How do you play? / What do you like?

Kaveh · 2019-07-27 14:33:43

So. I'm seeing a lot of negativity and advice/fixes on this board, people telling Jason to go back to how it was, yada yada. However, what I barely see is people telling him what they like(d) about the game in the first place. So my question is: how do you generally play? What are the decisions you make and what do you base them on?

Although I only just registered on these forums, I have been playing for quite a while now and tend to play the game in different ways depending on some factors. I have no clue if I'm an average player, but that's why I think it's good to have some more views on this. It should help Jason move the game in a direction he likes without changing the overall feel of the game, I think.

I'm gonna be quite extensive but it's fine to say your thing in less words ofc.

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How I play & why:
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Town size:
- In early towns I generally focus on the well: if it ISN'T already a Diesel pump (including functioning oil rig), I'll work towards the next upgrade or find another well. IMO, water is what keeps a town alive, so the most important thing is to make sure the town wont run out of water for a few generations to come. If enough people are already working on that, I'll gather materials, bake, farm, or build a house (or a little bit of everything). If there isn't a pen yet and the well is functioning for now, I'll make sure we have one including sheep by the time I die.
- In more advanced towns I tend to either build some cool roads, buildings, gardens or graveyards (aesthetics), teach kids the basics, make stuff I've never made before just to learn, dye clothes, write things, or just RP a lot. I see people here talk about 'getting bored because there's nothing to do' in big towns, but honestly I don't feel that way at all. There's always something, it's just not always extremely useful (like when I find a gold vein and immediately decide to put a crowned horse somewhere in town just cuz it's FUN).
- I really do believe it's a great thing that both early and late towns exist, and I think it should stay like that. When I saw a mention of a family being supposed to last only a few days max (i.e., usually much less) it kinda scared me. As a fairly experienced player, I personally get more bored doing the same things over and over in early towns than having exciting new things happening in advanced towns. It's really gratifying to 'save' a new town by making sure there's water and food of course, but sometimes I just want to play a bit differently and not having it be just about survival. I know I can do it, so I like to do something else from time to time. New things being added to the the tech tree is also amazing since it means the game won't be the same every time.
- Bigger towns also seem to be an advantage for newer players, since it's easier to stay alive and learn new skills (either by yourself or by having someone teach). Making the game 'more challenging' could definitely be detrimental for getting newer players to stay.

RP or not:
- I love RP! But...
- In my experience RP is kind of hard in early towns. You are too busy to really bond with your family - though kids do seem to be more thankful - and usually there's better things to do. In late towns however, or towns with a lot of people who can do the work while I 'slack off' RPing, it's fine. RP can be super enjoyable and that's the main virtue of bigger towns to me.
- If my life starts with an RPing mom or other person I'll definitely play along, no matter the state of town.

(Non-)Family:
- Having fewer kids feels better than having many. It makes it easier to take care of them while also getting stuff done. Being the only girl in a new town where nobody is getting food or taking care of the farm is awful since you aren't able to do much either, poppin kids out everywhere that NEED to survive so they can hopefully help.
- I love seeing whether or not my (grand)children survive. I often check my lineage in families I cared about a lot, and seeing 26 generations after myself fills me with a sense of pride even though I didn't really have much to do with that. The new genetic score thing added to that for sure; highest I've been on the leaderboard was #4.
- Generally I tend to care about my kids a lot, asking them to check in with me from time to time. I clothe and feed them. If they're new and I'm not super busy -so basically just in advanced towns- I'll teach them something they don't know yet (instead of having them do the only thing they already know).
- Honestly, having NON-family around still scares me even though it's become the norm recently. There's always people who just want THEIR family to survive and kill off everyone else, even though there's enough for everyone and people have been living in peace for a few generations. Yes, you can work together while everyone's still nice, but eventually this will probably mean the end of you or your family (or the other one, of course). I tend to have my babies named by the biggest family in the town in hopes that they'll accept them into their family, but it'll still say 'no relation'...
- This is the only thing I kinda have an idea on: perhaps only show that information if it matters for your or their genetic fitness? (i.e. great grandmothers/uncles to great grandchildren/nieces/nephews). Is there really a difference between a complete stranger and a cousin 8x removed? (I'd like to hear everyone's ideas on this cuz to me there really isn't!) Joining families like this would be awesome and could improve cooperation. Not sure if possible of course but yeah.

