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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Author Topic: Blog Posts  (Read 337537 times)

Occams_Razor

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Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #345 on: April 05, 2012, 04:11:07 PM »


That makes it your fault not the game's fault. This is just a different way of handling limits than a hard limit. It's more freeing, but more risky. It's easy to play with a hard limit as you can just self-police.

I think my point is basically that whose fault it is doesn't matter. Players will feel like they've been kicked in the gut by the random number generator any time they suffer a low-probability, high-impact event, as opposed to, say, a series of exponentially worse low-impact events.

But I'm certainly willing to try it and see if I'm wrong. It's an alpha, after all.
« Last Edit: April 05, 2012, 04:14:37 PM by Occams_Razor »
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Zapier

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Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #346 on: April 05, 2012, 04:50:59 PM »


That makes it your fault not the game's fault. This is just a different way of handling limits than a hard limit. It's more freeing, but more risky. It's easy to play with a hard limit as you can just self-police.

I think my point is basically that whose fault it is doesn't matter. Players will feel like they've been kicked in the gut by the random number generator any time they suffer a low-probability, high-impact event, as opposed to, say, a series of exponentially worse low-impact events.

But I'm certainly willing to try it and see if I'm wrong. It's an alpha, after all.

Well they should feel like they got kicked in the gut... take this scenario for example...

You're at your fleet point 'safe' limit, get into some battle and maybe you finally have a chance to board and capture a Paragon or something you haven't been able to acquire yet. Now, your fleet points go over that safe limit. You now have the choice to risk trying to keep your entire fleet intact, either for the long term or short term because maybe you're looking to sell ships that will bring you back under your safe cap, or scuttle some of your current fleet to make room for your newly acquired Paragon in a safe manner. If you choose to take the risk for profit or whatever, then you choose to have that 'random number generator' possibly kick you in the gut. Who's fault that is does matter because it is all the player's fault. The player that chooses to take risks has a chance to benefit more greatly than those that choose not to, so it shouldn't be any surprise to those players if an accident happens and they end up losing even more than if they played it safe. Chances are, those players will just reload or something anyways...

Eliminating the accident system means having a simple hard cap method. Take the same scenario as above with a simple hard cap. Full fleet point usage, and now you have a chance to capture that nice Paragon... but, oh... you're at your cap. Too bad. Now players will have to constantly play with 'room' to spare in their fleets, meaning they aren't going to fully utilize their potential. This seems like a waste to me. The soft cap/hard cap method will let players use their full potential (which is their soft cap) and still give them the chance to acquire, take chances, perhaps add an extra ship or two for taking on a tougher fleet for a short time and many other useful scenarios. It's all up to the player.

Anyways, as you said, it's an alpha and its meant to be tested so it can be tweaked and adjusted to work just right or scrapped altogether if it doesn't.
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Cryten

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Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #347 on: April 05, 2012, 05:12:07 PM »

Keep in mind the picture of the blog post http://fractalsoftworks.com/2012/03/21/accidents/ He is consuming 19 cargo a day. Considering that a day is very very quick in starfarer you will drain alot of supplies very quickly if you purposly go over the limit. Generally going over the limit even on 1 or 2 categories look like its going to be a bad thing to do. You will drain supplies rapidly and then enter the extreme danger zone where thing going wrong becomes common.

I hope that this system will mean we might be able to run the limit in a category, say grabbing a fighter wing before you have a carrier, early game but will stop you going over your limits quite quickly once the game gets going.
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icepick37

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Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #348 on: April 05, 2012, 07:42:52 PM »

I think my point is basically that whose fault it is doesn't matter. Players will feel like they've been kicked in the gut by the random number generator any time they suffer a low-probability, high-impact event, as opposed to, say, a series of exponentially worse low-impact events.
But it's so easy to avoid them. Just stay under the limits. And the limit is half over what the limits say they are. It's incredibly forgiving (forgiving sounding at the least, wish I could test it). Much more so than hard limits that would not just kick you in the gut, but kick you in the gut repeatedly after you've already hit the ground.
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“I [may] not agree with a word that you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”
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Alex

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Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #349 on: April 05, 2012, 10:35:25 PM »

2. Due to a variety of psychological factors, human beings do a bad job planning for random low-probability, high-impact events. As such, rare but huge accidents, like losing a whole ship, are just not going to be fun. It can be totally justified, it can be realistic, and it can be the player's own fault, but it's never going to make your average player happy. Unless by "ship" you mean "a fighter or two out of a squadron", I'd drop it. There's a really high risk it'll be unfun, even though it's a "consequence" of a player's decision. I'm certainly willing to be proven wrong in playtesting, though...

The events aren't low-probability - they're high-probability. It's not the kind of thing where you forget that you're over capacity, and then 15 minutes later, boom, accident. If it's the critical kind, it's going to happen within a few game days - i.e., less than a minute real-time. So, once you're at around 200%, it's very close to being a hard cap, without the UI nuisance of being one. Between 150 and 200, the accidents are severe enough to let you know that you ought to do something about it, but not on the "lost a ship" level.

There's going to be an occasional case where running the risk of an accident may be worth the payoff, but it won't be something you're doing often, or for long.

