What's missing from the CORE experience?

Uncle Gus · 2018-06-19 21:08:57

That's what mods are for. The game is open source so these alternate servers can be set up for free. I don't think Jason can realistically maintain different versions of the game running on different servers.

Kinrany · 2018-06-19 21:26:55

Time spent in the game is not an accurate metric, people also read the wiki/onetech.

The worst part is that children are not expected to be ignorant: general knowledge of the game's rules is much more important than the knowledge specific to the current village.
Ideally it should take a single life tops to understand the basics. Memorizing all the recipes should be unnecessary and impractical.

One way to accomplish this is for every village to have a unique environment. Soil, humidity, plant and animal species, materials.

Yes, this means that even the author has to be bad at their own game.

Trick · 2018-06-19 21:53:51

Kinrany wrote:

Time spent in the game is not an accurate metric, people also read the wiki/onetech.
The worst part is that children are not expected to be ignorant: general knowledge of the game's rules is much more important than the knowledge specific to the current village.
Ideally it should take a single life tops to understand the basics. Memorizing all the recipes should be unnecessary and impractical.
One way to accomplish this is for every village to have a unique environment. Soil, humidity, plant and animal species, materials.
Yes, this means that even the author has to be bad at their own game.

I think it took me about 15 lives to live for more than 5 minutes.

If you spawn into the game without a single clue what you're doing, you die pretty much immediately.

A tutorial would be helpful.

Also, it should *never* be assumed that players will go and seek outside sources to learn how to play.

Uncle Gus · 2018-06-19 22:00:16

They're not supposed to. They're supposed to learn from other players. That's the point of this game, humanity working together to better itself. The ineractions between players are the central focus of this game.

Kinrany · 2018-06-19 22:11:57

Trick wrote:

Also, it should *never* be assumed that players will go and seek outside sources to learn how to play.

I agree. (Though it doesn't always make sense to embed the official wiki in the game.)

My point is that assuming the opposite is also a mistake. Some people don't use the wiki at all, some people read the whole thing before even starting. Oh, and watching a stream also counts as time spent learning to play the game.

jasonrohrer · 2018-06-19 23:35:14

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.

If I followed what players apparently wanted here, I would be doing everything in my power to let players play how they apparently want to play.

--That would mean they could keep working on what they wanted to work on forever, until they were done working on it.

--That would mean they would have full control over who they were playing with, friends and family.

If I really wanted to listen, I would get rid of that pesky aging and death thing. That just interrupts what people are building. And might as well get rid of the birth thing too. Well, I wouldn't need to, because people would never die, so they would never need to get born. And might as well just let them spawn right next to their friends/family, full-grown.

Which means I would be making.... Don't Starve Together!

But that game already exists. I know everyone likes it. Just look at the numbers on Steam.

What would be the point of making it again, though?

I'm assuming that you liked this game because of how different it was from other games. Not in spite of those differences.

jasonrohrer · 2018-06-19 23:43:56

Okay, lots of stuff here.

My core take-aways for now are this:

--A playable tutorial mode to explain the basics to people. How to move, how to eat, how to use containers, how to put on clothes, how the temp meter works, how to craft a thing or two. Just the bare basics.

--Reworking the lineage ban (again) so that people dying as babies aren't penalized. The point of the lineage ban is that you shouldn't be able to keep working on the same project life after life. If you haven't lived a good life in a given family line yet, the ban for that line shouldn't apply to you.

--Some intelligent culling of in-game recipe list so that a new player isn't blasted with 40 tips for the sharp stone. It should only show recipes that involve ingredients that you have seen once in the current life. It shouldn't tell you:

Sharp Stone + Long Shaft = Short Shaft

...if you've never seen a Long Shaft before. However, once you've picked a branch, you should see hints like this:

Sharp Stone + Branch = Long Shaft

--Allowing other players to help you overcome from most mortal wounds (the ultimate anti-murder-griefing solution). Took me a while to come around to this idea, but I feel like the "sudden shock death," as much as it is my beloved style, is just too off-putting, and it doesn't necessarily add anything to the core meaning of the game. Staggering around begging for help just makes for a better story (even after a snake bite)....

