Update: Solo Challenge

jasonrohrer · 2020-09-25 20:11:14

A bunch of impactful changes this week, mostly inspired by the deluge of new players from the recent Steam sale.

First of all, there's now a second phase in the tutorial, meant to help new players get accustomed to the game in a less high-pressure situation. New players often just want to experiment and learn crafting without having a whole village depending on their efficiency. Furthermore, being plopped into a thriving and cluttered village as a new player can be overwhelming. You just learned to chop kindling with a hatchet in the tutorial, and suddenly you find yourself in an environment with dozens of unknown tools. Yes, getting born into the middle of an existing situation is a fundamental premise of the game, but it's not a great environment in which to experiment with the basics.

So, after the main tutorial, there's now an optional solo challenge. You are thrown out into the wilderness, naked and alone, to try your hand at solo survival. You can opt out of this right away, if you want, or you can keep trying until you pass the challenge by surviving from scratch until age 60. For new players who don't opt out, they will enter the main game at least knowing how to take care of themselves in a hostile environment.

Since the game keeps track of which phases of the tutorial have been passed (or bypassed), and no one has passed this second phase yet, even veteran players will find themselves thrown into the solo challenge at least once.

And of course, just like you can revisit the tutorial whenever you want, you can revisit this solo challenge too, almost like an alternate play mode (which many players have already been simulating by connecting to low population servers).

Next, tool slots have been disabled. I was never fully satisfied with tool slots, since most players just ignored them, and they didn't really contribute to interesting cooperative interactions. However, they were still in there, pestering you with endless DING messages as you went about your business.

The behavior of expert way stones have been expanded to help you find poly-lingual people: if you touch your own expert way stone, you are directed toward the closest language expert.

New players start with a fitness score of 0 now, instead of 30. This means that they generally see their scores go up in the beginning, which is good for morale, but it also means that having a new player as a baby will be likely to help, not hurt, your own gene score (as long as you help a new player live longer than 0 years, you will earn points).

And finally, dealing with griefers. More players means more griefers.

Personal curses now last 90 days instead of 30 days (don't forget that you can always forgive someone if needed). And curse labels (DOLL KING or whatever appears in black above the cursed person's head) are now shared between players, instead of being unique per cursing player. So the same person, when cursed, always has the same label for everyone who has cursed them. Thus, players can compare notes about griefer behavior.

For quite a while, it has been very hard for solo griefers or small groups of griefers to kill. Killing requires some form of village consensus, either through a large enough posse or through convincing the village leader to exile the target. Since leaders tend to be high-fitness individuals, griefers have a hard time becoming leaders.

However, griefers can still cause plenty of trouble in other ways. Planting the wrong crops, moving stuff around, stealing stuff, and hiding stuff in the woods. Yes, you can eventually convince the leader to exile them, and then eventually hunt them down to kill them (if they don't get away first), but all of that takes time. Meanwhile, they can keep causing trouble. Killing is also a pretty severe way to deal with a thief, but so far, it has been the only way.

This week brings you a new, less sever way: ally gates. Leaders can mark certain gates, designating them for ally access only. All allies of that leader can move through that gate. To stop someone from moving through the gate, the leader just needs to exile that person. And the ownership of the gate is inherited by the next leader when the current leader dies. Thus, you now have a new way to stop a trouble-maker: exile them, and suddenly, they can no longer travel in and out of the village, through the gate. You can even trap them inside, making them easier to confront and deal with.

The other nice thing about ally gates is that they are spring-loaded, so they automatically open and close as you walk through (and automatically keep non-allies out).

And sports cars can smash mosquito swarms on their windshields.

Dodge · 2020-09-25 20:28:37

Tutorial is nice (except the "dings") but i dont think it should be your first experience of the game, your first life should be an actual life where you try your best to survive and discover the game and other players, then if you are more interested and want to learn more about actually playing the game, the mechanics etc you can go to the tutorial.

I dont think the tutorial gives a good first impression or a first good experience of the game.

Being helpless and overwhelmed is part of the experience.

Like being a freshman or being new in anything.

After your first death it should be clear though that a tutorial exist.

Arcurus · 2020-09-25 20:31:59

Confused I am. Is the new update out? Need to check!

