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Author Topic: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system  (Read 7479 times)

Megas

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Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
« Reply #30 on: April 13, 2021, 06:46:40 AM »

One advantage of 0.95 is respec.  If I decide to farm cores and put up with the downsides, I can get rid of the colony skills if I had them before.  I could not do this in 0.9.1a.

That said, respec is expensive with elite skills, and few skills cannot be respec away.

However, I do not like the warship/phase split in combat and tech.  I liked combo stuff like old Power Grid Modulation in 0.9.1 (minus x4 shift that shafted PPT of phase ships).
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SCC

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Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
« Reply #31 on: April 13, 2021, 07:47:02 AM »

The old system did have sacrifice in it.
That 091 character build you posted has quite clearly sacrificed all colony & maitenance skills.
Alpha cores do colonies better than me. As for maintenance, I fear not losing a % of profit when searching for blueprints items, I always came to the core with bays full. Being able to efficiently defeat almost any enemy does that. The lack of salvaging does hurt somewhat in that regard, but I have been able to find decent blueprint sets in all my 0.9.1 games. So I guess that is the one sacrifice I made, not getting all blueprints, but only most of them (unless I raid factions, then it goes back to all of them). It still meant there never was a reason to pick anything but this skill set (well, except for piloting carriers, which I don't really bother with. If I was piloting a carrier, some combat skills would lose value, so I'd say even someone with a carrier preference could get by with a similar set).
And every single player has a different idea of what a 'buff' and 'QoL' is.
I, for example, consider approximately 0 skills, past or present, as "necessary" quality of life stuff.

I want every single player, current and future to be able to pick up this amazing game and play it however they like without feeling as though they've been 'forced' to do things a certain way, or restricted from something they wanted to do.
The 095 skills system as it stands does not allow this.
Biggest issues I know of is that combat is worthless for double dipping (although you can still be an ace pilot, combat is no longer the most important part of it) and that Industry might not be about salvaging/exploration enough.
It's a shame that the new system doesn't bring skills that are stronger than old skills, besides Phase Mastery and Derelict Contingent.

intrinsic_parity

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Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
« Reply #32 on: April 13, 2021, 08:06:34 AM »

I haven't found any skills I can't live without. There were some I thought I couldn't live without, but I tried playing without them and realized it wasn't as drastic as I thought it would be.
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Thaago

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Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
« Reply #33 on: April 13, 2021, 11:37:31 AM »

I haven't found any skills I can't live without. There were some I thought I couldn't live without, but I tried playing without them and realized it wasn't as drastic as I thought it would be.

Pretty much this. All skills, no matter how good they seem, are optional. So far every time I've picked the "wrong" skill I've been surprised at how workable it is if I try and take advantage of it. Even Fighter Uplink (T3R) instead of ECCM works fine with the right build (IE a fleet that doesn't care about ECCM at all that uses fighters). Is it stronger? Ehhh probably not (otoh, ECCM is getting less good in the .1). But it does work.


...
I want every single player, current and future to be able to pick up this amazing game and play it however they like without feeling as though they've been 'forced' to do things a certain way, or restricted from something they wanted to do.
The 095 skills system as it stands does not allow this.
Biggest issues I know of is that combat is worthless for double dipping (although you can still be an ace pilot, combat is no longer the most important part of it) and that Industry might not be about salvaging/exploration enough.
It's a shame that the new system doesn't bring skills that are stronger than old skills, besides Phase Mastery and Derelict Contingent.

I've noticed that, from a combat perspective, all the skill trees have one 'noncombat' skill upon wrapping around before getting to the good stuff. Combat is the worst offender though I agree because other trees have QOL of niche things as the 'wasted' skill, strike commander is 0 value except for something like a legion or Odyssey. Otoh, max combat Odyssey meta for skills!
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Amoebka

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Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
« Reply #34 on: April 13, 2021, 01:05:38 PM »

Idk, getting both tech 2 skills seems much more important for Odyssey than combat.
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D00D

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Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
« Reply #35 on: April 14, 2021, 03:35:28 AM »

Just my 2 cents on combat skill looping, yes half the skills are useless to you if you pilot a certain type of ship but there is one important thing that the player can do that AI cannot. Hop between ships in battle, so you can go in with a phase SO ship that causes maximum havoc, then come in as a heavy capital once the job is done.
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TaLaR

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Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
« Reply #36 on: April 14, 2021, 03:57:03 AM »

Hop between ships in battle, so you can go in with a phase SO ship that causes maximum havoc, then come in as a heavy capital once the job is done.

