a multiplayer game of parenting and civilization building
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The game and its community are too unforgiving.
No wonder player retention is next to nothing.
Accidents happen, we should welcome them instead of punishing them. But with the fate of everyone coming down to a handful of rabbits or berry bushes its not surprising people react the way they do to mistakes or not playing optimally.
Main issue I have with stone is that it destroys the rope. Its one of the few, or only, items that is made from rope that breaks or decays.
Wild skewers are free. So is wild milkweed. But when all the wild milkweed is gone it costs soil and water. When you calculate that cost the stone hoe is one of the most expensive items in terms of resource drain.
Like i said ive pushed skewer uses over 15. The rates you highlight are still incredibly similar between the two hoes. With steel it only costs half an iron ingot. Since it can be recycled. Skewers are free and hardly utilized. Plus skewers have fewer uses so their demand in comparison to rope or sharp stones is very small. Stone hoes take rope and a shape stone. Both the stone and rope are perminently destroyed when it breaks.
Skewers go just as far as stone hoes. Sometimes further. Ive had one skewers go for 15+ uses. They cost almost nothing while a stone hoe costs a sharp stone, a rope [4 milkweed], and a shaft. They are plenty to get a town to steel hoes.
Ill insult whoever I wish.
Wild soil is cheap and easy to find. Its rarely used up and you can see tons of piles being unused surrounding the town. Shovel the empty pit to get more.
Skewers are far more efficient hoes than stone hoes. Arguably they can be better than steel. You can grab a horsecart and some baskets and collect a ton. They go a long way. Longer than you might think. Its great for eve camps.
Never make stone hoes.
When dyeing clothes or roses you can load them up in horse carts on a fence near your dye for quick access. You can dye a surprising amount of clothes that way. Remember you need to prep the clothes before you dye them with alum solution.
White roses can only be made from seeds that have been sitting out for over 2 hours. You only have an hour to germinate and plant them then they go back to being red roses. So basically they can only be grown if they are planted within the third hour after being removed from the bud.
Cloth clothing never decays.
When yum chaining save small pip food for later once the stack bonus is high. If you almost starve and stack a bunch of small foods once its high you can easily live the rest of your life without needing to eat. Ive gone for over 30 min without needing to eat doing that.
Never get in the way at the forge. Sometimes more hands on deck doesnt help. Its good to ask if they need help first before jumping in. Most smiths have a technique and its easy to accidentally throw them off.
When baking pies try to make a variety instead of just mutton. It saves food because it allows people to yum chain more.
Ropes are always useful so collecting milkweed is always helpful. You can carry more ropes if you combine them into lassos. They can be cut into ropes later with a knife.
If you build a fence bellow a fence with a horse on it it remains horizontal and horses can be attached. Repeat this process and you can have a full vertical running fence with the ability to have horses on each post.
I suppose it could be asked, is this method of making yellow dye represented properly?
The whole system surrounding cows could be up for debate.
Starting with mango infused cow urine. It without fail kills the cow. The maximum amount of urine you can collect from the cow is three bowls and there is no way of saving the cow. I have read on the situation and the process is to dehydrate the cow so it produces concentrated urine. Then the urine ia boiled down into a powder. The reports I read did highlight that it was a dangerous practice but it did not say it resulted in the death of the cow or that the death was necessary for the production of the urine. "Near starvation" was the term, not immediate death. Plus mango leaves are full of antioxidants and vitamins. They are not poisonous to cattle. I dont see why the cow must die for the production of yellow dye. Why can we not feed the cow after the urine is collected to save it?
That brings me to my next problem with cows. Corn. Corn is not a healthy food source for cows and results in a large number of health problems.
"Grains can accumulate in an animal’s intestines because they lack starch-digesting enzymes. Thus, a high- grain diet can promote an overgrowth of Clostridium perfringens, a bacterium associated with sudden death in feedlot cattle"
So why are cows fed corn instead of hay?
Need I say more?
Its possible until a server update/reset. Which would kill all families. Plus in order to keep a family alive that long you would need almost all community members working to keep that family alive. With race restrictions that would be a very fragile system. Griefers would also catch on and target the family because so many people want to keep it alive.
Plus family longevity is governed by the system jason builds around them. You can work as hard as you can to make a long line but it will only be slightly above average within the current system. Jason makes a change, suddenly lineages double or are cut in half. All because of a minor tweek to the spawn system or etc. In the end we dont have a lot of influence on how things are. Its the sad truth.
Glad you're enjoying the game Gemini. The thing is, players like you are rare. Most players wont go to the length you did to learn the game. That early stage of the game, especially if you are a driven person, is really satisfying. Every new thing you learn feels like and acomplishment and fitting the pieces of a functioning society together is eye opening.
But once you hit a certain threshold you realize that no matter how hard you work, how much you teach, how much time you spend, everything ends up being for nothing. There is no ability to maintain the longevity of families and towns. They all have an expiration date and all you can do is make it a little longer or shorter. Youll realize that you can work like crazy and completely stabilize a town in one life only to see it failing again in the next. This tireless grind eats at you and you grow frustrated. Youll do the same thing over and over again with no long term impact. With the satisfaction of learning new things and figuring out the tech network lost, all that is left is that grind. Over and over again you will work just so others can feel an ounce of stability. Then, in a blink of an eye its gone.
