"sameness" of ship combat talents

[daveal]

At the risk of over-analysis, I have tried to quantify the feedback that many of the ship talents seem same or almost same.  Using the awesome filterable talent table from here:

docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/101bneiqNOoV7DoaCN5BzHeILhXfmdIwBh1YKhVLEmQk/edit#gid=0

I have sorted and slightly reorganized to find talents which are "purely dominated' by other talents.  That is, a higher level/different class talent has only benefits over another one and no drawbacks.  This means that except for cooldown, there is no reason to ever use the first one.  In other games, they often use a roman numeral syntax to group these, like "System Flush I", "System Flush II", etc.  Here is one good example:

Failsafe Protocols      Crew Dog 1        Purges Ship of any Crippling Ship Effects
System Flush            Mechanic 5        Purges Ship of any Crippling Ship Effects
Rushed Patches          Mechanic 8        Purges Ship of any Crippling Ship Effects, Repairs 10% Dmg to Ship Components
Unrivaled Patch         Engineer 1        Purges Ship of any Crippling Ship Effects, Repairs 20% Dmg to Ship Components

There's no reason to have two different skill names for the first two at all.  If all of these were named System Flush I,II,III then you could have one button, which showed the highest level not on cooldown.  This would both reduce clutter and aid comprehension.  The other examples of "pure dominated" that I found were:

Precision Action        Commander 8       Purges your Ship of both Crew and Ship Crippling Effects
Solace in Battle        Doctor 11         Purges your Ship of both Crew and Ship Crippling Effects, Restores Doctor Skill worth of Morale to 20 Crew

Guided Fire             Pilot 1           +15% Acc          +10% Crit                                                  3 Turns
Incite Victory          Military Ofc 11   +25% Acc +25% Dmg +25% Crit +20% Boarding Restores Command Morale to 10 Crew 3 turns

Targeting Lock          Gunner 1          -10% Arm -20 Esc  3 Turns
Tireless Pursuit        Bounty Hunter 5   -10% Arm -40 Esc  3 Turns

There are other clusters where yes, the effects are fractionally different, but maybe not enough to bother. One solution could be to make them purely dominated with levels. Another solution could be to make them "more different".

Engine Precision        Mechanic 1        +2 RP              +10 Component Dmg/Turn  2 Turns
Overclocked Reactor     Engineer 5        +2 RP   +10 Range  +10 Crew Dmg/Turn       2 Turns

Furious Prodding        Pirate 1          Purges Crew, Restores Intimidate Skill worth of Morale to 10 Crew
Steady Hands            Commander 1       Purges Crew, +20% Defense for next 3 Turns, Restores Command Skill worth of Morale to 10 Crew
Veteran Clarity         Crew Dog 11       Purges Crew, +10% Critical, 10% Protection against Morale Dmg for next 2 Turns
Rallying Cry            Quartermaster 5   Purges Crew, 20% Protection against Crew and Morale Dmg/Turn for next 2 Turns, Restores Intimidate Skill worth of Morale to 20 Crew

Firing Orders           Gunner 11         +35% Acc +35% Dmg            3 Turns
Coordinated Fire        Commander 11               +35% Dmg +25% Crit  3 Turns

Signature Homing        Gunner 1          -25% Def    -10% Arm  3 Turns
Raking Fire             Gunner 1          -25% Shield -10% Arm  3 Turns

Scattershot             Gunner 8          -10% Arm -10 Esc -25 Range           3 Turns
Devastating Approach    Pilot 8                            -15 Range -25% Dmg  4 Turns
Disabling Shot          Pirate 11         -25% Def         -25 Range           4 Turns

Brace for Impact        Engineer 1        +20% Shield +20% Arm -10% Crew Dmg        3 Turns
Evasive Maneuvers       Pilot 1           +5% Shield  +10% Arm +25% Def             3 Turns
Boosted Shields         E-Tech 11         +10% Shield          +50 Rad/void Resist  3 Turns

Fast Getaway            Navigator 1       +5% Arm +20 Esc            2 Turns
Sharp Steering          Pilot 1                   +10 Esc +15 Range  3 Turns
Bolt                    Spy 5                     +30 Esc            3 Turns

[fallen]

Thanks for the feedback! I'm not sure I see the variation issues you are in the clusters. Anyway, we'll keep working on the roadmap and to improve! Interesting stuff for sure.

