0022383: MAJOR suggestion (expansion scale stuff): Marks, Experience, Level rework for better conceptualization and balance - Arcen Idea Tracker (Bugs and Features)

ID	Project	Category		Date Submitted	Last Update

0022383	AI War 2	Suggestion		Dec 18, 2019 5:51 pm	Dec 22, 2019 3:15 pm

Reporter	Peter Ebbesen	Assigned To
Severity	feature
Status	new	Resolution	open
Product Version	1.017 Random AI Types

Summary	0022383: MAJOR suggestion (expansion scale stuff): Marks, Experience, Level rework for better conceptualization and balance
Description	I had a discussion with Puffin and others on discord about the - as I see it - current weaknesses of the marks, experience, level systems, that are in some ways unintuitive or even counterintuitive to players, are poorly supported by their chosen metaphors and even more poorly communicated in the UI to the players, and have multiplicative effects that makes them hard to balance. (Why do some things gain experience and not others, why can some things upgrade by direct investment of science and not others, why do two conceptually different types of science investment that both improve marks have different secondary effects with no obvious explanation, why do several ways of improvement affect the mark system that directly determines ship amount and capability, should I invest in Citadels 1 and invest 1000 directly in each Battlestation and citadel or should I invest in Citadels 2 to get them all to mark 3, and what's the difference in the effect on the battlestation fleet and why is it that way? why does Alien: spire core tech exist other than as a way of wasting science points compared to just leveling spire frigates through grinding levels. And so on and so forth. These are all things that a player learns along the way while playing and testing things, and there may or may not be good game balance reasons for them being the way they are, but they are not strongly supported by their chosen metaphors and don't lend themselves to easy to understand narratives) I argued that this was an unsound foundation and that eventually this would probably be overhauled for something better with clearer distinctions that made more sense (to the player, not the mechanical classification) and would be easier to balance, but that since this would be major work it was something I expected to see in an expansion sooner or later if the game remained successful rather than ad hoc along the way. He disagreed that the foundation was unsound and asked me to give an example of what I would propose instead. The following is suggestion is adapted from that discussion and off the top of my mind, and as such merely a starting point for discussion. It is the sort of thing I'd have laid out as an initial proposal with the people I'm used to working with. The goal? Marks. Experience. Perks. (And get rid of levels) Three separate ways of improving fleets ships with minimal conceptual overlap. MARKS: Determined solely by tech. The hardware mark is the primary determining factor for how strong a unit is. There is NO way to increase a ship-line or other fleet-element's hardware mark save through spending science on tech mark upgrades for all units of a specific category. EXPERIENCE: Replace by [0;100%] rather than discrete levels, change game mechanics to make this a thing of its own affecting hardware performance rather than a mark-increaser affecting hardware. a) Let every fleet (mobile, immobile, planet, whatever) gain EXP in battle and possibly through other actions that reflect what the fleet category is used for. This gives you a clear metaphor ("doing the job makes the beings involved more experienced") divorced from unit classification and one that is easy to connect to as a player b) Let EXP affect different unit categories differently, focusing on making them better at their primary work. Experienced combat, officer, and lone wolf fleets do more damage and/or are more durable, support fleets are better at repairs and construction, battlestations and citadels are much more durable. All effects of EXP are multipliers or additions to existing values based on the current EXP value. (An example for a combat fleet could be "weapon damage = damage_from_mark* (1+experience%/5) or whatever). EXP does NOT increase marks. c) Let there be no EXP levels except for in-game descriptive purposes. E.g. [0%;20%[ could be rookie,[20%;40%[ trained, [40%;60%[ veteran, [60%; 80%[, [80;90%[ crack, [90%;100%] elite. E.g. "Fleet EXP: 57% (Veteran)" d) Let each fleet's EXP constantly decay towards a minimum ("Training XP") if above it and slowly increase towards it if it is below it. The training XP starts at 0 EXP. A typical approach is to subtract (currentXP-trainingXP)decay% from currentXP every few cycles - once per in-game minute would seem a reasonable tick speed in AI War 2. (When EXP is an ever-increasing one-way street it encourages repetitive and potentially boring grinding over advancing. That works if it is a rare thing, e.g. a single champion ship where the players' focus for the game is largely on that ship, but when EXP is in widespread use having it ever increasing is just inviting players to engage in repetitive actions to hold off committing themselves) e) Let the trainingXP minimum be increased by a new training tech category with multiple steps corresponding to descriptive levels. I suggest 3 levels. E.g mk 1 training makes trainingXP = 20%, trained. 