What's missing from the CORE experience?

sanchez · 2018-06-19 01:31:11

Bit more zoom out

jasonrohrer · 2018-06-19 02:05:30

Yeah, TammiKat, I guess that is the "endgame" of what OHOL was about. The mark you left, in the end, was small. On the other hand, that village wouldn't be there at all if it hadn't been for you. You were both 100% and 1% at the same time. This is the grand mystery of human history and existence. The impact, in the end, is just through the people, and not the things. But even there, you are mostly forgotten.

15 hours later? That's 45 generations.

My great-great-grandmother in real life is already forgotten!

TrustyWay · 2018-06-19 02:12:33

That is a guess but maybe the fact that people get use to write with so few letters maybe limited their visions of what they can do with other people. I see many players talking with key words. Look at lineage trees, even old people use few words when they can write a lot.

Maybe if at the age of 4 or 5 we grow our talking capacity faster, like 1.5 or 2 more.

Look at lineage trees,

Last edited by TrustyWay (2018-06-19 02:18:03)

LHO · 2018-06-19 02:24:20

Alot of text walls here I didn't read everything, Sorry if I repeat stuff.

1. More tech and not just Food things. It feels like we are constantly making food forever and not much else. Expand Mining, Building, Forestry etc.

2. Make griefing reversable. At least murderers are vulnerable to being killed also, It can be stopped and the damage reversed by reproducing.

You can't get back any trees that are cut down. Griefer can cause irreversible damage by cutting down as many useful tres as he can. He can stash a bunch of supplies in a building and seal it off. You can remake the supplies but the building is forever useless, You'll be suffering from famine one day only to see a tantilizing basket of pies just out of reach.

3. I'm all for a very basic tutorial or loading screen tips. Just simple things like how to eat or creating a sharp rock even, Maybe a reminder to watch your hunger bar.
Just look at all the kids that struggle to stay alive even in a developed city.

4. Adoption function, Fathers and ADAM.

Last edited by LHO (2018-06-19 03:02:23)

pein · 2018-06-19 04:10:14

ii remember having trouble eating, for like 5 games, not only frustrating for me, but for others too

you could have a tutorial life, where somebody spawns as a male adolescent and the game will teach him eating from a bush, a basket, a pack and make items from the ones on the screen
or an option for us to be a teacher, like live coaching, we spawn as a female near a small camp already made, our baby is total newbie and we can teach some basic things

a lot of time im talking to people they starve, but if i dont tell them not to throw away broken tools into pit, they gonna do it and they starve while responding

family tree is nice but we should have something similar ingame, like a small icon for everyone on a visual tree, number of people in city, something unique like a yellow or blue necklace for each mother and all her kids, to help us differentiate
and define city, like a city center building/statue and keep track of how much each we got there, maybe use items to upgrade, at first would hide some stats, other than pop count

water, i still see new players making camps whatever, if i chose a location for them, and they stand on desert because they got a berry bush on desert, they can survive, they can raise kids, might be bit better for them, but i cant help sometimes, the closest water is 100 tiles away, now how to move everyone? there is a lot of similarity in water update and on my idea of water deposits only that i tought you randomize it a bit on map, we were successfully terra-forming the map and you sent us back to swamps
i still think the milkweed farming is bad change, people wont go 100 tiles away for it and uses soil and time, nobody makes extra of it, and after making tools, cities need ropes for boxes, signs, carts, even a hoe which sometimes gets destroyed very fast, then there are the letters, nobody will use them if they cost so much
water should be everywhere, in cactus or other plant, melting snow

temperature and clothes
could be some form of low level clothing, which only gives some bonus, more like visual, clothes should never be bad, even in a hot desert it protects you from sun, so should work more like pushing towards the center of temp bar instead of warming you up
currently deserts are like 4 times better, which is no brainer, back before wasnt that bad surviving in a green biome

