Downsides for ship combat Talent buffs

[resistor]

Talents like Evasive Maneuvers and Vigilant Scanners tend to be "default talents" for me. That is, I will always use defense stacking talents unless there is an occasion I need another talent like Unrivaled Patches, or think another talent could give me a better advantage in a particular situation, like Boarding Assault.

I think if you look at the data you'll probably find most successful builds also spam defensive talents.

I definitely think ship combat would be more interesting if these sorts of talents were made to be less "spamable" by giving them downsides, like Evasive Maneuvers having a penalty to the user's range change and accuracy.

Edit: This would make offensive spamable talents better by comparison. Maybe Guided Fire should get a small penalty to defence, Firing Orders could have a debuff that makes it so the user can't move while it is active, etc.

What I'm suggesting is a pretty big update to ship combat, but I think it would make it more interesting.

[bobc]

Interesting perspective, but very reliant on captains following similar strategies to yourself. I've recently broken the level 20 barrier and upgraded to a Cautelia Heavylift. My opening moves, especially against Xeno, is for Bombardment (drop their armour/accuracy) then Firing Orders (increase my damage). I will then choose between defense or offense for the next talent depending on how things are going.

Looking across the range of talents, I thought they were designed to stack and be mutually supportive. If I want to stack Evasive Maneuvers and Brace for Impact then surely it is for the AI to select offensive talents to counter that strategy, rather than include additional negative effects to the defensive talents?

[fallen]

Some of the Talents already include a trade off mechanic. Some don't and are intended to be great starting Talents, easy to stack. I think nerfing these early game Talents by adding too many negatives might have a big impact on starting players. I find that Evasive Maneuvers is a go-to Talent for my Captain's early on, but after a while it fades from use and becomes something I do on turns when I don't a more important Talent play. Much as bobc said, Talents like Bombardment start to play a larger role, etc.

[resistor]

Dec 1, 2017 20:01:22 GMT -5 fallen said:

Some of the Talents already include a trade off mechanic. Some don't and are intended to be great starting Talents, easy to stack. I think nerfing these early game Talents by adding too many negatives might have a big impact on starting players. I find that Evasive Maneuvers is a go-to Talent for my Captain's early on, but after a while it fades from use and becomes something I do on turns when I don't a more important Talent play. Much as bobc said, Talents like Bombardment start to play a larger role, etc.

I think the real problem I have with ship combat in STF is that it mostly feels same-y. I hardly ever feel the need to adapt strategies to my enemy, so I will fight a pirate ship the exact same why I fought a pirate ship 30 turns ago. The only enemy that can make me adapt my strategies to them with any consistency is a xeno ship, and that is because there is such a serious risk to survival, that the opportunity cost of using one talent over another makes the fight sometimes require more thought.

Crew combat doesn't seem to have this problem, as I feel like I am often forced to adapt my plans to the enemy's situation. Initiative rolls and the presence of multiple characters who all have relatively low health makes crew combat feel much more dynamic and unpredictable than ship combat. The opportunity cost of choosing one talent over another feels high, as an inferior choice can get my combat crew partially or entirely destroyed.

I suggested making all ship combat talents that give buffs have downsides because I was thinking that if such buffs have exploitable weaknesses, then it could force players to not use one static strategy and adapt more to the AI's strategy.

[fallen]

Thanks! We'll keep working on the AI and available options to keep mixing it up.

[MintDragon]

Dec 3, 2017 0:56:13 GMT -5 resistor said:

Dec 1, 2017 20:01:22 GMT -5 fallen said:

Some of the Talents already include a trade off mechanic. Some don't and are intended to be great starting Talents, easy to stack. I think nerfing these early game Talents by adding too many negatives might have a big impact on starting players. I find that Evasive Maneuvers is a go-to Talent for my Captain's early on, but after a while it fades from use and becomes something I do on turns when I don't a more important Talent play. Much as bobc said, Talents like Bombardment start to play a larger role, etc.

I think the real problem I have with ship combat in STF is that it mostly feels same-y. I hardly ever feel the need to adapt strategies to my enemy, so I will fight a pirate ship the exact same why I fought a pirate ship 30 turns ago. The only enemy that can make me adapt my strategies to them with any consistency is a xeno ship, and that is because there is such a serious risk to survival, that the opportunity cost of using one talent over another makes the fight sometimes require more thought.

Crew combat doesn't seem to have this problem, as I feel like I am often forced to adapt my plans to the enemy's situation. Initiative rolls and the presence of multiple characters who all have relatively low health makes crew combat feel much more dynamic and unpredictable than ship combat. The opportunity cost of choosing one talent over another feels high, as an inferior choice can get my combat crew partially or entirely destroyed.

I suggested making all ship combat talents that give buffs have downsides because I was thinking that if such buffs have exploitable weaknesses, then it could force players to not use one static strategy and adapt more to the AI's strategy.

I am thinking that diversification of weapons and defenses (and hopeful illumination of data) will naturally lead to strategy changes.  Certain defenses more/less effective vs. missiles, etc... but agree that the typical battle currently has a pre-turn 1 decision of fight/don't fight no matter what. 

[fallen]

Absolutely will!