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[dmaiski]

[pulls up soapbox]

we all know that in Dwarf Fortress(DF), FTL, and many similar games Losing == FUN!, now in my experience, and from watching others, it starsector(SS) lacks this property. Its symptom is save scumming battles till you win without losing any ships, and a repetitive end game.

to tackle a simpler problem i will discuss the end game first. In the end game, you invariably have a very large fleet, and this fleet is min/maxed to avoid losing ships, the main issue with this leeds on to the first symptom, losing your ships (by any means) does not feel good.

Now the question to ask is simple: "Why does losing ships in starsector not feel fun?"

Counterintuitively the simple answer of "because you lose a ship" is actually incorrect. In dwarf fortress(best example) when you lose your dwarfs, armies rampage through your fortress, or unfortunate accidents leave large parts of it uninhabitable, you still continue playing. You try to eek out an existence on what you have left, and aim for a glorious victory. (and remember DF is MUCH less forgiving than SS)

The more complex answer, and the one i believe to be correct, is "controll". In DF, FTL, and other games where losing == FUN!, you have control over everything that could result in "FUN!" so (in theory) you can prevent it, and when you inevitably lose, you feel that it was entirely your fault. interestingly this is essential to making losing fun, and what SS lacks.

In starsector when you lose, you can't with any confidence say that it was "your" fault that you lost, the causative agent of your loss are obviously AI, engine level problems (such as 1 speed after battle, ect...), and lack of any ability to "influence" the outcome of the battle.

now how do you fix this issue, and is it possible to fix?

the simplest way to do this would be to give the player more control, something like an RTS level command system (to replace "command points" which noone really uses)

the next layer would require variable AI's the ability to tell your ship "play defensively" or "play aggressively" would go a long way to remedy this issue

the final layer of this would be a more predictable AI (not "smarter")
An AI that will consistently do what you expect it to do is vital to making the player feel in "controll" of the action, it does not need to be particularly smart(most unit AI in RTS games are verry stupid), but it needs to be able to follow orders in a reliable manner.
(for example, currently if you tell the vanilla AI to retreat, and it is in combat, it wont... same thing for move orders, and may other actions)

these three changes would go a significant way to giving the player "control" in battle, and hopefully make the game more FUN!

[steps off soapbox]

TL:DR -- make losing FUN! and fix the command point issue

[hydremajor]

and as a counter measure for peoples who say it was something they liked as is then make it toggleable

[Tecrys]

I'm totally with you, Dmaiski!

Another way to fix this would be to add some better feedback of your allies because sometimes things happen off screen and you don't have time to react to it.
Something like allied ships saying that they're outnumbered or under heavy attack, requesting help and so on. Like that you would have some more time to switch to tactical view and change/adjust commands or come to help yourself.

In the end it would probably come down to a mix of your suggestion and this communication with your allies i guess.

I hope you get what I'm trying to say here

[Megas]

The reason "Losing != FUN!" is because I want to win.  Winning IS fun.  I play to win.  Losing hurts!  Losing is what causes people to rage quit and possibly throw their controllers through the screen.

Seeing "Losing is fun" advertised for Dwarf Fortress is the reason I have not played the game yet.  I play to win, or at least survive as long as possible in an unwinnable arcade game to get the highest score for initials.

That said, in games like Dragon's Lair, where I have a few lives to spare, I have purposely sent Dirk to his death just to watch him die.  Similarly, in games like Zork, I save the game, do stupid things, and reload.

[TJJ]

While I agree with you regarding reliable AI behaviour, I don't think a lack of control is what makes losing 'unfun'.

I think it simply boils down to is how punishing defeat is.
Atm losing ships is bad; losing battles is catastrophic.

Consequently, as you rightly pointed out, this encourages the player to mitigate risk at every opportunity.
This takes many forms:
- building tanky fleets (avoiding fragile destroyers in favour of more durable capital ships)
- minimizing dependence upon unreliable AI
- avoiding battle unless you have overwhelming force.

The problem is that the most fun in SS is had from close-fought engagements, between a mixture of ship classes.
I'm pretty sure it's for these reasons that I find SS's stand-alone missions far more enjoyable than the campaign.

In this regard, a strong parallel can be drawn between Starsector & Total War.
The most enjoyable tactical battles in Total War are the closely contested pyrrhic victories/defeats. However at the strategic level these battles are seldom good for you, as they're so costly.
Total War does compensate you somewhat:
- units gain veterancy
- generals gain experience & traits.
- army upkeep mechanic soft caps your army size, and means that losing an army also frees you of its upkeep cost, allowing you to more quickly replenish the losses.