game gets repetitive, rush for food , rush for everything, and a linear tech tree
should be two options for some things. like clay bowls and pouches, you can make a pouch and water the crops, but later you still need the bowls, i get it but some tech branch could use different items to archive same result, or similar one with total different path, now just make tools, make livestock pen, get composting, just to never reborn or too late to fix again

yes i would like the tree planting update also, some fruit trees like apple or pear
also planting them should differ, in a yellow biome for example allow to grow different trees

buff the other biomes, green is okay, swamp now with eggs is also okay
with all the new stuff added, savanna is very bad, still needed but if its 50 tiles away you can survive it, domesticated bunnies? or more wildlife to shoot?

ice biomes, maybe stone mines? gold mines, melt some ice? like giant ice cubes to carry home or just a bowl of ice to melt, would give an option to farming other than find a swamp, use seal meat?

and spawning mechanic, the ideal would be to keep families small so people know each other, if you feed a kid, shouldnt spawn another, is frustrating as baby and as an adult to see tree kids run after you, maybe after having X females decrease the chance of baby girls? and babies in general
if you define cities you could use city food data, to allow more babies, like if a city has 1000 calories they can have 10 babies, if they increase it, more babies come

more high end stuff, hard to make items with good abilities, which help us, a shrine, a pyramid, a church whatever
also more building materials and option to repair them, make rooms better, a room should have good temperature all around

for wars and trading, we would need trading carts and walled cities, city flags and armors

Anshin · 2018-06-19 04:25:33

sanchez wrote:

Bit more zoom out

THIS.
THIS. THIS. THIS.

More than anything the zoom out mod is required to survive. The current visual field is way too short sighted.
https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=1467

Ideally though zoom level should be attached to the mouse wheel, or maybe use the currently unused numbers on the keyboard?

aowen · 2018-06-19 04:26:22

FounderOne wrote:

4) Maybe decrease the hunger rate for new players. So if you play your first game, your hunger rate is reduced by X%. After several games your hunger rate increases for some percent. And after maybe 30 games played your hunger rate it on a normal level.
New players wouldn't die that often, could learn and do more stuff and see more facets of the game. (More then dying )

+1 to this idea. I think a tutorial/tip on death would be helpful, as well.

It is my opinion that the first time user experience in this game is "sink or swim". You have to learn a lot up front, and you're learning it in a stressful environment. You're struggling against hunger, while at the same time figuring out the controls, what objects do, how to combine things to make different things.

Some suggestions:
- provide a graphical option to the recipe book. When I was starting out, I didn't know what a "long straight shaft" was, and had pretty much no way of finding out. Possible control scheme: hover over the recipe to see the graphic.
- limit the number of recipes players are exposed to in their first X lives. There are 40+ transitions for the sharp stone, which is a lot considering it's basically the first thing you make. Basic recipes for the first X lives, then expand once they've lived a little bit.
- matchmaking: people want to play with people at their skill level. A 100+ hour player is not going to be entertained by giving birth to a 2 hour player. Certain advanced players I've seen never stop to talk or teach, but they're very effective workers.
HOWEVER, newbies learn by playing with better people. I'm saying that people should play with people around their skill level. At my current level, I'm happy to teach smithing & pies to someone, but I'm not as excited to teach someone how to dig up burdock or make a fire.

Some of these are definitely against the spirit of the game, but I want them to serve as food for thought.

Other advice:
- You're asking the forum about how to prevent players bouncing off the FTUE, when most of the forum goers are invested enough to follow the forum and see what you have to say. Most people posting here are not the people who left after 1 hour.
You could make a simple survey/feedback sheet, and send it out to players who left. Don't send it to everyone, and don't send it to people who are still playing/logged lots of hours before they stopped playing. Probably don't say "hey, I noticed you stopped playing, why did you do that?" It's important you don't appear defensive or apprehensive, just a light "what'd you think" type form would suffice.

