Colony Ship: First System Update

[agris]

but also that it didn't really work because people have an aversion to picking easy

Very easy way to fix this, just rename "easy difficulty" to "game journalist mode" and put in above hard so the retards feeld validated, sit back and rake in all the 10/10 on Metascore.

You're welcome.

VD, I expect a paycheck in my bank account by Monday.

It’s not a crazy idea. I don’t mean calling it journo mode, despite how appropriate it is, but calling it something like “modern RPG gaymer” while regular difficulty is “old-school tactical gaymer”. Something to assuage the ego of people who SHOULD click on easy but can’t square that with their identity.

 

[jackofshadows]

Nah, that's crazy and stupid. If to go that path then the only way is to name normal somewhat ironically instead, as like "hemorroid mode" or something.

 

[agris]

It’s just framing, it isn’t crazy. I wasn’t offering literal suggestions of difficulty names.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

I don't know if difficulty modes are a good idea. Tweaking a few numbers won't make the game necessary fun for casuals and they will still complain about design decisions that are too demanding for them like a lack of quest markers/compasses.

The quest marker crowd is not in our radar. This is for people who bought the game, really like it as it is, but struggle a lot with the combat. Plus the game doesn't have voiceovers and romances, so we are safe from most casuals.

At first you think that, but in few years time/ few next games you may start to worry about people who bought the game, really like it as it is, but struggle a lot with the finding the right way so you add optional quest markers. And the next game down the line you turn quest markers on by default because it's too much to demand from casuals to find options for them. Decline comes not through a big jump, but also through a thousand small steps.

I completely agree with your premise, and history shows it to be broadly true - but such results are not written in stone. Having principles, a clear vision and (critically) a spine can prevent the outcome you describe.

To say it another way, a studio guided by a steady hand can avoid the scenario you described. I trust Vince’s leadership.

I too trust Vince, but even someone trustworthy makes mistakes, especially when the mistake consist of a series of small decisions, each looking rational in separation, each supported by logic of a market.

 

[Butter]

Most RPGs have a built-in difficulty valve in the form of grinding. Iron Tower games do not, and the result is that if you're bad and screw up your build, it only gets worse as the game progresses. Maybe there's a 200 IQ game dev solution to this that doesn't involve adding an easy mode, but I don't know what it is, so this approach makes the most sense.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Most RPGs have a built-in difficulty valve in the form of grinding. Iron Tower games do not, and the result is that if you're bad and screw up your build, it only gets worse as the game progresses. Maybe there's a 200 IQ game dev solution to this that doesn't involve adding an easy mode, but I don't know what it is, so this approach makes the most sense.

western RPGs have largely abandoned grinding as being viable about uh... 25 years ago, when blobbers died.

I can think of some exceptions, but they most likely weren't intended(e.g., baldur's gate rest spam for ambushes with the uh... forgot what mob it was )

 

[Butter]

Most RPGs have a built-in difficulty valve in the form of grinding. Iron Tower games do not, and the result is that if you're bad and screw up your build, it only gets worse as the game progresses. Maybe there's a 200 IQ game dev solution to this that doesn't involve adding an easy mode, but I don't know what it is, so this approach makes the most sense.

western RPGs have largely abandoned grinding as being viable about uh... 25 years ago, when blobbers died.

I can think of some exceptions, but they most likely weren't intended(e.g., baldur's gate rest spam for ambushes with the uh... forgot what mob it was )

I don't play modern western RPGs because I'm not a tranny.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Most RPGs have a built-in difficulty valve in the form of grinding. Iron Tower games do not, and the result is that if you're bad and screw up your build, it only gets worse as the game progresses. Maybe there's a 200 IQ game dev solution to this that doesn't involve adding an easy mode, but I don't know what it is, so this approach makes the most sense.

western RPGs have largely abandoned grinding as being viable about uh... 25 years ago, when blobbers died.

