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Jobs require a better priority system, so lets make one.


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Some history.

When the Occupational Upgrade preview went live it added two substantial changes to the way dupes worked and how they interacted with the world.

First was the introduction of jobs. Now jobs could be assigned to dupes and they would get bonus associated with that job, usually in the form of stat bonuses. The second was a revamped priority system. The priority range was changed from 1 through 9 to 1 through 5 but functioned on two levels. Dupes would now do tasks for their job from priority 5 down to 1 before doing any other tasks from priority 5 down to 1, a strict toggle for priorities was introduced to have tasks marked with it be treated as if it was part of every dupes job.

Now there were some problems with the jobs and new priority system. Stat growth for dupes that used to be there was removed, leaving dupes painfully slow. And dupes would not treat tasks that were required for their job's tasks as part of their job, like the delivery of materials to something that was part of their job. The priority problem was fixed relatively fast and Dupes would do tasks required for their job tasks (cannot find a source but I was told that that was the case).

But about halfway through the preview, they scraped the new priority system. They reverted to the 1-9 system with the slight tweak that dupes would prefer, at the same priority level, task related to their job over other tasks. Jobs were also tweaked. Stat growth was returned in a limited fashion (capped to 20) and dupes now retained the bonuses from any job they mastered.

Then in the In the final release, they reverted the priority system fully to what was before the preview.

The problem.

The new job system puts restrictions in place that require a more flexible and nuanced priority system. We had that with the new system they introduced, but it got reverted and now we are left with half of a system good system. Klei has stated that "[the new priority system] was hard to understand, and now that we've added the ability to retain mastery it didn’t make much sense anymore, so we are going to backburner reviewing priorities for a later update." Therefore, let's see if we can help Klei out and come up with a better priority system.

Sources:
https://forums.kleientertainment.com/game-updates/oni-alpha/252151-r363/
https://forums.kleientertainment.com/game-updates/oni-alpha/253538-r368/
https://forums.kleientertainment.com/game-updates/oni-alpha/254439-r375/

 

My solution.

Honestly, it is simple. Reinstate the new priority system. The problem was not the priority system, the problem was its explanation. The new priority system was not that hard to understand, I did not even play the preview and was able to piece it together from reading on these forums. So if it was hard for people to understand then it was the explanation of the system, not the system itself. On top of that, the skill curve in this game is understanding how the systems work and manipulating them to your advantage. As long as people understand the basics the more complex parts can be figured out by observation and experimentation.

It is probably not the case, but the speed of the reversion sure feels like Klei caved into a knee-jerk reaction...

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thats the system that was yanked, only it was poorly labled and not at all explained on implementation so it was a nightmare to try to use it while relearning how to play the game coming from a style that was completely detremental to keeping a base running in the new system.....

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3 minutes ago, vonVile said:

Priority should be based around profession. Whatever career a Dupe has they will do that job first over any other set at that same priority level.

That was the last system that was used before the total reversion. But it still makes more sense for dupes to do everything for their job before doing something that is not their job. That way you can, for example, have different farms set to different priorities and don't have to worry about your builder going and tending to crops instead of doing construction. Unless you want him to too and use the strict toggle.

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It's not as simple as saying it was poorly explained. The strict priority system -- as initially implemented in the OC preview -- only allowed you to interleave tasks by priority for the bottom 5 "normal" priority levels, severely limiting what you could do that way. 

If that's not part of your playstyle, then I can understand why you wouldn't care, but it's a big part of mine.  I'd not be in favor of a direct reversion.

For example: when digging out slime or bleach stone, I prefer the diggers or builders to stop what they're doing and deliver those resources to wet storage before continuing (particularly with slime), rather than relying on gophers to clean things up. If they're allowed to just flat-out dig, it's easy for slime to build up to the point where it's putting out dangerous amounts of slimelung before it gets cleared.  Managing that alone effectively takes at least three priority levels, and when you've only got five to work with, then there's not much room to bump things up or down to accommodate.

Another area where lacking the inability to interleave non-job related tasks gets annoying is with medbays and high-stress massages.  Dupes didn't go there automatically if they had any * tasks assigned under the strict priority system, requiring you to remove their job assignment and remember to re-assign them later.  That wasn't so bad if you didn't have too many dupes to deal with, but as the colony grew larger is was really annoying.

