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 ... 6

Author Topic: Complaints about CR and game design  (Read 10671 times)

Sordid

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 313
    • View Profile
Re: Complaints about CR and game design
« Reply #15 on: March 31, 2021, 01:24:25 PM »

No, I don't think they are good things. It entirely breaks the balancing of the game and makes designing a challenge out and out impossible.

You say that as if it were a fact, but tons of other games manage, so I have my doubts.

Quote
Wow you haven't played Xcom, thank you for a perfect example AGAINST you. The developers of both Enemy unknown and Xcom 2, have stated they consider their game a tutorial section to Long War in recognition of it's scope.

Yeah, that's true, I only played the ancient ones and the first of the modern ones, which I'm pretty sure didn't have such a mechanic. I didn't like it, so I didn't play any of the subsequent ones. In any case, the fact that you can find one other game that has this mechanic doesn't invalidate my argument, which is that there's plenty of other games that work just fine without it.
« Last Edit: March 31, 2021, 01:33:08 PM by Thaago »
Logged

Thaago

  • Global Moderator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 7173
  • Harpoon Affectionado
    • View Profile
Re: Complaints about CR and game design
« Reply #16 on: March 31, 2021, 01:35:17 PM »

[Note: This thread was split from the skills discussion, hence the topic titles being different for middle posts.]
Logged

Sordid

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 313
    • View Profile
Re: Complaints about CR and game design
« Reply #17 on: March 31, 2021, 02:24:16 PM »

Console Commands:
https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=4106.0

The commands AddSupplies and InfiniteCR seem to be ones that would satisfy your current criteria.  Supplies becomes unimportant if you can add them on a whim, and using infiniteCR lets you solo a fleet in a frigate if you like.  Other commands can similarly make fuel and credits non-issues, as well as providing any ship in the game you want at any time.

Eh... I guess? But that's just cheating. Even though I think CR is bad, the issues it addresses are real and would be left unaddressed. I was hoping for something a bit more... comprehensive, but thanks for the suggestion anyway. I might give it a shot. I was also considering raising the level cap and/or increasing the number of skill points per level so that I could take logistics skills in addition to combat-focused ones in order to make the CR leash a bit looser.

Quote
I'd argue the dev is a writer with an editor (he gets plenty of feedback).  However the writer's later books are starting to mix different genres in a way that you don't like.  Nothing wrong with that on either side.  Tastes differ.  Everyone doesn't like every genre of book.

Getting feedback is not the same thing as having an editor. The players can't put their foot down and demand changes in the same way an editor can.
« Last Edit: March 31, 2021, 03:09:03 PM by Sordid »
Logged

ApolloStarsector

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 131
    • View Profile
Re: Complaints about CR and game design
« Reply #18 on: March 31, 2021, 03:54:22 PM »

Disagree with your claims that the Dev wants to limit gameplay choices. Actually, both combat readiness and supply costs for deployment introduce strategy and considerations where, otherwise, you would simply use your entire fleet against any opponent. As others stated, it prevents endless kiting, which I find extremely tedious. It seems like you may be an outlier of a player - use mods to make the game into what you want?
Logged

Pushover

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 292
    • View Profile
Re: Complaints about CR and game design
« Reply #19 on: March 31, 2021, 05:43:32 PM »

I feel like CR is necessary, or at least a similar mechanic.

Players love to optimize gameplay. The classic saying is that 'players will optimize the fun out of the game'. If you can solo every fleet in the game with a solo Hyperion, there will probably be people that do exactly that. It might be fun to do once, or a few times, but not something people want to do repeatedly. On the other hand, if there was no supply cost to deploy my entire fleet, then when I'm facing a weaker fleet, I'll just deploy the whole fleet, alt tab, come back to the victory screen. Fun. Might as well add autoresolve at that point. Starsector is fun when you are having to balance decisions like 'can I support adding this ship to my fleet' or 'which ships are best to deploy here?'

Having supply costs and CR allows you to have a risk/reward factor to battles. It's a choice of how much of your fleet you need to deploy to beat a smaller fleet. Do you deploy just your flagship? How many escorts do you need? If you go with the solo flagship, will you run out of PPT and end up costing more supplies recovering CR than if you had just deployed more ships?

