Suicide is OP - Should it be nerfed?

jasonrohrer · 2018-10-20 18:16:28

This is all really important issue.

Again, the root cause here is the way that the metaphysics of the game differ from real life. Babies never suicide in real life, because they only have one shot.

One Dollar One Hour One Life would have solved this problem (but would have been financial suicide on my part).

A limit on how many lives you can live per hour would also solve it. But also make the game worse, and reduce player retention. When you're out of lives for the hour, you're likely to quit playing and never come back.

Life expectancy is an interesting and simple solution. I'd be hesitant to go up over 60 minutes (the game does what it says on the tin), but going down below that could work. As far as legit baby deaths, if you can earn it back easily later, who cares?

Let's say, infant death is -X minutes, living past 20 is +1 minute. This sets the permitted ratio. Suppose X is 1. Then to keep your life expectancy, you need to not die as a baby in more than 50% of your lives. If X is 2, you need to not die as a baby in more than 33% of your lives. If you die as a baby more than that, your life expectancy would slowly degrade down to nothing over the long haul. Maybe have it bottom out at 30.

Down-sides to this is that it's hard to message, and it breaks the promise of the game somewhat. You do everything right, and then die of old age at 53... wtf? People would also perform a calculus... how much would I pay in minutes to not play this life?

Other idea:

--If you die under age X, you get reborn to that same mother. Again, and again, and again. Trapped with that mother forever. Your situation really is your situation. Deal with it. Could force them back into their same character and gender too, to avoid suicide as a way to pick character/gender.

I think people might be confused about or ignorant of the lineage ban. They are suiciding trying to get back to their town, but that's impossible. So they suicide through the available mothers over and over, until all mothers are on cooldown, and then they end up as Eve.

If they are suiciding because they WANT to be Eve, this is also kindof a waste. Anyone can be Eve by just wandering away from their town when they are 14. Yes, it's not the same metaphysically (you won't be root of a tree), but it's the same gameplay-wise (except for the 14 minute header).

Just take off your clothes and walk away (you can do this in real life too).

Finally, we simply can't have too many Eves. It spreads the babies out too much. If there are 30 players, than means we can have about 3 towns. We can't have 10 towns. But if ten players want to be Eve (only 1/3 of players), we will get 10 towns that all die out.

So an "Eve" button on the menu screen is not going to happen, for that reason. If you really want to do that, pick an empty custom server.

Thus, it is not so bad to force an "I want to be Eve" player into a given life as a specific baby/mother combo.

This also helps deal with negligent mothers, because you keep coming back.

Err.... well, that would suck, if you kept coming back, and she kept letting you die.

Maybe bring back birth cost?

Hesitant to do that, because then you could grief her by suiciding. But without it, she could grief you by letting you die.

Hard problem to solve well.

Morti · 2018-10-20 18:35:12

tana wrote:

but how do you make the distinction between suiciding babies and abandonned ones ? for the game certainly can't make the difference. Starvation is starvation, doesn't matter if self inflicted or not, same with animal bites.

This is why I suggested a system similar to that of the curse, essentially it is a command that includes the players name that life, that gives them some sort of incentive to be good and accumulate benefits that they inherit in the next playthrough, or, they could last longer.

Nothing too extravagant, nothing that would be worth exploiting, just a subtle, pleasant, addition to your next experience.

It could take a lot from Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism or any of the other Sramanic religions. The Eightfold Path, the Samsara, maybe even a state of Nirvana in the end where you are ethereal, say, you get as much as one hour to have sight over anyone, anywhere, and can cycle through people to view. You could watch your children, raise their own families. Look around the world, to see the state of projects and places you cared for, or provide wisdom to people when you return, in the form of knowledge of an area.

Nirvana is supposed to be a release from this cycle of death and rebirth though...

Maybe it's the victory. A win condition for the game.

You just get a message that says:

Potjeh · 2018-10-20 21:20:14

Jason, the problem with striking out on your own is that you still share the same pool of potential babies as your original family, and since there's usually only two or three simultaneous towns on servers that means a lot of people will be lineage banned from you. If you're in an established family you get a lot less babies than a true Eve, and in these conditions it's very hard for Eve to raise girls into adulthood, having less shots at it is devastating.

Tarr · 2018-10-20 21:21:20

jasonrohrer wrote:

This is all really important issue.
--If you die under age X, you get reborn to that same mother. Again, and again, and again. Trapped with that mother forever. Your situation really is your situation. Deal with it. Could force them back into their same character and gender too, to avoid suicide as a way to pick character/gender.

Lord that would be awful on all sorts of levels. People already starve out male children at times due to the thin player base so could you imagine just being killed for 25 minutes straight because you got the wrong gender. It's already bad enough to be male in the given situation as you can't just leave like you would as a female. So what do you do? Go off an live a hermit life in a better spot or do you stay and live a mediocre life? Hell I suppose killing your own mother is on the table too if you really don't want to be stuck being male.

jasonrohrer wrote:

If they are suiciding because they WANT to be Eve, this is also kindof a waste. Anyone can be Eve by just wandering away from their town when they are 14. Yes, it's not the same metaphysically (you won't be root of a tree), but it's the same gameplay-wise (except for the 14 minute header).
Just take off your clothes and walk away (you can do this in real life too).

