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0.91

109 (52.2%)

0.95

100 (47.8%)

Total Members Voted: 209

Voting closed: June 02, 2021, 10:12:39 PM

[intrinsic_parity]

In the old system, you were never forced to make difficult decisions because of the structure of the system. You just take all the best skills, and then pick which mediocre/QOL skills you want after that, so you're only ever making decisions between the weakest skills by design. There was no way to change that within the old system, which is why it was abandoned.

[ubuntufreakdragon]

It's ok to have to spend 10 point on getting a radiant with 3 S-mods, but not to spend 6 just to get sensors+navigation.

[Sutopia]

In the old system, you were never forced to make difficult decisions because of the structure of the system. You just take all the best skills, and then pick which mediocre/QOL skills you want after that, so you're only ever making decisions between the weakest skills by design. There was no way to change that within the old system, which is why it was abandoned.

What's "All the best skills"?
What "tough" decisions did you ever had to make in .95?
I'm legit curious.

[SCC]

What's "All the best skills"?

At least Fleet Logistics 3, Coordinated Manoeuvres 1, Fighter Docttine 3, Loadout Design 3 and Electronic Warfare 1.

[Histidine]

So much for this being a poll-only thread without yet more discussion, teehee
(and I'm about to make the problem worse!)

In the old system, you were never forced to make difficult decisions because of the structure of the system. You just take all the best skills, and then pick which mediocre/QOL skills you want after that, so you're only ever making decisions between the weakest skills by design. There was no way to change that within the old system, which is why it was abandoned.

Personally I (and at least a few other people) would be considerably happier if the system focused more on 'to get this really cool thing you have to give up on this other really cool thing' and less 'to get this really cool thing you have to spend a ton of skill points on things you didn't want to begin with'. More 'choice of prize' and less 'tax'.

Re:4. Vanilla level cap is at 40 and was offering equally tough decisions. Level 50 has to be modded (cheating) and the same would apply to current system if you give yourself something like 25 total skill points. The worse skills will be left unpicked and you'll be able to get "everything", which makes playthroughs still feeling same-ish.

Vanilla level cap was 50.

I would argue that stronger skills feels way worse than weaker skills. If I don't want EVERYTHING in such bundle I feel I'm wasting skill points. Unlike the old system, I'm paying for what I get most of the time with a few exception of skill level 3 being very good. The skills are mostly in line and synergizes for all three levels so it's seldom wasted point.

Huh, can't relate. For me it's the opposite: the 3 levels almost invariably have 1-2 junk levels I avoided if I could and got annoyed by if I couldn't, whereas if I get it as a "free" part of a package deal I feel like, whatever.
It's like, I'm paying the same bill for the same goods in the end, but when it's itemized and I see that part of the bill was for something I didn't want and would prefer to save money by not buying, I get annoyed.

In the old system, you were never forced to make difficult decisions because of the structure of the system. You just take all the best skills, and then pick which mediocre/QOL skills you want after that, so you're only ever making decisions between the weakest skills by design. There was no way to change that within the old system, which is why it was abandoned.

What's "All the best skills"?

Can't speak for i_p, but for me:

Long, rambly, nobody asked

The skills I absolutely never went without (and in the case of tech, often beelined) were:
-Loadout Design 3
-Navigation 3
-Fleet Logistics 3
-Fighter Doctrine 3
-Officer Management 2-3
-Coordinated Maneuvers 1
-Electronic Warfare 1

Then, since I already have maxed the aptitudes for Leadership and Technology anyway, and they're great to have, I get:
-Ground Operations 2
-Power Grid Modulation 2

Every single one of my builds was like this.

In the same vein of "I already spent aptitude points on this anyway", but lower priority and so I sometimes picked other stuff:
-Command & Control 2
-Gunnery Implants 3

After that, basically the only major decision in 92% of cases* remaining was whether to go for tier 3 Combat + tier 1 Industry or the reverse, and once that decision was made the skills I picked were basically the same each time. Combat: pick almost all the level 1 combat skills, if going for tier 3 grab the ones with the really good level 3 buffs. Industry: Max salvaging if we're doing it, grab level 1-2 Field Repairs, then pick either the 'no D-mods' option or the 'D-mods are good' option.

*The other 8% is for the one or two times I bothered getting personal fighter skills, because they were relevant to my intended flagship

[close]

[TaLaR]

3. More choice isn't always better. By limiting each level to a choice between 8 available skills, it helps players (especially new players) avoid getting overwhelmed with analysis paralysis.

