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

[Kasuha]

3 minutes ago, The Plum Gate said:

So I gopher a lot of ex builders and science grads - set them on their alternate interests after that. One of my couriers can carry 1600Kg for some reason - and do it rather fast.

Might be a bug in current build. I noticed someone mentioned that whenever you assign a duplicant a job he's already mastered, he gets the bonus again. So you maybe can get infinite stats by job switching. But I haven't tried to reproduce it so I'm not sure if it really works that way.

[Le0n1des]

5 minutes ago, Kasuha said:

Might be a bug in current build. I noticed someone mentioned that whenever you assign a duplicant a job he's already mastered, he gets the bonus again. So you maybe can get infinite stats by job switching. But I haven't tried to reproduce it so I'm not sure if it really works that way.

Yep. Whenever you assign a duplicant a job he's already mastered, he gets the bonus again. This holds till the next load, so to utilize the exploit you'll have to switch hats all over again after loading... Will probably be patched out soon as it is too blunt

[goboking]

I wonder how many people voting for the  1-5* system are doing so because...

• they like the job system for one reason or another and can't envision the 1-9 and job systems coexisting
• they can't or won't be bothered to utilize the full range of flexibility and control offered by the 1-9 system
• they don't trust the developers to balance natural stat progression in a way that works with stat boosts from the job system

[WalterMatthau]

Just give specialists an automatic priority boost based on their tier. Each level of specialization can give a hidden extra priority point to the relevant tasks. ie: a basic priority five dig task would appear as a priority seven task to a twice promoted miner, and a level eight task for a max promoted miner.

[Keyimin]

4 hours ago, The Plum Gate said:

My 100% lab assitants and scientists return to the supercomputer. I don't have anyone assigned to that role after they finished it. Just kept their research checkbox checked and now that part of the job tree is all open slots. I wouldn't be surprised if that's also the case with farmers as well.

Well, heck, I had no idea (hadn't even tried that haha!). I guess I can better understand why people are reacting with "jobs are meaningless now." While I can appreciate the effort to resolve or at least lessen the hat-dancing problem, that solution seems rather OP.

Dupes definitely needed to get skill-ups again and have those skill-ups remain when switching jobs, but not even needing the job assigned for job-specific machines and such?

<thinking>

Yep, I just tested this with my cook. Reassigned her to mining. Even though the electric grill tooltip now says "requires job assignment," she could still cook on it. I like the idea of multi-/cross-specialization, especially as someone who typically plays with fewer dupes and for jobs that aren't always needed or have less regular work, but that does seem to render occupations meaningless by late game. Not sure how to solve that one.

Maybe cross-specialization should be restricted to certain joint occupation trees? Like putting mining and building in a related tree (since they so frequently go together) but having farming and cooking, for example, in another tree such that a miner can't be made into a farmer without losing the "mastery" part of their mining skill (i.e., the skill-ups from mining remain, but the ability to mine abyssalite and whatnot would not unless reassigned to mining)?

[Wedgebert]

1 hour ago, goboking said:

I wonder how many people voting for the  1-5* system are doing so because...

• they like the job system for one reason or another and can't envision the 1-9 and job systems coexisting
• they can't or won't be bothered to utilize the full range of flexibility and control offered by the 1-9 system
• they don't trust the developers to balance natural stat progression in a way that works with stat boosts from the job system

I'm pretty sure everyone who voted for 1-5* understand that it can be 1-9%. However, you could have 1-100 and it doesn't make it more flexible.

You cannot in the 1-9 system have a builder who does all build tasks in priority order, and then falls back to supply/tidy/operate/etc tasks once his build tasks are complete. This makes the system much less flexible and requires crazy levels of micro to enable/disable jobs and place door restrictions to hide high priority tasks from other dupes.

I think most people who voted 1-9 are doing so for one of two reasons.

• They don't understand it fully, which makes sense since it didn't have great documenation
• There were some underlying bugs and oddites

The 1-5* system actually gives you 10 levels of priority, not the restrictive 9 of the old system. Let's take a build task for example.

