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Author Topic: New skill system is a step backwards  (Read 22577 times)

Dex

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Re: New skill system is a step backwards
« Reply #60 on: April 07, 2021, 12:07:03 PM »

Mr Blade, which skills do you not want?
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: New skill system is a step backwards
« Reply #61 on: April 07, 2021, 12:13:52 PM »

But that is the thing, the issue isn't about the player getting the skills they want or not, is that they are having to get skills they most definetely don't want (or are at least ambibalent about)

To be honest, I think part of the problem is in keeping the skill grid, four aptitudes each with the same amount of skill picks, to the point some options seem forced.
On the flip side, there is no feeling of progression between the picks. it is not like I order first a vegetable and then get a vegetable salad, and then maybe a stir fry. I get a vegetable, followed by a nice orange and finally I got raw chicken?

if you are going to have skills unlocked by progression, you either need to make them feel like an upgrade of sorts, them being better than the skill before, or at least a sidegrade (provide some benefits and some maluses) but there is no rhyme or reason here.
and the lineal progression doesn't help

Maybe Alex needs to rework the whole thing without the inherited constraints.
I'd prefer a wider approach more akin to 0.9.1, but I am the sort of player than enjoys that sort of thing, and I really can't tell if I’d be a majority or not. that is something that I can't tell right now.
We have had a few of these threads with quite a few members posting, but, ultimately we might be just loud voices
I completely understand that taking skills you don't care too much about feels bad sometimes. I've felt that myself. I think having to take skills you don't want to get ones you do is bad and can be alleviated by re-arranging skills to benefit similar parts of the game to nearby skills, but I think having to take skills you're not thrilled about to get skills you want is fine. I like to think about the entire sequence of skills you take as a choice rather than the individual skill. It's ok if some skills are lackluster because you're trying to pick the best sequence of skills and there are trade offs. You don't just get to cherry pick all the best skills. That allows for those better skills to be really good in a way that would be overpowered if you could pick all of them.

Also, I feel like the two things you're asking for are kind of in conflict with one another. On one hand to have a sense of progression, the high tier skills need to be noticeably better than the low tier skills, but if those high tier skills are not overpowered, that means the low tier skills have to be weaker, so now you get those 'meh' skills that you are also complaining about. I think this is a 'have your cake and eat it too' kind of request.

For what it's worth, I do think the high tier skills are noticeably stronger than the low tier ones with a few exceptions, and that can improved with some minor rebalancing.
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Immahnoob

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Re: New skill system is a step backwards
« Reply #62 on: April 07, 2021, 12:25:44 PM »

I assure you, i know what an opinion is.

Hrm. Pardon me if i doubt your psychology credentials.

My friend, you seem to treat your opinion as fact as you seem to treat the definition of opinion is itself a fact.

I feel we are just flinging mud now, we dont seem to understand each other. Thank you for the conversation.
If you knew, you wouldn't think they can't be wrong then. Any judgment or view can be dissected and deemed true or false.
We tend to not do that to people's preferences because it's assumed that people would not lie about them, and verifying them is neither worthwhile nor entirely possible, since you can't read minds.
So yeah, opinions can be wrong.

Depending on what Alex wants, the skill tree will probably change again, as it already did a few times.
But that is the thing, the issue isn't about the player getting the skills they want or not, is that they are having to get skills they most definetely don't want (or are at least ambibalent about)

To be honest, I think part of the problem is in keeping the skill grid, four aptitudes each with the same amount of skill picks, to the point some options seem forced.
On the flip side, there is no feeling of progression between the picks. it is not like I order first a vegetable and then get a vegetable salad, and then maybe a stir fry. I get a vegetable, followed by a nice orange and finally I got raw chicken?

if you are going to have skills unlocked by progression, you either need to make them feel like an upgrade of sorts, them being better than the skill before, or at least a sidegrade (provide some benefits and some maluses) but there is no rhyme or reason here.
and the lineal progression doesn't help

