SSR General Feedback & Suggestions

[6662e70e9dbf4Zanderat]

Great.  Now I need to register at Reddit.

[6662e70e9de7bJoin2]

That's not a problem. There's no registration process beyond having to enter your desired username and password.

[6662e70e9e1c9Nameless Voice]

So, I was lazy and didn't read it before it was posted - oops.

Most of the document is rather good, but there's a few points:

• The RPG mechanics section is really muddled and unclear.  It doesn't read coherently and seems to jump about between topics. It also doesn't cover the main points about the genre shift between player-focused and character-focused gameplay.
• The vending machine mentions "nanites" - which do not and cannot exist in System Shock 1, both because the lore explicitly states that they don't, and because the existence of nanotechnology would change the setting.
  - The vending machine also doesn't mention how ridiculous and immersion-breaking it is to collect money to use in vending machines in a survival horror setting, instead of just smashing them open like any reasonable person would do.  It works in SS2 because they have replicators and not vending machines, so there's nothing to break open and steal.  It doesn't make sense with SS1's level of technology.  People don't smash open vending machines in real life for societal reasons (it's stealing, damaging other peoples' property, people might see, etc.) and not because it's not physically possible.  Those reasons don't apply in a survival horror setting where everyone else is dead and the laws of society no longer apply.
  I'm not even going to get into what is wrong with stack limits.

[6662e70e9e3e7ZylonBane]

I'm not thrilled with having systemshock.org's name on this.

[6662e70e9e6e2Kolya]

It is a collection of feedback that was posted here. And we all had enough chance to make amends. I don't think much more could be asked before posting it as Systemshock.org's feedback.

[6662e70e9e834Join2]

Seems half a collection of SystemShock.org's opinions and half entirely aurora's. It's not what this thread initially started out as. While most of his opinions are respectable I don't agree with them all and there's too many exclusively his own to be representative of this website. 

Edit: Well, Aurora and whoever else worked on this. Hikari and Leanorys perhaps.

[6662e70e9efa1Aurora]

Seems half a collection of SystemShock.org's opinions and half entirely aurora's. It's not what this thread initially started out as. While most of his opinions are respectable I don't agree with them all and there's too many exclusively his own to be representative of this website. 

Edit: Well, Aurora and whoever else worked on this. Hikari and Leanorys perhaps.

I don't agree, and it's also not 'he'. How you came to such a conclusion that 'half' of the opinions are entirely mine is beyond me. With all due respect I don't believe you've even read the whole document nor the listed comments if you think so. I demand you elaborate on that - I should deserve such if I am accused so blatantly after rummaging through all of this over the two weeks it took.

The only ideas stemming solely from myself are the usage of Doom as an example for non-confusing level design, and ideas for grenade throwing mechanics. The 'root' topics of both - level design concerns and grenade throwing - were thoughts pitched by other people. I merely elaborated on them. You might also think co-op, but this was actually suggested by many others half a year back when NDS made a topic here asking for suggestions. Everything else is compiled from the comments found on the forum or individual people's suggestions to me, such as seen in this thread. For everything I edited or rewrote, I made sure the way I phrased the text would not change what was originally meant.

Additionally I stressed during the document's editing that our primary goal is representing the views seen in the comments, rather than our own, even if small additions are permitted. The Augspace idea is entirely Hikari's work, but it was appreciated by multiple people and we agreed to include it as a good individual idea.

I did of course leave a lot of the preliminary summarising work for the two people helping me, but for the most part I thought their summaries were accurate. Where this was not the case, I noted and edited it. The RPG section in particular was initially not representative at all of the diverse range of opinions on the topic, but this was redeemed. Of course, this is probably why it looks messy - trying to create solid paragraphs that flow together, out of so many different opinions.

[6662e70e9f112Nameless Voice]

While I disagreed with a number of the points in that document, they were certainly points that people had made and others agreed with in other threads on these forums.

Don't recall seeing anything in there that I didn't already see posted here.

[6662e70e9f832Join2]

I don't agree, and it's also not 'he'. How you came to such a conclusion that 'half' of the opinions are entirely mine is beyond me. With all due respect I don't believe you've even read the whole document nor the listed comments if you think so. I demand you elaborate on that - I should deserve such if I am accused so blatantly after rummaging through all of this over the two weeks it took.

