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+--- Thread: Nerf Building Quality Progression (/showthread.php?tid=300)
Nerf Building Quality Progression - Haxus - 09-17-2018
A player recently quit the game, saying they felt the game mechanics forced you into a subscription for a year. I assume they were referring to the quality progression of buildings and the size limits on spacecraft related to that quality.
The quality progression of buildings was not intended to create a subscription requirement. It was intended to make the technology associated with that quality more valuable, not so readily available.
How important is that quality/time progression? Does it add to the game or take away?
If I buy a game of Monopoly, I can compete equally with seasoned players, right away. There is no time delay before I can mortgage properties. Should we adopt that sort of philosophy?
RE: Nerf Building Quality Progression - Haxus - 09-17-2018
These would be the consequences of removing building Quality of Operation.
- Quality of commodities produced at buildings would not be affected by the building's QoO.
- A new empire could build the largest possible spacecraft right away.
- Spacecraft quality would be determined by the materials available to any empire.
- Technology objects would go away due to no longer serving any purpose.
- Media building would go away, or become a morale building, perhaps negatively affecting morale at enemy cities in its solar system.
RE: Nerf Building Quality Progression - Deantwo - 09-17-2018
(09-17-2018, 06:34 PM)Haxus Wrote:
- Quality of commodities produced at buildings would not be affected by the building's QoO.
A lot of us have been asking for this for quite a while. The whole building QL/tech doesn't make much sense anymore.
Finding new higher quality resources has felt weird because you can't really use it without also having the building quality, or at least the effect has been smaller and harder to calculate.
(09-17-2018, 06:34 PM)Haxus Wrote:
- A new empire could build the largest possible spacecraft right away.
- Spacecraft quality would be determined by the materials available to any empire.
- Technology objects would go away due to no longer serving any purpose.
This isn't really a bad thing. At least not right away.
A new technology system would have to be made, and several suggestions have been made in the past.
The hardest part is making it both somewhat location based and requiring constant maintenance.
The community has never fully agreed on what would be a good system.
The suggestion I remember having the best talks with Anr about has been some kind tech stockpiling system. You mass-produce the tech and then use it to make advanced products. At every 13 minute cycle an amount of the stockpiled tech is discarded, so you have to keep tech production constant in order to keep it high.
But as for right now short therm, I would suggest just removing the affect of building QL/tech on production, and maybe also remove tech disks and building QL totally.
Then after that you can let it all rest a little and plan out a new technology system.
(09-17-2018, 06:34 PM)Haxus Wrote:
- Media building would go away, or become a morale building, perhaps negatively affecting morale at enemy cities in its solar system.
I can think of a few new ideas for it.
For example make it a solar system wide morale bonus. But if an enemy has more mass media service jobs total than your empire, you instead get a morale penalty.
RE: Nerf Building Quality Progression - Vectorus - 09-17-2018
We need to think carefully about this. It's more or less the whole progression of gameplay at stake - I recommend we give this topic plenty of time to bear fruit.
Both TL and Q progression have been very passive - that is probably more of a problem than the particular speed at which they progress. Many games advertise 100 hrs gameplay: it's whether that's grinding or having fun that's important.
I'd like to see some tech system where getting ahead is more involved and more fun. That could be done in other ways than Q or TL. For example, planets with high resource Q might have some enemy forces or hostile conditions you have to sort out before developing infrastructure. At low tech, that would mean marshalling your forces and having a fight on your hands to get to the next level, or conducting extensive preparations and terraforming. At high tech, you just blow the enemy away in seconds before colonizing as usual. More meaningful PvE would be welcome in the game.
I'm by no means ready to offer a full commentary. I'll only note that whatever is implemented, I think a year's wait to get to the top has been long enough for most of us - I wouldn't want a scratch start again. Whether that means translating empire's existing tech into whatever new system we have, or just implementing a "level free" system as you suggest, I don't know. The rounding up effect of high process Q has proved quite welcome over time. Some parts of my empire would be sore to lose it - can we keep it in some form?
I haven't voted yet.
PS You were talking about the story engine today. What about adopting the system you propose: resource Q is everything, but some patents are rewards for questlines. Just a small number of major things like wormhole drives, warp drives, transporters etc. Empires now in the game which have those patents could keep them (patents would still have some purpose, wouldn't they?). That could be a fun solution. You could also just be given the patent by a friendly alien. This would provide slightly more progression.
