Should Occupational Upgrade be revised

[Oozinator]

I started a new base, after patch yesterday.
It depends very much, if you are lucky with geysers and starterbiome (dirt/algae).
Expansion is slow, but it works. I use no geyser for now, found only one NG, but the setup..
When i would not know, the "prepatch-occupational ONI", i would for sure like it(now).
It's way harder now, everything has to be planned wisely, not a real bad thing, but:
That will limit playeroptions, to experiment with "cool machinery", to test things out.
It limits the freedom/ another playstyle must be adapted.
Food/stress/jobtiers is ok, but i hope they polish it further. Dupes are running wild and they are efficient, but i use reload/save to get dupes with >+3 Athletics, or it would be a pain to play.
For a new player, that must be a blast (trial and error) without tutorials, must be frustrating.
 

[Mjello]

On a positive note slimelung spread and gameplay is very good now. I really like the way it spreads from a small polluted oxygen cloud all around if you don't do something about it.

Not so brightly though...

The slow speed of dupe in exosuit with a minor injury is like watching a sloth do a marathon. I like that they make tube transport much more relevant but maybe exosuits are a bit too slow... It took hours to get my first geysir connected from slimelung territory.

Flooding the entire area with chlorine would have been faster. But my map seed did not spawn a chlorine geysir??

[Mariilyn]

I personally prefer the new job system over the previous one because I don’t have to keep track of 9 prioritization levels spanning everything and everyone (we now basically have 5 levels for each profession plus 5 strict levels which interact with these) and don’t have to setup some shenanigan to make a duplicant prioritize 1 job over the other ones without unchecking his job permissions (which in my case often lead to idleness). I suspect this update might actually be more difficult for veteran players who are used to a different system and faster speeds than new players who will adjust immediately to the new system.

That said its true that it is sometimes frustrating, so here is a suggestion : the different job tiers could be divided in several categories which would each work differently. For instance;

Tier 1-2 jobs would be the simple, basic, « entry level » jobs that everyone are able to perform anytime (including junior cook and junior artist). A duplicant would level a particular job each time they perform an action related to it, up until masterization, meaning they would be able to learn many job at the same time, like in the old system. The bonus it gives after being masterized would be permanent and there would be no cap on how much low-tier jobs a duplicant can learn. The main goal of assigning a low-tier job is prioritization management.

Tier 3-5 jobs would be the exclusive, specialized job that need an assignment to be performed. They give bigger stats bonuses and perks. The stat bonuses would also be permanent, but a duplicant would be able to learn a limited number of jobs, something like 2 or 3. Im not sure how interaction between jobs would be implemented… Maybe a duplicant would be able to perform every job mastered, beginning first with the job assigned, then the other ones. Maybe only the main currently held job would give a full bonus and the other ones would give only half of it. I think there should also be a way to change career path too, but not instantly, you may need to « forget » progressively a job and have to retrain it if you want it back later.

Tier 6-7 jobs would be highly specialized job and a duplicant would only be able to master one of these. If he is unassigned from his job he would begin to lost a percentage% of experience each cycle because of the continuous training needed to maintain excellency.

… or something similar. 

I believe such a system could give some opportunity to level all base stats but also give each duplicant a distinctive job profile. 

We could then have a miner-builder-courrier who may further specialize in mining or building, or may get to use the exosuits without penalty. And also a cook-farmer. And also an architect who complete art jobs. Some top-tier jobs may need to offer bigger benefits in order to be as much attractive as the exosuit specialization though.

Other small stuff

- Jobs that relies on a lot of traveling could give a small bonus to athletics

- It would be nice to have a permission system on the stations that need to be operated.

- The smelting machine seems to be a very dangerous piece of equipment and should only be operated by an engineer (that or allow everyone to use it and make it randomly breaks from time to time when not operated by an engineer).

[goboking]

36 minutes ago, Mariilyn said:

I personally prefer the new job system over the previous one because I don’t have to keep track of 9 prioritization levels spanning everything and everyone (we now basically have 5 levels for each profession plus 5 strict levels which interact with these) and don’t have to setup some shenanigan to make a duplicant prioritize 1 job over the other ones without unchecking his job permissions (which in my case often lead to idleness). I suspect this update might actually be more difficult for veteran players who are used to a different system and faster speeds than new players who will adjust immediately to the new system.

