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Author Topic: Combat Readyness isn't fun..  (Read 151248 times)

Debido

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #195 on: September 23, 2013, 12:52:27 PM »

In a nutshell, what I meant there is that battles are likely to have more even forces on each side, which makes them more challenging. Deploying an overwhelming force every time isn't "interesting". The "interesting decision" I mentioned is how much to deploy. You're measuring the cost of the deployment vs the payoff vs the risk if you don't deploy enough. Ideally, what you want to do - what's most economic - is to deploy the absolute least you can while ensuring you don't take significant losses. So, I really like that as a dynamic; with the optimal way to play also naturally being more challenging, and also letting the player challenge themselves to the degree they're comfortable with.
I'm a  professional game designer, and here what i have to say.
I did a while ago this kind a approach for my Starcraft 2 map(i use sc2 as testing platform for my ideas), heres what i learned:
On start self balancing combat, where mobs and players always mostly equal in strength, was working very good. But as players gained more levels and powers this approach failed hard. Every one likes to see progression in game. From small ship to big fleet of battleships, from week guns to super powerful doomsday weapons. And in the end killing something you could not kill was ultimate reward. Right now CR limits player from using all his(her) fleet in battle and in the end player dosen see a progression. All he(she) see is a handful of frigates fighting all game. Plus burn system makes it impossible to play with big endgame ships, cos they so slow and you cant get in to combat.
 
Lets look at spaz for example:
You start with harmless ship, and you struggle bigger ships to get them for your self, and than you start carnage by killing every bigass ship that was a threat to you not long ago, ultimately you having lots of fun and almost no grief.
Now lets look at starsector now:
You start with harmless ship, and you struggle bigger ships. And when you finally get them your self you realize that you cant use them cos of supply cost + so little number of battles that they can fight(cos of low speed). So you get no fleet to fleet battles and even when you do find that bigass fleet that you cloud catch, you findout that you have to divide those hard earn ships to "play it strategically". So in the end you have few battles with almost no interest cos there are maybe 2-3 ships from your fleet.With gives you lots of pain and grief by managing those scares supply and even more pain waiting to restore CR.

+1 to that statement, I have come to the same conclusion.
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PCCL

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #196 on: September 23, 2013, 12:58:41 PM »

For that I really just blame the current status of the campaign mode, there's really no reason to fight anything you aren't SURE you can win.

Imagine if your own station (in which all your people, several mothballed ships, an autofactory, and your Light Assault Gun UAC are housed) has an onslaught led armada with 2 dominators and various light assets for escort, while you have an Aurora led fleet meant for exploration and light combat. I feel this is how the campaign should be - constantly taking fights against the odds to protect what little you have made for yourself in this sad state of affairs whereas in SPAZ, you can always grind a couple more levels before attempting the next objective (ok, the last part has SOME time pressure, but it's still not that much)

Until then I agree, campaign has little to it right now, you can't do too much interesting things with it. Personally I find missions (in which you are, might I add, fighting against the odds) to be what I'm playing more often than not
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hawkwing

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #197 on: September 23, 2013, 01:21:24 PM »

Have to agree with the OP. Combat readiness is a fun-killing mechanic. I don't necessarily think it should be REMOVED, but it needs some balance tweaks.

Specifically, it should never cost 40% CR to deploy. That is just stupid, and it makes me want to ignore that entire group of "high tech" ships that can only be deployed once a day because they're missing their beauty sleep if they stay out longer.

I feel it would be much less frustrating if CR losses were related to damage taken, instead of simply a cost for turning on weapons. "Higher tech" ships thus take more CR damage when hull damage was taken, instead of being worthless investments.

To give an example, I took on a pirate supply convoy with an apogee, odyssey, and gladius wing. Despite killing all ships that didn't flee and taking no damage, when the engagement ended I had to fight all the ships that had stayed in the reserves. This continued a few times and despite never taking any damage, my odyssey was no longer able to fight and eventually my apogee as well. I had killed 80% of the hostiles in the opposing fleet, with no losses to speak of, yet was forced to retreat because I had nothing left that had the CR to deploy. A victory like that should be encouraged and celebrated, not revoked by the CR system.

I understand the intent behind the changes, they just aren't fun to interact with.

Still love the game as a whole, but CR is a massive pain in the ass for no good reason.
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PCCL

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #198 on: September 23, 2013, 01:27:18 PM »

ok uh...

yeah, that convoy thing is a confirmed bug and fixed for next version, so that's a thing

anything else to speak of?
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Megas

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #199 on: September 23, 2013, 01:32:17 PM »

I kind of tolerate CR because instant repairs at a station are a click away, even though supply use is excessive.  Once that instant repairs goes, CR as it is will be a fun killer.
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Machine

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #200 on: September 23, 2013, 01:49:14 PM »

I tested the new update this weekend, and I have to say that even if I was handed my own ass in my first attempt, I'm liking the CR mechanic.
Before, all I would do was to slowly creep to a small high tech fleet, and then proceed to steam roll anything that crossed my path, starting with the pirates, then independents, the TT and finally the Hegemony system fleet. Every single playthrough was basically the same, just change the ships and factions if I was playing a mod.
With the update I'm still manning a wolf frigate (starting ship), but I still got myself a small high tech fleet (in order I got a medusa, a gemini, a wing of daggers and xiphos, then a second wolf and finally a paragon). Since the first playthrough I've got no problems with supplies, or ship speed issues (a max burn of 5 is more than enough to chase other supply fleets), but more importantly I'm using a different ship composition and usually changing which ship I'm controlling to mantain CR an not just deploying my strongest ships in every battle.