Dodge wrote:

Tutorial is nice (except the "dings") but i dont think it should be your first experience of the game, your first life should be an actual life where you try your best to survive and discover the game and other players, then if you are more interested and want to learn more about actually playing the game, the mechanics etc you can go to the tutorial.
I dont think the tutorial gives a good first impression or a first good experience of the game.
Being helpless and overwhelmed is part of the experience.
Like being a freshman or being new in anything.
After your first death it should be clear though that a tutorial exist.

lol, i like it Learn it the hard way! The tutorial is the life. The life is the teacher!

Maybe just throw noobs always into low tech towns...

Whatever, just make sure that they learn that berries are meh...

Last edited by Arcurus (2020-09-25 20:37:16)

Arcurus · 2020-09-25 20:52:30

maybe let noobs only incarnate in families which are below the generation they reached plus 5 generations or a family which they have been in.

For each child they brought to age 20 they get plus 0.5 generations.

Joeeee · 2020-09-25 21:29:48

pee pee poo poo

DiscardedSlinky · 2020-09-25 21:29:59

Thank you for FINALLY adding a better tutorial. This will help a ton for people who ACTUALLY want to learn

Twisted · 2020-09-25 21:30:28

This sounds like the greates QoL update in a LONG time, thank you Jason!

unoriginal artist · 2020-09-25 21:32:41

THANK GOD THANK U JASON ANYONE COMPLAINING ABOUT THIS UPDATE IS WRONG THIS IS GOOD UPDATE!!!!!!!!!!!!! I get that theres the whole being new thing but its impossible to teach all the new players from the sale 1 new kid per life is already hard enough its impossible if all kids 4 or more are new.

Joeeee · 2020-09-25 21:33:30

best part about this update is sports car killing mosquitos change my mind

Legs · 2020-09-25 23:04:54

jasonrohrer wrote:

Since the game keeps track of which phases of the tutorial have been passed (or bypassed)

Does it track which players have escaped the walled tutorial area? Just curious.

jasonrohrer wrote:

just like you can revisit the tutorial whenever you want, you can revisit this solo challenge too, almost like an alternate play mode (which many players have already been simulating by connecting to low population servers)

How does this work exactly? The tutorial is a 'geographically remote' in-game location like donkey town right? Does this function the same way, as a general purpose random far-away wilderness spawn? Or is it more of a stand-alone single player mode like low-pop where you can have a persistent single player home? An actual main menu single-player mode would help new players a lot honestly.

erinaceus · 2020-09-26 08:54:24

Legs wrote:

Does it track which players have escaped the walled tutorial area? Just curious.

No. For game it is the same outcome - tutorial No# have been passed.

Legs wrote:

How does this work exactly? The tutorial is a 'geographically remote' in-game location like donkey town right? Does this function the same way, as a general purpose random far-away wilderness spawn? Or is it more of a stand-alone single player mode like low-pop where you can have a persistent single player home? An actual main menu single-player mode would help new players a lot honestly.

Yes, more like DT (never been there). Very remote location, and tutorial locations are pretty far away from each other, so no 'escapee party' possible. But one difference from 'low pop', you are still in tutorial mode, so no biome restriction, and infertile.

Last edited by erinaceus (2020-09-26 08:56:08)

Caprys · 2020-09-26 15:09:09

jasonrohrer wrote:

This week brings you a new, less sever way: ally gates. Leaders can mark certain gates, designating them for ally access only. All allies of that leader can move through that gate. To stop someone from moving through the gate, the leader just needs to exile that person. And the ownership of the gate is inherited by the next leader when the current leader dies. Thus, you now have a new way to stop a trouble-maker: exile them, and suddenly, they can no longer travel in and out of the village, through the gate. You can even trap them inside, making them easier to confront and deal with.
The other nice thing about ally gates is that they are spring-loaded, so they automatically open and close as you walk through (and automatically keep non-allies out).

I understand the idea, but a fence all around your town takes too much maintenance. either people don't see it, don't know it has to be fixed, don't know how to fix it, know how to fix it but don't care or don't want to waste their time fixing it. It's just not efficient. Only the diesel/kerosine pen and the sheep pen gets maintained if you're lucky. property fences around the city will be gone the next time you come back in that town.

I would be more willing to make properties if I just once can come back to a town and it's still there. It never is.

Spoonwood · 2020-09-26 16:30:26

jasonrohrer wrote:

And of course, just like you can revisit the tutorial whenever you want, you can revisit this solo challenge too, almost like an alternate play mode (which many players have already been simulating by connecting to low population servers).

