Where is this game heading?

Don Holm · 2020-12-11 22:46:44

This is a list of "why"s that never had any answers, as it's getting hopeless for this game at this point to get any better
Why water so limited with one well for the whole town
Why food runs out SO FAST
Why is everyone forced to share EVERYTHING
Why building walls takes extreme effort and never efficient
Why only ONE BUILDING should have ONE FIRE and everyone has to share it
Why can't we have our own houses, with closets for our clothes and stoves for cooking and fridges for storage
Why can't we run our own business, our own farm, our own store
Why can't tech tree advance beyond vehicles and engines
Why property fences ownership can be shared but not doors
Why can't gate ownerships pass down to your kids
Why there is no updates to add new items, plants, animals, a few each update never hurts

This game has so much potential but it's been a long time since we've had any insight about its future, the updates don't show anything promising as if we've reached a dead end.
Maybe it's time for Jason to talk about where the game heading, what is planned for the future, and if anything is gonna change.

Last edited by Don Holm (2020-12-11 22:49:29)

NoTruePunk · 2020-12-11 23:04:07

I agree fire kinda sucks. Firewood should last a little longer. 4 minutes each means 2-3 trees chopped every generation. This represents a massive labor cost, and extinguished fires are much too difficult to restart, essentially punishing potentially well off families who might just be down on their luck after a bear attack or a dip in population. Kicking people while they're down is no fun.

I disagree about businesses in the game. That's a really bad idea. Money would be a nightmare to manage inventory wise, and since everyone shares a common goal in the game creating a market to bribe people with would be extremely divisive. Inevitably it would result in a few selfish players hoarding and destroying resources for personal advancement at everyone else's expense.

Last edited by NoTruePunk (2020-12-11 23:04:23)

DestinyCall · 2020-12-12 01:52:50

I'd like to see fireplaces that are built into a wall and last much longer than an open bonfire. It would make heating individual buildings much more practical if it was possible to heat more efficiently and with less firewood. Better fire tools, like flint & steel or strike matches would also be a great way to improve fire starting. It would be nice if we didn't have to guard the eternal flame forever because starting a fire was easy in an advanced town.

Dodge · 2020-12-12 03:11:34

"Why water so limited with one well for the whole town"

Because during the limited map experience, instead of having a map that makes sense, we got a tiny rift box, the experience was considered a failure (obviously) and got rolled back then some forced limiting mechanics got added instead of limits that make sense like number of wells available from springs in a non infinite world.

If you're asking why there even should be a limit, well before all that you could turn every pond into a well it was ridiculous and there was absolutly no point in higher water tech, so having some limit on water is the challenge to go to the next level in tech BUT forcing one well per town i too restrictive and uninteresting.

"Why can't we run our own business, our own farm, our own store"

Because instead of having professions we had "tool slots"

DestinyCall · 2020-12-12 03:15:26

In before Spoonwood reminds you that toolslots are no longer active. May they rest in peace.

This list makes it hard for me to ignore all the weirdness in this game.

Like why are pine trees easy to chop but DEAD trees are hungry work?

Spoonwood · 2020-12-12 04:07:23

Dodge wrote:

If you're asking why there even should be a limit, well before all that you could turn every pond into a well it was ridiculous and there was absolutly no point in higher water tech, so having some limit on water is the challenge to go to the next level in tech BUT forcing one well per town i too restrictive and uninteresting.

No that wasn't why. Remember, players *were* making diesel water pumps and oil rigs, because of the convenience of how easily they could produce water. Also, remember, there was a time where oil was infinite as tarry spots did not deplete, but going to the highest technology of engines and oil rigs came as necessary since pumps busted and wells drained. Then oil got made finite, but that did NOT get done for pushing to a higher level of technology, as there was no higher level of technology.

Last edited by Spoonwood (2020-12-12 04:12:11)

Spoonwood · 2020-12-12 04:08:28

DestinyCall wrote:

Like why are pine trees easy to chop but DEAD trees are hungry work?

They aren't anymore. Someone, who uses a well known name on the forums by goes by a different name on Github, made a Github report on that and he changed it a few months ago. Check onetech. I know I've chopped a few dead trees on bs2 in the past two months.

Last edited by Spoonwood (2020-12-12 04:23:09)

DestinyCall · 2020-12-12 04:22:01

Ah cool. That is a good change.

jinbaili83 · 2020-12-12 11:59:49

Answer for why there are no private buildings is simple , they are useless.
they take lots of time to build, that is why we have magic fences
walls take lots of space, 5x5 inner space needs 6x4 of walls
there are not that many activities that take advantage of heat bonus from siting inside since crafting is in most cases instantaneous
people open door to walk in and out all the time- again no heat bonus
no need to hide inside from wild animals nor elements

JonySky · 2020-12-12 14:30:24

Don Holm wrote:

This is a list of "why"s that never had any answers, as it's getting hopeless for this game at this point to get any better
Why water so limited with one well for the whole town
Why food runs out SO FAST
Why is everyone forced to share EVERYTHING
Why building walls takes extreme effort and never efficient
Why only ONE BUILDING should have ONE FIRE and everyone has to share it
Why can't we have our own houses, with closets for our clothes and stoves for cooking and fridges for storage
Why can't we run our own business, our own farm, our own store
Why can't tech tree advance beyond vehicles and engines
Why property fences ownership can be shared but not doors
Why can't gate ownerships pass down to your kids
Why there is no updates to add new items, plants, animals, a few each update never hurts
This game has so much potential but it's been a long time since we've had any insight about its future, the updates don't show anything promising as if we've reached a dead end.
Maybe it's time for Jason to talk about where the game heading, what is planned for the future, and if anything is gonna change.

