But Franklyn, what value does such a leveling system bring to the game? I argue that there is very minimal value in that. All of it can be accomplished through tech trees. Is it even worth coding such a system when the same thing can be accomplished through the tech tree?
I don't want levels at all. Just skills I agree all it gives is a sense of personal development and individualization of the player. This can be done via tech but to me that just feels artificial. I believe that the tech tree needs to be changed to a research system. I hope a skill system can be added for personal growth but that is just a stretch goal to me. I don't want a level base lock out system. Nor do I want a level base system that makes one player vastly better than another.
I reached 15th level going through the Abandoned Mine. The mine awarded me two Epic Rocket Launchers at the same level I can learn to make the normal ones. I understand dragging out the the levels to make a rocket launcher, but the current loot table might be defeating that effort. The mine is quite doable with a T2 Pistol, the Pulse Rifle awarded by the "Not Afraid of the Dark (Akua)" mission, and a Sniper Rifle available to you at level 10.
Too many posts to read through, so if I say something already said then see this as an agree. One key thing is to have options, preferable for some things without fiddling with YAML and such. Also for some mechanics SP and MP should probably be treated differently. I play SP for now. Remove the tech tree and XP, for me it just adds pointless grinding. You still need to get resources to build stuff. I do not want a RPG system to improve your character for this game. Do it by your own gaming skills to build and understand the mechanics (POI's and NPC's and so on). What loot you can find and what to buy from Traders can be controlled by difficulty settings, also placement of ores and whatever. That way forcing you to leave the starter area (off planet, off orbit, off solar system) if to evolve and discover new stuff and crafting possibilities. Can have to do some (repeatable ?) Solo Missions to obtain some crafting recipes and/or special parts (weapon upgrades), optional. A BA/CV constructor could have even more "modules", not just large and advanced. If you start travel and explore, it should get harder to fight "Aliens" and POI's and so on, to obtain stuff needed to survive in increasingly tougher areas. The Patrol Vessel and drones and such can also be used to shake up any home comfy. Maybe give some warnings "Some hostile faction are hunting you.", with some indications on when and what you need to fight them, or try flee (for a short time). Know others have suggested more weather/disaster happenings. Maybe you then have to find some way to make shields or whatever to reduce damage, even not safe underground or in a vessel (EMP kind of effects possible too).
I think the crafting system which is now closely associated with the character boost is not entirely true. In General, increasing the level need to be tied to something else. For example, the characteristics of the character. Maybe not so much characteristics, how many ability-enhancing characteristics and the ability to use that either. And Kraft to do a free, depending on the number of produced item.
The current XP gating system should be removed in favor of a resource-based progression. All the current XP system currently does is forcing the player to grind xp in some completely unrealistic way and most of the time by simply exploiting bugs. "So how did you learn to build these impressive turrets?" "Well, I harvested 24938 oranges." It would sound a lot better if the answer was "I found some rare minerals" or "I conquered that alien base and they had a few spare turrets stored away" Minecraft demonstrates very well how a resource-based progression can work great, and it feels a lot more natural that way. Using an XP system to select certain special perks to support your way of playing the game sounds good to me. I'd like to have a system where I have a selection of perks that change the game noticeably for me that allows me to invest in a broad selection of minor bonuses or focus on specific things if I want to. I.E. let's say I get up to 15 points total for perks till max level. There is a perk that adds 20% run speed per level, but the amount of points per level increase significantly. 1 pt for L1, 2 pt for L2 and so on, so boosting it to L5 would cost me a total of all my 15 points spent, but then I run at twice the normal speed. So I can choose to get the maximum speed, but then I have nothing else. Or I can choose to get only like L3, which then leaves me (4+5=) 9 points to spent on other perks like lower food consumption, increased armor, higher uncover radius on map, ...