Many of the other things on here are good ideas, but also more along the lines of things that are bothering players who have played 100+ hours.

jasonrohrer · 2018-06-19 23:44:56

Kinrany wrote:

One way to accomplish this is for every village to have a unique environment. Soil, humidity, plant and animal species, materials.
Yes, this means that even the author has to be bad at their own game.

What do you mean? A procedurally-generated tech tree?

YAHG · 2018-06-20 00:01:23

jasonrohrer wrote:

Kinrany wrote:
One way to accomplish this is for every village to have a unique environment. Soil, humidity, plant and animal species, materials.
Yes, this means that even the author has to be bad at their own game.
What do you mean? A procedurally-generated tech tree?

That would be cool as shit. Maybe you should do that for that reason alone.

Kinrany · 2018-06-20 01:11:14

jasonrohrer wrote:

What do you mean? A procedurally-generated tech tree?

I do think about procedurally generated tech trees a lot, but in this case it miiiiiight be possible to avoid them.

Kinrany wrote:

One way to accomplish this is for every village to have a unique environment. Soil, humidity, plant and animal species, materials.

Plant A needs soil type B or C and humidity level D to grow, domestic animal E only eats plants F and G, harvesting tool H needs wood I and metal J, etc.

Each tile belongs to several overlapping (not adjacent) biomes of different types: one soil biome, one humidity biome, one temperature biome, several plant biomes, several ore biomes. Each biome provides unique natural resources.

Ideally about 10% of biome combinations will be inhabitable, that is, suitable for a village that wants to reach the highest tech level. Most villages will only ever have access to a thin slice of all the tech that exists in the game, because they lack natural resources available in all the other biomes. There will be many alternative paths: the directed acyclic graph that represents the tech tree will have lots of OR operators.

Kinrany wrote:

Yes, this means that even the author has to be bad at their own game.

It should be necessary for the player to learn to use the combination of resources available in the climate they spawned in. This combination, and the list of tools that can be crafted with these resources will always be different.

This explanation is probably terrible, but I'm not sure which parts are confusing and which are obvious :/

Kinrany · 2018-06-20 01:19:24

I'm not sure this is the path OHOL should take, but yeah, a completely random tech tree would be awesome. The algorithm would have to be pretty smart to not break the game though. For example, it should enforce entropy to avoid perpetual motion machines.

Anshin · 2018-06-20 02:22:15

jasonrohrer wrote:

What do you mean? A procedurally-generated tech tree?

How would a procedurally generated tech tree work in OHOL?

I googled this and all I can find is random magic type tech trees where the concepts are generic to begin with.
How does this suit the realism of OHOL?

Turnipseed · 2018-06-20 07:09:09

jasonrohrer wrote:

--Allowing other players to help you overcome from most mortal wounds (the ultimate anti-murder-griefing solution). Took me a while to come around to this idea, but I feel like the "sudden shock death," as much as it is my beloved style, is just too off-putting, and it doesn't necessarily add anything to the core meaning of the game. Staggering around begging for help just makes for a better story (even after a snake bite)....

I really hate to suggest this.... On this point it could be possible to add a probability to survival after treatment to keep a bit more weight on the murder.

Like say treatment gives you a 50% chance of recovering from a stab wound, and a 50% chance of dying from an infection in say 2-3 minutes.

Ither way it gives you a longer life to thank people or say tour goodbyes, but even with treatment people dont make it right?

JackTreehorn · 2018-06-20 08:13:07

My suggestion would be the ability to add armour to rabbit skin shirt. One or two ingots of iron with hammer makes breastplate add to rabbitskin top = Armoured Rabbit skin top.
It would make it so you cannot pick up any weapons. It can take a knife or arrow blow but breaks after.
The villagers could then give them to the young mothers to protect them, or to the police so they can take a blow then retreat and get armed ready to counter attack.

breezeknight · 2018-06-20 11:52:43

@jasonrohrer

nothing is missing from the CORE experience

we have EASY KILL - that's the main part, isn't it ?

wondible · 2018-06-20 12:46:29

jasonrohrer wrote:

Okay, lots of stuff here.
--Some intelligent culling of in-game recipe list so that a new player isn't blasted with 40 tips for the sharp stone. It should only show recipes that involve ingredients that you have seen once in the current life. It shouldn't tell you:

I completely agree that the lists can get pretty daunting, especially with variants like keys/locks. However, I have so far avoided out-of-game references and relied on the in-game transitions to figure out what is possible. (I also watch streams sometimes, so there is still a lot of leakage.) I might be several steps away from the other piece I need, but seeing the name gives me a hint. I used this to figure out smithing. I saw a transition with corn and lime-something, so now I know I have to go poke around with lime and try to find a way to get to that item (I died before getting very far, so a project for another life.)