As to solutions....
- Defeat in general needs to be less catastrophically bad
- Trivial battles need to give trivial rewards, to discourage boring farming play.
- Non-trivial battles need to give greater rewards, and access to unique context sensitive traits/unlocks.

In particular I think attention should be paid to the way that TW Rome & Medieval 2 gave unique traits to generals according to their victories against certain enemies, and in certain terrains.
If levelling up your character in Starsector was a direct product of your actions, rather than the bland skill tree we have at the moment, I think character development would be much more interesting & dynamic.

For example:
A good battle (not necessarily a victory) while fielding a high tech, frigate focussed fleet, inside a nebula, would give you a chance at appropriately* related skill boons. (*high tech + frigate + nebula)

I hope this is the direction that Alex decides to take the 'Officers' mechanic.

[Debido]

I agree that as you've pointed out the aspect is that with FTL, once you die, you respawn arcade style, and you unlock and get rewards by exploring and going through FTL in different ways.

In Starsector, you grind and you scrape for every last credit, but if you are defeated it is often going to be horrifically and you can lose several an hours worth of credits and ships in one go, with little incentive other than a 'you have leveled up' which is cold comfort for the Odyssey or Paragon you lost.

You can then be stuck *again* having to grind and scrape your way up from the bottom again which can take some time.

Eventually defeat is not so bad if you have ships stored in the abandoned base...but, yeah.

So in that respect it's not very motivating to lose your fleet in combat.

[Uomoz]

I actually believe that the player has way too much control. The fact that losses are heavy, and you have to minimize them, is directly related to the fact that you have 100% choice over the fights you want to take, like boring retreat battles, that are the best way to make moneyz. Cool hard victories are a direct consequence of you and your fleet pulling off a victory against unfavorable and unwanted odds like in a last stand. All the missions works well and are pretty cool because they have a clear and *forced upon the player* objective, and are usually kind of a close call.

I believe that when the campaign will feature hard choices like defend the outpost against unfavorable odds, even losing ships will be *FUN* considering the progression granted by the successful defense.

I believe that the game loop (get stuff - spend stuff) is already pretty solid, now the campaign needs some *forced* objectives.

[dmaiski]

on the subject of "forced" objectives:

"forced" objectives are inherent in all strategy games, but whether they are "FUN" is wholly dependent on how they are set up

take for example a game with episodic battles that you "can't" avoid (i can't actually think of any outside RTS tutorial/early RTS campaigns)
there is no decisions for the player to make, they must attack the enemy head on to win

The great examples (purely in the realm of RTS/civ games), they have multiple paths to solve a problem : you have an army, an enemy army is fortified on a hill, to win you can just as easily walk around the enemy army (totally avoiding them), besiege the base (starve them out), use diplomacy, pound it with artillery, harras, raid, crush them economically without ever firing a single shot, ect...

the "good" examples of this you can use artillery, and draw your enemy out so that they can be sniped, or flank them and destroy the line that way, or you can harass and repair cycle until you win or... you get the picture, there are more ways than one to solve the problem
(in SS this is impossible... the UI and the AI simply do not support tactics)


in the "bad" example you are forced to ram your army head on into the enemy army with no strategy whatsoever (and minimal tactics)
(this is what SS currently is from a strategy point of view)


SS falls heavily into the "bad" side of staged battle, it is why your aim in any battle is to "out-tank" your enemy rather than "out-smart".

The key to making losses “acceptable” is to give the player the tools to decide what losses they want to take, and how they will go about taking them, like the sacrificial pawn trades in chess, you do not want to lose a pawn, but to win you must for the greater good. The death of the “pawn” has meaning.