Maybe Alex needs to rework the whole thing without the inherited constraints.
I'd prefer a wider approach more akin to 0.9.1, but I am the sort of player than enjoys that sort of thing, and I really can't tell if I’d be a majority or not. that is something that I can't tell right now.
We have had a few of these threads with quite a few members posting, but, ultimately we might be just loud voices
I completely understand that taking skills you don't care too much about feels bad sometimes. I've felt that myself. I think having to take skills you don't want to get ones you do is bad and can be alleviated by re-arranging skills to benefit similar parts of the game to nearby skills, but I think having to take skills you're not thrilled about to get skills you want is fine. I like to think about the entire sequence of skills you take as a choice rather than the individual skill. It's ok if some skills are lackluster because you're trying to pick the best sequence of skills and there are trade offs. You don't just get to cherry pick all the best skills. That allows for those better skills to be really good in a way that would be overpowered if you could pick all of them.

Also, I feel like the two things you're asking for are kind of in conflict with one another. On one hand to have a sense of progression, the high tier skills need to be noticeably better than the low tier skills, but if those high tier skills are not overpowered, that means the low tier skills have to be weaker, so now you get those 'meh' skills that you are also complaining about. I think this is a 'have your cake and eat it too' kind of request.

For what it's worth, I do think the high tier skills are noticeably stronger than the low tier ones with a few exceptions, and that can improved with some minor rebalancing.
That isn't contradictory at all, you can have skill levels as well, and with how skills are placed and with how they work, there's no such thing as a "high tier skill", it's just "random skill I can't reach because I'm not a higher level".
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: New skill system is a step backwards
« Reply #63 on: April 07, 2021, 12:34:11 PM »

That isn't contradictory at all, you can have skill levels as well, and with how skills are placed and with how they work, there's no such thing as a "high tier skill", it's just "random skill I can't reach because I'm not a higher level".
...? High tier skills are the ones that require other prerequisites to unlock, low tier skills are the ones that can be unlocked more immediately. The idea of progression is that you take some skills which are weaker but which allow you to get other skills that are better, which requires the skills that get 'unlocked' to be stronger than the first skills? I'm not seeing the issue with that logic.

that's literally what they said
Quote
...you either need to make them feel like an upgrade of sorts, them being better than the skill before...
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Immahnoob

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Re: New skill system is a step backwards
« Reply #64 on: April 07, 2021, 12:47:15 PM »

That isn't contradictory at all, you can have skill levels as well, and with how skills are placed and with how they work, there's no such thing as a "high tier skill", it's just "random skill I can't reach because I'm not a higher level".
...? High tier skills are the ones that require other prerequisites to unlock, low tier skills are the ones that can be unlocked more immediately. The idea of progression is that you take some skills which are weaker but which allow you to get other skills that are better, which requires the skills that get 'unlocked' to be stronger than the first skills? I'm not seeing the issue with that logic.

that's literally what they said
Quote
...you either need to make them feel like an upgrade of sorts, them being better than the skill before...
I'm not sure what you don't understand, I was answering this:
Quote
On one hand to have a sense of progression, the high tier skills need to be noticeably better than the low tier skills, but if those high tier skills are not overpowered, that means the low tier skills have to be weaker, so now you get those 'meh' skills that you are also complaining about. I think this is a 'have your cake and eat it too' kind of request.
Right now the solution to the problem you've presented here is to have skills be randomly placed so there's nothing meaningful to why they're higher tier on the skill tree, which to me seems kind of nonsensical.
I'd rather return to the first instalments of skills, with levels.
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speeder

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Make skills moddable
« Reply #65 on: April 07, 2021, 12:52:41 PM »

The new skill system suck.

The old system... was not that great but was better.

The system that we had on 0.6 era was good despite lacking industry tree and whatnot.


Instead of endlessy reworking skills why not just let modders do it for you? Make some API that allow skills to be easily moddable, let modders create skills, trees, etc... whatever. I am sure someone will come up with something cool.
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Dex

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Re: New skill system is a step backwards
« Reply #66 on: April 07, 2021, 12:55:24 PM »

So yeah, opinions can be wrong

oh my.
we are massively off topic here but im doing you a favour.

heres two links

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion

https://www.houstonpress.com/arts/no-it-s-not-your-opinion-you-re-just-wrong-updated-7611752

opinions are not facts, you can only tell me whether i am lying about my opinion or not.

