Talents... Again...

[Boss]

Please fix the Captain talents. They're un-engaging and lack real-world reflections of people in those positions. While I can respect not making them better than dedicated roles, they should be able to spec partially into them. Moreover, most of the talents are base upgrades to things like extra missions/money - these would be better served as an additional passive to the Talent, as opposed to a choice. It's not engaging for the Captain player, and very dull.

To be more specific, there is zero requirement for the "Captain" to be the Captain. With my friend group, I roll Medic and command the ship, and it's functionally better than wasting a slot on Captain. Also, adding in some navigation boosts and neat stuff to Cappy would be nice - just look at the Medic's cool gene splicing and Endocrine Booster.
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Adjust the Clown tree for Assistant. I refuse to let anyone choose Assistant as is, due to how it completely removed the need for medical items/repair dedicated players.

As an alternative to its removal/adjustment, perhaps Assistants can only put points into the Clown Talents once the Honkmother reputation for the Campaign is high.

[DuckieMcduck]

There have been other threads discussing what Captain even is meant to be and the definition really varies per group.

Some people think it's meant to be something Jack Sparrow who is in the thick of it and acts like vanguard, thus replaceable by literally any other role while the ship autopilots.

Others recognize that a leader role ends up being a somewhat boring but irreplaceable one who is going to be stuck to the navigation monitor over half the time and making boring/hard choices and delegating, as opposed to trying to fix things themselves.

The way captain is designed currently points towards the latter. He's the weakest role in terms of health, and his talents tend to gravitate to ship/crew bonuses as opposed to making him a "shiny" class people would want to take over for the talents alone. The talents are designed to reward the Captain for taking command, prioritizing getting missions instead of abandoning them, and making it so paying attention to the crew (to keep them alive) can bring long term results.

Quite frankly, from the number of Captains I've seen that insisted in wanting to be part of the action just to end up as a high priority bloody mist, I think he and his talents are fine the way they are.

[Boss]

Originally posted by UnluckyDuckie:

There have been other threads discussing what Captain even is meant to be and the definition really varies per group.

Some people think it's meant to be something Jack Sparrow who is in the thick of it and acts like vanguard, thus replaceable by literally any other role while the ship autopilots.

Others recognize that a leader role ends up being a somewhat boring but irreplaceable one who is going to be stuck to the navigation monitor over half the time and making boring/hard choices and delegating, as opposed to trying to fix things themselves.

The way captain is designed currently points towards the latter. He's the weakest role in terms of health, and his talents tend to gravitate to ship/crew bonuses as opposed to making him a "shiny" class people would want to take over for the talents alone. The talents are designed to reward the Captain for taking command, prioritizing getting missions instead of abandoning them, and making it so paying attention to the crew (to keep them alive) can bring long term results.

Quite frankly, from the number of Captains I've seen that insisted in wanting to be part of the action just to end up as a high priority bloody mist, I think he and his talents are fine the way they are.

I strongly disagree. It's not about what he should, or should not be. It's about game design.

You could easily cause the captain to explode into gibs the second he exits the submarine to "enforce" your point of view on what you think, or do not think the captain should be. This, however, is not a fun mechanic.

The Leader role is something any character can take up. I've just pointed out, exactly, what me and my crew are doing; running without captain. Getting a single captain bot, kill him, acquire Captain ID. Done.

This is about a Game, and about adding Gameplay. The talents were a way to distinguish between each role, and give them a reason for playing that role. In the past, pre-talents, everyone could become anything because you could level your skills up to max. So let's review what the captain gets?

A talent tree dedicated to pistol combat. I honestly have no remarks on this balance wise. It certainly distinguishes him from other roles.

Then two talent trees that do absolutely nothing but provide passives (which are already gameplay null), all of which either grant more exp, slight bonuses to crew, or more money.

These two talent trees don't make the captain better at being a captain. He doesn't buff bots to ridiculous levels (the only thing you can realistically command). He doesn't get better navigational skills (which is his primary activity most games). He can't find resources better.

Which leads us to the situation we're currently in: he's bad. Worse? He's boring. This is a gameplay issue that transcends any and all "what should/should not be" discussions.

Finally, though, let's touch upon the "What should he be" concern.

