for AI improvement however, I don't think it's off the table in the long term. As for LD3, you'll probably not be surprised to hear that I'm glad it no longer exists. While I prefer it to S-mods since it at least worked within the game's systems, I didn't particularly care for how bland yet mandatory it was. Story points are definitely in a first pass stage, yes, but the crux of my argument is simply that they're undesirable by comparison to potential; that is, they're a very badly calculated opportunity cost.
To Amazigh: My personal solution would be to simply add a few more branches of dialogue, with different resources or connections you can exploit. I like the point you make about 'speech checks', but that's something that could be easily fitted into, say, a skill you grow either by level up or by use, rather than limited points; it does not, for example, make sense that a character that talked their way in and out of multiple nasty situations suddenly finds themselves blubbertongued because I ran out of story points. Skill checks, and the increasing ability to pass them, suggests growth and specialization. Story points do not.
To Sundog: While I agree Starsector is sort of an RPG hybrid rather than a straight sandbox, the same can be said for Skyrim or Minecraft or Terraria or Starbound, all of which have elegant and well-designed rules without the need for handicaps. Well... It might be disingenuous to say that about Skyrim considering how broken it is a lot of the time, but for sake of argument, let's pretend I mean the community-patched version of Skyrim.
To Thaago: Hoo boy I was afraid when I saw you responded. In regards to your first paragraph, I'll note that while I'm an avid player of TTRPG's, Pathfinder specifically, neither myself nor anyone I know actually uses the hero points, because they just muddy the waters of the perfectly good mechanics and systems in place. I don't mean to say that the book is sacrosanct; for example, when playing 2nd Ed D&D with my father, we changed the rules multiple times to account for things that just seemed stupid. But good mechanics engender good story and a fun experience, and using some kind of resource that's completely out of the game's bounds to manipulate said game is always... Disappointing, at least for me.
I'm glad you liked the joke! I felt it was representative of my feelings. Having said that, I'd argue against the idea I was being hyperbolic; that was very accurate to how I felt and my perception of my character in those moments. Where you *are* correct is that I don't support my points nearly well enough, and I'll have to compose some extra paragarphs for the essay to address that.
You don't really mischaracterize me much; you put it perhaps more simply than I'd like, but essentially yes, I want to play the game by the game's rules using the game's systems. To that end, SP feels like a disconnected arbitration meant only to either allow me to cheat, make things easier for me, or lock off nice things from me, without any connection to the world of the Persean Sector and the rules by which I play. Going back to the TTRPG thing, I'm a very mechanics focused person, but never to the exclusion of story; rather, for me, an excellent rules system encourages and fertilizes the ground for an excellent interactive experience. In this analogy, story points feel like a lackluster first draft of some dude's attempt at their homebrew version of D&D but they're calling it something else. The unified resource argument rings a bit hollow for me because it feels like a lazy blanket attempt rather than putting specific work into each of the sections it affects.
Things that are grindy or are autopicks are, of course, flaws, and should be treated as such. This is why I also take issue with things being too dominant or mindless, like SO, but these are things that can be solved simply with balance work and expansion of design space. It's quite possible you're misinterpreting me somewhat but I feel that we would have to have a personal conversation to match wavelengths.
To Hiruma Kai:
I already mentioned my distaste for similar points in TTRPGs, and the reason is the same; yes, you can argue that I did objectively earn it because I did the thing that got me the point, but it doesn't feel earned. You could say I earned victory over those pirates by typing in a code that made them all explode, and in a certain sense that'd be true, but it wouldn't be... real, I guess. Yes, I did acquire the points, but I didn't do anything for them, and their uses don't make me feel like I earned the things I use them for. Subjective, I know, but they're a very subjective-focused resource; it's in the name.
Since you mention it, I actually strongly dislike the balance of most of the skills as they stand, but I overall appreciate that the more I accomplish as a captain, the better I get at being a captain. The more you do thing, the better you are at thing; very old hat, but perfectly reliable and understandable, and an easy path to at least some immersion and sense of progress.
Mitigation of mistakes is something that should also be part of the game though. What would an actual captain do to allow for mistakes? Well, not some fourth-wall magic well of cheats. The other things you mention that make the game easier are the answer; they need better balancing, sure, and it should be more comprehensive, but I should feel like an experienced and prepared captain BECAUSE I'm an experienced and prepared captain, not because I'm discount Aladdin.
The point about 'this ship is important to me' is... Well, okay, the way I play the game is extremely, extremely long-form and with huge fleets, so while I do develop favorite ships over time, there's no way, in the long run, that it'd be worth it to single out one ship as special. That's admittedly just due to how I play, but honestly, if Starsector continued to encourage smaller fleets, smaller battles, and shorter playtimes, I don't think I'd play it any further; there are other games that already do things like that. I don't really have an argument for that since it's whatever Alex wants to do with it, though; entirely subjective.
Saying it's closer to pen and paper than a roguelike is accurate. But that doesn't mean it needs to take on all their aspects; nor does it mean aspects found in such games are actually a good idea. Shadowrun is pretty much the only system where I even slightly liked their 'points' system, and it should come as little surprise that this is primarily because it's the least obtrusive and most woven-in one that I'm aware of.
Needing things besides a reload button is an entirely fair point though.
To Draba:
I'm well aware how difficult AI development can be. But that doesn't change the fact that there is a clear and pulsating need for it. The salient options are to either dumb down the game until the gap is closed, or develop the AI until the gap is closed. Duct taping over the issue or trying to circumvent it would be lazy. I don't think it's fair to suggest the gains would be minimal in this case, and I also think it's worthwhile to point out that Alex has no end of potential support from this community if he so asked; I believe a few people have already manipulated the AI in a number of ways. It's up to him of course.
To Captain Rizz: I like everything you said.
To Tartiflette: Your name scared me too!
While I agree with your points on a surface level, especially the need for a mitigating tool, I still hold that story points are far too ham-handed an attempt, and more thought should have gone into better and more integrated systems.
To SCC:
It's accurate that I think base salvaging is a bit simplistic, but I don't think it's as simplistic as you make out. Though, it feels like this is more a difference in our respective playstyles and what we want out of the game. Compounded somewhat by your thoughts on SSL, though I agree it could use slightly less randomness. The two obscure mods i mention; one uses credits, the other trade goods. Hardly a difference, but I appreciate the concepts they were trying to introduce. I do want methods to make ships better, but they should make in-world sense.
Lessee, already addressed LD3...
"Are you sure you really wanted the update?" Yeah, admittedly, some of the core concepts of the update give me the somewhat sobering feeling that this may become a game I can't enjoy. I... Don't relish dwelling on that.
If bribes et al are too cheap, there's a much easier solution to that. Not even talking straight credits here, there're other costs that could be conceptualized, a couple of which I referenced, but I'm admittedly quite tired at the moment.
And as for 'time spent', what you're talking about is experience. I say this above, but if I have one story point, say, and do something that you'd think any human being with memory would be able to do again... But can't, because I'm out of points... That just looks stupid and is immensely frustrating.
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As for hullmods, what if they cost 1SP per 10 OP? Baking in expanded mags to your Onslaught: 1SP, Heavy armor: 4SP.
Would this really make me want to spend SPs on cheaper hullmods, or would this simply make me want to spend SPs on "safe", expensive hullmods (for example, when will a high-tech ship not want hardened shields or a capital ship not want ITU?) so that I don't accidentally waste one of two (or three) slots on a hullmod that is actually suboptimal?
It's accurate that I think base salvaging is a bit simplistic, but I don't think it's as simplistic as you make out. Though, it feels like this is more a difference in our respective playstyles and what we want out of the game. Compounded somewhat by your thoughts on SSL, though I agree it could use slightly less randomness. The two obscure mods i mention; one uses credits, the other trade goods. Hardly a difference, but I appreciate the concepts they were trying to introduce. I do want methods to make ships better, but they should make in-world sense.
I care less about integrity of the universe and more about the gameplay (I care about both, but lore isn't what kept me playing SS for years). Credit costs are less important than SP costs.
The level of randomness in SL I would accept is if I could set traits I wanted to have, or at least positive ones. Optimal traits are the target, everything else is suboptimal and only a stop at the road to perfection - unless, of course, late game threats didn't require me to optimise my traits, so they would be simply useless. This would also defeat the point of SL, wouldn't it? I would rather have it left out entirely. I don't have to use a mod.
If bribes et al are too cheap, there's a much easier solution to that. Not even talking straight credits here, there're other costs that could be conceptualized, a couple of which I referenced, but I'm admittedly quite tired at the moment.
I wouldn't mind other ways to stop expeditions, but that doesn't make SP bribes less meaningful, since SPs are valuable.
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Would this really make me want to spend SPs on cheaper hullmods, or would this simply make me want to spend SPs on "safe", expensive hullmods (for example, when will a high-tech ship not want hardened shields or a capital ship not want ITU?) so that I don't accidentally waste one of two (or three) slots on a hullmod that is actually suboptimal?
That would be the goal, right now using SP on anything but Hardened Shields, ITU and Heavy armor is a waste of free OPs. If those expensive hullmods did cost more, there would be a trade-off.
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With staggered SP cost you might still want the most expensive hullmods for your flagship, but on support ships, frigates etc. the cheaper ones would be very attractive.
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Bribing takes SP now. I would sooner go to war or even wipe them off the map with sat bombs than to pay credits, let alone SP, to the extortionists. All SP must go to colonies and feed the 2^n rate!
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I just finished my first playthrough of the vanilla game a while ago and feel like story points are a bit strange for someone that saves/loads a bunch.
However, when you start a new game and hover over "Iron Mode" it specifically says that "This is the setting the game is intended to be played on". If you keep this in mind, suddenly story points make a whole lot more sense, no? Sometimes this game will put you in situations that will wreck your entire fleet or favorite modded ship through no fault of your own, and rather than walking away feeling terrible you get to spend semi-limited points. In Iron Mode the points aren't random cheat codes, I see them more as a valuable currency that emulate quick save/load.
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I mean, that's exactly the problem. Story points are limited-use cheats / savescum tokens that don't even remotely feel like an integral part of the game. It's a crappy band-aid solution for balance problems. Instead of giving the player the option to cheat his way out of an unwinnable retreat, make it retreat battles actually worth playing out. Currently, the game is seemingly designed around the player doing everything perfectly, lossless, and either never taking risks or reloading failures. The failure recovery mechanics are virtually non-existent.
In the old blog post Alex gushed how story points "allow him to do cool stuff as a developer". Sadly, it means "allow him to slap magical cheat points as a no-brain solution to anything instead of designing game systems that actually feel like they belong in the game".
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Currently, the game is seemingly designed around the player doing everything perfectly, lossless, and either never taking risks or reloading failures. The failure recovery mechanics are virtually non-existent.
This is my biggest gripe about bounties. Their payouts assume flawless victory every time. Sure, a string of flawless victories against bounties will make the player rich, but if he takes a loss, he may lose two or three bounties worth just to replace the ship.
