Families can't survive through the night

NoTruePunk · 2020-11-24 21:42:21

I believe this is an issue with the way babies are assigned, but it might also just be a balance problem. Currently families don't really die off from starvation, murder or wild animals. Sometimes an early/mid level town will get caught unaware by a bear attack, but for the most part families die because of fertility issues. There aren't enough girls born to a family to maintain a population. Hetuw shows one family will end up with half the server population, while another slowly dwindles down to 2, then 1, then 0.

This uneven distribution might be partially because of one family out-yumming another, but I think mainly it's an oddity of half the population being M, some people being linage banned and some people being cursed. Players also mess with the distribution of births themselves with /die. Over the course of a few hours those factors are bound to line up against a single family.

I think a possible fix might be to increase the gender ratio at low server activity times. An F:M ratio of 3:1 when there's less than 25 people online should help without having to get into the curse mechanics or birth assignments. If getting into birth assignments is an option then disregarding yum/warmth of mothers in favor of equal distribution would also help a lot.

Last edited by NoTruePunk (2020-11-24 21:51:08)

Spoonwood · 2020-11-24 22:28:25

Families also die out during the day.

Families can't survive updates in any sense.

There is *no vision* for family survival by player's own actions solely and never has been. "Updated weekly", means that your family is doomed to die soon in real time.

I've tried to suggest something like someone in a lineage being able to restart a lineage if it dies out due to an update. Something like Eve chaining, but also it gets a player back onto a family tree starting off kind of like an Eve. But Jason insisted on Github a while back that he had thought thoroughly through the issue a long time ago.

The whole "everything runs out" notion isn't compatible with families being able to survive long-term due to them controlling things. "Everything runs out" means your family is doomed a priori. It means that this isn't a family survival game long-term, it's a family death game long-term. Jason would have to get serious about making a *survival* game for families, instead of a forced to die game. He'd have to rethink things from the ground up, and apparently he's just not capable of doing so or has no interest in doing so.

Requiring human players as children without reincarnation or programs controlling characters in some situations to overcome families dying due to lack of fertile girls, also isn't compatible with "everything runs out". Reincarnation onto family trees or programs controlling characters in some situations or something similar *is necessary* for survival long term.

Your character is doomed, your family is doomed. Your character doesn't even survive. There is no 'you survived' on the end screen, it's always 'you died'.

If you play expecting your character to survive or your family to survive you are fooling yourself, unless you have predefined goals to determine what 'survival' means and play on your terms. Playing with random people means that they won't have predefined goals with respect to a family surviving.

If you think there is any solution to the underlying issue here, you have failed to realize that the underlying problems are much deeper than mere family distribution of players. The real issues go to the very core of the game's weak "everything runs out" notions, and it's weak attempt to maintain player interest, by making things so difficult as to be impossible.

Why concern yourself with families dying out during the day or during the night, when it's only a matter of time that the family will die, and it will die *by design*? Because it's not fair? Wake up, would you! The game isn't fair from the start in terms of family survival, and the designer has NO interest in making an actual game where there is player controlled familial survival. He has NO interest in making a fair familial survival game, and unlike players having one hour one life experiences, which requires knowledge of how players learn and play games, what people are like and so on, that the game is not a fair familial survival game is clear from merely it's mechanics.

There is *no vision* of this game as a fair familial survival game from its very foundations.

Last edited by Spoonwood (2020-11-25 17:17:25)

Cogito · 2020-11-25 01:31:15

While I think the idea of long-term family survival is worth persuing, it's useful to separate families dying out due to 'natural' causes (as in the original post, fertility balance issues in the main server) and dying out due to 'unnatural' causes like a server update.

Any solution that helps with unnatural endings to a lineage will likely allow a naturally ended lineage to be rebooted, however a family dying out due to natural causes is about more than just the lineage ending.

The key question is "Could the players do something that keeps this family alive?"

It is frustrating if it feels like the family will die out *right now* regardless of what I do. If regardless of how much food I produce, or water, or clothes, or whatever, that due to 'unfair' factors my family dies out. All the babies going to another family is an example of an unfair factor. The family dying because an update is rolled out is also 'unfair' but it's a different kind of unfair, as at the moment it is necessary based on how the update system works, and it's not a straightforward thing to change. Things like Eve placements and baby allocation can be (relatively) easily changed, hence this thread.

NoTruePunk · 2020-11-25 05:23:12

Spoonwood wrote:

"Updated weekly", means that your family is doomed to die soon in real time.

This has nothing to do with what I've said. Please don't hijack my threead.