And then, of course, there were trapped-dupe emergencies, which could be a total a mess to deal with under the strict priority system.  You coudn't just reserve 9 for emergency situations and have the nearest dupes drop what they were doing to provide assistance, you had to stop everything and figure out whether you needed to be using 5 or 5*, or see what else was assigned at that priority, possibly juggling hats around or changing priorities of other jobs to make sure that your suffocating dupe would get help as soon as possible (complicated, of of course, by the fact that everyone was slower at the time, though that wouldn't be as much of an issue now).  And then you had to go back and try and fix everything after the emergency was over, if you could even remember.

It also pretty much threw idling tasks out the window -- i.e.: low-stress massages or other priority 1/2 tasks that only serve to pull dupes with nothing better to do out of low-decor areas -- which I wasn't terribly happy about.  They're something I like to do, but there just wasn't room to fit them in with everything else going on.

 

I'm not as bitter about the strict priority system as I was about a week and a half ago (and I have a better appreciation of the things that some people did like about it), but I still can't say that I'm a fan or that I'd like to see it again in exactly the same form.

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Since this thread is libel to explode...

If they/we want the experimental system back, they should start us off with more rations and one more dupe. - my two cents.

I could work with either once I learned what absolute priority was - the most critical early game tasks were being done no problem. mission criticals

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1 hour ago, Vim Razz said:

It's not as simple as saying it was poorly explained. The strict priority system -- as initially implemented in the OC preview -- only allowed you to interleave tasks by priority for the bottom 5 "normal" priority levels, severely limiting what you could do that way. 

If that's not part of your playstyle, then I can understand why you wouldn't care, but it's a big part of mine.  I'd not be in favor of a direct reversion.

For example: when digging out slime or bleach stone, I prefer the diggers or builders to stop what they're doing and deliver those resources to wet storage before continuing (particularly with slime), rather than relying on gophers to clean things up. If they're allowed to just flat-out dig, it's easy for slime to build up to the point where it's putting out dangerous amounts of slimelung before it gets cleaned up.  Managing that alone effectively takes at least three priority levels, and when you've only got five to work with, then there's not much room to bump things up or down to accommodate.

Another area where lacking the inability to interleave non-job related tasks gets annoying is with medbays high-stress massages.  Dupes didn't go there automatically if they had any * tasks assigned under the strict priority system, requiring you to remove their job assignment and remember to re-assign them later.  That wasn't so bad if you didn't have too many dupes to deal with, but for larger colonies is was really annoying.

And then, of course, there were trapped-dupe emergencies, which could be a total a mess to deal with under the strict priority system.  You coudn't just reserve 9 for emergency situations and have the nearest dupes drop what they were doing to provide assistance, you had to stop everything and figure out whether you needed to be using 5 or 5*, or see what else was assigned at that priority, possibly juggling hats around or changing priories of other jobs to make sure that your suffocating dupe would get help as soon as possible (complicated, of of course, by the fact that everyone was slower at the time, though that wouldn't be as much of an issue now).  And then you had to go back and try and fix everything after the emergency was over, if you could even remember.

It also pretty much threw idling tasks out the window -- i.e.: low-stress massages or other priority 1/2 tasks that only serve to pull dupes with nothing better to do out of low-decor areas -- which is something that I wasn't terribly happy about.  They're something I like to do, but there just wasn't room to fit them in with everything else going on.

 

While I'm not as bitter about the strict priority system as I was about a week and a half ago (and I have a better appreciation of the things that some people did like about it), I still can't say that I'm a fan.

3

Ok, let's break this into parts and see how they could be done with the 1*-5*:

I'm going to assume you mean interweave when you say interleave.

First off the interweaving of tasks was still entirely posable when using 1*-5*, it would actually be harder with the normal 1-5 seeing as job-related 1-5 were done before none job-related 1-5. But 1*-5* makes every task treated as job-related.

For your slime example: I prefer to have slime and bleach stone removed asap as well, that's probably why they never seem to get sick. I usually have a high priority storage only for them so that they get removed fast. But why not use gophers? If the storage is a high priority they will work on that first, and with the increased carry weight, they will get it done better then the miners would. All in all, the specialization will make everything go faster.

