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Author Topic: Expand gameplay & avoid RNG based hyper-progression with Military Force Licenses  (Read 8017 times)

sqrt(-1)

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The skill based challenge to overcome/outsmart/avoid superiorly powerful enemies is one of the most entertaining aspect of any game. In Starsector, fundamental challenges like the progression of the skill to pilot the flagship, sneakily navigating the fleet through star systems, commanding the fleet and to wisely equip ships are undermined by the pure chance of finding high price loot early on.

Vast portions of the game are spoiled by the possibility of (not unlikely) luck to obtain overpowered ships, like the Tempest, or large fleets via lucky finds early on.
Even with average RNG, the aforementioned core gameplay challenges are rendered close to void too quickly in my opinion.
Simply just reducing the price of valuable items is not addressing this sufficiently and is solely diluting or even destroying the opportunity for more gameplay dynamics based on those things.

I have read and watched multiple times how new players were catapulted into the mid- to late game within 2-3 hours after trying the game for the first time.
Too many players never experience the joy of overcoming a more powerful enemy with low-tech ships and weapons and have the game reduced to dull resource management, almost from the start.

For avoiding this issue and to improve the gameplay experience, I suggest the implementation of military force licenses.

Just like in real life, random people are not allowed to cruise around with high tech fighter jets without a license.
Factions should hunt down a player in their systems who potentially threatens their existence with high tech/powerful ships and large fleets, if they didn't build up a certain reputation and have acquired a sufficient level of military force license.

Acquiring such licenses could involve story missions and/or meeting specific faction requirements, which would be a great basis to expand game content and depth.
One could perhaps still utilize a powerful fleet without a license when avoiding the related faction. And perhaps, getting licenses from all factions isn't possible.
It would be an extension of the commission system, with a far better and significant gameplay impact, since ship sourcing isn't truly a significant limitation in game anyway.

PS: In my opinion, those who refute the issue of hyper-progression and claim to have the greatest fun by defeating almost every enemy fleet (particularly with imbalance mod's) are a very loud minority here. Those people are typically the same who "enjoy" playing games with cheat codes/exploits, just want to a quick rush with ever larger explosion's and overpowered ships by installing some low quality mods. I think the those views should be avoided when considering the fine nuances to tweak the existing into an even better game.
« Last Edit: January 01, 2021, 09:31:46 AM by sqrt(-1) »
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Grievous69

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The only thing I agree with is rare items giving you loads of cash early on, reduce the price of Nanoforges and such and you pretty much dealt with the biggest problem. I really don't see how a single Tempest is so overpowered you just stomp on everything. You know those are available on black markets? And even if a player somehow stumbles upon a pristine capital just floating in space, they'd still need to massively upscale their fleet and supplies just to maintain it. Also you'll be pretty slow with your burn 7/8 fleet with mostly frigates.

Please edit that PS part, you're coming off as an ignorant and delusional person. You basically said everyone who disagrees with this is a minority and their opinion should be avoided, not much of a suggestion then is it?
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sqrt(-1)

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The only thing I agree with is rare items giving you loads of cash early on, reduce the price of Nanoforges and such and you pretty much dealt with the biggest problem.
The patch note says that the prices for those things are only adjusted moderately.

I don't mind high prices for highly valuable items. What is important is that acquiring them should be a matter of mastering a challenge, not just some RNG circumstance!
Just deluding the price is spoiling the opportunity to utilize high value items as a source of fun gameplay content because it is homogenizing potential dynamics.

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I really don't see how a single Tempest is so overpowered you just stomp on everything.
Almost everything short of a Battlestation or Paragon can be defeated by a player controlled Tempest with linked Tachyon Lances.

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You know those are available on black markets?
It shouldn't matter where you have acquired the ship. You have a Tempest that could easily take out any Hegemony Onslaught with ease. Thus, the Hegemony should not tolerate the presence of such a dangerous ship in one of their system unless you have licensed you to do so.

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And even if a player somehow stumbles upon a pristine capital just floating in space, they'd still need to massively upscale their fleet and supplies just to maintain it. Also you'll be pretty slow with your burn 7/8 fleet with mostly frigates.
That's only the case 2 hours into the game.

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Please edit that PS part, you're coming off as an ignorant and delusional person. You basically said everyone who disagrees with this is a minority and their opinion should be avoided, not much of a suggestion then is it?
My point is that this is an objective matter of game design.

