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Debate 9: Tech Tree Thoughts


Wilks Checkov

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just simply because those people sold their hype better than others.

Makes a lot of sense.

Advertising tricks people into buying junk, junk becomes popular, junk becomes the norm because' everybody is using it so it must be good,.

 

We've seen stuff like that happen all the time. Image and packaging + mob mentality = profit.

 

Its not exactly as the FOTM movement but it has striking similarities.

 

Edit: on those doctrines, why wouldnt we see sqaudron types in DU? Like bombers, light fighters etc...Did you mean to say we will eventually see the emergence of ship types or all ships being more or less the same but with different load outs to counter strategies?

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Edit: on those doctrines, why wouldnt we see sqaudron types in DU? Like bombers, light fighters etc...Did you mean to say we will eventually see the emergence of ship types or all ships being more or less the same but with different load outs to counter strategies?

While I can't speak for twerk, I believe he meant it would make sense to build ships well rounded simply from the number of strategies out there; however, as weapons develop their counters will develop as well. Many fighters and bombers to counter a single large ship is completely viable in DU, more so than some other games.

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While I can't speak for twerk, I believe he meant it would make sense to build ships well rounded simply from the number of strategies out there; however, as weapons develop their counters will develop as well. Many fighters and bombers to counter a single large ship is completely viable in DU, more so than some other games.

It would make sense to see arms races and counter moves to established solutions.

Will be fascinating to see it develop.

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Makes a lot of sense.

Advertising tricks people into buying junk, junk becomes popular, junk becomes the norm because' everybody is using it so it must be good,.

 

We've seen stuff like that happen all the time. Image and packaging + mob mentality = profit.

 

Its not exactly as the FOTM movement but it has striking similarities.

 

Edit: on those doctrines, why wouldnt we see sqaudron types in DU? Like bombers, light fighters etc...Did you mean to say we will eventually see the emergence of ship types or all ships being more or less the same but with different load outs to counter strategies?

Even on fighters, doctrines apply. Bombers are a doctrine of their own, their only (possible) variation comes to damage type dealt by their bombs in the context of DU (as is in EVE as well).

 

One thing people fail to realise, is that capital ships are only good at fighting capital ships. For anything smaller they got escort ships taking the task. And for those smaller ships, fighters take the task of dealing with the enemy fighters.

 

Sure, a doctrine could be on "missile frigates" (as that's what most frigates are used IRL these days, surface-to-air missile boats)( so that frigates can take on star-fighters, but if the Devs do te EVE thing on missiles, star fighter pilots with not an echoechamber on their shoulders will simply outrun the missiles, as missiles have a thing called fuel, and they got limited range due to that,.

 

So you see, any kind of combat, has a counter to it. Missiles are limited to their size and speed, as biggerm issiles  (in space) do not mean more damage. If an explosion lasts for 1 secodn and its explosive speed is 1000 m/s , it means that a 10 meters long starfighter will feel pretty much nothing from the explosion if it was to hit, and that is IF the explosive speed was to even hit the starfigter to begin with.

 

But pulse cannons? Yeah, those star-fighters will have to pack some tough armor on them, as lasers + shields do not mix in physics.

 

And as of bombers, in EVE, bombers are either torpedo boats, or hit and run, by launching bombs that explode after a certain distance (which means ACTUAL aiming inside the game in first person view), and then warping off, because once those bombers de-cloak, they are gonna be focus-fired upon, as bombers are made of cardboard, aka, they are glass-cannons, like any other MMO rogue / ninja class.

 

It's a rock-paper-scissors situation, only if you know how to use your scissors you can eventually cut the rock or if you know how to fly your paper you can slip past them scissors and if you are a rock you can just punch through the paper. It may seem "simplistic" but if the Devs in DU do it right, it will end up like EVE, where people spend days and weeks figuring out the perfect math behind the best ship fitting and lengths of engagement to achieve the best dps.

 

 

 

As of the original post, it has a spot on handle on how tech should be. It should not be a "ladder" it should be a radial spread, with minor branches depednding on other skills unlocked on the whole skill-tree wheel.

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Above all else, it shouldn't be possible to max out the skill tree in all things. Not without taking some 30+ years like it would in eve.

