Is Difficulty a Bad Trait for Video Games?

TrustyWay · 2018-04-26 01:44:31

EvilBlackCat wrote:

Having a challenge is fun.
Being forced to work is not.
One of the worst things a dev can do is artificially make things difficult. Like invisible walls or daily "talk to this guy and in a month get a reward" quests. Challenge should evolve organically from the game, not as an afterthought because you're afraid people get through it too quickly.

Exactly, it isn't even more difficult, it is just more tedious

kubassa · 2018-04-26 04:38:35

TrustyWay wrote:

EvilBlackCat wrote:
Having a challenge is fun.
Being forced to work is not.
One of the worst things a dev can do is artificially make things difficult. Like invisible walls or daily "talk to this guy and in a month get a reward" quests. Challenge should evolve organically from the game, not as an afterthought because you're afraid people get through it too quickly.
Exactly, it isn't even more difficult, it is just more tedious

+1

pein · 2018-04-26 05:41:55

i tend to try out playing differently each game, i can be a smith, a hunter, i can survive with 2 initial carrots and a needle without a home marker, return in full gear
people die around me like flies, if you would follow one guy a game, you would see that they run around without any purpose, then somehow die

the temperature debuff was very bad, eating simulator, every 10 seconds you eat and you cannot perform a task well, you try to show things for others, they die. i dont think is hard, its just requires practice. but then is too repetititive. what makes it hard, is the new players dragging you down. like i could do something useful, but i need to save them from doing stupid things over and over. most youtubers are the same, they got some clue but they cant calculate or strategize, yes i do think game should be easier on low level, like getting food and surviving 60 years. What makes it hard, no one cooperates with you to do the next step. Pen, saddle, horse cart, fences, extend, etc.

kubassa · 2018-04-26 06:33:57

pein wrote:

i tend to try out playing differently each game, i can be a smith, a hunter, i can survive with 2 initial carrots and a needle without a home marker, return in full gear
people die around me like flies, if you would follow one guy a game, you would see that they run around without any purpose, then somehow die
the temperature debuff was very bad, eating simulator, every 10 seconds you eat and you cannot perform a task well, you try to show things for others, they die. i dont think is hard, its just requires practice. but then is too repetititive. what makes it hard, is the new players dragging you down. like i could do something useful, but i need to save them from doing stupid things over and over. most youtubers are the same, they got some clue but they cant calculate or strategize, yes i do think game should be easier on low level, like getting food and surviving 60 years. What makes it hard, no one cooperates with you to do the next step. Pen, saddle, horse cart, fences, extend, etc.

Pre 'Rags to Riches' update this was being done just fine. Now no one bothers getting clothes and those that do by the time they die the clothes are rags. So a bunch of wasted time by the person hunting rabbits and eating food that he did NOT help to grow (food sponging). Then everyone else Dies due to feeding the 1 - 2 people gearing up themselves with clothes. It was all working and playing just fine with a lot of activity and contribution, from many, to build the big towns.

All wiped in a single patch.

Sad.

TrustyWay · 2018-04-26 09:16:21

kubassa wrote:

pein wrote:
i tend to try out playing differently each game, i can be a smith, a hunter, i can survive with 2 initial carrots and a needle without a home marker, return in full gear
people die around me like flies, if you would follow one guy a game, you would see that they run around without any purpose, then somehow die
the temperature debuff was very bad, eating simulator, every 10 seconds you eat and you cannot perform a task well, you try to show things for others, they die. i dont think is hard, its just requires practice. but then is too repetititive. what makes it hard, is the new players dragging you down. like i could do something useful, but i need to save them from doing stupid things over and over. most youtubers are the same, they got some clue but they cant calculate or strategize, yes i do think game should be easier on low level, like getting food and surviving 60 years. What makes it hard, no one cooperates with you to do the next step. Pen, saddle, horse cart, fences, extend, etc.
Pre 'Rags to Riches' update this was being done just fine. Now no one bothers getting clothes and those that do by the time they die the clothes are rags. So a bunch of wasted time by the person hunting rabbits and eating food that he did NOT help to grow (food sponging). Then everyone else Dies due to feeding the 1 - 2 people gearing up themselves with clothes. It was all working and playing just fine with a lot of activity and contribution, from many, to build the big towns.
All wiped in a single patch.
Sad.