I can think of some exceptions, but they most likely weren't intended(e.g., baldur's gate rest spam for ambushes with the uh... forgot what mob it was )

I don't play modern western RPGs because I'm not a tranny.

I assume you play modern japanese RPGs and are therefore a pedophile?

 

[agris]

Most RPGs have a built-in difficulty valve in the form of grinding. Iron Tower games do not, and the result is that if you're bad and screw up your build, it only gets worse as the game progresses. Maybe there's a 200 IQ game dev solution to this that doesn't involve adding an easy mode, but I don't know what it is, so this approach makes the most sense.

What are you smoking? I literally can’t think of any good single player western cRPG that encouraged grinding to get over a difficulty spike.

Allowed it? Yes. You could go down to the catacombs before you faced the Butcher in Diablo. You could clear out Gizmo from Junktown before handling the Khans to rescue Tandi in Fallout, and you could wait until Chapter 5 to do most of Athkatla’s quests in BG2 but none of that is grinding.

don’t project degenerate games/gameplay onto others.

 

[Commissar Draco]

I like those changes*, the game now plays as RPG not saper game when must make optimal builds and then follow narrow path taking quests in appropriate order or see game over, the people will complain now less that game is too hard and developers (hopefully) will get more zion bux too although lack of romances and such will still limit its appeal what is not to like?


As bonus to see the lamentation and of mini maxers fags and Cheat engine cheaters.

*Also there are more quests added, locks to pick and such, the better gear is still behind level 4 or 5 locks so its not cake walk now neither just challenging but balanced to be also fun game.

 

[Background Character]

It doesn't so only a couple of mutated creatures can use it, but not humans.

 

[Butter]

Most RPGs have a built-in difficulty valve in the form of grinding. Iron Tower games do not, and the result is that if you're bad and screw up your build, it only gets worse as the game progresses. Maybe there's a 200 IQ game dev solution to this that doesn't involve adding an easy mode, but I don't know what it is, so this approach makes the most sense.

What are you smoking? I literally can’t think of any good single player western cRPG that encouraged grinding to get over a difficulty spike.

Allowed it? Yes. You could go down to the catacombs before you faced the Butcher in Diablo. You could clear out Gizmo from Junktown before handling the Khans to rescue Tandi in Fallout, and you could wait until Chapter 5 to do most of Athkatla’s quests in BG2 but none of that is grinding.

don’t project degenerate games/gameplay onto others.

I never said "encourage". Nice reading comprehension. I also never specified western RPGs, and JRPGs all feature grinding.

 

[Daedalos]

could we stop giving Vince a hard time about designing his own game and his design decision regarding difficulty?

I already told you, the game has to appeal to the broad majority of gamers, if Vince is smart about it, which he is. Every voice matters in so much so, that its revenue and publicity with little ressources spent ensuring that.

You get your ultra KODEX tryhard mode, and casuals get their mode. 10/10, best game ever. case closed.

 

[Jaedar]

could we stop giving Vince a hard time about designing his own game and his design decision regarding difficulty?

I know this ain't your first year on the codex, so I don't understand what you could possibly have been thinking when you made this request.

 

[Daedalos]

could we stop giving Vince a hard time about designing his own game and his design decision regarding difficulty?

I know this ain't your first year on the codex, so I don't understand what you could possibly have been thinking when you made this request.

Because Vince, unlike most other dogshit devs nowadays, is actually competent, intelligent and delivers on what is promised. He is basically the best indie dev around other than maybe Styg.
Pay your respects.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I already told you, the game has to appeal to the broad majority of gamers

I hate this lie.
Some of the best selling games on steam are the definition of autism simulators. There's more people playing Farming Sim 22, Hearts of Iron IV, and Euro Truck Sim right now than there is playing RDR2, Cyberjunk 2077, or Halo Infinite.