There are two solutions to the message table problem. One is that message tables should always be considered part of a dupes job and you just set a high priority, but that is on Klei to do. The other solution is to just manually make it part of every dupes job, set it to 4* or 5* and it will always be one of the first things a dupe will do if they need to.

Traped dupe always falls under user error, one that I am guilty of fairly often. I am just not convinced that the self-created hassles from not being careful enough are a very strong argument.
But even then, when I read about the new priority system that was incoming I started a new colony to practice using a smaller range of priorities and I never really had to use more than 1-6 with no configured door permissions, and that was without the task priority of the 1*-5* system. It would not be hard to reserve 5 and 5* for emergencies, and that would still give you an 8 level range of priorities like when you don't use 9.

I am not sure how many tasks could work for idle tasks like you describe. I have been using sweep into storage in that way, but that will stop working with the groundskeepers and I will have to change my strategy. I like the low-stress massage table idea, that one should not change at all.

All in all, your points mainly seem to come down to not wanting to have to rethink and change your approach. Not any actual flaws with the 1*-5* system.

That said, this was to be a brainstorming thread. What do you think would be a better system?

30 minutes ago, The Plum Gate said:

Since this thread is libel to explode...

If they/we want the experimental system back, they should start us off with more rations and one more dupe. - my two cents.

I could work with either once I learned what absolute priority was - the most critical early game tasks were being done no problem. mission criticals

Why do you think those would be needed? With a proper understanding of the 1*-5* system, I would think you would be able to do everything nearly the same. For example, you could use strict priority for tasks that do not have a jobed dupe for yet or just leave everyone jobless until you have more people.

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My suggestion from earlier.

On 2/4/2018 at 12:25 AM, ScottFree said:

I liked the 1-5*

People are grappling with the reality that some jobs will not get done. This fact is true of all the systems used. The job system emphasize this fact because players will need to print more duplicants and/or assign dupes to most pressing job titles at the moment. Or scale back their expectations for what's possible each cycle. There has to be a trade off somewhere. The super dupes of the past were not intended and I don't think they would be as fun.

Here is my suggestion for priorities


1-"Idle", tasks to completed by idle duplicants of any job

2-"Queued", tasks added to the end of the queue for that specific job type

3-"Expedite", tasks added to the top of the queue for that specific job type

4-"Any", tasks for the first available duplicant (of any job type) after they finish their current task

5-"Immediate", tasks that interrupts the nearest duplicants or all and to be completed before any other

I think giving priorities names help clarify what they do. Blending the job vs any dupe priorities makes it clear which get done and why. I'd go as far as to add a 0th priority just for planning and will not be done until they are raised higher.

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39 minutes ago, The Arcanian said:

Traped dupe always falls under user error

Trapped dupe usually falls under AI stupidity problem. 

You should not expect casual player to unconstruct bride by unconstructing last 2 tiles with 9, previous with 8 and so on.

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55 minutes ago, The Arcanian said:

Why do you think those would be needed? With a proper understanding of the 1*-5* system, I would think you would be able to do everything nearly the same. For example, you could use strict priority for tasks that do not have a jobed dupe for yet or just leave everyone jobless until you have more people.

Sounds like you didn't actually play the preview - or understand what strict priority was in the first place. One of the two. The 1-5 doublet priority system was just peachy - people's understanding of how it worked vs how they worked was a bust. That's why they canned it. 

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20 minutes ago, ScottFree said:

My suggestion from earlier.

 

Pretty much this system is needed. The only thing missing is a 0 priority so Dupes stay idle before they do the task. There is nothing more painful than to watch Dupes jump into -20°C water to sweep 100 kg of granite and get Hypothermia in the process. Currently there is no option to command Dupes to not do a specific task.

So this:

0 - "Pause", Dupes do not perform this task and go idle instead.

1-"Idle", tasks to completed by idle duplicants of any job

2-"Queued", tasks added to the end of the queue for that specific job type

3-"Expedite", tasks added to the top of the queue for that specific job type

4-"Any", tasks for the first available duplicant (of any job type) after they finish their current task

5-"Immediate", tasks that interrupts the nearest duplicants or all and to be completed before any other

would be the ideal priority system.