I've seen a streamer get to the place without tutoring using the login button. I've done that myself also, though not on bigserver2. But since the login button takes one to the game after that, how does one get back there again a second time? I logged into server 6, which I hadn't logged into before since this update, and had no snake pit around that I could see using Hetuw mod. I logged into server14 and spawned into the wilderness also.

Arcurus · 2020-09-26 16:51:42

Caprys wrote:

jasonrohrer wrote:
This week brings you a new, less sever way: ally gates. Leaders can mark certain gates, designating them for ally access only. All allies of that leader can move through that gate. To stop someone from moving through the gate, the leader just needs to exile that person. And the ownership of the gate is inherited by the next leader when the current leader dies. Thus, you now have a new way to stop a trouble-maker: exile them, and suddenly, they can no longer travel in and out of the village, through the gate. You can even trap them inside, making them easier to confront and deal with.
The other nice thing about ally gates is that they are spring-loaded, so they automatically open and close as you walk through (and automatically keep non-allies out).
I understand the idea, but a fence all around your town takes too much maintenance. either people don't see it, don't know it has to be fixed, don't know how to fix it, know how to fix it but don't care or don't want to waste their time fixing it. It's just not efficient. Only the diesel/kerosine pen and the sheep pen gets maintained if you're lucky. property fences around the city will be gone the next time you come back in that town.
I would be more willing to make properties if I just once can come back to a town and it's still there. It never is.

yes, the building of the fences is not the problem, the maintenance is.

There are some solutions:
- Instead of 60 min let the property fence go into rickety state after been hit with a sharp stone or an axe and give an message plus pointer to the owners (max 1 message per 5 min) / and make the attacker of the fence killable

- make the rickety state go into Shaky Property Fence after 5 min

With that you can still remove the fence, but you get killable yourself and the owner gets informed about it

Another solution:

- Make a constant more regular threat to the village like hungry wolfs that come from time to time to the village and eat the food

Last edited by Arcurus (2020-09-26 17:04:22)

Eve Troll · 2020-09-26 18:43:48

People dont build fences because there really isn't any reason to with the game in its current climate. Any time that would be gained from using a town fence for dealing with griefers would be lost ten fold.

If you forgot, every family is completely reliant on one another. Having fences up is only going to slow down or even disable families from sharing resources. Ever ran around a town fence whistling at people and no one comes? Not to mention someone having to spend a good portion of their life repairing the fence every other generation.

This is why i built stone walls in the rift. A generation or two builds it and future generations never have to touch it again.

Time is wasted when someone wants in or out. Town fences and walls were only important in the rift because there were tons of people trying to raid and steal from towns, kill off families, etc. With biome restrictions families cant play selfishly anymore and succeed. So creating barriers between your family and others is pointless. Its hard enough to communicate with other families over resources, no ones going to make that even more difficult by putting a literal wall in the way.

DestinyCall · 2020-09-26 19:28:55

Living in a walled town is a real pain. You need to make sure whoever builds the wall does a proper job of it and places many gates so the fence doesn't restrict travel outside town to gather supplies or trap someone on the wrong side of town. And they should try to make the walls straight so they are easy to maintain. And it needs to be large enough to allow for expansion but not so huge that it takes forever to build OR gets forgotten about and decays.

Many towns end up with small uneven walls, only one gate, and little gaps that let people in.

Arcurus · 2020-09-26 21:02:34

DestinyCall wrote:

Living in a walled town is a real pain. You need to make sure whoever builds the wall does a proper job of it and places many gates so the fence doesn't restrict travel outside town to gather supplies or trap someone on the wrong side of town. And they should try to make the walls straight so they are easy to maintain. And it needs to be large enough to allow for expansion but not so huge that it takes forever to build OR gets forgotten about and decays.
Many towns end up with small uneven walls, only one gate, and little gaps that let people in.

i wonder how it would be if we gate only the main buildings? I mean if the spring doors could made ally doors?

happynova · 2020-09-26 23:15:37

DestinyCall wrote:

Many towns end up with small uneven walls, only one gate, and little gaps that let people in.

Or huge freaking walls so that you have to spend ages going all the way around to get to the gate, which I find unreasonably annoying.

mgiuca · 2020-09-27 03:12:51

Thanks Jason! This is exactly what I was looking for. I've played a couple of games back in the day but I've been hesitant to keep playing because I just feel like I'm letting people down by not knowing how to do anything useful. I'm looking forward to doing some solo training in the woods.