NoTruePunk · 2020-11-25 05:29:21

Cogito wrote:

While I think the idea of long-term family survival is worth persuing, it's useful to separate families dying out due to 'natural' causes (as in the original post, fertility balance issues in the main server) and dying out due to 'unnatural' causes like a server update.
Any solution that helps with unnatural endings to a lineage will likely allow a naturally ended lineage to be rebooted, however a family dying out due to natural causes is about more than just the lineage ending.
The key question is "Could the players do something that keeps this family alive?"
It is frustrating if it feels like the family will die out *right now* regardless of what I do. If regardless of how much food I produce, or water, or clothes, or whatever, that due to 'unfair' factors my family dies out. All the babies going to another family is an example of an unfair factor. The family dying because an update is rolled out is also 'unfair' but it's a different kind of unfair, as at the moment it is necessary based on how the update system works, and it's not a straightforward thing to change. Things like Eve placements and baby allocation can be (relatively) easily changed, hence this thread.

Yeah, I don't think night time fertility counts as "natural" since it's dictated by events external to the game. Who and how many people press "login" is just as out of the players hands as update apocolypse, but low server pop happens nightly compared to the at most weekly map wipes. Low server population exposes mechanics that don't work right, and I think there should be considerations in place to compensate for that, or those mechanics should be fixed.

Spoonwood · 2020-11-25 07:14:58

NoTruePunk wrote:

Spoonwood wrote:
"Updated weekly", means that your family is doomed to die soon in real time.
This has nothing to do with what I've said. Please don't hijack my threead.

You titled your post "families can't survive through the night". If an update happens at 5:00 P. M. EST, it's 11:00 P. M. in Croatia. A family that starts at 9:00 P. M. in Croatia starts at night in Croatia. With an update coming in 2 hours, they can't survive through the night. More generally, updates can't survive through the night somewhere, because they can be doomed to die soon in real time. And every single update dooms them to die during the night somewhere, so as soon as there's something on live-dev changes, an update will be coming, and thus families can't survive. No exceptions. Not a fair game.

Again, the issues are deeper here than you have stated. We first have to fully understand the extent of a problem before a good solution can even get dreamed of. And the extent of the problem goes to the very assumptions made about how this game should be.

Also, you said this:

NoTruePunk wrote:

Low server population exposes mechanics that don't work right, and I think there should be considerations in place to compensate for that, or those mechanics should be fixed.

Well, every single update has low server population also. The mechanics just don't work for families surviving. On both odd and even servers in succession.

Last edited by Spoonwood (2020-11-25 07:22:18)

Cogito · 2020-11-25 08:22:00

Spoonwood, at the risk of derailing further, I think the thrust of the post was on a subset of 'family dying' problems.

While introducing a change that allowed families to persist through server resets, such a change may not help families that die out through avoidable situations in-game - like all babies going to other families.

There are two issues - the family name dying out, and a 'village' dying out due to factors outside the players' control.

Perhaps a solution that solves the first could solve the second. For example, if you were able to do something like Eve chaining where you get born in your old village as a new Eve with the same name.

They are diffferent problems though, so it helps to be clear about which problem we're talking about and trying to solve.

NoTruePunk · 2020-11-25 16:14:21

This post isn't about updates! It's about the lul in player activity regularly around 11pm to 4 AM central time causing families to collapse

Spoonwood · 2020-11-25 17:52:49

NoTruePunk wrote:

This post isn't about updates! It's about the lul in player activity regularly around 11pm to 4 AM central time causing families to collapse

Krauts survived through several of those time periods last week. There were a completely weekdays family. I point that out, because there's no way you reasonably can maintain that no family can do such.

Also, that dip in player activity is by no means the only time that a dip in player activity on a server occurs which results in the permanent death of a family. I did talk about updates, sure, but it's just the clearest example of a priori dooming of lineages. There have been days where over the course of a day *more* families have died out due to lower numbers of player activity on their respective server than families *existed* over the course of the same day on the single most populated server.

Suppose there's a crash of bigserver2. Players end up on server1. Server1 lineages are doomed, unless enough players would check server1 as a custom server, and there won't be enough players who will check server1 for that. The change of servers from server1 to bigserver2 for those not checking a custom server causes families to collapse, and those server1 families can't restart.

Suppose player count increases to 200 overall. There's likely overflow to server1. Then, when player count overall declines to like 100 for whatever reasons, there won't be players on server1 to have lineages alive. Such a situation would cause at least some families to collapse, and they can't restart.

