I.. just realised something that i wasnt really a fan of, All the skills slowly go down... all of em. So if i go afk for a while with my OP "cover the whole map with turrets" setup, i come back to morons with lvl 1 crafting and mining.. Why does this exist? Why do my colonists brains slowly turn to mush? is there an option to disable it or... na?
Don't worry, they don't drop to lvl 1..only to lvl 10 ;)
It represents the normal thing that happens to every high professional who doesn't work on his craft for a long while. His perfect skill level will erode.
And as lvl 10 is something comparable to a master and 20 comparable to godlike, I think it is OK that you need to constantly work with it to maintain the level.
What baffles me is that I send my guy out hunting and he ends up sniping one of my own people because they got in the way. Really, Mike? Shooting McPherson now?
Thanks,
EBrown
Quote from: Haplo on October 18, 2014, 06:03:34 PM
Don't worry, they don't drop to lvl 1..only to lvl 10 ;)
It represents the normal thing that happens to every high professional who doesn't work on his craft for a long while. His perfect skill level will erode.
And as lvl 10 is something comparable to a master and 20 comparable to godlike, I think it is OK that you need to constantly work with it to maintain the level.
Uhh, yeah i got mods that require more than lvl 10 and.. idk how to keep it maintained.. Like the crafting skill.. I cant keep a colonist making stone blocks etc ??/? whatever dates and times they got on the rimworld. and it is just annoying really..
Quote from: Smasher5523 on October 18, 2014, 06:10:19 PM
Quote from: Haplo on October 18, 2014, 06:03:34 PM
Don't worry, they don't drop to lvl 1..only to lvl 10 ;)
It represents the normal thing that happens to every high professional who doesn't work on his craft for a long while. His perfect skill level will erode.
And as lvl 10 is something comparable to a master and 20 comparable to godlike, I think it is OK that you need to constantly work with it to maintain the level.
Really? I seem to be in a constant need for Stone blocks. Either I build into a mountain and like lining the walls with stone blocks once I'm settled or I have a proper town and I need so much god damn stone for pathways and big arse perimeter walls
Uhh, yeah i got mods that require more than lvl 10 and.. idk how to keep it maintained.. Like the crafting skill.. I cant keep a colonist making stone blocks etc ??/? whatever dates and times they got on the rimworld. and it is just annoying really..
There really is no way to maintain it. You can save edit all your colonists to lv20 in all skills and within a few game days, they will have degraded to lv16-17. It makes those well-skilled assassins and such kinda moot, they'll end up only marginally better than everyone else because they will forget how to gun in a week and the 100-man raid will not help them remember. Same with any really good doctors. Temporary benefits at best.
Quote from: Goo Poni on October 19, 2014, 02:08:18 AM
There really is no way to maintain it. You can save edit all your colonists to lv20 in all skills and within a few game days, they will have degraded to lv16-17. It makes those well-skilled assassins and such kinda moot, they'll end up only marginally better than everyone else because they will forget how to gun in a week and the 100-man raid will not help them remember. Same with any really good doctors. Temporary benefits at best.
Not entirely true, you can use cryo pods if you absolutely need to keep colonists from degrading in skills, since everything about them is saved and set as-is. As an added bonus, they don't consume food or count towards your colonist count while in the cryo ship pods.
I personally think that:
- The skill degradation should be slower
- It should be at least a days delay since last activity with the skill before the skill starts degrading
- If a skill delevels you get EXP bonuses up to the highest level the character reached in the skill, making it easier to regain the lost skill levels - because really, relearning/remembering shouldn't be the same as learning something from scratch. The bonus can be affected by the characters consciousness though, can't expect someone with a brain injury to remember stuff well.
I think these points would make the skill degradation more realistic and less frustrating imo, and I would actually then not mind if the skill degradation was active for all levels - though then preferably also with a delevel threshold from highest level reached (for example if character hit level 12, he can't delevel further than level 7 if the delevel threshold is -5).
The skill should never drop a whole level. I think that'd be the easiest and simplest solution. The worst aspect of the skill degradation is that it can't be modded off. It's such a core gameplay element currently. It's irritating and off-putting, really. As a critic I can appreciate (forced) skill degradation. It's a beautiful mechanic. But it still goes against my gamer instincts. It's untraditional and ultimately unpleasant, even if it feels fresh at first. In the longterm, skill degradation is a demotivator.
The cryo pod trick was a new one to me. That sort of puts things to perspective. Maybe I should start collecting experts, train them, freeze them and unfreeze them as necessary? Even so, I still think the skill degradation is too strong currently. On the other hand, it'd be totally cool and awesome if it could be stopped with a legitimate late gameplay mechanic such as an implant!
I think this is a mechanic that will be removed it serves no purpose, I don't see this being here in the final release. I could be wrong but it adds no value to the game and I don't pay much attention to it bar shooters, if I ever have I've gone " ugh that sucks" my shoters lost 4 levels it removes the achievement of getting a colonist to 20. Also as in Tynans original premise of a time restricted game (I feel this is changing, most people arent playing to escape) having your stats drop makes little sense. Again I could be wrong and Tynan likes this mechanic or has plans for it, but currently I label this as an annoyance.
You should lose progress from one level to the next, but I agree that you should never completely lose levels, let alone MULTIPLE levels.