Arcurus · 2020-09-27 09:59:07

mgiuca wrote:

Thanks Jason! This is exactly what I was looking for. I've played a couple of games back in the day but I've been hesitant to keep playing because I just feel like I'm letting people down by not knowing how to do anything useful. I'm looking forward to doing some solo training in the woods.

actually the noobocalypse is over now, so its easy to learn in normal life. Many people there which have time now to teach you.

Arcurus · 2020-09-27 10:46:49

Eve Troll wrote:

People dont build fences because there really isn't any reason to with the game in its current climate. Any time that would be gained from using a town fence for dealing with griefers would be lost ten fold.
If you forgot, every family is completely reliant on one another. Having fences up is only going to slow down or even disable families from sharing resources. Ever ran around a town fence whistling at people and no one comes? Not to mention someone having to spend a good portion of their life repairing the fence every other generation.
This is why i built stone walls in the rift. A generation or two builds it and future generations never have to touch it again.
Time is wasted when someone wants in or out. Town fences and walls were only important in the rift because there were tons of people trying to raid and steal from towns, kill off families, etc. With biome restrictions families cant play selfishly anymore and succeed. So creating barriers between your family and others is pointless. Its hard enough to communicate with other families over resources, no ones going to make that even more difficult by putting a literal wall in the way.

how about giving the possibility to exile and redeem hole families?

By default all families could be welcome.

But a leader could have a command: exile / redeem all families and exile / redeem family xxx

Caprys · 2020-09-27 13:14:18

mgiuca wrote:

Thanks Jason! This is exactly what I was looking for. I've played a couple of games back in the day but I've been hesitant to keep playing because I just feel like I'm letting people down by not knowing how to do anything useful. I'm looking forward to doing some solo training in the woods.

I've you know how to yum then you are already helping allot. You're not letting people down. You are new and every expierenced player started as a new player. We understand. Ask help in the game, ask on the forum what you can do to help starter towns or what you can do in advanced towns.

Eve Troll · 2020-09-28 03:37:01

Honestly i think going back to more families that have smaller populations that are self reliant is a better option. Would stabilize the issue when there is a huge influx of players.

The biggest pressure in this game is people. The more people you have the harder it is to maintain things. It also makes people who arnt contributing to maintenance a liability. Puts a huge amount of pressure on experienced players and the town is likely to drown in the high demand the population requires. Smallish fams are relatively easy to maintain and give great opportunities to teach.

Most people who manage the biome restriction maintenance are experienced enough to teach but are forced to travel around their entire lives just to keep their family stable. So again new players are thrown under the bus.

Jason, its time to consider if you want a game that can capture an audience or one that you can test bench against a small population of experienced players.

Last edited by Eve Troll (2020-09-28 19:13:54)

Caprys · 2020-09-28 15:00:06

Eve Troll wrote:

People dont build fences because there really isn't any reason to with the game in its current climate. Any time that would be gained from using a town fence for dealing with griefers would be lost ten fold.
If you forgot, every family is completely reliant on one another. Having fences up is only going to slow down or even disable families from sharing resources. Ever ran around a town fence whistling at people and no one comes? Not to mention someone having to spend a good portion of their life repairing the fence every other generation.
This is why i built stone walls in the rift. A generation or two builds it and future generations never have to touch it again.
Time is wasted when someone wants in or out. Town fences and walls were only important in the rift because there were tons of people trying to raid and steal from towns, kill off families, etc. With biome restrictions families cant play selfishly anymore and succeed. So creating barriers between your family and others is pointless. Its hard enough to communicate with other families over resources, no ones going to make that even more difficult by putting a literal wall in the way.

True, it would waste allot of time. Another problem is that with a fenced in town with ally gates I don't think you can even let vistors from other towns inside your gate unless they follow the leader of your town (or follow a follower of your leader).

Arcurus · 2020-09-28 19:45:07

Caprys wrote:

True, it would waste allot of time. Another problem is that with a fenced in town with ally gates I don't think you can even let vistors from other towns inside your gate unless they follow the leader of your town (or follow a follower of your leader).

you can manually put the ally gate in open state if you are one of the owners.

Last edited by Arcurus (2020-09-28 19:45:19)

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#1 2020-09-25 20:11:14

Update: Solo Challenge

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Re: Update: Solo Challenge

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