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I think the old 1-9 system is better

imagine if you're one of your dupes is dying, and you can't force a 9 to save it; that would be tragic.

 

But it can always be improved

If somebody was suffocating on the last 5 seconds, prioritize dig & build

If colony's stress is high prioritize mopping

and so on

 

The tricky thing is I'm not sure that would work for a 2000 cycle or an overly complicated base

So those improvements probably won't make everyone happy

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6 hours ago, ScottFree said:

My suggestion from earlier.

I have seen you post that before, it does not seem bad. But I have to ask how that would be fit into the UI. And like with the 1*-5* system you will have people complaining about a lack of granularity (even though 1*-5* had more)

6 hours ago, Maciej75 said:

Trapped dupe usually falls under AI stupidity problem. 

You should not expect casual player to unconstruct bride by unconstructing last 2 tiles with 9, previous with 8 and so on.

I don't. I also don't expect them to keep a priority in reserve for emergencies. These are things you learn from by messing up. The skill curve as I mentioned in the OP.

6 hours ago, The Plum Gate said:

Sounds like you didn't actually play the preview - or understand what strict priority was in the first place. One of the two. The 1-5 doublet priority system was just peachy - people's understanding of how it worked vs how they worked was a bust. That's why they canned it. 

No, I did not play the preview, I admitted as much in the OP. But I believe I know how the system worked, please correct me if I am wrong.

1*-5* priority system, 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

One week is not enough time for most people to unlearn one system and learn another, 1-9 had been around for months. Let's reframe the issue. If ONI came out with jobs and the 1*-5* priority system from the start would we have had people complaining like they did? I don't think they would have.

3 hours ago, Arash70 said:

I think the old 1-9 system is better

imagine if you're one of your dupes is dying, and you can't force a 9 to save it; that would be tragic.

 

But it can always be improved

If somebody was suffocating on the last 5 seconds, prioritize dig & build

If colony's stress is high prioritize mopping

and so on

 

The tricky thing is I'm not sure that would work for a 2000 cycle or an overly complicated base

So those improvements probably won't make everyone happy

Like I responded to Vim Razz, you can just force 5 or 5* instead. Those other changes could be implemented in 1*-5* just as well as in 1-9, but I don't think they would be a good idea.

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The biggest gripe with the new system seemed to be that few people understood how to set the panic priority 9 and I'll admit it wasn't the most intuitive way to do it.

From the very limited testing I did with the new system the 1-5 (based on job) seemed to be fine for the majority of the time. And I can't see a scenario where you need more then 1 or maybe 2 panic priorities. So how about using the new system but just with 1-7 (default is 2) where 1-5 works the new normally based on job and have it's normal colour. 6-7 are the panic priority where everyone just focus on these tasks, these have another colour to notify that these two have another use then the other 5.

 

The new system (that is not currently used) worked like as long as no strict priority was set then dupes would ALWAYS do their specific job if such a task was available regardless of what other tasks was set with higher "no-strict" priority. 

A miner would go and dig a priority task 2 dig if such existed even if there was a priority 5 construct task available. The miners mentality was that another dupe will do that construction task. However the miner would prioritise a dig 3 before a dig 2.

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2 hours ago, freche said:

The biggest gripe with the new system seemed to be that few people understood how to set the panic priority 9 and I'll admit it wasn't the most intuitive way to do it.

From the very limited testing I did with the new system the 1-5 (based on job) seemed to be fine for the majority of the time. And I can't see a scenario where you need more then 1 or maybe 2 panic priorities. So how about using the new system but just with 1-7 (default is 2) where 1-5 works the new normally based on job and have it's normal colour. 6-7 are the panic priority where everyone just focus on these tasks, these have another colour to notify that these two have another use then the other 5.

 

The new system (that is not currently used) worked like as long as no strict priority was set then dupes would ALWAYS do their specific job if such a task was available regardless of what other tasks was set with higher "no-strict" priority. 

A miner would go and dig a priority task 2 dig if such existed even if there was a priority 5 construct task available. The miners mentality was that another dupe will do that construction task. However the miner would prioritise a dig 3 before a dig 2.