The only negative aspect of the update is the harry mechanic, which is just broken, and unfun; I mean it's just easy mode, since you can easily drag the enemy CR to 0 and then just kill the larger slow supply ships and get their loot with frigates.
I guess making ships able to fight at CR 0 could help with that, even if it meant being severely handicaped (dunno, maybe halving several stats, like flux regen, shield strenght, fire rate, etc), and it might also help in situations where the opposite is true and you're left with only 1 ship and no way to regen CR, avoiding the deathspiral that other players have mentioned.
However I would be more happy by adding some restrictions to harry. I thought maybe adding a temporal decrease to the maximun burn, something like if you chose to harry, the enemy gets its CR reduced but you get your max burn reduced by 1 for a day, if you can still catch the fleeing fleet and chose to harry again, the enmy CR gets reduced again and you get the harry penalties added on top of what you had, so max burn gets reduced by 2 on a 2 day coldown. This way you can only harry the enemy fleet as long as your fleet can catch it. I originally thought to just reset the timer, however that way you could just easily wait the time and then catch it and repeat.
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Gothars

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #201 on: September 23, 2013, 01:58:17 PM »

A lost fight is supposed to give you a speed boost to get away, it's a bug that it does not and will be fixed for the next release. If that will be enough to stop the abuse of the harry option remains to be seen.
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Cosmitz

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #202 on: September 23, 2013, 04:47:11 PM »

It should. I assume it will be a timewaster to harry a 6 burn fleet with a 7 burn fleet over half the sector wasting a lot of supplies in the meanwhile, but you could do that with a very fast 10 burn fleet against a 5-6 burn fleet.
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Sproginator

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #203 on: September 23, 2013, 04:50:39 PM »

In a nutshell, what I meant there is that battles are likely to have more even forces on each side, which makes them more challenging. Deploying an overwhelming force every time isn't "interesting". The "interesting decision" I mentioned is how much to deploy. You're measuring the cost of the deployment vs the payoff vs the risk if you don't deploy enough. Ideally, what you want to do - what's most economic - is to deploy the absolute least you can while ensuring you don't take significant losses. So, I really like that as a dynamic; with the optimal way to play also naturally being more challenging, and also letting the player challenge themselves to the degree they're comfortable with.
I'm a  professional game designer, and here what i have to say.
I did a while ago this kind a approach for my Starcraft 2 map(i use sc2 as testing platform for my ideas), heres what i learned:
On start self balancing combat, where mobs and players always mostly equal in strength, was working very good. But as players gained more levels and powers this approach failed hard. Every one likes to see progression in game. From small ship to big fleet of battleships, from week guns to super powerful doomsday weapons. And in the end killing something you could not kill was ultimate reward. Right now CR limits player from using all his(her) fleet in battle and in the end player dosen see a progression. All he(she) see is a handful of frigates fighting all game. Plus burn system makes it impossible to play with big endgame ships, cos they so slow and you cant get in to combat.
 
Lets look at spaz for example:
You start with harmless ship, and you struggle bigger ships to get them for your self, and than you start carnage by killing every bigass ship that was a threat to you not long ago, ultimately you having lots of fun and almost no grief.
Now lets look at starsector now:
You start with harmless ship, and you struggle bigger ships. And when you finally get them your self you realize that you cant use them cos of supply cost + so little number of battles that they can fight(cos of low speed). So you get no fleet to fleet battles and even when you do find that bigass fleet that you cloud catch, you findout that you have to divide those hard earn ships to "play it strategically". So in the end you have few battles with almost no interest cos there are maybe 2-3 ships from your fleet.With gives you lots of pain and grief by managing those scares supply and even more pain waiting to restore CR.

Having to really agree here. I just want to fly around in my Odyssey,but now I have to field an Atlas to keep up supplies, which causes the smaller fleets to run, and being so damn slow I can't catch them, and when I do they just escape. Every time without fail.

I think it should be optional. Seriously.....
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Megas

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #204 on: September 23, 2013, 05:02:30 PM »

I am in the same boat as Sproginator, and there are not enough tugs for both capital ships.  I also need a Hyperion to reap my XP and loot in pursuit battles, and a wing of fighters to justify taking an Odyssey over a Paragon.

EDIT - Back in 0.54, it was fun flying a fleet consisting of an Odyssey and 22 FPs worth of fighters.  This is not possible in 0.6a, due to CR and supplies drain.
« Last Edit: September 23, 2013, 05:04:48 PM by Megas »
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Fireball14

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #205 on: September 23, 2013, 05:05:51 PM »

Ok i looked thru forum again and analyzed situation about CR on community responses.

