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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

[Sutopia]

Now we have 55/45 percent distribution. Then it will be 25/75, i guess. May be 20/80. It is still big part of comunity.

Note that only a tiny fraction of players use the forums, and a small fraction of those who do voted in the poll.
People who feel they have been personally wronged by the skill changes are also much more likely to click on a thread like this.
Probably better not to read too much into it, beyond being a source of discussion.

Or it can be the opposite, because I’m reading more new system defending arguments in the thread . There is no telling of the voting demographics in first place. I also tried to be as neutral as can be to prevent any voting bias in my OP.
As you can see the total voters are double than the other new skill discussion thread, which I would consider it a good sign. Also do remember there are a lot of silent voters that don’t want to speak out loud.

[Locklave]

Can we agree that we clearly aren't in a good place with the system if it's anywhere near this close?

We aren't talking about a fringe % of people that aren't happy with X change(s). I hope Alex is taking a serious long look at how this system functions and how it isn't functioning for people like me for example. I've stopped playing, I don't enjoy this and that most certainly wasn't his goal. I look at this skill system and I feel like I have nearly no options. I shouldn't feel that way.

If you like it fine. But the goal isn't to leave a large section of the player base behind. It isn't good for the game or it's future.

[Ad Astra]

Or it can be the opposite, because I’m reading more new system defending arguments in the thread . There is no telling of the voting demographics in first place. I also tried to be as neutral as can be to prevent any voting bias in my OP.
As you can see the total voters are double than the other new skill discussion thread, which I would consider it a good sign. Also do remember there are a lot of silent voters that don’t want to speak out loud.

Yeah, I think this thread should be helpful to show how the active members feel towards each system, we could assume there shouldn't be any bias towards either among us because the real difference between an active and a silent member of the community tends to be how over-analytical and outspoken each person is.
Analysis and voicing shouldn't really skew the balance either way in this sort of poll, in any case we are more likely to find more strengths and weaknesses on both skill systems and discuss them extensively, that's about it. Most people who play a game won't really think in depth about game systems but rather think, "I like this" or "I don't like this" and to know why that is, you'd either need to reach all or at least a significant amount of those people and ask why, or do what we do here and try to figure out what is and isn't really working. This forum is a sort of honorary QA team but without any pressure from management lol.

[Draba]

Can we agree that we clearly aren't in a good place with the system if it's anywhere near this close?

We aren't talking about a fringe % of people that aren't happy with X change(s). I hope Alex is taking a serious long look at how this system functions and how it isn't functioning for people like me for example. I've stopped playing, I don't enjoy this and that most certainly wasn't his goal. I look at this skill system and I feel like I have nearly no options. I shouldn't feel that way.

If you like it fine. But the goal isn't to leave a large section of the player base behind. It isn't good for the game or it's future.

I do agree there is room for improvement, some skills are too good and with this structure (IMO!) it comes down to lead 4/tech 5 being obvious, probably with combat 5 or combat 4 + reliability engineering.
That does make it a bit samey and locks in quite a few bitter pill choices where you might not want either.

My point was just the gameplay arguments are plenty, numbers on a poll with a very narrow and specific sample are barely better than noise.
People attached to a game tend to react to changes really poorly(understatement of the year right there ), let's just see what happens with the updates.

[Nao]

In 0.95 you can blindly gun for "must have skills" and give little thought to anything else along the way. In 0.91 even if you had whole build planned from day 1 you still had to pick skills in order based on what was happening in space (what you've found, what type of gameplay you want to pursue early or mid game etc.) it was involving and fun process.

I actually went straight for must haves or held off until I had ~20 points, because of decision paralysis. It didn't really matter what was happening or what ships I had, because I could do everything no matter the skills. There's not much difference between 0.9.1 and 0.95 for me.

Yeah, both systems feel pretty similar, at least for how different they seem. And I definitely did that few times too.

But i wonder if (at least in Alex eyes) that is "an issue". That we are supposed to have fluid, emergent skill raising experience (gameplay) instead of fixed cookie cutter builds and decision paralysis. I mean new mechanics like story points, new opportunistic missions etc. seem to facilitate player winging it as he goes. So i wonder if he specifically does not want that to happen for skill trees, or that it's too hard to do for now, or he fears that too much complexity will alienate the players. (Thou with the initially confusing DP scaled bonuses i start to doubt 3rd option matters haha.)

[FooF]

The new system is foundationally better. It hasn't been iterated upon/honed-in like the previous version but current system has a higher ceiling. It's still pretty new and I haven't gone super-specialized yet but there is potential here. Granted, the previous system allowed me to do more of what I "wanted" but at the same time, I rarely deviated from a certain path. With this system, I feel like I can experiment more, or at least, there is more opportunity for an alternative playstyle. Certain skills make you tailor your fleet a certain way or think longer-term than the next battle.

There needs to be changes and balance, sure, but there's more potential here for diverse gameplay than the previous version. I'm willing to reserve judgement until there's been a few more passes at balance and mechanic adjustments.

[torbes]

This new system does not achieve it's goals of diverse gameplay, meaningful choices. Full stop. How do I know this ? Because there are ~3 skills that really change gameplay... AI ships, SMods and phase skill. And really given the hullmod options for SMods being mostly stat buffs, I could argue it's only 2 of them. This is a frustratingly false dichotomy that a very restrictive, sparse system by definition makes the skills more meaningful/impactful. It actually matters what the skills do. At least half of the current skills could be copy pasted into the old system!