• 5 = I want this built quickly, but not to the point of distracting my non-architects. Other dupes with prioritize this once their main work is done
• 2-4 = Lower priority builds, still not distracting anyone else, allows other dupes to work on higher priority chores before helping
• 1 = I really don't care when this is finished. Builders will get to it and everyone else work on it just to keep from being idle.
• 5* = Everyone build this now (assuming I don't have other 5*s)
• 4* = Most people will focus this unless I've assigned a 5* or they have a 5 job task (maybe cooking on the grill is still more important)
• 3* = I want most dupes to focus, but leave more room for jobs
• 2* = I want everyone to treat this as a standard priority job.
• 1* = OK, this one is pretty pointless as it's functionally the same as a normal 1. Unless a 1* build task is preferred to an architect over a standard 1 tidy.

The problem with meaningful stat progression over time is that it makes higher level jobs pointless aside from the requirements to do certain tasks. Also, if everyone ends up with 100-200% faster run speed, why build transit tubes except in highly specialized situations? That +2 strength for a groundskeeper is pretty worthless when everyone has 10 strength already.

I think part of the challenge is supposed to be maintaining an ever growing base and getting to those far off areas. Ever faster dupes negates a lot of that. You don't have to think about the layout so much when super-dupes can overcome any challenge.

[Moggles]

If you wanted to really fully control which dupes interact with what buildings the focus could be shifted to assigning dupes on the task itself.

A multi select list of duplicants on every task and building. The same type of list as the door access persmissions list. More qualified dupes would be highlighted in the list. Portraits should feature hats as a visual indicator of who is more qualifiedd aswell.

The priority of the building would be the priority the assigned dupes would look at.

But then that's a whole new can of worms of micro management and for a lot of things you can restrict usage with doors as a proxy anyway.

[IvanX]

@Moggles, if you want to really FULLY cooly control over your dupes, you need this interface (with a scrollbar to fit all 9 priorities, on each building)

[Luthage]

In the original 1-9 system, I had to use all of the granularity and spent a good deal of playtime micromanging dupe tasks.  Who can do which tasks and what priority everything was.  It was tedious and boring.  

With the 1-5* system, once I understood it, I didn't need the granularity.  I could allow everyone to tidy, supply, dig and build and dupes would clearly do their "job" tasks first and help out with other things instead of going idle.  Anything I needed done right away by anyone was set to the strict priority.  Instead of constantly having to tweak every thing, it was a set once and maybe update later.  Yes you needed more dupes than the 6-8 most people stopped with.  Yes it further exposed the issues with the dupe RNG.  Yes they were slower doing things outside of their jobs, which makes perfect sense.  Yes it was a change that was difficult to get used to.  Yes the UI was unintuitive.  These were issues that could be fixed and tuned, instead we got it replaced with something a lot worse than before.

This update, dupes aren't even prioritizing their jobs within the same priority or even if it's higher priority.  Yesterday I noticed an entire greenhouse harvestable - plants are at a higher priority and only farmers can harvest.  What were the farmers doing?  Digging.  I then restricted them to farm, tidy and supply.  Then I watched one harvest a single plant, someone else pick up the food and then the farmer run across the map to deliver materials.  With other plants still ready to harvest right next to him.  

[Keyimin]

2 minutes ago, Luthage said:

Then I watched one harvest a single plant, someone else pick up the food and then the farmer run across the map to deliver materials. 

This is what I described upthread as the weakness/flaw in the system that existed both before and now and regardless of the priority scale. The problem is that 1) dupe preference for their occupations was changed between the two scales, and 2) "tidy" and "supply" are disassociated from the occupations.

So now, your farmer harvests, and in the seconds of harvesting, someone else gets the trigger to go "tidy" the food that's been harvested. This now distracts your farmer, who then pisses off to do something else because that "supply" job is more important now than their own farming, and no one else is doing it.