I completely understand that taking skills you don't care too much about feels bad sometimes. I've felt that myself. I think having to take skills you don't want to get ones you do is bad and can be alleviated by re-arranging skills to benefit similar parts of the game to nearby skills, but I think having to take skills you're not thrilled about to get skills you want is fine. I like to think about the entire sequence of skills you take as a choice rather than the individual skill. It's ok if some skills are lackluster because you're trying to pick the best sequence of skills and there are trade offs. You don't just get to cherry pick all the best skills. That allows for those better skills to be really good in a way that would be overpowered if you could pick all of them.

Also, I feel like the two things you're asking for are kind of in conflict with one another. On one hand to have a sense of progression, the high tier skills need to be noticeably better than the low tier skills, but if those high tier skills are not overpowered, that means the low tier skills have to be weaker, so now you get those 'meh' skills that you are also complaining about. I think this is a 'have your cake and eat it too' kind of request.

For what it's worth, I do think the high tier skills are noticeably stronger than the low tier ones with a few exceptions, and that can improved with some minor rebalancing.

Agree. ive been shouting this into the abyss.


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intrinsic_parity

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Re: New skill system is a step backwards
« Reply #67 on: April 07, 2021, 01:28:14 PM »

Right now the solution to the problem you've presented here is to have skills be randomly placed so there's nothing meaningful to why they're higher tier on the skill tree, which to me seems kind of nonsensical.
I'd rather return to the first instalments of skills, with levels.
I did not advocate for 'random skill placement', please don't put words in my mouth.

I said the higher tier skills are in a higher tier because their effect is more powerful than the lower tier skills. There are some possible exceptions, but I also advocated for those exceptions to be addressed/balanced. This tiering of skills is required for a sense of progression and is also not 'random'. Obviously it can be difficult to compare skills directly like that, so it's a bit subjective, but I think the idea of 'better skills go higher on tree' is both common and relatively effective. I was pointing out that a skill tree structure like that will naturally create skills in lower tiers that feel less impactful, because they have to be so that the higher tier skills are stronger without being over powered.
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Immahnoob

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Re: New skill system is a step backwards
« Reply #68 on: April 07, 2021, 01:49:57 PM »

Right now the solution to the problem you've presented here is to have skills be randomly placed so there's nothing meaningful to why they're higher tier on the skill tree, which to me seems kind of nonsensical.
I'd rather return to the first instalments of skills, with levels.
I did not advocate for 'random skill placement', please don't put words in my mouth.

I said the higher tier skills are in a higher tier because their effect is more powerful than the lower tier skills. There are some possible exceptions, but I also advocated for those exceptions to be addressed/balanced. This tiering of skills is required for a sense of progression and is also not 'random'. Obviously it can be difficult to compare skills directly like that, so it's a bit subjective, but I think the idea of 'better skills go higher on tree' is both common and relatively effective. I was pointing out that a skill tree structure like that will naturally create skills in lower tiers that feel less impactful, because they have to be so that the higher tier skills are stronger without being over powered.
I didn't say you did, but if we remain like this, it certainly will continue to be random, because right now they're certainly not placed like "weak to strong", they're just different things put together.
I think with how the systems in-game work we can't really have a proper, "progressing skill tree" anyway, unless we take each skill and add % to them, hence why I said "levels to the skills". These are more like "categories", that's why.
Also, this argument about "overpowered" skills in the upper tier is honestly vapid. Come on now, they're slightly underpowered, so we up them a bit and make the lower tiers of the skill be a level 1 "meh" tier, a "middle" level 2 similar to what we have right now and an upper level 3 tier which would be the "buff" we're pretty much requesting.