The only ideas stemming solely from myself are the usage of Doom as an example for non-confusing level design, and ideas for grenade throwing mechanics. The 'root' topics of both - level design concerns and grenade throwing - were thoughts pitched by other people. I merely elaborated on them. You might also think co-op, but this was actually suggested by many others half a year back when NDS made a topic here asking for suggestions. Everything else is compiled from the comments found on the forum or individual people's suggestions to me, such as seen in this thread. For everything I edited or rewrote, I made sure the way I phrased the text would not change what was originally meant.

Additionally I stressed during the document's editing that our primary goal is representing the views seen in the comments, rather than our own, even if small additions are permitted. The Augspace idea is entirely Hikari's work, but it was appreciated by multiple people and we agreed to include it as a good individual idea.

I did of course leave a lot of the preliminary summarising work for the two people helping me, but for the most part I thought their summaries were accurate. Where this was not the case, I noted and edited it. The RPG section in particular was initially not representative at all of the diverse range of opinions on the topic, but this was redeemed. Of course, this is probably why it looks messy - trying to create solid paragraphs that flow together, out of so many different opinions.

Well, you summarized a number of things added right there, but I guess I exaggerated very unfairly, so for that I apologize.

[6662e70e9f96fAurora]

I appreciate that.

Perhaps it was for the better I clarified all of that anyway.

[6662e70e9fbd4Hikari]

I'd done as i could to try untangling the mess that was the RPG 'discussion' into something that was actionable and, well. Did the best I could there without scrapping and redoing it based purely as my own thing. I did bring up System Shock2's poor implimentation of forced skill gating as an example of RPG mechanics done poorly, but that was purely because it was rather poorly done (here you have to research how to put a round peg in a round hole and here's the things to buy that skill.) That kinda thing I felt is what people are activly afraid of when RPG Mechanics are discussed... or at least that's what it looked like overal, so I figure risk it.

Augspace is where I felt I was going out on a limb pretty hard since while there was support for seeing where and how the idea could roll, I was afraid it was putting too much of myself in a community document to soapbox an idea I hadn't seen anyone else really actively pitch.

Also I kinda jumped the gun a bit on posting.

[6662e70ea00f5Join2]

I did bring up System Shock2's poor implimentation of forced skill gating as an example of RPG mechanics done poorly, but that was purely because it was rather poorly done...

 

[6662e70ea0282Djant]

You think it was done well, but we don't know what the community thinks of it. Given that many people have slammed System Shock 2's imbalance in the RPG systems it's safe to say that even the fans have problems with its implementation.

Yes, I know that RPG systems tend to have imbalances, but in most of the highly praised RPGs the imbalances are hidden better and are fewer or less impacting in general. That being said System Shock 2 was more of a hybrid so it can be excused a bit more(I still think the RPG mechanics aren't that well implemented though).

[6662e70ea03bdJoin2]

We'll have to agree to disagree. Aside from notable imbalance I am fond of the systems and think they were very well implemented.

[6662e70ea04feAurora]

The criticism against the prospect of SS2-style RPG elements was large in volume, sharp in nature, and coming from many, many users. People either thought they are fundamentally flawed, or that they are fine but do not belong in SS1. Their perspective is represented in the document, and so is the perspective of those who had contrary opinions.

[6662e70ea0601Join2]

I know, I was just taking issue with Hikari's claim that the RPG systems were "poorly implemented" in SS2.

[6662e70ea0817Hikari]

It wasn't perfect, but for me it really is mostly just that one glaring example of 'put the thing in the thing and here's stuff you need now go find chemicals to research this canister I already told you how to use.' Well that and how a lot of the psionics seem to feel more multiplayer centric than anything useful in single player.

[6662e70ea0e13ZylonBane]

It wasn't perfect, but for me it really is mostly just that one glaring example of 'put the thing in the thing and here's stuff you need now go find chemicals to research this canister I already told you how to use.'

SCP Beta 3 already fixes this.

[6662e70ea0f97Hikari]

Is that even publicly avalible yet? If so awesome, if not, still awesome for taking care of a very glaring issue with the game's flow.