If the game is to encourage challenging combat, it should provide enough to cover losses. Otherwise, player will avoid combat unless he can totally crush the enemy like an angry god stomping on bugs.
Bar jobs that send surprise hunter fleets are worse if player gets caught, since they pay nothing at all, and the job assumed no combat (or only ground combat with raids).
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Following up from my last night response. Almost any situation with SP could be replaced with actual gameplay:
1. Skip combat: negotiations, bribes, relations with factions mechanics, dropping cargo, combat retreat battles...
2. Salvage. A salvage system that depends on the level of salvage officers and ships you have, so dedicated salvagers get a chance. Or just straight tak a page out of Battletech's book. Have a "possible loot" pool and let the player make some of guaranteed picks based on how much salvage skills he has. For example: "You have 130 salvage points. Guaranteed XIV Onlaught recovery (1-3 dmods) will cost 40. -10 because ship was disabled and not destroyed. +20 for being a non-buildable hull. +20 for decreasing dmods by 1.".
3. Planets. The 2^n system is a giveaway that it should not be there in the first place. There are many mods that were already mentionned.
4. Baked-in hullmods. This is probably the worst aspect, which breaks the game lore quite badly. Things like the XIV battlegroup hulls were super rare and therefore valuable, representing the lost level of technology the sector can no longer replicate. Now - you can just make your own better Onslaught XIV seemingly out of thin air. Or a super Paragon. Or both. And again, it's not like there aren't gameplay mechanics set out for this. We have industries, nanoforges, from which an in-game mechanic for making ships with extra hull mods could be possible on a very limited scale.
etc.
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4. Baked-in hullmods. This is probably the worst aspect, which breaks the game lore quite badly. Things like the XIV battlegroup hulls were super rare and therefore valuable, representing the lost level of technology the sector can no longer replicate. Now - you can just make your own better Onslaught XIV seemingly out of thin air. Or a super Paragon. Or both. And again, it's not like there aren't gameplay mechanics set out for this. We have industries, nanoforges, from which an in-game mechanic for making ships with extra hull mods could be possible on a very limited scale.
This one is my main gripe about the system.
I feel colony output is a bit underutilized, in the end most industries give you money and that's it (just need a waystation for convenient resupplies).
Heavy industry is the cool one, it gives you production capability.
Taking regular losses in combat makes you utilize that production even after you have a full fleet.
Now the story points:
- make production less important (not that bad, recovering can be a nice convenience)
- make SP the main bottleneck when you take losses. I really dislike this one, a fully disposable fleet without s-mods is much weaker than something fully upgraded
Story points do give a sense of progression once credits are meaningless, so that's nice. XP bonuses also give an incentive for running lean and going for 3+ SP/battle.
Still, IMO finding better (and scaling) credit sinks would improve the game a lot.
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I'd almost prefer the entirety of hyperspace was replaced with a narrative interface - Plot course to Zagan system! Captain, we're picking up hostiles! Spend fuel to outrun them? Close in and engage? Comm up and bribe them to leave us alone?)
This! I would have much preferred this to the constant hyperspace storms!
Make it so that skills have additional effects on your options! Going silent if you have phase skills/ships, launch pre-emptive strike if you have carriers to enter combat against damaged ships, bribe some enemies into becoming your allies for a battle, bribe your way out of combat entirely, etc. It would give so many more options!
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Two cents: mod colony buildings are glorified cheating at best. I can run colonies without any SP upgrade just fine and still net over 500k a month while being pather free and inspection free. SP is there for incompetitive players to fix their mess-ups and mods are used as cheap excuses.
That said I’m perfectly fine if SP upgrading colony is removed altogether, but it’s completely improper to cheat by mod and claim it’s the legit way.
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Along the lines of what Tartiflette said, if you made S-Mods a "per OP" type option, you'd correct a lot of the issues I have with S-Mods: namely it's a one-size-fits-all solution whether its a Frigate putting on Expanded Mags (3 OP) or Capital Heavy Armor (40 OP).
I'm always loath to put S-mods on Frigates because I know those will eventually be rendered meaningless in the grand scheme of big battles. If stuff less than 10 OP were half a SP (or flat out 1 SP= 2 Frigate S-mods), I might be more tempted to S-mod Frigates. As you get into bigger ships, you start getting into fractions of points but I'd prefer granularity over what we have.
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Along the lines of what Tartiflette said, if you made S-Mods a "per OP" type option, you'd correct a lot of the issues I have with S-Mods: namely it's a one-size-fits-all solution whether its a Frigate putting on Expanded Mags (3 OP) or Capital Heavy Armor (40 OP).
We have this already, namely how much bonus XP you get. In effect, most s-mods are worth less than a full SP, given enough grinding in the long run.
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I like that they safe me a lot of reloads at times.
Picking up a mission type I don't know and some hypersensitive patrol is dead set on hanging around for a year. I rather just drive, give a point and wrap it up.
Most of my story points went into removing the influence penalty during raids (without transponder).
I dislike them with generic shipbuilding a lot. Having basically 2 free mods on everything takes out most of the worries you had on ships and god knows what the AI s-mods onto theirs.
There I mostly used them to slap on augmented drive. To which I think the speed of fleets really needs another look at. If it weren't for those though we would take some Tugs, so either way it is boring.
If your normal speed is basically 20 unless you scavenge some random ship, then why does ship-speed exist in the first place?
Half of the implementation is good, the other half I dislike. I like them where the game is weak to begin with (disengage, transponder shenanigans, raids, ship recovery). I dislike them where it makes no sense (emergency repair, historian, bribing, s-mods) from a game that already doesn't have much challenges.
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To Syfer3K and also kind of to Megas and Pappus: Uh, well, I had a response, but Amoebka actually does it more justice, so. Yeah, that. The game needs better failure handling; should be more like a sandbox and less like an RPG in that regard. But even then, I've known RPGs that had decent fail-states.
To Shad: Talk sweet to me baby. I actually really like the concept of salvage point pools. That would also allow for incentivizing salvage-centric ships. It would be... A little arbitrary, not quite rubbing me the right way, but I can't deny the mechanical advantages.
To Ramiel/Wyvern: While I agree that Hyperspace needs work I'd be against its removal. I'm actually quite fond of the sense of distance and grandeur I get from it, and I also like sometimes being a skeevy pirate in a place where I don't have to transponder anything, and just victimize trade fleets and unlucky pirates.
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A clever mechanic here would be to give the player even a small amount of control over that as opposed to RNG being the end all, perhaps something to do with how much damage per second was done to the hull to signify particularly catastrophic impacts that would split a ship apart (e.g. the impact of a Reaper in a single second versus that same damage spread out over time by a Mark IX), and one person on the forum by the name Ad Astra suggested finishing a ship via EMP damage (I'd argue for 'majority of damage was EMP'); any good XCOM player can tell you that RNG is acceptable if you're able to manipulate the inputs and outcomes in a meaningful manner, which is essentially what I'm on about here. But I digress. Again.
Damnit! I came here to berate this guy but now he agreed with me so I just have to shut up...
Just kidding
Well buddy, that was a long text! A long text I agree with quite a bit.
Some have said that story points are not in any way different from skill points, well I have to disagree, while a skill point symbolizes the expertise gained by an individual through their experiences within the game world, just like what a real person goes through in real life, story points would at best be moments of inspiration, which are not really good to implement in a game system, you want those from the player themselves (like when you hit a hound with a reaper and you can almost hear the pirates go like "Hawt dayum").
Your character without story points can already do great deeds and achieve feats unheard of throughout the sector, WITHOUT any SP usage, so how does disengaging when you have a pure frigate fleet require great divine intervention, as opposed to starting a successful colony in a sector ravaged by infighting and stagnation like its doing groceries? No idea...
SP are just another resource, just another coin, just another thing distracting us from making ACTUAL money more worthwhile, making faction and personal relations worthwhile, making skills worthwhile and making colonies worthwhile.
Do I need to BE an expert on ships to get a better Onslaught that what the XIV could field? Nope
Do I need to HIRE an expert to get it? Nope
Do I need to FIND rare pre domain tech that justifies such a cool and powerful modification? Nope
Then do I need a strong colony with considerable resources to make a powerful special fleet? Nope
Did I need to find or hang around luddies to convince this one? Nope
Did I need to achieve a trusting relationship and friends in high places to tell the AI bois to leg it? Nope.
Did I need to sha...ehm forge a trusting relationship with Ms Sun so that her blue fellows don't attack me for my 3% market share in adult diapers? Nope
Did I need to learn a skill or prepare my fleet specially to make sure even Space Davy Jones 'imself can't catch me?. LOL Nope.
Green boi go Kaplink! HAHAHA
So green point make do where nothing else make do. This isn't good, not good at all, you already HAVE the resources which could do everything you do with story points, and actually feel you made them yourself, feel you prepared for them yourself, feel like you planned after certain benefit and worked towards it, not just went around salvaging and "What do you know? I can now make the best Tempest that ever graced the sector". Again, this just isn't a good way to go about it, after all, the grind is still there, just make the grind worth it through the mechanics you already play with, instead of adding "Will Smith" as this genie obsessed fellow so eloquently put it.
I ALREADY HAVE TO GRIND! I ALREADY HAVE ALL THOSE COLOURED BARS ALL THE WAY PAST 75! ALREADY COLONIES! (caps for comedic effect, I am in fact very relaxed and totally not shouting)
I'm a strong independent spacer who don't need no green point!
Have the rep grind do what SP do, have skill points do what SP do, have player choices WHITHIN the game world do what SP do, what feels better, clicking on a green thingy to get a better ship or having to build your OWN docks so you can do it? Your own heavy industry? Your own research lab? (Industry idea). This is not having a pawn promotion in chess, this is being able to hit the table every 5th move, a pawn promotion would be to become more suave and seductive the more you spend your time doing jobs for who knows who in a shady bar in who knows were, you shouldn't be able to do that as an antisocial Apogee captain who communicates with grunts and body language Ludd dangit!
The game already has what it needs, just tie those systems together, with a world as rich as what we see here, as exciting and enthralling as what the devs have put together, we have little need for magic, for where we are going we don't need magic, we only need a loaded anti matter rifle, a spacesuit, and a heart lusting for adventure! Disclaimer: Spaceship, crew, supplies and fuel sold separately.
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Don't have a clear opinion on the overall topic, this is a bunch of disjointed thoughts:
Unsure whether I actually endorse this position yet, but I have a feeling: SP being decoupled conceptually/lore-wise from any of the game features it touches is actually good. It keeps things simple: one common resource pool instead of a dozen different elements spread across the game, and having to introduce a new one for each feature we want to implement/change. The actual relationship of the story point to whatever we're doing with it at that moment can be written on the spot.
i.e. the very arbitrariness of SP I consider in some ways a benefit, not a drawback.
