New Skills system versus Old Jobs system.

[Lilalaunekuh]

The good the bad and the ugly:

 

The Good

Old system:

• A tier 3 specialization provided some challenge.
• Easy/possible to create jack-of-all-trades duplicants.

New system:

• Morale is now tied to the actual amount of learned skills.
• Allows for more choices and decisions beyond the highest tier job and when to learn it
• No more useless job micromanagment to learn everything

 

The Bad

Old system:

• Boring beyond the decison about when to learn a new highest tier job

New system:

• To easy (at least right now) to reach a tier 3 specialization
• No challenge to train an astronaut if you can wait with 3 morale requirement till you instanstly skill everything (and the duplicant will never leave the rocket again, so your colony can stay happy at 3 morale ...)
•  

Spoiler

The Ugly

Old system:

• The micromanagment attached to learning everything (count dupes/asgin to a new job/wait/repeat for the next job ...)
• There was always the pressure to learn a new job as soon as the job learned notification was showing

=> It was just annoying to manage and the job system felt more like a chore than an additional entertaining layer of the game.

New system:

• Takes away so much many challenges
  • Beeing able to mine abyssalite very early
  • Having access to master artwork without an initial morale requirement
  • ...
• The passive exp accumulation feels a boring and provides less than the old system
• Will end the jack-of-all-duplicants meta (or maybe alter it: You can still learn all skills that come with a specific "ability".)
• Just a mess that plain skill point increases and "real abilities" are in the same tree
  • You don´t need the building stat if your duplicant can reach 20 skill points without it.
  • You don´t need the +ranching since ranching does nothing
  • Why is beeing able to use the electric grill or mine abyssalite in the same system ?

 

 

=> I like the concept of the new system, but please trash the old job list and do a "real skill system"

(I mean a system JUST for new skills(="abilities"):

• Mine harder stuff
• Tune up generators
• Use the electric grill
• (Carry much more)

Not for something that gives just some skillpoints.)

[chemie]

13 minutes ago, Zarquan said:

I think it is about the same time for abyssalite, but it takes longer for granite because you have to level up before you can dig granite (unless they execute my suggestions).

I wouldn't go that far.  What I would say is that people recognized it was too easy to get dupes that were good at everything.

my concern was granite.  you can dig right away....now it requires waiting for how many cycles before being able to dig?

[beowulf2010]

44 minutes ago, chemie said:

I have not played so curious.  old jobs you HAD to have a miner, cook, artist to perform the task. this forced you to address moral. is this still the case?  if not  you could ignore it as it only speeds the task vs blocks it?  so no morale issues if you dont want faster dups?

You still need certain skills to do certain jobs. But the first level jobs only requires 1 additional morale point. So a theoretical dupe that has the first level ability to mine 1 diamond material (granite, not abbysalite), use super computers, cook and do basic art will need at most 4 morale (3 on some dupes for some reason) which is easy to get with just a bathroom, bedroom and a couple recreation schedule blocks. 

I'm may be missing a couple things due to only having time to get one of my 5 dupes to a rank 2 job.

Stupid jobs... 

[WanderingKid]

20 minutes ago, chemie said:

my concern was granite.  you can dig right away....now it requires waiting for how many cycles before being able to dig?

Cycle 2.  3 if you're unlucky.

 

[Oozinator]

1 minute ago, beowulf2010 said:

I'm may be missing a couple things due to only having time to get one of my 5 dupes to a rank 2 job.

So far i do not like or dislike the new system more or less like the old one.
Have to use it more, only cycle 50

[Lilalaunekuh]

34 minutes ago, nakomaru said:

All skills is 68 morale. Minimum to get all unique skills is 51.

The maximum stable morale right now is 55 (relying on the wiki data) with maximum downtime.

=> If I want my late game jack-of-all trades duplicant I am able to do it

Spoiler

With new hope the real morale cap is 56.

My duplicants will need at least a by 2 higher morale all the time to keep the high morale buff and not all buff will be refreshed before wearing off.

=> Seems like it requires really everything you can do for morale to keep jack-of-all-trades duplicants happy.

 

[WanderingKid]

32 minutes ago, nakomaru said:

How is 50 68 morale easier than 35 morale?

[Addendum] Oops, I can't add.

All skills is 68 morale. Minimum to get all unique skills is 51.

Fair enough.  I was more commenting on the fact that you are less likely to blow up your morale when you specialize than you used to be.  I'd expect 'All Tasks' super dupes... which I don't think should have happened anyway, but that's just my opinion... will require roughly the same time and support as they used to be.