Because there was never a clear objective in the development of this game, there was never a planning, there was never a goal to which to take this game.

OHOL is just an improvised experiment, which is modified every week to try to balance (without success)

This lack of planning has generated an imbalance in many areas of the game (boredom, griefers, repetitive tasks, resources, map, absurd articles, temporal inconsistencies, lack of automation, lack of coherence in the implementation of new objects ... etc. .)

This is why magic solutions were overused ...., to try to balance a game without planning

I would be surprised if OHOL advanced much more than we have right now ... that is why I have given up giving new ideas, looking for solutions to problems or even playing this game ...

DestinyCall · 2020-12-12 16:56:23

The lack of planning and forward-thinking is unfortunately very apparent when you look over the last year or two of updates. New mechanics were added and changes were repeatedly made without enough consideration for how they would interact with existing features of the game. I get the distinct impression that there is a pretty major disconnect between Jason's vision for this game and the actual reality of what this game is or could be, which leads to design choices that don't actually make sense for the current game state. Experimenting with new ideas is fine ... but if those ideas don't pan out or completely fail to accomplish their intended goal, they should be fixed or removed, not abandoned inside the game as dead content when the next interesting new idea takes center stage. At some point, the game's meandering tech tree could really use a major overhaul and re-balance.

I think it would help immensely if we had some kind of development roadmap for OHOL. It doesn't have to be a strict schedule with concrete deadlines. It just needs to provide a rough guideline for where the game is heading in the near future - what issues Jason considers important enough to address, what things he hopes to accomplish, what features or content he intends to expand upon to reach the ultimate goal of making OHOL the best game ever.

Right now, it feels like we are just wandering around in circles, rather than making forward progress toward a concrete goal.

Last edited by DestinyCall (2020-12-12 17:01:13)

NoTruePunk · 2020-12-12 17:58:16

DestinyCall wrote:

I'd like to see fireplaces that are built into a wall and last much longer than an open bonfire. It would make heating individual buildings much more practical if it was possible to heat more efficiently and with less firewood. Better fire tools, like flint & steel or strike matches would also be a great way to improve fire starting. It would be nice if we didn't have to guard the eternal flame forever because starting a fire was easy in an advanced town.

Gravel+quicklime+sand= cement mix
Cement mix + cut stones = cement mix and cut stones
Bucket of water+ cement mix and cut stones = wet
Wet cement stones + steel rod = uncured fireplace
Uncured fireplace + time = fireplace

Bonus heat since it blocks movement. Longer duration of firewood enables the smithy to start their own fire at will without worry as to the firewood supply.

The steel rod at least makes it post-newcomen. Maybe something fancy like a trowel to make it a little harder.

Morti · 2020-12-14 12:53:12

jinbaili83 wrote:

walls take lots of space, 5x5 inner space needs 6x4 of walls

Morti · 2020-12-14 13:39:43

And if you are curious about the relationship between the size of the room and the number of tiles inside that give indoor bonus:

Getting that indoor bonus is critical to saving on food, water, iron, oil and labor.
It matters a lot when it comes to determining the things your family, and anyone else that inhabits that town, will do, over the course of their habitation, in and around these structures.

DestinyCall · 2020-12-14 15:42:16

That graphic makes me sad ... good bye indoor bonus, hello efficient room size.

NoTruePunk · 2020-12-14 17:20:31

7x7 rooms ftw

Cogito · 2020-12-14 21:36:33

So, if allowing for storage around the outside, what is the best use of storage in those spots? I personally love tables, so would do something like this (T=Table; B=Box;S=Slot Box)

Storage Option

The mix of Boxes and SlotBoxes can change depending on the room use, but I prefer Tables over Boxes in most situations as it makes the contents of the container a lot more visible and 'usable'.

Also, based on the geometry of storage options, I think it is better to not have a southern door if you can help it, and to move the side doors to the top. This gives an extra 2-4 storage locations, but obviously can restrict movement a lot so doesn't necessarily make sense for things like the nursery or kitchen.

Morti · 2020-12-15 02:16:12

DestinyCall wrote:

That graphic makes me sad ... good bye indoor bonus, hello efficient room size.

Knowledge should never make you sad, but glad, that you are more informed than you were prior to having received it.

