SS2 on Hard is crazy hard

[Irealys]

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[Irealys]

Ok, guys help me out?

So, is the main point: It takes too long to unlock the higher tier plots?

That is a given. I won't repeat what I've already wrote in my own post about it but yes, it's part of the problem.

The other problem, as far as I can see, is that the dialogue was written and the gameplay decisions were taken and I think nobody made sure that they were 100% connecting there. I've made my example about how it's left to the players to understand that industrial needs to be raised based solely on the fact that farms and industrial are the only two jobs for the next 8 hours of gameplay or so. But that's the part I already spoke with KG about. For reference, I would have had Jake mention how ASAMs can learn and improve before leaving us with Old Paul. Then as Lily ask for stores, I would have had Jake (or someone else) mention that in order to make stores, we'd probably need an entire industrial chain. Then again, I would not have hidden the last 4 types in a basement, I would have had them unlocked with different actions instead.

But to go back to the original question; 10 level 3 commercial to get the tax office is insane. (if you want the long version: https://simsettlements.com/site/index.php?threads/lowering-some-requirements-for-plots.19797/). The fact that multiple different Rockstars and frequent users have never even seen it is proof there is a problem. If neither me, Msalaba or Yaugie can get to it in a normal game, people who don't read the forums or wiki have no chance in hell.

 

[Deleted member 10215]

The fact that it provoked a multi-screen-length rant about how wrong I am is exactly why I said I should never have shared my opinions.

I'm done here. Remove my Rockstar status, I'm out.

 

[Irealys]

The fact that it provoked a multi-screen-length rant about how wrong I am is exactly why I said I should never have shared my opinions.

I'm done here. Remove my Rockstar status, I'm out.

1- It is me we're talking about, I don't need much provoking to write a multi screen lenght rant. I can do that on my own thank you very much.
2- I'm sorry that you feel that any discussion of lenght is a personal insult that would make you want to leave. I deleted my post.
3- Mute me. I'll do the same to you that way you never will have to have a discussion with me.

 

[Briar Cudge]

I have a hard time with the hard mode as well. I think the devs could take a leaf from the ANNO series. Production chains that produce the needed resources.

 

[Revived]

Ok, guys help me out?

Please understand that I'm not saying that anything in SS2 is wrong here, or that needs to be changed.

This is Kinggath's mod, always... first and foremost, full stop. He stated in one of the videos a few years ago that SS was for him a small way of living out his dream to be a game developer, I've never forgotten the passion that was in his voice as he talked about that.

The feelings that I was expressing, are just that... feelings. Feeling are never neither right nor wrong. Is a parent wrong to love their child? But what if that child willfully committed a a horrible act? The parent's feeling are their own, not right, not wrong... they just are. Feelings are totally subjective...

I was agreeing with the thought and feeling that were expressed by @yaugieLC ... neither one of us were saying that the mod must be changed.

I know how the holotape works to unlock parts of the mod. I know how to not recruit the unique SS2 settlers. The ability to do things like that are part of the greatness of SS2.... really, I'm not complaining or looking for anything to be changed just to suit me personally.

Personally, I think the biggest problem the mod has is this.... Kinggath's size 3 heart and passion, trying to fit into FO4's size 2 game engine.

 

[RayBo]

Personally, I think the biggest problem the mod has is this.... Kinggath's size 3 heart and passion, trying to fit into FO4's size 2 game engine.

that, I think is a “good thing”
A heart bigger, that is bigger than the problem. I like that.

 

[Irealys]

Please understand that I'm not saying that anything in SS2 is wrong here, or that needs to be changed.

As a creator, while I appreciate your respect for his passion, I think your approach is wrong here. You shouldn't expect SS2 to have any drastic changes for technical (and just plain logical) reasons. It's not like they can scrap everything and start from scratch, I think we are all in agreement on this. But it doesn't mean that nothing needs to be changed. Even with all the passion of Kinggath it doesn't mean that he is right on everything, ESPECIALLY not when looking at balance. Elite teams sometime still struggle with getting the right balance or pacing in their game. It's ludicrous to expect a mod to be above those issues. And maybe I'm wrong but I don't think SS2 is the last content Kinggath will do. I'm still convinced he will let himself be convinced to move to Starfield once it's released. He has a year to finish this project before the other is even released (and count another 6 months or so before the tools, even though they'll still be pretty much the CK?). Any feedback on things that can't be change can still be given to him (and ANY other reader and potential modder) for future projects too. As long as it's done with respect, I know for a fact that KG takes feedback and criticism well. I personally had one or two discussions with him regarding different things I thought should be changed and he explained why it wouldn't be feasible, I made my point for future reference and he still talks to me and stuff. (He's still NOT putting the magazine injection tutorial on the WIKI but I GUESS I haven't bothered him enough about it ).