Resources are great for a being used as a gate on what you can build. In this game you as the character don't build anything. How does a resource system prevent a constructor from building a turret. A research system at lest explains how you can program the constructor to make new ite ms. You need to be carful with perks. This is especially so in a PvP game. Double speed may be helpful in SP but in PvP it could be game breaking. As you stated realism, I would also be warry of perks that increase armor, damage, or most combat abilities. How does one get more armor from xp, this is an armor upgrade. How does do more damage from xp, this is based on your weapon. Personally instead of a xp/level system I would rather have a character creation system. This would be a one time selection with no progression. Choose you profession, this alters your starting gear. This also changes the cost of your skill selections, this does not give you special abilities or lock you out of anything Choose your skills, these you give you minor advantages in the areas you know. This does not stop you from doing everything else. A skill like running may make your stamina drop slower when sprinting. Choose your traits/flaws These would be genetic traits like better eye sight or flaws like asematic where you can't sprint as long. Flaw may give you addition creation points.
In a very simple way: you need to put the resources into the constructor. Try creating a new world, then immediately build an artillery cannon. Doesn't work. Totally agree, but numbers are the easiest to change. So if 100% speed is too much, make it 50 or 25 or scap it all together. This is a fictional game, so for every perk someone can think of a "reasonable" explanation. Not implementing something because you, at this moment, don't know how to explain it, cannot be a basis for implementation. It would be cumbersome if the devs had to call you for confirmation for every new idea they have. Fixed character creation works great in short games like Team Fortress or similar, but this game lasts for days, weeks, even month for some. It feels better to the player if there is a regular progression, as that presents a goal to archive.
I am kinda tired of hearing ''the constructors do all the work'' And who the heck am i then??? What the heck was i doing on that ship that blow up and i ended in escaping pod? Washing the toilets???? Isnt it implied that i had SOME skills/knowledge from the beggining? Then why NASA/ESA/Federation/Romulans/Empire or who the heck else hired me to get on that ship in the first place???? Supposed i was trained to do stuff....different from someone else Why we ALL must have the same perks????? I was a bloody Engineer....i can do things faster Another was a Marine.....can take more hits than me Another was a Medic....faster health regen and less likely to be poisoned All those can be presented by skill points while creating a character.Already mentioned.Sounds legit Something like that ISN'T game breaking..... Game breaking is as a-hole kick your ass while you are not arround and moves his fat butt into PvE environment to avoid retaliation !!!!!! Game breaking is not to be allowed to use MY ship from the bp factory (server rules) and cause i suck on building from scratch i end to be everyones milk cow Game breaking ISN'T to have a few more hit points,a few more armor points or can run faster....cause I choose to while YOU (plurar) HAVEN'T As mentioned already....a good valid reason to build ANYTHING would be to LEARN how to....by getting a blueprint,getting the stuff itself,by building similar stuff (build 10-15 T1 engines so you'll gain the expertise to build a T2) .... But using the construct as an excuse doesnt make sense at all.... Why i have to harvest 25938 as mentioned already to be allowed to build a Warp Core???? Why we have to be equal in the first place??????? Let's start from there...... Different people.....Different skills....Different specialization.....Different game for all of us..... I love to mine ...you love to ''pew pew'' Why we have to be the same???????? I have better stamina than you (miner) and you have health points than me Why is that bad??????? I am sorry...... i am stupid.....i was feeding the monkey on board the ship......