It's simply not possible to combat the degrade with any effectiveness, and it makes any specialized pawns - like the assassin - completely worthless (can't do many other jobs and, after a few days, is a mediocre shot as well).
I agree with it being an annoyance. I find it diminishes the fun I have with the game. When the game becomes too much 'work' to achieve a goal (in this case, keeping skills high/maxed) it will lose some level of satisfaction for the work you put into achieving that goal.
Let the game challenge people with choices, but not with having to ramp up your micromanaging just to keep a small statistical advantage.
I think that instead of a gradual and arbitrary degradation, a loss of skill should be the result of extreme physical and/or mental trauma, and the corresponding recovery process.
Quote from: marvinkosh on October 19, 2014, 02:37:16 PM
I think that instead of a gradual and arbitrary degradation, a loss of skill should be the result of extreme physical and/or mental trauma, and the corresponding recovery process.
I can get behind this. For example, it makes sense that, if you're shot in the arm, you're not going be quite as good of a shot without therapy and training.
Quote from: TheSilencedScream on October 19, 2014, 02:43:23 PM
Quote from: marvinkosh on October 19, 2014, 02:37:16 PM
I think that instead of a gradual and arbitrary degradation, a loss of skill should be the result of extreme physical and/or mental trauma, and the corresponding recovery process.
I can get behind this. For example, it makes sense that, if you're shot in the arm, you're not going be quite as good of a shot without therapy and training.
This should only happen if the arm shot happens to be your shooting arm. You can still shoot small arms just fine with only one hand, so long as they were designed as such (Hello pistols, Uzi's, etc).
I think it should be a function of the colonists' passions. A skill that a colonist is double passionate about should not degrade at all, whereas a skill that they don't care about at all could degrade with time. One where they are mildly passionate about should degrade only very slowly or perhaps only degrade the experience, not the level.
I agree it's annoying, but I don't think it's a big problem, as it is now. From my experience, you don't really need super high skill levels, and I doubt you're intended to.
Look at the starting skill levels of people. Even with a childhood that helps with a certain skill, and an adulthood completely focused on that skill, the level won't be much higher than 10. (There are exceptions, for example, the Brawler trait combined with melee-improving backstories can push melee skill ridiculously high.) It already doesn't seem realistic, based on the starting levels and the level names (basic familiarity, expert, planet-class master, etc.), that colonists would be able to get the skill levels that they already can with a passion for growing or construction and a colony that requires a lot of it. It would be even worse without the decaying.
I think that might be better with some other system for preventing ridiculously high skills than what's there, but if there's one change I'd want now, it's for
skill levels not to decay below the original levels of that person (the starting levels, from the backstory and traits). If they start with 14 social, they should
stay at/above 14 social.
This would solve problems like this:
Quote from: TheSilencedScream on October 19, 2014, 12:50:56 PMit makes any specialized pawns - like the assassin - completely worthless (can't do many other jobs and, after a few days, is a mediocre shot as well).
Neurotrainers... neurotrainers could add a trait, with the added skill level, maybe? That would fit into that, would keep the neurotrainer skill addition from decaying away. Not sure if neurotrainers work with XP or levels now, though; if it's XP that wouldn't work. I don't think changing it to levels would be a problem, though. Say a medicine neurotrainer gives a trait with +5 medical skill. Give it to someone who's a practitioner (6) from backstory and you get a permanent strong expert (11). Give it to someone who's a backstory strong expert, and you get a permanent level 16 (planet-class master, or system-class, or something). That's very high, of course, but the neurotrainer is a rare, expensive, exotic item.
Quote from: Darth Fool on October 20, 2014, 01:21:57 PM
I think it should be a function of the colonists' passions. A skill that a colonist is double passionate about should not degrade at all, whereas a skill that they don't care about at all could degrade with time. One where they are mildly passionate about should degrade only very slowly or perhaps only degrade the experience, not the level.
In my experience, the only skills that get high enough for degradation to be a problem are the ones that colonists are passionate about and improve to high levels. That suggestion wouldn't be much different from removing the degradation entirely. (except for the change to "Interested")
Quote from: Cimanyd on October 20, 2014, 06:48:12 PM
Not sure if neurotrainers work with XP or levels now, though; if it's XP that wouldn't work. I don't think changing it to levels would be a problem, though.
I am pretty sure they either work on XP or have different level amounts. I did some testing on them and they vary on how many levels they would go up. Usually the lower levels would go up faster, so I lean towards the XP idea.
Quote from: Darth Fool on October 20, 2014, 01:21:57 PM
I think it should be a function of the colonists' passions. A skill that a colonist is double passionate about should not degrade at all, whereas a skill that they don't care about at all could degrade with time. One where they are mildly passionate about should degrade only very slowly or perhaps only degrade the experience, not the level.
I like this idea, degrade slow, slower and slowest depending on passion level
Just considering how the games last longer now than they did when I originally balanced this, and the feedback in this thread, I think I will slow down the degradation in the next version.
I started storing my assassin in cryopods. They aren't a threath as long as I dont make them emerge, so I usually end up pincering the attackers from 2 directions (2 assassin, full power armor passing from a firefight to another, they are as good as the rest of the colony togheter). ;)