Related to the above, I'm going to point out regarding the ideas to replace SP use with specific gameplay elements: a bunch of them are good and desirable, but would also require 10 times the work to cover the same bases as the SP use they replace. Consider for instance all the different options to get out of a fight you'd need to create for every possible combination of the specific enemy faction (Hegemony, Tri-Tachyon, pathers and pirates are each going to react to things differently), whether the fleet type in question would be responsive to this particular offer (random patrol, a prowling privateer, or a vengeance fleet specifically sent to kill you?), whether the player is even presently capable of doing the thing ("cool, I can get out of this crack if only I had this item I had no way of getting at this stage"), etc.
Some also have effects I consider actively bad, e.g. requiring player-owned heavy industry to enhance ships means the feature is locked out to me for multiple cycles into the game. (Fix for this: Let player have direct, reliable access to faction heavy industry. But see above.)
It's been stated a few times already in this thread, but needing SP to take a halfway diplomatic approach to things is indeed ridiculous.
For SP-using diplomacy options in general, the standard RPG alternative would be having points in a diplomacy skill, which can also have issues but at least maps to 'this is a thing the character was already known to be or not to be good at'.
I completely reject any claim that S-mods have "dumbed down" ship refitting relative to 0.9.1. My decision-making process is exactly the same as it was before, except with more leeway in the amount of OP I have and the added consideration of whether and where I want to spend my new fleetwide resource. It might be better if the resource had a specific conceptual and mechanical tie-in to ship stuff in general (random concept I just thought of: S-modding requires installation of more compact and effective "Domain-era ship components"), but see points 1-2.
Calling it "cheating" is just, like, words (I'd say it only makes sense if one already holds the pre-existing view that story points are cheating); you may as well apply the label to any other ostensibly overpowered thing the player can do.
(There was a knock on using Starship Legends as an example of an alternative here, but I deleted it because it wasn't really beneficial to the discussion)
Have your cake and eat it too (this sounded nicer than "compromise"): What if SP uses were unlocked by skills and/or possession of existing assets in the game? As in: no amount of heroics will let you restore a wrecked Onslaught you found in the boonies, or dodge a fleet twice your size, unless you already demonstrated a baseline capability in those areas. This also has the benefit of making skills (another area of, well, controversy) more interesting.
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A lot has been discussed about the use of SP's, I'd like to talk about their acquisition. I think one of the bigger issues is that acquiring SP has no direct connections to the player - more or less earned passively while you play. This makes using them feel more akin to buying a used car after winning the lottery, then it does working hard and saving every dime, then finally the day comes you can afford it.
Another issue, almost as important, is the use of SP to prevent/minimize save scumming. In one instance, unavoidable fights to the death, SP can indeed help prevent a save scum, but it introduces what I think is an even greater reason to save scum - losing a ship with SP's invested in it. Ofc this will vary by user, but I imagine a majority of players spend SP on their ships, from early in the game, well into late game - making a loss any time during the game a likely save scum point.
As an aside, I think save scumming is a personal issue with objectively no right answer. With that line of thought, I think developers should neither encourage nor discourage its use or lack of use. Some will SS no matter what, others will avoid doing it until absolutely necessary and still others will die an Ironman death. Just let it be.
Last issue before I talk about my solutionTM. Should SP be limited in amount or practically unlimited? Personally I think a limited supply is the better approach - the exact details... well another time.
Ok so my solution: Make getting story points part of actually doing something in game. The exact details are obviously up for discussion, but the broad strokes go something like:
- Every solar system potentially has a Story Point. The exact percentage can and should vary between games. I think in the range of 50% would work
- An action of some type must be performed to uncover the Story Point
Don't let #2 scare you, it's not what you think. The best way to explain is by example. In no way an exhaustive list, I'm betting the community can come up with many more.
- Easy (Early Game Acquisition) 1SP
- Leave the starter system
- Transverse Jump for the first time
- Win your first battle
- Buy/Capture your first ship
- Hunt down a specific fleet/bounty
- Haul/Sell some amount of something
- Attack/Win a fight against a faction other than pirates/pather
- Explore your first non-core world
- ... and many more
- Average (Mid Game Acquisition) 1SP
- Repair (???K Metal) instead of salvage that mining station
- Find a derelict ship
- Find a long lost ship and return it safely to a specific faction/planet
- Rescue someone
- Scan all the planets in a system
- Build your first colony
- Build a stable colony and give it to a faction
- ... and many more
- Hard (Late Game Acquisition) 2SP?
- Defeat a specific end game fleet
- Conquer a faction
- Sell a faction x Amount of AI Cores
- Sell the pirates 'good' technology
- Clear a system of REDACTED
- ...lots more
It's important to understand that these are not missions - it's not known if a Story Point is involved until you actually do something - for example, repairing the mining station - you may have salvaged a dozen before, but when you go to salvage that specific one it offer you the chance to repair - only then do you know a story point can be earned. Or while your out exploring you find a ship and go to salvage/recover it - but instead a little story blurb about how this is the long lost ship of so and so legend and returning it safely to what's his name would be 'worth' it. That sort of thing. I know it doesn't work for the 'do X first' type ones, but I think a few easy point up front/early is ok.
Even though some of those ideas don't sound like they can be connected to a specific system, I think most can be made to work.
Take the 'build a stable colony and give it to a faction' - it could be a specific system - the player doesn't know - but say it's a system close to the core worlds. It's not that the player is expected to build a colony in every system - but if they happen to get lucky - great. The idea being there are several hundred systems, you should be able to 'accidently' stumble across enough Story Points to make them and your choices interesting - but finding them all should take some serious dedication.
There must be hundreds of different (maybe not drastically different, but still) possibilities, enough to make finding SP each play through a different experience. And it's not even necessary for a player to find ALL the SP in a play through - there should/could be enough variety that even if you stuck to a specific play 'style' (bounty/trader/explorer) you'd naturally find the story points.
I know I haven't explained nearly as well as it sounded in my mind - oh well, I hope it was enough.
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Related to the above, I'm going to point out regarding the ideas to replace SP use with specific gameplay elements: a bunch of them are good and desirable, but would also require 10 times the work to cover the same bases as the SP use they replace. Consider for instance all the different options to get out of a fight you'd need to create for every possible combination of the specific enemy faction (Hegemony, Tri-Tachyon, pathers and pirates are each going to react to things differently), whether the fleet type in question would be responsive to this particular offer (random patrol, a prowling privateer, or a vengeance fleet specifically sent to kill you?), whether the player is even presently capable of doing the thing ("cool, I can get out of this crack if only I had this item I had no way of getting at this stage"), etc.
Some also have effects I consider actively bad, e.g. requiring player-owned heavy industry to enhance ships means the feature is locked out to me for multiple cycles into the game. (Fix for this: Let player have direct, reliable access to faction heavy industry. But see above.)
That it would take substantially more work than just currency usage is very clear, however it would simultaneously reinforce and produce a clear solution to the more lackluster systems currently in game (mostly the ones I named above). There needs to be a reward for raising rep, right now we have nothing, the same with contacts, don't get me wrong I loved this update and it definitely shows a very good path is being taken, but those mechanisms still haven't consolidated in any substantial way that is worth your grind.
Hell I use your (absolutely wonderful) mod almost mandatorily so that high rep at least keeps pirates off my back, in vanilla?
I agree that adding dialogue options that involve factions recognizing you are kind of a big deal to them and backing off is considerable work (though I would not expect them to be too extensive or anything), but it would tie the world together in ways that are very important. We are talking the difference between Fallout 3 and New Vegas kind of important with this, to validate your very existence and work within the game world, hell considering how every time a point is used, you get text prompts telling what you did, switching SP button for a rep check button and having a text prompt there would be practically equal yet so much more satisfying.
A sandbox game almost universally needs grind, it just needs to be fun and rewarding, right now only grinding for money (and story points I guess) is rewarding. Heavy industries is the sole outlier of getting something cool out of a colony outside of just cash. Grinding contact rep allows you to get more missions to grind faction rep :O and that would be lovely if faction rep was worth a crap, and it could be if you used it instead of those green prompts, again my problem with SP is that it is currently occupying dev time and gameplay opportunities that could be given to the much more engaging systems already within the game.
I agree locking any and all modifications behind heavy industry would be bad, but I just meant to have it behind owned docks (aka colony). It could also come the following way, your own dock or a high rep faction's dock allows for 1 special modification, your own heavy industry or high faction rep and comission allows for 2 special modifications, and finally the T5 allows for a third. That way you don't get your first superpowerful ship in 2 months, it adds progression, it adds the feeling of achievement and a rational investment and makes it feel real (but this is just putting examples, this would involve much more work than I'd advise and simply having it be tied to infrastructure would already make for a believable and interesting mechanic).
To put this into perspective:
Imagine getting a planetary shield just involved using a green point in your colony, imagine getting the Ziggy involved simply using a green point in the ship market and nothing else, no they involve quests, that's what makes them superior gameplay wise. You feel like there was a reason those things fell into your hands. This update added a tremendous amount of new missions and situations which could perfectly have involved acquiring some of the boons we get through SP right now. I would never have expected all of the opportunities we get through SP to even have been added (which is wonderful), but since all those opportunities are there, I just can't help seeing the fact that we get them through currency as a real shame, they could have been there to finally justify many of the grindy mechanics that are still empty once and for all.
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Another issue, almost as important, is the use of SP to prevent/minimize save scumming.
That what you call "issue" is actually the entire point of story points.
The general idea here is that “story” options in the campaign would either smooth out the flow of the game, letting you avoid a situation that would result in reloading a save – or grant you some long-term benefit.
As for losing ships with story points: ehhh, done that a couple of times. Story points are unlimited, so I didn't feel particularly attached to ship because of its s-mods, since it likely had few or none if I didn't feel attached to it, but rather because of what class that ship is. Losing an Aurora before acquiring its blueprint would hurt. Losing an Enforcer with heavy armour is regrettable, but acceptable (though, in my case, I didn't care enough about them to put any s-mods on them).
The more story points there would be to obtain, the more actions would allow earning them, the more generic they become, the more it resembles current "earn SPs though XPs" approach.
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Some also have effects I consider actively bad, e.g. requiring player-owned heavy industry to enhance ships means the feature is locked out to me for multiple cycles into the game. (Fix for this: Let player have direct, reliable access to faction heavy industry. But see above.)
The question is: why does the player need to have enhanced ships. To me this is powercreep that has been gradually eroding the game's own lore.
Ships should have d-mods. This is the setting with lostech and whatnot. Even regular pristine ships are uncommon. The combination of colonies in 0.9 and insta-restore of ships effectively allowed permanent pristine fleets. Now, not only do we have pristine fleets, we also want to have extra free mods on top of them (something that used to be locked hehind very rare ships like XIV ships).
I personally feel it's not the right direction. The bar could to be lowered back to the early days, where 3-4 dmods on ships is the default, and then any ship improvement (like moveing from 4 d-mods to 2) would be an improvement and accessible in early game. While stuff like super pristine ship creation would be endgame content.
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Since you mention it, I actually strongly dislike the balance of most of the skills as they stand, but I overall appreciate that the more I accomplish as a captain, the better I get at being a captain. The more you do thing, the better you are at thing; very old hat, but perfectly reliable and understandable, and an easy path to at least some immersion and sense of progress.