A criticism:
- While I think onetech.info is helpful, a player shouldn't be expected to look at an outside tool just to be a basic productive worker in society. The eager players will seek out crafting sites, but the casual player shouldn't be SOL without doing the same.

aowen · 2018-06-19 04:30:20

Uncle Gus wrote:

Lower food consumption when standing still
This one's not really a huge change, but it would definitely help with communication. If you didn't have to worry so much about starving to death while talking to someone, players would be a lot more capable of teaching others, which would help immensely with fostering co-operation and easing the learning curve.

+1.

I want to teach people things, but they don't stop to listen.

Or we're constantly interrupted, because one of us has to run to get food before we starve right there on the spot.

Advanced players say things like "I don't have time to stop and talk".
^-- it's possible they would say this even if they were standing on a perfect tile. I'm not sure how to encourage those people to teach.

Anshin · 2018-06-19 04:42:37

aowen wrote:

Uncle Gus wrote:
Lower food consumption when standing still
This one's not really a huge change, but it would definitely help with communication. If you didn't have to worry so much about starving to death while talking to someone, players would be a lot more capable of teaching others, which would help immensely with fostering co-operation and easing the learning curve.
+1.
I want to teach people things, but they don't stop to listen.
Or we're constantly interrupted, because one of us has to run to get food before we starve right there on the spot.
Advanced players say things like "I don't have time to stop and talk".
^-- it's possible they would say this even if they were standing on a perfect tile. I'm not sure how to encourage those people to teach.

Agreed. This is such a great idea. Brilliant!

EDIT: This introduces the whole concept of comfort. Standing out in the wilderness is somewhat relaxing, but a hut, or chairs, or a bed should be more comfortable and relaxing and use even less food. They're all stationary so they're only good for talking... A bed could totally pause food consumption but you're asleep so you can't talk either (but this would give players a chance to go to the bathroom IRL without dying!)

Last edited by Anshin (2018-06-19 05:11:30)

Potjeh · 2018-06-19 04:45:19

Single player sandbox mode could be a viable alternative to a full blown tutorial.

Anshin · 2018-06-19 04:48:02

Potjeh wrote:

Single player sandbox mode could be a viable alternative to a full blown tutorial.

Eve with a fig leaf chastity belt would provide this. And if you change your mind and want to play with others simply take it off.

Potjeh · 2018-06-19 04:54:47

Another problem with teaching is that it's so easy for teacher and student to lose track of each other. The viewport is tiny, and people have to constantly run around to eat. Would be cool if there was a way to track a specific person like you can track your home marker, though it should probably have limited range. Would be very helpful for Eves raising kids on the road, too.

Christoffer · 2018-06-19 08:38:53

Here's a big one, which I think could make a world of difference.

TLDR: Much more variation in the game, by making biomes larger and making it possible to survive and thrive in each single biome.

Players are bonding together in the face of common challenges. In OHOL, the challenge in young settlements is to have enough to eat. This works quite well, but once the settlement grows to a town, the mutual challenge largely disappears. Also, the hunger challenge follows roughly the same script in every settlement: each camp has green, swamp and desert biomes, plus savanna nearby.

I suggest your next content package should focus on making it possible (and interesting) to settle the Snow biome: ways to eat seal, penguins, fish. Build igloos. Dog sleds eventually, but that comes way later in step three. In the Snow biome, clothes and shelter should come first (and be easy to make, at least the entry versions). Focus on hunting/fishing rather than farming, and on keeping the calorie requirement down. Quite different from the regular farming, I think, which is why I suggest to start with Snow.

After Snow, maybe take on Rocky, then Desert, Savanna, ...
Once all six have survival potential, you make the biomes much larger than they are today. Increasingly, being born into a new settlement will not be the same experience over and over, but a varied one. Settlements on the borders between biomes would add to the variation, but would no longer be the only possible way to build.