Anyway, I got way off track here. Don't be shy to ask for, or mention issues with, things like balance, difficulty or any of this. Those can always change and without our feedback the only data they have is the info from themselves, who understand the game too well to provide feedback that will represent the average player, like those who don't even go to a wiki or write on the forums. Always tell yourself if you think it's too hard, there are at least a certain amount of players who agree and some who will disagree. But unless we get people who are here to talk how are we supposed to guess what the AVERAGE players think of the balance? Or pacing or whatnot.

Sorry for the detour

 

[Deleted member 10215]

This will be my last public post, since it is clear people still arent understanding my point.
People telling me how I feel is wrong is THE way to piss me off and kill my remaining interest in being here - which started falling some time ago once I noticed I only have any value or worth here when I act like a natural-language search interface.

My issues are to do with the reward structure, the tutorialisation/explanations of how the mod works, and the integration into the game world.

For rewards, what little you can get is hidden and takes so long to achieve it is no longer of any practical use. Plus the sheer cost of time, effort, and resources of your own to get there is AT BEST a neutral Return On Investment. And thats if you can even FIND these rewards and work out how to get there.
For tutorials - I get that only so much can be done here without "breaking the fourth wall", but not even so much as mentioning core mechanics is not great. As an example - are you ever told why The Vitomatic, something that takes up 10%+ of the questline acquiring, and gets a custom pickup animation to reinforce its importance, is important and what it is even for? I have seen multiple people having no idea what to do with it or the information it provides, to the level of not knowing why settler SPECIALs matter. And Auto Assign (the default setting) removes any say you have in the matter anyway.
Integration - I know Chapter 2 is doing more with this, but it feels like there are settlements, and there is the game world, and never the two shall meet. This always existed in the base game, but shifting to a "virtual economy" has made that gulf even wider.

But here is a summary of my core issue:
A lot of the "marketing materials" for SS2 make it sound like the mod "gives you a reason to build settlements", but outside of the objectives demanding you build X and Y, I am just not seeing any evidence of that, in either story or mechanic terms. Nothing changes in any noteworthy way, either for your character or the game at large, as a result of doing what the mod wants.
In short: what is the point? Why should The Player do all of this?
And if it feels like this for me, even after a whole year of figuring systems out and adding more mods to work around problems, how would anyone else feel?

But hey, my opinion has so little value or weight that it wasnt even worth me writing this out anyway.

Also, it would be a lot easier to get feedback if anyone expressing even slightly non-positive sentiments didnt get multiple people screaming "your feelings are badwrong" and "if you dont like it make your own" at them.

 

[msalaba]

Sorry to see you go @yaugieLC
For what its worth I appreciate the contributions you have made and the conversations we have had over this past year.

If you really want to get technical, what's the point of any RPG? Go fetch worthless crap for NPC X, kill stuff, level up.....??????.....Repeat ad nauseam..... game over.

May your future endeavors be profitable.

 

[Captain LaserBeam]

My main point is this: what the story of the mod SAYS it is doing, runs contrary to what the mechanics of the mod actually DO, at least in my opinion. The majority of the mechanics and any substantial reward taking so long to all be achieved are all part of that.
It legitimately feels (to me) like The Jake Story is a totally separate quest mod that someone haphazardly edited a few mentions of settlements into so they could trick more people into playing it, rather than a questline ABOUT settlements. And now fixing/adding to that questline takes dev time priority over the settlement stuff, which is the only reason I downloaded this in the first place.