It's been stated a few times already in this thread, but needing SP to take a halfway diplomatic approach to things is indeed ridiculous.
For SP-using diplomacy options in general, the standard RPG alternative would be having points in a diplomacy skill, which can also have issues but at least maps to 'this is a thing the character was already known to be or not to be good at'.
While I agree it could be fleshed out or made explicit, I view story points in the light that they represent more traditional RPG skills that required rolls already. This is why I see their earning and power similar to the skills as defined by the game (Combat, Leadership, etc). However, instead of being limited to just spending skill points which on a piece of paper say that "I'm good at doing X because I get +10% to Y from now on", story points can also be used for show, don't tell, and you're considered good at smooth talking Pathers because, well, you smooth talk Pathers during your campaign run. Your character is in part what your character has done, not just the fact they get a 0-flux boost when not producing flux. If you want a brilliant tactician, capable of picking only engagements they can win, and otherwise out maneuvering multiple fleets simultaneously and getting away, then you do that rather than picking a skill that says you can do that, and then potentially proceed to never use it on a particular game run.
You don't need to spend even more arbitrary points to unlock the skill that lets you use story points in such a fashion, because the story point is a skill point. It's earned via experience. It lets you do something you couldn't do before without it. The only difference is also simultaneously a limited resource so that random RNG doesn't need to be pulled in to limit it. That's it. Otherwise, it is completely analogous. Story points are the thing both unlocking the skill and guaranteeing the success. When you don't use a story point where you could, it could be viewed as the character not choosing to, or alternatively if you were in a pen and paper RPG, simply failing their roll. The limited nature means you can't always succeed. So you have to pick the points in the campaign run (in the story if you will) when you succeed and when you don't.
Imagine you're reading a summary describing an RPG session or Starsector campaign, that never mentions skills or stats and you knew nothing about mechanics, but just describes what happened. If the Starsector character always smooth talked his way out of Pather encounters, then you'd assume he was really good at smooth talking. If he only sometimes smooth talked his way out, you might assume he was merely okay at talking his way out, and that sometimes it just didn't work out.
Alex could have created a Charisma stat, an Intelligence stat, and added Diplomacy, Engineering, Tactics, and Management skills to the game. Or added them to the skill tree or whatever (and he kind of did with Special Modifications). Then let you rolled some computer dice each time to see if you succeed or failed.
But Alex has ruthlessly eliminated as much non pre-seeded RNG as possible at the campaign layer, to avoid save/reload incentives. Now imagine you've got that system that lets you roll a diplomacy check with a 75% chance of success, which is pre-determined. You try it, it fails, you reload and haven't and choose a different option. Here, we completely avoid that, and simply say, if you want to spend the resource (i.e. it is that important to you that it's worth the resource), you succeed, no roll needed. If its not important to you, you don't spend the resource and you fail. And thus the skill is kept in check by the limited nature of the resource, and why you don't simply do it every single time, or if you do, you're significantly limiting your "skills" in other areas.
It is a bit different from a classic D&D RPG, but it is an RPG idea out there that has been used successfully. Fate points in RPG games are like that. You're heroes, so you do heroic things, and the story just so happens to occur to show off that you can do these awesome things others can't when it matters most.
Could there be different methods in game to deal with such situations? Yes. The same way I can imagine the game not having the Combat, Leadership, Technology, and Industry skill trees and instead having in game methods of becoming better at piloting and administration (spending credits on university courses, buying augments for your character). Again, why have skill points producing arbitrary improvements or abilities? Transverse jump and neutrino detector have been turned into quests already, proving it is quite doable.
Could it perhaps be presented in a clearer, more lore friendly way in some cases? Probably. Are some use cases trivializing some game mechanics? Also probably. But these are similar problems with skill points, and I don't see the vast majority of players asking for skill points being completely removed or that they are a fundamentally bad system regardless of implementation. I view improving your colonies to be extremely similar to the Colony skill which boosts production by 1, but instead of because of administration, you're stepping in and imposing a newer, more efficient organization scheme that lasts after you leave. Both are just as "magical" or just as "due to experience". Improving your ships is showing off your engineering skill - or potentially the engineering skill of the A-team of hundreds of crew you've assembled, showing off either intelligence or charisma.
Anyway, that's how I perceive them, but others can certainly perceive them differently. Not all mechanics are equally immersive for all people. To illustrate:
You could say I earned victory over those pirates by typing in a code that made them all explode, and in a certain sense that'd be true, but it wouldn't be... real, I guess.
I will point out, story points don't let you explode pirates, it lets you not encounter them in combat in the first place. These are two very different things. In a table top RPG, even those without hero points, you have your own personal genie in the form the game master who's entire job is to place carefully curated encounters in front of you that are level appropriate, and which you always have a high probability of dealing with via preparation and good choices. It's just that genie's service is free and doesn't cost you resources (except maybe pizza), and thus most people don't notice it as much. The immersion potential is much higher, but those pen and paper systems are carefully balanced around the fact encounters are around your level.
Personally, for me, it reduces my immersion a fair bit knowing that if it isn't an obvious and contrived "run away" situation, we are expected to be able to handle it. The universe is built around a small group of arbitrarily picked random strangers in essence, a really non-immersive concept to me. In any case, I can totally empathize with it not feeling real or immersive, as Starsector is putting that ability to pick only "level appropriate" encounters in your face.
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Could it perhaps be presented in a clearer, more lore friendly way in some cases? Probably. Are some use cases trivializing some game mechanics? Also probably. But these are similar problems with skill points, and I don't see the vast majority of players asking for skill points being completely removed or that they are a fundamentally bad system regardless of implementation. I view improving your colonies to be extremely similar to the Colony skill which boosts production by 1, but instead of because of administration, you're stepping in and imposing a newer, more efficient organization scheme that lasts after you leave. Both are just as "magical" or just as "due to experience". Improving your ships is showing off your engineering skill - or potentially the engineering skill of the A-team of hundreds of crew you've assembled, showing off either intelligence or charisma.
What you are missing here is that one is meant to symbolize learning something, while the other means to symbolize moments of brilliance. Did you ever practice a skill? Well once you practice and learn you just have it, that's what a skill point represents (personally I'm also an advocate for mission locked skills btw). You ever threw a paper ball at a trash can without looking from far away and have it miraculously land in when you actually suck at that? That would be the sort of thing a story point represents. As they are right now they are too common and too silly and inconsequential in their uses (just like the paper ball throw). Suure, disengaging is nice because enemy forcing confrontation is broken as hell, but if you fix that broken as hell force of confrontation and allow for planning fleets around that mechanic then now SP sounds ridiculous. Getting the support of a ruling figure would be the sort of thing you want it to represent. BTW I also don't like %chance checks, I like the New Vegas style flat level requirement, you have it or you don't style.
Very few things throughout the game would belong in a moment of brilliance because this isn't a game with many "once in a lifetime" opportunities. Getting a Ziggy or a Cryosleeper operational, or even a Guardian, that's the kind of thing you'd only expect to happen in a "confluence of skill and purpose" as Darkest Dungeon Ancestor would say when your heroes crit. Talking your way out of paying a speeding ticket isn't a moment of brilliance, and if it is, then it can't be equated to a lifetime defining opportunity.
I'd be happy to have them stay as limited points you get on certain milestones and you can only use in playthrough defining moments, this implementation feels too flavorless compared to the rest of the game. Getting a Radiant with an alpha AI in it costs the same as buying oranges at discount prices or something.
To finish, do they work? Yep. Are they what they could be? Nope. Is what it could be far away from what we have mechanic wise? Also nope, and that's why I bother criticizing them, because making them nigh perfect isn't that far in work hours, it's just a philosophical design standpoint what needs to be contemplated.
The Devil is in the details, and the difference between a crappy Hollywood typical cheap plot and a masterpiece is often more subtle than you'd think, subtlety is the art of masters, and subtle changes to existing mechanics can be infinitely more powerful than shiny new stuff.
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I've been saying for a while the focus on Star Sector needed to be the story content.
Everyone's obsessed over story *points* - but not seemingly interested in the actual story. Penny wise, pound foolish IMO.
The game was fine, overall (in previous versions) - it just needed the story narrative finishing, maybe add a few new ships and some extra polish.
It's just been going in circles for a while now and we have new features that a large chunk of the community don't like.
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If you want a brilliant tactician, capable of picking only engagements they can win, and otherwise out maneuvering multiple fleets simultaneously and getting away, then you do that rather than picking a skill that says you can do that, and then potentially proceed to never use it on a particular game run.
This is a stange argument. By this logic a new player will never be able to play a good general in, say Total War they need to "git gud". Or as another example, a vet player playing M&B will always be a swordmaster, even if his character is supposed to be a trader/scholar.
Skills exist to explain what a character is good at, and complement, support or offset player skill. And they are essential to keep the feeling of progression.
Imagine you're reading a summary describing an RPG session or Starsector campaign, that never mentions skills or stats and you knew nothing about mechanics, but just describes what happened. If the Starsector character always smooth talked his way out of Pather encounters, then you'd assume he was really good at smooth talking. If he only sometimes smooth talked his way out, you might assume he was merely okay at talking his way out, and that sometimes it just didn't work out.
The issue is that SP lets you always talk your way out, even if you are supposdely doing a run as a principled Hegemony officer, or a technocrat that hates pathers with a passion. Doesn't matter, SP fixes everything, guaranteed. And shatters immersion in the process.
It is a bit different from a classic D&D RPG, but it is an RPG idea out there that has been used successfully. Fate points in RPG games are like that. You're heroes, so you do heroic things, and the story just so happens to occur to show off that you can do these awesome things others can't when it matters most.
I have 2 problems with this statement:
1. Fate points are not like that. In mosst games they are an extermely limited resource, which is often saved until a truly dire moment (not to resolve a routine ambush, but to surive an otherwise lethal boss fight). In many systems, fate doesn't even guarantee success, they just give you another chance.
2. I don't like the idea of the character in Starsector being a fated hero. Just like in mount and blade. Your character is a human. You a being of flesh and blood like everyone else. You can be beaten, captured, or raided and defeated. You control the level of risk you want to put your character under, from patrolling home Hegemony systems when comissionned, to expliring te sector fringes.
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Some also have effects I consider actively bad, e.g. requiring player-owned heavy industry to enhance ships means the feature is locked out to me for multiple cycles into the game. (Fix for this: Let player have direct, reliable access to faction heavy industry. But see above.)
The question is: why does the player need to have enhanced ships. To me this is powercreep that has been gradually eroding the game's own lore.
Ships should have d-mods. This is the setting with lostech and whatnot. Even regular pristine ships are uncommon. The combination of colonies in 0.9 and insta-restore of ships effectively allowed permanent pristine fleets. Now, not only do we have pristine fleets, we also want to have extra free mods on top of them (something that used to be locked hehind very rare ships like XIV ships).
