Clearer Tech Progress with More Player Control
The basic idea in the story campaign is good. You unlock blocks by doing missions, and having it explained in the game lore as the Colonization Authority AI controlling the access, is a nice touch. However, giving specific block unlocks as rewards for the specific missions has the downside that it takes away the freedom for the player to "choose his own path" as he writes the story he is playing.
You can give that freedom back while still keeping the overall scheme of tying the unlocks to missions:
1) Arrange the locked blocks into several separate and logical linear "tech paths". You can use the current grouping in the G-menu, or you can create a new one if it makes more sense. As long as there's some logical improvement of similar functionality as you progress through a particular path.
2) Assign point values to the different locked blocks. Lower values for the first-tier blocks, and then increasing values as you progress down a particular path. You can call them science points, research points, or something else.
3) Instead of rewarding the player with a specific block unlock for completing a mission, give him X amount of science points.
4) Let the player spend the science points to unlock blocks in any path as he chooses, if he has the required amount of points.
This keeps the overall scheme of "progress through missions" while giving more freedom to the player to choose how he wants to progress through the blocks.
And just to be clear and to avoid sidetracking: This suggestion is for the story campaign. The unlimited block access in the "classic survival" is fine.
I like this feedback
As an example, you could have "tech paths" like:
Energy tech path:
Movement tech path:
Point values and the tier lists can, of course, be different. This is just to make it easier to visualize. It would then work so, that completing a mission would give you as a reward, say 1,000 points, and you can then decide whether you want to spend those points on a wind turbine or a small ion thruster or something else, depending on what you want to do in the game.
This way the tech progress in the campaign story is locked behind completing the missions, but the player is given the freedom to choose in which order he wants to advance through the techs.
As an example, you could have "tech paths" like:
Energy tech path:
Movement tech path:
Point values and the tier lists can, of course, be different. This is just to make it easier to visualize. It would then work so, that completing a mission would give you as a reward, say 1,000 points, and you can then decide whether you want to spend those points on a wind turbine or a small ion thruster or something else, depending on what you want to do in the game.
This way the tech progress in the campaign story is locked behind completing the missions, but the player is given the freedom to choose in which order he wants to advance through the techs.
I really agree here that something should change with the current system. I have felt overwhelmingly stifled through the current unlock process that it's killing the drive I have to take my time and have fun with it with how limited I am when it comes to building and expanding. I'd imagine this has something to do with not overwhelming new players, as they're definitely trying to make things a bit more streamlined to bring in a new audience, but I would think the current setup would do the opposite with how sluggish and restricting it feels more than anything.
The endgame tech and everything can still take a while to get for sure, but the point system you mentioned (or something similar to it) would definitely give the player more agency and also allow them to choose how they progress through the story. I don't think removing all unlocks from missions would be necessary, as they could use that as a way to make sure players at least have the means to continue progressing without frustrating them due to an uninformed decision when it comes to unlocking things through the points.
I really agree here that something should change with the current system. I have felt overwhelmingly stifled through the current unlock process that it's killing the drive I have to take my time and have fun with it with how limited I am when it comes to building and expanding. I'd imagine this has something to do with not overwhelming new players, as they're definitely trying to make things a bit more streamlined to bring in a new audience, but I would think the current setup would do the opposite with how sluggish and restricting it feels more than anything.
The endgame tech and everything can still take a while to get for sure, but the point system you mentioned (or something similar to it) would definitely give the player more agency and also allow them to choose how they progress through the story. I don't think removing all unlocks from missions would be necessary, as they could use that as a way to make sure players at least have the means to continue progressing without frustrating them due to an uninformed decision when it comes to unlocking things through the points.
Replies have been locked on this page!