QUESTION: WTF does "Sailor Experience" do?

[Virtual_Swayy 10]

My previous playthroughs have all been slooper-duper, so I finally decided to pimp out a battleship and bully naval combat. I feel like I understand pretty much everything, except this one thing that's bugging the hell out of me (Sailor Experience).

Can anyone helps me understand this? It seems like it has zero effect on anything, but why even display it (or even track it at all) if it has no function.

Thanks!

[Boeroer 15,742]

My theory 1: the crew needs a certain amount of xp in order to advance in ranks. If you have 4 ranks you can still gain xp. That excess XP doesn't seem to do anything further.

2: Some crew might already come with a higher rank. But they also start at 0 xp.

Maybe it's none of that, maybe one, maybe both.

Anyway you def. won't feel any difference between 4 stars with 29 xp and 4 stars with 108 xp so don't bother trying to demystify this (unless you really want to of course).

You could check if the master crew you can get via breath's blessings (several 4 stars) start with 0 xp and if they still gain xp. That would explain a lot I think.

 

Edited January 6 by Boeroer

[asnjas 116]

Gem activated

Gem deactivated

Gem activated 

Gem deactivated 

It means whatever you think it means.

[thelee 2,006]

the sailor experience after 4 ranks doesn't do anything.

there is like one sailor that has 5 stars to start with, and they are a rare exception. for everyone else, sailor experience doesn't do anything past 4.

 

there's also "crew experience" and that levels up your sailors for boarding fights.

[xzar_monty 670]

This, btw, is yet another example of how the documentation, or lack thereof, can be frustrating. Deadfire is a great game, but there's no question this is a blemish.

[Boeroer 15,742]

My biggest complaint since PoE.

There's just too much "arkane" knowledge for a normal player to handle. You don't get what's going on without doing a lot of digging and that can be off-putting and frustrating.

If only both games had a system implemented that automatically generated correct and precise tooltips. Currently the mechanics of a lot of abilities are not systemic enough and the resulting tooltips are often too vague or just wrong. Stacking rules: still not clear and so on.

I mean I have no problem with that. I even enjoy that digging. What else would we talk about in this forum if we didn't have all those things to explain to each other? But I imagine the normal player is just annoyed by that.

 

 

[xzar_monty 670]

Did Josh Sawyer address this problem in his post-mortem for Deadfire? I have only watched parts of it. This is certainly a question where his purchasers have a legitimate cause for complaint; sometimes it is difficult to know what is happening, and sometimes I even wonder whether anyone at Obsidian knows.

[Boeroer 15,742]

Not really. I think they are not really aware since that complaint is not a very frequent one. At least I didn't hear any of the devs addressing this in detail. I guess other complaints just get more attention because the players bringing them forth are louder.

I also think most devs deem it too unimportant because it's a single player game and it's enough if the average player vaguely knows what's happening. No idea, just speculation.

Edited January 8 by Boeroer

[xzar_monty 670]

In a sense, it is enough.

But heck, I was quite troubled when I saw self-contradictory tips in Deadfire. I wondered who could write this stuff. But then it dawned on me that the text was probably not written, it was auto-generated. Could be wrong, of course.

[Boeroer 15,742]

Yes, most of the number parts are generated. But there are several mechanics that are quite outlandish if you compare them with the "standard" ones that the generation fails to deliver useful information. Disintegrate is an example where the DoT is implemented differently from other DoTs and therefore the original generated number stuff is misleading.
The textual descriptions below are not generated - and I guess those "fixed" parts are kept vague for a reason: since the devs knew that there will be several belancing passes after release they didn't want to be too specific lest they have to update the description every time they changed an ability. THat way they can just tinker a bit with the numbers but leave the time consuming "wordy" parts out. 

I personally would have done a final "tooltip" patch then which would specify all tooltips once I'm sure that not much will change anymore. But maybe that's too expensive.

It would be sufficient if the description was vague but the number part was more detailed and systemic though. 

I mentioned it several times elsewhere: Slay the Spire (roguelike deckbuilder) has a lot of combat mechanics which are very systemic (yet very interesting) - and its generated tooltips are superb and leave no questions unanswered. Very nice example of a tooltip system done right. The tooltips have nearly no flavor text but it wouldn't hurt them - as long as the numbers are explained/displayed very cleary you can add all the text you want imo.   

Edited January 8 by Boeroer