As the second step, make each biome have certain resources and higher tech opportunities that are exclusive to one biome, or to a minority among the biomes. These should serve to make the developed towns also differ from one another, and to make the third step possible:

Third step: Transportation together with higher level tech/upgrades which require components from two different biomes. At this stage the towns build roads and/or carriages in order to come in contact with other biomes. Hopefully they find neighboring towns, but otherwise they can create new settlements themselves. Trade and conflict can happen at this stage.

The beauty is that OHOL already has almost everything needed for this in the code already. Mostly it's just about adding more branches to the tech tree. The large plan is to make every type of terrain add more to the fun than what is the case today, but it can be implemented through the weekly content updates. It doesn't all have to come at the same time. And every week there will be something uniquely new to experience, for many weeks to come.

(The one mechanic which requires improvement is weather/environment conditions of each biome, and how houses/shelter and clothes could play a clearer role in survival. I will write about that in a different post)

TrustyWay · 2018-06-19 10:33:28

sanchez wrote:

Bit more zoom out

This this this

Izzytok · 2018-06-19 10:36:52

Flintstone wrote:

Much more variation in the game, by making biomes larger and making it possible to survive and thrive in each single biome.

Just what flintstone said all the way. All the villages feel identical because they mostly are. Making a village anywhere appart from a green/swamp/prairie intersection is completely unfeasible. The tech tree depends too much on resources from different biomes and it just makes the game feel samey every game.

Also one thing I feel is missing is an incentive to make buildings. Currently making shelter is just a sucky waste of time. People just do it to pass time once the civilization is very far up the tech tree. Noone makes houses because they do nothing. Because you can't build infrastructure in your town even if you eventually respawn into it, it won't FEEL yours, since nothing you made really survived up to your respawn. Making a house and then finding it in use or even in complete disrepair would give players a greater connection to the towns they live in.

I think people would want houses, they just have no reason to make them right now, since the game is a permanent food struggle. Most people either work on or near the farm, so food is always close, because you starve really fast otherwise. Stew changed that a little, but still people make lots of stew somewhere near village center, even though it would be a great source of food for a group working somewhere on the outskirts of town.

So yeah in general, make playing in different biomes possible, and also give us incentive to make long lasting structures in towns.

TrustyWay · 2018-06-19 11:51:42

Izzytok wrote:

Flintstone wrote:
Much more variation in the game, by making biomes larger and making it possible to survive and thrive in each single biome.
Just what flintstone said all the way. All the villages feel identical because they mostly are. Making a village anywhere appart from a green/swamp/prairie intersection is completely unfeasible. The tech tree depends too much on resources from different biomes and it just makes the game feel samey every game.
Also one thing I feel is missing is an incentive to make buildings. Currently making shelter is just a sucky waste of time. People just do it to pass time once the civilization is very far up the tech tree. Noone makes houses because they do nothing. Because you can't build infrastructure in your town even if you eventually respawn into it, it won't FEEL yours, since nothing you made really survived up to your respawn. Making a house and then finding it in use or even in complete disrepair would give players a greater connection to the towns they live in.
I think people would want houses, they just have no reason to make them right now, since the game is a permanent food struggle. Most people either work on or near the farm, so food is always close, because you starve really fast otherwise. Stew changed that a little, but still people make lots of stew somewhere near village center, even though it would be a great source of food for a group working somewhere on the outskirts of town.
So yeah in general, make playing in different biomes possible, and also give us incentive to make long lasting structures in towns.

We feel you

Christoffer · 2018-06-19 14:10:10

Flintstone wrote:

(The one mechanic which requires improvement is weather/environment conditions of each biome, and how houses/shelter and clothes could play a clearer role in survival. I will write about that in a different post)

I wrote that other post now, but I put it in the original thread for discussion of temperature vs food consumption: https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=1544 (scroll to my post from June 19th)
The tldr is that the mechanic for regulating food burn needs to be constructed differently. I feel that mechanic affects the game very much, and it needs more developer love than what it has received.