 

[Elhoim]

The way I see it is this:

- You first make the game you'd like to play, and you are honest about the kind of game it is.
- People buy based on what you inform then plus their own preconceptions.
- Then they share their experiences with the game. We hear them and see if we can relate to them.
- If they go against what we want to do (Place shining "?" on top of quest givers!), we discard the feedback. If it's something that we agree with them, we implement it.
- Sometimes, it can be something that we don't agree with, or that doesn't bother us, but implementing it doesn't condition our design and can help with their enjoyment of the game.

We are not aiming to broaden our market, but to give a better experience to players who are already our market, like what we do, but have singular issues. It could be not being skilled enough in the combat gameplay or needing key rebinds because they have AZERTY keyboards.

Regarding difficulty, my main annoyances with the current state of gaming is that the games are designed around easy by default, plus leading the player by the nose constantly to have a "good experience". So it's always the mandatory tutorial dungeon where every system is showcased, then lots of markers and references to the order on how to do stuff, etc. It would be kinda like if in our game we started that when you leave your apartment you are forced to sneak past some thugs, then fight some other guys and finally talking to some other, all safe and without the possibility to fail. And then saying that this quest or this other is for level 3/4. So every time you start the game you have to go through that freaking sequence. Now, adding a difficulty with differences bonuses is just acknowledging that there are different skill levels on players, and I believe that it can help with people getting to know the game system, and then try the way we designed the game. On my end, it's already out of my mind, and I'd only touch it if people think it's TOO easy. The game balance is just based on the default.

But at the end of the day, they are in their homes playing and it's up to them what they want to choose.

 

[Pink Eye]

At long last. A mode for people like me. I rejoice! YES! I can now play video gamz.

 

[Pink Eye]

it is very easy to make an unplayable character in any skill-based system

I don't believe that is necessarily the case. I've helped players from steam forum who had lackluster builds. Beat encounters that they deemed were too "impossible" for them with their own character builds. I've rolled plenty of gimped builds through Faythe and my melee builds. For example, Faythe being restricted to only starting pistol. The point is to illustrate that a bad character build, or weapon, isn't going to make the game unplayable. First, in regards to builds, the learn as you do type system makes it easy to avoid some of these pitfalls you might fall into during character creation. This is because by doing easy encounters beforehand. You develop combat skills at a rate which makes up for any deficiencies you might have by misallocating stat points. So lets say you go low perception - many people complain about missing enemies in steam reviews. Well, if you do the first arena fight. Then thugs near apartment. Followed by Evan's encounter. Your weapon skill will increase, granting bonuses towards accuracy. If you pick up optical implant and Warrior feat. Accuracy will be at a decent level despite the misallocation of perception. In some instances you can get away from not picking implant or warrior. Just do enough encounters and weapon skill will make up the perception loss. Lastly, by getting consumables early, then using them against the enemy to level the odds towards your favor. To illustrate, irregardless of build, well placed flashbangs can win encounters alone.

Speaking of using consumables. I remember a while ago. A player who had a stock pile of gas nades, smokies, and a couple of stasis; but was somehow struggling with the Jonas siege. When he was kind enough to give me his savefile. I managed to beat it simply by using those resources to win. Funny enough he blamed it on character build, even though that wasn't the case. Poor fellow restarted with new build when he didn't need to.

It's not that difficult. The game, quite frankly, gives you enough tools to bypass a player making bad build.

I think players having problems with the game can be grouped into two groups: 1) Not using the resources the game provides to be successful; disruptors, stims, gas nades, smokies, flashbangs, implants, et cetera 2) Not doing side encounters to level up skills - it actually makes a difference using side encounters to get snowball of stats rolling.

Anyways. I think Hero Mode will be great addition for players who want to see everything on first run: for example there was a solo player in steam forums complaining he wanted to see everything in his solo runs while also being combat machine.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Speaking of using consumables. I remember a while ago. A player who had a stock pile of gas nades, smokies, and a couple of stasis; but was somehow struggling with the Jonas siege. When he was kind enough to give me his savefile. I managed to beat it simply by using those resources to win. Funny enough he blamed it on character build, even though that wasn't the case. Poor fellow restarted with new build when he didn't need to.