That is just one example of how progression can be done.
So yeah, opinions can be wrong

oh my.
we are massively off topic here but im doing you a favour.

heres two links

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion

https://www.houstonpress.com/arts/no-it-s-not-your-opinion-you-re-just-wrong-updated-7611752

opinions are not facts, you can only tell me whether i am lying about my opinion or not.

I completely understand that taking skills you don't care too much about feels bad sometimes. I've felt that myself. I think having to take skills you don't want to get ones you do is bad and can be alleviated by re-arranging skills to benefit similar parts of the game to nearby skills, but I think having to take skills you're not thrilled about to get skills you want is fine. I like to think about the entire sequence of skills you take as a choice rather than the individual skill. It's ok if some skills are lackluster because you're trying to pick the best sequence of skills and there are trade offs. You don't just get to cherry pick all the best skills. That allows for those better skills to be really good in a way that would be overpowered if you could pick all of them.

Also, I feel like the two things you're asking for are kind of in conflict with one another. On one hand to have a sense of progression, the high tier skills need to be noticeably better than the low tier skills, but if those high tier skills are not overpowered, that means the low tier skills have to be weaker, so now you get those 'meh' skills that you are also complaining about. I think this is a 'have your cake and eat it too' kind of request.

For what it's worth, I do think the high tier skills are noticeably stronger than the low tier ones with a few exceptions, and that can improved with some minor rebalancing.

Agree. ive been shouting this into the abyss.



So opinions can be wrong, after all.
Also, bringing up random articles on the Internet and-pft-Wikipedia doesn't usually change anything. You'd usually have to extrapolate the information you want to show off. What exactly do you even mean to say right now?
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Dex

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Re: New skill system is a step backwards
« Reply #69 on: April 07, 2021, 01:57:19 PM »

Honestly, dude. Speechless.

You do realise me lying about my opinion doesnt make it wrong, yeah? That makes it a lie.

Fundamental communication error.

Peace bro! good luck!

Edit: Nice.
« Last Edit: April 07, 2021, 02:03:05 PM by Dex »
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evzhel

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Re: New skill system is a step backwards
« Reply #70 on: April 07, 2021, 02:19:36 PM »

Skill system may need some rework, it is weird in its current state.

Currently, the main character is a fleet commander, while officers are ship commanders. While you can hire/train and find skilled officers who will fight your battles, you can't hire a management or technician officer who will support your fleet. Fleet-wide skills make a huge difference, that makes me take them first and in same order every playthrough:

1. Salvaging (industry) is always the first skill to take in any playthrough, because you start getting stuff immediately and first year is hard on supplies, fuel, guns etc.
2. Navigation (technology) is always the second skill to take in any playthrough, because your fleet needs to jump everywhere to save time and supplies and move faster. Not to mention that you'll need it later for new content of v0.95
3. Contaiment procedures and 4. Makeshift equipment (industry) are a must to decrease costs of travelling, and you will always travel. Scavenging more supplies while using less supplies makes a tremendous difference in gameplay, mainly because you command a single fleet and can't call supply convoy from your planets or allies.
5. Field repairs remove a d-mod every 20 days, which will fix your fleet while you travel at no cost. It takes 800K+ to repair a d-modded radiant, and generally repairing found d-modded XIV legion ships would cost millions otherwise.
Flux management skills like 6. Flux regulation and 7. Special modifications (technology) are a must in any playthrough, many builds need them.
8. Electronic warfare (technology) skill is too OP to miss it in any playthrough.
9. Crew training, 10. Weapon drills and 11. Coordinated maneuvers (leadership) are required to significantly buff up your whole fleet at any stage of the game.
Because of taking so many non-combat skills, player needs officers to do their best in combat, so 12. Officer training and 13. Officer management are a must.
That leaves only two skill points, one of those would probably go to 14. Bulk transport (industry).

Taking any combat skills for main character means your whole fleet becomes less effective from missing out on useful/critical fleet-wide skills. Even those 14 essential skills are to be taken in certain order with minimal differences in any playthrough.

Suggestions:

Please make the skill system fully configurable with simple text files. While developers may have their vision, players may have it completely different so that you'll never be able to satisfy everyone. Modding is the way is such cases. Players will no doubt surprise you with well-thought and properly balanced skill mods.
If the skills become configurable, there will be about twice less posts in this forum section.