It's not as if things have changed because of this information, the indoor bonus has worked this way for a long time. I just can't remember anyone putting out a good description of how it scales to the size of the building. Perhaps Jason will revisit this mechanic and things will change. I, for one, would like to see gradients in the indoor bonus, rather than simply one existing or not existing.

I haven't examined the code, but the way I think of it is, if you are standing in a floored room of any size, if you check in any direction and there is not a wall within 6 tiles, the tile you are standing on will not have an indoor bonus.

In other words.

There must be a wall within 6 tiles of every direction.

I think other checks are made to be sure the entire area is floored and the walls (closed doors included) enclose the entire area.

It doesn't make much sense to me that a floor of 6x6 has 36 indoor bonus tiles, but a floor of 12x1 has 0 indoor bonus tiles, when the 12x1 has 1/3 the floorspace.

But in regards to the idea of gradients, perhaps a check could be made and the bonus given based on the number of tiles in the furthest direction. So the game would do something like, check for floors and walls in all directions, and if the longest distance to a wall is 5 or less, give 100% of the indoor bonus based on the tiles looked at. If it's 6, give 90%. 7, 80%, 8 70, 9 60, 10 50, 11 40, 12 30, 13 20 and 14 10%.

Then, an 11x11 room would be more like this

instead of this

Obviously the first one is better; it's more colorful.

And, just because I can:

Morti · 2020-12-15 03:04:37

Cogito wrote:

So, if allowing for storage around the outside, what is the best use of storage in those spots? I personally love tables, so would do something like this (T=Table; B=Box;S=Slot Box)

The mix of Boxes and SlotBoxes can change depending on the room use, but I prefer Tables over Boxes in most situations as it makes the contents of the container a lot more visible and 'usable'.

Looks about right.

NoTruePunk wrote:

7x7 rooms ftw

7x7 floorplan, yes, the one Cogito pointed out. I think that's the best compromise between warmth and indoor storage. But anything between 5x5 and 11x11 is okay, just stand near the center of anything bigger than 6x6 and you'll get the bonus, unless it's 12 or more in either direction, then you might as well save resources and work outside... I'm looking at you, smiths who insist on making 13x9 rooms...

PeaGirl · 2020-12-15 19:29:27

I can imagine the moment, that if money is presented in OHOL, it will be tossed to the outside of the town next to garlics.

Aureolin · 2020-12-15 19:40:31

Why food runs out SO FAST
the large influx of newer players that don't know how to yum the most efficient way
Why is everyone forced to share EVERYTHING
I quite like that aspect as someone in the discord said it's like a giant library you only borrow things for your lifetime so others can use them in theirs
Why building walls takes extreme effort and never efficient
personally I don't find it to be an extreme effort and I've made a fair number of buildings
Why only ONE BUILDING should have ONE FIRE and everyone has to share it
using more than one can be a waste of resources that gives virtually no benefit and takes up space
Why can't we have our own houses, with closets for our clothes and stoves for cooking and fridges for storage
want your own house? make one nobody is stopping you that was actually something I wanted to attempt at some point (I don't however like the fridge idea the logistics of getting electricity and having tons of houses with it seems like a lot of effort that would take lots of resources and overall bring the game closer to our world which I don't really enjoy)
Why can't we run our own business, our own farm, our own store
you can kind of run businesses implementing a mechanic though I'm not a fan of I like the community effort that the game currently is and I feel like capitalism would ruin it
Why can't tech tree advance beyond vehicles and engines
that takes game development time and can be largely difficult to implement without wildly steering off the course the game is currently on
Why property fences ownership can be shared but not doors
I feel like that would cause a lot of griefers
Why can't gate ownerships pass down to your kids
you can just say "insert name owns this" it doesn't take a lot of effort
Why there is no updates to add new items, plants, animals, a few each update never hurts
jason isn't able to update currently from what I know unless people are just memeing he has important irl stuff currently and wasn't anticipating the game to blow up right now and have tons of new players asking for updates

people brought up some good points but I mainly wanted to give at least what I think are answers and my opinion (I've only been playing for a lil while tho so idk)

Arcurus · 2020-12-15 20:42:27

yea Jason has currently real life problems (a big big fire) and therefore has no access to his drawing stuff, so no new items. Also he is on the road, so not much time to code...

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#1 2020-12-11 22:46:44

Where is this game heading?

#2 2020-12-11 23:04:07

Re: Where is this game heading?

#3 2020-12-12 01:52:50

Re: Where is this game heading?

#4 2020-12-12 03:11:34

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#5 2020-12-12 03:15:26

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#6 2020-12-12 04:07:23

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#7 2020-12-12 04:08:28

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#8 2020-12-12 04:22:01

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#10 2020-12-12 14:30:24

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#12 2020-12-12 17:58:16

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#13 2020-12-14 12:53:12

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#14 2020-12-14 13:39:43

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#15 2020-12-14 15:42:16

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#16 2020-12-14 17:20:31

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#17 2020-12-14 21:36:33

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