I agree to an extent -

Spoiler: Most of the whole story of Chapter 1

To me the big disconnect is the Comm Hub - Vault Hub stuff and the communication among settlements, as you've pointed out. If the quest in the beginning had just been about trying to find more ASAMs, and the quest to Vault-Tec had been all about unlocking the ASAM blueprints and other plot types, that would have made sense. I even think though that the stuff with MALA and so forth didn't even need to be about the Vault/Comm Hub, it could've been all about salvaging and trying to find resources and so forth for the settlements themselves. And Where There's Smoke makes sense - if the Commonwealth was building up with the ASAMs, then it would mess with the existing balance of power in the commonwealth in a way that would probably lead to violence with other factions. It also makes sense that at some point they would figure out Jake was behind it and kidnap him for interrogation to figure out what the ASAM secrets are. All that said, at this point in my headcannon I just ignore all the stuff about the Comm Hub and Vault Hub because it's clear that the ASAMs can already do all that. Other than the Comm Hub/Vault Hub stuff I think the story does more or less align with the dynamics of the settlement building and basically functions as an SS2 tutorial.

I do think the unique settlers showing up and the related quests and stuff to unlocking the tech tree actually makes a ton of sense with the settlement building aspects of the mod, and sort of functions separate and apart from the whole Jake story. But yes, they do take way too long to get going to the point where you can easily be like level 70 and not have even unlocked advanced plots.

 

[Captain LaserBeam]

Sorry to see you go @yaugieLC
For what its worth I appreciate the contributions you have made and the conversations we have had over this past year.

If you really want to get technical, what's the point of any RPG? Go fetch worthless crap for NPC X, kill stuff, level up.....??????..... game over.

May your future endeavors be profitable.

I agree too, I will miss you @yaugieLC - I think you make a ton of valuable points and some of your insights and feedback have certainly led me down interesting paths in developing my add-on. These forums will not be the same without you.

 

[Cessori]

@yaugieLC
Who will I post clash with now ?

Really sorry to see you leave , after thousands of posts, tons of advice, helpful answers -- so much more.
Thank you for all the support you've give the players of Sim Settlements over the years. I've learned a lot from your posts and always valued your opinions.

Perhaps it is some time away, a break ....
I wish you happiness in all you do. I agree that the forums will not be the same without you.

 

[Wasteland_Survivor]

Game could use some rebalancing in that aspects where certain areas get special perks for holding like Red Rocket - giving bonus fuel.
So each "settlement" has a perk attached to it.

 

[msalaba]

So you would need to do more than shoot a few molerats to take the place? That could be one way to slow down settlement building to match the pace of the SS2 main quest.

 

[Captain LaserBeam]

Usually while I'm waiting for the next phase of the SS2 I go off and do creation club quests or try to get bobbleheads to keep me from acquiring too many settlements. Also, I will say that since I started using Crafting Framework and noticed that mod has ammo scrapping my junk collecting for settlements has gotten much, much easier. I never have any caps since I'm scrapping every piece of ammo I don't need/use, but my pockets are full of steel, lead, copper, etc.

 

[RayBo]

I use the below to rebalance most of my game.

Game Configuration Menu​

Game Configuration Menu

GCM allows you easily set many game settings without the need of additional ESPs or console commands.

www.nexusmods.com

Some really good things you can do with it:
Everything from the length of powerlines, to EXP, to damage, etc.
After 6000hrs I really needed something to make some things a lot harder while nurfing things I do not care about.
I think my fav are making 2200 power lines "no other mod," nurfing EXP, and making it so Bullets actually kill both the player and NPC's after 1 or 2 hits.
hahahahaha, bullets hitting you should make for a bad day and I got tired of hitting something 10x times to kill it.

Lastly, I play really slow "REALLY SLOW," nurfing EXP really helps me with the pace of the game.

 

[Rocola]

I use the below to rebalance most of my game.

Game Configuration Menu​

Game Configuration Menu

GCM allows you easily set many game settings without the need of additional ESPs or console commands.

www.nexusmods.com

Some really good things you can do with it:
Everything from the length of powerlines, to EXP, to damage, etc.
After 6000hrs I really needed something to make some things a lot harder while nurfing things I do not care about.
I think my fav are making 2200 power lines "no other mod," nurfing EXP, and making it so Bullets actually kill both the player and NPC's after 1 or 2 hits.
hahahahaha, bullets hitting you should make for a bad day and I got tired of hitting something 10x times to kill it.

Lastly, I play really slow "REALLY SLOW," nurfing EXP really helps me with the pace of the game.

I aim for this kind of gameplay. Always wanted to get rid of excesive XP so I'm gonna put this mod on the list. Also I use Better Location Damage to make gunfights a lot harder

 

[msalaba]

that mod has ammo scrapping my junk collecting for settlements has gotten much, much easier.

I found the same thing using Better Manufacturing, although you need some higher level perks to build them. (unless you console command them in........whistles while walking away)