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Author Topic: Limiting player options is the antithesis of a good sandbox game  (Read 17460 times)

Euripides

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Re: Limiting player options is the antithesis of a good sandbox game
« Reply #90 on: April 26, 2021, 07:38:58 PM »

The skills and stuff wouldn't be a big problem with rapid iteration and changes - there's a mod already on the forums that pretty much fixes all my immediate issues with the skills for example.

But we're going from 1 update every 6-8 months, to 1 update every 12 months, to 1 update in 2 years...

And the actual content of these updates is getting less and less. This last one is 2 years in the making and hasn't really changed anything about the general gameplay meanwhile I can see a plethora of things that could really be worked on from progression to storyline to the way hull mods and weapons work

I honestly feel like alex just doesn't have his heart in this project anymore and its becoming abandonware
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Hatter

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Re: Limiting player options is the antithesis of a good sandbox game
« Reply #91 on: April 26, 2021, 08:56:37 PM »

Quote
The skills and stuff wouldn't be a big problem with rapid iteration and changes - there's a mod already on the forums that pretty much fixes all my immediate issues with the skills for example.

But we're going from 1 update every 6-8 months, to 1 update every 12 months, to 1 update in 2 years...

And the actual content of these updates is getting less and less. This last one is 2 years in the making and hasn't really changed anything about the general gameplay meanwhile I can see a plethora of things that could really be worked on from progression to storyline to the way hull mods and weapons work

I honestly feel like alex just doesn't have his heart in this project anymore and its becoming abandonware
Several more types of missions have been added and interactions have been added. I get fleets ambushing me asking for dead drop coordinates, or about a security breach from a code I bought on the black market to raid a place because the entire raid mechanism has been overhauled.  Usable gates have been added, after jumping through some hoops. Contacts have been added, handing out custom missions and a new way to procure ships. Weapons can now have a type besides ballistic/energy/missile. Colonies got some new items and were re-flavored, but are otherwise largely the same. This is without adding in to how story points have changed just about every single interaction (allowing escape of previously unescapable encounters, being able to change skills, building in hullmods, etc).

It seems a bit premature to declare the game dead when there have been how many hotfixes in the last month? 7?
You're talking about the update taking longer being a sign that progress has slowed down. Have you considered that it's because the update is changing more things then any previous update? Looking at the notes in 0.9-0.9.1 the big change was colonies. Not only that, but 0.9.1 dropped in January and had modifications up till May. 0.9.5 was only released last month and most of the outstanding issues have been either hotfixed (ECM problem, my poor built-in SO) or are on the chopping block (Derelict Contingent).

Could you elaborate on what you would consider 'really changing the gameplay' and how 0.9.5 is part of a trend of 'less and less content being added' ?
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Morrokain

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Re: Limiting player options is the antithesis of a good sandbox game
« Reply #92 on: April 27, 2021, 01:25:42 AM »

Initial Analysis:

Aptitude Side-by-Side Skill Comparisons:
Spoiler
Combat:
- Impact Mitigation seems weaker than Ranged Specialization due to how important it is to build more flux on your opponent and the strength of range in the game.

Leadership:
- Coordinated Maneuvers seems weaker than Wolfpack Tactics on paper unless you are not using frigates at all. Even then, the destroyer perk of Wolfpack Tactics seems pretty good early game. Part of this assumption lies in the feedback about being outnumbered late game though. Wouldn't that sort of negate the bonus?

Technology:
- Energy Weapon Mastery only seems worth it for the elite version, and I'm curious to see if the AI takes advantage of it without an aggressive or reckless officer.
- Fighter Uplink seems fairly unattractive compared to Electronic Warfare. Excluding carriers on Electronic Warfare might give it a role for carrier-heavy fleets though. I'd argue the threshold for vanilla should probably be 8 instead of 6 for fighter bays. That would make it and Carrier Group more viable late game skills, imo, compared to EW or Crew Training - which both seem essential in comparison upon an initial analysis.
- Automated Ships probably needs a slightly higher DP limit for the threshold compared to an extra built-in slot from Special Modifications. (Depends on SP availability. It's harder to analyze without testing late game SP acquisition rates since that is such a new feature.) This opinion stems more from a sense of novelty and flavor than it does from the perspective of which is better to min/max.