Aye to that. Although, it should also be mentioned, the Devs need to add cross-tree bonuses and unlocks, that way the EVE Online alt-frenzy won't happen in DU. Having cross skill-tree unlocks will only guarantee that alts are not favoured.

 

For example, having [Neuroscience Training] + [Nano-Engineering] unlocking [Cyber-Neural integration Training].

 

Those two trees unlock that tree, and by training both, a person unlocks the ability to manufacture implants, withle the other two just provide passive boni to skill training and handling of nanites for repair purposes.

 

It just unnerves me hearing people say "oh I will land on the game with probably 5 alts, 1 combat, 1 trader, 1 hauler, 1 miner and 1 stealth". That's coming out of EVE's borken game mechanics, where people make 15 alt accounts (that's 45 extra characters) to abuse the industry that runs server side. While industry is DU runs on client-side, skill training does not. And if the skill tree is left like EVE's broken training system (which is broken on purpose, cause CCP is a shitty company with shitty practises) people just make to the minimum 4 alt accounts to train up pilots for different job.

 

Again, DU handles a lot of things right, mainly the active mining and industry requring you to be online o na character and tethered near your industry, which makes the game less alt-frenzied, but if the Tech Tree doesn't have intercoonected specialsiations in its branches, peole with more alt accounts will simply master industry way faster.

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Above all else, it shouldn't be possible to max out the skill tree in all things. Not without taking some 30+ years like it would in eve.

I'm going to agree with that as well.

30+ years to max out is a little bit extreme for my taste though.

 

How about 15? :P

 

And to Twerks comments, I never liked the alt accounting in EVE. I understand why people do it but I dislike it a lot.

 

Edit: Though as a miner I'm not excited by the idea of learning /other profession/ skills to be a good miner.

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I'm going to agree with that as well.

30+ years to max out is a little bit extreme for my taste though.

 

How about 15? :P

 

And to Twerks comments, I never liked the alt accounting in EVE. I understand why people do it but I dislike it a lot.

 

Edit: Though as a miner I'm not excited by the idea of learning /other profession/ skills to be a good miner.

Well, that's the thing though, learning how to handle mining equipment is one thing, but knowing how the mining equpment is made could provide you boni to mining speed and yield per cycle. Then, you could eventually get to refinery, providing you with a bonus to yield on mining a certain mineral because you mastered its refinery. That's what I'm talking about. Intertwinerd skill trees and tech trees, so there's incentive on sticking to one character training to unlock the skills that are not accessible in a straight line.

 

Similarly, for combat, I can learn how to equip a power armor, but knowing how the power armor is made, can provide me with bonuses to repairing said power armor variant, or provide me with bonus on damage towards it, as I know where its weak points are.

 

That's what I'm referring to, depth

 

Having a tech tree and having an in-depth mechanic that circumvents the skill training by simply rolling alt accounts is just gonna hurt the game in the long run. EVE is the prime example. They claim the game has 500000 players. It doesn't, it has 75000 players, and on average 5.5 accounts each. It's why many people in EVE joke that "one player quits, 15 pilots down for an alliance". And quite frankly, I don't wanna see that in DU.

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That's what I'm referring to, depth

 

If its handled in a somewhat believable manner I wouldnt mind too much. Sensible solutions in the style you suggested for example. Perhaps make it in such a way that after I'm done with being a miner my second activity would flow naturally out of the secondary or tertiary "skills" I had to train.

 

Essentially I look at it like this; if it provides more meaning and depth making the game better as a whole, I can live with it even if I'm not a big fan of that particular detail. Plenty of stuff I didnt like in Anarchy Online but I still loved and played it for years.

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If DU wants to encourage players to specialize (as they have mentioned using advanced skills would require players to focus on those skills), wouldn't the branches of the tree be more separate and less circular? This is less about what us as players might like and more about what type of behavior the dev's want to get out of the players here. I would imagine a circular skill tree would cause players to be less specialized, so would't that rule out a circular configuration?

 

For example, for a player to specialize in Mining, a linear tree would reward players that want to mine Tier 3 minerals for actually just going down the mining tree. This accomplishes their goal quite nicely, as the game mechanics reward specialization behavior.