2 = 40%, trained. 3=60%, veteran. Everything beyond veteran must be earned and fought for to maintain. f) Consider reducing XP when casualties are replaced based on standard 'new instance of ship in fleet is minimum-level XP, calculate new XP based on fraction replaced' calculation - probably whenever something is constructed in a fleet adjust currentXP to be ((metal_value_of_total_current_fleet_in_metalcurrentXP))+(metal_value_of_replacement*trainingXP))/(metal_value_of_total_current_fleet + metal_value_of_replacement) PERKS: Permanent customization of individual fleets g) Let every fleet (mobile, immobile, planet, whatever) be eligible for direct science investment. h) Direct science investment in a fleet no longer provides levels, it provides perks. Perks permanently provides a bonus to the fleet. Perks can be general (every fleet type can pick), specific to fleet categories (e.g. officers can pick, battlestations can pick, planets can pick), or (possibly) even individual unit-types (e.g. spire frigates can pick, military command stations can pick).. Perks can either all have the same price or they can be differentiated in price. i) These perks are either awarded at random, fixed in order of acquisition, or selectable from multiple options (in which case you might have perks depending on perks, depending on number of perks, whatever). j) No perk is allowed to increase the marks of anything. I repeat, marks are ONLY gained through tech. So you can have "This battlestation's/planets turrets do x% more damage" or "have x% more hull and shield" or whatever modifiers one can think of, but to get fundamentally better fleet-elements you need to invest in technological advances increasing marks. -- This would clear many things up for the player: For everything marks indicate technological advancement, are the primary factor in performance, and are gained solely through technology investment of science. For everything perks indicate additional extras that can permanently boost an individual fleet and are purchased by direct investment of science. For everything experience indicates on-the job experience and affects performance; it isn't a dominant factor in performance, but it gives you an edge and if the edge isn't frequently honed the player will lose it, and if the player engages in frequently attritional warfare rather than attempting to preserve his assets for repairs he'll be unable to stay highly experienced And best of all, you'd be able to tweak each of these factors independently. As one direct consequence, superweapons would be way easier to balance, when the primary way to increase their power level would be through tech spending to increase its mark (if a technology option existed at all for the given superweapon), with permanently fighting to stay at high experience and direct investment in perks merely providing it with an edge for its given mark.
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Peter Ebbesen Dec 18, 2019 6:48 pm reporter ~0055060	Ok, to me it felt like you presented me with a completely fair "if you want it to change, put it on Mantis", i.e. put a specific proposal forwards rather than just talking in generalities if I want to accomplish anything. This is a positive challenge to my intellect, and it is certainly more than fair to ask me to expand on and clarify my thoughts, so I took up that intellectual challenge and fulfilled it. I've now changed challenged to asked as you don't like the word and it is open to misinterpretation. :) Let me be clear that I am not suggesting that it is something that should only be active in a pair-for expansion, but that the scope of the suggestion is something that is appropriate for the amount of work and testing done in an expansion than running maintenance or continued development between expansions. I'm used to expansions both providing paid-for content and general updates to the base game.

Flypaste Dec 22, 2019 3:15 pm reporter ~0055090	I really like everything I see here

Date Modified	Username	Field	Change
Dec 18, 2019 5:51 pm	Peter Ebbesen	New Issue
Dec 18, 2019 5:56 pm	Peter Ebbesen	Description Updated
Dec 18, 2019 5:58 pm	Peter Ebbesen	Description Updated
Dec 18, 2019 6:05 pm	Peter Ebbesen	Description Updated
Dec 18, 2019 6:35 pm	Peter Ebbesen	Description Updated
Dec 18, 2019 6:48 pm	Peter Ebbesen	Note Added: 0055060
Dec 22, 2019 3:15 pm	Flypaste	Note Added: 0055090