Fractal Softworks Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

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

Pages: 1 [2] 3 4 5

Author Topic: Character aptitude points why I don't like them and how I would change them.  (Read 25962 times)

Dri

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1403
    • View Profile

Alex is super anti-talent tree, though. Something about them breeding "cookie cutter" specs.
Logged

Zhentar

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 100
    • View Profile

The stated motivation for empty aptitude points was balancing, so that a skill would have to be twice as good as any other skill to be a "must get" - but that's not actually how it works out. Getting a single level 3 skill from a third tree means passing on an 11th and 12th skill from the first two trees, so it's not actually setting the bar all that much higher... Particularly since all of the trees have skills that are useless to certain?play styles. I definitely think some of the tech skills are "must get", so we aren't getting the benefit that's supposed to make up for the not fun-ness of empty aptitude points.
Logged

isaacssv552

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 215
    • View Profile

It isn't as bad with a higher level cap but 12 points is about a quarter of all character points for a ,as level character.
Logged

Gothars

  • Global Moderator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 4403
  • Eschewing obfuscatory verbosity.
    • View Profile

Aptitudes are good. The fact they do nothing is bad. It's a strange problem too, because it was solved in previous versions, when Aptitudes had small but worthwhile effects in themselves. Having them be dead points feels awful and there's simply no reason for it.

It wasn't really solved before since aptitudes didn't cost skill points at all, so there was no competition between skills and aptitudes. If Aptitudes would have worthwhile bonuses that would void the entire idea of them being a balance buffer. They could at best have a token, symbolic bonus, which, too me, would feel kinda dishonest.

Logged
The game was completed 8 years ago and we get a free expansion every year.

Arranging holidays in an embrace with the Starsector is priceless.

Dark.Revenant

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 2806
    • View Profile
    • Sc2Mafia

I feel like aptitudes ought to have a non mechanical bonus, like passive skill checks for story/RP purposes.  Like if you have Combat Aptitude 2, another dialog option becomes available in a hostage scenario where you shoot the captors before they can react.  Or something.
Logged

Serenitis

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1458
    • View Profile

They could at best have a token, symbolic bonus, which, too me, would feel kinda dishonest.

I don't know.
Even if the aptitudes gave you something it would feel less like you were being extorted out of a skill point in order to progress.

Spoiler
Pick one for each aptitude. Hell, randomise them on game start if you want so it's different every time.
You can even explain it as part of the player character background if needed.
Each level gives....

Combat (Flagship only)
+x% maximum CR
+x% CR recovery rate
+x% ship speed
+x% ship armour

Leadership (Fleetwide)
+x% xp gain for player & officers
-x% supply use for maintenance
+x% command point regen
+x% cargo/fuel capacity for civilian ships

Technology (Fleetwide)
-x% fuel use
+x% ECM rating
+x% maximum flux capacity
+x% flux dissipation
+x% sensor range
+x% vent/capacitor efficiency

Industry (Fleet/Base wide)
-x% supply use for repairs
-x% cost for survey and salvage
-x% building/running cost for whatever outpost wizardry happens
+x% salvage/battle loot recovery
+x% ship recovery chance
[close]
Logged

jupjupy

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 123
    • View Profile

I feel like aptitudes ought to have a non mechanical bonus, like passive skill checks for story/RP purposes.  Like if you have Combat Aptitude 2, another dialog option becomes available in a hostage scenario where you shoot the captors before they can react.  Or something.

This actually sounds like a very good way of doing it. Like, using the skills in a sort of roleplaying way a la Bethesda games where having, say, a certain perk would give you a special choice.
Logged
You see, Araragi-san, in a way, the supernatural is what's behind the curtain.
Normally, you only need to see what's happening on stage. That's how reality works.

Gothars

  • Global Moderator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 4403
  • Eschewing obfuscatory verbosity.
    • View Profile

It is a cool idea, but would demand a lot of additional dev time to create the extra content. Which, in my opinion, could be better used for other parts of the game.







Logged
The game was completed 8 years ago and we get a free expansion every year.

Arranging holidays in an embrace with the Starsector is priceless.