SO is balanced around the idea that you are on a clock, your CR will run out faster than your enemies (usually), so you have to be aggressive. You can't just have a SO ship around because it can tank damage, back up quickly, and never die, it needs to actually kill stuff. (Well... you can, but it's not supply efficient).

I've also had some extremely grindy fights where the AI actually runs out of CR before me (in the early game), allowing me to win a battle that I was severely outnumbered. Then it was a moment of 'oh man, how am I going to survive this battle/can I get to a clean disengage' to 'Wow, I actually WON this?' But generally, the player is outnumbered, so they have to worry about CR way more than the AI does (and the AI doesn't need supplies either).

Using XCOM (EU/EW) Long War as an example, one issue was that the optimal strategy in most cases was to creep slowly up the map, spamming overwatch so that you never had a bad pod activation. I guess I didn't play XCOM 2 that much (didn't play LW or even WoTC), but I felt like they went too far in the opposite direction, where strict mission time limits meant that you were rushing around, combined with fairly punishing effects for leaving practically any enemy alive to take a turn.

Personally, I'd love to see more hull mods that interact with CR/PPT/recovery cost, (I know mods add some), such as something for fast frigates with low PPT to capture points quickly (you could use SO + UI for this, but that's a lot of OP when you often just want something quick that can stand its ground against another light ship, then leave the battle when larger ships show up (something like -75% PPT and -50% recovery cost would work). So far, there's just SO, Eff Overhaul, and Hardened Subsystems. Right now, you can argue that Efficiency Overhaul is a trap hull mod, but that's mostly because it's far too easy to make infinite money currently.
Logged

Sordid

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 313
    • View Profile
Re: Complaints about CR and game design
« Reply #20 on: March 31, 2021, 06:20:55 PM »

Players love to optimize gameplay. The classic saying is that 'players will optimize the fun out of the game'. If you can solo every fleet in the game with a solo Hyperion, there will probably be people that do exactly that. It might be fun to do once, or a few times, but not something people want to do repeatedly.

I mean, if it's not fun for you, then don't do it? Seems a simple enough solution to me. And if someone does do it repeatedly, then it must be fun for them. Why take it away from them when that removal doesn't benefit you in any way, since you wouldn't do it even if you could?

Quote
On the other hand, if there was no supply cost to deploy my entire fleet, then when I'm facing a weaker fleet, I'll just deploy the whole fleet, alt tab, come back to the victory screen. Fun. Might as well add autoresolve at that point.

Yes, might as well. There's a lot of games that have it, like Mount&Blade, Total War, and many others. There's a good reason for that, forcing the player to fight every single battle makes the game tedious and unfun. Making the player limit their own power is even worse. What's the point of having progression, of acquiring more and better ships with bigger guns, if the game is going to artificially enforce parity with weaker enemies anyway? Starsector doesn't even have the decency to just scale the enemies to match you like most games do, instead it makes you hold back with a threat of punishment. That just feels extremely unsatisfying and is part of the general problem of using negative motivation to push the player into doing something that's not enjoyable.

Quote
Using XCOM (EU/EW) Long War as an example, one issue was that the optimal strategy in most cases was to creep slowly up the map, spamming overwatch so that you never had a bad pod activation. I guess I didn't play XCOM 2 that much (didn't play LW or even WoTC), but I felt like they went too far in the opposite direction, where strict mission time limits meant that you were rushing around, combined with fairly punishing effects for leaving practically any enemy alive to take a turn.

Huh. I guess I was right to avoid every XCOM after Enemy Within, because by the sound of it I would like them even less than it.

Quote
Personally, I'd love to see more hull mods that interact with CR/PPT/recovery cost, (I know mods add some), such as something for fast frigates with low PPT to capture points quickly (you could use SO + UI for this, but that's a lot of OP when you often just want something quick that can stand its ground against another light ship, then leave the battle when larger ships show up (something like -75% PPT and -50% recovery cost would work). So far, there's just SO, Eff Overhaul, and Hardened Subsystems. Right now, you can argue that Efficiency Overhaul is a trap hull mod, but that's mostly because it's far too easy to make infinite money currently.