Industry:
- Damage Control and Reliability Engineering are a bit of a strange trade-off because one primarily effects campaign level and one primarily effects combat.
- Same thing with Field Repairs and Derelict Contingent.
[close]

Aptitude vs Aptitude Comparisons:
Spoiler
Combat
- The obvious powerful player flagship choice. The highest investment of points (10) wastes a point due to competing flagship bonuses between phase ships and shielded ships. This makes it less viable to completely invest in above 7 points. Potential solution: Phase Mastery and Flux Regulation switch places. (I'll explain more about why later.)
- Tier 5 bonuses, while nice, are nowhere near as attractive as Technology tier 5 bonuses because Combat affects a single (though powerful) ship in a modest way and Technology affects the whole fleet in a pretty substantial way with the caveat that a large investment of story points is required to reap the full benefits.
- Low level bonuses are probably the most attractive small-scale investment option for those wanting some flagship boosts if they don't need a specific tier 5/tier 4 skill in one of their other attribute skill lines.

Leadership
- The specialization attribute. Essentially, pick an aspect of your fleet composition that you want to boost. With the options being carriers, smaller ships, combat auxiliary civilian ships.
- Then there are random colony bonuses and the very valuable officer boosts. Leadership probably has the worst tier 5 options of all the attributes. They seem more important for administrators than players and should probably be replaced with large compositional bonuses for each composition. Each skill needs to effect each composition of the earlier compositional choices or full investment is unlikely - but the specific bonuses themselves should compete in value. Example: Plus 5% OP on all compositional choices vs + 5% Range (weapon and fighter) on all compositional choices. Alternatively move the tier 5 bonuses to tier 2 and slide the other bonuses up a tier.
- The officer boosts are the real meat of the attribute - with ship compositional bonuses mostly being an afterthought to get to these skills.
- Crew Training is too strong of a competitor for Carrier Group as is - Potential Solution: swap Crew Training with Fighter Uplink and rename them if necessary. A compositional bonus vs a fleetwide bonus is probably impossible to balance.
- Same with tier 1 bonuses - fleetwide vs compositional bonuses should probably be avoided.

Technology
- The best attribute because of the tier 5 bonuses. Also likely the most interesting from a flavor/novelty standpoint because of Automated Ships.
- Already discussed that phase ship bonuses should directly compete. The player chooses between a big flagship bonus or a smaller fleetwide bonus. It might be worth it to make these the tier 5 bonuses so players don't feel forced into phase ships just to get Automated Ships or Special Modifications. That would also lessen the overall point burden created by moving the officer bonuses up a tier through lowering the tier to get Special Modifications or Automated Ships. The rest of the attribute is compositional specialization and full investment into the attribute simply means using both phase ships and automated ships.
- Above changes means that Technology consistently starts with a campaign QOL bonus, then gets a ship bonus, then a fleet bonus, etc. It seems more consistent when considering target goals of investing into an attribute and how much to fully invest.

Industry
- Mostly campaign benefits comprised of colony, exploration and fleet maintenance bonuses.
- While thematically interesting and great for a player struggling with campaign level challenges, it is the only attribute that mostly lacks combat benefits. This sort of puts it in an odd place.
- Needs some kind of campaign level pressure (at all points of the game) in order to functionally compete with the other attributes.
[close]

Outside of the specific changes I suggested, the major take-away I have when analyzing the current system and the feedback on all sides is that the old system let players cherry pick bonuses to either salve a campaign annoyance or help with a challenging thing at the campaign level and then once that condition (unique to the individual) is met, focus on the combat bonuses of choice and composition.

Now, the attributes require more investment and it is much harder to cherry pick bonuses of either campaign or combat. I think that is leading to all the vague playstyle complaints. Players were choosing X skill at Y time because X's bonus made sense at that time in the game while planning an overall compositional build - which was likely more flexible than the current system because, again, cherry picking was more possible.

So, conceptually, I think the new system is A) easier to balance overall B) better as far as replay-ability is concerned and C) thematically more interesting as far as specialization.

It lost complexity in build-making, however, and that is also a factor.

