[Poll] Which priority system do you think was better?

[Grimgaw]

@SkunkMaster Your latest post highlights the issue with this thread. You're comparing old 1-9 to, now gone, 1-5*. Nowhere in this thread have I found valid discussion of 1-9* vs 1-5*. People here base their opinions on 1-9 which they played for months compare it to 1-5* which they played for a week and extrapolate to 1-9* as if we were in the same update. Unfortunately jobs happened and any discussion about 1-9 is rather moot.

[SkunkMaster]

Just now, Grimgaw said:

@SkunkMaster Your latest post highlights the issue with this thread. You're comparing old 1-9 to, now gone, 1-5*. Nowhere in this thread have I found valid discussion of 1-9* vs 1-5*. People here base their opinions on 1-9 which they played for months compare it to 1-5* which they played for a week and extrapolate to 1-9* as if we were in the same update. Unfortunately jobs happened and any discussion about 1-9 is rather moot.

The sad part is that the current edition of the system is the worst of both worlds. Giving jobs to dupes increase their decor and food expectations/needs, for a very limited buff, does not seem worth it for me. 

The problem with 1-9 vs 1-5* is that in 1-5* you had the option to prioritize work on 2 different levels. The one level was on the level of those who had a job that performed the task at hand, the other was "everyone".

with 1-9 i have no influence what jobs get done in what order, based on who has what job. This also means my digger might as well go research while my researcher can stand straight next to him in idle. Only way now to prevent this, is like in the old system, go into job overview and turn research of for the dupe in question all together. 

But what if, what if i want dupes to have something do at all times, but still always prioritize the jobs they're given, what do i do then ? Currently i'm F*cked, The old system does not account for jobs, and as such worked well because it was not centered around dupes having individual jobs, instead of do it all dupes...


So, as i see it, the 1-5* made sense because we had jobs, because we had no stat progression and dupes stats actually ment something. In the old system you could ignore the stats, just go for high learners and you knew you would be perfect. 

The new system actually encouraged you to pick dupes according to your needs. 


There are so many reasons and nuances for as why 1-5* system was/is better then the 1-9 system, and i fear right now that the result will be jobs + stats progression + 1-9.

 

You wanna control who does what ? go into job tabs and turn of the jobs for the individual dupes. Oh you dont want your architect to dig out buildings, because there are 5 other buildings ready to be made and you actually have a digger who can dig out the building 3 times faster ?

Sad luck, even with digging turned off your architect will choice to dig out that building, making it so that you have to get a architect who is literally unable to dig in order for you to avoid him digging out random building.

 

I feel like this patch started out real strong, gave you some more challenges and actually made the game better. And i feel like they're going backwards now and starting to take what is worst from both worlds, because who knows, maybe it's convenient ?

I honestly don't see a reason to give any dupes any jobs anymore. Sure gofer maybe for the massive +400 kg carry capacity, that now stays even after he stopped as a gofer. and why not give the courier also, so they gain a total of +1000 kg carry capacity. And lets not forget the fact that they can now go for 20 in a stat, so 1000 kg carry capacity + 20 str = 2 tons total carry capacity ?... sure bro, that sounds about right. lets get 20 of those dupes and ignroe all the other jobs, except maybe digger for abys and 1 single research assistant for advanced research.

 

 

If this is what is desired, to get a bunch of superdupes who can do everything, max everything out and what not, what reason is there for me to pick the "right" dupes or for that sake to give them a job? 
The new system even encouraged me to pick good dupes from start, not just 3 dupes who all have 8+ learning.

 

 

At this moment i feel there are two ways out of this, without a crappy result. The first is to remove the entire job system, just remove it, go back to regular stat progression and needs progressing according to their skill increase, OR go to a job based system, where decor&food expectations depends on what job they have, without stat progression else then what is gained from jobs and make it so we can control what workers do what jobs in what order.

Right now it's just a clusterfuck.