On the one hand you're saying you don't want to use the full range of priority settings.  On the other hand you're saying that idle dupes are a problem.  Full use of priority settings (all of them) coupled with job restrictions and door access can allows systems wherein dupes are never idle.

[vovik]

For this part, yes, dupes are efficient, but Occupation is not refined, you can read my previous post. Also, klei nerfed twinkletoes to +3, but did not nerf anemic to -3.. "who needs improve button?"

3 hours ago, Oozinator said:

I started a new base, after patch yesterday.
It depends very much, if you are lucky with geysers and starterbiome (dirt/algae).
Expansion is slow, but it works. I use no geyser for now, found only one NG, but the setup..
When i would not know, the "prepatch-occupational ONI", i would for sure like it(now).
It's way harder now, everything has to be planned wisely, not a real bad thing, but:
That will limit playeroptions, to experiment with "cool machinery", to test things out.
It limits the freedom/ another playstyle must be adapted.
Food/stress/jobtiers is ok, but i hope they polish it further. Dupes are running wild and they are efficient, but i use reload/save to get dupes with >+3 Athletics, or it would be a pain to play.
For a new player, that must be a blast (trial and error) without tutorials, must be frustrating.
 

This is why i voted yes - system is not refined and it requires 2 or 3 dupes to do a single job now, and thats because of bad jobs assigning and dupe task prioritization. And i pointed out things that will fix these (my opinion). Only thing that saves my colony for now is access restrictions.. who knows what will klei "nerf out" next.

5 hours ago, goboking said:

Yes, for reasons I've elaborated on in other threads.  The short of it is this news system has dupes tripping over each other trying to do their jobs and it can take two or three dupes to do the job a single dupe used to do.  Worse, it pigeonholes the way we play.  We now have to follow Klei's job allocation system instead of devising our own.  Lastly, I hate that I've had half my priority settings taken away from me.

Thing is that priority levels are not proffession-wise, they are simple priority levels - dupes still pick highest priority and go for it regardless of their proffesion, and only thing that profession gives is that dupes will prefer to do their job from tasks with same priority at highest priority, but will completely ignore other tasks of lower priority from their proffession, in addition wrong job assosiations makes whole update(and strict priority) worthless.

2 hours ago, Mariilyn said:

I personally prefer the new job system over the previous one because I don’t have to keep track of 9 prioritization levels spanning everything and everyone (we now basically have 5 levels for each profession plus 5 strict levels which interact with these) and don’t have to setup some shenanigan to make a duplicant prioritize 1 job over the other ones without unchecking his job permissions (which in my case often lead to idleness). I suspect this update might actually be more difficult for veteran players who are used to a different system and faster speeds than new players who will adjust immediately to the new system.

Door restrictions did the trick even before the occupation upgrade and currently the only thing that allows me to force dupes to stick to their proffesion without trying to fill priority 3 compactor all the time, ignoring their job. Priority rtange decrease is the thing that was welcome long ago, also - simple goddam fix without need to decrease priority range was to allow people to set their own default priority, but well, again, "who needs improve button?"

1 hour ago, goboking said:

On the one hand you're saying you don't want to use the full range of priority settings.  On the other hand you're saying that idle dupes are a problem.  Full use of priority settings (all of them) coupled with job restrictions and door access can allows systems wherein dupes are never idle.

About game design and "upgrade" updates in general - pass this to ones who do the game design: "JUST DO IT!"x20

[Mjello]

This game could be better if:

The dupes only do the job they were given. Unless you define strict priority.

Until a job is given they are allround hands.

Digging, I hate it when my seasoned miner runs around delivering instead of digging the abyssalite I just ordered. Just let them dig.

Make an idle area for them when there is nothing to do for them with piranha aquarium and comfy couch.

(Is there something I am missing here?)

[MorbidDinosaur]

There are a lot of good perspectives here, somethings I hadn't really considered a bother or a plus until someone pointed them out. Personally I think 'back to the drawing board' as in a rollback of the update is a little harsh/hasty- therefor my vote is no.

 

I like the upgrade and I don't have any problems with priority and people doing their jobs. I've read a lot of comments about this topic, and I really believe it comes down to inflexible p[laying styles and lack of understanding of how to use both job boards. I watch a lot of streamers play this game, and it seems to be a consistent misunderstanding. For instance several people on this thread have expressed that they want dupes to do 'their job only', which can be achieved easily by taking the dupe off of all other jobs. I will admit it took me several saves to understand how to use the new system, but with a little trail/error/ and patience I can set up smoothly running bases. It is a little ludicrous to me that someone who was 'awesome' at setting up bases with the old system is upset because they need to relearn how to approach the strategy of the game from cycle 1. 