Medics get massive damage/health boosts and bonuses to looting Alien stuff, assistants end up Gods capable of everything every other role has. Both are great at in and out of submarine activities.

Security is supposed to be just that, right? Wrong. Outside of their massive combat bonuses that function both in and out of submarine (damage resist buffs, guns, turrets), they also end up as significantly better self-medics (away crews always have their own meds), get massive looting to general items, and water speed boosts.

Engineer get combat bonuses in the form of unique ammo types and weapons. 20% bonus to ALL skills if they so choose, making them better at all roles. OR. A massive 35% HP bonus and out of sub bonuses. Insane melee combat bonus. And the ability to buff everyone with resistances and combat stats better than most medical drugs. A minor fuel looting bonus.

Mechanic gets looting bonuses, Weapon skill bonus, an insane weapon power and health bonus based on mechanics skill, fire damage bonuses.

What I'm trying to showcase here, is that beyond the scope of each of these classes roles, they have bonuses to things they really ought not. Engineers and Mechanists with insane health and combat stats, incentives to leave the ship. Medical doctor in the same boat, with absolutely out of this world crew-wide bonuses that far outstrip whatever the Captain can do.

And the Captain? Paltry money/xp boosts. Damage boosts to weak weapons (Handcannon was nerfed), and the ability to inspire up to two people with some assortment of boosts. That's it. To top it all, he gets zero incentives to leave the ship (I just pointed out Engineers and Mechanists, that shouldn't be leaving the ship ever, already are getting massive incentives TO LEAVE the ship)... And best of all. ZERO INCENTIVES to STAY IN THE SHIP.

None. No navigational boosts, no sonar boosts, no mineral spotting boosts. No turret boosts. Nothing. He gets campaign boosts, and these are miner/negligible at best. Made even more pointless since the only real good campaign boost (the extra missions) can be literally adjusted at the game start screen.

This is not fun. This is not good design.

Also, for the luls, no melee combat boost for the Captain's Sabre.

TL;DR: If I could recruit people to specific roles, Captain would be the last one I'd choose to fill.

[The-Champ]

I love playing captain, but here are some ideas for the talent tree.
Have the skipper tree make you choose between marks and XP rewards

More revolver buffs like faster rate of fire, movespeed bonus, or a crit modifier under gunslinger

Buffs to the whole crew while they are in the ship and you are at the helm under the shipmaster tree.

Shipmaster AOE buffs instead of command inspiration buffs(when im playing with friends i never use the in game command function, making lt clunky), or supplement the command inspiration with some AOE buffs (insert larp about the captain inspiring you by leading the charg)

Make it so you can play the harmonica while helming.

Bonus damage when drunk

Kind of unrelated but i wish revolver rounds fabricated in clean stack of 6 instead of an awkward 4.

Two of the captain's finisher perks alow him to take an extra mission. Standard game aettings of two default missions makes that four, which is almost useless in my opinion as most of the time you can only get two, and very rarely three missions for the same level.

Make the shipmaster finisher something flashy and worth specing into.

Just some rambly thoughts on my favorite class.

[Boss]

Honestly, my issue is that all he gets is XP boosts. Mission boosts. And money boosts. Along with the Inspire, which is *maybe* the only interesting gimmick.

It's boring. Outside of when your ship gets hit (and you take the talent), most other classes can attain far higher Helm than you.

[Xenith_Shadow]

Captain in his current form, exist's solely to make other's more effective and he barely does that effectively.
The 50% damage reduction on one of his pistol perk's in addition to a general nerf to his hand cannon made is only real active skill's mostly useless.
Technically captain get's access to all the money. or that might just be because i'm the host in my game.
Captain could get access to damage bonuses v.s human opponent's, he could also get scaling bonuses based on the number of captain's log's he has obtained sunken wrecks.

[Greb]

It was certainly depressing in the first campaign I did with the new Talent system only to be a glorified medal pinner, and even then that stopped being useful after people got the talents they wanted lol. Then I became suicidal when I noticed the Medic, Assistant and Engineer had like maxed stats in every stat shortly after I achieved like 100 Helm the natural way by piloting the submarine.