In the end you are always analyzing max level skill configuration, the rest are intermediate steps. Unless you plan to respec mid-way (and you have to plan, resetting elite personal skills is too SP-expensive otherwise).

Nature of choices just changes from "which skills do I want in priority order" to "how much am I willing to sacrifice to have both skills on a level / which skills can I afford to skip".

[Histidine]

I think the solution to analysis paralysis is respec anyway, if you start overthinking which skills you want you can just grab whatever looks good and decide afterwards if you want a change.

[intrinsic_parity]

What's "All the best skills"?
What "tough" decisions did you ever had to make in .95?
I'm legit curious.

In .9 I always took: Loadout design 3, officer management 3, fleet logistics 3, electronic warfare 1, thats 16/40 skills (including 6 dead aptitude points) that never change. I think if you didn't take these skills, you were straight up handicapping yourself.

then I would almost always take navigation 3, gunnery implants 3, Power grid modulation 3, fighter doctrine 3, sensors 1: another 13 skills that I would say were there 95%+ of the time, so 29/40 skills didn't change 95% of the time.

The last 11 skills would be some combat skills, usually something like (2 dead combat aptitudes), target analysis 2, defensive systems 2, evasive action 1, impact mitigation 1, coordinated maneuvers 1, combat endurance 1. I also might shuffle skills around to grab stuff like ordinance expertise 3, evasive action 3, impact mitigation 3 etc. The variation was just deciding which combat buffs to take basically, or maaaaybe going for colony skills, although that always felt terrible since I had to make combat much more boring by not taking combat skills to do that. Most builds didn't differ by more than 3-6 skills usually.

In the end I usually modded the level cap up a bit so I could take saftey procedures 3 entirely for free emergency burns, which I consider a huge QOL factor but entirely not worth 6 skill points if I am taking nothing else in industry, and then sometimes I would mod it even higher to take colony skills and maybe QOL salvaging skills, but those were definitely unnecessary IMO.

In .95:
I would say for me, I always take tech 5 and combat 5, although there are a lot of smaller variations within that, and then the biggest decision to make is whether to take leadership for officers and wolfpack, industry for QOL/derelict contingent, or wrapping tech. Those are the big playstyle altering choices for me. Then within those choices, there's lots of little decisions between skill pairs that are interesting to me. I'm not claiming that that's an acceptable amount of choices, but in the last patch, there weren't really any big choices for me, it was just small permutations on a standard build. Even just having a few big choices that totally change how I play feels more enjoyable to me. In the old system, I would never have to choose between something like extra officers and extra s-mods, I would just always take both. Now there are a couple different major builds that can't be combined which makes for difficult and interesting choices IMO. I would definitely like to see better skills added at industry 5 and leadership 5 so that I feel compelled to drop tech 5 or combat 5 sometimes. It's also possible future colony developments will make colony skills more useful, but I think having 4 of the 8 tier 5 skills being colony skills is too much.

Personally I (and at least a few other people) would be considerably happier if the system focused more on 'to get this really cool thing you have to give up on this other really cool thing' and less 'to get this really cool thing you have to spend a ton of skill points on things you didn't want to begin with'. More 'choice of prize' and less 'tax'.

I guess it's kinda a matter of perspective, but I think of choosing between trees as the 'to get this cool thing you give up this other cool thing'. I view the set of buffs from taking 4 or 5 points in a tree as one option, rather than seeing it as 4-5 separate options, and I happen to get to make a few minor choices between some of those buffs, but the core decisions are which trees to go for. I'm ultimately picking between combinations of tier 4/5 skills and getting a few side benefits along the way.

I can definitely understand people not liking the feel of taking bonuses that don't want. I definitely wouldn't be opposed to adding a 3rd option, especially at the lower tiers. I think that would increase the chances of people finding low tier skills they like on the way to big juicy skills, and also make wrapping more feasible.

[Vanshilar]

However all the skills are themed properly. When you get industry aptitude you get industry skills, hands down no dispute.

Old industry tree had Safety Procedures which was combat-related. Then you had 3 which were salvage-related, and 2 which were colony-related.

It’s not barring all colony skills at tier 5 and force players to pay 80% of skill points as taxes.