Some broad suggestions to possibly help the system feel more versatile:

1) Somewhat streamline bonus types at tiers with perhaps Combat being the exception. For instance, if each attribute is a unique playstyle, then have a similar bonus type at each tier - campaign level boost, flagship boost, fleetwide boost, compositional boost are what I consider "types". Weigh types based upon player desirability if possible. Big combat boosts should be higher tier but roughly equally powerful across the same tier in each attribute. Players should then be able to choose a maximum of 3 per highest tier in 2-3 attributes.
2) I'd weight campaign QOL as tier 1, fleetwide bonus at tier 2, flagship bonus at tier 3, major feature bonus at tier 4, large compositional bonus at tier 5.
3) Finally, separate out bonus themes by attribute. Example: Industry is armor combat bonuses while Technology is flux bonuses and balance between the two. Or: Leadership is carrier compositional bonuses while Combat is smaller ships, Technology is phase ships and Industry is auxiliary civilians and D-modded ships. All compositional bonuses are effectively optional and fairly powerful. That way compositions wouldn't feel as forced to get the more powerful combat benefits.

That would probably be a good middle ground between the new system and the old system and still retain the balancing benefits of the new system. A player gets 3 of each type but can sacrifice compositional or feature/theme combat-oriented boosts for more campaign QOL or fleetwide/flagship combat bonuses.

Anyway I spent enough time on this already. Just trying to think outside of the box when looking at polishing the new skill system.
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Locklave

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Re: Limiting player options is the antithesis of a good sandbox game
« Reply #93 on: April 27, 2021, 01:53:18 AM »

Outside of the specific changes I suggested, the major take-away I have when analyzing the current system and the feedback on all sides is that the old system let players cherry pick bonuses to either salve a campaign annoyance or help with a challenging thing at the campaign level and then once that condition (unique to the individual) is met, focus on the combat bonuses of choice and composition.

Yes, 100% the underlined bolded bit. That should be a goal of a great sandbox game.

It lets people deal with specific elements they enjoy/hate/whatever then take secondary combat skills. Assuming that cherry picking wasn't combat skills in the first place in which case, fine, why shouldn't they be happy too.

So we had a flawed system, that certainly needed work, that allowed personal customization and it replaced with a system that doesn't provide that in any way shape or form. I am completely and totally at a loss as to why you insist on painting a picture of customized builds for specific users as negative by implying cherry picking is a bad thing.


Let us cherry pick, give us better and more options, not less. If some options are OP or UP then balance them, something by the way that still badly needs to be done with the current skills, so that problem wasn't avoided.

edit:

Maybe we should talk about how Alex cannibalized the industry tree to make it hybred combat so he had more places to put combat skills? How he removed industry skills people like me used and replaced them with combat garbage, because we got the combat junkies coming in for I2 and I4 now. I sure miss that old D-mod skill, but combat needed more toys and this 2 choice trash limited space where they should have been, combat needed to be in every single tree it seems.

Make choices... I1/I3 choice, 2 skills that mechanically both the exact same playstyle logistics and efficiency. What happened to playstyle choices in the industry tree? Oh right this was basically the combat update, who cares about choices in the Industry tree. It was an after thought, it's why he so willingly abandon elements of the tree to make room for more combat stuff.

We can't even get the crap we want from it now. 1/3 of the tree got eaten and we still can't have our support skills.
« Last Edit: April 27, 2021, 02:45:24 AM by Locklave »
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SCC

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Re: Limiting player options is the antithesis of a good sandbox game
« Reply #94 on: April 27, 2021, 04:42:12 AM »

I1L is more useful to traders for increased freight efficiency, I1R is more useful to explorers and fighters. I3 is s boring choice, though.
As for putting combat in industry, it previously was the odd tree out, as it didn't have any combat boosts. I assume that's the reason why Alex put them there, that and, if I may be so bold to assume this of him, he thought that no one would play Starsector without liking the combat.

Megas

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Re: Limiting player options is the antithesis of a good sandbox game
« Reply #95 on: April 27, 2021, 04:48:51 AM »

I1L is more useful to traders for increased freight efficiency, I1R is more useful to explorers and fighters.
I1L is more useful for explorers because more capacity for more loot (more salvage from I1R is no good if fleet does not have the capacity to handle loot bombs), and civilians no longer need Militarized Subsystems for more burn.  Militarized Subsystems can be replaced by Surveying Equipment for cheaper surveying.
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kenwth81

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Re: Limiting player options is the antithesis of a good sandbox game
« Reply #96 on: April 27, 2021, 09:26:48 AM »

You don't care about me! You don't care about the children! All you care about are your little S-modded spaceships! Everything is over between us! (throws your underwear out of the window)

You shouldn't worry much, people interpret questions as challenges waaay too often, so they are just overreacting a bit (a lot).  ;D


Oh the cheeky impudent one. I don't have that self-indulgent to mistaken paying lip service as genuine concern, so no I lack such naivety.
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Thaago

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Re: Limiting player options is the antithesis of a good sandbox game
« Reply #97 on: April 27, 2021, 12:06:51 PM »

For the discussion of fighter uplink vs ECM: ECM is obviously a very good default choice. Range is good!