The misleading information about food and resources is very annoying, in that it can lead your colony straight to ruin if you think you have- for instance, 10,000kcal of mushrooms that are maybe 20 plus tiles from the farthest edge of your 'sight' somewhere, showing up  in your colony inventory, then you get numerous pop ups telling you food in unreachable to your colonists. That being said, I have total faith that the Dev's have every intention on fixing this soon, as this is still is preview- is it not?

I do not like that they have limited the number of dups per job slot. Until they add more to the game play in the way of long term goals, the current 'endgame' is either an arbitrary goal the gamer has made for themselves, or 'survive forever'. In the interest of the latter, having as many dups as you like is one of the only things that could make late game play challenging, and not being able to give a hat to everyone is pretty disheartening.  I am very fortunate to have a machine that can actually handle 70 dups, so I recognize that this might be a minority position on the matter, as if you ave a machine that can handle around 30 colonists this doesn't matter to much. 

I do like the idea someone mentioned (sorry if I don't quote you, not sure where I read it) that because a duplication mastered a job they a get a boosted amount of skill points permanently, though I can see how this would make it too easy to make 'olympians' where everyone has every skill maxed out and jobs are redundant, as well as bonuses gained by the exosuit (for instance).

That being said, I love this update and I think with a little tweaking this is a wonderful addition to the game. 

[AileTheAlien]

I actually think the job system is the wrong way to go about having specialized dupes. It feels very game-y, and restricts the player heavily. A better system was mentioned in this thread; Have skills slowly degrade over time. Rimworld does this (although I think the rate of decay needs balancing), and it feels very easy to grasp and manage. If you had dupes lose some amount of skill every cycle, it would put a soft cap on total skill, so that they couldn't be experts at everything. Balanced properly, it would allow dupes to be a jack-of-all-trades, or the expert doctor who can't cook at all.

[Mariilyn]

On 01/02/2018 at 3:09 PM, goboking said:

On the one hand you're saying you don't want to use the full range of priority settings.  On the other hand you're saying that idle dupes are a problem.  Full use of priority settings (all of them) coupled with job restrictions and door access can allows systems wherein dupes are never idle.

Yes, but using door accesses in the context of job prioritization seems like a form of unnecessary micromanagement. Its not what is is intended for. I want to be able to directly order a duplicant to prioritize a specific kind of job, not use a workaround trick to prevent him to go to certain areas in order to achieve the same results.

The 1-5* system was not a reduction in priority settings. When I attributed a priority to a job, i needed to consider its order in relation to the other jobs of the same profession and the strict priorities, and not in relation to every other job in the base.

On 01/02/2018 at 4:26 PM, vovik said:

Thing is that priority levels are not proffession-wise, they are simple priority levels - dupes still pick highest priority and go for it regardless of their proffesion, and only thing that profession gives is that dupes will prefer to do their job from tasks with same priority at highest priority, but will completely ignore other tasks of lower priority from their proffession, in addition wrong job assosiations makes whole update(and strict priority) worthless.

They were proffession-wise...  Maybe you did attribute too much high level strict priorities that prevented your dupe from reaching their low level job priorities? I agree this was a more difficult system to understand though.

[Kabrute]

4 hours ago, Mariilyn said:

Yes, but using door accesses in the context of job prioritization seems like a form of unnecessary micromanagement. Its not what is is intended for. I want to be able to directly order a duplicant to prioritize a specific kind of job, not use a workaround trick to prevent him to go to certain areas in order to achieve the same results.

The 1-5* system was not a reduction in priority settings. When I attributed a priority to a job, i needed to consider its order in relation to the other jobs of the same profession and the strict priorities, and not in relation to every other job in the base.

They were proffession-wise...  Maybe you did attribute too much high level strict priorities that prevented your dupe from reaching their low level job priorities? I agree this was a more difficult system to understand though.

seriously?  work around trick?  They implemented the feature into the game at player request...... You get duplicant by duplicant control over the doors for this exact reason, its not a work around its their exact intended functional feature.  Before jobs were ever introduced the doors were how jobs were actively designated.  By incorporating the two methods of control you get the level of micromanagement needed to control the complex pathing algorithms used by the dupes ai.