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DRv4

Zack

Zack

Inactive Member
Feel free to skip to the TL; DR. This first part is going to be a bit ranty and explains how we got to where we are.

How many guns can a ship have?

This should be an easy question. Just a number needs to be provided and we're golden. There is a huge rant to be had here about specifics but really what is the point? The people making rules or putting in suggestions don't seem to agree on what the problem is or even if there is a problem. In order to solve the problem at hand we'd first have to get these people to understand that there is a problem. We would then have to get them to understand the metrics behind what the problem is and how the problem is measured. Even then we couldn't start work on the problem, as we'd now have to bring everyone up to speed on how problems are worked on and it took me nearly a year to really start to get 'DevOps' and project management.

Also, over the past few years, I've learned not to commit to putting in a lot of effort on SARP unless I have creative control. This is fairly straight forward, Nepleslia used to be nearly half the site when I was running it. An FM was appointed who went out of their way to cause problems for me. I left, and the faction hasn't recovered since. In the process I ended up leaving a bunch of cool tech-library articles behind for quick ship creation that all had to be redone as entirely new items when I wanted to start ship design again. Similarly: the stat tables were also compromised by me 'trying to dumb them down' for certain players who went out of their way not to use them. The moral of the story being: Don't waste your time with people you don't want to be around anyways. I'm also bringing up the stat tables again because while they didn't stick, they did give some valuable insights into how things work.

There is also the important question of 'how did other people solve these problems?' The answer is 'DevOps', but the more useful and less buzzword answer is to look at other games. DnD is the common jumping off point, and most people probably remember 3.5. 3.5 was a huge improvement over earlier versions of DnD, it had a lot of complexity and had a lot of rules that made making characters a pain. As we moved on to 4e and 5e we got more streamlined, even though we still had STR, DEX, WIS, INT, etc we lost rolling for stats and just got assignable numbers. The turn phase was streamlined to 'move, minor, standard', and classes became more curated. Instead of being a fighter and then picking your abilities from a huge list, you now had a backstory or archetype which informed which abilities you'd get automatically at certain levels. You can even take a look at shooter games for inspiration: TF1 had a ton of classes and a lot of specialized tools you had to know how to use. TF2 was more streamlined with different classes that had a lot of character to them, they still had gear though and could be combined in various ways. Then overwatch came out and instead of playing classes with gear, you would just play a specific character. Everything from the animations to the character's personality would clue people in on how to play that character. As a result of the changes above, DnD/Shooters became easier to get into. This reduced the amount of time it took for players to become familiar with the game and had the concrete metric of player retention to back that up.

But what does that all mean?

You can just skip here if you want
TL; DR:

Just let me make DRv4, and have it be an optional rules set that you don't have to use if you don't want to.

The results will be:
* Faster Approval of Articles compared to DRv3, in both time before approval and number of posts before approval is made.
* Objectively balanced ships
* Minimal rework of existing ships to fit DRv4 (Minimal enough that Toshiro won't complain about it)

The above have concrete numbers that can be counted, so I can show that the system works.

To produce it, the system will get chunked up into small parts, and each week or two I can have one of those parts ready for feedback. The granular nature of the changes means that the majority of these new systems / improvements can be used with DRv3 on an as wanted basis (IE: If you like the weapon range changes you could just start using DRv4 values and it will look just like a DRv3 acceptable template). When enough components are ready, then DRv4 ship templates will be made available. Again, these would be just as acceptable to a DRv3 mod as a regular ship but they would be curated so that you can't fill in the template in such a way that would make the ship unapproveable.

The final step would be to fix the ship size = armor problem which will mean breaking away from DRv3 at the end of creating DRv4.

But a key part of this is having creative control over it. If I can get the OK from @Wes to build it out I can get started otherwise I don't want to waste my time building something and then having to explain why we should do this.

(We'd also get to do some A/B testing finally, and be able to compare changes.)
 
In all honesty I don't really care what system we use as long as people will quite complaining about it, I've seen so much fuss over v3 from so many people i was wondering how long it would be till something like this happened and I actually think it's a good idea in a few ways.

I think as long as people keep open minds and are willing to discuss each section each week or two like you said zack it could be very successful, it wont kill people to work together on this and would probably benefit all of us. I never had issues with v3 but I don't adore it so much I don't see the benefit of an update.

So i guess I'm saying I'm in? Or at the very least I'll try to join in discussing it and adding what i can to help out. I do think however there is limits to what guides like this can control such as passive abilities which may not directly harm an enemy but could boost a ship or tech in some way, which Im sure we could discuss at some point in this process.
 
If we were to decide that we needed a DRv4 or even a DRv3e (for extended). It's something the community would have to work together on. I'm not certain we could honestly give anyone the kind of creative control over it that you would probably want to have. There is probably also a note about not becoming a rules-laden RPG as well.
 
from everything I have seen i doubt zack wants to make more rules and rather would be trying to make better guidelines or standards without filling it with hard rules, none the less I'm interested to see where it goes and worst case scenario we just dont change anything in the end *shrug*
 
I don't think it's as much a problem with DRv3, which I was totally not a fan of, as it is an issue with some wanting a rigid ruleset. I like DVr3 as it is, and while I didn't want it it has proven to be far more flexible than DVr2 which is something I appreciate. It allows people to use their reasoning abilities to get an idea of the weapons operation and place in the battlefield. Besides, if someone is engaged in PvP and it is all a game of numbets rather than focusing on the storyline the rules have failed. This isn't DnD. We're a community of people that enjoy good stories. Let's not lose that by playing a numbers game.
 