I personally feel it's not the right direction. The bar could to be lowered back to the early days, where 3-4 dmods on ships is the default, and then any ship improvement (like moveing from 4 d-mods to 2) would be an improvement and accessible in early game. While stuff like super pristine ship creation would be endgame content.
Because we used to have +OP% skill(s), but we do not anymore. s-mods (and Special Modifications) are the replacement for +OP% skills.
Because nearly all baseline ships are OP starved, and being OP starved is no fun. Ships enhanced with more OP (or s-mods) are more fun.
Originally, there were no d-mods, and all ships were pristine. d-mods may have been added to make pirate ships weaker than player (and major factions) with pristine ships. Pristine ships were and are the baseline.
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I'll briefly chime in here and say that I like Story Points as a general design concept: a rare resource that let's you do cool things. There are a couple ways that I would improve the system as it currently stands.
1) I agree that using SP as a "get out of jail free card" for fleet encounters doesn't feel very good from an immersion standpoint. Mechanics-wise I get the reasoning but it definitely does devalue retreat battles and good fleet navigation. I'd argue that that particular use of them should be removed OR limited to easy mode. The other potential solution would be having the number of SP required to escape scale heavily depending on the situation - mainly rep and fleet size/strength difference. This is what AO's negotiation feature essentially does. The other thing about negotiations is that there is a chance - though potentially small - that they will fail even in otherwise ideal circumstances. Imo, this is actually pretty important as it provides a relatively controllable risk. Someone mentioned Xcom and I think along similar lines there.
2) Have your cake and eat it too (this sounded nicer than "compromise"): What if SP uses were unlocked by skills and/or possession of existing assets in the game? As in: no amount of heroics will let you restore a wrecked Onslaught you found in the boonies, or dodge a fleet twice your size, unless you already demonstrated a baseline capability in those areas. This also has the benefit of making skills (another area of, well, controversy) more interesting.
This is a really interesting concept to me. Tie story point acquisition to achievements within the overall campaign rig - which then allow you to do other cool things you previously couldn't. That would certainly provide a rewarding sense of progression. This also ties into:
3) Just generally I'd avoid allowing SPs to circumvent existing mechanics. (Ie disengaging, scans, etc.) Instead, they should unlock alternative challenges or otherwise allow things to be done that otherwise couldn't - like S-mods and salvaging unsalvageable wrecks. I also don't think they should be a progression "tax" to dialogue or progression but rather unlock new paths in either the story or the natural flow of said progression. In this vein, colony boosts probably need to go as well.
That's my two cents. Keep in mind I'm basing this opinion off of relatively limited experience. A lot is taken from what other people have said. I'll probably go into more detail when I'm more knowledgeable about the system as a whole.
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I think generally having less bigger fleets flying around and making really large fleets harder to acquire would also help with the disengage thing.
The end game can be reached far too quickly / easily and owning a big ship like a capital ship isn't really a big deal or take that long.
So everyone's flying around with massive fleets so the avoiding mechanic starts to become really important in certain situations.
I'd personally prefer the game to be a bit slower pace and seeing a massive fleet with an Onslaught and a bunch of heavy cruisers, should actually be a big deal.
Appreciate that's quite opinionated and not to everyone's taste though.. Start with a tiny shuttle and grind a way to a frigate, I'd personally enjoy. Yet currently I can get from a shuttle to a cruiser in about an hour or so..
I agree with your point #3 the SP mechanic shouldn't be in replace of existing features, but just a mechanism to unlock alternative segments in the game or provide a boost to an existing feature. So using SP to upgrade ships, is really cool for example.
In terms of disengage you could reduce the effectiveness of it, say sacrifice an SP, then choose which ships will get left behind as a sacrifice, letting your main ship go and a couple of others.
So basically reducing the effectiveness of it drastically, but still getting *some* benefit from having SP.
If you had like 30 SP saved up and you get an unwinnable / unescapable encounter, it wouldn't be fun not to leverage any of that SP to at least escape *some* of your ships, right??
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So basically reducing the effectiveness of it drastically, but still getting *some* benefit from having SP.
If you had like 30 SP saved up and you get an unwinnable / unescapable encounter, it wouldn't be fun not to leverage any of that SP to at least escape *some* of your ships, right??
Those thirty points eventually become a drop in the bucket if colonies enter the picture.
I just learned that historian doubles his costs after every colony item you buy. That is a gotcha. Moral of that story? Only buy things from him if you cannot get them any other way. If you want pristine nanoforge, steal it from Kazeron. Need synchrotron? Steal it!
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I think variable costs need to go. If those costs are powerful, then make the base cost more expensive, but do not scale them to ludicrous.
For me, that just means I want to hoard points in case I want to pay for something that costs 64 or more story points.
If variable costs stay, make it very clear from the beginning that costs vary so player does not shoot himself in the foot and find out the hard way later.
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If you want a brilliant tactician, capable of picking only engagements they can win, and otherwise out maneuvering multiple fleets simultaneously and getting away, then you do that rather than picking a skill that says you can do that, and then potentially proceed to never use it on a particular game run.
This is a stange argument. By this logic a new player will never be able to play a good general in, say Total War they need to "git gud".
I think I failed to communicate my meaning here clearly. When I say "do that", I'm referring to the character in the game, not the player. For example, in a choose your own adventure, sometimes you're presented with options like: Fight the goblin with a sword, talk the goblin out of fighting, cast a spell to put the goblin to sleep.
You might not have a "character sheet", but you're suddenly defining the character on the fly. If you choose fight with sword, you've decided to define your character as one who is trained with at the very least with a sword, if you choose to talk, you've defined the character as being diplomatic, and if you choose to cast spell, you've defined them as being studied and magical. The reader has done nothing but pick a choice, but the character has now been defined by doing and succeeding at the thing that they are good at. This is contrast to having a character sheet that say +10 to diplomacy rolls, and yet rolling a critical failure despite it or going down a story path that never utilizes diplomacy.
The advantage of this system is that by not relying on random chance, you don't have a fraction of the player base running into unlucky runs where a character is defined at being good at diplomacy, and rolls a failure every time. Imagine taking a skill that gives you a 50% chance for success, as opposed to not having the option (essentially 0%) and you have 10 meaningful diplomacy rolls that can change the course of events over the story line. Every 1000 players is going to literally fail every roll despite being "good at diplomacy". I've certainly been in table top sessions where the expert in a subject critically fails their roll every time it comes up, while a dabbler happens to roll a 19 or 20, and succeeding. It usually results in jokes around the table, but it is a bit jarring to have a character be described as "expert", while their story shows they are not.
On the other hand, by making it spend a rare resource, you can allow the effect to be much greater. If I take a skill that automatically makes every point in the game where I could be diplomatic have a 100% chance of success, without cost, then I can't make the effects of diplomacy very powerful. Someone with the skill is just going to pick that option every time. If I do make it cost, the power can be increased proportional to the cost, as then you run into situations where you can't pick it, or at the very least, picking it every time comes at the detriment of something else.
Or as another example, a vet player playing M&B will always be a swordmaster, even if his character is supposed to be a trader/scholar.
If the vet M&B player has decided to roleplay as a trader/scholar and specifically not a swordmaster, why are they using their skills to break character? They can simply fight poorly. Having a game present an option to you, the player, is not the same as the game forcing you to take that option and breaking character. Its the same as a game providing a nice dialog, a neutral dialog, or a hostile/evil dialog. Just because the evil option is there, doesn't mean you have to take it if you're playing a nice character.
Skills exist to explain what a character is good at, and complement, support or offset player skill. And they are essential to keep the feeling of progression.
I'm am simply pointing out a skill on a character sheet is not the only way to explain what a character is good at. Characters in a novel don't have characters sheets, yet we often can identify what they are good and bad at by what happens during the the story. The character is good at things that they've succeed at in story, especially if they've done it multiple times.
Story points are certainly there to help complement or offset player skill, just like skills on the skill tree. If the player failed to out maneuver the enemy fleet and escape on the campaign map, now the character can step in and say, yes, I really did out maneuver the fleet. Of course, this is also a complaint that many have about story points, the player is not suffering the punishment of failing that particular mini-game and thus are bypassing game mechanics. The other complaint in this thread is the particular punishment for failing the mini-game is too much for certain fleet compositions, and should be able to be reduced by other character (non-player skill test) mechanical means, perhaps by buying mines, or spending supplies, or correct dialog options.
Mechanically, from a game design point of view as opposed to an immersion point of view, these are all very similar. Fail the mini-game, pay a small price (supplies, credits for mines, story points, damage to some of your ships), and if you ran out of those particular resources, pay a big price (destruction of a portion or all of your fleet). If the prices are too high for a player, they'll reload and try again - or do something different with the power of foreknowledge.
You can also configure your fleet to be much better at the mini-game to help your ability to win it in the first place, but at the cost of other things (like combat capability). A fleet of all SO, UI, ADF Hounds with 12 burn and 305 speed can always disengage except maybe against Pathers.
About the only thing different between story points and skill points, is their gain and usage rates (their economy if you will). Skill points are fewer, and capped. Story points are more common, uncapped, but are used much more frequently.
I have 2 problems with this statement:
1. Fate points are not like that. In mosst games they are an extermely limited resource, which is often saved until a truly dire moment (not to resolve a routine ambush, but to surive an otherwise lethal boss fight). In many systems, fate doesn't even guarantee success, they just give you another chance.
Now we're arguing over implementation, I'm merely arguing that story points are not inherently bad, and are akin to skill systems, which many people seem to like (given the existence of the role playing game market). I admit it is a different take on skills and character description than is traditional or common.
If you only got 1 story point per level, and 1 per 4 million xp, you'd probably not be using them avoid routine ambushes. You'd be using them to avoid fleet ending ambushes. Simply because you do it 15 times by level 15, then you've got no story points left. Personally, if routine ambushes are a threat to my fleet, I'm doing something wrong. I think I've used story points to avoid encounters somewhere between zero and five each run, and never late game. Late game, the only true threat I can't reach clean disengage status on would likely be the <new redacted> encounters, which you have to specifically request - they don't come and find you.
As for spending the resource and only getting a chance, as I mentioned earlier, Alex has made as much campaign layer RNG as possible to be pre-seeded, so making it chance based seems unlikely to fit with that. And there are systems where spending a "fate point" or whatever resource is guaranteed to work. Or certain mechanics simply succeed if you spend the appropriate resource.
What you are missing here is that one is meant to symbolize learning something, while the other means to symbolize moments of brilliance. Did you ever practice a skill? Well once you practice and learn you just have it, that's what a skill point represents (personally I'm also an advocate for mission locked skills btw). You ever threw a paper ball at a trash can without looking from far away and have it miraculously land in when you actually suck at that? That would be the sort of thing a story point represents.
They certainly can be viewed that way. They could also be viewed as the character having been somewhat skilled at it all along, and are only now doing it because A) They didn't need/want to before, or B) They tried to before, but failed. Both viewpoints seem to be equally valid to me.
