Dev Chat: Crew Progression
Greetings Captains!
First, thank you so much for all of the feedback on Beta 2. We are still working to fix the bugs that you have been sending to us, such as saves. But we have also been looking ahead towards launch. With that in mind, we thought we'd spend some time today writing up a wall of text about where we plan to take Crew progression.
Crew progression has always been a bit of a tricky subject, both in terms of classes and crew perks/quirks. In the past, we had a set up of 10 different classes you could choose between based upon a progression path. You could upgrade your cadet to a Tactician, then turn them into a Scout, then they could be a Soldier. Each class had it's own unique abilities...which was nice at first. But this started to feel weird really fast. A Doctor would become a Hacker which gave them the ability to hack enemy systems, but should they also keep the ability to heal? It's weird to have a Hacker heal you, but it's also weird for said Hacker to forget everything they knew about medical school at the click of a button.
We also found our perks and quirks to have their own weird flaws. Quirks as a whole we found mostly just annoyed people and seemed demotivating rather than fun. Take the IBS quirk, which made your crew member have a sudden need to use the toilet. It was funny the first time, but annoying the fifth time...and it caused a lot of weird behaviors. We would have pirates running across entire maps mid-combat simply on a toilet run. This made a lot of behaviors look and feel bugged as well. You'd tell a character to go to the shields, but their own inner nagging voice was telling them to go to bed.
Perks had some good factors, but overall the delivery system came out wrong. It was rewarding and nice to have a crew member who could use Nav better than anyone else, but trying to juggle individual crew loyalty to get a new perk felt weird. As this same juggling loyalty system was also tied into quirks, it made things that should have been optional like crew missions feel almost required. If you were in the middle of working through the Asteroid and your engineer demanded a TV in 12 in-game hours, you either had to leave the mission to find one or have a crew member with any one of a number of weird quirks.
In the latest beta, we took out all classes above the Engineer/Scientist/Tactician level. Most of the classes above these have instead been rolled into Kits. This allows for the same Scientist to be capable of healing and hacking, but not necessarily at the same time. This we feel allows for a good amount of player choice as well as the ability to really control when things like Hackers might come into play.
With that in mind, an individual character's progression should not be limited to the first five minutes you have them. We want you to be able to upgrade each character throughout the time you have them, including your Captain. For this, we have added a tree of skills for all non-cadet crew members you have. Cadets will still need to be upgraded before they can do anything. The categories we are working with currently are HP, Speed, Ship Systems, Accuracy (for Tacticians), Repair (for Engineers), and Healing (for Scientists). Each point you purchase in these skills will enhance your crew in that area. Want to build up your Tactician's HP and make them a tank? Take the HP area first. Want that same Tactician to be a better shot instead? Take the Accuracy points first.
While we have changed our kits to better encompass our old classes, we have not fully determined that they are gone for good. We have looked into some ideas for those, such as mixed max level classes (Hacker would be a mix of Engineer/Scientist). This would likely be along with a new chapter of the story where it best fits (e.g. a Diplomat within the Trilax story), but only if we can find an area where it feels like the new class adds new gameplay.
The nice part about our new skills system is that we can add and adjust it as needed. We can add more points to a specific area, or we can add in new areas as we find them useful. This allows us to make individual crew progression continue into future content, should we wish.
That's more or less what we think on crew progression currently. What are your thoughts on the new setup? Or is there perhaps another topic you would like to see us talk about in this wall of text style? Please let us know in the comments below.
As always, thanks for all of your support!
Cheers,
Warballoon
First, thank you so much for all of the feedback on Beta 2. We are still working to fix the bugs that you have been sending to us, such as saves. But we have also been looking ahead towards launch. With that in mind, we thought we'd spend some time today writing up a wall of text about where we plan to take Crew progression.
What We've Tried
Crew progression has always been a bit of a tricky subject, both in terms of classes and crew perks/quirks. In the past, we had a set up of 10 different classes you could choose between based upon a progression path. You could upgrade your cadet to a Tactician, then turn them into a Scout, then they could be a Soldier. Each class had it's own unique abilities...which was nice at first. But this started to feel weird really fast. A Doctor would become a Hacker which gave them the ability to hack enemy systems, but should they also keep the ability to heal? It's weird to have a Hacker heal you, but it's also weird for said Hacker to forget everything they knew about medical school at the click of a button.
We also found our perks and quirks to have their own weird flaws. Quirks as a whole we found mostly just annoyed people and seemed demotivating rather than fun. Take the IBS quirk, which made your crew member have a sudden need to use the toilet. It was funny the first time, but annoying the fifth time...and it caused a lot of weird behaviors. We would have pirates running across entire maps mid-combat simply on a toilet run. This made a lot of behaviors look and feel bugged as well. You'd tell a character to go to the shields, but their own inner nagging voice was telling them to go to bed.
Perks had some good factors, but overall the delivery system came out wrong. It was rewarding and nice to have a crew member who could use Nav better than anyone else, but trying to juggle individual crew loyalty to get a new perk felt weird. As this same juggling loyalty system was also tied into quirks, it made things that should have been optional like crew missions feel almost required. If you were in the middle of working through the Asteroid and your engineer demanded a TV in 12 in-game hours, you either had to leave the mission to find one or have a crew member with any one of a number of weird quirks.
The Plan for Launch
In the latest beta, we took out all classes above the Engineer/Scientist/Tactician level. Most of the classes above these have instead been rolled into Kits. This allows for the same Scientist to be capable of healing and hacking, but not necessarily at the same time. This we feel allows for a good amount of player choice as well as the ability to really control when things like Hackers might come into play.
With that in mind, an individual character's progression should not be limited to the first five minutes you have them. We want you to be able to upgrade each character throughout the time you have them, including your Captain. For this, we have added a tree of skills for all non-cadet crew members you have. Cadets will still need to be upgraded before they can do anything. The categories we are working with currently are HP, Speed, Ship Systems, Accuracy (for Tacticians), Repair (for Engineers), and Healing (for Scientists). Each point you purchase in these skills will enhance your crew in that area. Want to build up your Tactician's HP and make them a tank? Take the HP area first. Want that same Tactician to be a better shot instead? Take the Accuracy points first.
Into the future
While we have changed our kits to better encompass our old classes, we have not fully determined that they are gone for good. We have looked into some ideas for those, such as mixed max level classes (Hacker would be a mix of Engineer/Scientist). This would likely be along with a new chapter of the story where it best fits (e.g. a Diplomat within the Trilax story), but only if we can find an area where it feels like the new class adds new gameplay.
The nice part about our new skills system is that we can add and adjust it as needed. We can add more points to a specific area, or we can add in new areas as we find them useful. This allows us to make individual crew progression continue into future content, should we wish.
That's more or less what we think on crew progression currently. What are your thoughts on the new setup? Or is there perhaps another topic you would like to see us talk about in this wall of text style? Please let us know in the comments below.
As always, thanks for all of your support!
Cheers,
Warballoon
