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

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Author Topic: Skills and Story Points  (Read 91112 times)

kenwth81

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #390 on: September 20, 2019, 10:21:37 PM »

I wouldn't have done it that way. It is a different game design philosophy.  I don't like the idea that you can reverse bad decisions or introducing causual friendly mechanics that If you play badly, there are many mechanics that help you out. You are behind in XP or dont know how to play? Here some free gold for playing badly. It is not really promoting playing well. It goes against putting weight to your decision or making your decision meaningful or impactful.

The way I would have done it would be to reduce the number of skills you can pick from 15 to 10 out of 40 but increase the level within the skills itself. The idea was to increase power, scope and effectiveness with each individual skills reducing the possibility of broad sweeping effective builds. Skills doesn't not need to be powerful, but it certainly need to be attractive to use, be different and unique. It is a nerf and a buff where picking to be optimal could possibly not be a good choice. That is how I feel specialization should be done. Each build feel powerful, important and meaningful in their own area of expertise. 

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Megas

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #391 on: September 21, 2019, 07:03:02 AM »

Starsector is too long of a game to replay over and over again to try different builds.  I would not mind it for much shorter games like DoomRL/DRL, but not for Starsector.  I am likely to stick with only one or two games, due to time, and being able to redo skills will be nice.  No decision paralysis or otherwise saving skill points.  No need to be locked into three ships all game if I play carrier specialist.
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ChaseBears

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #392 on: September 21, 2019, 07:23:19 AM »

There's a happy medium where there's enough of a cushion to make iron man playable without making risk meaningless.
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If I were creating the world I wouldn’t mess about with butterflies and daffodils. I would have started with lasers, eight o’clock, Day One!

SonnaBanana

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #393 on: September 21, 2019, 10:39:53 AM »

What if colony skills can be made elite like combat skills ( and Alpha Cores admins have all admin skills as elite)?
Taking it a step further, what if all skills can be made elite?
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I'm not going to check but you should feel bad :( - Alex

errorgance

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #394 on: September 22, 2019, 04:57:34 PM »

I've always disliked level caps of any kind  :-\
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ExW

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #395 on: September 28, 2019, 09:08:16 AM »

Just scratching my itch: story points were in "Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura" as "fate points".
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Cosmitz

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #396 on: September 28, 2019, 10:29:12 AM »

Just scratching my itch: story points were in "Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura" as "fate points".

Huh, i wonder how much inspiration FATE drew from Arcanum, the naming and use is oddly similar.
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kenwth81

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #397 on: October 01, 2019, 01:19:16 AM »

Starsector is too long of a game to replay over and over again to try different builds.  I would not mind it for much shorter games like DoomRL/DRL, but not for Starsector.  I am likely to stick with only one or two games, due to time, and being able to redo skills will be nice.  No decision paralysis or otherwise saving skill points.  No need to be locked into three ships all game if I play carrier specialist.

You can fly any ship. People are just more effective in the ships they are specialized in. Having distinct classes/builds and unique skills and abilities would be a plus to longevity and diverse gameplay, apparently some people see that as a minus.
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Megas

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #398 on: October 01, 2019, 06:43:56 AM »

It takes me... maybe about a week or more to go from start to end.  My feedback topics on new releases tend to be about a month after release date.  I do not have unlimited time to play Starsector, and I have a life to deal with.  I do not want to burn away my life to play every last character build in each game from start to end.  I did such dedicated play with Diablo 2, and I do not want to go through that experience again.
« Last Edit: October 01, 2019, 06:45:52 AM by Megas »
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kenwth81

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #399 on: October 01, 2019, 09:10:59 AM »

It takes me... maybe about a week or more to go from start to end.  My feedback topics on new releases tend to be about a month after release date.  I do not have unlimited time to play Starsector, and I have a life to deal with.  I do not want to burn away my life to play every last character build in each game from start to end.  I did such dedicated play with Diablo 2, and I do not want to go through that experience again.

Then don't. Maybe we need achievements for this game.  This is a single player game that you can play at your own pace. Playing the game is optional. Nobody forcing you to do so except yourself. Maybe we need online multiplayer options where you have friends that invite you to a game and it wouldn't be polite to refuse. I don't get why some people insist they need to, get all achievements.
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Megas

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #400 on: October 01, 2019, 09:32:59 AM »

My point was if the game is too long, I would not have time to try out more than a few builds.  Currently, I stick to few games because the Starsector is long.  Starsector is not DoomRL where I can finish a game in about two hours (barring the Ao100/Ao666 challenge games).  Respec in long games is nice, because I do not need to spend too much time grinding through early-game hell to do what I want.