I do not like the idea of leveling at all. I think it's a lame way to measure progression that has just become a trope in video games over the years, and that an alternative method of showing progress needs to replace it as the industrial standard. Just because people have been trained to expect it does not mean they actually want it... they probably just haven't the imagination to come up with a better idea. Well... here's a better idea: Modular progress. For example, the T2 drill may require you to understand the mechanisms for the drill, but also a laser rifle and a gravity generator as it incorporates concepts from all of them into one device. The laser rifle may, in turn, require you to already know how to make a rifle and a certain propulsion technology and maybe a hangar door due to the force-field manipulation components combining with the energy efficiency level of that specific size of thruster tech. Doing it this way still allows a "tech tree" with conceptually meaningful growth that provides some 'direction' for player activity to follow a reliable path around which scenarios can be built, but it gets rid of "levels" and gives the player a greater sense of freedom and a wider 'path' to meander around in order to adapt their play-style to their environmental conditions. To a certain extent this kind of progression already has several examples in other kinds of video games. Original GuildWars used this type of system for allowing players to build their own character class within the limits of having only eight skills available at a time. Rift does something somewhat similar while still fitting the whole concept inside an arbitrary and meaningless leveling structure. D&D-themed games of all description use a structure comparable enough to what I've suggested as that they could do without levels entirely if the base tabletop game had never included them in the first place. In general... leveling is always going to feel artificial and contrived, and it isn't even necessary in the first place. It's just expected because it has been an easy way to describe progression since COBOL/Fortran were used for programming games. I recommend getting rid of it and doing something less intellectually lazy instead.
Maybe when the economic aspect of the game will be more developed it could act as "unlocking" mechanism instead of "levels". This "level" system is tied with xp gains, which opens the door on exploits and farming, which opens the door to unbalances, etc. Right now it is far from being fleshed out.
Even if ya find the Epic Rocket Launcher, ya still need to Unlock the Rocket Launcher T2 item to be able to Craft the Homers for the Epic Rocket Launcher to Fire. Amen... not to mention the damn Leets constantly trying to KILL variety, open playstyles, & other such good stuff & FORCE a Game to only go one single damn way like a damn single track one direction Railroad... also known as a big yawn to play. :/ Screw you Meta! Agreed. I think it'd be better to think more along the lines of 'gaining skill at Reloading Weapons to lower Reload Time' or 'improving one's Diplomatic Skills to get better results outta dealing with NPCs' or such along the lines that'd be what one could conceivably do as benefit from hard training, development of discipline, & benefiting from experience. Stuff like 'doing more damage' only works with stuff like Melee Weapons where ya could be boosting your damage by having improved your ability to identify & exploit weak areas of a foe for Critical Strikes, & other such like taht that can't really work in this game, sadly not even with the Chainsaw. I still wanna huge muscle dude for Character Creation akin to the likes of Starcraft's Tychus Findley, The Rock, Vin Diesel, or such. I wonder if one of the available Flaws one could give their Character could be "Asperger"...? Believe me when I say it'd the total opposite of fun IRL... but maybe it could grant a lot of bonus points. Could make a Empyrion equivalent of Dragon Age: Origins Character, "Sandal". Just cause I chose the Huge Muscle Dude character doesn't mean i'd be excluded from the Trading Game, or any such. WarriorCommando....extra efficient at Reloading Heavy Weapons (Minigun, Rocket Launcher, Plasma Cannon) Scout....Stamina drains a bit slower while Sprinting & 20% wider "Fog of War" clearing radius... which could also translate to 20% wider vision radius maybe Leader....can command more NPC Helpers at a time Pirate....can hire & run NPC Pirate Crews, & can access & use the Galactic Black market Hacker....can Hack Devices to do things like Hack Open Locked Containers, Hack Cores & steal their control of them, Hack Traps to sabotage or disable them, etc. Amen. Some people don't know how to be responsible for the consequences of their actions. Balancing 'Classes/Professions' to avoid one or more being OP compared to other choices can be a bit of a trick though... but for Empyrion may well be doable. Amen again... Humans were intentionally designed to be Unique & Varied Individuals in the first place... not a freaking Clone Army. With that said, i'd like to be able to be good at fighting, building, & mining all at once. This is where Frankyln's above idea can come in: I could make a Commando & take Perks for improved ability at Fighting, Mining, & Building, & in exchange take Flaws that make me 'less apt' at areas I care a lot less about, like NPC Leadership, Tact, Diplomacy, People Skills, & such. Wow... now it's as if i'm a unique varied individual with my own Character & Personality! I can still do mega Derp things that make Empyrion's original Lore Story of me being Captain of the Titan before it went down seem awful 'implausible'... & make me feel like a Captain Ensign. Franklyn has the idea about Character Creation, Slimer has the idea about Professions, Skyrim has the Perk System... what ya described above sounds like Past Suggestions of replacing the Tech Tree with a Research System... I wonder if some kinda System revolving around these 4 Base Ideas baked all together could be interesting...?