Suppose some players play on server4 for whatever reason. It takes only two players to have a family mind you, and the first two players make a family if the second player gets onto the server within 25 minutes of the first player starting, and the first player survives to at least 40. But after playing for a bit, players don't keep playing on server4 after a bit or won't for whatever reason. The family then is doomed to collapse then, no matter how much they concerned themselves with the survival of their living descendants. They can't restart also.

The most significant causative factor isn't the low numbers of player activity for families dying off when player population drops isn't uneven baby distribution. There exists perfectly even baby distribution when no players will join a server for 30 minutes or so! Changing gender ratio also would affect only so many families. The most significant causative factor lies in that the system is set up to kill families off *permanently* when player population is low.

As Cogito suggests, some ideas for solving the problems with lineages dying due to updates, redirection from crashes, changes in player population, seem likely to enable *more* lineages to survive through the aforementioned time period on the single most populated server also.

Last edited by Spoonwood (2020-11-26 08:39:57)

NoTruePunk · 2020-11-26 04:34:33

Spoonwood wrote:

NoTruePunk wrote:
This post isn't about updates! It's about the lul in player activity regularly around 11pm to 4 AM central time causing families to collapse
Krauts survived through several of those time periods last week. There were a completely weekdays family. I point that out, because there's no way you reasonbly can maintain that no family can do such.
Also, that dip in player activity is by no means the only time that a dip in player activity on a server occurs which results in the permanent death of a family. I did talk about updates, sure, but it's just the clearest example of a priori dooming of lineages. There have been days where over the course of a day *more* families have died out due to lower numbers of player activity on their respective server than families *existed* over the course of the same day on the single most populated server.
Suppose there's a crash of bigserver2. Players end up on server1. Server1 lineages are doomed, unless enough players would check server1 as a custom server, and there won't be enough players who will check server1 for that. The change of servers from server1 to bigserver2 for those not checking a custom server causes families to collapse, and those server1 families can't restart.
Suppose player count increases to 200 overall. There's likely overflow to server1. Then, when player count overall declines to like 100 for whatever reasons, there won't be players on server1 to have lineages alive. Such a situation would cause at least some families to collapse, and they can't restart.
Suppose some players end up on server4 for whatever reason. It takes only two players to have a family mind you, and the first two players make a family if the second player gets onto the server within 25 minutes of the first player starting, and the first player survives to at least 40. But after playing for a bit, players don't keep playing on server4 after a bit or won't for whatever reason. The family then is doomed to collapse then, no matter how much they concerned themselves with the survival of their living descendants. They can't restart also.
The most significant causative factor isn't the low numbers of player activity for families dying off when player population drops isn't uneven baby distribution. There exists perfectly even baby distribution when no players will join a server for 30 minutes or so! Changing gender ratio also would affect only so many families. The most significant causative factor lies in that the system is set up to kill families off *permanently* when player population is low.
As Cogito suggests, some ideas for solving the problems with lineages dying due to updates, redirection from crashes, changes in player population, seem likely to enable *more* lineages to survive through the aforementioned time period on the single most populated server also.

Literally fuck off

DiscardedSlinky · 2020-11-26 05:27:18

I have not read a single reply in this thread.

Baby distribution is all fucked up. It sends about half the server population to one family and the other fams will be struggling to get even a single girl.

Seriously I play at night at all the time and there will be 30 people online and 15 people will be in a single family.

Please fix this Jason

Case in point. Yikes took this screenshot 5 seconds ago, 12am est

hdheudjrhd

Last edited by DiscardedSlinky (2020-11-26 05:36:24)

Spoonwood · 2020-11-26 06:31:40

DiscardedSlinky wrote:

I have not read a single reply in this thread.
Baby distribution is all fucked up. It sends about half the server population to one family and the other fams will be struggling to get even a single girl.
Seriously I play at night at all the time and there will be 30 people online and 15 people will be in a single family.
Please fix this Jason
Case in point. Yikes took this screenshot 5 seconds ago, 12am est
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/ … nknown.png

How could he fix that without removing /die? How could he control such distribution irregularity from happening, with a fertility queue with factors like temperature and yum? How could he control for such irregular distribution of players happening because one family has weaker members and thus more early deaths? How can he fix that with birth cool down in place and players joining in a sort of randomish pattern? How could he control for that since different families start at different times?

Also Slinky, you showed that such happens. But, what's the frequency of such happening? Have you taken any measurements of family sizes at night over the course of an entire week?

There's likely a good number of factors at play which lead to such happening sometimes. I'm uncertain as to how many of them can get controlled, and how many of them come as worth controlling.