Ugh, don't even get me started. The fat trimming I mentioned? The obligatory frigate dance at the start of every battle would be one of the first things to go. Deploy frigates, capture points, retreat the frigates and deploy the big ships, rinse and repeat every single time in exactly the same way. It's just a load of boring busywork, but you gotta do it because guess what, there's a punishment if you don't.
Logged

Thaago

  • Global Moderator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 7173
  • Harpoon Affectionado
    • View Profile
Re: Complaints about CR and game design
« Reply #21 on: March 31, 2021, 06:23:50 PM »

...

Quote
Personally, I'd love to see more hull mods that interact with CR/PPT/recovery cost, (I know mods add some), such as something for fast frigates with low PPT to capture points quickly (you could use SO + UI for this, but that's a lot of OP when you often just want something quick that can stand its ground against another light ship, then leave the battle when larger ships show up (something like -75% PPT and -50% recovery cost would work). So far, there's just SO, Eff Overhaul, and Hardened Subsystems. Right now, you can argue that Efficiency Overhaul is a trap hull mod, but that's mostly because it's far too easy to make infinite money currently.

Ugh, don't even get me started. The fat trimming I mentioned? The obligatory frigate dance at the start of every battle would be one of the first things to go. Deploy frigates, capture points, retreat the frigates and deploy the big ships, rinse and repeat every single time in exactly the same way. It's just a load of boring busywork, but you gotta do it because guess what, there's a punishment if you don't.

I don't do that and am still winning fights. Its not required.
Logged

Sordid

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 313
    • View Profile
Re: Complaints about CR and game design
« Reply #22 on: March 31, 2021, 06:26:20 PM »

I don't do that and am still winning fights. Its not required.

So you wouldn't mind the removal, since it wouldn't impact you in any way? Cool.
Logged

Histidine

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 4661
    • View Profile
    • GitHub profile
Re: Complaints about CR and game design
« Reply #23 on: March 31, 2021, 07:06:22 PM »

"Forced". "Obligatory". you_keep_using_that_word.jpg

More to the point, what you're saying confirms what I'm saying. Yes, the point of CR is to make you use only as many ships you need, not more, not less. In other words, the point is to enforce only the dev's preferred playstyle. Wanna solo an enemy fleet with one ship? Too bad, not allowed. Wanna steamroll an enemy ship with your entire fleet? Too bad, not allowed either. If you enjoy the playstyle the game demands, good for you. But it could be so much more than it is now...
"Not allowed", in the sense not that it actually blocks you from doing a thing the game considers bad, but you lose resources for doing it
is the norm for games. Under a broad interpretation, every game that changes the outcome based on performance does this.

Examples: every game where it's possible to 'waste' ammo (for a particularly vivid illustration, use Resident Evil 4's rocket launcher on a random monster).
Every game where, well, you lose if you don't commit enough resources to the fight, and don't have enough skill and/or favorable circumstances enough to win regardless (quite possibly every game involving military tactics/strategy ever made. When I was a kid playing Myth: The Fallen Lords, on the first level I sent my warriors one by one to the bridge swarming with thralls. None of them was a big enough hero to live.)

The only questions remaining are whether the scope of remaining "allowed" actions is too narrow, and whether the penalties for getting it wrong are too strict. (My own view is: no and no for most reasonably skilled Starsector players, but very possibly not so for new ones)

If you're one of those high-skill players who can solo fleets and have the right ship for it? Go for it. Want to stomp two Hounds in a Paragon? Well the first-order cost is only 6k credits' worth of supplies, if you really want to nobody is going to tell you how to spend your credits.



Quote
On the other hand, if there was no supply cost to deploy my entire fleet, then when I'm facing a weaker fleet, I'll just deploy the whole fleet, alt tab, come back to the victory screen. Fun. Might as well add autoresolve at that point.