Which, after doing the math, you're right, I was wrong.  Double the amount of morale support is necessary.  BBQ 16 , Décor 12, Barracks 1, Great Hall 6, Showers 3, Lavatories 2 gets you 40 morale. Strap in the power starved entertainment equipment for another 9 for 49.  You can't get there from here anymore.

EDIT: Forgot two things

5 shift break is +4, that's to 53.  Bother with the plastic beds it's 54.  Finally just being a dupe is 55.

Sorry @Lilalaunekuh you're right, I'd mostly forgot about the shift bonuses.

[suicide commando]

Personally, I like the new skills overview for dupes, it makes it much easier to see who has learned what and so on.

The ease at which a dupe can get into a high end job is a bit too much, maybe a good change would be to increase the morale requirement of higher tier skills, but reduce it for the 2nd skill taken at a morale level. So for instance, a dupe that learns mining 3, would need more than the current six morale, however, if this dupe were to learn building 3 as well, this wouldn't cost as much extra morale as learning mining 3 would costed.

This way, it's still hard to get masters-of-all-trades without insane amounts of morale, but getting a specialist is just a little bit harder.

[pacovf]

You don't even need to match morale expectations, no? You could just deal with the stress buildup with massage tables, as long as expectations and morale are not too far from each other.

[Gurgel]

2 hours ago, nakomaru said:

I'll be fine, don't you worry.

Since everyone likes their new chains, looks like the professional game designers made the right choice.

I very much do _not_ like them. If it turns out that I have to artificially cripple my dupes, I shall be pretty dissatisfied about this change.

30 minutes ago, nakomaru said:

Oh, and because astronauts don't exist and because you can respec, in practice the target number will probably be 42 (all unique skills minus command capsule).

42 is not that hard to reach. So I can still have my non-crippled general-ability dupes.

[Denisetwin]

2 hours ago, Junksteel said:

But so far, I'm with Nakomaru and don't find the new system very fun. I like having mutant dupes good at everything and I would pay any price to have that back.

But hey, it's just me and I still have to spend more time with the new system.

I'm this way and for this reason.  Once I've trained up my core group of 12 dupes, I like not having to micro-manage what everyone is doing because I've cross-trained everyone, and instead concentrate on building elaborate designs and structures.  I realize this will have to change now.  I hope the new way makes it very clear how the devs are expecting us to best utilize this new system.  

[DarkWalker]

Count me as unhappy with the change too. This change seems custom-tailored to curtail my preferred play style, since it actually makes the game easier for those that prefer specializing their dupes while making it harder — likely to the point of being frustrating — for those that prefer to grow generalist dupes.

[Hellshound38]

Just so all the comments aren't people that hate it....

I will say that I like it much better. It was annoying, especially on harder difficulty settings, that to advance a single specialized dupe his morale req would be nearly exponential. Now I can specialize earlier, and do interesting things earlier like Ranching or breaking through Abyssalite. 

I will say that making them get EXP for unrelated tasks doesn't make sense completely.

I see two solutions, make EXP skill type specific, or make higher skills require higher related stats. 

[Junksteel]

More ways to increase morale and hence its cap would be cool to balance the current system.

It would mean even more options to play around and less of mandatory checks to launch a rocket.

Pushing specialization how it is now feels like a good move in that direction, more freedom and choice throughout the way. Game feels more dynamic, choices more impactful and I don't hate it.

However, keeping a 5 star hotel for mutants of all trades should be an open option for those that bother to do that in the long run. Nothing you need to do, but silly stuff some people will be interested in. I would be fine even if stupid expensive space materials were required to keep the highest morale possible.

1 or 2 more morale bonuses would be enough to extend the cap a bit.... (the one mentioned in tepidizer description box would be perfect!)

I believe no one would be pissed with a couple more optional ways to increase morale and it would make the new system more likeable (at least for me).

[RonEmpire]

While - I do agree that some of the numbers might need a bit of a rework/balancing to be a bit more flexible.
I also agree that we shouldn't have a jack of all trades dupe that maxes ALL of the jobs tree like we did from the last update.

OLD SYSTEM:
It just felt a bit weird, that you take on jobs and mastered it- retain the job perks.   And then totally switch to a new job to master.   But kept the morale high.       The morale requirement went up  upon taking the job, but you could back out of it before fully mastering it and the morale would drop.   You could 'game' the system that way with Artist, just to do a few paintings, or Mechatronics Engineer to throw a few autosweepers down and then back out. Or scan a few geysers and back out.    "Hat swapping" still- but if you do it too long you end up getting committed to it.    And another playing behavior patter to minmax was to just have a dupe take all the tier 1 jobs and passively master them before moving on to the next job.   Taking research whenever possible to get the LEARN skill bonus to help speed up the process.