Adding 1-2 panic priorities is a good idea, if for no other reason than to make it clearer for people, they could make the buttons red or something and maybe add the red alert symbol to the number on the overlay.

 

I find it easiest to just list the priority structure when explaining it, it is easy to understand just hard to explain.

1*-5* priority system, 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

What would be ways of explaining this that most people would understand?

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8 hours ago, The Arcanian said:

These are things you learn from by messing up.

Safe unconstructing by setting different priorities on different tiles is annoying workaround, not skill to learn.

But Ok, do not focus on this corner case now. As there is a workaround, this can be fixed later with AI update.

 

4 hours ago, The Arcanian said:

What would be ways of explaining this that most people would understand?

I was NOT playing preview, and I totally DO NOT understand what you have written. So, if you want to know how does it look from ignorant point of view:

  • What is "1*- 5*" you are referring to, this is not described at all?
  • Are priorities to be set on Dupes now, not on Tasks? Sentences like "Anything set to 1 that was part of a dupes job and anything set to 1*" sounds like to be set on Duplicant, not e.g. tile to be digged.
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@The Arcanian, I'm not going to quote you on which aspect of the system - .. let me give you the rundown right quick. Also @Maciej75, since you just replied..

There were essentially two priority systems at war with one another - depending on how things were being played - the problem was that it did not actually work in practice because of this conflict - and therefore the implementation was flawed and difficult to discern. In other words, there was no  working model that was easy to present and priorities would become less obvious and difficult to discern when jobless and employed duplicants could do both. It's because of this difficult to discern duplicant behaviour, no proof exists that it ever worked as intended in the first place because they changed the way jobs functioned after they acquired the skills in the middle of testing - so all observations became subjective and tainted between  these changes.

What you described wasn't how it was functioning when they first introduced it. * priorities were set up such that duplicants would do these before they did their jobs. a *2 came before a 2 which had a job errand or directly associated job (like dig). A 3 on a job would conflict with a generic *2. A 2 on a job would conflict with a *1. Then there was generic priorities where no jobs were really covered - like the medical treatments, and such. There was a few days when jobs changed and everything became buggered, so they yanked the double system, and improved the way jobs were handled altogether. Dupes in job roles would do their line of work before others( in that same priority #), other priorities in the same job would be done in that priority, unless that dupe could do something in another field that was prioritized higher than something lower in their own work - see where this gets confusing? That's how it was functioning, and there's still traces of this job behaviour now...

Early in the testing, I found that putting most need to do things things like harvesting on *2 was working wonderfully. a *3 or *4 on toilets and compost, the hamster wheel, and maybe reserach. everything else I left in the default 2 and they would get to them when they could, or a 3 if I wanted their focus to build, etc. I treated *5 like a 9.

In all honesty I miss the absolute priority - it was its own thing, but they weren't job oriented at all, they were job ignorant priorities depending on the machine or thing it was attached to.

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See, what you are describing @The Plum Gate is not what I have heard anyone else describes. Also, what really makes things confusing is when you describe two different systems in the same paragraph.

I will try to go through this in detail to try and help @Maciej75 understand.

The system that I saw and heard described had the ability to set tasks to priorities like the old system but instead of 1-9 you had two sets of 1-5: the normal 1-5, and strict 1-5 which was denoted with a little star next to the number. Hence why people refer to 1*-5*. What I heard was that when a dupe had a job they would do all the tasks for that job from 5 down to 1 before doing any other task starting back at 5. So a miner, for example, would do any dig tasks, even priority 1 before, say, a priority 5 build task, while a builder, on the other hand, would do all building tasks before doing any other tasks. Where strict priorities came into play was that they made any task given a strict priority to act like it was part of any dupes task. So if a sweep task was set to strict priority 3 (3*) then a miner would sweep those items before doing any dig tasks set to priority 2. And the same with a builder, they would sweep those 3* items before doing any priority 2 build tasks.

What it seems that @The Plum Gate is saying is that the strict priorities (1*-5*) were above job tasks, as in they would all be done before any other task. So a miner would do all strict 1*-5* tasks. then do all 1-5 dig tasks, then do any other tasks.