Yes, might as well. There's a lot of games that have it, like Mount&Blade, Total War, and many others. There's a good reason for that, forcing the player to fight every single battle makes the game tedious and unfun. Making the player limit their own power is even worse. What's the point of having progression, of acquiring more and better ships with bigger guns, if the game is going to artificially enforce parity with weaker enemies anyway? Starsector doesn't even have the decency to just scale the enemies to match you like most games do, instead it makes you hold back with a threat of punishment. That just feels extremely unsatisfying and is part of the general problem of using negative motivation to push the player into doing something that's not enjoyable.
Forcing the player to fight every single battle? Except for things like too-weak bounties, literally nothing even asks you to fight fleets not worth the trouble to fight in the first place, much less force you to do so. And for the fleets that are so weak they run away, autoresolve in fact already exists in Starsector.

(Aside: lol at mentioning M&B autoresolve, when I avoided it like the plague because it was perfectly capable of killing off top-tier knights that never die if the battle is actually fought.)

More broadly: if there are so many battles you need an autoresolve mechanic, that's a sign you have too many battles. To some degree this can be an unavoidable state, but if you can solve the problem at the root it's better to do so.


Point of progression: to do things you couldn't do before, of which there are many in the game. This takes three seconds to think of.

Enemy scaling: You're perfectly capable of finding stronger enemies if you need them. The bounty system (one of the biggest sources of fights) directly generates stronger enemies as you kill more bounties, and then helpfully points you to them.



Players love to optimize gameplay. The classic saying is that 'players will optimize the fun out of the game'. If you can solo every fleet in the game with a solo Hyperion, there will probably be people that do exactly that. It might be fun to do once, or a few times, but not something people want to do repeatedly.

I mean, if it's not fun for you, then don't do it? Seems a simple enough solution to me. And if someone does do it repeatedly, then it must be fun for them. Why take it away from them when that removal doesn't benefit you in any way, since you wouldn't do it even if you could?
The game mechanics should not incentivize unfun things, specifically because this will make people do them while not considering them fun. This is a well-known problem in game design, affecting any number of things (here's a good example, involving achievements.) "Don't do it" misses the point completely and utterly.

And if "don't do it" remains your policy, consider taking your own advice:

I don't do that and am still winning fights. Its not required.

So you wouldn't mind the removal, since it wouldn't impact you in any way? Cool.
"I want to stop having to do the thing"
"You do not, in fact, have to do the thing"
"So you wouldn't mind the removal, since it wouldn't impact you in any way? Cool."

Hopefully this will convey the value of such a response: cool story bro

What would removing it even entail? Change the game balance so that frigates are worth keeping on the field past the initial capture phase? Or make it so the follow-up big ships can be deployed without needing to rotate out the frigates? Good news!
« Last Edit: March 31, 2021, 07:15:31 PM by Histidine »
Logged

Thaago

  • Global Moderator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 7173
  • Harpoon Affectionado
    • View Profile
Re: Complaints about CR and game design
« Reply #24 on: March 31, 2021, 07:30:52 PM »

Please don't put words in my mouth.

I do not do the 'obligatory frigate dance' that you have described. In fact, I often do the opposite and deploy my heavier ships first and send them to capture a point, then deploy my faster ships to catch up so that they all hit together. Or I hold back my fast ships entirely because the enemy has overwhelming fighter cover and/or hunter frigates of their own. Or, I deploy my fast ships and keep them around. But I've never done what you've described. My point is that the things that you are describing as immutable fact are actually opinion.

CR creates time pressure. If thats not for you, well I'm sorry the game changed in a way that you don't like. That is unfortunate. But time pressure is an extremely common and universal feature in many games.
Logged

Voyager I

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 353
    • View Profile
Re: Complaints about CR and game design
« Reply #25 on: March 31, 2021, 08:52:33 PM »

I don't do that and am still winning fights. Its not required.

So you wouldn't mind the removal, since it wouldn't impact you in any way? Cool.

At this point you are discussing gameplay stipulations that do not exist.
Logged

Pushover

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 292
    • View Profile
Re: Complaints about CR and game design
« Reply #26 on: March 31, 2021, 09:17:07 PM »

Players love to optimize gameplay. The classic saying is that 'players will optimize the fun out of the game'. If you can solo every fleet in the game with a solo Hyperion, there will probably be people that do exactly that. It might be fun to do once, or a few times, but not something people want to do repeatedly.