I have an old concept that incorperats most of these ideas except tech tree research. http://empyriononline.com/threads/s...er-background-and-individualized-player.4111/
So personally, I hate XP and leveling systems in almost all games. Which is an odd thing as someone who's always been an RPG junkie, I guess...but I generally find that XP systems is intended to either give the illusion of varied gameplay where the gameplay isn't actually varied, to lock gameplay away for multiple playthroughs and encourage replayability, or to grant a sense of individuality between player characters. The latter is the one case where I begrudgingly accept it - in a classed system, or a system without a 'cap.' Of course, that leads to other problems that I hate, such as competitive games wherein a low-level player simply has no chance against a higher-level player. But the purpose that I perceive of the leveling system in Empyrion is to meter out the content delivery. Minecraft has been mentioned - and Minecraft for years and years was completely inscrutable without the help of a wiki or other external reference. It still is today, to be honest, although the achievement system has been added to help ease the player into understanding the systems involved, and the different priorities that they should be assigning to those systems. I think - and of course I'm a player and not a developer on the game - that the Empyrion XP system is trying to do the same thing that the Minecraft achievement system is trying to do. I think that it's trying to slowly introduce the player to what it takes to build a ship, and the player is free to focus on similar elements in multiple types of ships or, to some degree, specialize in one type of ship early on. And then, after the player has familiarized themselves with the bits they have unlocked, to gradually unlock more, until it's all unlocked and the system just gets out of their way. I'm glad that Empyrion has something that does that, if I've correctly guessed its intent, but I don't think that it's perfectly effective at this role. Here are the problems that I see with it: It restricts the starting pace players who are familiar with the systems, without really giving new players an opportunity to catch up. Instead, veteran players encounter an uninteresting grind in the early game. It provides some guidance, but not enough. I definitely spent a lot of levels on unlocking CV stuff only to learn that I wouldn't be able to build that CV without some specific resources that I needed to advance in other ways in order to obtain, and I only learned what I was doing wrong through forum trawling ... so if its purpose was to guide me away from the stuff I shouldn't be trying to build yet, it didn't succeed. It's kind of immersion-breaking, as others have mentioned above.
So, I've read through all 24 pages of this thread and I can see three valid complaints - which really aren't "complaints" but more "player fantasy" wishes that aren't being granted. Also, I've only been playing for a couple months but seeing this forum entry prompted me to make my first post regarding my personal opinion of the current state of the game (6.5.3). 1. Leveling doesn't accomplish a satisfactory feeling of player progression. I can empathize with this sentiment completely as the allocation of point to spend per level to unlock crafting recipes feels both arbitrary and unrewarding. You can unlock every item at level 25 and find yourself playing for no reason other than to continue exploring and mining resources. Leveling is very often associated with unlocking skills or increments to player stats (+health, +intellect, +carry capacity, etc.), and the desire to progress a player's ability outside of the technology tree is a real issue to solve. 2. Level 25 as a cap is too low a bar to reach and the absence of "End Game Content" upon reaching this level is unfulfilling. I also agree with this opinion, as I've exhausted the tech tree recipes on several plays and found the game to be fairly empty of purpose beyond constructing the final tier of weapons and devices. If you are easily sustained by simply building new ships/bases then that's great, but doesn't give many players much reason to continue "surviving" - especially for veteran players. 