Some suggestions for current Skill system UI and mechanics

[camelot]

So until now I managed to have time for testing the new Skill system of QoL Mark 3 update. I like it in overall, but found the Skill interface very unintuitive. I had played this game since alpha and have around 1500 hours under my belt and still have a hard time to figure out how the new system works. I could only imagine how many newbies could be confused by this system, especially when ONI launched in May. Here are something I would like to change about this system:

1. Can't clearly see the link between Morale expectation and Total skill points earned

In this screen, nowhere I can see the Total skill points earned information (which can see clearly in other screens like Priorities, Vitals, Consumables), which is very weird

The squares represent Morale and Morale expectation are not helpful. I won't count them, so I tend to trust "+15" text and ignore the squares, and this defeat the purpose of them. I also realized the icon next to Red squares in screenshot is actually a warning sign (opposite with tick sign), but this one actually kinda confusing, so remove it totally could be better

I suggest to change square section to 3 items:

• Total Skill points Earned
• Morale Expectation (with tooltip)
• Current Morale (with tooltip)

And change how the numbers could be represented. This way, players can clearly see the relationship between Total Skill points and Morale expectation, since these 2 numbers tend to be the same, or increasing at the same rate (in the case Personal Interest reduces morale expectation)

2. Display more clearly how Morale expectation adds up when promoting dupes to higher tier job

As you can see in the screenshot, I think add something at the header of each job tier to show how many morale dupes will need for 1 skill in that tier is the better way to display this hidden information. So no need to guess for how many morale expectation for tier 3 job when seeing the number of required morale expectation

3. The Hat column is kinda waste

I can see all the hats on dupe's head icon. I also can select the hat at the top button. So no need for this column at all. Could be better to use this space for "Total skill points earned" information, so players can know and sort out which dupes are recently printed

4. This new system makes the game progress become much faster

This one have nothing to do with interface but after playing for sometime I managed to achieve things much faster with this new skill system. 2 skill points and I can dig abyssalite. 5 points and I can get a mechatronics engineer with 5 morale expectation. Someone even managed to launch rocket at cycle 41 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHRWJH18kwQ.

Maybe for some people, they like it this way. But for me, this is too early. Have to setup some basic rooms and could manage expectation of some highest tier job feels not right for me

One way I could think about to slower game progress but not break the new system is having some "buffering" between lower and higher tier job. Basically:

• You need to invest like 3-5 skills point to be promoted from any lower tier jobs to any higher tier jobs

It looks very much alike to the skill tree of the famous RPG game Titan Quest

5. Dupes should earn more experience points when perform tasks related to their current job

Dupes could master a Research job by digging stuffs or ranching critters at same rate with researching things is kinda weird. In common sense, dupes currently assigning digging jobs should earn more experience points when digging. To avoid abusing by master all lowest tier job and earn bonus exp, these basic rules could be used:

• When 1 dupe learning Digging job Tier 1, he will receive 20-30% bonus experience when digging stuffs
• When he master Digging Job Tier 1 and assigned to other job like Construction, he will receive something like haft (10-15%) of bonus experience when digging stuffs
• When he assigned to Digging Job 2 or back to Digging Job 1, he will receive full bonus experience

You can test this idea and change the number to avoid super dupes problem too. But I feel that 20-30% bonus would be ok