[drspendlove]

Guided Fire doesn't decrease defenses. (I know this because I use it about 3x during easier ship battles to kill crew more quickly without wasting my good talents.)

[daveal]

Corrected guided fire, thanks. That makes the overlap stronger.

My main point is that there are a number of "pure dominated", a few tight clusters, and perhaps a few looser clusters. I get overwhelmed by so many randomly designed buttons; fewer buttons and perhaps more thematic use of colors would really help. The use of color themes in the crew combat buttons really helps.

[xdesperado]

daveal in almost all cases you've listed the talents are not only of different levels but come from different classes. Giving them different names helps captains especially with larger crews keep track of who's used what talents and when they will refresh.
If your playing very combat heavy then your likely going to want lots of duplicates of those talents in your crew anyways so you can always have at least a few available for any given fight no matter how long it's been since your last battle.
Finally in the case of Signature Homing and Raking Fire they are both level 1 gunner talents and because they have slightly different effects and different names you can stack them on enemies for improved effect. If they were combined under one name then you'd lose the ability to stack, likewise changing level for one of them would make that option less appealing for a player to take unless the talent was changed.

[drspendlove]

Talents with the same name can definitely stack.

[Cory Trese]

Thanks for the feedback!

[daveal]

Jun 19, 2018 4:49:49 GMT -5 xdesperado said:

daveal in almost all cases you've listed the talents are not only of different levels but come from different classes. Giving them different names helps captains especially with larger crews keep track of who's used what talents and when they will refresh.

YMMV, obviously, but if the talents had consistent colors and overlaps combined into the same name, this would make tracking easier. Is it really helpful to have 20 slightly different buttons in what is an apparently random order? The crew combat button bar has less things in it, but the colors really help.

[drspendlove]

I think the clusters are mostly fine as they are. Changes I would make are:

Identical Cluster:

- Don't add any more exact duplicate talents for existing or future jobs. We're about saturated on that (first grouping).
- Alternatively, change the crippling effects talents to remove a specified number of effects (such as 3 or 4) and have certain talents be better than others by virtue of removing more because it is from a higher level of a job.

Strictly Better Cluster:

- I'm fine with the Doctor talent being strictly better here. It is a great reason to have a high level Doctor.
- Guided Fire is easy to acquire many stacks of, so it is good fodder for finishing easy fights more quickly. I go through 2-4 of those every easy ship battle. The other is much harder to get many stacks of and in my case is reserved for harder fights.
- I agree that Targeting Lock shouldn't be a purely weaker version of Tireless Pursuit. If I had my way, I would leave targeting lock unchanged but make Tireless pursuit no longer reduce armor but last an additional turn.

Rather Similar Cluster:

- I think you have the stats slightly off on this first pair. That said, I don't use either of them so I don't have any feedback.
- The second cluster is all sufficiently different for me. The pirate one is pretty bad and the AI over-uses it, but it is a level 1 talent and thematically it should be about as it is.
- Firing Orders and Coordinated Fire are incredibly different. One helps you overcome a powerful enemy that dodges your attacks. The other helps you kill crew and disable the ship. They both are heavy offensive talents, but one leads to hull death faster than the other.
- Signature Homing and Raking Fire are also very different. Lowering Shields lends itself to a very different setup and strategy than lowering armor.
- I never use the prevent range change talents anymore but they have different ranges they can be used from and are suitably different I think.
- This grouping confuses me as these are radically different talents. EM is my bread-and-butter talent for pushing me into unhittable territory. Boosted Shields is very situational but could help against an enemy with loads of radiation/void damage. Brace for Impact hasn't appealed to me but I might just not have ever done a build that benefits from it.
- I addressed these in another thread. Small differences matter on high difficulties. However, I still think Sharp Steering needs another -5 Escape nerf.

[daveal]

Thanks for the detailed feedback. I am at least hoping for icon redesign using colors and related objects, and maybe renaming some to show that they are closely related. For the rather similar clusters, there is no real science to my groupings, I just kept moving things around till they seemed similar. For the cluster "Brace for Impact" they are all defensive, and could stand further discussion. If there are talents which experienced players haven't found a use for, they could be candidates for removal.

[drspendlove]

Fair enough. It may be a good idea but I'm unsure how urgent re-doing the artwork would be.

One consideration with similar colors is to ensure that if the colors mean something, try to make them colorblind friendly colors so the common two types of colorblindness aren't at a decided disadvantage. Of course, I have no idea how hard it is to ensure that so /shrug.