Valences42 · 2018-06-20 12:59:04

Thanks for being so involved with your community!

~ 3 months after launch, still asking important questions, having great dialogue.

+1 developer!

Have a great day and keep up the good work.

Izzytok · 2018-06-20 14:54:11

Valences42 wrote:

Thanks for being so involved with your community!
~ 3 months after launch, still asking important questions, having great dialogue.
+1 developer!
Have a great day and keep up the good work.

Yeah! Say what you want about the state of the game, but you can't say that Jason isn't dedicated to the game and the community. It's kinda heart-warming to see the developer actually listen to suggestions and try the stuff out. Keep up the good work!

I've also thought a bit about the things I ranted about before, and they are more grudges of experienced players. For new players a tutorial for such an in-depth game is almost a necesity. People should start the game with other players once they know how to move, eat and use containers. These are the basics. Maybe also temperature control...

jasonrohrer · 2018-06-20 15:34:52

Yep, even Spelunky had a tutorial. Like, don't throw someone into the meat grinder until they at least know how to move and jump and drop a rope.

I'm so sick of hand-holding in modern games that I may have moved too far in the opposite direction. Have to remember that the non-hand-holding games of yesteryear only had two buttons, and came with a little manual booklet that some people actually read.

wondible:

I do worry that "culling" the recipe list will harm in-game discoverability of the tech-tree.

They are presented in order already, with high-level recipes at the end, so you don't need to page through irrelevant ones to see the ones that you need.

Kinrany:

That sounds like a pretty insane design challenge, and probably beyond the scope of anything I would be able to get right in my lifetime....

HOWEVER.... I wonder how many people don't know that you can SHIFT-TAB to move backwards through the list. You can also CTRL-TAB to jump by 5 hints at a time, and SHIFT-CTRL-TAB to move backwards in the hints. This stuff would be in the tutorial.

I'm guessing that currently, part of the reason it's overwhelming is that many people are TABing through 43 irrelevant recipes to get back to the beginning of the list, because they don't know about SHIFT-TAB.

Izzytok · 2018-06-20 15:54:16

jasonrohrer wrote:

HOWEVER.... I wonder how many people don't know that you can SHIFT-TAB to move backwards through the list. You can also CTRL-TAB to jump by 5 hints at a time, and SHIFT-CTRL-TAB to move backwards in the hints. This stuff would be in the tutorial.
I'm guessing that currently, part of the reason it's overwhelming is that many people are TABing through 43 irrelevant recipes to get back to the beginning of the list, because they don't know about SHIFT-TAB.

Didn't know about the CTRL-TAB thing . I never considered actually teaching kids on using the recipe list, since I rarely use it. It would be cool to learn these tricks from a tutorial before you play the first time.

Just as a thought, to make sure you stress the importance of communication, maybe have the tutorial prompt the player to ask an NPC mom on how to make a sharp stone or something. Even better, make the player ask a mom-bot . I think that would be both instructional and slightly hilarous at the same time .

Last edited by Izzytok (2018-06-20 15:56:56)

Kinrany · 2018-06-20 15:54:39

Well, I'm sure it wouldn't take THAT much time, but yeah, it would be a whole new game. I couldn't even find any games that tried to do it and failed.

Acozi · 2018-06-20 21:02:46

I find handholding annoying too, but I think a bare bones tutorial would help keep some new players. I think having a tutorial where the bare basics are explained: movement, eating, where crafting recipes are located on screen, and temperature. Could be a video or a no pressure tutorial map where they can get fool around without the pressure of other players. Or have a video AND experiment mode.

Have a video like the one on the front page. This is your food bar, this is your temperature, this is the recipe bar, this is how you name yourself and kids, watch out for these guys (snakes, bears, wolves), humans can be dangerous too, and wrap up reiterating your vision for the game.

If people are dying as much as your stats say they are either not getting the opportunity to understand the mechanics or no one is teaching them.