I mean, if it's not fun for you, then don't do it? Seems a simple enough solution to me. And if someone does do it repeatedly, then it must be fun for them. Why take it away from them when that removal doesn't benefit you in any way, since you wouldn't do it even if you could?
Uhh... you brought up game design in the title of this post. It's bad game design to have an optimal strategy that's boring, and then expect players to not do the optimal strategy. Sid Meyers also mentions that "one of the responsibilities of designers is to protect the player from themselves". The optimal strategy should be fun.

Quote
On the other hand, if there was no supply cost to deploy my entire fleet, then when I'm facing a weaker fleet, I'll just deploy the whole fleet, alt tab, come back to the victory screen. Fun. Might as well add autoresolve at that point.

Yes, might as well. There's a lot of games that have it, like Mount&Blade, Total War, and many others. There's a good reason for that, forcing the player to fight every single battle makes the game tedious and unfun. Making the player limit their own power is even worse. What's the point of having progression, of acquiring more and better ships with bigger guns, if the game is going to artificially enforce parity with weaker enemies anyway? Starsector doesn't even have the decency to just scale the enemies to match you like most games do, instead it makes you hold back with a threat of punishment. That just feels extremely unsatisfying and is part of the general problem of using negative motivation to push the player into doing something that's not enjoyable.
The problem with autoresolve is that it promotes skipping the 'fun' part of Starsector, the combat. You already have autoresolve for pursuits (which generally does better than actually playing it out, I find...), which prevents the classic autoresolve issue of 'your invincible unit randomly decided to commit suicide in this battle... somehow', or Total War's 'higher difficulty = super imbalanced autoresolve so it's a trap to press the button'. Starsector is still heavily a space combat game. The space combat is IMO the best part about Starsector. It doesn't make too much sense to promote skipping the space combat in Starsector.

Forcing the player to fight battles also promotes fighting fairer battles. Instead of just picking smaller fleets to constantly autoresolve against, it promotes actually finding more challenging battles, since it's a better use of time.
Logged

Thaago

  • Global Moderator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 7173
  • Harpoon Affectionado
    • View Profile
Re: Complaints about CR and game design
« Reply #27 on: March 31, 2021, 09:21:31 PM »

(To be fair, I changed the post name to include game design, not Sordid, because thats what was under discussion when I split the thread off from the other one.)
Logged

Sordid

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 313
    • View Profile
Re: Complaints about CR and game design
« Reply #28 on: April 01, 2021, 12:09:26 AM »

Please don't put words in my mouth.

I do not do the 'obligatory frigate dance' that you have described. In fact, I often do the opposite and deploy my heavier ships first and send them to capture a point, then deploy my faster ships to catch up so that they all hit together. Or I hold back my fast ships entirely because the enemy has overwhelming fighter cover and/or hunter frigates of their own. Or, I deploy my fast ships and keep them around. But I've never done what you've described. My point is that the things that you are describing as immutable fact are actually opinion.

CR creates time pressure. If thats not for you, well I'm sorry the game changed in a way that you don't like. That is unfortunate. But time pressure is an extremely common and universal feature in many games.

It's not about putting words in your mouth, it's about taking what you said to its logical conclusion. I simply can't stand people who oppose changes that would benefit others without harming them in any way. This "screw you, I got mine" attitude is very common in echo chambers populated by fans. Which is part of the reason why my post count is so low; not a lot of point bringing up criticisms or suggesting changes in a place populated almost exclusively by people who are going to vehemently disagree. Admittedly I'm a dumbass, so I have to relearn that lesson every few years all over again.

I'm not sure why you seem to think that that somehow invalidates my point. Okay, so you do a different dance at the beginning. You still do a silly dance because the arbitrary lack of some abstract points is preventing you from just deploying everything at once. I don't see why anyone thinks that that makes the game better in any way.

Time pressure is definitely not universal, that part is just outright false. As for being extremely common, I'm not sure I believe that either. In my experience, where they exist at all, time limits on battles are usually an optional thing that can be turned off in the settings. That's because most game devs recognize that a lot of people don't like them, so they make them optional to create a good experience for as many players as possible. The fact that Starsector doesn't do that is part of the "my way or the highway" issue I've been criticizing here.