It would make sense to remove all industry and technology skills from main player and move them to Chief Engineer character that is referenced while restoring shipwrecks with a story point.

It would help all players to make those essential skills to be passively gained with every new level (of main character or Chief Engineer). Missing them out makes too much difference, and taking them doesn't leave any skillpoints for piloting skills.

It would make sense for combat skills to be splitted into basic essential (like shield and hull efficiency, peak operation time, ship speed and maneuverability) and to specialized skills. Every combat officer would get main skills passively with level, and choose specialization skills, so that you may end up with:
- a missile ship officer
- a carrier commander
- a cloak ninja
- a frigate guerilla
- a capital tankist
- an ECM/ECCM hackerman
- a cargo/fuel trucker
Every combat level may have a selection of skills for those special profiles, so in the end every high-level officer would be useful on any ship because passive essential skills, and do best on a certain type of ship.

It would make sense to completely remove all colony management skills from main character and move them to administrators. How can you manage colony's every process while being dozens of light years away fighting in a system without any communication?

It would be best to focus main character on leadership, as he commands a fleet and a number of colonies, manages officers and administrators, carries trade and faction affairs.
« Last Edit: April 07, 2021, 02:31:59 PM by evzhel »
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Immahnoob

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Re: New skill system is a step backwards
« Reply #71 on: April 07, 2021, 03:13:58 PM »

Honestly, dude. Speechless.

You do realise me lying about my opinion doesnt make it wrong, yeah? That makes it a lie.

Fundamental communication error.

Peace bro! good luck!

Edit: Nice.
I'm sorry, but it's on you if you thought "wrong" was anything but a synonym for "false". I don't remember making any moral judgments here.
Skill system may need some rework, it is weird in its current state.

Currently, the main character is a fleet commander, while officers are ship commanders. While you can hire/train and find skilled officers who will fight your battles, you can't hire a management or technician officer who will support your fleet. Fleet-wide skills make a huge difference, that makes me take them first and in same order every playthrough:

1. Salvaging (industry) is always the first skill to take in any playthrough, because you start getting stuff immediately and first year is hard on supplies, fuel, guns etc.
2. Navigation (technology) is always the second skill to take in any playthrough, because your fleet needs to jump everywhere to save time and supplies and move faster. Not to mention that you'll need it later for new content of v0.95
3. Contaiment procedures and 4. Makeshift equipment (industry) are a must to decrease costs of travelling, and you will always travel. Scavenging more supplies while using less supplies makes a tremendous difference in gameplay, mainly because you command a single fleet and can't call supply convoy from your planets or allies.
5. Field repairs remove a d-mod every 20 days, which will fix your fleet while you travel at no cost. It takes 800K+ to repair a d-modded radiant, and generally repairing found d-modded XIV legion ships would cost millions otherwise.
Flux management skills like 6. Flux regulation and 7. Special modifications (technology) are a must in any playthrough, many builds need them.
8. Electronic warfare (technology) skill is too OP to miss it in any playthrough.
9. Crew training, 10. Weapon drills and 11. Coordinated maneuvers (leadership) are required to significantly buff up your whole fleet at any stage of the game.
Because of taking so many non-combat skills, player needs officers to do their best in combat, so 12. Officer training and 13. Officer management are a must.
That leaves only two skill points, one of those would probably go to 14. Bulk transport (industry).

Taking any combat skills for main character means your whole fleet becomes less effective from missing out on useful/critical fleet-wide skills. Even those 14 essential skills are to be taken in certain order with minimal differences in any playthrough.

Suggestions:

Please make the skill system fully configurable with simple text files. While developers may have their vision, players may have it completely different so that you'll never be able to satisfy everyone. Modding is the way is such cases. Players will no doubt surprise you with well-thought and properly balanced skill mods.
If the skills become configurable, there will be about twice less posts in this forum section.

