I feel like this game has too much correct play.
Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2012 2:43 am
What makes this game interesting is the random events. Let's take one of events that you can get early in the game, finding a planet with an unknown intelligent life.
You can either:
Try to communicate.
Take some of them onto your ship.
What an interesting choice! Could you get a crewmember if you take one onto your ship? Learn something? Maybe just make some scrap? Trying to communicate leads to a couple cool things, however...
If you've read spoilers, you'd know that there is never a reason to pick the latter choice. At best, you take no damage, at worst, you take crew loss. There's not actually a *choice* here, it's entirely a "Have you had your hand burned by this before?", which... discourages experimenting. It discourages you from exploring the one interesting thing this game has going for it. There's pretty much a correct option and an incorrect option for each one, and it comes down to playing the game a bunch to just remember them, or referencing a spoiler. It feels like I could very, very easily code a bot in python to win the game fairly often, just by picking the correct outcome, if combat wasn't real-time.
I think a good change would be to give *every* action a positive outcome, even if it comes with a negative. Even if the negative way outweighs the positive. (I'd consider a ship to ship fight a positive outcome, given the reward for winning). Something like, for the above, or for the giant arachnids, the surviving crew gets some combat experience. For the event that loses you a crew member to disease, if you get that event later, you get a blue option where your crew's immune system is stronger, etc. It would encourage experimentation (even if you take a net loss, you at least aren't just burned for it.). Combine this with choosing what crew members you lose, as I've seen suggested elsewhere, and even losing a crew member could be a small net gain in some odd situations.
(I also think that blue options always being the best is a bit... eeeeh, but those you at least have to somewhat earn)
Another example: There is never a reason to destroy a ship as opposed to boarding it. It's the correct play to get a teleporter as soon as you can, as it'll more than pay for itself. It's the correct play to board every ship and win via boarding action in every situation. You get more scrap, you get more misc stuff, you sometimes even get items or crew. It's even easier than just straight ship to ship combat. An indicator of a good run is going to be an early teleporter. How... lame, really. Now, this I don't have quite as much of a suggested fix for that works with balance, but more scrap and less misc items from destroying a ship and then more misc items and less scrap from boarded ships seems sensible.
You can either:
Try to communicate.
Take some of them onto your ship.
What an interesting choice! Could you get a crewmember if you take one onto your ship? Learn something? Maybe just make some scrap? Trying to communicate leads to a couple cool things, however...
If you've read spoilers, you'd know that there is never a reason to pick the latter choice. At best, you take no damage, at worst, you take crew loss. There's not actually a *choice* here, it's entirely a "Have you had your hand burned by this before?", which... discourages experimenting. It discourages you from exploring the one interesting thing this game has going for it. There's pretty much a correct option and an incorrect option for each one, and it comes down to playing the game a bunch to just remember them, or referencing a spoiler. It feels like I could very, very easily code a bot in python to win the game fairly often, just by picking the correct outcome, if combat wasn't real-time.
I think a good change would be to give *every* action a positive outcome, even if it comes with a negative. Even if the negative way outweighs the positive. (I'd consider a ship to ship fight a positive outcome, given the reward for winning). Something like, for the above, or for the giant arachnids, the surviving crew gets some combat experience. For the event that loses you a crew member to disease, if you get that event later, you get a blue option where your crew's immune system is stronger, etc. It would encourage experimentation (even if you take a net loss, you at least aren't just burned for it.). Combine this with choosing what crew members you lose, as I've seen suggested elsewhere, and even losing a crew member could be a small net gain in some odd situations.
(I also think that blue options always being the best is a bit... eeeeh, but those you at least have to somewhat earn)
Another example: There is never a reason to destroy a ship as opposed to boarding it. It's the correct play to get a teleporter as soon as you can, as it'll more than pay for itself. It's the correct play to board every ship and win via boarding action in every situation. You get more scrap, you get more misc stuff, you sometimes even get items or crew. It's even easier than just straight ship to ship combat. An indicator of a good run is going to be an early teleporter. How... lame, really. Now, this I don't have quite as much of a suggested fix for that works with balance, but more scrap and less misc items from destroying a ship and then more misc items and less scrap from boarded ships seems sensible.
) If I happen to get that event early on, it's generally not so bad. However, when I have less than six crew, and each of them have mastery of at least one skill, I don't feel so optimistic about that particular risk.