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Author Topic: Raise the level cap to 20  (Read 2089 times)

BigBrainEnergy

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Raise the level cap to 20
« on: May 22, 2023, 04:11:55 PM »

Some people feel like combat skills are inferior to fleet skills, others think they're mandatory, but the one thing everyone seems to agree on lately is complaining about the skill system. Just raise the level cap to 20 and let us have 4 capstones. Problem solved! There's still plenty of room for build variety and there's no way to get a sneaky 5 capstones, so I can't think of any real downsides. I sincerely doubt going 10 leadership will be better than 5 combat/5 leadership, and vice versa.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Raise the level cap to 20
« Reply #1 on: May 22, 2023, 04:38:01 PM »

Or alternatively make the level cap an adjustable difficulty setting. Raising it does make the game considerably easier which is not necessarily what everyone wants.
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Amoebka

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Re: Raise the level cap to 20
« Reply #2 on: May 22, 2023, 06:55:16 PM »

I think the magic number is 16, actually. Lets you grab 3 keystones + 1 most important skill from the other tree; 4 capstones if they are from only 2 aptitudes; or grab a 6'th skill in a tree without giving up an entire keystone for it.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Raise the level cap to 20
« Reply #3 on: May 22, 2023, 08:30:09 PM »

I think the magic number is 16, actually. Lets you grab 3 keystones + 1 most important skill from the other tree; 4 capstones if they are from only 2 aptitudes; or grab a 6'th skill in a tree without giving up an entire keystone for it.
I like 17 because ordinance expertise requires two extra points if I am doing nothing else in industry, but I agree with this logic in general, one or two extra skill points helps smooth over a decent number of issues.
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Lawrence Master-blaster

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Re: Raise the level cap to 20
« Reply #4 on: May 22, 2023, 09:02:37 PM »

I think that's a really bad idea because the current no-flagship skill balance is almost perfect. You can't have everything and have to make some hard choices which skills to get. I know from experience(I once unlocked the level cap just to see how it's like) that even only 2-3 more skillpoints basically remove all that choice from the game. Going all the way up to 20, well... at that point you no longer need to plan for a fleet at all, you're just getting everything you want without any tradeoffs whatsoever.

If flagship playstyle needs to be buffed, give the player extra skillpoints that can ONLY be spent on the combat tree, otherwise you're fixing one playstyle but ruining the other.
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BigBrainEnergy

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Re: Raise the level cap to 20
« Reply #5 on: May 23, 2023, 05:31:00 AM »

If flagship playstyle needs to be buffed, give the player extra skillpoints that can ONLY be spent on the combat tree, otherwise you're fixing one playstyle but ruining the other.

Except... it doesn't need to be buffed. Going into the combat tree is fairly strong.
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Lawrence Master-blaster

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Re: Raise the level cap to 20
« Reply #6 on: May 23, 2023, 05:43:44 AM »

Well, a lot of people disagree with that. I still had the other thread about nerfing Leadership on my mind so that was my "conclusion" I guess.
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BigBrainEnergy

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Re: Raise the level cap to 20
« Reply #7 on: May 23, 2023, 05:53:01 AM »

Well, a lot of people disagree with that. I still had the other thread about nerfing Leadership on my mind so that was my "conclusion" I guess.

Right but lots of people agree that it's not underpowered. It seems like people are just going into the same skill trees every time and complaining that the ones they don't use are broken somehow, but since different people prioritize different skills it really feels like people are just upset about needing to choose at all.
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SCC

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Re: Raise the level cap to 20
« Reply #8 on: May 23, 2023, 06:13:29 AM »

I don't know if we'll get to 20 skill points, but Alex has previously stated a desire to add some non-XP bar ways of gaining skill points (well, more like a skill point, maybe two). I wonder when will he get around to it.

Megas

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Re: Raise the level cap to 20
« Reply #9 on: May 23, 2023, 07:50:51 AM »

The problem is Leadership is mandatory, pick which of the other three trees to dump.  If player wants the other three trees but no Leadership instead, then the only other option left that might compete with Leadership builds is Ziggurat with Omega weapons cheese.
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Grievous69

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Re: Raise the level cap to 20
« Reply #10 on: May 23, 2023, 07:59:39 AM »

Leadership is definitely not mandatory. I have played many runs with little to no investment there. I realize that's not the popular or meta way of playing but I don't care. "Mandatory" is an overreaction.
« Last Edit: May 23, 2023, 08:25:13 AM by Grievous69 »
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Princess_of_Evil

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Re: Raise the level cap to 20
« Reply #11 on: May 23, 2023, 08:07:26 AM »

And here i play dumping all my early points into Industry.
In my experience, there are weak-ish skills, but not entire unbalanced trees.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Raise the level cap to 20
« Reply #12 on: May 23, 2023, 11:17:56 AM »

I frequently take industry skills early game while exploring just to trivialize the logistics aspect (and sometimes I grab hull restoration to get free d-mod removal while money is not unlimited), and then once I hit max level and have a good colony running, I respec out of industry, although sometimes I keep ordinance expertise. Honestly, I feel like industry is fine that way, since the skills are useful, even if not in the end-game as much.

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Realm

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Re: Raise the level cap to 20
« Reply #13 on: May 23, 2023, 11:49:02 AM »

Some alternative sources of skill points would be interesting, but I don't really think the level cap needs adjustment. It's a bit strict because it wants you to really think about what you're planning to build toward, and to try and offer the options as equally compelling. Plus, it's already one of the easiest things for a player to tweak as well, simply changing one number in a settings file.

If the skill/leveling system overall had another rework though, I could see the cap getting changed again.
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KDR_11k

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Re: Raise the level cap to 20
« Reply #14 on: May 23, 2023, 04:04:57 PM »

And here i play dumping all my early points into Industry.
In my experience, there are weak-ish skills, but not entire unbalanced trees.
Also some are more for the early game, some for the later game. E.g. additional storage is super useful when you're starting out and can't easily bring more freight capacity but later on the bonus from that skill becomes less important.
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