 

On a circular tree however, a player might be able to get Tier 3 mineral mining by going the Scanning route until late in the tree and shifting over (there being some overlap between scanning and mining), or by going the weapons route and switching over (there being some overlap between weapons and mining lasers). Even if this method is less efficient, that would be very attractive to a player since yay now we can do more things, but this system rewards generalization over specialization.

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Obviously there should be some middle ground. Too linear and we end up facing Twerk's scenario. Too circular and we end up facing masters of the universe. I would suggest a small number of skills that have alternate requirements from other skill trees. You would be able to have some cross-skill ability, but without being able to take advantage of it. The majority of the rest of the skills above the alternate requirement skills should not be unlockable/trainable without the proper time spent training that skill. IE You train skill tree A to get skill A:b. Then you can train skill B:b because B:b has the alternate requirement A:b. If you want to move on to B:c then you have to train skill tree B starting with B:a.

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Obviously there should be some middle ground. Too linear and we end up facing Twerk's scenario. Too circular and we end up facing masters of the universe. I would suggest a small number of skills that have alternate requirements from other skill trees. You would be able to have some cross-skill ability, but without being able to take advantage of it. The majority of the rest of the skills above the alternate requirement skills should not be unlockable/trainable without the proper time spent training that skill. IE You train skill tree A to get skill A:b. Then you can train skill B:b because B:b has the alternate requirement A:b. If you want to move on to B:c then you have to train skill tree B starting with B:a.

The way I see it, a player should be able, after mastering Armosmithing, Engineering, Medicine, Stealth and Combat to be Batman. Would all of these cross-branch skill training or tech provide more DPS or shorter cycle per use? No, the "sub-class" Boni should be capped up to a point (like 10% bonus, but no more).

 

Also, that suggestion at the end is exactly why EVE players make a bunch of alts. The "masters of the Universe" thing or the aforementioned "Batmaning" of a character, is only logical and flows from spending time in the game. You get minor boosts to your other skills for mastering a new skill. Sure, not all of them can mix. For example. Weapon Handling 5 (mastered) training should not provide bonuses to Cooking 5 (mastered). But Medicine 5 can provide a bonus to cooking, by making the foods you make have a bonus to HP regen, or Medicine + Weapon Handling when mastered giving you better output on handheld medical devices. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. And it can be implemented in Tech Trees as tech is linked to player skills.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I think there should be some kind of science points. Quantum physics, Alien Ecology, Mathematics, Matter manipulation ect.

You should be able to get those by either reverse-engineering advanced equipment or by mainstream !SCIENCE!(I mean studying anomalies, setting up server parks to calculate ect.

 

To make it cooler the points should be stored on harddrives so they could be stealed.

 

And should be able to use your newly accuired points to research technologies.

The techs should use more than one type of points like if you want to make a Quantum tunneling drive you have to use up 15 quantum points and 10 mathematics and 3 matter manipulation.

 

This is basically Space station 13-s research system but way longer.

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Q: How do you specialize if you have a circular skill tree?
A: Make the circle bigger.

 

A slightly longer answer is having a few more "bridging" skills when switching between two major "trunks".  A person that specializes in one trunk will then necessarily be further along then someone that started on another major trunk and bridged over.  A way this could be implemented is to start in the middle and as you get further away from the center each skill takes longer to train. 

 

Welcome to the skill forest:
 
poe_skill_tree__by_jawsofhana-d4kgzrv.jp

 

A good skill forest is worth exploring.

 

Edit: Picture is from Path of Exile and you do not start from the center in that game.

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I think there should be some kind of science points. Quantum physics, Alien Ecology, Mathematics, Matter manipulation ect.

You should be able to get those by either reverse-engineering advanced equipment or by mainstream !SCIENCE!(I mean studying anomalies, setting up server parks to calculate ect.

 

To make it cooler the points should be stored on harddrives so they could be stealed.

 

And should be able to use your newly accuired points to research technologies.

The techs should use more than one type of points like if you want to make a Quantum tunneling drive you have to use up 15 quantum points and 10 mathematics and 3 matter manipulation.

 

This is basically Space station 13-s research system but way longer.