In general, I agree with your point - but I don't think the actual implementation is going to have this problem, because it's not actually asking the player to manage the risk of a long-term, low-probability, and high impact event. We'll see how it plays out, though.


Just curious, but how far off do you think character levelling is?  I'm really looking forward to how it affects things.

Sorry - soon(tm) :)
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Gaizokubanou

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Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #350 on: April 05, 2012, 10:43:06 PM »

Just curious, but how far off do you think character levelling is?  I'm really looking forward to how it affects things.

Sorry - soon(tm) :)

Nuuoooooooooooo
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Thana

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Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #351 on: April 06, 2012, 04:24:09 AM »

However, having read the blog, I do understand this is meant to deal with the problem of what if you lose a ship and now you're over the hard limit? I don't know but I guess maybe the player has to choose something to leave behind... its a hard one to work out what to do, but I think that losing a ship will make it unfun... :p

But this is exactly what the mechanic is, with the exception that if you really want to take a chance, the game lets you rather than forcing you to dump cargo. Dumping cargo may be the better choice, especially if you're stepping over the twice the maximum cargo load limit, but the game doesn't force you to do it.

You can dump cargo even in the current version. You simply haven't had any need to until now. From now on, there are going to be times when you may want to. We all knew the cargo limits were going to be implemented at some point, we just didn't know until now that we'd have the option to exceed them if we wish. And so long as we only exceed them by up to 50% (that's not a small thing!), you'll only accrue an upkeep penalty.
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cp252

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Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #352 on: April 06, 2012, 08:21:25 AM »

This will be unfortunate for people who like modding battle size...
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Archduke Astro

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Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #353 on: April 06, 2012, 12:56:49 PM »

This will be unfortunate for people who like modding battle size...

As a strong a devotee of big battles, it's highly unfortunate. :-\ I'm still pondering ways to safely accomplish same once 0.52 goes public, but haven't yet thought of anything solid. [-wistful sigh-]
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Valhalla

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Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #354 on: April 06, 2012, 01:30:12 PM »

This will be unfortunate for people who like modding battle size...

As a strong a devotee of big battles, it's highly unfortunate. :-\ I'm still pondering ways to safely accomplish same once 0.52 goes public, but haven't yet thought of anything solid. [-wistful sigh-]

Ask the King wizard duck of space for some space magic, Thats what im thinking.
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Wyvern

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Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #355 on: April 06, 2012, 01:36:16 PM »

Well, you could always scale down the fleet point costs of everything...
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Wyvern is 100% correct about the math.

Nanostrike

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Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #356 on: April 06, 2012, 02:15:41 PM »

The events aren't low-probability - they're high-probability. It's not the kind of thing where you forget that you're over capacity, and then 15 minutes later, boom, accident. If it's the critical kind, it's going to happen within a few game days - i.e., less than a minute real-time. So, once you're at around 200%, it's very close to being a hard cap, without the UI nuisance of being one. Between 150 and 200, the accidents are severe enough to let you know that you ought to do something about it, but not on the "lost a ship" level.

There's going to be an occasional case where running the risk of an accident may be worth the payoff, but it won't be something you're doing often, or for long.

In general, I agree with your point - but I don't think the actual implementation is going to have this problem, because it's not actually asking the player to manage the risk of a long-term, low-probability, and high impact event. We'll see how it plays out, though.

Is there any way that, instead of hardcoding it in, you could make aspects of it mod-able?  Perhaps make the scripting link to a text file that would have all the probabilities, so people can alter that if they so choose?  I've got nothing against the Accident system, really.

But people are going to want the option to roll around for fun in 200 FP fleets.  If the accidents are hard-coded in, you won't even be able to use your 200 FP fleet in a modded out "Sandbox" mode.  It'd be a pretty big damper.



Also, will accidents affect NPC fleets?
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SkidWonderKid

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Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #357 on: April 06, 2012, 02:30:14 PM »

I wonder, skid, if you'd be this negative if Alex had made Rawcode's changes, and Rawcode had suggested the accident system. It's not an idea I like, but it's not terrible enough to be put down like -that-.

I don't believe I would be as interested in the final product and the vision of this project if Alex had implemented Rawcodes considerations of how to handle storage and inventory limits, instead of the accident system. Rawcode if your reading this please don't take offense to that, thats just my 2 cents. Like I mentioned in my post I believe this product is very original and creative, in regards to the usual game mechanics that are put out these days. Actual that is my greatest interest in this project, the creativity and originality.  

It was not my intention to come across like -that-. Your right I did come across harshly, Rawcode I apologize I got a little carried away.
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Uomoz

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Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #358 on: April 07, 2012, 11:26:50 PM »

But people are going to want the option to -

I don't get the reason why the Developers of a game should give a flying f**k of what the players *want*. They make the game, the game has rules, it's really easy. If Alex and the others don't plan to make that variable moddable (as many other variables that aren't) they won't.

Sorry, don't want to sound like a ***, but I'm pretty *** off about what's happening on the Bioware Social Network. Fans Entitlement is getting a lot of hate from my point of view.
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Qloos

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Re: Blog Posts
« Reply #359 on: April 08, 2012, 12:57:37 AM »

A game should be created as fun in the developers image.  If others enjoy it: so much the better.
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