3. There are no skill-based / level-based interactions in game to act as gating mechanisms for content to make gaining levels worthwhile. This is more a philosophical / developer intent issue than anything else. The desire to make the game's assets open and available to everyone (minus blueprints) from the get-go is admirable, but in the process this conceit can rob the player of a sense of accomplishment. Having a skill / level "gate" to to work toward is an incentive of sorts to advance a particular skill or personal proficiency. At this point you're probably asking "What would be your solution then to all of these incongruities?" I'd champion the following: Incorporate a "Player Advancement Point System" where a player can add one or more points into a specific trait or skill that enhances their abilities in game - this includes the ability to harvest/mine resources, build more advanced devices/architectural features, increase "survivability" (increase health pool, resistance to poisons/infections/open wounds, etc), combat proficiency (reduced recoil; for whenever recoil gets added as a game feature, critical hits, evasion, etc.) - and allow these trait levels to continue incrementing beyond level 25 or infinitely. Link Tech Tree Recipes to require a proficiency in one or more skills. For example: Advanced Constructor requires 10 Tech Tokens + Intellect Level 6, or Fridge (T2) requires 6 Tech Tokens + Harvesting Skill 3. Reduce the overall amount of Tech Tokens awarded per level, but increase the amount earned per level if the player is actively putting points into an Intellect stat or a "Research" skill. This lets players diversify into more meaningful choices for their character and makes PvP encounters a lot more interesting. Harvesting certain plants at a higher harvesting skill level will receive more of that harvested item, and similar effects for mining nodes and looting creatures. Making these adjustments in addition to raising the level cap to - and this number is arbitrary - 100 in my very personal, highly unscientific and unverified opinion, should give players a much longer life span to improve their characters, their creations, and their personal fulfillment.
I wholeheartedly disagree with almost everything leetspeek harbinger just said on the basis that not only does he completely miss every point he references, but his own logic is self-contradictory at every single turn. For example... he cites that leveling feels arbitrary, agrees, and then somehow uses this point to argue in favor of arbitrary levels feeling natural. This is not high-quality thoughtful feedback. This is the dictionary definition of nonsense. noun 1. words or language having little or no sense or meaning. 2. conduct, action, etc., that is senseless, foolish, or absurd: to have tolerated enough nonsense. 3. impudent, insubordinate, or otherwise objectionable behavior: He doesn't have to take that nonsense from you. 4. something absurd or fatuous: the utter nonsense of such a suggestion. 5. anything of trifling importance or of little or no use. 6. Genetics. a DNA sequence that does not code for an amino acid and is not transcribed (distinguished from sense ). So while I would suggest that readers dismiss what was actually said in the post above... I hope to grasp the essence of what may have been intended and translate it into rational organized thought. Leetspeek harbinger appears to be expressing a sense of emptiness resulting from the issue of "too much freedom" in a game that he seems to expect to be exactly like some other game he has played before. His suggestion is to remove that freedom and make this game a copy of that other game he used to play. I implore you, do not. "Too much freedom" is not a problem with the game, it is a problem with the fascist nature of the culture of the person having that experience. Let this game be a step towards changing that culture... instead of being just another brick in the wall.
Empyrion doesnt seem like a game that should have xp system. Its set in future, these machines youre "unlocking" existed for centuries in it, you arent learning about them by picking up fiber. You used to only need more and more rare resources for more and more advanced stuff and that was fine. And then uncraftable weapon kits too... ugh. Good both are placeholders... but if they represent what game is gonna be then thats bad.
I primarily use creative mode to generate blueprints for survival mode so I don't have to waste a bunch of resources and therefore time in survival mode building the same thing over and over and over until I get it right. Empyrion is the first game I've ever played where the creative mode is actually a useful part of the gameplay instead of some kind of random 'debug feature' spackled onto an otherwise solid product. You might try exploring your options once in a while instead of assuming the world is going to bend to your expectations all the time... could broaden your horizons (and thereby make your world bigger) quite a bit.