I remember people booing me when I was trying to introduce DRv3, something I picked up, put down and picked back up against mostly on behalf of other people and the belief I had that it might be good for them.

If Zack is willing to get off his butt and constructively work on something which might be good for everyone, I don't intend to discourage him. You have absolutely nothing to lose by letting him try. This might result in something truly good and I encourage others to be open-minded.

However, as I learned when pitching such things in the grueling arena that the NTSE forum can sometimes be, I give the following caution: quantity of effort and repeating a point over will not equal success, no matter how much he may believe he is in the right. If Zack makes the mistake of designing the DRv4 for his tastes rather than what the community actually needs and can make use of, he may find himself faceplanting even after and despite tons of work put into it.

I personally see Zack's failings more related to his value system and what he prioritize, rather than him lacking in smarts (perhaps the feeling is mutual). I can find Zack obtuse sometimes, but there's no denying the man is brilliant. I also don't think all the good ideas just come from my head. That said, by past experience, I know that if Zack want @Wes to be onboard with this, he'll have to give him something more concrete. Wes likely doesn't have time for yet-another-idealistic tug-of-war between Zack and me; Zack just asking what he did above is simply tantamount to requesting of "be on my side and help me prove Fred wrong" which is just going to put him on the spot, given the commitments he's already made to me in that regard.

Zack, you have to put something on the line. You have to emphatically convey something which is lacking which is really a problem to him, and then propose something to him that proves it might solve his problem. This isn't about your pet peeves; this is about his and the people he catters to with this website. If you have the solution to his problem, then you have to sell it. Provided what you have then really does work.
 
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SARP can have as many damage systems as GMs want/need. The only thing that makes DRv3 special right now is that it's the only one required on submissions at the time of approval.
 
The GM of a thread/plot decides what they're using.
 
I feel like this is just going to spawn problems between FMs and GMs and GMs and players. I might be wrong, but I seldom am based on my track record of predicting and reading into things that have broken out and occurred over the site in the last year or so.

Definitely think DRv3 works fine and doesn't need replacing. One bad egg doesn't mean you throw the whole batch out or some anecdotal precedence that just because one person isn't pleased and can't get it to work for them doesn't mean it's problematic or really an issue. Again, I can't state it enough that people who work well with others have no problems with the current system. I have not seen it directly hinder RP for submissions to even get held up by FMs and GMs who simply focus on the RP. I've also not seen the placement of tiers affect/have a hard impact over RP and I've been using/pulling things from all over the DRv3 range.

And considering you were involved in the race that jumpstarted the necessity to limit and slow the absurd creation rate of better and better technological articles, Zack, I feel like letting you make a looser system is just going to spawn more of the same sort of "mine is better than yours" mentality that set us up with these thousands-of-guns gunships.

We do not need to loosen rules/guidelines/cemanticswhateverhere. These work and they're not too tight. In fact, we've loosened them ostensibly since the original version of DRv3. It works more than well enough and has been tempered through community feedback. Sorry that everyone else doesn't see the problem that you make for yourself and then throw over the entire system.
 
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I think this thread reinforces what I’m thinking. The problem isn’t that you guys don’t know how to solve the problem, it’s that there are far deeper problems.

Wes’s thing is kind of a ‘maybe’. I’ll probably get with him directly with an outline and see if we can use DRv4 in place of 3 for USO submissions when it’s ready.

The end result is we’re just going to replace the broken system with one that works better. People should naturally move over to DRv4 if I put it together right.
 
As has been stated numerous times in the past, @Zack, you are - as far as I know - literally the only active member on Star Army who thinks DRv3 is a “broken system” - and no one in this community has any obligation whatsoever to “naturally move over to DRv4,” because DRv4 must be approved prior to being used and, according to what Wes said earlier in this thread, would be an optional system, not a mandatory one.
 
There are certainly flaws in DRv3 but I don't think they're so big that they require a whole new DR. That being said let's see what you make.

My biggest gripe with DRv3 is that tankiness doesn't feel tanky. You can get oneshot so easily in DRv3, so perhaps repairing that will make starships feel like they're made of something durable, not made of tissue paper as your "potentially lethal" shot destroys the enemy. Even this doesn't require a whole new DR, and this is a flaw that even Wizards of the Coast (D&D creators) have failed to fix.
 
I will keep an eye on this so called 'new' system, as it is something that should appeal to the entire community and not just one person or faction, however I do not appreciate the attitude being displayed.
 
META_mahn said:
You can get oneshot so easily in DRv3, so perhaps repairing that will make starships feel like they're made of something durable, not made of tissue paper as your "potentially lethal" shot destroys the enemy.
Click to expand...


I thought the whole point of space warfare was that everything was essentially made out of tissue paper, The void and vacuum of space being unforgiving. Much like naval warfare it all relies on shielding and compartmentalization to ensure a deep gouge on your ship doesn't tear half the crew out the side of the ship, Or that a ship full of volatile fuel and munitions somehow shouldn't cook off when you so much as glance at it with a weapon large enough to crack a moon over time.

(Not taking any sides here.)
 
Any GM worth their salt knows when to pursue narrative over numbers, the plot is their playground after all despite what numbers say. If it helps them provide enjoyment to their players that's all them. A ship should be able to take as many hits as you want it to take to facilitate your narrative within reason.

In the case of PvP, unless you work out an outcome prior to the thread you're just going to end up with a toxic mess and people pulling things from thin air. Unless you have some sort of active arbiter deciding the flow. For people to do it themselves without deciding prior is a tricky situation.

The DR system is necessary for making sure things aren't too OP to make sense in setting but imho it shouldn't be the huge issue people are making it. That being said, give making it a shot if you fancy - 'build it and they will come'.
 
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