In SS the death of a “pawn” is usually senseless and out of your control, thus losing the pawn feels like a loss of control for the player, and makes the gameplay experience “bad”


TL:DR -- i am not arguing against the "combat model" of SS, but the strategic value, and the potential meaningfull choices players can make in(and outside) battle
(curently verry little to none can be made, and the AI does not effectively execute the choices that are made)


something to look at would actually be the "Mount & Blade" series

Spoiler

its closer to the strategic premise (or lack there of) that SS uses
but it has several key differences
1) it is purely a 1st person combat simulator, there is no real importance placed on the "fleet"
2) it does not give "detailed" control to the player, only a general attack/retreat
3) units are disposable, if you lose half your army, it won't take you hours to rebuild it, all you need is the nearest town
4) risk is directly proportional to reward, you take on a late game army and win-> you get enough gear to build a new army of that class
5) the AI in warband (generally) does not QWOP, it is limited, but on par with the player character's level of ability with the same gear

[close]

[FasterThanSleepyfish]

I agree with the more fun part. I would like to see my fleet bunching together when they are surrounded and overwhelmed, watching them fall, one by one. Radio chatter would be nice, as the various ships in your fleet would each have character through maybe four different voices per ship personality

-Audio death cries over the comms when ships are really badly hurt, i.e.
     -Cowardly ships go: "No... no... nooo!"
     -Agressive ships say: "*insert epic quote*"
     -Steady ships say: "We shall stand fast in the face of danger!"
     -ect...

But, I doubt myself due to the price of good voice acting and the relative silence of the rest of the game. Having a voice say "Thank you for your purchase" or something after you buy some Infernium fuel might be a little awkward IMO. (Maybe a settings would disable those voices in exchange for the classic radio static?)

[Alex]

(DF gives you control over everything? I have to disagree. Also, I don't think "fairness" is a way towards making losing fun. Look at Starcraft 2 - it's always fair, but it's generally not fun to lose.)

I think it makes sense to look at this in terms of the narrative that the player is building in their head as they play. Losing is fun when it's part of creating that story. This requires:

1) Context (reasons and consequences) for your actions. Otherwise, there's no narrative to begin with.
2) The game to be difficult enough that "losing" is always on your radar, so that you can readily incorporate it into the narrative instead of being blindsided by it.
3) Being unable to savescum easily, so that your first reaction is to incorporate what happened into the narrative instead of wondering whether you should reload.

Roguelikes, for example, are usually pretty light on context, but have the other two in abundance. DF has all three, and is IMO the quintessential "losing is fun" game.

I probably don't need to say that in its current endgame, Starsector doesn't have much context or difficulty. Incidentally, I think that's part of what makes the early game more fun - it's more difficult and hardscrabble, and you get more of a connection with the game because of that.

[Uomoz]

I think that's part of what makes the early game more fun - it's more difficult and hardscrabble, and you get more of a connection with the game because of that.

This: the driving concept in current UsS incarnation

[Tecrys]

Alex and Uomoz, in retrospective I remember myself savescumming a lot in vanilla but as I played UsS which gives a little more context then current vanilla I didn't do that, I just continued to fight for my faction (Shadowyards at that time).

That is kinda enough evidence for me to agree with both of you.

Edit: Some of the features and fixes people have mentioned here would still be nice to see, some of which will come eventually as far as I know.

[Alex]

This: the driving concept in current UsS incarnation

Funny, I almost mentioned UsS as an example

Edit: Some of the features and fixes people have mentioned here would still be nice to see, some of which will come eventually as far as I know.

Yeah, for sure. I think a lot of it comes down to needing to have context etc before doing finer-grained balancing, though. Just can't do it now. Well, could, but would have to redo it completely at some point.

[Ordanen]

The most interesting moments in SS for me, is when I get my ass beat in a really bad fight, have nearly nothing left and go ''Meh, why not'', so I must disagree that losing isn't fun. For the most part.

[JDCollie]

I'm all for doing away with command points. At the moment, I'm hesitant to bring in allied forces because I feel like there is very little I can do to command them, and as a result, my strategy generally revolves around finding a very good flagship and then murdering smaller fleets with my solo behemoth. This is not my ideal situation, but the combination of catastrophic repair costs and suicidal AI mean that I am not likely to bring in my other ships because I know they're going to cost me far more than they will help in the long run.



As for Losing = FUN! in DF, part of the difference is that you start in Dwarf Fortress knowing full well that you will not survive. You literally cannot win because there is no victory condition. There are so many things you must manage that even equilibrium is almost unattainable, and unlike Starsector, you very much can (and will) die. Perhaps that is the difference; there is an expectation of success in Starsector, an idea that you can somehow attain victory. Losing battles is losing progress toward your goal, whereas in DF, losing battles is simply part of the inevitable demise you already know is on its way.


Also, there is something glorious in seeing your legendary hammerdwarf hit a hobgoblin's in the face with such force that the decapitated head actually kills the nearby dwarven recuit it strikes.