But I decided to try fighter uplink on my fleet with several carriers (10 bays, so a little over the limit) just to see how it is, and its also really good. I picked crew training this time round instead of faster fighter replacements so the fighters have 100% CR, which gives 10% speed itself for a total of +30% for officered carriers and +25% for non-officered. A few numbers: Thunders have 585 speed. Sparks have 435.5 speed. Khopseh have 234 speed.

That might sound like just higher numbers, but it makes a big difference. Fighters and bombers spend less time on approach to target and are harder to hit, so take less damage (and get there in less time), so both the target takes more damage and the carrier loses less replacement rate. Reinforcements get to the target faster, so take less damage, so do more damage... etc etc. For bombers, carrier replacement rate ticks down while they are on the return trip (if they survive, which they can now do better). Shorter return trip = less fighter tickdown and higher bomber DPS from faster waves.

Losing ECM is a loss, but on the other hand its down to 10%, I'm using ECCM on all my ship anyways for missile speed so thats really 5%, and I also don't need to invest further resources in it either. Against remnants I would need elite Gunnry on small ships + ECM modules built in to contest ECM, which is even more resources. Fighter speed always works and I can put my officers on larger ships when appropriate without worrying.

Overall I do think ECM is the better skill, but its a lot closer than I initially thought before I tried it. Fighters are still really good.
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Morrokain

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Re: Limiting player options is the antithesis of a good sandbox game
« Reply #98 on: April 27, 2021, 01:07:25 PM »

I understand that people are frustrated but let's tone down the personal attacks please. We are otherwise having a good discussion here.

So we had a flawed system, that certainly needed work, that allowed personal customization and it replaced with a system that doesn't provide that in any way shape or form. I am completely and totally at a loss as to why you insist on painting a picture of customized builds for specific users as negative by implying cherry picking is a bad thing.


Let us cherry pick, give us better and more options, not less. If some options are OP or UP then balance them, something by the way that still badly needs to be done with the current skills, so that problem wasn't avoided.

It was an analysis - I wasn't saying/implying cherry picking was bad but rather pointing out that a lack of cherry picking is the source of resentment for the new system because it can't be done as easily.

As far as balance-ability between the two systems, when we say that the new system is easier to balance what we mean is that there is less overall competition between skills because they are locked into tiers. In the old system each skill was competing against every other skill and so they had to be balanced around every other skill. In the new system a skill only competes with other skills in that tier. Skills in other tiers can be more or less powerful without seeming unbalanced whereas in the old system the powerful unbalanced skills were the "no brainer" or "mandatory" skills that you chose every time. Weaker skills were mostly just ignored, etc.

It's not that there aren't currently mandatory skills in the new system, but its easier to put the them in the same tier and then balance them around each other. That's what we mean when we say easier to balance. That doesn't mean it is currently balanced or that the old system couldn't be balanced. It would just be harder. Something like elite skills would also be impossible to implement because the reality would be (skill point pool - number of elite skills) = actual skill point pool for most players. I'm assuming that for some of you that was a trade-off that was worth it in order to have the deck-building component and you were mostly ok with there being mandatory skills - which is fair.

@Thaago
Ok that makes sense. I was probably underestimating the benefits of fighter speed translating into increased carrier dps. I wonder if adding a small +5% damage for fighter weapons would make it a bit more intuitive that the skill increases overall damage since I'm not sure a new player would come to that conclusion right away.

But regardless if its fairly close then a player wanting to specialize in carriers might not miss EW anyway.

Just in general, one of the concerns I have with skills like EW and Coordinated Maneuvers is exactly that they seem really good until you go up against something like remnants and the bonus is much harder to maintain. I guess there is something to be said for reducing the remnants bonus through the skill, but if the player can't really do that then the skill will probably feel like a wasted point once the player gets to endgame.
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SCC

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Re: Limiting player options is the antithesis of a good sandbox game
« Reply #99 on: April 27, 2021, 01:30:53 PM »

- Impact Mitigation seems weaker than Ranged Specialization due to how important it is to build more flux on your opponent and the strength of range in the game.
Previously I would have disagreed with you, but now that +(1)50 armour part has been moved to the elite, it's not that good. So that means two kinda crappy skills compete with one another. lol

- Coordinated Maneuvers seems weaker than Wolfpack Tactics on paper unless you are not using frigates at all. Even then, the destroyer perk of Wolfpack Tactics seems pretty good early game. Part of this assumption lies in the feedback about being outnumbered late game though. Wouldn't that sort of negate the bonus?
The best thing about CM is the slapped on part about command points, as it makes withdrawing ships running out of PPT less painful.

