Occupational Update - suggestions how to solve imbalances

[FutureJohny]

We can probably all agree, that balance of the new job system was a bit off. On the other hand this was needed, as the old one had several issued and well, we were just already used to them.

 

The issues:

1. Stats increasing to ridiculous levels

2. All dupes ending up as runners

3. Overused exosuits

4. Fixed job priority

 

This update was trying to solve all of those with the new one.

Issue is, it was overcorrection in several cases and not yet properly balanced or more accurately buffs/debuffs in the world were still tuned to the old system.

 

OU issues:

1. Jobs too narrowly defined

2. Exosuit only for Twinkletoes

3. No stat increase forcing many rerolls on start

4. Some jobs not worth leveling/keeping

5. Hat dance needed for some tasks

6. Job preferences are irrelevant in a long run, stats outweigh their importance.

 

There were more issues and most of them stay even after even th most recent update, but they are either clearly bugs and it is only matter of time until they are fixed (gophers not using massage tables) or not related to the jobs system (Stations using non-renewable resources to provide temporary buffs).

 

With the most recent update, we can see, most changes reverted. So far this update is turning out to be another Agricultural Update. (They change something, players whine, changes are reverted.)

In the current version the jobs are irrelevant, mostly due to leveling limit being 20 and reverting the old priorities. In my opinion Jobs cannot work with either of those changes 1-9 is much harder to manage than 5+5. For me it requires micromanagement of tasks window and strict door privileges. Every floor of my base, biome border, some POI, every water lock, or other choke points have doors with per dupe access. This is tedious to manage and sometimes causes issues. When one project ends and another starts, if I miss single door, they might either not able to get somewhere or loiter in wrong area.

 

While I admit my experience with this update is rather limited, I can handle only so much 20 fps gameplay in a day before I start considering experiments with glide ratio of my stone age laptop. I think, I went over most topics discussing OU here and come up with two possible solutions to this issue.

 

The solutions:

1. Secondary jobs

 

Dupes will have "Secondary job" slot in the Jobs window. The secondary job might provide reduced bonuses. When all priority tasks of primary job are fulfilled they switch to their secondary.

Jobs limited to one tree per dupe

Allow dupes to improve stats to some lower max (10).

This will require more slots for some jobs but will balance out by assigning your jobs to fewer dupes, meaning not all dupes can get secondary. Leveling speed of secondary is also thing to consider.

 

Issues:

1. Gopher tree will be overused, more than 3 slots might be needed

2. Using jobs boosting same stat

3. Early game dupes work better. More dupes you take, less double shift dupes you have.

4. Art, Science, Cooking are jobs that might not take full time dupe but becoming secondary means they never get done. Minor hat dance still needed, or button to switch job priority.

 

This is not ideal solution in my eyes, but can be easily converted from the preview and should be compatible with older saves.

 

1. Training

Aside from job dupes will have one or more slots for "training". Jobs will offer no stat bonuses and only modify priorities or add ability to use/build/dig certain objects.

Training will be giving either stat bonuses or specific buffs like run speed, carry capacity, exosuit bonuses.

When assigned training only minor stat boost is added and it is increased as the skill is learned.

Only very minor stat leveling allowed (5).

Dupes can progressively gain more trainings up to the set total (3) but they have to finish the earlier one first. Higher level jobs may require special training .Training should not require specific jobs, but may require unlocking of any job level X for more advanced training (exosuit).

Jobs will not gain mastery, training will instead.

Higher level jobs will require either certain level of training or even specific one for top positions. (ex: lvl 1 - free, lvl 2 - 1/2 any training, lvl 3 - 1 training lvl 4 - 2 trainings + specific training, etc.)

Training is possible to remove, but after acquiring dupe will have to learn from scratch. It will be hidden behind very specific modal window telling player this is action cannot be reverted.

Training should not have levels. (ex: Miners should not look like "Mining 1", "Mining 2", "Mining 3" but like "Mining", "Exosuit training", "Run speed").