Althaea

  • Lieutenant
  • **
  • Posts: 80
    • View Profile

While it sounds very neat, I have another objection, and that's that it would drive me to max out all the aptitudes. I like having access to every dialogue option and not feeling like I'm potentially being gypped out of some interesting story element because I chose to specialize in some particular skill. If the purpose of the aptitudes is to encourage specialization, it would do the opposite in my case.

Hm. This is really more of a suggestion thread than anything else at this point, but I'll throw my chips in anyway.

What if the player was allowed to explicitly pick their specialization at game-start in exchange for some bonus or another, so that they get incentivized to put points into their specialty? This would certainly make playthroughs with different specializations distinct, though on the other hand there might be too much distinction at that point (particularly if the specialization bonuses are potent). Alternatively one might have both a primary and a secondary specialization, with smaller bonuses for the latter. In either case, putting points into a specialized aptitude would be more rewarding than putting it into a non-specialized aptitude, even if the skills themselves are the same.
Logged

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12118
    • View Profile

The stated motivation for empty aptitude points was balancing, so that a skill would have to be twice as good as any other skill to be a "must get" - but that's not actually how it works out. Getting a single level 3 skill from a third tree means passing on an 11th and 12th skill from the first two trees, so it's not actually setting the bar all that much higher... Particularly since all of the trees have skills that are useless to certain?play styles. I definitely think some of the tech skills are "must get", so we aren't getting the benefit that's supposed to make up for the not fun-ness of empty aptitude points.
I agree with this.

Below dug up from my "Favored skills in the game" topic, updated.

Skills I must have!  (a.k.a. Critical skills useful for everyone in a fight.)
Combat Endurance 1:  Adds more peak performance, a must have for ships with short peak performance.  May allow your ships to beat the enemy by stalling until enemy runs out of combat readiness first.  AI loves to kite and turtle until they have an overwhelming advantage to swarm the target.  If you cannot kill the enemy easily enough, stalling until they run out of gas may be the key to victory.

Fleet Logistics 3:  +15% max CR to all ships is great.  Gives all ships more in-combat endurance.  The other perks are nice too.  Maybe this one is not so must-have, but less supply use and a very powerful all-purpose combat boost for everyone is great.  It blows Combat Endurance 3 out of the water if I cannot have both due to lack of skill points.

Coordinated Maneuvers 1:  I almost always deploy multiple ships, and more top speed is always nice, and makes Nav Relay objectives less important.

Fighter Doctrine 3:  If my fleet uses fighters at all, all fighters need the boost.  They really do, and this alone is not enough.  In addition, Fighter Doctrine 2 is the easiest way to get Converted Hangar.

Loadout Design 3:  #2 perk in the game, and perhaps the most fun!  Standard OP is enough for simple basics, but affording all of the extra fun stuff requires more OP than standard.  Who wants to be stuck with low-grade weapons, max vents, ITU, and Resistant Flux Conduits for brawlers or 8 OP or less fighters, Expended Deck Crew and little else for carriers?

Electronic Warfare 1:  #1 perk in the game!  Significant number of late game fleets have Electronic Warfare, and if you do not have it, you lose 10% or more to shot range right off the bat, and that hurts badly unless your entire fleet does not use weapons at all.  You need this to level the playing field.  That said, such enemy fleets make more points beyond the first dubious because you probably will not have an overwhelming numbers advantage to get more than 10%.

All of the above requires 12 skill points without including additional points spent in aptitudes to unlock them.  If including aptitudes, then 19.

I should start a topic of junk perks, stuff so bad (like Combat Endurance 2 and Loadout Design 1) that they might as well be a dead level, but not right now.
Logged

nomadic_leader

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 725
    • View Profile

Skills/XP should be eliminated from the game. The kind of bonuses skills provide should instead be provided by hiring specialist crew/officers, hullmods, and special ships. Which you buy with money, or by having a good reputation for doing stuff.

And by actually just becoming better at playing the game.

Skills/XP encourages grinding: it's a simple way to make games 'addictive'; to keep people who aren't really that interested in the actual gameplay or world you've built to just merely continue playing to reach the "next level," to experience the mindless, chordate pleasure of seeing a progress bar fill up.

Disagree. System as is is both realistic and more strategic wrt gameplay. Realism: In real life, before you can learn engineering or medicine, you need to study "useless" mathematics and biology.