[Anchan]

I prefer 1-5, 1-9 is just too much

[The Arcanian]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I have read, the Occupational Update preview started with a two-level priority. Dupes would first do 5s to 1s for tasks attributed to the dupe's job and strict priorities, and then do 5s to 1s for every other task. But now it has been reverted to the pre-Occupational system without even a task order change within the same priority when a job is assigned.

I have seen some complaints about a job not allowing dupes to do tangential tasks, like a farmer not picking up harvested crops or not delivering water/fertilizer. This could be fixed by adding job-specific delver and tidy, I guess it is now called, tasks. So plants generate delver(farming) while building would generate delver(building), food could be tidy(food), but still keeping the current ones as general tasks. These tasks could be given job priority for all jobs that need it, tidy(food) could be for Farmer, Cook, and Groundskeeper job lines, same with delver(building) for Architect and Gopher job lines. This is not a wholly new idea, I think it was Keyimin who said that Klei has gotten confused on the difference between jobs and tasks. I just thought of a way to make sense of it.

As it stands, it sounds like we are getting all the negatives without any of the positives. Excuse me while I disable auto-updates for ONI until this is fixed

[SkunkMaster]

16 minutes ago, The Arcanian said:

 

As it stands, it sounds like we are getting all the negatives without any of the positives. Excuse me while I disable auto-updates for ONI until this is fixed

The preview introduced jobs, and a new way to choice prioritization. those two systems where interlinked in a way that made both parts make complete sense.

You could now choice what dupes actually should perform what jobs, and they would gain a small bonus to attributes that are relevant to their profession. 

And you where able to prioritize work based on the profession they belonged too, or you could prioritize strict for work that took precedence over everything else. 

This made it very easy for you to prioritize for example digs in waves 1-5, without disturbing your other dupes, like your farmer who has to tend to both bristleberry and maelwood, so he might have prio 2 on maelwood and prio 3 on bristle, and he wouldn't go help dig, cause he had other work to do, work that was specific to his job.

 

If you wanted work done by any dupe, you also had 1-5 Strict, which was basicly 6-10, but didn't account for what the individual dupe had for work. In other words, you needed some cleaning done, some sweeping done or some digging done, and you need it done yesterday, then that was the way to deal with that.

 

Now thou, they gave us the old 1-9 system, and this system does just not give any sense with the current way jobs give sense. They don't correlate to or in any way merit each other. They're 2 separate parts of the game, that where designed around different approaches to how to deal with tasks that needs to be done, may it be sweeping, digging or running in the hamster-wheel.

 

The result is that even if you give a dupe a job as digger, and a dupe a job as a researcher, they will still perform the job of each other, regardless of what is where or prioritization, and the only way to avoid that, is like with the old system, ban that task from the dupe.

Sadly in the end we're not given more micro management, this micro management is now forced upon us, and we get no real reward except a little boost to stats on dupes, and the fact that only the miner dupes can mine granite / abysalite and those kinda things.. 

 

 

That's basically the short story, Hope it helps.

[SkyNet_65]

Looks like i have to press one more button in future, to free entombed dupes. q_q

[The Arcanian]

11 minutes ago, SkunkMaster said:

The preview introduced jobs, and a new way to choice prioritization. those two systems where interlinked in a way that made both parts make complete sense.

You could now choice what dupes actually should perform what jobs, and they would gain a small bonus to attributes that are relevant to their profession. 

And you where able to prioritize work based on the profession they belonged too, or you could prioritize strict for work that took precedence over everything else. 

This made it very easy for you to prioritize for example digs in waves 1-5, without disturbing your other dupes, like your farmer who has to tend to both bristleberry and maelwood, so he might have prio 2 on maelwood and prio 3 on bristle, and he wouldn't go help dig, cause he had other work to do, work that was specific to his job.

 

If you wanted work done by any dupe, you also had 1-5 Strict, which was basicly 6-10, but didn't account for what the individual dupe had for work. In other words, you needed some cleaning done, some sweeping done or some digging done, and you need it done yesterday, then that was the way to deal with that.