Izzytok wrote:

Also one thing I feel is missing is an incentive to make buildings. Currently making shelter is just a sucky waste of time.

Having walls contribute more clearly to reduced food burn is also covered in that post, so please have a look.

Last edited by Christoffer (2018-06-19 14:13:04)

InSpace · 2018-06-19 14:38:14

Add something for people to work towards, some kind of reward system like:

- Levels / experience points
- Cosmetic rewards / skins for characters / skins for items

Like as it is now people just play a game once in a while and might feel satisfied like me, but if they have something to stay for everyones playtime will increase dramatically.

Even the similar game don't starve together added a leveling system, but only for events since the basegame is usually so modded. But even in the base game it has a system of weekly cosmetic rewards (4 rewards per week, first from at hour 1, second and hour 2-3 third at hour 6 and fourth at around hour 12).

--------------

And me personally would enjoy the game more if building (floors, walls) was streamlined a bit. It is suuuper annoying to change the stakes with like 4-5 hits each tile when making floors, just let the stakes stay in one form once you are done building and put it down the same way.

Like make stakes into floorstakes mode, put down material, move floorstakes to the next tile add material and so on.

Keep up the good work jason!

Also get it on steam asap, you can keep the update system as it is now, just add the .exe on there and sales will go up thousandfold haha (might need to censor genitals and boobs on there, I dno)

Last edited by InSpace (2018-06-19 14:53:20)

zennyrpg · 2018-06-19 15:09:33

Flintstone wrote:

Flintstone wrote:
(The one mechanic which requires improvement is weather/environment conditions of each biome, and how houses/shelter and clothes could play a clearer role in survival. I will write about that in a different post)
I wrote that other post now, but I put it in the original thread for discussion of temperature vs food consumption: https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=1544 (scroll to my post from June 19th)
The tldr is that the mechanic for regulating food burn needs to be constructed differently. I feel that mechanic affects the game very much, and it needs more developer love than what it has received.
Izzytok wrote:
Also one thing I feel is missing is an incentive to make buildings. Currently making shelter is just a sucky waste of time.
Having walls contribute more clearly to reduced food burn is also covered in that post, so please have a look.

New players don't know temp is important or HOW important it is. Heck, I see a ton of people set up camps away from the desert when living in the desert almost halves your food consumption and gives you access to "perfect" tiles.

So new players are running around not managing their temp and they are playing a different game than other people are. I know, I was playing this other game a few weeks ago and spending a lot of time complaining IRL to other people about how the game is too hard.

The temperature system is unintuitive and not communicated well in game. If first impressions mater, players could quit before they ever get his knowledge. This could manifest in statements like "too hard" "too grindy" "starvation simulator." A new player will see the starvation in pleasant looking green areas as a fundamental fact of the game not a challenge to overcome. You look like you are in the garden of eden but you are really in a freezing hell.

aowen · 2018-06-19 16:12:17

zennyrpg wrote:

The temperature system is unintuitive and not communicated well in game. If first impressions mater, players could quit before they ever get his knowledge. This could manifest in statements like "too hard" "too grindy" "starvation simulator." A new player will see the starvation in pleasant looking green areas as a fundamental fact of the game not a challenge to overcome. You look like you are in the garden of eden but you are really in a freezing hell.

+1

People tend to associate green with healthy, but standing in green depletes health ~5 pips a second. Food loss is in the range [2, 22], so players who make camps in the grasslands are crippling themselves.

Possible resolution?:
- When your temp in towards the middle, a little banner sticks up that says "Comfy". Towards the blue, "Freezing", and towards the red, "Burning".

In general, I agree with not explaining every little thing to the player. There are certainly straight-forward games, but they bombard the player with tutorials anyway. However, on my own, I'm not sure how long it would have taken me to finally ask myself "ok, I know this temp meter is here. What does it mean?" I don't think it's intuitive, so I think it warrants a little guidance.

only · 2018-06-19 17:31:33

I really like the gameplay. A lot of the frustrating things are what makes the game interesting and unique. I think your direction on the gameplay is fantastic and I am happy with it.