Even my Reapers Tax removing cigars that I could make were worthless because nobody was dying due to their advanced talents and talent based equipment

Not even sure if I want to be the Captain anymore, especially after the Quickdraw Handcannon nerf and the fact running your own tobacco plantation also took a nerf since it takes forever to grow now right? Sad days.

Really wish they'd implement differing skill caps on roles so that roles couldn't just be as good as one another. No way should an Engineer be able to medicate people as good as a Medic, and no way should a Medic be able to pilot the submarine as good as the Captain, etc etc. It makes me sad!

My life was reduced to basically giving the two guys who regularly handled combat and salvage missions outside of the submarine those order buffs by dismissing and them un-dismissing two "Attack enemies!" orders on them lol, and eventually they stopped caring if they even had that buff active because they grew so powerful.

Even his ability to play a little shanty and randomly level up crew members is inferior to a bunch of other methods other roles have at their disposal lol.

Game is in Early Access and will go through tweaks and changes as time goes on, so I'm not complaining or whining really, but I definitely hope things are changed in the long run. Especially the Captain. Also I guess things might have changed a little since I last played, who knows.

But yeah, poor poor Captain. I hardly knew ye.

[Voryn Dagoth Ur]

I kinda wish higher level captain levels could unlock more missions being given like maybe sidequests for the mission, i mean you get more mission limit increase, yet rarely will you get tons of mission heading in the same area.

[DuckieMcduck]

Originally posted by Boss:

Originally posted by UnluckyDuckie:

There have been other threads discussing what Captain even is meant to be and the definition really varies per group.

Some people think it's meant to be something Jack Sparrow who is in the thick of it and acts like vanguard, thus replaceable by literally any other role while the ship autopilots.

Others recognize that a leader role ends up being a somewhat boring but irreplaceable one who is going to be stuck to the navigation monitor over half the time and making boring/hard choices and delegating, as opposed to trying to fix things themselves.

The way captain is designed currently points towards the latter. He's the weakest role in terms of health, and his talents tend to gravitate to ship/crew bonuses as opposed to making him a "shiny" class people would want to take over for the talents alone. The talents are designed to reward the Captain for taking command, prioritizing getting missions instead of abandoning them, and making it so paying attention to the crew (to keep them alive) can bring long term results.

Quite frankly, from the number of Captains I've seen that insisted in wanting to be part of the action just to end up as a high priority bloody mist, I think he and his talents are fine the way they are.

I strongly disagree. It's not about what he should, or should not be. It's about game design.

You could easily cause the captain to explode into gibs the second he exits the submarine to "enforce" your point of view on what you think, or do not think the captain should be. This, however, is not a fun mechanic.

The Leader role is something any character can take up. I've just pointed out, exactly, what me and my crew are doing; running without captain. Getting a single captain bot, kill him, acquire Captain ID. Done.

This is about a Game, and about adding Gameplay. The talents were a way to distinguish between each role, and give them a reason for playing that role. In the past, pre-talents, everyone could become anything because you could level your skills up to max. So let's review what the captain gets?

A talent tree dedicated to pistol combat. I honestly have no remarks on this balance wise. It certainly distinguishes him from other roles.

Then two talent trees that do absolutely nothing but provide passives (which are already gameplay null), all of which either grant more exp, slight bonuses to crew, or more money.

These two talent trees don't make the captain better at being a captain. He doesn't buff bots to ridiculous levels (the only thing you can realistically command). He doesn't get better navigational skills (which is his primary activity most games). He can't find resources better.

Which leads us to the situation we're currently in: he's bad. Worse? He's boring. This is a gameplay issue that transcends any and all "what should/should not be" discussions.

That's the thing. Leading is not fun for the most part, but it is necessary. What a leader does can vary depending on the situation, however the design of the game clearly tries to communicate that the type of leader the gameplay calls for sits at the navigation terminal, relays information, and makes the hard decisions.

I'm suggesting the Captain is designed to be mechanically gimped. Because the game developers want to say that he's the class you pick, not to have "power", but to lead others. It's not a class that supersedes or stands out, it's designed to punish you if you try because it wants you to monitor and ask others to do it.

If you know how to play the game, and you know how to lead others, you don't need to do anything yourself to begin with. There's no way to add perks that "improve leading" because that's a social thing. Captain is the way he is because the developers want you to be social as him, and not Jack Sparrow. Maybe it's not that fun for the captain, but having a leader that doesn't delegate is not fun either.

