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

Author Topic: What player group is this game aimed at?  (Read 2442 times)

ValkyriaL

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What player group is this game aimed at?
« on: December 23, 2013, 05:58:43 PM »

Lately we have been having a lot of threads about CR and how hard the game is and how this sucks and how that sucks and yadayadayada.

So i thought i might just throw it out there and ask one simple question Alex, what group of gamers is Starsector aimed at? hardcore gamers? or casual gamers? Or perhaps both? :-\

Because i feel that i am a hardcore player, i am very confident that I and probably a few others around here will be able to take anything you throw at us, however, this obviously doesn't apply to everybody, we do have some people that simply suck and cannot be arsed to learn or put any time into the game, and of course the people that simply do not have any time to put into the game, because of daily life things such as jobs/school, family etc, or players that simply wants to take it easy and roll around and have a good time.

So, whose opinion matters the most to you? or perhaps you have something planned ahead of time that will make the game fair and playable for both parts? ???

Just curious, don't mean to offend anybody with this. :)
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Annex

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Re: What player group is this game aimed at?
« Reply #1 on: December 23, 2013, 06:26:10 PM »

The problem is the game isnt hard in the right places. Combat should be hard, or at least scale in difficulty. Everything else like the introduction, controls, mechanics etc should be easy. To use an analogy, it should be easy to wear armor and swing a sword, but it should be hard to kill a dragon. Instead the game has it backwards: the actual combat once you work out the controls/mechanics is really easy, and it shouldnt be.
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BillyRueben

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Re: What player group is this game aimed at?
« Reply #2 on: December 23, 2013, 07:00:21 PM »

nstead the game has it backwards: the actual combat once you work out the controls/mechanics is really easy, and it shouldnt be.

That's what CR is there for: making the combat difficult. Hitting the "Deploy All" button and winning is usually pretty easy. Choosing the right amount of forces to enhance efficiency while giving yourself the best odds can be a lot more challenging. That challenge amplified by the punishment for failing to do so properly.
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Alex

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Re: What player group is this game aimed at?
« Reply #3 on: December 23, 2013, 10:04:15 PM »

@ValkyriaL: Probably somewhere in the middle.

Right now it's too much on the hardcore side of things, but I think a lot of that will be changed by a campaign tutorial. CR in particular is I think a great argument for that. It's hardly troublesome at all once you figure out how it works (the game is arguably much easier in .6 than in the previous version), but the game doesn't help you all that much in figuring it out. Aside from the tooltips, but those are pretty dense and it's a lot to take in all at once.
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VerifiedN

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Re: What player group is this game aimed at?
« Reply #4 on: December 24, 2013, 04:03:03 AM »

I agree that it's more of a tutorial than difficulty problem.

Though that said, some difficulty settings on starting a new game wouldn't go amiss (such as the option to toggle off some mechanics; malfunctions or ships being not combat ready at very low CR for example).
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Debido

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Re: What player group is this game aimed at?
« Reply #5 on: December 24, 2013, 06:31:25 AM »

Most games should be aiming to satisfy all target markets to achieve a commercially viable product. At the moment there is no scaling other than full and half damage, meanwhile there are many other variables that can be tuned to achieve satisfaction across the target markets. These variables include:
  • Number of sectors
  • Numbers of enemies per sector
  • Variance in enemy strength per sector
  • Variance in enemy fleet speed
  • Aggressiveness of enemy AI
  • Usage of advanced tactics by enemy AI
  • Efficiency scaling of supply usage
  • Supply usage
  • CR per deployment
  • XP earned per battle
  • Credit earned per battle
  • Cost of supplies/weapons/ships

I suggest to Alex to try to achieve market saturation in each segment to ensure a viable future for Fractal Softworks and the Starsector franchise.

Adding tutorials to the product will certainly give better presentation to the gamer and engage them to play it for longer and enjoy all that it has to offer.
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