Suggestions to improve job assignment balance (cross-training/specializing)

[Xiphoris]

I absolutely love Oxygen Not Included. I'm up to 243 hours on Steam and it's been a blast. I have some constructive feedback.

Currently, as far as I'm aware, once a duplicant masters a job, there is absolutely no reason to ever assign the duplicant to that job again. This has a number of negative consequences for the depth and complexity of the job system, and a negative impact on fun.

As a matter of min/maxing, I feel obligated to assign duplicants to a new job as soon as they master their current one. This isn't because I'm a heavy min-maxer, it's just because it seems like a total waste to leave dupes assigned to jobs they've mastered, because (as far as I'm aware) there is no benefit to doing so. By assigning them to another job like Gopher or Groundskeeper, you can level up their other skills and get the benefits of multiple jobs. This is desirable even for duplicants that will be e.g. just cooking or researching all day. The ability to rotate dupes through every single job takes meaningful choice about job assignments out of the game (after early/mid-game).

The fact that there's no benefit from ongoing job assignments after mastery means that job assignments aren't as important or interesting a choice as they might be otherwise. In a long-term colony, every dupe will master virtually every job (at least the basic ones). That's boring! Furthermore, even my specialist dupes like my researcher, farmer, and cook, will have random rotating job titles like Groundskeeper or Gopher (as they move through and master these jobs) that don't reflect what they really do. But I assign them to those jobs anyway for the free +skill. Seeing every dupe have every title removes the feeling that my dupes are really unique individuals with a special role in the colony.

I recommend changing the job system so that there are more benefits from permanently assigning duplicants to jobs, and keeping them assigned over the long haul. Ideally, the balance would be such that there's no obvious right decision between cross-training and specializing, or at least the two alternatives would be more balanced than they are now. (Presently, as far as I can tell, cross-training is always better.)

One solution could be giving dupes a temporary +1 skill from staying in the job assignment after mastery. Or, staying in the job could mean that you level the skill slightly faster than if you're not in the job (+10%). In this way, there is some incentive to leave your specialist dupes assigned to the jobs they're really doing long-term, rather than rotating them through every other job in the job tree. You might keep your master cook assigned to the Chef job to get that +1 cooking or a small 10% bonus to leveling the cooking skill.

The effect of this rebalance would mean that your cooks, farmers, and researchers really might stay in those jobs long-term. Personally, I'd like to seem my scientist wearing the scientist job title, instead of constantly seeing him as Gopher/Groundskeeper/Plumber/Miner etc. as he rotates through and masters all these random jobs.

Lastly, while I can't tell for sure, it seems like duplicants master jobs even if they're not performing the related skill. A duplicant assigned to research all day will still level Gopher and other skills. Another topic to consider in a rebalance might be changing job leveling so that duplicants only level their job when performing the affiliated skill. Right now, it feels like duplicants get mastery in random jobs like Gopher and Groundskeeper "for free", even if they're not performing the job at all, or are performing it only occasionally. I'd like to see it be moderately harder for duplicants to master jobs when not actively doing them. Currently, jobs like Apprentice Miner/Architect/Gopher/Groundskeeper effectively just mean that all dupes in the colony get free +2 to the affiliated skills over time, regardless of what they're doing.

[NGMZero]

I find the job system redundant and a simple waste of time early game. simply because dupes still level up their basic skills while performing tasks, then we had the priority system and still do, that allowed us to tailor each dupe role and function in the colony, its like having two systems at the same time that are trying to do the same thing. but one of them end up just being a barrier.

I prefer the freedom of tailoring each dupe priority which still exist and i hoped they expand on that using jobs. not the other way around. 

I am no expert in this game, but it seem like the recent slow down with jobs, schedules and mood pushing toward welcoming more dupes to the colony and breaking away from the 5~10 population colonies. for example: to have more than one miners in two different break times.

[Gwido]

I fell the same as Xiphoris.

In it's current form, the job system is not really good. After a dupliquant master a job, he keeps all the benefits, even the +2 skill points for each job. O_o

This means that, for example, in early game, I can force a duplicant to be an scientist assistant, even if he get lot of stress. Because once he master this job, he can leave it, to get back his stress to 0%, but still keep the ability to use the computer ... :-/

 

I think, the first thing to do, is to remove these permanent bonuses, so that we have to keep at least an assistant scientist to perform mid-level researches, or an expert miner to dig through hard material.

 

Even if these bonuses are bound to the jobs, this will not prevent us from trying to get mastery in all jobs, when a duplicant have spare time.

 

[Sasza22]

6 hours ago, Gwido said:

This means that, for example, in early game, I can force a duplicant to be an scientist assistant, even if he get lot of stress. Because once he master this job, he can leave it, to get back his stress to 0%, but still keep the ability to use the computer ... :-/

When a dupe masters a job he gets the bonuses prmanently but also the expectation so moving him to a lower tier job won`t make him stress less. That works only if you do that before he masters the job.

[AndreyKl]

On ‎8‎/‎14‎/‎2018 at 1:04 AM, Xiphoris said:

Right now, it feels like duplicants get mastery in random jobs like Gopher and Groundskeeper "for free", even if they're not performing the job at all, or are performing it only occasionally.

While I do agree, this also means that you can 'level up' researcher even after opening all low-tier technologies (lets assume you lost your researcher, how are supposed to level a new one if all base reasearch is already done?)

Personally I think that all those job-bonuses should be 'per assignment', not per mastery (low mastery still should get less bonuses) or there should be something else for dupes to use during assignments, like cooking utensils to speed up cooking if you are assigned to cook job, ropes and brush for rancher e t c.

[watermelen671]

On 8/15/2018 at 5:27 AM, Gwido said:

This means that, for example, in early game, I can force a duplicant to be an scientist assistant, even if he get lot of stress. Because once he master this job, he can leave it, to get back his stress to 0%, but still keep the ability to use the computer ... :-/

On 8/15/2018 at 12:12 PM, Sasza22 said:

When a dupe masters a job he gets the bonuses prmanently but also the expectation so moving him to a lower tier job won`t make him stress less. That works only if you do that before he masters the job.

Ya beat me to it.

[Zarquan]

On 8/14/2018 at 1:43 AM, NGMZero said:

I find the job system redundant and a simple waste of time early game. simply because dupes still level up their basic skills while performing tasks, then we had the priority system and still do, that allowed us to tailor each dupe role and function in the colony, its like having two systems at the same time that are trying to do the same thing. but one of them end up just being a barrier.

I prefer the freedom of tailoring each dupe priority which still exist and i hoped they expand on that using jobs. not the other way around. 

I am no expert in this game, but it seem like the recent slow down with jobs, schedules and mood pushing toward welcoming more dupes to the colony and breaking away from the 5~10 population colonies. for example: to have more than one miners in two different break times.

The sooner you start getting jobs, the sooner you can get mechatronics engineer.  That is extremely useful in the early mid game just for sweepers.  You don't need to keep them in the job and you shouldn't let them master it in the early-mid game, but having the ability is nice.  I almost always start with a dupe that has interest in supply and tinkering because the sooner the better.

Also, the sooner you get jobs, the sooner you get astronauts, but that one I think has larger bottlenecks.