NEW SYSTEM:

While yes- it feels weird that you can skill up exp and gain skill points doing something not related to the area you place your skill points into.   But that's typically how all the RPG genre games work.    I don't mind this too much.      I don't mind respec option.     Balancing the morale points to give you some more freedom in picking multiple jobs/skills would be ideal but of course can't take on all of it.      The repsec building is there   helps for those who over pick their skills or making mistake not intended for gaming the system- thus a penalty of sort is needed to avoid abusive/exploit.    

While I do think there should be some penalty where you can't just hot swap them on the fly,  it shouldn't be too punishing.   I'm not quite sure how the SKILL xp points are earned - but if it cost a skill point,   let's make sure that we can still recoup that skill point rather  loss forever  because skill points are internally linked to the skill traits you have.   So whenever you level say a strength trait,  you gained a skill notch.  taking a way a skill point could end up hurting you because your character capped out on all his skill traits, so he can't gain those skill points back.   So the mechanics for earning skill points and XP should need to be checked first so that a player ultimately doesn't end up netting less skill points for a mistake.    

If the current penalty is losing half a day cycle.   That's not too bad.   Its basically you lose time for switching jobs, and time does make a different.  That sort of just translate to losing on skill points-  though  with loss of skill points - at least your guy is free to carry on his various tasks.   Basically, he's paying for his mistake passively.  Rather than Sitting in a Chair for half a cycle which is a hard penalty on time.  That's a few critters that isn't getting  love or farm boxes not getting tended to.        Another alternative could be cost of resources, pay "X Iron and Coal and Food and PILL" to get this done. 

If you really want to be realistic- morale expectations should only be tied to the job you're expected to do.   So if you could in the priority screen "X" off a guy from say cooking and ranching.   Even though he has ranching skills,  the morale for the duration in which you have disabled  the job for a dupe then goes away.   He should be less stressed out because he no longer is doing cooking or ranching or digging or building.   He might have the skills/knowledge,  but if he's not required  or blocked from doing the job related to the skill.  he should be less stressed, thus morale should decrease.

Overall, the morale requirements need balancing.    The current respec penalty seems fine to me.  Though there are various suggested penalties made by others and myself.


  

[Junksteel]

41 minutes ago, RonEmpire said:

I also agree that we shouldn't have a jack of all trades dupe that maxes ALL of the jobs tree like we did from the last update.

I agree with most of you said but it isn't clear for me why it's cooler not having that available as an optional thing to do in the end game.

Starting with specialization is pretty cool. Every decision matters which is nice. Better than what we had, I agree. The pannel tab itself looks much better.

But it isn't fun when one of your two doctors is sick, your main miner is sick, and you need to wait everything goes back to normal before digging the place for a thing you still need to tinker and execute. It's fun and ok in first 100 cycles but boring if you have that after a 1000 cycles.

As time goes by, rotating the team into different jobs would be an optional luxury thing to reflect how well stablished the base is as it requires morale expectation to be met.

[RonEmpire]

9 minutes ago, Junksteel said:

I agree with most of you said but it isn't clear for me why it's cooler not having that available as an optional thing to do in the end game.

Starting with specialization is pretty cool. Every decision matters which is cool. 

But it isn't fun when one of your 2 doctors is sick, your main miner is sick, and you need to wait everything goes back to normal before digging the place for a thing you still need to tinker and execute. It's fun and ok in first 100 cycles but boring if you have that after a 1000 cycles.

As time goes by, rotating the team into different jobs would be an optional luxury thing to reflect how well stablished the base is. 

To some degree,  you're right, and I understand what you're saying,  because I avoid   the  "Can't Dig" and "Can't Care" traits  when picking dupes.  (Can't dig late game is okay since the map will be uncovered).

I usually make sure my early Dupes, can help each other out or be able to dig out of a gotcha situation (like trapping yourself thus needing somebody to dig you out,  ENTOMBED I think its called).

But most of the basic mining and basic caring  doesn't require the highest level skills to still be able to do the task.      If you look at the "Master Chef" or "Master Miner" - its   just  +X skill points to your cap limit.   They technically aren't necessary for your dupes to do what they need to do.   They're just a 'master' skill that makes the person do things faster.          Which is why I was saying needs balancing, where all your dupes can still do something (such as ranching, and doctoring)- but not necessarily need the highest tier to get by.  

[Junksteel]

 

8 minutes ago, RonEmpire said:

To some degree,  you're right, and I understand what you're saying,  because I avoid   the  "Can't Dig" and "Can't Care" traits  when picking dupes.