Many players are simply not concerned about questioning what constitutes fun gameplay mechanics, they just care about quick progression and consuming more content. An even smaller subset of those people are those who see the greatest potential in Starsector as a sandbox for ever bigger battles and absurdly overpowered ships/weapons, which I think is not the goal of the vanilla experience.

Of course are you free to disagree with this, but my opinion stands that this is an objective matter of what constitutes as fun for the majority of people in the vanilla game.
« Last Edit: January 01, 2021, 09:28:21 AM by sqrt(-1) »
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Grievous69

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I mean if you shift all valuable items to missions and other scripted stuff, what's the point of exploring? All you'd find would just be trash.

In what world will a new player try to cheese battlestations with a Tempest? Also any ship can kill an Onslaught alone, why do people still use this argument jeez. Afflictor can also do all of that, should we just ban all high skill ceiling ships? I really don't get what's your point there. If you have an issue with a ship you should propose some balance changes, not outright remove it from the game.

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my opinion
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objective matter
Choose one.
« Last Edit: January 01, 2021, 09:32:25 AM by Grievous69 »
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sqrt(-1)

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I mean if you shift all valuable items to missions and other scripted stuff, what's the point of exploring? All you'd find would just be trash.
I am saying that you should not be able to simply find an Alpha Core or Prestine Nanoforge by luck, but should only be able to acquire it with the right amount of skills in piloting a ship or a fleet obtained with gameplay skills.

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In what world will a new player try to cheese battlestations with a Tempest? Also any ship can kill an Onslaught alone, why do people still use this argument jeez. Afflictor can also do all of that, should be just ban all high skill ceiling ships?
Particularly many High-tech ships are overpowered. That you can also take out an Onslaught with a Kite doesn't change this fact.

The Tempest was just an example, but it is obviously a fact that even a beginner is suddenly massively more capable to engage anything short of capital ships/stations with it.
Powerful ships should only be one license limitation, with fleet size and perhaps even certain weapon types being the other.

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I really don't get what's your point there. If you have an issue with a ship you should propose some balance changes, not outright remove it from the game.
The point is to extend and amplify the relevance of skill based core gameplay mechanics (piloting, weapon managing, commanding, navigating, equipping) instead of having the game entirely reduced to dull resource management and flux battling after 2-3 hours and/or by pure luck.

The expansion of the fleet size and quality of ships should require the accomplishment of truly having mastered the aforementioned skills.

This is not about balancing out powerful ships/weapons and I did not suggest to remove anything. What I suggest is to bring greater depth and length to the gameplay content by limiting progression more on skill based gameplay rather than RNG.

The fun of hiding from superior fleets, kiting larger ships, overcoming superior quality with a clever use of rust buckets, etc. is clearly made irrelevant too quickly.

Don't you agree that it would be so much for fun to sneak with your small fleet through a system with deadly Derelict scouting fleets and exploit a weakness of a powerful Mothership, to acquire a Prestine Nanoforge, instead of just wondering how many Supplies you should spend to crush the fleets, with dozens of ships, which you will always be able to acquire at some early point, regardless whether Alex tweaks prices by 10-50 %?

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Quote
my opinion
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objective matter
Choose one.
I can have the opinion that something is an objective matter, that a minority dismisses because of their believes which are objectively contrary to the goal of the subject.
Get over it! I have solely stated my opinion that a minority here is overly vocal against what I perceive as the objective goal of this game's intended vanilla experience.
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intrinsic_parity

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I actually kind of like the suggestion, but I don't agree with the reasoning behind the suggestion. What I like about the idea is that it creates more interactions with the faction/reputation system and adds some very much needed significance to the commission system, however, I don't think it achieves what the OP wants.

The reason that people don't take hard fights is because the risk/reward balance doesn't make sense (i.e. the potential loses are much larger than the potential gains), not because they can't find any difficult fights with their crazy OP fleet of salvaged capitals or something. The suggested change wouldn't alter that. Worst case, it would heavily incentivize non-combat income like the fetch quests which is the opposite of the desired effects. IMO, the most likely outcome would be that the player would rush whatever missions are required to get access to one factions tech and go from there. Basically the end result would be the same rate of progression with a more restricted roster of ships (which I actually think would be interesting).