But then he goes on (in the same paragraph) to describe a change to the job system where Dupes would keep their bonuses from a job when they master it, like mining jobs giving a bonus to mining or the ability to mine abyssalite once a higher level mining job is mastered.

Then he describes (in the same paragraph again. Come on, one subject\idea per paragraph.) when Klei reverted the priority system to almost the same as before the preview. The priorities went back to 1-9, but now dupes would only do tasks for their jobs before tasks in the same priority level. So now a miner might work on a level 7 build task and then do a level 6 dig task before doing a level 6 sweep task.
PS: Even that got reverted to how 1-9 worked before the Occupational Upgrade, that or it is now based on proximity. But either way it does not care about jobs anymore.

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42 minutes ago, The Arcanian said:

See, what you are describing @The Plum Gate is not what I have heard anyone else describes. Also, what really makes things confusing is when you describe two different systems in the same paragraph.

This right here... this is what it was exactly - lol, two different systems smashed into one when they gave it to us - it was as I described - a bit of a mess to discern. You are justifiably confused by my rambling explanation because this kind of sums up the discussion of it. And I have to put it in the context that it was given to us.

What you've been reading, being described by others, and even me is speculation, or suggestion, the system was aborted, so further speculation about how it would have or should have functioned is frivolous. Further more, trying to expand upon an errant and already tested system is going to come with caveats of being errant in the context of the previously attempted system. So I would advise starting from scratch and not look to hard at my explanation of the issues we testers had with it - the underlying duplicant behaviour was not easily discerned by the players as it was implemented - only end of day results could be measured, you know? Could I get things done by using these settings? or was I having to fiddle with things too much? ..turns out a lot of people were having to fiddle with things, and what people perceived of priority was general confusion and speculation mixed with suggestion. Duplicants were getting distracted (check bug reports) - so they changed things. Eventually, the changes made to jobs and job associated tasks this was the nail in the coffin for the double system, it was no longer relevant regardless of if it was functional or dysfunctional- jobs only had one task associated with them, so performance remained dependent on the underlying priority while a job role dictated preferential execution in a manner similar to a perceived +1 priority on said job relative to other errands or tasks not specifically that job. This is the only aspect of the priority system change that still lingers - this information can be gleaned from some of the original early preview branch patch notes as to how jobs work.

 

@Lacost had an excellent and not so dumbfounding take on what a simplified priority system might look like.

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9 hours ago, The Arcanian said:

I have seen you post that before, it does not seem bad. But I have to ask how that would be fit into the UI. And like with the 1*-5* system you will have people complaining about a lack of granularity (even though 1*-5* had more)

Granularity is relative. With 9 jobs, my system has 2 priority levels just for jobs. That's 18 levels of granularity. Plus 3 for all dupes. 

What people want is granularity in individual tasks. Jobs plus their priorities create that. I've seen an argument wasn't a form of "well I like the old way better."

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7 hours ago, The Arcanian said:

find it easiest to just list the priority structure when explaining it, it is easy to understand just hard to explain.

1*-5* priority system, 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

What would be ways of explaining this that most people would understand?

OK, as @The Plum Gate tried to express in his "rambling" but quite accurate description is that you're trying to simplify a system down to a theoretical explanation that nobody truly knows is correct. I played all versions of the preview, and I cannot tell you if the above represents how the system was supposed to work because that's simply not how it "appeared" in practice.

Whether or not that's because the above isn't true in any case or because of the "knock-on effects" the devs referred to, nobody but the devs themselves can answer with certainty. And nobody had enough time with any of the implementations to adequately test because it was clear that all implementations were flawed in one way or another. That, of course, is precisely why the devs shelved it for a future update.

What I can tell you, however, is that the system you describe above, even if taken at face value, presents a problem: the conflict between "jobs" and "tasks" (i.e., what "tasks" are inherent and necessary to a "job" but are not actually part of the "job"). It's a problem you and others have seen me explain several times now in other threads on this topic, so I won't reiterate it here, and it's the one that I still believe is at the core of the flaws in ALL systems we've seen thus far. 

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16 minutes ago, ScottFree said:

What people want is granularity in individual tasks.