My suggestion for increased long term engagement is stat tracking. Some way to see your average stats across all of your lives:

average life span
average subsequent generations
average resource production
mortality rate of your children

Benefits of stats:

Motivation to keep playing to try to keep improving your stats
Motivation to not suicide until you are born into a situation you feel like playing out
Motivation to raise children, even when it is hard
Motivation to try your hardest in each life.

kubassa · 2018-06-19 18:59:29

People stop playing games when they can't play with friends or family. The game will never "take off" until you realize that. Punishing people with a linage ban was possibly the dumbest decision you made in the development of the game. Personally I will never touch the game again because of it. Hard to believe you had a game that was on it's way to becoming one of the funnest indie games of the summer and you destroyed it because people "where not playing how YOU wanted".

Perhaps you should make a server that is pre spawn and lineage ban. See what server people PREFER to play on. This game was tons of fun when you could find big cities everywhere getting built. Now it's just a boring farm simulator. Not much fun to play any longer the way the game is currently configured.

YAHG · 2018-06-19 19:07:15

kubassa wrote:

People stop playing games when they can't play with friends or family. The game will never "take off" until you realize that. Punishing people with a linage ban was possibly the dumbest decision you made in the development of the game. Personally I will never touch the game again because of it. Hard to believe you had a game that was on it's way to becoming one of the funnest indie games of the summer and you destroyed it because people "where not playing how YOU wanted".
Perhaps you should make a server that is pre spawn and lineage ban. See what server people PREFER to play on. This game was tons of fun when you could find big cities everywhere getting built. Now it's just a boring farm simulator. Not much fun to play any longer the way the game is currently configured.

This is a good idea. You could totally have the server selector in game with lil blurb descriptions.

Turnipseed · 2018-06-19 19:47:10

I was really excited to play yesterday evening to try making corn tortillas. (Still havent done it). And i stopped playing after my second life, because i saw a town get murdered in the first life ( chick killed all girls then fed self to bear) then i was murdered while making a steel hoe by my own son in the second life.

If a new player is murdered during their first few playthroughs it could really turn them off the game. Mabey even for good.

I dont think murder should be removed or even made harder, but mabey there needs to be a sort of time out server. Like the early days of GTA where if your playing like a jerk you have to serve some time in a lobby populated by other jerks.

Playing as a good player you might kill someone now and then, but say a player kills 5-10 people over two or three lives they are just being a jerk. Pop em to server 666 for a few hours...

forestglade · 2018-06-19 20:57:17

Yes, alternate server for PVP and let people choose where to play.

One Hour One Life Forums

#26 2018-06-19 01:31:11

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

#27 2018-06-19 02:05:30

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

#28 2018-06-19 02:12:33

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

#29 2018-06-19 02:24:20

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

#30 2018-06-19 04:10:14

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

#31 2018-06-19 04:25:33

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

#32 2018-06-19 04:26:22

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

#33 2018-06-19 04:30:20

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

#34 2018-06-19 04:42:37

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

#35 2018-06-19 04:45:19

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

#36 2018-06-19 04:48:02

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

#37 2018-06-19 04:54:47

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

#38 2018-06-19 08:38:53

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

#39 2018-06-19 10:33:28

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

#40 2018-06-19 10:36:52

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

#41 2018-06-19 11:51:42

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

#42 2018-06-19 14:10:10

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

#43 2018-06-19 14:38:14

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

#44 2018-06-19 15:09:33

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

#45 2018-06-19 16:12:17

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

#46 2018-06-19 17:31:33

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

#47 2018-06-19 18:59:29

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

#48 2018-06-19 19:07:15

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

#49 2018-06-19 19:47:10

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

#50 2018-06-19 20:57:17

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

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