[Boss]

It's just poor design. You get to level faster, and help your team level faster. And get more missions. None of these things are actually that important, and more importantly, don't require the captain's input.

If bots could choose talents, a Bot Captain would be basically as effective as a player captain.

A real easy experiment is just being the host and letting someone else be the captain. Just kick him off the steering. Your helm will level to 40 in a mission or two, and without him being able to pick missions/manage money (a Host trait, not a captain trait), you'll see how empty and worthless this role is.

[Boss]

Originally posted by UnluckyDuckie:

Originally posted by Boss:

I strongly disagree. It's not about what he should, or should not be. It's about game design.

You could easily cause the captain to explode into gibs the second he exits the submarine to "enforce" your point of view on what you think, or do not think the captain should be. This, however, is not a fun mechanic.

The Leader role is something any character can take up. I've just pointed out, exactly, what me and my crew are doing; running without captain. Getting a single captain bot, kill him, acquire Captain ID. Done.

This is about a Game, and about adding Gameplay. The talents were a way to distinguish between each role, and give them a reason for playing that role. In the past, pre-talents, everyone could become anything because you could level your skills up to max. So let's review what the captain gets?

A talent tree dedicated to pistol combat. I honestly have no remarks on this balance wise. It certainly distinguishes him from other roles.

Then two talent trees that do absolutely nothing but provide passives (which are already gameplay null), all of which either grant more exp, slight bonuses to crew, or more money.

These two talent trees don't make the captain better at being a captain. He doesn't buff bots to ridiculous levels (the only thing you can realistically command). He doesn't get better navigational skills (which is his primary activity most games). He can't find resources better.

Which leads us to the situation we're currently in: he's bad. Worse? He's boring. This is a gameplay issue that transcends any and all "what should/should not be" discussions.

That's the thing. Leading is not fun for the most part, but it is necessary. What a leader does can vary depending on the situation, however the design of the game clearly tries to communicate that the type of leader the gameplay calls for sits at the navigation terminal, relays information, and makes the hard decisions.

I'm suggesting the Captain is designed to be mechanically gimped. Because the game developers want to say that he's the class you pick, not to have "power", but to lead others. It's not a class that supersedes or stands out, it's designed to punish you if you try because it wants you to monitor and ask others to do it.

If you know how to play the game, and you know how to lead others, you don't need to do anything yourself to begin with. There's no way to add perks that "improve leading" because that's a social thing. Captain is the way he is because the developers want you to be social as him, and not Jack Sparrow. Maybe it's not that fun for the captain, but having a leader that doesn't delegate is not fun either.

I don't mean to be rude, but way to miss the entire point.

I host. I play medic. I call the shots. Players are free to choose captain, but I drive. And I support my crew more than a captain is capable of. The Captain isn't the leader, the HOST is, and when the host doesn't play Captain, you get to see how worthless the talents for cap are.

And again, you can drive the helm as easy as him. You don't even need a medic on away teams because of Sec's self service talents. And a tiny bit of Fabricator grind to get to 40 medical. I'm there, really, to make meds when people are away from the ship, drive the ship, and apply Broad spectrum when people are hit by a husk.

Edit: Again, I really don't want to be rude, but it's getting frustrating reading your responses, because it seems you're blatantly ignoring the points levied against them. I don't mind disagreeing, but you're simply not addressing them.

1.) I have repeatedly showed that other Classes are able to fulfill other roles due to their talent diversity, and able to do things beyond the scope of their Class definitions (mechanics and engineers going on away missions, Combat Doctors, super-healing Security). For some reason, you think Captain should have zero diversity and don't explain it.

2.) You've focused on the Captain being the leader. I've tried pointing out that the leader is, far more often, the Host. Given they control the game. This is not something relegated to a single Class and you can't enforce it.

3.) I've pointed out that the Role of Captain, as you see it, has zero buffs. Not only does he get nothing to really make him better at commanding (no bot buffs), but he also gets no navigational buffs... no bonuses to sonar, mineral gathering, remote crew observation. Nothing. Outside of a situational helm buff (versus other classes literally able to exceed 100 Helm regularly). Even at the ROLE you insist he has, he gets nothing.