It seams that those who have played starsector a long time, and board with it, or a hardcore players - mostly like CR system, and those who are new to this game or a softcore player (like me) dose not like this system.

Now here is solution to a problem:
Make CR a game option for new games. Name it hard difficulty or whatever you like. So those who like challenge can go ahead a take some.

On other hand for normal games replace this system with old one, where crew XP had meaning. Or at least make it always 50% CR no les no more. And call it normal mode (or easy - don't care really i just wanna have fun, not to survive).

As for low burn on big ships i have an idea how to fix it. Make Outpost rideable, big heavy armored stations with huge laser guns(with mapwide range and firepower to shot your BS in one shoot but very slow fire rate) and fleet call in from time to time. So even if you deploy a lot of BSs you would still have a hard time. Outpost wont run from your BS armada and you ultimately will have a boss fights for endgame with huge loot. (A lot of fun for softcore players). Still won't fix ultimate endgame, but at least will generate a lot of challenge for softcore and hardcore players, by adding in game just one unit.
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ValkyriaL

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #206 on: September 23, 2013, 05:08:13 PM »

There are mods that add bosses for those that want further challenge. ::)
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Andy H.K.

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #207 on: September 23, 2013, 05:18:14 PM »


I'm a  professional game designer, and here what i have to say.
I did a while ago this kind a approach for my Starcraft 2 map(i use sc2 as testing platform for my ideas), heres what i learned:
On start self balancing combat, where mobs and players always mostly equal in strength, was working very good. But as players gained more levels and powers this approach failed hard. Every one likes to see progression in game. From small ship to big fleet of battleships, from week guns to super powerful doomsday weapons. And in the end killing something you could not kill was ultimate reward. Right now CR limits player from using all his(her) fleet in battle and in the end player dosen see a progression. All he(she) see is a handful of frigates fighting all game. Plus burn system makes it impossible to play with big endgame ships, cos they so slow and you cant get in to combat.
 
Lets look at spaz for example:
You start with harmless ship, and you struggle bigger ships to get them for your self, and than you start carnage by killing every bigass ship that was a threat to you not long ago, ultimately you having lots of fun and almost no grief.
Now lets look at starsector now:
You start with harmless ship, and you struggle bigger ships. And when you finally get them your self you realize that you cant use them cos of supply cost + so little number of battles that they can fight(cos of low speed). So you get no fleet to fleet battles and even when you do find that bigass fleet that you cloud catch, you findout that you have to divide those hard earn ships to "play it strategically". So in the end you have few battles with almost no interest cos there are maybe 2-3 ships from your fleet.With gives you lots of pain and grief by managing those scares supply and even more pain waiting to restore CR.
The way I see it, taking SPAZ as example once again, when you finally get to fly larger ships, there's little to no incentive/reason to fly smaller ship ever... it almost felt like a waste of resource if you do not fill the ship slot with the biggest ship it allows. So, you just grind so you can get enough Righthook/Hammerhead blueprints so you're finally even, and never look back... not to mention there's little to no cost in losing a ship, let alone maintenance.

Despite all the limitation frigates received from the CR mechanics, they remains viable or even preferred in certain situation, even in the late game. As for larger ships..... maybe it's due to my experience with EVE online, but I've already accepted the notion that "you don't fly what you can't afford to lose/support/maintain". Buying a capital ship with your life's saving is just, to me, poor decision-making on the player's part - knowledgeable or not, the player have to face the consequence.

As for the deployment limitation during combat, right now I believe the only "hard" limit is the deployment size which you can adjust in settings. As for the "you have to divide those hard earn ships to play it strategically" part, I think it's just the mental block imposed by the players themselves - In fact, going all out to firmly secure a victory is as valid as deploying less then needed to minimize risk. These are all options, it's all up to the player to guage the risk & cost vs reward, and then the player get to see what their decision lead to, and handle the consequence. To me, this is the kind of "fun" I could have with the new CR mechanics.
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Fireball14

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #208 on: September 23, 2013, 05:43:56 PM »

There are mods that add bosses for those that want further challenge. ::)
I know and i think il make one my self in some time, but still it is a solution to end game problem.

Added:
I thought about your words about mods and came up with this:
http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=6898.0
GL & HF  ;D
« Last Edit: September 23, 2013, 08:03:22 PM by Fireball14 »
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ciago92

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Re: Combat Readyness isn't fun..
« Reply #209 on: September 23, 2013, 08:24:12 PM »

There are mods that add bosses for those that want further challenge. ::)
I know and i think il make one my self in some time, but still it is a solution to end game problem.

Added:
I thought about your words about mods and came up with this:
http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=6898.0
GL & HF  ;D

I actually rather like the idea. Maybe put it under a new leadership skill since no one likes that tree? I'd also like to see it cost (A LOT) more on bigger ships since there's a lot lot lot more crew to replace. Other than that tho, I may have just found a new permanent mod to play with, even if I only use it on a couple ships
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