Training can be exclusive to each other, if they overlap.

Art will have specialized training (+art +build).

Same thing for Learning,  training would be wasted time for dupe, since everyone will just wipe it once research is done, it needs to provide some other bonus to be worth keeping mid updates (ex: tinker).

 

Issues:

1. Whole system is s bit more complex than currently used one.

2. Players may find themselves locked out from certain jobs if not careful in planning

3. Some training might still be worth wiping at some point in base development.

 

While some hat dance might still be used with this setup, it will most likely be for Art or Science. This solution will have much worse transition from preview saves as there will need to be mapping from already leveled up professions to various trainings.

 

For both systems to work 5+5 or 9+9 needs to come back. Otherwise jobs will cause more issues than they solve.

 

So what do you think about those suggestions, will they work, will they cause more issues to your playstyle, do you have some questions?

Ask away.

[NanoD]

Yeah I was afraid of it to. 

I still did have some issues with the priority system hard to understand. But it might have been just that it was so ******* buggy. 

My main issue with Athletics was that it was tide with strength. witch made it dubble important. And if you wanted to use exosuits that would give you debuff of -6 and you want your miners to have it. That would make it painful to use. Think the -6 for exosuti was to huge of debuff in when you did have huge restriction on athletics. 

I dont like the passive training of athletics. Should have a training room for strength and athletics.

Job system was good, I think only real issue I had was restriction of 3 per job. 

Still a issue that some of the jobs only can get exp just passive so only 25 per cycle. That is a huge issue but that is only because they havnt implemented it. 

I still think they were on to something with this update. 

[randomdupe]

The idea behind the jobs was to give the players more control on dupe leveling instead of being stuck with level 26 runners.  The job system didnt allow any leveling whatsoever and just gave them bonuses when assigned a job.  Gaining stats when mastering a job was much needed to allow leveling from the jobs.  Being able to gain stats from multiple trees allows dupes to be trained in multiple jobs.

[watermelen671]

3 hours ago, FutureJohny said:

Wall of text

...Saturnus? Issatchu? 

[Kabrute]

it is much more than just player whines though because many of us whine about the thermal bandaid and that never get reverted

[Keyimin]

I don't know why there's so often this attitude of "oh, once again, players whined and devs reverted to cater to [insert insulting description here]. It belittles people's opinions. Just because YOU might disagree with those opinions doesn't justify disrespecting them by dismissing them as "whines." It also suggests that devs have no independent thoughts and just knee-jerk to loud voices, which is equally insulting to them.

These forums are here precisely for the devs to hear ALL opinions from those playing the game and make decisions based on their own intentions, their own testing, and what they're hearing from the community. Can't we talk about our own opinions without this need to insult everyone else's? 

[PhailRaptor]

So, I can't speak for the forums here, but...

17 hours ago, FutureJohny said:

With the most recent update, we can see, most changes reverted. So far this update is turning out to be another Agricultural Update. (They change something, players whine, changes are reverted.)

On the Steam forums, there were all of like 3 people who could be characterized as "whining" about the Agriculture Update.  Everyone else liked the concept of the system, but were concerned with how terrible the number balance was and how it needed more iteration before becoming a live update.  And there was a lot of really healthy discussion going on about it, and how to improve that number balance to make the system work.  In fact, a fair number of us were quite disappointed by the reversion, which produced Our Lord and Savior Mealwood.

Seeing some of the discussions that occur here between certain high knowledge individuals, I can only assume that the consensus was the same here.  So I'm rather concerned to see such discussions characterized as "whining".

[Kabrute]

Oh, but I did whine, I whined about mealwood being fertilized with dirt instead of fertilizer, but gave that up when I saw just how much dirt there really was now.   I whined about the temperature thing, alot, all over the place,  Still do because it has caused glaring secondary bugs.  Sometimes I post overly emotional statements with choice words capsed for emphasis because I am upset that the game isn't as perfect as these devs keep showing they Can make it.