4.) The talent choices are boring. The entire right side of his Talent tree (both the middle and right talent trees) are absent of interaction. They're basic passives with no real thought needed in their usage, and provide passives to things that become obsolete into mid/late game campaigns. You don't address this issue.

5.) Jack Sparrow, Captain Flint, every anime with a Captain. 40k, Vermintide 2. Anywhere where the word 'Captain' is used, even in real life explorer examples, we see that his role is far greater than "sit in ship/move ship". None of this is reflected in gameplay, outside of paltry buffs to ♥♥♥♥♥♥ weapons on one of his three talent trees. You're insisting he should be anemic; I disagree. Unless you can explain why 'Jack Sparrow' desires are wrong, you don't get to demand your point of view on captain versus another - in fact, I'd argue this is PRECISELY WHERE talent choices should come in, to cater to a PLAYER'S vision on what sort of Captain they want to spec into, as any RPG should.

[DuckieMcduck]

Originally posted by Boss:

It's just poor design. You get to level faster, and help your team level faster. And get more missions. None of these things are actually that important, and more importantly, don't require the captain's input.

A real easy experiment is just being the host and letting someone else be the captain. Just kick him off the steering. Your helm will level to 40 in a mission or two, and without him being able to pick missions/manage money (a Host trait, not a captain trait), you'll see how empty and worthless this role is.

It's not about what the role can and cannot do. All roles can do pretty much anything and you can beat the game by yourself with Mech Tech (read: 1 person) or having everyone do the "wrong" job for the first zone.

It's instead what they want you to do with it. The Captain's design communicates they want you to play the game the way I've said three times by now; at the navigation terminal, delegating tasks, wishing for all to be alive, and insuring the right decisions are made so all missions get completed. It's boring, but it's an important role. It's also not a role you can play without understanding every other role, much like in Space Station 13.

If you give the Captain anything else, it becomes a target for people who do not want to lead. And that's what the design tells you: you pick that role not to play, but to serve others with knowledge and good decisions. At best, you get full access to give the right things to the right people at the right time.

[The-Champ]

To be fair the captain has the most important and engaging role in the game, that being to command the crew and helm the sub.

For that reason alone i dont mind not getting shiny new toys, because every time someone else gets a shiny new toy, i benefit.

Besides, its really fun dangling the medals over my crews heads and rewarding people who performed the best to my liking.

I still think he needs a rework, but i really dont mind that much being underpowered.

[Cosmic]

Yeah, I think the Skipper and Shipmaster talent trees should just be removed.

I think a tree that gives them enhanced navigational awareness would be great. Like with one talent they have markers on their radar for "dangerous" places that may or may not have nests/abyssal creatures/etc. that makes them more effective in hunting down or avoid enemies. Then another talent that gives them beacons for nearby ore/plant nodes (not specifying what plant/ores are there so the Mining Radar is still useful but the Captain can have a much larger detection range to get the ship in the right area).

Then another one that enhances NPC/Station part of gameplay. Salvage the existing "More rewards" talents into this. A choice between a talent that boosts reputation gain or one that greatly diminishes reputation loss. Then one that lets Captain get relations for factions above the cap and get unique/more rewarding missions, be able to see/purchase "contraband" from them, and other benefits.

[Boss]

Yeah, having some sort of rep system that does stuff would be useful. But as I've pointed out, we don't need a captain to lead. It's nice that the captain can "dangle" badges and reward people. But so can the medic. Endocrine boosters and the gene stuff is significantly more powerful and useful.

Being "underpowered" isn't the issue here. Being bad at everything is.

[Demmino]

I haven't read the replies, but i read your discussion, I think captain should have sonar buffs, increased zoom out range, ability to detect wrecks/ruins better, and maybe even mineral, these can be talents and not basekit as they're strong at the current time of barotrauma
later on maybe early captain should have "Aura" presense abilities, for example, inspiration, being near your crew in gunnary will gain extra rate of fire to guns, being near your crew while repairing makes them repair faster, and give captain better talents for trading, possibility to discuss prices, chance of failing and succeeding.
ship master tree feels like a joke, as much as I love camaradre between crew members my self.