It's bad game design to have an optimal strategy that's boring, and then expect players to not do the optimal strategy. Sid Meyers also mentions that "one of the responsibilities of designers is to protect the player from themselves". The optimal strategy should be fun.

That's my point exactly. "I should hold back because deploying my awesome big battleship will eat too many supplies" may be optimal but it's not fun. I worked hard to get that battleship, dammit! Being able to curb stomp some small fry with it is part of the reward for all that effort, but the game discourages it because it's not optimal.

Quote
The problem with autoresolve is that it promotes skipping the 'fun' part of Starsector, the combat. You already have autoresolve for pursuits (which generally does better than actually playing it out, I find...), which prevents the classic autoresolve issue of 'your invincible unit randomly decided to commit suicide in this battle... somehow', or Total War's 'higher difficulty = super imbalanced autoresolve so it's a trap to press the button'. Starsector is still heavily a space combat game. The space combat is IMO the best part about Starsector. It doesn't make too much sense to promote skipping the space combat in Starsector.

Forcing the player to fight battles also promotes fighting fairer battles. Instead of just picking smaller fleets to constantly autoresolve against, it promotes actually finding more challenging battles, since it's a better use of time.

Eh... combat is the main source of fun in Starsector, that's true, but that doesn't mean every battle is fun or worth fighting manually. Starsector tries to get around that with the CR and supply mechanic, by pushing you toward making those fights more challenging for yourself. But that kinda makes it feel like a self-imposed challenge rather than overcoming a real challenge, and a lot of people (myself included, obviously) aren't into that. So they don't do it, take the CR hit, and then complain that CR is annoying. You could say that that's my own fault and that I'm playing the game wrong, and I'd respond that the dev failed in his responsibility to protect me from myself as per Sid Meier's words.

There's this weird incongruity that is difficult to put into words. It's as if the game doesn't know whether it wants to be stat-based or skill-based. Where does player power come from in Starsector, stats or skills? The management aspects of the game point toward stat-based: you scavenge and trade to get cash, you establish colonies, you accrue a large fleet, outfit it with big guns, staff it with officers, etc. When it comes to deployment, the game discourages you from using the power you've accumulated and instead pushes you to fight on equal footing, as if it were skill-based. But when it comes to the actual battle itself, most of your power is in AI ships that you have very little control over compared to more conventional strategy games, so the game has switched to stat-based again. Except you don't have your stats, because you held back in deployment. The game discourages you from using your stats to win (because if you do, you waste CR), and it doesn't allow you to use your skills either (because you can barely control other ships, and your own keels over and dies after a few minutes). The dev doesn't understand what fantasy the game caters to; being able to assemble a large fleet of awesome warships is a power fantasy, but then the game punishes you for using that power and tries to make you struggle and scrape by anyway as if it's some kind of survival game.
« Last Edit: April 01, 2021, 02:30:51 AM by Sordid »
Logged

Pushover

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 292
    • View Profile
Re: Complaints about CR and game design
« Reply #29 on: April 01, 2021, 12:34:58 PM »


It's bad game design to have an optimal strategy that's boring, and then expect players to not do the optimal strategy. Sid Meyers also mentions that "one of the responsibilities of designers is to protect the player from themselves". The optimal strategy should be fun.

That's my point exactly. "I should hold back because deploying my awesome big battleship will eat too many supplies" may be optimal but it's not fun. I worked hard to get that battleship, dammit! Being able to curb stomp some small fry with it is part of the reward for all that effort, but the game discourages it because it's not optimal.
I think deploying your massive battleship to kill 1 frigate loses its fun value very quickly. You can do some 'fun' things once or twice, even if it isn't optimal, but while I smirk when my Paragon absolutely deletes a Kite, the game would not be better if that's all you did -- chew up outmatched opponents.