In terms of the property fencing. Ive always hated it. But regarding your comment if it helps or hurts. It most certainly helps more than it hurts. There is a quite active group of people who like to be destructive in the game. Just wait for the weekend.. you'll see. For that reason veteran players choose to lock up important or valuable resources so that only trusted community members can gain access to them. Otherwise it would all be gone in an instant.
That group of veterans use third party mods to communicate and the most active members know who to trust and who to not. Obviously someone who doesnt know what they're doing may gain access to it or even someone nefarious. But thats no different than if they were just laying around like used to be the norm.
Griefers used to kill mostly. Then the killing mechanics were changed so their only real avenue for destruction is to destroy resources. They'll destabilize a town and watch it die slowly.
Over time you will see so much of this. Youll feel helpless to make real change and your love for the game will slowly turn into resentment. Almost every person who rags on this game and hates on jason was in your shoes when they first started.
Glad to hear you are enjoying the game. Just wanted to put some perspective on why we're all so sour.
Pretty much
Imagine being on here unironically
You do realize this forum thread is from before the steam release, right?
Solid necroing though.
Why wouldnt they laggy?
If you're not being awful and disruptive why should anyone get banned?
Calling for harmless people to be banned or attacking people for the way they express themselves is far more bannable of an offense than making a harmless alt.
The German American Bund forums might be more up your alley.
The idea of being able to destroy the caves for resources has been suggested.
Its a decent option for resolving this issue since there would be incentive to destroy them before they become an issue.
It would also help with making roads and building in general if they could be destroyed.
Hopefully jason considers this option if he ever comes back.
Thats fair
I thought this thread was new and it scared me so much. Half expecting the rift to return.
Personally i think all this necro is hilarious.
You go spoonwood.
Bring back the rift!
I thought it could be interesting if we broight up the current problems, issues, and pitfalls with the current system. How they affect the gameplay, how they compare to old mechanics they may have replaced or been edited from, and how they may be improved. What would likely be the result if some mechanics were removed or adjusted.
This is a freeform thread and i encourage different voices with different perspectives on what people find to be problematic in the current environment. What has been lost from previous versions of the game that you found valuable? What time period of thr game was your favorite and why? How have things changed for better or worse since that time period.
I want to hear all your perspectives first before voicing my own so that the thread can flow naturally without guidence.
I look forward to hearing all your thoughts.
Main issue with population rise is that the game has been formatted and developed around a small population of capable players. Since that base of around 20-30 players who keep things stable when population is low makes the game look easy, stable, or even proficient it has given jason the impression the game should be harder to keep up with these veteran players who have poured thousands of hours into the game. Instead of balancing it around the average player.
What has resulted is a system that collapses whenever there is a population spike. The game is built to be stable around 30-40 experienced players. Not 100 new players. What results is the experienced players have to work harder in ratio to the population spike rather than it be easier with more hands to help.
This causes veterans to become frustrated and stop playing until the population goes back down again. The more veterans that leave the harder and more unwelcoming the game becomes for new players. This system is often fatal to player retention and you see the population decline to about what it was before the spike in about a week.
Its happened time and time again. A lot of the best mothers stop playing because they want to keep their gene score up so they can eve. Having a bunch of new kids dying all the time will tank your score ans disable you from the benefits of a high score. Seems a bit counter intuitive, always has.
Its a serious issue and a main reason this game hasnt been able to retain players since before the rift. Before the temp update/warswords the game was stable with a few hundred people. It was a great time to play.
I could see a new player trying smithing for the first time making this mistake. Especially since its more accessible to make newcommen parts and they might not know how to make steel. You can make newcommen parts without bowls, coal, or etc. If they're going just by the hint prompt it could be an easy mistake.
We havent really had any updates in almost two years.
People still play but the development of this game is pretty much dead.
I imagine its because that tech structure was built around the old iron system where iron was more accessable. Then the old tech wasnt adjusted for the new system.
Yea i really miss the old map structure
With this constant push west that is killing off towns and disabling the longevity of towns it has me questioning if the tap out range is still necessary. The well tap out system was introduced during the rift. Initally this was necessary after an update that made water far more plentiful and accessible. But since it has me wondering why it still exists. Family wells/homelands were introduced because families of different races were all living in the same town to subvert race restrictions. Jason wanted to "encourage" families to make seperate towns so traveling and trade would be necessary.
But what is well tap out doing to the game and what is its value in the game today?
In short the well tap out radius is forcing families to move further in order to make a new town. This increases the rate in which we move west and limits the ability to create long lasting cities. I think its worth reconsidering this mechanic since banding keeps families from settling too close already and being in an open world makes an infinite amount of new wells accessable. Currently its only utility is to force development of cities and towns to a specific area and forcing players to abandon that town if they wish to keep up with the push west.
If the tap out range was removed it could open up another level of city development where there was old and new sections of the cities. Most importantly it would slow down the progression west and allow families to thrive for longer within a specific area. The access to water would lessen the burden of water production which could make it easier for players to teach and be creative. Helping new players learn and appreciate the game further. There is nothing more damaging to player retention than new players feeling like they're walking on egg shells when trying to learn and making mistakes.
The same could be said for tary spots an iron veins as well.
100% agree with Pein