The 1-5* system alleviated this not because of the scale or manner of setting priorities but because in that system, dupes always preferred their own jobs unless a strict priority intervened. But that then created a new problem (the one people who disliked the system complained about) of having work you wanted done not getting done, especially early game before you can support more dupes, and dupes unnecessarily idling around.

Neither system alone, with how tasks and jobs currently relate to each other, is sufficient. I may be beating a dead horse here lol, but

1. Job preference needs to be part of any system going forward.

2. And the only way to address the underlying flaw of both systems is to do something about things like "tidy" and "supply" covering everything from cleaning toilets, to providing building materials, to putting food away.

[Roxanne4018]

why not have a priority in the job overlay instead of yes/job only/no

let's say it would go from 0-5 5 being the highest priority to stay consistent with the other priority system and 0 being no. Also let's say we have an architect and we want him to help the gofers deliver the materials before actually starting to build.

We could then set a task priority like the following:

• Spoiler

   

  • Combat, care, cook, art and farm = 0
  • research, operate =1 (so that he never ever goes idle)
  • tidy = 2 (germ fighting for a healthy colony)
  • dig =3 (if ever he runs out of thing to do he will dig in order to build something)
  • build = 4 
  • deliver =5

   

   

Now this would only work if he is wearing an architect hat and that priority are more like the 1-5* system. That way an architect would really prioritize any tasks related to building in the preferred order of the player.

Spoiler

 

A much simpler example would be a minor that "only" digs could be set as:

• dig = 5
• deliver = 3
• build = 2 ( so that he can save his own life without having to go back to the job overlay) 
• tidy =1
• rest = 0

the dupe would prioritize dig task, help instead of going idle and be able to save it's own life.

 

•  

 Hats would then determine which type of task a dupe prioritizes, the "job priority system" would allow player to personalize dupes and iron out flaws and finally the normal priority system would direct the order in which they do those tasks. ( I really don't think we would need 9 priority levels after that) 

The cons to that is that when you want to actually switch a dupe job's it will take a bit more time (1 minute top once used to the system) but it would allow players to solve issues without adding an other overlay

can't believe the update will be launch "as is" in 2 days 

[The Plum Gate]

@Wedgebert I was finding *2 to be the most useful priority for harvesting. Experimental system aside..

After many cycles in a new game I'm finding things to be much smoother after my dupes graduate.

I'm largely ignoring the jobs board due to the time it takes them to level up.

Would it make any difference, @IvanX, if and only if the active job roll and not the prior mastery or allowed chore affected their interpretation of the priority number assigned?

[Mangrove]

6 hours ago, Luthage said:

Yes you needed more dupes than the 6-8 most people stopped with. [...]  Yes the UI was unintuitive.

Those were some fatal flaws. I think it should be required of a system that it will work with the number of starting dupes for that system. And if it's unintuitive on top of that it's a real nightmare for new players, which isn't really what you want someone's first experience of a game to be.

I'm sure Klei will work something out to make us all happy in the end though

[goboking]

10 hours ago, Wedgebert said:

You cannot in the 1-9 system have a builder who does all build tasks in priority order, and then falls back to supply/tidy/operate/etc tasks once his build tasks are complete.

You absolutely, positively can do just that under the 1-9 system.

[Wedgebert]

2 minutes ago, goboking said:

You absolutely, positively can do just that under the 1-9 system.