Just because I've spent time practicing my internet forum debate skill, doesn't mean I'm going to convince everyone I'm right 100% of the time. :)
As they are right now they are too common and too silly and inconsequential in their uses (just like the paper ball throw). Suure, disengaging is nice because enemy forcing confrontation is broken as hell, but if you fix that broken as hell force of confrontation and allow for planning fleets around that mechanic then now SP sounds ridiculous. Getting the support of a ruling figure would be the sort of thing you want it to represent. BTW I also don't like %chance checks, I like the New Vegas style flat level requirement, you have it or you don't style.
That strikes me as a fair complaint, but that's a matter of implementation, not that the entire concept is flawed inherently, which is what I'm really arguing against here.
Although, as mentioned above, you already can totally configure fleets to guarantee to escape from virtually all fleets. If your entire fleet's speed is higher than the fastest ship in the opposing fleet, they can't force an engagement - they can harass you as you leave, cause a loss of CR and thus supplies, but you're not forced to fight. Try a fleet of hounds with maxed speed (SO + UI) and jet around a red remnant system - you can leave any engagement you want without fighting an escape battle.
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They certainly can be viewed that way. They could also be viewed as the character having been somewhat skilled at it all along, and are only now doing it because A) They didn't need/want to before, or B) They tried to before, but failed. Both viewpoints seem to be equally valid to me.
Just because I've spent time practicing my internet forum debate skill, doesn't mean I'm going to convince everyone I'm right 100% of the time. :)
That strikes me as a fair complaint, but that's a matter of implementation, not that the entire concept is flawed inherently, which is what I'm really arguing against here.
Although, as mentioned above, you already can totally configure fleets to guarantee to escape from virtually all fleets. If your entire fleet's speed is higher than the fastest ship in the opposing fleet, they can't force an engagement - they can harass you as you leave, cause a loss of CR and thus supplies, but you're not forced to fight. Try a fleet of hounds with maxed speed (SO + UI) and jet around a red remnant system - you can leave any engagement you want without fighting an escape battle.
Hmmm, I'd find that conception of story points too convoluted to be advantageous for them as a viable explanation, the greatest problem mechanic wise is that their use is far too general to be a specialized skill (you use them everywhere), and at the same time far too specific and expert like (justifying the capability of installing special modifications and also talking your way out of an AI inspection through the same type of resource is difficult at best). This makes it feel like money, not a skill you invested in or like a moment of skillful resolution. Skills are specific so they properly convey that feeling of investment into a certain field, and that's also the best argument in favor of not being able to get every skill in any given playthrough, the notion of invested character time and effort in certain abilities. On the motive of not always being successful, well, I prefer to make skills a differential between being capable of dealing with a certain situation or not, imagine if you were better at forum discussion you just might have pulled through when you couldn't, that's how a skill acts, chances make for different types of dynamics, but as has been said, it's not good for a game with quicksave, and personally I think chances are lazy implementations that get dragged on from Tabletops when they probably shouldn't.
Chances might be good for a story generator or turn based RPGs, not for this kind of skill based/strategy game.
Yeah about not being an inherently flawed concept I can agree, almost any and every resource can be made to work if modified and adapted in proper ways, after all this isn't reality, you have ample leeway to make things fit and work. My criticism to them was mainly based on the fact that I feel they are used for things other available resources could be used instead (properly earned as rewards for certain activities and feats), and through doing that they also end up distanced from their possible more interesting uses as powerful definitive choices to be made. I like limited points per playthrough to be used in certain specific instances where you decide if you want to take a certain path or another, games that added that to class choice (to name a possibility), did it nicely, for example Dragon Age Origins with your specialization, and Outward with breakthrough points.
Finally, when I talked about escaping I meant disengaging from the enemy, personally I'm doing a frigate only (not even logistic ships) run right now, and I can escape anyone at all, however it doesn't make a lot of sense that a capital heavy fleet could even force a confrontation with me or pursue me. This inability for a big fleet to catch to a speedy small one would give fast pickets and specialist chaser fleets a more important role to play within the game, indirectly helping against the usual capital spam on almost every single fleet you see in missions.
This could be fixed with a check that calculates for example (average fleet speed -number of ships*average ship size).
If a difference of more than 50% of that exists between a fleet and another, the slower one can't force engagement without having to break formation and lose the ships that slow it down (engagement without big ships).
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I think the issue with Story Points is that it reminds me to Eclipse Phase Moxie, at least in concept, but not in execution
It isn't an unusual resource in pen and paper but, generally you use these sport of points to, for instance, allow rerolls on a check, or to stack the deck on a roll, or turning a critical fail on just a fail, but that is the issue, there is a skill check and an RNG that happen, and either the player can use the moxie to give themselves another chance, to soften the blow or to stack their deck (depending on how and when the moxie usage is invoked, obviously)
This is the first problem, because we really don't use skill checks, and we don't see the RNG, so we can't use the points in this way in game.
But there is another issue, and that is how Moxie is accumulated and that has to do with, well, Game Master rewards.
Generally these points are given as incentives, or because the characters did something impressive, or difficult, or ROL played in character even when it was in their detriment
So, at the end of the day, the fist problem with story point is in how we get them, it isn't because we managed something epic, or tru a tale of daring do, or what not, it is earned with levels and with exp. doing things nets you story points.
That is a problem because while having clear ways of earning them should be a goal, they should be earned by going out of your way, of doing something that isn't regular or expected, it is a prize and a great one.
So just getting them break the game
I'd say we do need interpersonal skills, we do need skills period, I'd say current skills are less than skills and more perks, they do too much and change too much but have no real granularity
I am not a better frigate driver, or better with lasers or what not, I don't invest on those skills, I pick a perk that gives me this stuff, but that is another issue.
What I am trying to say if Alex wants story points, we are going to need more RPG mechanics, we are going to need character stats that are used in those interactions and we are going to need skill checks and we are going to need ways to go above and beyond what is expected of a starfarer in setting to EARN the story points that we can use to make our lives more interesting* and maybe easier
*Because that is another idea in RPG for story point, you make things more difficult, willingly, at the cost of SP and if you succeed, you get your investmend and more
Another avenue as an alternative for skills is reputations, not in the faction reputations but more in the Elite Dangerous sense, how good you are in combat, how good in trade and exploration, how trustworthy you are (completing missions, responding to SOS, assisting other fleets)
That could give a basis for how good or impressive you are, beyond factional rep.
So if you have a rep for trustworthiness, bluffing and bulllshitting a customs official seems more possible, same with facing a big fleet, sure, they outnumber two to one, in tonnage and hulls and points, but you are the demon of the mist, of course they could be persuaded to look for prey elsewhere, and so on and so forth.
We would still need some sort of RNG and skill check, but it could be a basis for those interactions not needing points, or making story points more of a matter of easing the difficulty/stacking your deck
We'd still need a different way of getting the points than through simple progression, but coupled with that sort of check, story points could be seen as a facilitator or something.
In the first example, you try to *** past the custom official and fail and use the story point to make it seem like a misunderstanding, I mean you need to chip in for the widows and orphan fund, but, that way you wouldn't get a reputation hit
I mean that is how I see SP being used, it isn't a genie, it makes recovering from a mistake easier, or avoids you getting into a shooting engagement with a particular faction and/or limits the fallout for the failure
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The biggest sink of story points by far is colony improvements and getting the historian to use dark magic to conjure a colony item somewhere in space. Eventually, their costs double progressively to ludicrous extremes, dwarfing everything else, even s-mods for the fleet (which also eat a lot compared to other non-colony uses, except maybe frequent respecs with elite skills).
As long as colony-related powerups (improvements, historian) have an insatiable appetite for story points, their primary role will be as Vespene Gas or the second rarer currency other than gold or space credits.
And as long as story points serve as currency #2, they should be acquired much like money, but a bit harder. Admittedly, it greatly devalues story points as story tools and as rewards for doing story things (like finishing up the gate quest).
Honestly, I kind of want many of the powerups that require story points to buy to use credits instead if it makes sense. Stuff like colony improvements and s-mods should use credits, not story points. (Or maybe one story point plus lots of money.)
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Even if we do choose to go further with the idea of RPG elements, I'd argue that ultimately story points are still an unnecessary and very washed-out placeholder for much more engaging ideas. In terms of interpersonal stuff, even if you didn't put a second's worth of more work into it, the reputation system that already exists... Is there, and frankly could use being more useful other than on a faction level.
This isn't a tabletop, nor does it resemble one. And even in tabletops, 'GM points' are something I more tolerate than want. If I do something heroic, my reward should be being a hero. If the GM really wants to award me, maybe give me a feat (read: skill), more experience points, or maybe there was a treasure involved behind the nasty monster / from the grateful civilians. That's solid. That's tangible, real, immersive, and allows me to feel like 'Yes, I earned this, and I can't wait to use it'.
Fighting an IBB fleet is hard, long, and often requires me to think on my feet to adjust my strategy and come out alive. My reward, though, is tangible; here's a not-insignificant amount of credits (Yes these are a bit easy right now; I would say make them less easy so I actually want to do trading and bounties and be selective about colonies, and also ships are way too cheap), here's some reputation, and here's a big salvage pile full of some probably nice ships and also a unique one, have fun with that mate.
That's the crux of this issue that I don't think there's a lot of defense for. Story points are far too easy, far too disconnected, essentially meaningless, and either let you cheat the game in ways where there were obviously better options, or they artificially prevent you from doing things that have no business having a magic paywall.
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Regarding the topic starter post - sometimes less is more. I wish the author to be more concise. And using fancy colors to, supposedly, make your argument stronger is some next level infantilism.
Regarding story points - I think they are fine. I havent seen no game using a similar mechanic, and inventing something new in gaming industry is an achievement of its own. SP are an interesting addition to the game, that is not mandatory - if you dont like it, dont use it. Some people dont like trading, some people dont like raiding, and thats okay. Just enjoy the game the way you want.
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Regarding the topic starter post - sometimes less is more. I wish the author to be more concise. And using fancy colors to, supposedly, make your argument stronger is some next level infantilism.
Regarding story points - I think they are fine. I havent seen no game using a similar mechanic, and inventing something new in gaming industry is an achievement of its own. SP are an interesting addition to the game, that is not mandatory - if you dont like it, dont use it. Some people dont like trading, some people dont like raiding, and thats okay. Just enjoy the game the way you want.
I could've made a short post. But I don't think it'd have been worth my time or offered enough detail for it to be clear what I think, why, and what I think should be done. I think it would have been either ignored, misunderstood, or devolved into a twenty-page argument because I didn't make everything clear from the outset. I used colors and text effects to ease readability and provide emphasis, not because it makes my argument stronger. Saying it's infantile of me... Is pretty infantile.
Furthermore, as has already been thoroughly established in this thread, story points are not even slightly new to games. Perhaps to this genre of games it might be uncommon, but Starsector's genre is a little blurry. Additionally, something being new does not mean it is good, and that's the point of this post; Story Points are currently implemented to be an integral system, not something that can be ignored, and given the weaknesses they have I felt it was worth my time to write out this whole long essay about what I believe the problems are with that. In excessive detail and with examples of where every instance could be fixed.