Are you claiming that there is no usefulness to more post-battle salvage, additional cargo/crew/fuel capacity, additional peak time, additional CR, etc.? Here you're arguing that the first 4 tiers of the new system don't provide any benefit whatsoever, when in the old system you explicitly had to burn points purely to access each tier of skills in each aptitude with no other benefit. You can certainly debate how much benefit each skill provides under the new system but every point provides at least some benefit to the player.

Not to mention you’re making a false assumption of people getting all aptitudes - which is often not the case.

I never said you had to take all 4 aptitudes in the old system, but under the old system each aptitude generally did have something that were pretty much must-haves, at least for me.

Like seriously, you can’t even get a tier 5 from each tree because you only have 15 points.

Exactly, which forces you to make some choices. The "better" skills are toward the end of each tree, so that they can put more powerful skills there without those skills being overpowering and have the player make some meaningful tradeoffs.

It’s far worse than previous iteration when you can actually get top skills from every tree.

And yet you said I was making a false assumption when I talked about having to burn 12 points to access tier 3 of each tree under the old system, but now you're extolling the benefit of being able to get tier 3 of each tree under the old system and, in the process, burning 12 points!

[TaLaR]

You didn't need to burn 12 points in 0.91, Industry was entirely fine to skip. So only 9 points.

[Sutopia]

Stop using straw man.
You were demonstrating there is a max of 30% tax in the old skill tree while I demonstrate you there is a max of 80% skill tax in the new. If I for one solely want to run colony and build a trading empire, its extremely punishing in .95. All other skills are irrelevant as they don’t help with what I try to achieve, when I only want that sweet sweet monthly tick. Yes, 12 completely wasted points, that’s how I feel.
Getting skills from all tree to demonstrate how restrictive current system is. Of course you can get all lower tier skills, dip into every tree but I don’t think anyone is doing that. The over emphasis on tier 5 bounded there only exists 24 possible builds.

There is no meaningful choices for me as of current patch as I always pick the same set of skills.
Wolfpack is a blind pick. Special modification is a blind pick. Level 6 officer is a blind pick. Sensor is a blind pick. Industry tree doesn’t exist. I only need to respec combat tree for flagship but again it provided no meaningful choices as my flagship only benefit from one skill of any given tier than the other. It’s just annoying to need to spend SP to respec when switching flagship.

I know immediately you’re going to straw man by quoting I want to play colony and quote the last paragraph about fully despising industry tree. I can immediately tell you that since full colony play became impossible I ditched colony focus altogether as “it’s not the right way to play the game”.

I feel forced to pick combat tree otherwise there is no possible way to beat end game enemies. (Of course we’re talking about full vanilla, including any setting values.) I do understand the game was designed to be combat focus, but it’s now over emphasizing it. The addition of colony and whatnot was meant to have different approaches to combat, now it’s all nullified. It’s essentially expelling all players that had fun by utilizing features added between.8 and .91.

[Vanshilar]

You didn't need to burn 12 points in 0.91, Industry was entirely fine to skip. So only 9 points.

Sure, Industry was probably the least-used tree in 0.9.1a. But it means you were missing out on +50% rare items and +10% post-battle salvage. The former essentially meant you had to do 50% more grind for the good items, roughly speaking. I'm a bit of a loot *** so it was a must-have for me but yes it meant 6 points spent on a 3-point skill. If you prefer to do more grind instead then sure you only waste 22.5% of your skill points, with the difference of 7.5% meaning that much more grind for you.

Stop using straw man.

Show me where I misrepresented any of your arguments.

You were demonstrating there is a max of 30% tax in the old skill tree while I demonstrate you there is a max of 80% skill tax in the new. If I for one solely want to run colony and build a trading empire, its extremely punishing in .95. All other skills are irrelevant as they don’t help with what I try to achieve, when I only want that sweet sweet monthly tick. Yes, 12 completely wasted points, that’s how I feel.

So your position is that the new system has 80% skill tax because a player may want to play the game purely for the colony/trading aspects, without any regard for how to fund, build, support, and defend the colonies? All of that requires a fleet of some sort, at which point the rest of the skills become useful, however marginally, and thus no longer a tax in our context here.

There is no meaningful choices for me as of current patch as I always pick the same set of skills.
Wolfpack is a blind pick. Special modification is a blind pick. Level 6 officer is a blind pick. Sensor is a blind pick. Industry tree doesn’t exist. I only need to respec combat tree for flagship but again it provided no meaningful choices as my flagship only benefit from one skill of any given tier than the other. It’s just annoying to need to spend SP to respec when switching flagship.