I generally dislike achievement systems, especially if they gate content.

Lots of options to extend so-called longevity is meaningless if player does not have the time to try more than a few because the game is too long to play from start to end.
« Last Edit: October 01, 2019, 09:38:18 AM by Megas »
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kenwth81

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #401 on: October 01, 2019, 10:13:44 AM »

My point was if the game is too long, I would not have time to try out more than a few builds.  Currently, I stick to few games because the Starsector is long.  Starsector is not DoomRL where I can finish a game in about two hours (barring the Ao100/Ao666 challenge games).  Respec in long games is nice, because I do not need to spend too much time grinding through early-game hell to do what I want.

I generally dislike achievement systems, especially if they gate content.

If the game have 12 classes, most people would only play with their favorite classes. Most people wouldn't insist on playing through the game with all 12 classes. At least I would think so.

Have you tried nexerelin? It let you skip early game with accelerated start. You can respec with console commands. Mods is like extra content. Having different distinct builds would be more like extra classes rather than playing the same build over and over again. That is like saying extra context is bad because I don't have time to play. "Your reasoning is out of focus."
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Megas

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #402 on: October 01, 2019, 10:33:33 AM »

I played Nexerelin (and its ancestor Exerelin) up until the 0.8.x releases, but I do not see how a mod is relevant for no-mod play.  If Starsector cannot stand on its own and needs mods to be good, then it is a bad game.

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That is like saying extra context is bad because I don't have time to play.
Extra content is not bad, but it is meaningless if player cannot experience it due to time constraints, and being unable to respec skills in a long game is not good.

In particular, I do not like building a carrier specialist because I am locked to three or four carriers as my flagship for the whole game.  Unless one of the carriers is a godship that is so far above everything else, I would not want to be stuck to a number of ships I can count on one hand.  (Spark Drover does not count because player needs many of them.)  At least with warships, I have a nice variety to choose from for various purposes.
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kenwth81

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #403 on: October 01, 2019, 11:06:27 AM »

I played Nexerelin (and its ancestor Exerelin) up until the 0.8.x releases, but I do not see how a mod is relevant for no-mod play.  If Starsector cannot stand on its own and needs mods to be good, then it is a bad game.


There is a popular catch Phrase.

"It is a good game but mods is what make the game 100x better."

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Extra content is not bad, but it is meaningless if player cannot experience it due to time constraints, and being unable to respec skills in a long game is not good.

You can respec with console commands. If you are unwilling to use it, that is the individual problem.

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In particular, I do not like building a carrier specialist because I am locked to three or four carriers as my flagship for the whole game.  Unless one of the carriers is a godship that is so far above everything else, I would not want to be stuck to a number of ships I can count on one hand.  (Spark Drover does not count because player needs many of them.)  At least with warships, I have a nice variety to choose from for various purposes.

If you playing in vanilla and you are not playing the carrier specialist, you usually fly capital ships. There isn't much choice in the capital ships you can fly either.

I fly the paragon for like 99% of some of my games. I don't complain. I love that ship.  ;)



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Megas

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Re: Skills and Story Points
« Reply #404 on: October 01, 2019, 04:41:18 PM »

The game should be good without mods.  If I pay money for a game, I want a game, not a game engine that needs third party support to polish it up.  I should not need to rely on mods to have a good game.  If I need to mod a commercial game to have a good game, I rather play make-believe and say "I WIN! GAME OVER!" and look for a better game that does not need mods (or a free game where community support and development from anyone with the dedication is the point).

Respec during the game means I do not need (to make or download) a third-party tool to cheat that feature in for me.

If you playing in vanilla and you are not playing the carrier specialist, you usually fly capital ships. There isn't much choice in the capital ships you can fly either.

I fly the paragon for like 99% of some of my games. I don't complain. I love that ship.  ;)
Before mid to late-game, capitals are usually not an option.  I need to make do with whatever ships as I acquire them, and warships are much more common than carriers.  Even late after I get the capitals I want, I still occasionally use smaller ships when they are more useful, and the skills are still useful for them.  With carriers, player has what?  Drover, Heron, Mora, and Astral?

And yes, Paragon is nice.  It is my flagship of choice, although I do not always fly it.  In my current game, it was almost the very last ship type I acquired (I had to raid Culann with a pure phase fleet to get the blueprint).  I had to make do with other ships until then.
« Last Edit: October 01, 2019, 04:45:47 PM by Megas »
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