Spoonwood · 2020-11-26 06:55:22

I saw the same four families a bit later at about 1:55 A. M. EST and they looked pretty even in terms of distribution, 7 in one, 9 in another, 8 in another, 7 in another, 5 in a fifth unknown lineage.

Last edited by Spoonwood (2020-11-26 06:56:05)

NoTruePunk · 2020-11-26 07:40:00

Spoonwood wrote:

DiscardedSlinky wrote:
I have not read a single reply in this thread.
Baby distribution is all fucked up. It sends about half the server population to one family and the other fams will be struggling to get even a single girl.
Seriously I play at night at all the time and there will be 30 people online and 15 people will be in a single family.
Please fix this Jason
Case in point. Yikes took this screenshot 5 seconds ago, 12am est
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/ … nknown.png
How could he control such distribution irregularity from happening, with a fertility queue with factors like temperature and yum?

NoTruePunk wrote:

If getting into birth assignments is an option then disregarding yum/warmth of mothers in favor of equal distribution would also help a lot.

Last edited by NoTruePunk (2020-11-26 07:40:21)

NoTruePunk · 2020-11-26 07:42:17

Someone has pointed out that there already is a priority for girls to be born at low server population. Not exactly a ratio, but some sort of threshold.

DiscardedSlinky · 2020-11-26 09:39:24

NoTruePunk · 2020-11-26 17:45:15

DiscardedSlinky wrote:

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/ … nown-5.png

Rip jobbins and sunseri fam

Last edited by NoTruePunk (2020-11-26 17:46:29)

NoTruePunk · 2020-11-26 18:33:44

Another option I just thought of was to put in place special lineage ban exemptions for the family with the least # fertile women AND server pop is low. So someone could /die a few times and end up back in the same family quickly, or instruct an infertile relative to attempt the same.

Last edited by NoTruePunk (2020-11-26 18:34:41)

fug · 2020-11-27 05:14:41

Just going to point out posts like these shouldn't be under bug discussion. Sure, this is a great way to post something without all the trolls coming but in reality you should be posting to the github under code related stuff OR just email Jason asking about this.

It's really difficult to balance having lineages last a long enough feeling time and keeping things fresh. Lineages too long is boring, lineages not lasting too long is boring, and reaching the feel good area on both sides is likely impossible. However, as brought up the family balancing definitely needs looked at.

NoTruePunk · 2020-11-29 10:40:50

To fix this there needs to be a check on a family's fertility. If they have less than two fertile women or girls under age 14 then they're guaranteed to be assigned the next birth, and it's guaranteed to be a girl. Women or girls outside of their band count as infertile for these purposes. To keep things interesting the check is never made if there are greater than 40 players online, and the family exhausts an invisible token each time this is used. The number of fertility tokens a family gets goes up every few hours up to a cap, and there are a few non-renewable reserve tokens inherited from the eve for that lineage. If two or more families have met the conditions to use their token the birth is assigned at random. If a fertile woman or girl returns to her biome band from outside before the token is used it's deactivated and returned to storage. If all women from that family are out of band while the fertility token is active the next player login is given a 5 second wait period to give them a chance to return.

Last edited by NoTruePunk (2020-11-29 10:43:10)

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2020-11-24 21:42:21

Families can't survive through the night

#2 2020-11-24 22:28:25

Re: Families can't survive through the night

#3 2020-11-25 01:31:15

Re: Families can't survive through the night

#4 2020-11-25 05:23:12

Re: Families can't survive through the night

#5 2020-11-25 05:29:21

Re: Families can't survive through the night

#6 2020-11-25 07:14:58

Re: Families can't survive through the night

#7 2020-11-25 08:22:00

Re: Families can't survive through the night

#8 2020-11-25 16:14:21

Re: Families can't survive through the night

#9 2020-11-25 17:52:49

Re: Families can't survive through the night

#10 2020-11-26 04:34:33

Re: Families can't survive through the night

#11 2020-11-26 05:27:18

Re: Families can't survive through the night

#12 2020-11-26 06:31:40

Re: Families can't survive through the night

#13 2020-11-26 06:55:22

Re: Families can't survive through the night

#14 2020-11-26 07:40:00

Re: Families can't survive through the night

#15 2020-11-26 07:42:17

Re: Families can't survive through the night

#16 2020-11-26 09:39:24

Re: Families can't survive through the night

#17 2020-11-26 17:45:15

Re: Families can't survive through the night

#18 2020-11-26 18:33:44

Re: Families can't survive through the night

#19 2020-11-27 05:14:41

Re: Families can't survive through the night

#20 2020-11-29 10:40:50

Re: Families can't survive through the night

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