I had a few thoughts about how officers work in the game. Since they don’t seem to have been developed that far yet, I figured it could be a good time to get in some discussion on the matter.
To start with, something that bothered me in Sunless Sea was how officers felt "not really part of the crew", since they didn’t eat any food, they didn’t count toward your amount of crewmen, and there was no problem with having three first officers - no extra upkeep for what I’d assume should be a well-paid individual doing nothing to earn their keep. I’d prefer if officers counted as crewmembers for anything that checks the amount of crew, and if you could only have one officer of a certain type at any one time - it’d make the choice of "who do I want as my chief engineer" a bit more substantial than in Sunless Sea, since there you can just change back whenever you feel like you’d actually prefer the first one after all.
Secondly, I’d like it if there were one or two more officer roles on our trains. I get that the four-officer system goes nicely with having four stats, but only having an engineer, a quartermaster, a signaller and a first officer feels like under-utilizing an element of the game that could be really interesting - maybe all prudent captains have a Glassman on the staff to treat the inevitable sky-madness and look after the integrity of the windows’ darkening? Or a Monster Hunter knowledgeable on how to turn bizarre, alien things into something the crew can digest? To clarify, I don’t mean to complain about the current system, but I feel like in a story- and character-driven game it could be so much more extraordinary than it is now.
Lastly, I really loved all the instances of officers interacting with each other in Sunless Sea, and it gave a very strong feeling of us being a crew, instead of just a selection of individuals the captain associates with. I think it’s a great way to create immersion and let the player feel like there’s a real, organic group of people around them.
What do the rest of you delicious sky-farers think?
I mean, I liked that they didn’t use up food, but thats just because i’m cheap, I do wish you could interact more with your crew, and have them interact with each other a bit.
I liked how they would occasionally have dialog with each other, like the Cannoner and Mechanic, seeing more things like that would be fun
It could be sweet to have officers more like classic RPG party members, with more unique features (e.g. one grants a long-cooldown stealth ability, another saves you from death one time only). Then there’s more of a feeling of "builds" when you choose your officers, which is lacking when they just give standard stat boosts.
However, that obviously takes a lot more work to implement, and the nature of the game (controlling a vehicle rather than individuals) makes focusing on NPC mechanics less rewarding than in a game like Darkest Dungeon or Baldur’s Gate. I won’t be disappointed if they end up more like Sunless Sea officers: fun collectibles with engrossing but self-contained stories. And if they do keep following that model, I would not want them to institute a limit or resource cost.
Unique bonuses for each officer, not just a bucket of stats.
Put more content in officers. Its especially important because Ports are isolated, there are almost no interactions between them (probably because they are designed by different people and not as part of integral world). But officers always with you, they could and should connect different places, persons and you. edited by Waterpls on 11/4/2017
[color=#6666ff]Oooooh what an excellent thread! Thanks for your thoughts on Officers, they’ve been added to our feedback document as a pre-empt before we implement it properly. [/color] edited by FailbetterFuzz on 11/7/2017
[quote=Waterpls]
2. Put more content in officers. Its especially important because Ports are isolated, there are almost no interactions between them (probably because they are designed by different people and not as part of integral world). But officers always with you, they could and should connect different places, persons and you.[/quote]
[color=#6666ff]That’s actually our intention and one of the reasons why they’ve not been implemented yet, nor will they be for a while. Part of their content will involve different ports in different regions, so our writers can’t actually write their content until those things are in place ;)[/color]
[quote=John Moose]…and if you could only have one officer of a certain type at any one time - it’d make the choice of "who do I want as my chief engineer" a bit more substantial than in Sunless Sea, since there you can just change back whenever you feel like you’d actually prefer the first one after all.[/quote]This feels like a fairly unpleasant idea to me, a person who admittedly likes having relatively easy control over what I need & want in/on my own vessel.
There’s the problem of restricting you in terms of what officer stories you can do at what point. If two gunnery officers have something to do in locations close to your route, you’ll have to take the way there twice because of the officer restrictions.
Also, where would you even be able to regain officers? All major ports? Your original meeting place(s)? Something else?