- Automated Ships probably needs a slightly higher DP limit for the threshold compared to an extra built-in slot from Special Modifications. (Depends on SP availability. It's harder to analyze without testing late game SP acquisition rates since that is such a new feature.) This opinion stems more from a sense of novelty and flavor than it does from the perspective of which is better to min/max.
It would be good to have some reliable testing metric. My experience tells me that a Radiant from Automated Ships easily blows Special modifications out the water. Sure, you get only a single ship, but it's the strongest ship in the game, after Doom and maybe Ziggurat. No, I didn't forget about Tessaract, it's simply worse than the Radiant.

- Damage Control and Reliability Engineering are a bit of a strange trade-off because one primarily effects campaign level and one primarily effects combat.
Which is which? -25% hull damage/+33% hull durability is pretty good for piloting capital ships, though I wish
the elite effect had some effect in combat.

Aptitude vs Aptitude Comparisons:
- The obvious powerful player flagship choice. The highest investment of points (10) wastes a point due to competing flagship bonuses between phase ships and shielded ships. This makes it less viable to completely invest in above 7 points. Potential solution: Phase Mastery and Flux Regulation switch places. (I'll explain more about why later.)
As far as I am concerned, it varies from 2 wasted skill points for Odyssey (C3R and C4R) to 4 for Paragon (C1R, C4R, C5L, C5R, arguably even C2R). It's really annoying that to avoid wasting a lot of skill points, you have to respec, but when you respec, you may lose a lot of story points. For this reason, even my combat-focused skill set puts just 5 skill points into combat, with the rest spent on various other trees, since bonuses in those other trees are less likely to be wasted if I decide to fly a different ship.

- Already discussed that phase ship bonuses should directly compete. The player chooses between a big flagship bonus or a smaller fleetwide bonus. It might be worth it to make these the tier 5 bonuses so players don't feel forced into phase ships just to get Automated Ships or Special Modifications. That would also lessen the overall point burden created by moving the officer bonuses up a tier through lowering the tier to get Special Modifications or Automated Ships. The rest of the attribute is compositional specialization and full investment into the attribute simply means using both phase ships and automated ships.
I would have called putting AS anywhere but at the tier 5 stupid and too cheap, if not for phase ships being even more broken. Damn.

Locklave

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Re: Limiting player options is the antithesis of a good sandbox game
« Reply #100 on: April 27, 2021, 02:01:13 PM »

It was an analysis - I wasn't saying/implying cherry picking was bad but rather pointing out that a lack of cherry picking is the source of resentment for the new system because it can't be done as easily.

As far as balance-ability between the two systems, when we say that the new system is easier to balance what we mean is that there is less overall competition between skills because they are locked into tiers. In the old system each skill was competing against every other skill and so they had to be balanced around every other skill. In the new system a skill only competes with other skills in that tier. Skills in other tiers can be more or less powerful without seeming unbalanced whereas in the old system the powerful unbalanced skills were the "no brainer" or "mandatory" skills that you chose every time. Weaker skills were mostly just ignored, etc.

It's not that there aren't currently mandatory skills in the new system, but its easier to put the them in the same tier and then balance them around each other. That's what we mean when we say easier to balance. That doesn't mean it is currently balanced or that the old system couldn't be balanced. It would just be harder. Something like elite skills would also be impossible to implement because the reality would be (skill point pool - number of elite skills) = actual skill point pool for most players. I'm assuming that for some of you that was a trade-off that was worth it in order to have the deck-building component and you were mostly ok with there being mandatory skills - which is fair.

Before I start. Sorry. I'm being overly high strung about this. Sometimes I forget I'm in the Starsector forum and that people in here aren't actively being hostile or malicious, you clearly weren't. This post tells me you are putting real thought into your posts and I was reading into it incorrectly. Something I really need to be mindful of.

I can't disagree with this. I genuinely hope it being balanced out more and reworked will resolve the issues I'm having with it.