You could in 0.91, but due to mutually exclusive skills this doesn't work nearly as well in 0.95.
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D00D

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Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
« Reply #37 on: April 14, 2021, 04:01:15 AM »

Hop between ships in battle, so you can go in with a phase SO ship that causes maximum havoc, then come in as a heavy capital once the job is done.

You could in 0.91, but due to mutually exclusive skills this doesn't work nearly as well in 0.95.

That's exactly what I meant. To make use of mutually exclusive skills once you got them both, just use two radically different ships to benefit from both in a long battle.
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SCC

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Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
« Reply #38 on: April 14, 2021, 04:03:27 AM »

I don't think there's a point to ship hopping in the first place. You want your flagship to be as strong as possible, not have multiple flagships (or, at least, not have multiple flagships that are of different class), and going full combat is suboptimal for that. There are many ships that you can spend the whole battle in and for those, it's better to spend 5 points (maybe 6, if you like battlecarriers, I guess) in combat and the rest elsewhere, to make this one ship as strong as possible.

TaLaR

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Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
« Reply #39 on: April 14, 2021, 04:32:41 AM »

That's exactly what I meant. To make use of mutually exclusive skills once you got them both, just use two radically different ships to benefit from both in a long battle.

I takes whole 15 points build to optimize for single ship (5-7 tech, 5-8 combat, 3 leadership, industry 4 are most likely breakpoints).

If you just load up on all mutually exclusive combat skills, you'd be mediocre at piloting multiple ships. I'd rather be good at piloting one + have some points spent on fleet-wides.
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Megas

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Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
« Reply #40 on: April 14, 2021, 05:01:04 AM »

I don't think there's a point to ship hopping in the first place. You want your flagship to be as strong as possible, not have multiple flagships (or, at least, not have multiple flagships that are of different class), and going full combat is suboptimal for that. There are many ships that you can spend the whole battle in and for those, it's better to spend 5 points (maybe 6, if you like battlecarriers, I guess) in combat and the rest elsewhere, to make this one ship as strong as possible.
If flagship takes too much damage or runs out of PPT, then player might want to hop ships to avoid dying.

Also, sometimes, I feel like piloting a phase ship, and other times I want to hammer things with a battleship.  Respecing frequently to scratch those itches can be expensive.
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Jasticus

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Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
« Reply #41 on: April 14, 2021, 07:19:18 PM »

I really haven't had an issue with either of the skill trees, as I've just played with what was available. However with the comments that I've seen here, I'm wondering if some sort of compromise can be done due to various playstyles. Myself, for example - in every game I play I'm always interested in building things up, so naturally I'm drawn towards making colonies. As was said by Alex, this is a combat focused game, but that doesn't mean that there are other facets of the game that others like myself enjoy... and mods only make them better.

I'm thinking to allow anyone to get any skill they want right away. Don't lock it behind anything. They can obviously be linked to the four categories, but give those their own individual boost. The base skill will be ok, but it needs to be improved with story points for it to be really good. Story points can either become even more valuable or the amount you get can be slightly increased per level - and maybe even an option to spend an ever increasing amount of credits to get them. Unless that is already a thing and I just haven't found it yet.

The process:
So... you start a new game, and Helmsmanship is definitely the first thing you want. So you dump your first skill point into it. It gives +10% Maneuverability and +2% top speed. Doing this also gets you +1% universal weapons damage for picking a 'Combat' skill. You can dump up to 4 story points into Helmsmanship to boost it up to the full +50%/+10%, which will also unlock the Helmsmanship elite skill of the permanent 0-flux speed boost when not generating flux, and put you at +5% Universal Damage. You could potentially split it further and make everyone choose a path - Maneuverability only, top speed only, or the average mix of both like it currently is?