Making clothes, walls, fences, anything except food is now griefing because everything decays and is a time waist.

The wiki isn't updated anymore

And noob are stuck. people don't have the time to learn, when you born people except you to know how to play ifnot they kill you. If you are sneaky enough you rush the nursery and get raise without any word. Then kill the village by starvation because you're useless but you dont want to be killed

Last edited by TrustyWay (2018-04-26 09:21:33)

pein · 2018-04-26 11:10:57

its not that bad and can be helped but yea, i dont want 18 kids and cant teach all of them
once i did kept 15 just to see who can survive in desert, we had two adult woman, seen like 3 when i died, its no fun keeping others alive, when they dont help

i tried enforcing rules like one daughter one son
one is not enough needs two daughters, then they keep 1-2 each, sons should be fine, but people make 8 kids one a 6 tile farm keeping one to seed, its a coutndown backward, if you kill any of them you are asshole

should be a screen to show family, avaliable food and expected length to survive, once a kid pops and their life expectancy becomes 10 min shorter, i wonder what would they do

ConfandibulumFlakes · 2018-04-26 14:11:01

Okay I might be being a jerk by making big pronouncements on a game I only just started playing but hell with it, I've had plenty of experience with the frustrations of the game, so here's my take:

This is a unique game. It's not Minecraft. Get Minecraft out of your head firmly and resolutely, by which I mean this:

The concept that everyone has to know every crafting formula has to die, and it has to be burned with fire. That's a Minecraft mindset. It's death in OHOL.

Jason has made a game in which success depends on the same thing it depends on in actual civilizations: specialization. What's going to have to happen is that players specialize and hand down to each other only the crafting formulas most necessary to their specialization. For someone whose whole life is going to be spent farming to learn how to make steel walls is ludicrous.

The game is difficult to the extent that players aren't grasping the kind of play the game requires. This game purposefully punishes players for trying to have everyone learn every formula on their own.

Jason's smart and he's crafted the gameplay so that it requires very specific strategies for survival. And it looks to me like the strategies it requires are the same strategies real civilizations actually require.

Lily · 2018-04-26 15:21:52

pein wrote:

the temperature debuff was very bad, eating simulator, every 10 seconds you eat and you cannot perform a task well, you try to show things for others, they die. i dont think is hard, its just requires practice. but then is too repetititive. what makes it hard, is the new players dragging you down. like i could do something useful, but i need to save them from doing stupid things over and over. most youtubers are the same, they got some clue but they cant calculate or strategize, yes i do think game should be easier on low level, like getting food and surviving 60 years. What makes it hard, no one cooperates with you to do the next step. Pen, saddle, horse cart, fences, extend, etc.

You know when I think about it, making it so you get hungry more slowly fixes a lot of issues. If you got hungry slower, you wouldn't need 30 rows of carrots for the city, which means you don't need to make a new hoe every 2 minutes, and don't need to make 30 baskets, which would mean you can finally free up time to do other stuff.

Silvses · 2018-04-26 15:25:28

Contradicts with the principle of the game.
With the current updates and no new content, it becomes a another typical survival game which is just an over-saturated market. You spawn then farm some carrots and/or berries then die, rinse & repeat. Adding 'difficulty' is a lazy way of 'increasing longevity' when it has done the opposite by making players leave.

It's not a civilization game as promised where you build up something great and be a cog in a part of a society.

I bought the game based on trailer, but so far the recent updates completely contradict it.

Turnipseed · 2018-04-26 15:30:25

ConfandibulumFlakes wrote:

The concept that everyone has to know every crafting formula has to die, and it has to be burned with fire. That's a Minecraft mindset. It's death in OHOL.

it isnt that hard to learn all the skills. I mean what happens if you birth three babies that only know how to make pie?

Not everyone needs to know everything. But everyone does need to know
-lake rules
-milkweed rules
-how to make an ingot
-what trees to use for firewood
-concept of seed
-overpopulation prevention

Otherwise they do more damage than good just by existing.

arkajalka · 2018-04-26 15:51:43

This isn't even hard, just annoying and a loop of simple tasks at the moment.