Quote
The problem with autoresolve is that it promotes skipping the 'fun' part of Starsector, the combat. You already have autoresolve for pursuits (which generally does better than actually playing it out, I find...), which prevents the classic autoresolve issue of 'your invincible unit randomly decided to commit suicide in this battle... somehow', or Total War's 'higher difficulty = super imbalanced autoresolve so it's a trap to press the button'. Starsector is still heavily a space combat game. The space combat is IMO the best part about Starsector. It doesn't make too much sense to promote skipping the space combat in Starsector.

Forcing the player to fight battles also promotes fighting fairer battles. Instead of just picking smaller fleets to constantly autoresolve against, it promotes actually finding more challenging battles, since it's a better use of time.

Eh... combat is the main source of fun in Starsector, that's true, but that doesn't mean every battle is fun or worth fighting manually. Starsector tries to get around that with the CR and supply mechanic, by pushing you toward making those fights more challenging for yourself. But that kinda makes it feel like a self-imposed challenge rather than overcoming a real challenge, and a lot of people (myself included, obviously) aren't into that. So they don't do it, take the CR hit, and then complain that CR is annoying. You could say that that's my own fault and that I'm playing the game wrong, and I'd respond that the dev failed in his responsibility to protect me from myself as per Sid Meier's words.

There's this weird incongruity that is difficult to put into words. It's as if the game doesn't know whether it wants to be stat-based or skill-based. Where does player power come from in Starsector, stats or skills? The management aspects of the game point toward stat-based: you scavenge and trade to get cash, you establish colonies, you accrue a large fleet, outfit it with big guns, staff it with officers, etc. When it comes to deployment, the game discourages you from using the power you've accumulated and instead pushes you to fight on equal footing, as if it were skill-based. But when it comes to the actual battle itself, most of your power is in AI ships that you have very little control over compared to more conventional strategy games, so the game has switched to stat-based again. Except you don't have your stats, because you held back in deployment. The game discourages you from using your stats to win (because if you do, you waste CR), and it doesn't allow you to use your skills either (because you can barely control other ships, and your own keels over and dies after a few minutes). The dev doesn't understand what fantasy the game caters to; being able to assemble a large fleet of awesome warships is a power fantasy, but then the game punishes you for using that power and tries to make you struggle and scrape by anyway as if it's some kind of survival game.
The game wants you to accurately estimate what it will take to win a battle. If you want to spend a bit more for a more secure victory, you can do that. To use a RL example, the US does not deploy a carrier group to deal with piracy off the African coast, when a few ships will do the job.

As far as player vs fleet ability, this is where skills, officers, and all the other stuff combines to (hopefully) make interesting choices. Nothing stops you from going with a chain flagship strategy, if it still works, where you deploy 1 ship until it starts running out of CR, then you deploy the next and transfer command, etc. You can also go with the other side of it now, with Derelict Contingent and try to flood the field with crappy ships that have relatively low supply costs to maintain. If you have actually reached the point where you have a big fleet with officers, then you are probably also at the point where an extra 100 supplies per battle is no longer a serious concern, especially now that you can back your fleet up with a strong economic base from colonies. I can't say I'm the biggest fan of how the skills are set up now, but the ideas are there. Combat = you are stronger, Leadership = Officers are stronger (and it seems carriers as well?), Technology = Ships are stronger, Industry = You have more stuff/your campaign layer is stronger.

I think Alex understands his game and setting very well. The Hegemony and Persean League are not first rate powers, having the latest and greatest in technology, with well defined fleet doctrines and strategies. Instead, they are just the biggest fish in the pond, clinging to the scraps of what the Domain left behind. Everyone is just trying to get ships together that work.
As a player, you are trying to assemble your super awesome fleet, but there's significant hurdles in your way, which is the game. It's perfectly achievable, it's rather trivial to set up 3-4 colonies to earn 500k+/month. Once you have that, you basically don't have to care about CR, just take like 2 Atlases and 2 Prometheis full of supplies and fuel, since the credit cost is immaterial at that point. However, the game is IMO best when taking the journey to reach the 'optimal' fleet, not when you actually achieve it.

Project Ironclads was the TC mod that catered more towards the idea of what you mention, and it did a good job of it. But it was different from Starsector, which is why it was best as a TC.
Logged
Pages: 1 [2] 3 4 ... 6