* shameless plug *, a similar thought since ...They introduced a tool tip regarding jobs that can be performed by a dupe - you have to click on a dup to see it and then hover over an area or building, so I think they're heading in this direction since it's a much requested or often considered request.

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37 minutes ago, Keyimin said:

Whether or not that's because the above isn't true in any case or because of the "knock-on effects" the devs referred to, nobody but the devs themselves can answer with certainty. And nobody had enough time with any of the implementations to adequately test because it was clear that all implementations were flawed in one way or another. That, of course, is precisely why the devs shelved it for a future update.

Thanks for saying what I was thinking.  No one really had the time to test it. The discord really comes from people to whom it worked intuitively vs. does who had trouble re-adapting their system. None of the systems were perfect or ideal because of multiples factors.

Now at least we know that the devs are working on something.

@The Arcanian.There was a lot of heat and talk about this subject already and since you didn't actually play the preview, why are you even bringing it back up ?
Edit: And I saw that you are postponing upgrading the game because of this which overlooks completely all the other changes to the game that are nice and makes it more challenging. The game is not unplayable whatsoever

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IMO, while creating games like ONI, behavior and properties of units is decided first, then whole game architecture is build around it. And you cannot easily change it.
So, for example, when Chris Sawyer was making Transport Tycoon, he first specified trains system, then he made factories in the manner, that fits trains system ("let the products magically spawn on stations, and production raises if handled properly with no economical reason").

So, looking on gaming industry, we have following unit logics available:

  1. Universal units - e.g. "Starcraft". Basic Marine will attack anything, choosing closest task (priorities and specialization are micro by advanced players)
  2. Specialized no-gofers - e.g. "Stronghold". Specialized crafter, like Blacksmith, goes for supply himself, crafts, brings product back.
  3. Specialized gofers-only - e.g. "Settlers". Gofers brings supply to the door and takes finished product back, crafter is practically imprisoned in his work post, that he never leaves.

Transport Tycoon in such nomenclature was "Gofers-only" [3] game, where trains were gofers and were only playable units.
"Oxygen not included" was created as "Universal" [1] game, with units taking nearest task. And this was working fine (more or less), supplemented by Priorities.

With "Occupational update" Klei wanted to turn game architecture almost upside down. So there should be Specialized dupes, handled by Gofers [3], but with exception that if no Gofer, Specialized unit should bring supplies themselves[2], but still keeping Universal dupes[1] if no Specialized unit created at all, busy somewhere else (bathroom break) or Player wants something to be build fast.
And this happened in game, that do not have centralized storage. Supplies are spread among whole map randomly, so leaving work post for supplies can take Specialized dupe whole day (in worst case).

I do not believe, that this is possible to create AI / priorities that can handle such world without changing game architecture first (so Klei returned to Universal dupes system[1], just with hats and just small affiliation of Dupe into specialized work). 

Before anyone tries to define "new priorities system", fellows on this forum should take Actors (Duplicants) and prepare Use Cases (examples). So first we know what is desired effect and have proof that good solution exists at all. So later AI / priorities can be defined to make dupes work in expected way.

Examples of Use Cases without, IMHO, any good solution with Jobs:

  1. If Cook goes to toilet, should Universal dupe replace him, or wait this short time? And should digger? Using old Universal dupes system [1] answer was obvious - replace, anyone can cook.
  2. If Cook quits Outhouse and Outhouse needs to be emptied, should Cook fix it or return to kitchen? Maybe dupe replacing him in kitchen should fix toilet? Such problems were not existing in original system, fixing toiled was simply more important.
  3. Should Digger bring excavated ore immediately or wait for gofer? And what if excavated slime?
  4. How far should supplies be, to prefer Gofer over "go yourself"? 

 And so on and so forth. I do not think we can agree on expected effect. Having about 7 persons in discussion, I am expecting like 15 different opinions on "good way to go".

If Klei wants Jobs in game, there is needed huge architectural update to game mechanic. Like, for example, "Central Storage" so Specialized dupes have predictable distance to go for supplies, and gofers only feed storage with raw materials. "Transport belts" could be such solution if designed in the way, that Specialized dupe may came to belt and request supplies from distant Storage Compactor or bring product of his work to belt only.

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