Lucky-San · 2018-04-26 16:31:02

The big problem with decay is that, in order to make a thing like baskets, we need some resources...

I never seen in a biome enough reeds to make more than 10 baskets per generation/epoch, and we need some reeds for another thing!

It's a good idea that some items decay, but we must have the possibility the recreate the broken items.... For now, "our OHOL planet" can't sustain more than 10 baskets per village...

And this is the same thing for clothes! there aren't enough rabbit for making clothes for everybody every 2 hours!

The decay system must be adjusted with mathematics guidance!

It's not a question of difficulty, but a question of sustainability! in the world of OHOL, making more than 10 baskets per generation/epoch is not possible!

Last edited by Lucky-San (2018-04-26 17:06:49)

rodrigo · 2018-04-26 18:03:13

ConfandibulumFlakes wrote:

Okay I might be being a jerk by making big pronouncements on a game I only just started playing but hell with it, I've had plenty of experience with the frustrations of the game, so here's my take:
This is a unique game. It's not Minecraft. Get Minecraft out of your head firmly and resolutely, by which I mean this:
The concept that everyone has to know every crafting formula has to die, and it has to be burned with fire. That's a Minecraft mindset. It's death in OHOL.
Jason has made a game in which success depends on the same thing it depends on in actual civilizations: specialization. What's going to have to happen is that players specialize and hand down to each other only the crafting formulas most necessary to their specialization. For someone whose whole life is going to be spent farming to learn how to make steel walls is ludicrous.
The game is difficult to the extent that players aren't grasping the kind of play the game requires. This game purposefully punishes players for trying to have everyone learn every formula on their own.
Jason's smart and he's crafted the gameplay so that it requires very specific strategies for survival. And it looks to me like the strategies it requires are the same strategies real civilizations actually require.

I don't mind to keep farming or baking while people do usefull stuff. But they are just walking arround doing nothing, having many kids, making clothes for thenselves while nobody has backpacks.

Once I put fur to people do backpack for thenselves there. It was for 5 backpacks, and then I saw someone making clothes just for himself (he even did shoes) and let everyone without backpacks. I stopped hunting and forge a knife just to kill him.

rodrigo · 2018-04-26 18:50:58

Lucky-San wrote:

The big problem with decay is that, in order to make a thing like baskets, we need some resources...
I never seen in a biome enough reeds to make more than 10 baskets per generation/epoch, and we need some reeds for another thing!
It's a good idea that some items decay, but we must have the possibility the recreate the broken items.... For now, "our OHOL planet" can't sustain more than 10 baskets per village...
And this is the same thing for clothes! there aren't enough rabbit for making clothes for everybody every 2 hours!
The decay system must be adjusted with mathematics guidance!
It's not a question of difficulty, but a question of sustainability! in the world of OHOL, making more than 10 baskets per generation/epoch is not possible!

+1

One Hour One Life Forums

#26 2018-04-26 01:44:31

Re: Is Difficulty a Bad Trait for Video Games?

#27 2018-04-26 04:38:35

Re: Is Difficulty a Bad Trait for Video Games?

#28 2018-04-26 05:41:55

Re: Is Difficulty a Bad Trait for Video Games?

#29 2018-04-26 06:33:57

Re: Is Difficulty a Bad Trait for Video Games?

#30 2018-04-26 09:16:21

Re: Is Difficulty a Bad Trait for Video Games?

#31 2018-04-26 11:10:57

Re: Is Difficulty a Bad Trait for Video Games?

#32 2018-04-26 14:11:01

Re: Is Difficulty a Bad Trait for Video Games?

#33 2018-04-26 15:21:52

Re: Is Difficulty a Bad Trait for Video Games?

#34 2018-04-26 15:25:28

Re: Is Difficulty a Bad Trait for Video Games?

#35 2018-04-26 15:30:25

Re: Is Difficulty a Bad Trait for Video Games?

#36 2018-04-26 15:51:43

Re: Is Difficulty a Bad Trait for Video Games?

#37 2018-04-26 16:31:02

Re: Is Difficulty a Bad Trait for Video Games?

#38 2018-04-26 18:03:13

Re: Is Difficulty a Bad Trait for Video Games?

#39 2018-04-26 18:50:58

Re: Is Difficulty a Bad Trait for Video Games?

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