 

Now thou, they gave us the old 1-9 system, and this system does just not give any sense with the current way jobs give sense. They don't correlate to or in any way merit each other. They're 2 separate parts of the game, that where designed around different approaches to how to deal with tasks that needs to be done, may it be sweeping, digging or running in the hamster-wheel.

 

The result is that even if you give a dupe a job as digger, and a dupe a job as a researcher, they will still perform the job of each other, regardless of what is where or prioritization, and the only way to avoid that, is like with the old system, ban that task from the dupe.

Sadly in the end we're not given more micro management, this micro management is now forced upon us, and we get no real reward except a little boost to stats on dupes, and the fact that only the miner dupes can mine granite / abysalite and those kinda things.. 

 

 

That's basically the short story, Hope it helps.

 

I understand the basics of the job system, it was the nuance that I an trying to understand.

From what I understand 1-5 Strict was not basically 6-10, 1-5 for the job and 1-5 strict would be a better analogy to 6-10. Using your farmer example, Dig 5 would be done after the bristleberry and mealwood but Dig 3 strict would be done before the mealwood. (Whether it was done before or after the bristleberry depended on which was first in task order, like in the old system.)

EDIT: reposed my first post...

[Wedgebert]

The way I've been using is that dupes did preferred tasks using 1-5 priority then once all those tasks were done, they would fall back to doing non-preferred jobs in priority order. So for a miner, a 1 dig outranked a 5 sweep. Setting a task to strict means that all dupes consider that task a preferred task. So a miner would still mine a 4 dig task before a 3* sweep, but would priorities the 5* sweep.

One important note is that 1-5* are not the same as 6-9. A 5 still outranks a 4*, and a 2 still outranks a 1*. For ties (4 vs 4*) I assume preferred tasks still one (so a 5 dig beat a 5* sweep), that or it just used the Right to Left priority of the skills on the job screen.

 

[The Arcanian]

2 minutes ago, Wedgebert said:

One important note is that 1-5* are not the same as 6-9. A 5 still outranks a 4*, and a 2 still outranks a 1*. For ties (4 vs 4*) I assume preferred tasks still one (so a 5 dig beat a 5* sweep), that or it just used the Right to Left priority of the skills on the job screen.

3

The caveat being "for tasks that aline with the dupe's job", right? I wonder if the people saying "1-5* is the old 6-9" are talking about in relation to tasks that are not part of the dupe's job.

[Wedgebert]

If they are, it's a misunderstanding. Making something strict (*) didn't make it's priority higher, it just made it part of every dupes job.

If people were assuming that a 1* sweep should beat a 5 dig for miners, that would explain a lot of the confusion with the system.

[The Arcanian]

9 minutes ago, Wedgebert said:

If they are, it's a misunderstanding. Making something strict (*) didn't make it's priority higher, it just made it part of every dupes job.

If people were assuming that a 1* sweep should beat a 5 dig for miners, that would explain a lot of the confusion with the system.

That is how I thought it worked. I have not played the preview because I did not want to deal with colony killing bugs and have yet to play with everything already in the game. But I have been reading the conversations on the forums.

I still think the idea from my first post would solve what most people seem to be complaining about. And if that is not enough just extend the priority range to 1-9 while keeping the normal/strict system.

[Grimgaw]

Are you missing the fact that current 1-9 is not the same as old one? There's a job priority on each level now.

[The Arcanian]

11 minutes ago, Grimgaw said:

Are you missing the fact that current 1-9 is not the same as old one? There's a job priority on each level now.

So job tasks are prioritized at each priority level? Good to know. Still, I think the other system would work better with some slight tweaks.

[Breizhbugs]

Just copy pasting what i wrote in another post

In the old system the priority of jobs were fixed by the developper: combat > ...>power>...deliver > build > dig.

What would have been sufficient for me is that you can change the job priority per dupe

For example if we want A dupe to be mainly a miner  we would have change this dupe priority list to ; dig > build > ...