It would make sense to remove all industry and technology skills from main player and move them to Chief Engineer character that is referenced while restoring shipwrecks with a story point.

It would help all players to make those essential skills to be passively gained with every new level (of main character or Chief Engineer). Missing them out makes too much difference, and taking them doesn't leave any skillpoints for piloting skills.

It would make sense for combat skills to be splitted into basic essential (like shield and hull efficiency, peak operation time, ship speed and maneuverability) and to specialized skills. Every combat officer would get main skills passively with level, and choose specialization skills, so that you may end up with:
- a missile ship officer
- a carrier commander
- a cloak ninja
- a frigate guerilla
- a capital tankist
- an ECM/ECCM hackerman
- a cargo/fuel trucker
Every combat level may have a selection of skills for those special profiles, so in the end every high-level officer would be useful on any ship because passive essential skills, and do best on a certain type of ship.

It would make sense to completely remove all colony management skills from main character and move them to administrators. How can you manage colony's every process while being dozens of light years away fighting in a system without any communication?

It would be best to focus main character on leadership, as he commands a fleet and a number of colonies, manages officers and administrators, carries trade and faction affairs.
So eventually we'll have every skill? If no, I agree, if yes, I agree even more.
I mean, that's not bad, I think we should be able to slowly "train" until we reach that point. I find this idea that we should be limited in our bonuses kind of weird anyway.
This also feels more natural and complex. It's more of an RPG at that point. It's somewhat similar to what I was talking about earlier in the thread, mixing up some skills that seem to be redundant and have a general increase for base stats while making it possible to specialize for specific gameplay more than just "here's a 20% bonus to your fighters, lol".

In part I disagree with the "colony" part of your post, I mean, you can make that argument for anything, how come we can make a colony with a 1000 crew members? Why is anyone coming to your makeshift 250% hazard colony? And so on...

 

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evzhel

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Re: New skill system is a step backwards
« Reply #72 on: April 07, 2021, 05:07:23 PM »

So eventually we'll have every skill?
Every essential skill that every player needs to have, eventually. There's no real reason why a max level player shouldn't have skills on salvage and reducing supply use, navigation or repairs.
If an optional missable skill is taken by most of experienced players, it most probably shouldn't be optional or missable.
Question is, what to make optional and specialized that a player character can choose between.
I think that a perk to capture automated ships calls for a quest to get it.
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Dex

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Re: New skill system is a step backwards
« Reply #73 on: April 07, 2021, 05:18:18 PM »

Mr noob... This spoiler is just for you. so it doesnt clutter up.

Spoiler

....If i thought wrong.... was anything... but a synonym for false... is on me.... Right! No!

This does not make any difference and you cannot say that my opinion is wrong OR false.

Let me draw a parallel. True(right/yes whatever) is 1 false is 0. You ask me to tell you my favourite number and then i say 28, and then i say im lying. My favourite number is not now suddenly 0 is it. It doesnt work. that doesnt even make sense. Its closer to NULL, an absence of data. its a **** analogy but i hope you get the gist.


Hello. Do you wanna play a game?
.

All you have to do is guess the opinion! Careful! im sneaky!

Chocolate is the best <-
Spoiler
implicitly my opinion, shant even directly qualify it as such. Its not a fact. truly obviously not a fact as random Jeff from accounting says VANILLA is the best. If these were proposed as facts, then at least ONE of them is wrong. Oh NO! here comes Jennifer, office bicycle, absolutely loves strawberry. Implicit best. How does this compute? It doesnt matter as they are all opinions. They are subjective and have NO conclusive finding. Even if one of them is LYING, this is irrelevant to the opinion, it is an UNKNOWN, a NULL
[close]

In my opinion, the earth is flat.
Spoiler
<- despite me PHRASING this as an opinion, this is in fact, not an opinion. it is an incorrect factual statement. IT IS WRONG. i think this is where people get confused, as they dont actually know what an opinion is. We have indisputable, repeatable, and the popular kids even say empirical proof that the planet is an oblate spheroid.
[close]