Most games have consumables that works as items you sell to have your cash number grow, so you can see that you had made a progress. Many people just don't use them, especially that they tend to make easy fights banal. After some time you get used to the fact that consumables are that part of mechanic that should be ignored and this ihabit that is difficult to get yourself rid off.

 

[Pink Eye]

Most games have consumables that works as items you sell to have your cash number grow,

Oooh. Yeah. I used to do the same in my duo/solo runs in order to see how much monies I can bank. I try to get through prefactory content with as little consumable use as I can. I think I set the best high score in money thread with a whooping 15k creds!

That was before the system changes though. Game has been made *much* harder with recent patch(s). Excited to get back to it and refamiliarize myself once again after holiday. First iteration of system update was bullbusting hard, armor penalties, LMAO!

 

[Eyestabber]

and romances

I'm still not over the fact that you people added a cute gurl with great stats, gr8 sense of loyalty and she comes up with AWESOME plans like "let's just walk into their camp and shoot everyone" into the game and made it so I can't keep her in my party, let alone romance her. Her dialogue is so obviously meant to make murderous players love her. Anyway, you know what you did. You know!

The game is built and designed around normal and for a veteran gamer.

Why the change from DR, tho? DR was the first game to use difficulty settings and I distinctly remember combat being designed around HARD and the "veteran" players fully familiar with AoD, with normal and easy slapping nerfs on enemies in order to help less-than-optimal gaming. Isn't it easier to design encounters top to bottom rather than middle-to-top-to-bottom? MANY RPGs suffer with higher difficulties introducing untested numbers bloat that doesn't really improve "challenge" but rather forces the player into adopting degenerate playstyles in order to win. We'll have to wait and see.

Oh and I agree with the guy that suggested hard as "enemies learn new tricks" as opposed to "enemies SHOOT HARDER".

They say it in different ways but combat difficulty is what it comes down to, always.

That was the truth back in 2015 and it's the same today. Here are some measures that IMO might address this issue without "casualizing" the game:

DISCLAIMER: before going into my suggestions I wanna point out I'm not privy to what ITS's plans for future development, so it's possible I'm saying stuff that's already on their to-do list. I'm also not saying ITS is somehow unaware of these points, this list is merely my attempt to address yet another "how to attract new players without alienating old players" situation. Anyway...

• Tutorial: game should do a proper job at teaching the basics. AoD suffered a LOT until it was retrofit with DR-like tutorial in later patches. "Skip tutorial" button is non-negotiable, but when the player wants to be taught the game should be willing to teach all of its main mechanics. CSG is doing better right of the bat, but I think it would benefit from having tutorials on some "intermediate" topics. Maybe feedback from someone who never played Fallout in their life might be valuable? NO, hold your pitchforks. I believe "familiarity with Fallout" plays a large role on why certain players (mostly Codexers) didn't consider AoD's mechanics to be rocket science while a large portion of the playerbase never managed to grasp really basic stuff. We were shaped by Fallout and our familiarity means we might dismiss X thing as "obvious" but in reality it might not be as obvious to someone who is not as acquainted with the games that inspired CSG. Tutorial is the proper place to bridge this gap. Full release must ship with a strong tutorial, if another "Great Review War" is to be avoided.
• Documentation/manual: a tutorial shouldn't go into the intricacies of the relationship between Evasion/DR and HP, but this kind of in-depth information needs to be available somewhere, preferably in-game. Curiosity on how things really work is the natural progression once one learns the basics. Modern games rely WAY too much on community maintained wikis to explain stuff the game itself (or an official manual) should be explaining. IMO complex games should strive to be more like this:

• Lead by example: back in 2015/16 I had people tell me on YT/codex/steam that they copy pasted my build, FINALLY MANAGED to beat the game and absolutely loved [post Teron bit], which made their initial pain feel worth it. That tells us: a) person would've never seen their most memorable AoD bit if Antidas/Carinas kept kicking their teeth in; and b) person doesn't really care all that much about playing an "original" character or his character's development path, getting unstuck takes precedence. Some people are inclined towards applying a tried and true formula first and then transitioning towards a more free-form approach. Back on the topic of CSG, I support the inclusion of sample builds and think you shouldn't take half measures: go ahead and include a couple of fully min-maxed murder machines. It saves players the trouble of googling "CSG best build for new player" and will (hopefully) reduce the amount of ragequits.
• Transparency: combat log doesn't get as much credit as it deserves nowadays. When playing an RPG I want to know why my guy didn't do as much damage as I thought/missed/can't attack this turn and so on. Status effects should be easily discernable, attack modifiers should be shown and animations/effects should clearly convey what's happening in combat. CSG does really well in that regard, which is why I'm mentioning this point last. Ideally the player should never have to alt-tab from the game to google "[gamename] what does 'weak' status does", it should all be conveyed via tooltips, combat log etc.

Combat is very difficult in a number crunchy kind of way and not terribly satisfying. Prepare to watch your elite team of well armed mercenaries get devoured by a couple of poodle sized frogs.

This one deserves its own quote because it's actually not about combat difficulty, but rather about an issue with no solution as far as I'm aware. When you give players the ability to freely explore it's inevitable they might wander into a difficult or straight up unwinnable encounter. The "fixes" for that problem include providing the player with metagame information, in typical MMO fashion ("you must be level 667 to beat this quest") or simply going full Bethesda and scaling the world to the player's current level. As you can easily tell, the "solutions" are much, much worse than the "problem". So that particular "frustrating experience" is an integral part of Good RPG Design™ and can't be "fixed" without some form of "casualization". Negative reviews for this particular reason are unavoidable, I'm afraid.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Speaking of using consumables. I remember a while ago. A player who had a stock pile of gas nades, smokies, and a couple of stasis; but was somehow struggling with the Jonas siege. When he was kind enough to give me his savefile. I managed to beat it simply by using those resources to win. Funny enough he blamed it on character build, even though that wasn't the case. Poor fellow restarted with new build when he didn't need to.

Most games have consumables that works as items you sell to have your cash number grow, so you can see that you had made a progress. Many people just don't use them, especially that they tend to make easy fights banal. After some time you get used to the fact that consumables are that part of mechanic that should be ignored and this ihabit that is difficult to get yourself rid off.

I forget to add that if you get used to playing without consumables, using one feels like cheating. It feels like if you can't pass the challange without using consumables then you really aren't able to win fairly.

 

[Black Angel]

Then people who play easy mode will start demanding new concessions and one day you wake up to the fact that little by little the game is made of concessions to casuals.

We didn't do it because people demanded it. We did it because a growing number of players struggled with combat. So we have two options: tell them 'tough luck, buddy, but thanks for 25 bucks' or give them an easy mode that would help them enjoy the game they paid for in good faith. In other words, we aren't trying to attract more people, we're trying to help the existing 'customers' that can't play the game at all.

You added an easy mode in Dungeon Rats, and iirc at the time you said it was to widen the appeal but also that it didn't really work because people have an aversion to picking easy. Assuming I'm remembering correctly, what changed?

Personally I'm not really worried about this being some slippery slope. AoD also had an easy mode (in the form of the AWESUM character), and it didn't bring decline to DR or CS.

Yeah, I remembered that was the case. Some people think they're above choosing the 'Easy Mode', thus they demanded the Normal/Hard mode that needs to be changed to accommodate them.

Weird how it's these types of crowds that came upon DR/AoD, instead of the usual suspects who demanded the existence of Easy Mode.

 

[Gradenmayer]

Mouthbreathers on Codex can't help but pick Easy mode when it is in the list or something?
Why you dipshits are complaining about optional difficulties for storyfags, just play on normal.