 

this is how i would like to setup my dupes! (with the old 1-9 system)

[The Arcanian]

30 minutes ago, Breizhbugs said:

Just copy pasting what i wrote in another post

In the old system the priority of jobs were fixed by the developper: combat > ...>power>...deliver > build > dig.

What would have been sufficient for me is that you can change the job priority per dupe

For example if we want A dupe to be mainly a miner  we would have change this dupe priority list to ; dig > build > ...

 

this is how i would like to setup my dupes! (with the old 1-9 system)

So basicly more like Rimworld's task system, not a bad system. But with the jobs it is clear that they wanted to do something more.

[Olimar]

37 minutes ago, The Arcanian said:

That is how I thought it worked. I have not played the preview because I did not want to deal with colony killing bugs and have yet to play with everything already in the game. But I have been reading the conversations on the forums.
 

I'm on the same boat and I think I'm only just starting to understand what the 1-5 + * system was. 

Even though I haven't tried it myself...  I honestly think that after reading through 5-6 entire topics totalling around 40-45 pages of discussion should enlighten me in some way.  But it didn't and there were screenshots included in some of those topics that still didn't help.

 

I have seen several people suggest the UI, visual representation of the new priority system as lacking.  I think they might have a point and if that aspect of it was improved,  it could've been a easier transition for players.

 

IF,,,  I am understanding it right,  the suggestion of having two 1-5 bars sounded like a good compromise.

So a 5 in Job means that jobber will not be interrupted by anything.  However a 4 in job means in most cases he stays in his job,  except for a 5 in a Global task which equates to an emergency(like the old 9 priority).  I hope I'm on the right track...

 

[IvanX]

@Wedgebert, you are wrong about 1* not being any higher than 5. Yes, you're right at how it works, it doesn't prioritize tasks higher for miner with 2-5, but it prioritizes every dupe free from his job to do it, in my experience 1* was always enough to get job done asap, it also didn't touch any occupied job owners from their job. Meaning I could set farm to 5, and then use any priority from 1*-5*, and be sure my farmer's gonn do farming.

On a side note, go home people... hug your wives, kiss your kids, try forgetting a jewel, that is 1-5*, ever existed and the bitterness will fade.

The minority has won this time.

[The Arcanian]

 

1 hour ago, Wedgebert said:

If they are, it's a misunderstanding. Making something strict (*) didn't make it's priority higher, it just made it part of every dupes job.

If people were assuming that a 1* sweep should beat a 5 dig for miners, that would explain a lot of the confusion with the system.

 

 

4 minutes ago, IvanX said:

@Wedgebert, you are wrong about 1* not being any higher than 5. Yes, you're right at how it works, it doesn't prioritize tasks higher for miner with 2-5, but it prioritizes every dupe free from his job to do it, in my experience 1* was always enough to get job done asap, it also didn't touch any occupied job owners from their job. Meaning I could set farm to 5, and then use any priority from 1*-5*, and be sure my farmer's gonn do farming.

 

On a side note, go home people... hug your wives, kiss your kids, try forgetting jewel that is 1-5* ever existed and the bitterness will fade.

The minority has won this time.

I think you are misunderstanding what he was saying. I think he was saying that if people were assuming that 1* dig beat 5 dig for someone with the miner job then that would explain lot of the confusion with the system. Because for someone with the miner job 1 dig and 1* dig are equivalent, while 5 sweep is lower than 1 dig and 1* sweep is equal to 1 dig. Again, for the miner specifically.

(Explaining every step so everyone is on the same page)

[Olimar]

4 minutes ago, IvanX said:

@Wedgebert, you are wrong about 1* not being any higher than 5. Yes, you're right at how it works, it doesn't prioritize tasks higher for miner with 2-5, but it prioritizes every dupe free from his job to do it, in my experience 1* was always enough to get job done asap, it also didn't touch any occupied job owners from their job. Meaning I could set farm to 5, and then use any priority from 1*-5*, and be sure my farmer's gonn do farming.

 

On a side note, go home people... hug your wives, kiss your kids, try forgetting jewel that is 1-5* ever existed and the bitterness will fade.