Thats an interesting point. Will skills be what determines the tech level? Or should there be another system that people have to collaborate for in order to unlock that tech for that org (who may then release the data to the public).

 

Techs include anything that the arkship did not come with, such as a warp drive or jumpgate, and improved versions of what we already have, like advanced refineries and larger thrusters.

 

Skills on the other hand are things that the player knows, such as the ability to build better elements or passive buffs to crafting (reduced craft time, increased quality, etc.).

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Thats an interesting point. Will skills be what determines the tech level? Or should there be another system that people have to collaborate for in order to unlock that tech for that org (who may then release the data to the public).

 

Techs include anything that the arkship did not come with, such as a warp drive or jumpgate, and improved versions of what we already have, like advanced refineries and larger thrusters.

 

Skills on the other hand are things that the player knows, such as the ability to build better elements or passive buffs to crafting (reduced craft time, increased quality, etc.).

Tech should only be the represenation of a general idea. so if you researched Photon thrusters that should'nt mean that you can instantly make one of any quality.

That's where skills should come into play.

 

Science tech --> Part Design --> Shipbuilding

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I believe the Circular /Adaptive research approach would be more player friendly on a game like this. You never know what might happen day to day in a survival game and this could help it be more forgiving. No one wants to be stuck out in space with a broken engine after your engineer rage quits and you have to re learn 20 skills in a tree to fix it.

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I believe the Circular /Adaptive research approach would be more player friendly on a game like this. You never know what might happen day to day in a survival game and this could help it be more forgiving. No one wants to be stuck out in space with a broken engine after your engineer rage quits and you have to re learn 20 skills in a tree to fix it.

Well, it is an MMO after all, should be able to rely on help from more than just that one person. Suggesting that it should be fast or easy to learn new skills? Yeah no thanks. Again regardless of skill tree design it is still an MMO and you should have to rely on others to fill in the gaps of things that you lack.

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Well, it is an MMO after all, should be able to rely on help from more than just that one person. Suggesting that it should be fast or easy to learn new skills? Yeah no thanks. Again regardless of skill tree design it is still an MMO and you should have to rely on others to fill in the gaps of things that you lack.

 

Like most things, it's not that cut and dry.

 

It should be fast/easy to learn the basic skills. This way new people can quickly gain a taste for how the various aspects of the game plays before choosing a specific path to concentrate on. Does this mean you can quickly learn how to create advanced techs? No.  

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  • 5 months later...
On 3/21/2017 at 8:15 AM, Kurock said:

 

Like most things, it's not that cut and dry.

 

It should be fast/easy to learn the basic skills. This way new people can quickly gain a taste for how the various aspects of the game plays before choosing a specific path to concentrate on. Does this mean you can quickly learn how to create advanced techs? No.  

It should get exponentially more difficult to learn skills the further you get down a skill tree. It's just how steep the learning curve is that defines how unfair/stupidly simple it is to progress in a field. It's a balance

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I'm thinking a combination of both linear and circular.

 

Linear tech tree contains the core primary nodes for tech/skill backbones but each branch on linear shows differentiation for things unrelated like say agriculture and piloting.

 

But each node on the linear explodes into a circular tech three lots of ways of specializing and growing. This allows you to cherry pick while still researching things required for the next major node on the Linear tree's branch.

 

Say you can have a core branch for each major profession that produce numerous circular tech trees with upgrade differences in crafting and what not.

 

This way you can also pair skills and tech without forcing people to pick up crafting if they don't want to or allow them to come back to it later.

 

Hell you can have each circular node be three things you can train/research. Tech, Crafting Bonus, Usage Bonuses. Maybe certain linear branches are not revealed or even unlocked unless you spend a certain amount of training in a circular tree. Say having 1/3 of the circular tree being trained?

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I can't speak for OP, but it seems this topic was about tech and yet most people are talking mainly about skills - two completely different things.  Granted the same structures can be implemented for both, but different mechanisms can be used for their exploitation and discovery.

 

For example, it probably makes sense to have a deterministic, player driven approach to individual character skills development, ala Eve Online.  Technology advancement should be a lot more mysterious though, driven by an unknown combination discoveries, cooperation, random chance, dedicated research and more.

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