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Even if we do choose to go further with the idea of RPG elements, I'd argue that ultimately story points are still an unnecessary and very washed-out placeholder for much more engaging ideas. In terms of interpersonal stuff, even if you didn't put a second's worth of more work into it, the reputation system that already exists... Is there, and frankly could use being more useful other than on a faction level.
This isn't a tabletop, nor does it resemble one. And even in tabletops, 'GM points' are something I more tolerate than want. If I do something heroic, my reward should be being a hero. If the GM really wants to award me, maybe give me a feat (read: skill), more experience points, or maybe there was a treasure involved behind the nasty monster / from the grateful civilians. That's solid. That's tangible, real, immersive, and allows me to feel like 'Yes, I earned this, and I can't wait to use it'.
Fighting an IBB fleet is hard, long, and often requires me to think on my feet to adjust my strategy and come out alive. My reward, though, is tangible; here's a not-insignificant amount of credits (Yes these are a bit easy right now; I would say make them less easy so I actually want to do trading and bounties and be selective about colonies, and also ships are way too cheap), here's some reputation, and here's a big salvage pile full of some probably nice ships and also a unique one, have fun with that mate.
That's the crux of this issue that I don't think there's a lot of defense for. Story points are far too easy, far too disconnected, essentially meaningless, and either let you cheat the game in ways where there were obviously better options, or they artificially prevent you from doing things that have no business having a magic paywall.
I fully agree, the Story points are too easy to get and serve as gatekeeper to too many things that shouldn't.
Specially not where there could be better ways to gatekeep those options, be some skill check, an actuall skill check, or reputation based or simple logic.
But I do recall something of Alex logic for the SP was based on him not wanting RNGs or checks? or something like that, which felt a bit of a let down.
Yes, people don't like RNGs, most of the time, specially when the dice gods find you wanting, so I can understand why Alex would go this way, somewhat
But honestly I do agree SP are easy to get and do entirely too much out of nothing and while some of that could be worked around or rengieered or adjusted, the big issue is that SPs are acquired by gaining EXP, they are meant to be part of the normal game cylce.
Which is why I mentioned making them a side objective or maybe the result of willingly going against the odds, much like moxie/spunk whatever systems that the points aren't earned by the regular gameplay system.
Yes, they are GM points and, yes, they really won't work very well in a pc game, but the idea behind them of having the player needing to go out of their way, of doing something "extra" or more difficult, which is something that should work better, if Alex is married to the SP idea. and again, having effects that are far tamer than the current implementation, like making sure my buddy steve is manning the desk at the custom booth in Jangla so he can look the other way due to the favor he owns me.
I hope he won't be, trading favors, using reputation or what not sounds far more engaging and organic than just using my accumulated mana points for my spellwork.
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See, I agree with you, it should be something the player goes out of their way for. But if we're already doing that, why shouldn't the reward be something that actually has to do with the game world, something that already makes sense in context, already has meaning to the systems and mechanics you've been learning, has some actual weight?
D'you know what convinces me to go out of my way in Sandbox/RPGs like Skyrim? Shiny treasures, awesome fights, hidden questlines, or hell, maybe just a really really pretty view. In Starbound, I do it to find new materials for my lab and seek out new weapons. In Terraria, I do it to find the treasures I need to hit the next goalpost or just for the sake of exploring the world. In 7 Days To Die, I do it to survive and get every advantage I can. In Rimworld (Yes, very different, but some concepts are shared) I do it to acquire things that my colony doesn't have access to or to go explore something I heard about.
And in Starsector, I do it for the joy of exploration, to find blueprints that I will immediately sell to pirates, to find new planets or ships or treasures, to find the neat hidden quests and unholy fights that await me in the depths of space, and to experience whatever organic stuff happens on the way, which is always one of my favorite parts; stuff that can just happen because of how organically and well simulated the world is. Again, Skyrim makes a good case. ...Once you've modded all the bugs and stupid out, that is.
The only reason I would ever go out of my way for something intangible is for bragging rights; if it's some magic token put in purely as a reward for dedicated players, and if you find them all you get an achievement called cheesecake or something. A nod from the dev to me that they appreciate how much I'm putting into their game. Sure, it's a little unimmersive, but as long as it doesn't affect the actual game then it's just kind of nice and I can enjoy it and move on.
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no arguments there.
I am big on organic limitations in games.
I Hate Paradox Mana, I dislike artificial limitations that seem to be there because "game balance" or what not
It speaks to me that the devs feel the need to put arbitrary limits on a game because they want it played some way.
It is the reason I gave up on Firaxis' XCOM, you could have one troop transport (named skyranger for nostalgia reasons) that had four slots and then magically could get six.
But you had one skyranger, and yet there was no reason why you had one skyranger (except the need from the devs to try and force you to pick one of three missions to handle the disaster of a geoscape they built) but you could have fighters by the bucket load, even an alien tech fighter, same with the radar sets, or satellites that could cover a country down to the borders (space magic amrite?), sorry for the ramble, that game annoyed me to no end, and for all the nice tactical combat the whole strat layer left me with a bitter taste and more than an annoyance
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Admittedly I love XCOM to death, but the things you mentioned are indeed things I personally didn't care for. I much prefer the XCOM2 Long War mod, which essentially removes the things you mentioned and gives the strategy layer more depth. I'm willing to be forgiving of the first XCOM since the strategy layer was kind of false, and really only served as an interface between base time and tactical missions.
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Admittedly I love XCOM to death, but the things you mentioned are indeed things I personally didn't care for. I much prefer the XCOM2 Long War mod, which essentially removes the things you mentioned and gives the strategy layer more depth. I'm willing to be forgiving of the first XCOM since the strategy layer was kind of false, and really only served as an interface between base time and tactical missions.
I probably need to give XCOM2 another chance some time, long war and war of the chosen
But Vanilla hadn't impressed me and between the weird chuni commander fetishization, the doom clock and echoes of the nucom goescape in the new game it was, I finished, there done, now darken my door nevermore.
Running a faceless multinational spec ops war with casualties that make the Somme feel like "a good day" was what I wanted. not the artificially reduced teams or the fake AI (pod spawn in the tactical, which is far, far less forgiving than some of the strat issues, after all if you are trying to do tactical your bread and butter, it needs to be flawless, not using a cheap cinematic to hide general AI incompetence)
But, again, as you said, Longwar did fix a lot of those issues, so it stands to reason longwar for two did the same, hopefully without going full on masochistic, but...
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Just from a new player's perspective I largely agree with OP.
I started playing Starsector a week ago and love the game but it's way too easy and 'Storypoints' are almost insulting to the player, just giving you the ability to bypass any screwup for basically no cost. It's like 'Hey, you're an idiot but that's ok, we have you covered with these cheat-points!'. It's completely immersion-breaking and undermines the mechanics that are there removing any necessity to pay attention or think.
Re difficulty in general I was excited to try the game because it looked hard and I like the idea of trying to scrape a living in a hostile environment and slowly work up. But I soon found out that you can't die, there are big shiny ships everywhere just floating around waiting for you to put crew on, you get paid hefty sums for doing literally nothing and truly ludicrous income from building your own space empire in a couple of years, etc. etc. The 'story points' are just another dose of this painful lack of difficulty, which is strange for a game of this kind. It's like it's trying to cater to a general audience. Let's face it, nobody is going to play this game except nerds ;D
Hope the design direction will go more towards assuming the player isn't a 10 year old. Great game, lot of potential.
@ The x-com conversation you guys should try Xenonauts if you haven't already, superior imo, especially with mods - X-Division is great.
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Re difficulty in general I was excited to try the game because it looked hard and I like the idea of trying to scrape a living in a hostile environment and slowly work up. But I soon found out that you can't die, there are big shiny ships everywhere just floating around waiting for you to put crew on, you get paid hefty sums for doing literally nothing and truly ludicrous income from building your own space empire in a couple of years, etc. etc. The 'story points' are just another dose of this painful lack of difficulty, which is strange for a game of this kind. It's like it's trying to cater to a general audience. Let's face it, nobody is going to play this game except nerds ;D
Unfortunately, as with any game, one difficulty doesn't really fit all players. As it is, Starsector only has two immediately accessible difficulties, easy and normal. Alex has expressed the opinion that he'd rather see in game switches be available to make the game easier or harder as the player desires. Things like story points or taking commissions with factions.
I'll note many people told Alex in RC9 the payouts for missions were too low, so Alex boosted them in RC10. Players were still told him they were too low, so they were boosted in RC14 as well. So despite your claim, there are people on these forums stating the opposite in terms of difficulty.
On the bright side, Starsector is highly configurable and moddable. If I'm not experimenting, I'll generally run a spacer start plus iron man. If you're not aware, Spacer eliminates the starting income, and replaces it with a debt payed monthly that scales with character level. It can turned on using a text editor to modify:
Starector/starsectore-core/data/config/settings.json
Change line 216 (at least in my config file):
"enableSpacerStart":false,
to
"enableSpacerStart":true,
There are a number of settings in there that can also be changed to make things easier or harder, but is a bit much to go through here. As a quick example though, one could change
"storyPointsPerLevel":4,
to
"storyPointsPerLevel":1,
There are also mods aimed specifically at increasing difficulty, such as Ruthless sector, found in the mod section of the forums.
I agree, once you've hit well developed colonies, credits become a non-issue. Alex I believe is still planning out what the end game enemy or enemies will be that require such vast wealth. Its one of the reasons colony growth was tuned lower this release. Although Nexerlin (essentially a 4X mod) adds a "starfarer" option which reduces growth by a factor of 2 again, and reduces income by 10% (leaving expenses alone). Similarly the settings.json file includes upkeep and income multipliers one could increase and decrease.
As noted in this thread, the game is actually closer to an table top RPG than a space computer game that can be lost like Stellaris or FTL, for example. You can suffer setbacks, and even be sent back to square one in terms of wealth, but if you want to continue playing, the game will let you, similar to how a GM will often make players roll up new characters and continue on after a total party kill.
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Re difficulty in general I was excited to try the game because it looked hard and I like the idea of trying to scrape a living in a hostile environment and slowly work up. But I soon found out that you can't die, there are big shiny ships everywhere just floating around waiting for you to put crew on, you get paid hefty sums for doing literally nothing and truly ludicrous income from building your own space empire in a couple of years, etc. etc. The 'story points' are just another dose of this painful lack of difficulty, which is strange for a game of this kind. It's like it's trying to cater to a general audience. Let's face it, nobody is going to play this game except nerds ;D
Unfortunately, as with any game, one difficulty doesn't really fit all players. As it is, Starsector only has two immediately accessible difficulties, easy and normal. Alex has expressed the opinion that he'd rather see in game switches be available to make the game easier or harder as the player desires. Things like story points or taking commissions with factions.