I too understand your point. I admit part of my stand comes from an irrational completionist obsession. CANT COMPLETE THE TABLEEEE. ARRRGHHHHH

[DarkWalker]

1 hour ago, Junksteel said:

 

I too understand your point. I admit part of my stand comes from an irrational completionist obsession. CANT COMPLETE THE TABLEEEE. ARRRGHHHHH

Yep. For some players "completing the table" is fun, while being unable to "complete the table" is a permanent source of frustration.

And yeah, I'm perfectly aware that this kind of thinking prevents me from achieving maximum efficiency in games like this. I don't care; I have far more fun getting everything, including every job/skill, than trying to optimize my gameplay by having dupes only learn things they have a practical use for.

[goboking]

2 hours ago, Junksteel said:

But it isn't fun when one of your two doctors is sick, your main miner is sick, and you need to wait everything goes back to normal before digging the place for a thing you still need to tinker and execute. It's fun and ok in first 100 cycles but boring if you have that after a 1000 cycles.

See, to me that's part of the challenge, and thus part of the fun.  Knowing how many of each specialization a colony needs to run smoothly is something that I put a great deal of thought into.  So too many doctors, or not enough miners, can cause inefficiencies.  Having just the right amount of each means a well-oiled machine keeps running even if a miner gets sick.  But then again I'm the meticulous type; the kind of player who uses spreadsheets and timetables to ensure everything is running at peak efficiency.  And I wouldn't do any of the above if it didn't add to the immersion of the game for me.

[M.C.]

11 hours ago, pacovf said:

Not sure I follow. The new system pushes you to specialise your dupes. If they gave you the tools to have all your dupes learn everything, then how would it be different from the previous system?

 

9 hours ago, goboking said:

You didn't get the tools to hit the cap because they don't want you to hit the cap.  The entire point of this change is to encourage you to specialize you dupes.  Gone are the days of colonies full of masters-of-all-trades.

You two and others seem to treat late-game colonies full of masters-of-all-trades as some sort of terrible problem that absolutely needs to be fixed. Could you please explain why you think that way? I am genuinely curious here because from my point of view, the current situation doesn't seem to be inherently bad.

[goboking]

3 minutes ago, M.C. said:

You two and others seem to treat late-game colonies full of masters-of-all-trades as some sort of terrible problem that absolutely needs to be fixed. Could you please explain why you think that way? I am genuinely curious here because from my point of view, the current situation doesn't seem to be inherently bad.

I don't recall ever saying that a colony full of masters-of-all-trades was a problem.  Just because I've personally been playing with specialists since day one doesn't mean I think others should follow suit.  That said, if the developers think the challenges associated with managing specialized labor or keeping a colony full of fully-mastered generalists happy is a worthwhile hurdle to present to the players then I understand where theyr'e coming from.

[M.C.]

Just now, goboking said:

I don't recall ever saying that a colony full of masters-of-all-trades was a problem.  Just because I've personally been playing with specialists since day one doesn't mean I think others should follow suit.  That said, if the developers think the challenges associated with managing specialized labor or keeping a colony full of fully-mastered generalists happy is a worthwhile hurdle to present to the players then I understand where theyr'e coming from.

"The entire point of this change is to encourage you to specialize your dupes". Those are your words.

So tell me please. Why is this a desirable change?

[Lilalaunekuh]

15 minutes ago, M.C. said:

You two and others seem to treat late-game colonies full of masters-of-all-trades as some sort of terrible problem that absolutely needs to be fixed. Could you please explain why you think that way? I am genuinely curious here because from my point of view, the current situation doesn't seem to be inherently bad.

Ok, first I have to admit I am one of that likes generic duplicants

(All duplicants are at least able to to every job (maybe except attacking^^) and most of the time all the duplicants in my colony even have roughly the same traits.)

=> I like and want my jack-of-all-trades duplicants, but I am happy to pay a price for this late game goal.

 

Spoiler

The old system was boring after you got every unique skill and the job mastered notification was more an annoying way to tell you to asgin a new job so you don´t loose out on possible exp ...

 

=> The old system encouraged you to have more generic duplicants, but the game rewards more specialization

(A duplicants performing just a few tasks were and maybe will always be more efficient.)

 

 

Right now your still able to play with jack-of-all-trades duplicants if you just skill unique skills. (If you don´t go for the astronaut skills on none astronaut duplicants it will be even easier to achieve ...)

 

 

[Zarquan]

6 minutes ago, M.C. said:

"The entire point of this change is to encourage you to specialize your dupes". Those are your words.

So tell me please. Why is this a desirable change?

I think you will find if you specialize your dupes and have them live near their jobs that the productivity of your base will be significantly better.  That is before skills and before jobs.  It might be easier to have a central base where everyone lives and everyone can do everything, but it isn't optimal play. 

This change just amplifies the appeal of this playstyle.