If you want diverse gameplay and meaningful choices these capstone, end-tier skills need to significantly open up and/or restrict fleet comps and play styles. The other design option, in the constraints of this system, would be synergistic vertical themes. For example, the entire L/R line of a tree would gradually buff a single playstyle or fleet comp, such as carriers, phase, etc. Essentially a class system.

Remove the 4 separate trees, balance the skills across horizontal tiers, and offer game changing end-tier skills at T5. This would alleviate much of the negative feedback about wasted picks, restrictions, etc.

Like Locklave I too stopped playing after 1 playthrough, not just because of the skill system, but the opportunity cost that it took to implement.

Finally if the goals are as stated, why a skill system at all? Why not have players only get these sort of game changing abilities through in game accomplishments? Hunt 100 radiants, do some story point quests with some bar contacts, explore some hidden location and BAM! you now have AI ships....

[Albreo]

I'm OK with 0.9.5 but I want it more complex, simplicity is reserved for AAA games. As of right now, it's easier to fix a meta build suiting myself than in 0.9.1. And preferably, if it can be switch to a skill point gate that allows you to choose from any in the lower tier but have to put in enough point to unlock the next tier. This is more reliably widespread and has been implemented in many games. Also preferably, the number of the skills to choose from has to at least increase to 3 choices per tier.

[Pappus]

Now we have 55/45 percent distribution. Then it will be 25/75, i guess. May be 20/80. It is still big part of comunity.

Note that only a tiny fraction of players use the forums, and a small fraction of those who do voted in the poll.
People who feel they have been personally wronged by the skill changes are also much more likely to click on a thread like this.
Probably better not to read too much into it, beyond being a source of discussion.

Isn't that important technically. You can roughly extrapolate towards the entire population although in these instances you have to accept that there will be a selection bias. This works largely like all the political polling. They aren't asking most of the people, they grab random ppl off the street. Which is a bit better, because in our case we can't circumvent that we grabbed people from the forum and if that has a meaning that meaning would be in our results aswell before extrapolation.

[DatonKallandor]

People on forums are a tiny fraction and have very different tastes than the general population for the most part. They wouldn't be on forums if they didn't. There's a bunch of data underlying this, but basically, forums culture does not represent general player culture at all and making changes to gameplay based primarily on forum demands is a really bad road to go down.

[JUDGE! slowpersun]

I do agree with some comments pointing out that such a binary choice isn't necessary completely representative of all opinions.  There are parts of the 0.91 skill/leveling system that I didn't like or necessarily agree with, but I SIGNIFICANTLY hate dislike the new system more, both choice of skill location AND rerolling system.

[Locklave]

People on forums are a tiny fraction and have very different tastes than the general population for the most part. They wouldn't be on forums if they didn't. There's a bunch of data underlying this, but basically, forums culture does not represent general player culture at all and making changes to gameplay based primarily on forum demands is a really bad road to go down.

Is what someone says when they want to dismiss the results of something they don't like.

Present a better larger cross section or remain silent, your line of thought isn't productive. If you have better data then this poll then present it. This is what we and Alex has to work with, not non existent imaginary more inclusive data more reflective of people who don't give feedback. So we can only base general thoughts off of this or we are just guessing based on nothing.

I do not accept your premise or suggestion of underlying data. The people who don't speak up get spoken for by those who do and that's what this is.

[Sutopia]

Or it can be the opposite, because I’m reading more new system defending arguments in the thread . There is no telling of the voting demographics in first place. I also tried to be as neutral as can be to prevent any voting bias in my OP.
As you can see the total voters are double than the other new skill discussion thread, which I would consider it a good sign. Also do remember there are a lot of silent voters that don’t want to speak out loud.

People on forums are a tiny fraction and have very different tastes than the general population for the most part. They wouldn't be on forums if they didn't. There's a bunch of data underlying this, but basically, forums culture does not represent general player culture at all and making changes to gameplay based primarily on forum demands is a really bad road to go down.

Is what someone says when they want to dismiss the results of something they don't like.

Present a better larger cross section or remain silent, your line of thought isn't productive. If you have better data then this poll then present it. This is what we and Alex has to work with, not non existent imaginary more inclusive data more reflective of people who don't give feedback. So we can only base general thoughts off of this or we are just guessing based on nothing.

I do not accept your premise or suggestion of underlying data. The people who don't speak up get spoken for by those who do and that's what this is.

I may safely assume some of these just never read or simply not willing to hear out. It's literally on the same page.
I call this arrogance.
It's also funny that these "wow your poll is so biased" argument start pouring in after page 6.
I'm wondering when they'll call in dominion voting system. Any time now.

[SCC]

I think the poll is fine. While only a fraction of people will post here, that's only a fraction of those who voted, and those are only a fraction of who use the forum, and those are finally only a fraction of people who play the game. And it's the best we've got.
I'm surprised the results seem to be tending into a 50/50 split. How neat.

[WeiTuLo]

They both have their ups and downs, but I like aspects of both. I do miss more skillpoints/carrier buffs. The new Sparks have a sustained DPS of like 32 each, and they die so fast now. They feel weaker than the 5 OP Wasps. To be fair, Wasps also outdamage Lux LPCs now, and despite their fragility, the 5 second/replacement makes them more deployable than Lux/Spark.