BONUS ROUND

Vaccines cause autism <
Spoiler
not an opinion and its WRONG
[close]
Jeff thinks youre really hot. <
Spoiler
its not MY opinion and i cant have someone elses opinion unless Jeff agrees then its WRONG (sorry)
[close]

I think Jennifer thinks Jeff thinks youre really hot. <
Spoiler
I have no idea if this is an opinion, actually. Is this like schrodingers cat? Its an opinion until we ask jennifer? Do we have to ask Jeff as well? An opinion in superposition with a fact? this is ******* science, guys. Exciting! Discuss.
[close]

I think jennifer is very annoying.  <
Spoiler
OPINION there is no conclusive finding.
[close]

I spent FAR too long here but i enjoyed it very much.
[close]

Now, also.

Mr Evzhel

Im just going to play devils advocate a little here. My own real opinion that i have about this new skill tree is that i love the mutually exclusive choices (mostly). It DEMANDS compromises in your skills just as when you are deciding on your fleet composition as you begin your trek to that suspicious looking blue star 40 odd light years away. You cant afford to bring all your best fighters, they are too expensive to run and/or their logistical stats are too poor and to compensate for this lack it eats into your already PREMIUM cargo and fuel space. Cos you aint coming back until your holds are FULL and thats basic cost effectiveness. Suddenly, that apogee looks like a damn attractive ship, awkward in combat, but its a cheapish cruiser, has good sensors, helps with scanning planets and plugs several potential holes in a leaky fleet composition. The vast holds, efficient engines and fuel tanks, the extra crew to man those derelicts you find just to efficiently free up some hull space suing supplies and add more cargo space are all things you find on the ships you least want in combat. Here even the venture is viable (EVEN!).

The mere compromises you have had to make here means that ships you would never usually look at become attractive enough to not only become viable but an ideal choice. Shepherd, i love that ship, i always have two. PANTS in a fight.

Thats what i feel people are missing here, these choices are making.... hmmm whats a good word ... strata. Different layers of playing the game possible, if you will. Always knowing the true optimal restricts your choices.

Another thing to consider is that we dont actually need any of the skills currently present in the game to be successful. Its all gravy. Every skill most certainly makes you more powerful.

All that said, I do exactly what you do. Combat skills are useless (IMO) through out the game, as you are but a single ship, numerically inferior, your force multipliers are still only applying to 1. This is until the end game where industry is pointless as you no longer need to be efficient in your spending. YOuve now made it. You have literal planets churning out fleets in your name.

BUT, you see what people write in these forums and there are people here that are complaining almost explicitly about the combat tree. Just that bit of information alone means that people play the game with a completely different approach than i do, wading in with their capitals where i like to nibble and opportunise.

NONE of the other skill incarnations of yesteryear had any real choice. You had so many skills you could easily take ALL the best and thats what one did every game. I understand that when you look at the skill tree, the one method that appears commonsense to you is ALWAYS the best and only choice. But some people like morris dancing, some like liquorice, and i do not.

I would sincerely love to see other peoples interpretations to the skill system, so i am all for that suggestion seeing as i have no idea as to how much work that would take. Honing the choices and sacrifices that must be made IS this game. Your suggestion, however, isnt IF choices its WHEN choices, and i just want to mention again that NONE of the skills in the skill tree are required to complete the game. A lack of necessary compromise in your choices is a lack of depth in my
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torbes

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Re: New skill system is a step backwards
« Reply #74 on: April 07, 2021, 07:51:49 PM »

Can we maybe just get rid of out of combat skills entirely?

Do many players not want to use less supplies, fuel, get more stuff and have better colonies? It's almost as if the industry line is trying to be a difficulty slider. . .

Maybe just have fleet buffs and flagship buffs with thematic through lines, warship/carrier/phase ship options in the flagship line. As for fleet buffs the themes could be junker vs pristine, armor vs shield, energy vs ballistic...essentially lowtech vs hightech? OR just options between ship classes.

Just a thought that the out of combat stuff has always felt like eating plain brusselsprouts (insert your least favorite healthy food) when you just want cake damnit!  ;D
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