I don't think the idea that 'RNG/good ships cause the player to progress too quickly' is accurate either. The thing that actually controls progression right now is just money. It's really easy to make money right now, so it is very easy to rapidly expand your fleet. Money controls feasible fleet size (based on logistics), and access to ships, so the ease of making money is basically the main factor controlling how quickly the player becomes more powerful. This suggestion does not address the fundamental logistics of building a large/powerful fleet so I don't think it would have much effect on the speed of progression.

Ultimately, there is always going to be a conflict between accessibility for new players and challenge for experienced players. I think Alex has mentioned that he wants to add more tunable difficulty options which is a great approach IMO.
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Grievous69

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Don't you agree that it would be so much for fun to sneak with your small fleet through a system with deadly Derelict scouting fleets and exploit a weakness of a powerful Mothership, to acquire a Prestine Nanoforge, instead of just wondering how many Supplies you should spend to crush the fleets, with dozens of ships, which you will always be able to acquire at some early point, regardless whether Alex tweaks prices by 10-50 %?
No, just straight up no. I mean early game has its charms but why would I want to spend so much time in small weak ships when the best thing about the game is combat. I love the battles here regardless of risk/reward, who I'm fighting and with what I'm fighting. I just find small battles boring, frigates just chasing each other hopelessly and spending half a day to kill one Venture. I'm all for options, if someone wants to stay as long as he wants in early game, hey it's a sandbox. But at the same time gating ships and items behind challenges or whatever would make the game more boring to players like me. There's already so many ships which are stupidly rare to find but are great and fun. Yeah sure let's make that pool even smaller and have the same 5-6 early game ships everyone is going to have unless you want to grind reputation or whatever is the actual suggestion.
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Megas

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Posted this elsewhere before stumbling on this topic, so here is a copy...

With the way Starsector is, I would not want military licenses (because the execution would probably be like a patrol scan that results in a fight if you do not comply.)  All that means is I use clunkers longer or avoid the core worlds (except the likes of Magec where there are no patrols) until my faction can accumulate enough resources then take revenge by sat bombing the core worlds to oblivion later for making early game miserable.  That would push fun further toward endgame when player can finally enjoy the most of the content of the game instead of living like a pauper or a junk pirate by using demo or shareware level content.  Besides, major factions already do this annoyance of sorts by sending expeditions just for making a few extra spacebucks.

This would be like telling your typical fantasy adventurer "No, you can't have weapons of any sort other than farming tools or eating utensils, and don't even think about farting sparks or carrying a stick before signing up with the government-approved registration act for all magical beings."

I like playing overpowered characters.  No, I do not use cheats because I do not need to waste time playing a game with no rules (or rather, rules broken) just to say "I WIN".  The fun is to acquire then wield overpowered or at least high-tier stuff provided by the game.

I do not use mods lately because Starsector is kind of a long game.  Unmodded Starsector takes long enough to play.

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I have read and watched multiple times how new players were catapulted into the mid- to late game within 2-3 hours after trying the game.
I would say that is a good thing (at least for the player).  Players do not need to waste too much time before getting somewhere.  Also, they would keep up with scaling bounties instead of falling behind if they really get good stuff early.  Also, finding great out-of-depth stuff occasionally feels great, and breaks the boring predictable treadmill.

Games are not supposed to be a life or a boring grind, unless the developer or player is getting paid for it.

I also agree with Grievous69's and intrinsic_parity's posts here.

I avoid named bounties unless there is a good chance of flawless victory for my side because the bounties do not pay enough.
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SCC

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I can get on with a single Tempest and smash many fleets with ease. However, I'm rather good at the game, and there are many people who aren't, and Tempests aren't OP in AI hands. I don't really mind gating ships in some ways, but frigates and destroyers get redundant so soon, it would greatly reduce the choice of ships you use early on, which is a shame. Either way, easiest way to gate ships would be to take away most or even all of good combat ships from open market and possibly also black market. Get a commission or use trash.

As for easy money, I think I would rather have it so that special items can be sold just like that, to anyone, but you rather would have to either go to major faction colony leaders and offer them the goodies for lower payout, or go to bars and look for a buyer and risk being scammed or robbed.

The reason that people don't take hard fights is because the risk/reward balance doesn't make sense (i.e. the potential loses are much larger than the potential gains), not because they can't find any difficult fights with their crazy OP fleet of salvaged capitals or something.
I think it's because you have infinite resources, including time, to accomplish your goals. If you don't really need a big payout right now, it's better to play it safe and earn the money slower.

Igncom1

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Yeah the biggest limiter on my gameplay is real life time.