I choose to blame my demeaner on not even being able to get a haircut for 4+ months lol.
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kenwth81

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Re: Limiting player options is the antithesis of a good sandbox game
« Reply #101 on: April 27, 2021, 03:02:29 PM »



It was an analysis - I wasn't saying/implying cherry picking was bad but rather pointing out that a lack of cherry picking is the source of resentment for the new system because it can't be done as easily.

As far as balance-ability between the two systems, when we say that the new system is easier to balance what we mean is that there is less overall competition between skills because they are locked into tiers. In the old system each skill was competing against every other skill and so they had to be balanced around every other skill. In the new system a skill only competes with other skills in that tier. Skills in other tiers can be more or less powerful without seeming unbalanced whereas in the old system the powerful unbalanced skills were the "no brainer" or "mandatory" skills that you chose every time. Weaker skills were mostly just ignored, etc.

It's not that there aren't currently mandatory skills in the new system, but its easier to put the them in the same tier and then balance them around each other. That's what we mean when we say easier to balance. That doesn't mean it is currently balanced or that the old system couldn't be balanced. It would just be harder. Something like elite skills would also be impossible to implement because the reality would be (skill point pool - number of elite skills) = actual skill point pool for most players. I'm assuming that for some of you that was a trade-off that was worth it in order to have the deck-building component and you were mostly ok with there being mandatory skills - which is fair.


Easier to balance as in we'd no longer have to think about balancing skills with each other as taking those skills in that skill tree are kinda mandatory. As long some of those skills in that tree are important enough, useless skill or fillers in that skill tree are totally reasonable and appropriate. Balancing as in not trying to balance at all.
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Sutopia

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Re: Limiting player options is the antithesis of a good sandbox game
« Reply #102 on: April 27, 2021, 03:31:44 PM »

@Morrokain
That’s just wildly wrong statement. The game is not presenting two skills at a time and you can pick one just like deck building game. We still have finite skill points that needs to be distributed among 40 skills and the additional restrictions by current tree implementation is dumb at best. It reduced no balancing hardship but merely excusing with fake utopia. It has actually reduced replayability of the game due to there are only so many paths to choose from, and due to the over emphasizing (/empowering) tier 5s there is rarely worthwhile doing wrap arounds. The new skill system failed each and every of its initial goals. Not even respec helps since there are three skills that becomes permanent for no good reason.
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Morrokain

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Re: Limiting player options is the antithesis of a good sandbox game
« Reply #103 on: April 27, 2021, 04:23:26 PM »

@Morrokain
That’s just wildly wrong statement. The game is not presenting two skills at a time and you can pick one just like deck building game.

Er, what? I get the last few points of your post but what are you trying to say here?

Re: Only t5 being worth it
What changes would you make to improve t1-t4 skills? Imo, some of the scaling ones seem less useful lategame due to the necessity of having a larger fleet. Weapon Drills for one. That could be made better by changing the scaling though.

Re: Permanent skills
Yeah this is a bit of an awkward thing. I get why its done this way but it does undermine the respec mechanic a bit.

The reason for this, though, is the difficulty/dev time of removing the bonuses of these skills when respec-ing. For instance, when you choose Automated Ships and respec does your radiant just self destruct? Does it turn on you and immediately throw you into combat?

The even more difficult one to handle would be Special Modifications. If most of your ships have 3 built-in hullmods and you respec - which one of the 3 gets removed? Would a menu come up that you cycle through each ship and choose one?

Stuff like that.

My experience tells me that a Radiant from Automated Ships easily blows Special modifications out the water.

Yeah I could definitely see that. I'm curious, does getting a Radiant and adding a core require story points?
« Last Edit: April 27, 2021, 04:25:19 PM by Morrokain »
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Sutopia

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Re: Limiting player options is the antithesis of a good sandbox game
« Reply #104 on: April 27, 2021, 04:28:53 PM »

@Morrokain
That’s just wildly wrong statement. The game is not presenting two skills at a time and you can pick one just like deck building game.

Er, what? I get the last few points of your post but what are you trying to say here?

As far as balance-ability between the two systems, when we say that the new system is easier to balance what we mean is that there is less overall competition between skills because they are locked into tiers. In the old system each skill was competing against every other skill and so they had to be balanced around every other skill. In the new system a skill only competes with other skills in that tier. Skills in other tiers can be more or less powerful without seeming unbalanced whereas in the old system the powerful unbalanced skills were the "no brainer" or "mandatory" skills that you chose every time. Weaker skills were mostly just ignored, etc.

This.
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