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General Discussion / Does anything genuinely benefit from the existence of story points and s-mods?
« on: April 02, 2024, 03:31:48 PM »
Try as I might, I cannot think of any way in which the story point system has lead to better gameplay; it is extremely easy, however, to recall multiple ways in which they have made the Starsector experience objectively worse.
The ability to dodge fleets using SP trivialises movement on the campaign layer and effectively annihilates the retreat battle and all dynamics and considerations associated with it.
Easy bargains such as SP usage to render skills elite, increase the value of trade contracts, or mentor officers do not contribute any fun or dynamism to the game, serving only to needlessly obfuscate player choices and punish players for failing to adhere to a shallow meta-game of SP resource management entirely divorced from the setting and substance of the game itself.
S-modding adheres to the above fault but expands heavily upon it from multiple angles. Its permanence directly harms a player’s ability to experiment with different ship builds and fleet compositions, which is the core mechanic and attraction that the entire game is built around. The massive power creep it introduces is not only pointless but also an added lever to the already significant complexity of balancing the aforementioned core mechanic of the game, making Alex’s already endless work in adjusting for interest and variety harder. Last, but most certainly not least, s-mods are a colossal middle finger to the game’s setting and lore; the ability to take a tried and tested military vessel developed by a galactic power and operated continuously for hundreds of years, which is moreover produced from rigid and largely immutable schematics, and effortlessly make it simply and objectively better, is an absurdity. The fact that, to compensate for the power creep, major factions now possess large fleets of s-modded vessels is likewise laughable, and particularly so in that since story points are an entirely meta resource, there is an utter void of explanations as to how AI fleets find themselves to be s-modded in the first place.
A system for producing legitimate built-ins in the style of pirate and pather artifice, sacrificing OP and/or gaining assorted defects in the process, would have been a fantastic addition to the game. What we have at present took that idea and fused it irreparably with a pointless, limited meta-resource, the result of which is a travesty which fails in all aspects where an uncorrupted modification system would have succeeded.
In conclusion, my perspective on the mechanic is steeply negative. When time affords I’ll likely try to mod SP back out of game entirely. But there are always opinions on at least three sides of any given argument, so I’d like to inquire what other people make of the matter, and how your takes differ.
The ability to dodge fleets using SP trivialises movement on the campaign layer and effectively annihilates the retreat battle and all dynamics and considerations associated with it.
Easy bargains such as SP usage to render skills elite, increase the value of trade contracts, or mentor officers do not contribute any fun or dynamism to the game, serving only to needlessly obfuscate player choices and punish players for failing to adhere to a shallow meta-game of SP resource management entirely divorced from the setting and substance of the game itself.
S-modding adheres to the above fault but expands heavily upon it from multiple angles. Its permanence directly harms a player’s ability to experiment with different ship builds and fleet compositions, which is the core mechanic and attraction that the entire game is built around. The massive power creep it introduces is not only pointless but also an added lever to the already significant complexity of balancing the aforementioned core mechanic of the game, making Alex’s already endless work in adjusting for interest and variety harder. Last, but most certainly not least, s-mods are a colossal middle finger to the game’s setting and lore; the ability to take a tried and tested military vessel developed by a galactic power and operated continuously for hundreds of years, which is moreover produced from rigid and largely immutable schematics, and effortlessly make it simply and objectively better, is an absurdity. The fact that, to compensate for the power creep, major factions now possess large fleets of s-modded vessels is likewise laughable, and particularly so in that since story points are an entirely meta resource, there is an utter void of explanations as to how AI fleets find themselves to be s-modded in the first place.
A system for producing legitimate built-ins in the style of pirate and pather artifice, sacrificing OP and/or gaining assorted defects in the process, would have been a fantastic addition to the game. What we have at present took that idea and fused it irreparably with a pointless, limited meta-resource, the result of which is a travesty which fails in all aspects where an uncorrupted modification system would have succeeded.
In conclusion, my perspective on the mechanic is steeply negative. When time affords I’ll likely try to mod SP back out of game entirely. But there are always opinions on at least three sides of any given argument, so I’d like to inquire what other people make of the matter, and how your takes differ.