I disagree Mr Parrot!

In real life you get better at a thing by doing that thing. In Starsector you can do a bunch of salvage, get XP, and then press a magic button that makes all your bullets go 25% faster. Does that make any sense at all? Yea, most computer RPGs, stupidly, do the same thing. It's a worn-out paradigm from like 40 years ago. More suited to tabletop D&D than computer games.

If you must have some kind of XP/skills, instead, there should be "aptitude XP" in each of the four aptitudes. Actually doing stuff in that aptitude category would make increasingly expert officers and crew specialists in that category more willing to work for you. For some technology and industry related ships/hullmods, aptitude XP would give you a better bonus from them.

But there should be no way to be better at combat, aside from becoming, well, better at combat.

So these are some ideas for the different ways to earn "aptitude XP"

Combat: Raw Number of damage done in your non autopiloted ship.
Industry: Planets you've surveyed, tonnes of salvage recovered, ships recovered, etc.
Leadership: Good overall ratio of your crew killed vs enemy crew killed; effective use of fighters.
Technology: effective use of i-pulse and stealth, finding derelicts, shipwrecks, etc in systems, capping points, deploying ECM ships, etc.

But it just makes no sense, and it also makes the game comically easy, that you can just press a button and use like 50% less supplies for daily maintenance, mostly from XP you got blowing stuff up. That bonus should only come  from hiring a bunch of expert mechanics, or having a logistics officer assigned to some ship.

Or that you can press a button and the "go dark" ability becomes twice as effective. What? Why? Isn't this the most boring way possible to do this? Wouldn't it be more interesting to do this with a bunch of hull mods that reduce your heat signature, or some souped up ECM ship/officer that makes your signature closer to background radiation?
Logged

Midnight Kitsune

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 2846
  • Your Friendly Forum Friend
    • View Profile

The issue with that is it leads directly to something that Alex wanted to AVOID: "standing on a fire trap, taking damage and healing to build up skills"
Logged
Help out MesoTroniK, a modder in need

2021 is 2020 won
2022 is 2020 too

nomadic_leader

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 725
    • View Profile

The issue with that is it leads directly to something that Alex wanted to AVOID: "standing on a fire trap, taking damage and healing to build up skills"

Yea, so probably better to eliminate XP/skills entirely then. (yea, I know this won't happen)

But, you could try only awarding aptitude specific XP for doing active things, rather than passive things like soaking up damage.

So Alex avoided the thing he wanted to avoid, but there's still tonnes of boring rep grinding and level grinding, and I don't see how it's much better, if at all. Is it like a marketing thing now? Do people not want to play games where there isn't a discrete goal like getting to the next level?
Logged

Serenitis

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1458
    • View Profile

Different approach:

Remove aptitudes as a thing you spend points on. Ie; all skills are still arranged exactly as they are now and are entirely open, but still need to be unlocked sequentially in each sub-category.
Each skill point spent in an "aptitude" gets recorded, and for every x skills bought in that aptitude the player gets a bonus to some thing or other.

For instance, if you were to spend 5 skill points in combat you could get a small boost to the performance of your flagship.
The boosts for each increment would offer greater rewards for specialising in an aptitude more. So eventually you could have some fleetwide bonus to thing x by specialising enough in a given field.

Player doesn't feel like they're being held to ransom with empty skills.
Game rewards specialisation.

Or just
...previous versions, when Aptitudes had small but worthwhile effects in themselves.



Logged

ANGRYABOUTELVES

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 592
  • AE ALTADOON GHARTOK PADHOME
    • View Profile

I'd just like to mention that I do like the way aptitude points work and don't think they should be changed much, if at all. They serve a purpose; they're a penalty for spreading your skill points between too many areas, and encourage specialization. The fewer aptitude areas you skill into, the more effective skill points you have. However, people tend to be happier with perceived gains rather than perceived losses, even if the net effect at the end is exactly the same. I'm not exactly sure how to apply this principle to this situation, but if you do change the way aptitudes work, I'd suggest making it so the more you spend in an aptitude the further your points go, somehow.
Logged
Pages: 1 [2] 3 4 5