Only if you want everyone else to have the exact same priority which means you can't do it for builders. You do it for everyone and some people just happen to not build. Also it means putting a priority on every sweep, build, cook, deconstruct, farm, etc job you create. That's micromanagement hell

[Kabrute]

I set all bathrooms to a 1, set all compactors to a 2, set priority fill items to a 4 set emergency work to 7 and use 9 for things that must stay running like kitchets etc.  With the old system it combined a complex level of indivdual controls, door controls, priorities etc, using all of these together now With jobs makes managing my colony easy

[The Plum Gate]

My only small gripe is that the tasks window, formerly small and easily accessible, is now part of the jobs window - while this makes sense and I want it to be accessible there - it feels cumbersome. I don't actually do a lot with the jobs so much as I'd like to have faster access to the tasks - this load-stutter might just be the consequence of the debugging build - it would be nice to have this old window - maybe on an [ alt + J ] hotkey key or in reverse, J for tasks and Alt + J for Jobs. Have a button and a notification on that window which tells you to open the Jobs board via building the Job board or using the new hotkey ( or just clicking the Jobs button embedded therein).

[Keyimin]

I can't get in game right now, but can anyone here confirm that the latest patch has essentially reverted the job priority system back to the old system entirely? The notes aren't entirely clear, and it seems the few who have commented in that thread are possibly "assuming." I'd trust those in this thread to confirm lol.

If so, that's disappointing, although I'll continue to hope that they did this just to give us back what we've operated with all along while they continue ironing out an improved system. 

[The Plum Gate]

33 minutes ago, Keyimin said:

I can't get in game right now, but can anyone here confirm that the latest patch has essentially reverted the job priority system back to the old system entirely? The notes aren't entirely clear, and it seems the few who have commented in that thread are possibly "assuming." I'd trust those in this thread to confirm lol.

If so, that's disappointing, although I'll continue to hope that they did this just to give us back what we've operated with all along while they continue ironing out an improved system. 

They sorted out the mastered list, fixed the infinite buff hat dance, ..

The job system is as I described it before - once they learn it, they can do it while holding another job - just takes issuing the right tasks to them. While they're holding a job, they prioritize the job in nearly the same manner as before - except they altered the mechanics behind associated job. It now works as I had imagined it should, where gophers will deliver to someone cooking, you can however enable deliver for your chef, and they will go and deliver.

I think the primary reason they did this is because there are too many nuances regarding tasks associated with tasks, and priority overlaps creating conflicts between the intent of priority and task sub types. That is to say that indeed it's not really possible to prioritize different aspects of a grill - deliver, cook, etc.

Job+task, where job associated tasks are now specifically for that task - a generic build order will deliver before they build and dig before they build - so there's three things going on there that could be prioritized. You obviously already know what the jist of the job system is, they removed the associated tasks - I think there was quite a bit of redundancy in some task categories as a result of job bonuses and agendas.

edit : I applogize for that rambling explanation - but they also added a numerical count and tooltip in the jobs board next to each job title which tells you how many dupes are mastered in that job and what their names are. Also, jobs titles which cannot be unlocked due to no one being qualified are grayed out in a manner similar to the way the research tree is set up.

[Papersneaker]

I just want a system that allows my farmer to be a farmer by harvesting crops and putting them away.  Because I don't want him running halfway across the map if there are harvest able crops right there especially right have he harvested it.

[SkunkMaster]

when you see your goofer do research and your scientist stand idle next to him.... 

Guys i think they removed the 1-5* system cause they where unable to iron out the bugs and oddities it had. Much in the lines of "this is too much hassle, scrap it". The old system is such a garbage system, i have to open up my job page every 5 cycles to make sure some dupe doesn't die or to get things done. 

Maybe that wouldn't be such a deal breaker, if it wasn't for the fact that the job page literally takes up to over a minute to just load. Pausing the game, only opening the page while dupes asleep, what ever, nothing helps. 

If it was a community based decision, then i think we would sit with the 1-5* system now, seeing as over 2/3 of all voters voted for the 1-5* system. So maybe just let it be ? They gave us something genius, found out it was to hard to make right, and so they scraped it. big woop.

[Grimgaw]

7 minutes ago, SkunkMaster said:

If it was a community based decision, then i think we would sit with the 1-5* system now, seeing as over 2/3 of all voters voted for the 1-5* system. So maybe just let it be ? They gave us something genius, found out it was to hard to make right, and so they scraped it. big woop.

