Idea - Generational Family Merger.

JackTreehorn · 2020-10-22 02:52:20

The way I see it there are two ultimate goals the players want and they are opposing.
1. To have families at a distance that they can set up roads and trade.
2. To have families live and work together to build the ultimate town.

Could we get both goals working at the same time?
My idea is that we start with goal 1. We have the families start at a distance trading and setting up roads until they reach Generation 100, 150 or perhaps 200.
Then the situation changes, they have familiarised themselves enough with another family that they can actually merge and live together.
This will be tough and choices will have to be made.
It will place strain on the towns resources and with generational food debuff it could be hard to make work.
It could cause in town conflict which may wipe out one of the families.
Ultimately it may cause us to have reason to reach those high generations so we can merge with other families.
Perhaps we could limit it to two families per town so that we still have two families or one merged family to trade with outside the town.

Perhaps once the generational marker has been reached the family gets an indication that they could merge.
That could be that they begin to have the occasional baby of the other race or begin to have babies with the hair or facial features of that other race creating variation.
These variations show that they could live in the other families town of that race from which the variations came from.

I'm not sure how it would work but I'm interested in brainstorming how it could work.

Last edited by JackTreehorn (2020-10-22 06:56:40)

DestinyCall · 2020-10-22 06:23:46

Hmmm. I have a thought for how this could be implemented in-game in a way that works with existing mechanics.

How about a completed bell tower creates a "homeland" for all families around its location? Then we could have multi-family bell towns again. If you hear a bell, you would have a reason to follow it. Advanced towns would be motivated to build bell towers again as a sign of their progress and an investment in the future of their family/village.

It takes a long time to make a bell, but if your town survives long enough to achieve that goal, you can draw other families to live with you. Language barriers and multiple leaders would ensure that things are still chaotic and murderous in a bell town. But the advantage of having multiple families coexisting in the same place would make it worth the extra effort, I think. You would still need to survive independently until the bell tower was completed ... or abandon your village to follow a distant bell.

I'm all for anything that helps break down the race restrictions and keeps towns from dying out constantly.

....

I prefer using something physical, like constructing a bell tower, rather than something intangible like "reaching generation 100". I never know what generation my current family is in, unless I'm living in an Eve camp. After that, I am just guessing based on what has been accomplished and what still needs to be made. A physical structure can be seen in-game during your lifetime and you can make an effort to build the belltower and feel like you have advanced your town when it is completed.

Last edited by DestinyCall (2020-10-22 06:28:34)

JackTreehorn · 2020-10-22 06:53:33

DestinyCall wrote:

....

That could work, I don't think you would want every family to move in.
If it could be limited to two families per homeland that would be good because there would still be two or one merged family to travel and trade with.
Bell towers might need to be automatically destroyed once the family dies so another family can't just takeover.
Perhaps if a visitor rang the bell it could be the trigger for the merger.

I like the physical idea too. I think the characters might be hard locked so changing the facial features or hair would be difficult.
Giving birth to different races kind of muddies the waters too, like a (Jungler family who is actually part of the ginger family) I don't think it would work.
But your idea sounds plausible.

I also wonder how long it takes for one family to create a bell tower.
It feels like it could be the right length of time and would give bell towers new purpose.
There may need to be limits on how many bell towers could be built or once one is built it destroys all others made by that family.

DestinyCall · 2020-10-22 07:07:41

Personally, I don't see the benefits of limiting the merge to just two families.

If it was up to me, there would be no restriction. Once the bell tower was created, any visitors would be able to settle and live in the bell town.

Otherwise, there would be no reason to follow a distant bell in search of a new home. By the time you reach the town, it would already be "taken" by another family and you would have wasted your entire life walking to the bell for nothing. Or you start building a bell in your town, but there are too many other bells on the server, so your town doesn't get to have a bell tower for reasons that are completely beyond your control. I don't like magical mechanics, like stuff destroying other stuff without a reasonable explanation of why or how. I would be fine with bell towers "decaying" and becoming unstable or broken if they are abandoned or not used for a long time.

...

Realistically, it would be difficult to maintain multiple families in the same place across many generations. Most of the time, there would not be all four races present in the bell town, even if four families managed to reach it. Internal strife, griefing, leadership disputes, and RNG would inevitably result in family die-offs. In practice, I think the challenge of balancing multiple families in the same location would be more fun than long-distance "trading" with a distant village. We've already pretty much figured out how to do that and it isn't super hard. Just super time-consuming.

Last edited by DestinyCall (2020-10-22 07:23:59)

JackTreehorn · 2020-10-22 08:00:05

DestinyCall wrote:

...

I think there is a point to only have two families merge. If all families merged building roads, cars, trucks, radios would lose some of their main purpose. I think there is a benefit to having another town as somewhere to visit or deliver supplies to, you would still have the meta goal of linking the two towns as best you could.

The bell tower could act differently. It could be unable to be rung by the family who built it and only by the first visiting family to lead the rest of their family and only their family to the promised land.
The idea I was trying to express with bell destruction is that when the building family dies the bell tower would collapse from not being maintained.
I don't think families should be able to create multiple bell towers without the waiting period because it is supposed to be an achievement for surviving that long and would negate the two family limit.

Having a two family limit for one bell tower limit also gives the other two families hope that their town will be used one day, that they could be the second capital trading with the first capital.
I wouldn't want all other towns to be abandoned once a bell tower was rung.

If there was no limit four families could merge into one town then the building family dies out and the three families would still be inhabiting that town without earning it and then the tricky situation of who will get the well once the main family is dead.
Also it would be unfair for the race which built and earned the tower and died due to the migrants to then be excluded until another tower was built.

Last edited by JackTreehorn (2020-10-22 08:26:23)

NoTruePunk · 2020-10-22 11:29:49

That could work. Troublesome if only one of the families living in a town dies though. It'd be like trying to keep two lines of cousins going indefinitely from the same family. And how would it work if one family dies? Does the other family just mysteriously stop having those visual traits?

It'd have to be a propper marriage system. They'd have to be just one family, none of this "separate but equal" bs

Caprys · 2020-10-22 13:44:13

I like the marriage idea.

Spoonwood · 2020-10-22 17:55:47

DestinyCall wrote:

You would still need to survive independently until the bell tower was completed ... or abandon your village to follow a distant bell.

I wonder how many belltowers have gotten completed by players resettling spots.

JackTreeHorn wrote:

I also wonder how long it takes for one family to create a bell tower.

I'm not sure what you're asking here. But, it's 10 hours for the first stage, then 3 for the next 5 stages. So, 25 hours, once the base gets laid *minimum*. That's 42-100 generations [43 gens comes from ((60 / 35) * 25), 100 from ((60 / 15) * 25)], AFTER they've put the first stage.

DestinyCall wrote:

In practice, I think the challenge of balancing multiple families in the same location would be more fun than long-distance "trading" with a distant village.

Some people haven't liked homelands, because many families in the same town aren't possible it seems.

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2020-10-22 02:52:20

Idea - Generational Family Merger.

#2 2020-10-22 06:23:46

Re: Idea - Generational Family Merger.

#3 2020-10-22 06:53:33

Re: Idea - Generational Family Merger.

#4 2020-10-22 07:07:41

Re: Idea - Generational Family Merger.

#5 2020-10-22 08:00:05

Re: Idea - Generational Family Merger.

#6 2020-10-22 11:29:49

Re: Idea - Generational Family Merger.

#7 2020-10-22 13:44:13

Re: Idea - Generational Family Merger.

#8 2020-10-22 17:55:47

Re: Idea - Generational Family Merger.

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