Teaching is fun and a large part of the game, but explaining what I listed above is hard without a visual aid. A baby can watch villagers farm or make bowls, but to sit and explain " right click shuffles through the items in the basket" is tough to explain verbally and through demonstration.

YAHG · 2018-06-20 21:04:29

Acozi wrote:

I find handholding annoying too, but I think a bare bones tutorial would help keep some new players. I think having a tutorial where the bare basics are explained: movement, eating, where crafting recipes are located on screen, and temperature. Could be a video or a no pressure tutorial map where they can get fool around without the pressure of other players. Or have a video AND experiment mode.
Have a video like the one on the front page. This is your food bar, this is your temperature, this is the recipe bar, this is how you name yourself and kids, watch out for these guys (snakes, bears, wolves), humans can be dangerous too, and wrap up reiterating your vision for the game.
If people are dying as much as your stats say they are either not getting the opportunity to understand the mechanics or no one is teaching them.
Teaching is fun and a large part of the game, but explaining what I listed above is hard without a visual aid. A baby can watch villagers farm or make bowls, but to sit and explain " right click shuffles through the items in the basket" is tough to explain verbally and through demonstration.

Can be optional tutorial too. Maybe after they die horribly before they give up on the game they spent $20 on they might at least look at the tutorial.

Acozi · 2018-06-20 21:09:53

YAHG wrote:

Acozi wrote:
I find handholding annoying too, but I think a bare bones tutorial would help keep some new players. I think having a tutorial where the bare basics are explained: movement, eating, where crafting recipes are located on screen, and temperature. Could be a video or a no pressure tutorial map where they can get fool around without the pressure of other players. Or have a video AND experiment mode.
Have a video like the one on the front page. This is your food bar, this is your temperature, this is the recipe bar, this is how you name yourself and kids, watch out for these guys (snakes, bears, wolves), humans can be dangerous too, and wrap up reiterating your vision for the game.
If people are dying as much as your stats say they are either not getting the opportunity to understand the mechanics or no one is teaching them.
Teaching is fun and a large part of the game, but explaining what I listed above is hard without a visual aid. A baby can watch villagers farm or make bowls, but to sit and explain " right click shuffles through the items in the basket" is tough to explain verbally and through demonstration.
Can be optional tutorial too. Maybe after they die horribly before they give up on the game they spent $20 on they might at least look at the tutorial.

Yea I'm thinking an option on the main menu that opens up the tutorial video or the tutorial world.

YAHG · 2018-06-20 21:16:25

Acozi wrote:

YAHG wrote:
Acozi*snip*[/quote wrote:
Can be optional tutorial too. Maybe after they die horribly before they give up on the game they spent $20 on they might at least look at the tutorial.
Yea I'm thinking an option on the main menu that opens up the tutorial video or the tutorial world.

The Factorio tutorial for trains was SUPER helpful, perhaps tutorials like that
CAN be procedural generated.

Typing in say "Steel Hoe" and you are sent to a pseudo server map without hunger
and little markers like the home marker guide you to the ingredients with little text
popups telling you whats next.

I get it could be super cool.

One Hour One Life Forums

#51 2018-06-19 21:08:57

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

#52 2018-06-19 21:26:55

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

#53 2018-06-19 21:53:51

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

#54 2018-06-19 22:00:16

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

#55 2018-06-19 22:11:57

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

#56 2018-06-19 23:35:14

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

#57 2018-06-19 23:43:56

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#58 2018-06-19 23:44:56

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#59 2018-06-20 00:01:23

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

#60 2018-06-20 01:11:14

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#61 2018-06-20 01:19:24

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#62 2018-06-20 02:22:15

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#63 2018-06-20 07:09:09

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#64 2018-06-20 08:13:07

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#65 2018-06-20 11:52:43

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

#66 2018-06-20 12:46:29

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

#67 2018-06-20 12:59:04

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

#68 2018-06-20 14:54:11

Re: What's missing from the CORE experience?

#69 2018-06-20 15:34:52

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#70 2018-06-20 15:54:16

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#71 2018-06-20 15:54:39

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#72 2018-06-20 21:02:46

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#73 2018-06-20 21:04:29

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#74 2018-06-20 21:09:53

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#75 2018-06-20 21:16:25

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