Sure, you can choose however you wish. But for example, my fleet doesn't have frigates (maybe I should experiment with them more), so I got Coordinated Maneuvers because maneuverability is much more important for me (right now, my flagship is a SO Aurora, and oftentimes I feel like it's still too slow for my taste). Special Modifications (buffing your whole fleet with additional OP) vs Automated Ships (getting one really powerful ship) continues to be debated. I much prefer the 20 speed from Navigation to Sensors so I can move my fleet around more quickly on the campaign layer. I didn't bother with officers, instead Salvaging's +20% post-battle salvage and Reliability Engineering's various bonuses were more relevant. You chose your set of skills, which is completely up to you, but the skills that you *didn't* choose (faster ships, one big buff ship, etc.) can also be very beneficial, and you're making a tradeoff with those benefits. That's the meaningful choice right there.

I know immediately you’re going to straw man by quoting I want to play colony and quote the last paragraph about fully despising industry tree. I can immediately tell you that since full colony play became impossible I ditched colony focus altogether as “it’s not the right way to play the game”.

Your own argument for justifying why the new system has an 80% tax is directly that the player might want to play colony. That's not a straw man, that's directly what you said to justify saying why the new system means a 80% tax compared with the old system's 30% tax. Since as soon as you admit that a person playing this game might want to buff their flagship or their fleet, then the whole 80% tax argument falls apart since the rest of the skills become at least somewhat useful. But you're the one who staked out that position and that justification for it, not me.

To me, the colony skills are not worth taking simply because there's no need to. Alpha cores take care of them. They're easy enough to acquire in-game whereas skill points are very limited, so I'd rather put my skill points toward other things. (I didn't bother with the colony skills in 0.9.1a either for the same reason.)

I feel forced to pick combat tree otherwise there is no possible way to beat end game enemies. (Of course we’re talking about full vanilla, including any setting values.) I do understand the game was designed to be combat focus, but it’s now over emphasizing it. The addition of colony and whatnot was meant to have different approaches to combat, now it’s all nullified. It’s essentially expelling all players that had fun by utilizing features added between.8 and .91.

I'm not sure what your point here is supposed to be. Yes the combat tree is important, but simply because the player's flagship is the single most important ship in that it has the greatest effect on the outcome of the battle. You can certainly choose to autopilot your flagship if you want, but the human player can do things that the AI can't (particularly with respect to battle strategy). Colonies add more complexity to the campaign layer (gives you a base of operations, lets you build your own fleet, etc.), but I don't see how the new skills system nullifies that, nor how it expels players from recent updates.

[Eluxor]

My main problem with the new skill system is the lack of available fleetwide buffs. I am not a good fighter, I suck at flying ships so going for the fleetwide buffs was a good thing! But now with the new system there are barely any fleetwide buffs, personal buffs are still strong... Industry tree is really useless unless you are going for a derelict contingent build. You cant use Dships, you cant lower maintenance... The new skill system sucks for people who dont pick combat skills.

[Havoc]

I cant vote A or B
would prefer .95 like now for fleet&colony skills, but (my)ship only stuff like combat more freely like .91
also elite is a good stuff

[michail]

Are you claiming that there is no usefulness to more post-battle salvage, additional cargo/crew/fuel capacity, additional peak time, additional CR, etc.? Here you're arguing that the first 4 tiers of the new system don't provide any benefit whatsoever, when in the old system you explicitly had to burn points purely to access each tier of skills in each aptitude with no other benefit. You can certainly debate how much benefit each skill provides under the new system but every point provides at least some benefit to the player.

To me, the problem here is the cost, not the lack of benefit (aside of the weird I4L+R interaction, all skills are at least occasionally useful). 3 completely useless points in the old system didn't feel too bad (were annoying, yes, but not too much) due to relatively low power per point of the skills, high level cap and the width of possibilities they opened (admittedly, this one got progressively smaller with each level). In the new system wasting points on something I don't care about hurts (my minmaxing soul, not necessarily my build) a lot more, because each point is so much more precious. The gateway skills' benefits don't feel like benefits, but rather a small consolation. To continue someone's tax analogy: I see them as a tax deduction. Nice but it's still attached to a tax.