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What I like/dislike:
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Random things I like a lot:
- As an Eve, finding an old abandoned town is like I struck gold. Recently someone got mad about that because they believed you can't be proud of a place if your family didn't start it. I disagree.
- Being born into a town on the edge of collapse and having a bazillion (great) grandchildren running around by the time I die.
- Checking the lineage page after a while and seeing that all my children lived to old age.
- Having children help me out or come back to me later on just to say hi or whatever.
- Seeing beautiful castle-like walls in/around a town, awesome gardens or specific houses for everything (such as nursery, bakery, church, 'fashion store', 'doctors office', 'armory', seed storage or even a radio house!). A little while back I found a place with a sugar cane maze and went /shock irl tbh.
- Overcoming hardships such as griefers or running out of water. See it as a challenge. The game wouldn't be the same without it.
- RP RP RP. I started a religion. I owned a casino. I was royalty. I was a town bum (and got killed for it). I was a cop. I was a radio caster. I killed for my children even though they were obviously the bad guy ('griefer'). With RP, every life is different.

Main issues:
- Honestly, the only thing I REALLY dislike is when the only girl in a new town is AFK. The few people that are there will be running around to feed her in hopes of more babies, but won't have time to start/tend to the farm, subsequently run out of food and the family dies. Always sad to see that happen. Probably nothing to do about it.
- People hiding stuff (i.e. rubber, kerosine, iron, tools), but thats more of an annoyance than an issue. It won't necessarily kill my family, but it means I can't finish what I was doing.

schmloo · 2019-07-27 15:26:08

One of my favourite things to do when resources and situation allows is building experimental projects with a theory on how it’d affect the town. I also enjoy farming potatoes, and working on oil and diesel pump when no one else is.

MultiLife · 2019-07-27 16:58:42

Likes:
- being efficient and helpful, and people who are efficient and helpful
- renovating bad working spaces into better ones, even moving working stations to better places
- renovating small pens into larger and better ones
- renovating small buildings into larger and better ones
- random teamwork that happens; people gather to cook pies as the oven gets ready, a smith gets a helper as he starts processing iron, a builder gets helping hands to finish buildings, a road builder gets a rock hauler and so on - it's awesome, feels good
- RNG nature (to an extent), sometimes it was fun to walk into the infinity, seeing all kinds of biome formations and RNG oddities as you passed - randomness intriques me, and the vast world being endlessly different excited me (occasional "garden of Edens" and such)
- sweet players who are not afraid to show some love and affection, even if it's just RP
- the bonus you get with good Fitness
- doing helpful projects, like turning a clay pen into an awesome maple pen
- having all kinds of options during a life; run away, craft something new, teach someone, live at an oil rig, have five professions, design a different town than meta, etc.
- seeing a family line go far after you are gone
- seeing a town after multiple generations developed it
- reviving towns

Dislikes:
- iron nerf: I was expecting to get different ways to reach iron, but it's just running around - so boring - I want to craft tools to get iron, not run around for ages; miner camps, miner towns...
- griefers: I don't want to play with them, I hate the type of drama they add - they just slow down all the cool things that could be crafted, cool stuff that could happen
- not being able to curse everyone
- war swords having magical advantage on foreigners
- the limited world, with RNG as a designer (levels/worlds need designers if they are limited)
- low options for hunting and animal skin cloth (no herds to track, no strategic animal traps...)
- low (good) options for different buildings (building materials, decoration, heating systems)
- people looking like the same characters with no unique mixing
- families not being able to come together due to griefers and bored killers
- no options for making fire, rope, ovens/kilns etc., all just adobe and such
- big rock hauling and digging, so boring, I'd rather build a mine than run around with a cart
- how roses work, I wanna crossbreed and mutate them and such, I have no idea what this time thing is with roses and their colors
- inconsistencies
- bad crafting help, also you need to be super precise to search things - even I can't remember how to use it most of the time
- watering stuff with bowls is weird, how about a crude watering can from clay and iron?
- composting requiring exact things to work
- animals eating only certain exact things
- animals living forever
- not enough dangerous environmental elements
- not enough environmental challenges (soil becoming barren when machines have had a go for centuries? Making better soil?)
- no sicknesses (crops for example, and humans only get yellow fever)
- no way to breed better crops
- not being able to have larger areas of water, like lakes; pond that is a size of one tile is so weird
- clutter, ofc, one item per tile looks funny and always will
- not being able to see through tree's foliage
- clothes becoming a death trap when yellow fever strikes; and nobody can undress you, not even you yourself
- not having things to help bonding with family
- talking being so difficult in-game (limits and hunger)
- default zoom
- game about parenting has no dads

Last edited by MultiLife (2019-07-28 00:07:37)

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2019-07-27 14:33:43

How do you play? / What do you like?

#2 2019-07-27 15:26:08

Re: How do you play? / What do you like?

#3 2019-07-27 16:58:42

Re: How do you play? / What do you like?

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