Which is why I save scum consistently. I have not got time to reset to zero on a bad roll.
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Megas

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I like that Open Markets and Black Markets sell good ships occasionally.  Open Market is still kind of trashy, and expensive the rare times they have something good.  Even finding a good ship in Black Market is not that common.

We had releases where Open Markets had nothing but civvies.  That was no fun.  Even today, Open Market is a bit of a last resort because of tariffs.

Black Market is easier.

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Get a commission or use trash.
Mostly early-game to mid-game.  By late-game, player can just build the ship.  A reason why later game is more fun.

Of course, that may be downplayed next release with permamods and the story point cost to add them to the player's forever fleet.

Which is why I save scum consistently. I have not got time to reset to zero on a bad roll.
You just succinctly explained why I shamelessly abuse save-scumming too.
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Amoebka

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So, basically, you want to remove all gameplay styles except the one you happen to like, and call everyone who disagrees cheaters and idiots who don't know what's good for them?

A lot of stuff in your post is also just flat-out factually wrong. Tempest is no more overpowered than any other early flagship, and high-tech is not inherently better or more powerful than your beloved rust buckets (all overpowered vanilla ships tend to be midline, btw, high-tech is only good for flagship cheese). Ultimately, players who want to minmax will minmax regardless. They will find the best low-license ships to spam or the fastest ways to grind up licenses.

I also strongly disagree about players being propelled "straight into lategame". Sure, you can find an AI core while exploring. ONE core, if you want a steady supply, you need to use "skills and smarts" to fight remnant fleets. And what exactly does that core do for you before you have colonies? A bit of money at best. Blueprints are another story, but, again, they are merely easy money. Money is surprisingly worthless in this game, most often than not I find myself swimming in credits and unable to buy anything, because all markets are selling 10 d-modded hounds and not a single Omen. Making the situation even worse doesn't seem desirable to me. Sorry for being a stupid cheater who doesn't understand game design, I guess.
« Last Edit: January 01, 2021, 01:41:05 PM by Amoebka »
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Alex

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@Grievous69, sqrt(-1): please stop with the personal attacks before warnings have to be handed out/other moderator action has to be taken. There's a good discussion to be had here, minus the potshots.
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SafariJohn

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The #1 problem I see with this suggestion is that it would blindside new players who wouldn't be aware you have to have permission to use certain ships.
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intrinsic_parity

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The reason that people don't take hard fights is because the risk/reward balance doesn't make sense (i.e. the potential loses are much larger than the potential gains), not because they can't find any difficult fights with their crazy OP fleet of salvaged capitals or something.
I think it's because you have infinite resources, including time, to accomplish your goals. If you don't really need a big payout right now, it's better to play it safe and earn the money slower.
I think you can wrap all that up in a 'risk/reward' evaluation, or more accurately a 'cost/benefit' analysis. Time is a cost, but if there is infinite time then it's not a factor. IRL time is a resource as well. At the end of the day, hard fights often don't give you enough value to justify the cost and risk when compared to alternative ways of acquiring the same rewards.

I'm not really sure how the original suggestion would make you want to take difficult fights. It doesn't seem to make the rewards any more desirable, and it makes the cost/risk significantly higher as far as I can tell. As long as alternative methods of getting money and ships with low risk/cost exist, taking hard fights will not be incentivized. I suppose there's the implicit assumption that you can choose the fights you take, but that's pretty much achievable IMO.

I actually tried an ironman run recently and hated it. I ended up just playing super safe, avoiding any dangerous combats and it was very boring, but it felt like the risk of setbacks due to major loses in combat were just never worth while. I might make another thread about it actually.

I can have the opinion that something is an objective matter, that a minority dismisses because of their believes which are objectively contrary to the goal of the subject.
Get over it! I have solely stated my opinion that a minority here is overly vocal against what I perceive as the objective goal of this game's intended vanilla experience.
Objective things can be proved, and are true regardless of the people discussing them, you generally don't have an opinion on whether something is objective, it just is. The goal of the game, and what is 'fun' are very much a matter of opinion i.e. not objective because they depend on the person playing (and making) the game. You can see this by observing that different people find the same gameplay more or less fun, so there can't be an objective 'fun value' assigned to it. You're free to say what you think makes for enjoyable gameplay, and we are free to disagree. It's all a matter of opinion. 
« Last Edit: January 01, 2021, 03:45:39 PM by intrinsic_parity »
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