The minority has won this time.

Man this priority thing is making me think I still don't understand it.  The more posts I read, the more I am doubting my understanding of it.  Or I'm not applying the same perspective to all parts of a task or a machine.

If you have a moment to explain,  please!  It may no longer matter,  but I'm curious about it.

 

About the 1-5 + * Strict.

So did the system only take in one setting or did it work within both?  And if it works with both, what does a setting of 3 mean if you also set a Strict * 2 as well.

[IvanX]

@The Arcanian, ye, you're right, just roleplaying  

@Olimar, the system only had 1-5 buttons, and right of em was a toggler of *, that switched priorities to 1-5*. You could only assign one. Also shortcuts 6-9 worked setting priorities from 1* to 4*.

[1][2][3][4][5]  [*]

pressing [*]

[1*][2*][3*][4*][5*]  [*]

-------

Thinking a bit deeper about the 1-5* mechanics... brings in some conclusions.

What are the cases one would use *1? Except wanting to prioritize "unoccupied" duplicants?

Example 1: Letting anyone do the digging task, except miners, who are prioritized by anything from 2-5? -- makes no sense

Example 2: Letting anyone do the mudrolls, while chefs are doing some other food? -- makes a little sense

But wouldn't a 6 do exactly the same? Except it would even be better? By setting it 6, all unoccupied dupes would prioritize it, as well as the job itself, this way "example 1" from above would make a lot more sense.

The conclusion is actually the following: Intersection of numbering makes zero sense!!!

The system should be either 1-5, 6*-9*, or 1-7,8*,9*, or even 1-9 (all the jobs treat priorities amongst their actual job, and if they're out of job, they start doing anything in priority order, so jobs do 1 before 9, as long as 1 is their job-related). But what we  have now - is actually a 1-9* - a totally useless system

[The Arcanian]

5 minutes ago, IvanX said:

@The Arcanian, ye, you're right, just roleplaying  

@Olimar, the system only had 1-5 buttons, and right of em was a toggler of *, that switched priorities to 1-5*. You could only assign one. Also shortcuts 6-9 worked setting priorities from 1* to 4*.

-------

Thinking a bit deeper about the 1-5* mechanics... brings in some conclusions.

What are the cases one would use *1? Except wanting to prioritize "unoccupied" duplicants?

Example 1: Letting anyone do the digging task, except miners, who are prioritized by anything from 2-5? -- makes no sense

Example 2: Letting anyone do the mudrolls, while chefs are doing some other food? -- makes a little sense

But wouldn't a 6 do exactly the same? Except it would even be better? By setting it 6, all unoccupied dupes would prioritize it, as well as the job itself, making example 1 make a lot of sense.

The conclusion is actually the following: Intersection of numbering makes zero sense!!!

The system should be either 1-5, 6*-9*, or 1-7,8*,9*, or even 1-9 (all the jobs treat priorities amongst their actual job, and if they're out of job, they start doing anything in priority order, so jobs do 1 before 9, as long as 1 is their job-related). But what we currently have, is actually 1-9* - a totally useless system

1* would be done by anyone as if it were priority 1 for their job. So, say you want an area dug out, and while it does not need to be done immediately, you want it done before any other none job task (I'll call these idle tasks in the future) when Dupes are done with their jobs. There are two ways to go about it: Ether have no other task assigned to 5. Meaning you only have 1-4 to work with (and the task will get done by the miners before anyone else gets to it anyway, so not actually an option) Or use 1* so anyone that has no more job tasks will work on digging the area before they do idle tasks.

Honestly, the more I talk about it the more I realize how much better 1*-5* was. Almost sad I did not try it.

[Olimar]

@IvanX

Alright,  if you are still willing to simplify for my feeble mind.

*1-*5,  the asterisk toggle determines how idle dupes respond to a task that is not their job.

The normal 1-5 relates just to the jobber.  So if there are two machines or tasks in that job,  you can set one higher than the other so the jobber always does the one thing before the other.  And essentially stops dupes not specialized from ever using those machines, etc.??