RE: Nerf Building Quality Progression - Haxus - 09-17-2018
I like the patent system. It works for technology progression and it somewhat mimics the real world. It was not in my mind to change that. Most people seem to understand it.
Building Q is something that causes confusion. It feels arbitrary. I'm not sure that it adds to game play.
RE: Nerf Building Quality Progression - Haxus - 09-17-2018
That is one of the challenges with the story engine. It can make anything. Nothing prevents the "Say hi to Bob and get a warp 9 patent plus a few trillion cronos." story.
RE: Nerf Building Quality Progression - Vectorus - 09-17-2018
Well, true, that's a whole other problem. Presumably the empire which makes the story has to fork out for the reward. It will put the rewards in a pot, and when you accept the quest the rewards are "held" for you for a limited period. If you don't complete it in time, they're returned to the pot. If there isn't enough in the pot when you start, the story board will inform you before you take the quest.
That would seem a sensible system, but only as regards quest rewards, not quest "props". How you stop the quest from spawning a Q255 "enemy" with no crew, which you can then capture and walk away with, we can talk about later. It's possible that developed empires like Weltreich, RDSG, French etc. could afford to sponsor quests, so that any ships/items used in them would actually be deducted from their stored materials, in the same way that I suggest for rewards. Quest "props" could vanish afterwards and return their materials to whomever they came from. You would be able to specify the maximum you're willing to put up for sponsorship; if ten people are playing that story already and there isn't enough left, the quest can't start. Just one idea.
But in this instance, rewards for warp patents etc. could be "official" quests made by you or reviewed by you in collaboration with others.
RE: Nerf Building Quality Progression - Deantwo - 09-17-2018
(09-17-2018, 09:26 PM)Haxus Wrote: I like the patent system. It works for technology progression and it somewhat mimics the real world. It was not in my mind to change that. Most people seem to understand it.
I have nothing against patents. They don't do too much currently other than add a feeling of technological research, which the game was missing a little.
I do agree that it would be interesting if some patents maybe required themselves, so you had to aquire them elsewhere before you can improve them yourself.
For example some patents could be aquired from exploring ruins with short story missions, from defeating pirate bases, and special citizen job offers. The possibilities there are endless.
(09-17-2018, 09:26 PM)Haxus Wrote: Building Q is something that causes confusion. It feels arbitrary. I'm not sure that it adds to game play.
Building QL on the other hand is quite confusing yeah. currently we have many building types that gain nothing from the current technology system.
I would much rather want to see technology be something that is independent from the resource quality mechanics. But as mentioned before, the new system would have to fulfill a few criterias.
- None permanent, you should be able to lose it if you lose all your cities.
- Require constant maintenance, so you can't just get "enough" and never worry about it again.
- Location based, so there is value in keeping and protecting your cities.
- Improved by activity, allow an activity to improve it so we have something to do.
- ...
The old "Remove TL" megathread is still a pretty good read for this discussion, even though the community couldn't agree on just one solution.
RE: Nerf Building Quality Progression - Mr. Mortius - 09-17-2018
I am against removing building quality of operation. The poll might provide a poor selection of choices, though (Leave unchanged / remove completely with no improve option). I do believe that the player should play a role in advancing their empire's technology, and that increasing the quality of materials harvested (The main progression in the game), is the best way to reward that advancement.
In my opinion, the issue isn't the building quality, but the year-long wait to reach Q255. A discussion focused on how to best involve the members of an empire with the process would be a good one to have.
One possibility, just off the top of my head, would be to research building operation quality in a similar way to patents, where advancements are made based on the quality of materials used in the research process. These resources could be based on the typical raw materials a building's processes use.
Creating a process by which players act to improve their empire's knowledge on resource extraction, or "quality of operation", would provide a context for the improvement, meaning that it no longer would seem arbitrary, and would add another component to the gameplay.
RE: Nerf Building Quality Progression - AnrDaemon - 09-17-2018
Resource (and by extension - Patent) quality are natural deterrent, coming from your ability to explore, exploit and expand.
Building(production) quality is an artificial deterrent, basically another on/off switch that TL32 once was. You either have Q255 buildings, or not. Once you do, it's hard to lose.
(I'm sorry I have to repeat myself so many times, but I sincerely hope this being the last time, so I won't need to write a bot to copy-paste it each time this subject comes up.)