Next up you want to pick up Energy Weapon Mastery, so with skill point 2 you get that. It also grants +2% Sensor Range for picking up a technology skill. Again a choice, damage boost per level, or increased range, or a mix of both? Then the mastery skill of -10% flux when it is done, and you'll also be at +10% sensor range.

Skill point three goes into Phase Mastery because you found one of those early and want to play with it. Same as the previous two, with options for reduced cooldown or reduced hard flux generation, etc etc.. The universal damage can increase to 6%, and would cap out at 25% unless it was capped at say, 10% and another skill was boosted, like increased shield strength or armor.

This way, if I was actually ready to start a colony, I could finally get one when I was level 13 or 14 and not be forced to get one at level 5 if I wanted to go into the Tier 2 Leadership tree, for example.
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speeder

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Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
« Reply #42 on: April 16, 2021, 11:21:28 AM »

I am an outlier of this game...

I don't like combat very much, I mean, the combat in this game is brilliant and one of the reasons I come back to it, but what made me buy the game way back into 0.6 something was the fact the market had just got introduced in the game, and I am a sucker for trading games.

The 4x elements (specially if you have "exerelin") just made it better.

So that is the thing, for me this is a sort of "first person" 4x + trading game, I don't care much for the (fun) combat.



Still this let me realize the problem with the new skill system is exactly this: it was made with only one playstyle in mind, and destroyed all others.

For example, why colony skills require you to reach level 20 and not get any combat or tech skill? Because colonies right now are the reliable way to build megafleets of the ships you actually want, so to prevent combat-focused players from mowing down the entire game with super ships, colony-boosting skills for that kind of nerf.

Same applies to some other playstyles (for example players that just love smuggling... what is the issue with smuggling? it is that they can rack up ridiculous amounts of wealth quickly and go around buying the best ships right off the bat).


Fixing the balance of the game would be one thing but... this is not what this thread is about, this thread is about the new skill system.

If the next iteration keeps the tiers and choices, what it should do is plan things in a way that certain players can always get all skills they want without feeling penalized, for example it should be possible to get 4 colony skills with some spare points for other stuff, it should be possible to be a super smuggler and have a few spare points, it should be possible to make your entire build around having a fleet of carriers + fighters, etc...

One of the most easy ways to do this is split each aptitude into two "playstyles" when desining, for example industry can have half of the skill slots (one for each tier) dedicated to "industrialist" players like I am, and the other half to "smuggler" players.

Tech you can easily split one half into QoL skills to buff exploration and whatnot, and the other half to buff more combat-oriented buffs (like phase ships, shields, energy weapons), this way people won't even complain about having to respec if they change ship, if the guy IS a combat-nut player he knows he can safely pick 1 skill of each tech tier and be always prepared for any ship, with the downside he won't have the exploration buffs for example (assuming he also spent the rest of his points in combat and/or leadership aptitudes).



Another way to do this is what people suggested previously, and resemble a bit the old system: have the "square" with the aptitude icons, have a number that shows how much points you spent on them already, and unlock tiers based on how much that number rises, so you can make something like require 5 points for tier 5 skill first time, 8 points for tier 5 skill second time.
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SCC

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Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
« Reply #43 on: April 16, 2021, 01:13:26 PM »

I don't really want to make a new thread for it, but neither I could find a general skill suggestion thread, so I'll post here.
Gunnery Implants should replace Ranged Specialisation entirely. In GI's place, Power Grid Modulation could fit nicely, with flat cap and vent numbers (say 1000/2000/3000/4000 for the former and 50/100/150/200 for the latter) so while it would benefit all ships, it would proportionally benefit low-tech more. Or just port PGM without changes like that.

intrinsic_parity

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Re: Aptitudes are the real problem with the new skills system
« Reply #44 on: April 16, 2021, 01:31:49 PM »

Colonies can make way more money than you need without any skills. The colony skills are entirely unnecessary.

I think the idea that the player should get whatever they want is flawed. Having to make choices between different things that you want is a good thing, and makes for interesting decisions.

Also, I'm not sure about another dissipation/cap skill, we already have up to +20% to both stats from T4L and +10 vents/caps from T5L. You can make SO frigates with like 900+ dissipation. I like ranged specialization, I just think it needs a little buff, either increased damage, increased ranges where it is effective, or some utility buff like beam specific buffs.
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