 

Thanks for your patience,  just trying to put these puzzle pieces together and hopefully get an idea of what I'm looking at. 

[The Arcanian]

Just now, Olimar said:

@IvanX

Alright,  if you are still willing to simplify for my feeble mind.

*1-*5,  the asterisk toggle determines how idle dupes respond to a task that is not their job.

The normal 1-5 relates just to the jobber.  So if there are two machines or tasks in that job,  you can set one higher than the other so the jobber always does the one thing before the other.  And essentially stops dupes not specialized from ever using those machines, etc.??

 

Thanks for your patience,  just trying to put these puzzle pieces together and hopefully get an idea of what I'm looking at. 

The 1*-5* system had 10 levels. From Highest priority to lowest:
Anything set to 5 that was part of a dupes job and anything set to 5*
Anything set to 4 that was part of a dupes job and anything set to 4*
Anything set to 5 that was part of a dupes job and anything set to 5*
Anything set to 3 that was part of a dupes job and anything set to 3*
Anything set to 2 that was part of a dupes job and anything set to 2*
Anything set to 1 that was part of a dupes job and anything set to 1*
Anything set to 5 that was not part of a dupes job
Anything set to 4 that was not part of a dupes job
Anything set to 3 that was not part of a dupes job
Anything set to 2 that was not part of a dupes job
Anything set to 1 that was not part of a dupes job

Hope that helps.

[IvanX]

@Olimar, ye, job priority puts it as task for job owners, prioritizing it. If there are free dupes in any other job and no *, which basically tells dupes to treat any task as their job, they get assigned to other job tasks from high to low.

15 minutes ago, The Arcanian said:

1* would be done by anyone as if it were priority 1 for their job. So, say you want an area dug out, and while it does not need to be done immediately, you want it done before any other none job task (I'll call these idle tasks in the future) when Dupes are done with their jobs. There are two ways to go about it: Ether have no other task assigned to 5. Meaning you only have 1-4 to work with (and the task will get done by the miners before anyone else gets to it anyway, so not actually an option) Or use 1* so anyone that has no more job tasks will work on digging the area before they do idle tasks.

Honestly, the more I talk about it the more I realize how much better 1*-5* was. Almost sad I did not try it.

 

Non existent case. Idle tasks, like any other, are better off done by the very job. So idle tasks just go with 1, they would get done by any job if any other task was done. Using 1* would just break jobs for no reason. Which is why i suggested that 1-7,8*,9* make more sense. Without urgent priority you have no means of saying that EVERY DUPE must do this. But that's a rare and stability breaking priority - just like red alert. You cant and shouldn't have constant tasks with that. As for sustainability, it's always better to keep job priority ahead.

The order would look like this:

9* - any job

8* - any job

7 matching job

...

1 matching job

7 any non matching job

...

1 any non matching job

[The Arcanian]

8 minutes ago, IvanX said:

@Olimar, ye, job priority puts it as task for job owners, prioritizing it. If there are free dupes in any other job and no *, which basically tells dupes to treat any task as their job, they get assigned to other job tasks from high to low.

Non existent case. Idle tasks, like any other, are better off done by the very job. So idle tasks just go with 1, they would get done by any job if any other task was done. Using 1* would just break jobs for no reason. Which is why i suggested that 1-7,8*,9* make more sense. Without urgent priority you have no means of saying that EVERY DUPE must di this. But that's a rare and stability breaking priority - just like red alert. You cant and shouldn't have constant tasks with that. As for sustainability, it's always better to keep job priority ahead.

I disagree that it is a nonexistent case, I just gave you one. I think you may have confused possibility with probability my friend, is it a very probable case? No. But it is a posable one.

If someone is doing very targeted excavation, and there are some blocks left in their base that they cannot stand any longer, but they do not want to distract their miners from the Abyssalite they are working on, they can set 1* and let the cooks and farmers deal with it when they have nothing better to do.