Don't think I'd want a community developed game. Like ever.

Polls are not great feedback tool. Just pushing an option, without giving your opinion, from not exhausting list, on a poll created by someone with clear agenda is not a way to give feedback. It gives players an idea that just because they're in majority the idea should be implemented.

Take this poll, it's a choice between old 1-9 and old 1-5*, Where's new 1-9* option?

On a side note back in the days of no jobs I had zero problems with 1-9 system. Stuff just got done on priority 5. If I wanted stuff to get done now, rising priority worked. Adding jobs threw wrench into perfectly working machine and stuff takes longer despite bunch of specialists running around (that's sort of like real life really).

Balance the jobs so we don't have tunnel-visioning dupes who only want to do their task and then we can argue whether we like 5 or 9 steps of priorities.

It seams most people here base their opinions on some sub 50 day playtroughs where you barely leave the starting biome. Try putting a ladder through un-mined abbysalite at the top of the map and you'll see how crap the job system is where you need 3 specialised dupes to do task one dupe could do before.

[SkunkMaster]

The old system worked because we had stat progession, but having dupes with 20 athletics counters the need for tubes and poles. Poles don't benefit from athletics, so a dupe with 20 athletics will be able to walk down a ladder faster then his fellow dupe on the pole.

Can you please explain to me, why should i build the pole if dupes are faster on ladders ? 

Same story with tubes, so why bother ? 

Also why even bother with jobs or mastery of them ? - Sure for abysalite and advanced research, but after that no need. Old system had no jobs for abyssalite, had no job for advanced research. so what dupe did what job didn't matter.

 

 

They went back to stats progressing, nullifying the need of jobs to a point where it's just an annoyance to even point out jobs. no need for the stats, rather keep dupes unemployed and able to have zero stress in even the worst areas. have 2 diggers and one researcher, rest unemployed and you will be absolutely fine.

 

edit: oh yeah, and one for automatronics, if you care about the conveyors that is.

[Grimgaw]

4 minutes ago, SkunkMaster said:

Can you please explain to me, why should i build the pole if dupes are faster on ladders ?

Tubes, poles and athletics issue is just turning a 'number dial' issue, not priority or jobs one.

4 minutes ago, SkunkMaster said:

Also why even bother with jobs or mastery of them ?

That's exactly what I was trying to get at. Because at the moment jobs create more problems than they fix.

I do realise that job system was the goal. I'm not happy with implementation. The priority issue is secondary. 

To me it seems like devs were a tad to ambitious with the scope of introduction of job system. Splitting old tasks into their respective specializations is what's causing the problems. Had they implemented a generic 'builder' (deliver building materials/dig/build ladders/tiles/piping etc) 'cook/farmer' (cook/farm/build farms/deliver ingredients/fertilizer/water etc) 'janitor' (sweep/mop/deliver to machines/clean toilets etc) 'engineer/researcher' (research/deliver building materials, build and operate complicated machines etc) and then lock the tasks groups to these 3 professions it would have worked. (Those are just rough ideas I came up with while sipping my morning tea).

[SkunkMaster]

The 1-5*, with workers prioritizing their respective line of work, was amazing lategame. Sure it made early game, AKA the first 50 cycles, a bit of a ***** to get through, but at cycle 100+ it started to pay of and make things easy on you. 

With the old system of stats progressing and dupes doing 1-9 according to what has the highest number, you can make grand bases with just 5 dupes, and still have dirt at cycle 200 living of mealwood. In the new system you where encouraged to get 15-20 dupes, making it so that you actually had to play smart in order not to die. Get air, food and what not up and going before you ran out of it, and if you tried to live of of maelwood, you would run out of dirt before you hit cycle 50...

I liked the 1-5* with jobs, and everything that came with it, basically because it kept me from having ALL research done at cycle 20, because it held me from doing 5 dupe only colonies that had plastic cycle 50 and what not... Because it made the game more challenging and entertaining at the same time. for me at least.