I'll note many people told Alex in RC9 the payouts for missions were too low, so Alex boosted them in RC10. Players were still told him they were too low, so they were boosted in RC14 as well. So despite your claim, there are people on these forums stating the opposite in terms of difficulty.
On the bright side, Starsector is highly configurable and moddable. If I'm not experimenting, I'll generally run a spacer start plus iron man. If you're not aware, Spacer eliminates the starting income, and replaces it with a debt payed monthly that scales with character level. It can turned on using a text editor to modify:
Starector/starsectore-core/data/config/settings.json
Change line 216 (at least in my config file):
"enableSpacerStart":false,
to
"enableSpacerStart":true,
There are a number of settings in there that can also be changed to make things easier or harder, but is a bit much to go through here. As a quick example though, one could change
"storyPointsPerLevel":4,
to
"storyPointsPerLevel":1,
There are also mods aimed specifically at increasing difficulty, such as Ruthless sector, found in the mod section of the forums.
I agree, once you've hit well developed colonies, credits become a non-issue. Alex I believe is still planning out what the end game enemy or enemies will be that require such vast wealth. Its one of the reasons colony growth was tuned lower this release. Although Nexerlin (essentially a 4X mod) adds a "starfarer" option which reduces growth by a factor of 2 again, and reduces income by 10% (leaving expenses alone). Similarly the settings.json file includes upkeep and income multipliers one could increase and decrease.
As noted in this thread, the game is actually closer to an table top RPG than a space computer game that can be lost like Stellaris or FTL, for example. You can suffer setbacks, and even be sent back to square one in terms of wealth, but if you want to continue playing, the game will let you, similar to how a GM will often make players roll up new characters and continue on after a total party kill.
On mission payout, the issue is that sometimes you have a good payment, but with the travel time, and cost in fuel and supplies, it ends up being marginal
So it is less than the payout is big or low and more than missions have a consistent issue of not taking in account distance from core when offering rewards
So, the big thing would be a distance modifier.
There are other issues with the general value of items, selling ships being too cheap, compared to the cost of guns and the like, which feels strange, but might make sense in the setting, specially with multi Dmod hulls, but...
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@ Hiruma Kai
Good points. I fully accept that the game is a work in progress without developed end-game content atm and that generally you can't please everyone with difficulty. I still think it's great, and there are lots of mods so nothing major to complain about. I used Starfarer from Nex for the last game and have installed Ruthless Sector and that sounds good. I don't know about the 'Spacer' start because that seems to just front-load some difficulty arbitrarily, which I guess is ok but once you overcome that you're back to a normal start basically which you could have just picked in the first place. I'm going to try nuke passive income sources and it would be nice to make ships less available and more expensive. Guess the latter is easily done.
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Just from a new player's perspective I largely agree with OP.
I started playing Starsector a week ago and love the game but it's way too easy and 'Storypoints' are almost insulting to the player, just giving you the ability to bypass any screwup for basically no cost. It's like 'Hey, you're an idiot but that's ok, we have you covered with these cheat-points!'. It's completely immersion-breaking and undermines the mechanics that are there removing any necessity to pay attention or think.
Re difficulty in general I was excited to try the game because it looked hard and I like the idea of trying to scrape a living in a hostile environment and slowly work up. But I soon found out that you can't die, there are big shiny ships everywhere just floating around waiting for you to put crew on, you get paid hefty sums for doing literally nothing and truly ludicrous income from building your own space empire in a couple of years, etc. etc. The 'story points' are just another dose of this painful lack of difficulty, which is strange for a game of this kind. It's like it's trying to cater to a general audience. Let's face it, nobody is going to play this game except nerds ;D
Hope the design direction will go more towards assuming the player isn't a 10 year old. Great game, lot of potential.
I find it somewhat funny that complaints currently are either that the game is too easy, because of story points, or too hard, because of some balance issues and Remnants.
I wonder if Alex is going to change SP costs of various actions, such as having the "retreat without combat" cost increase as your fleet size increases, or bigger or rarer ships requiring more SPs to recover, e.g. ships require 1 SP per 10 DP to recover.
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I find it somewhat funny that complaints currently are either that the game is too easy, because of story points, or too hard, because of some balance issues and Remnants.
I wonder if Alex is going to change SP costs of various actions, such as having the "retreat without combat" cost increase as your fleet size increases, or bigger or rarer ships requiring more SPs to recover, e.g. ships require 1 SP per 10 DP to recover.
The economic part of the game is really easy IMO, even for newbies.
Early income you can generate is huge, makes the transition to colonies and infinite money very fast.
1 mid-level bounty payout means months of hazard pay even on the worst planets, paired with the way growth works +-100% hazard is nothing.
The abundance of early cash makes the only hurdle for colonies (ramp-up time) painless.
Get multiple colonies in systems with decent stable locations, close to the core and possibly with a gate for later.
As long as you get alpha admins you'll be swimming in credits even if they have literally no resources, no special items or SP improvements needed.
On the other hand, special fleets with the magical enemies are hard as balls.
I casually rolled in with a fleet that smacked all human bounties into a special tri-tach bounty, lost 2/3rds when the 1 extra ship popped up in the middle of the fight.
Sure, once you know about them there are lots of ways to fight(/cheese) redacted, but they are extremely hard to impossible with some fleet compositions if you do not expect them.
Too easy strategic and occasionally too hard tactical layer roughly matches my experience.
I'd prefer human fleets to be slightly stronger, I enjoy the battles where the opponent uses mostly the same rules/ships you have access to more.
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I am playing with Ruthless Sector now and I find it much better. It completely guts the commission to about 10% of the original value. You have to actually pay attention to efficiency and can no longer roll around with a massive fleet doing not much of anything while continuing to accumulate cash (at least until you build up colonies, which I hope will be harder than before, at least for a while, with the 'Starfarer' Nex setting).
This makes you have to actually think about income sources. In fairness it should really be the default setting, and massive paychecks for nothing should be optional easy mode.
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My impression of story points and something that most of OP complaints have in common is that they are way too common and used for things that are insanely mundane. They would be much more interesting if each story point was rare and meaningful.
You start with one and get another at the end of a long sidequest, one point for winning your first major battle, for getting the first max pop colony and so on. Their use should be very impactful, something you have to really consider. Handing them out like candy to every filler frigate and every officer just feels bad.
Some examples that would be cool:
- Upgrading a colony with a death star for impenetrable colony defense
- Spending a point to find a pristine forge
- Sabotaging an enemy fleet to have low cr and very high chance for salvage
- Guaranteeing a blueprint of your choice
- Full skill selection and unique buffs for your prodigy officer.
- Spending a point to get welcoming with a faction of your choice
All of these can have short stories to make it less space magic and more "your character does this badass thing nobody else can".
At the moment, there is almost no opportunity cost to them and for something that's supposed to be a major plot point of your story, is just wasted potential.
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I find it somewhat funny that complaints currently are either that the game is too easy, because of story points, or too hard, because of some balance issues and Remnants.
I wonder if Alex is going to change SP costs of various actions, such as having the "retreat without combat" cost increase as your fleet size increases, or bigger or rarer ships requiring more SPs to recover, e.g. ships require 1 SP per 10 DP to recover.
Its pretty much hilarious how threads saying the exact opposite sometimes end up sitting one next to the other, poor Alex lol, talk about confusing messages.
I think it might be a matter of mental approach, if you take it like some sort of roguelike/lite, then you are kind of expecting something even harder and considerably more unforgiving, while if you are expecting a more standard sandbox RPG then sometimes the game will sneakily stab you in the liver economically wise. Not every mission involves viable profit and that's something a person who isn't used to more punishing games won't ever expect.
Outside of the campaign aspect, combat leaps around in difficulty a lot so that's kind of what happens with difficulty perception. Expectations weigh here as well, do you expect to be able to defeat every opposing fleet at some point? Or was that never in your objectives in the first place? That sort of thing.
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Its pretty much hilarious how threads saying the exact opposite sometimes end up sitting one next to the other, poor Alex lol, talk about confusing messages.
I don't envy independent game designers :). From what I know so far, he is doing a great job. Different people will have different preferences, and the core mechanics are sound and fun, which is what matters ultimately. People complaining about this or that wouldn't bother if they didn't think the game was worth their time, and it can be modded pretty much to preference anyway.
@Admiral Warron - I think this suggestion for 'story points' is pretty decent but I wouldn't have anything directly affecting combat like the 'sabotage' one. It just feels like a cheat button, which it basically is. Similarly with the 'item find', genie in a bottle stuff again - unless there is some pretty convincing lore story behind it. That is another thing with 'story points', there isn't any story ;D.
Personally, if they had to be there, I would have them ultra-limited and do very major things - like some kind of unique one-off structure or a one-time unlock of some 'ultimate' skill or whatever and give you like three for the game after having to complete some missions that make sense to get them. Failing that and in the meantime I think they detract from the game.
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Alex's intention with them was, as far as I know, to let the player do some cool stuff while keeping it on some sort of a limit, and decreasing the need to save scum by letting you spend a story point to get away with some stuff. I doubt Alex will take story points in the direction you want.
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Well that was an interesting read.
I agree with 100% in the OP
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Good thing the OP warned about being very wordy and very opinionated. They sure delivered on both of those and the colors certainly didn't help.
Personally I don't feel story points devalue or circumvent any part of the game I care about but we're clearly very different players. The fact that quicksaving and reloading was proposed as a valid alternative approach makes it obvious that there's not enough common ground for any meaningful discussion.
My only current issue with the story point mechanic is the proper balance. Making a skill of my character elite should probably be worth a lot more than increasing the chances of an agent's mission or escaping some fleet because I failed to kite properly.
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I like story points. They’re a limited use alternative to save scumming that you can use to boost your fleet or economy or officers. I usually only have one in the bank for get out of jail scenarios but I have infinite save scums.
I also don’t get all the guff about salvage. Most ships ARE destroyed anyway and only a couple are in the extra story point pool, many of which aren’t worth grabbing anyway. Ships are pretty cheap and you can easily acquire expensive ones after a few missions of rep grinding. I like that I can pick up some weirdies from my enemies. Yes you can salvage capitals but a) how good are they really b) you can salvage them the standard way too usually c) there are way better uses for a story point by mid game.
dodge-the-storms-or-hold-s mini-game.
Dodge?! The storms?
Why would you dodge the storms when you could play storm ping pong to cut 20 days off a 30 day trip!
I actively seek out the storms and spent a good bit of resources on speeding up my capitals so I could continue to ping pong them across space at ludicrous speed.
I mean sure my crew must hate me but screw them these are my ships and if I want to scream through the skies like a bat out of hell then I sure as heck will.
Bottom line, storms are meant to be rammed not dodged
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Storms cost hundreds of supplies and leave your ships unprepared for combat. It can be worthwhile to aim for storms in some situations and it can definitely not be in others.
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Storms cost hundreds of supplies and leave your ships unprepared for combat. It can be worthwhile to aim for storms in some situations and it can definitely not be in others.
Counterpoint: ;D https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-J03yCE15rg