But the thing is if you leave town as a pretend Eve you are now double dipping into the pool of available players. With a fresh Eve line you are bouncing players back and forth between different families but with your fake Eve you are stretching a thin pool thinner. Both parties end up being losers when they have to compete against each other for players.

If you're going to make some sort of cost to baby death you probably have to bring back some sort of birth cost too. I have no idea what the answer to the suicide problem is but I'm certain it's not gender locking you to whoever is birthing you.

jasonrohrer · 2018-10-20 21:29:46

Talked to a designer friend of mine just now.

Here are some minor tweaks to how things work that will help.

1. Mothers have better control over babies. Babies move even slower, and are easier to grab. Babies cannot jump out of arms (this is kindof a pain anyway) until age 2 or 3. If your mother wants you, she can keep you.

2. On disconnect, server keeps your record alive, as long as you haven't starved to death yet. On reconnect, you re-enter that same living body, and resume play. This is going to be needed anyway to deal with disconnects (a robustness measure). This will also make disconnecting to suicide ineffective. As long as the mother keeps caring for the zombie baby, the baby will stay alive, waiting for the reconnect.

These are minor things that should probably be fixed anyway, and they will improve the feeling of being a baby. You really will be stuck with that mother for 3 minutes, if she wants you. Maybe, as a side effect, your attachment to her will grow. You'll at least get a chance for her to walk you back to the village and show you around, so you'll be making an informed choice. This will also slow down the suicide loop substantially. You can currently suicide 12 times a minute through ESC (SSD load time is something like 5 seconds). This will slow it down to once every 3 minutes. That's 36 times slower!

voy178 · 2018-10-20 21:33:40

As annoying as suiciding babies are, is it just the high child mortality humanity has suffered through up until the 20th century, and still have in some areas? It can be explained like that, but I certainly agree that not having girls to bring the lines forward is a bad idea. Maybe there could be a situational mechanic that counts the number of fertile females and if there is only one left the chance for having girls would be bigger if not guaranteed? It's a bit gamey and unnatural maybe, but honestly playability over realism any day.

jasonrohrer · 2018-10-20 21:36:41

I'm also wondering how much the lineage ban is affecting this when the player pool is small. But I think it takes pool size into account when it calculates the duration. Been a long time since I looked at that code.

Anyway, it could be the case that older villages are just doomed because everyone has already played there.

My friend suggested the following graph:

Player life expectancy (average life time per day) vs. number of days since game purchase.

This graph should go down as players figure out how not to starve, but after players become experts, does the graph start going back up as they intentionally suicide to pick their birth location?

I think such a graph could be made with the public data. Anyone want to tackle it?

On a given day, all players are actually on a different "ownership day" since the first time they played. Like, I might be on my 210th day, but as a new player, you might be on day 3. Thus, your life expectancy from today is added into the average for day 3, while mine from today goes into bin 210.

ksaturn · 2018-10-20 21:39:45

+1 on Life Expectancy, even as a nerf only. This makes death more meaningful AND gives you a reason to live! We need more reasons to live.

Yes people will calculate it but it tips the balance in favor of staying, so it still works on rational players. Adding more elements that tip the balance in the same way (more buffs / nerfs) will tip that further until it is in balance. Just make it expensive enough that it isn't a desirable option.

If it stops being a inevitable town-killing problem for everyone the occasional oddball suicide is much less important, so you might be able to say problem solved at that point.

Stay alive until BODY starves is a good thing, for infants and otherwise!

Slower babies might get more abandons by harsh travelling mothers who want to carry things. I had some take care of me contingent on me keeping up. If it only lasts 2-3 minutes though this is realistic.

How about an option to renounce your family as a means to start a new line? Abusable, but maybe this doesn't even have to break lineage, just changes your last name. The point being you need to be able to escape lineage ban lockout as a mother, so it would make lineage ban family name dependent. Also abusable... hmm.

MultiLife · 2018-10-20 21:43:33

I feel like it's gonna lean to punishing too much. Is it really that bad that people prefer different lives? Can't we support that instead of add rules that limit the players' freedom to play the game like they'd like to? Is it really that important that everyone takes the first life they get?

I am simply after a situation where the babies born to me want to be with me most of the time. If they don't want to be there, I don't want them to be there either.
I guess I have to bury the preference system dream...

Last edited by MultiLife (2018-10-20 21:46:59)

ksaturn · 2018-10-20 21:49:49

Some people don't get to play often so consider that someone who has owned the game a long time and hasn't played much can still be very unskilled. So maybe having a grace period AND a playtime buffer at first could be a good thing.

MultiLife wrote:

I feel like it's gonna lean to punishing too much. Is it really that bad that people prefer different lives? Can't we support that instead of add rules that limit the players freedom to play the game like they'd like to? Is it really that important that everyone takes the first life they get?
I am simply after a situation where the babies born to me want to be with me most of the time. If one out of five doesn't want to be there, I don't want them to be there either.
I guess I have to bury the preference system dream...

It IS that bad when it results it distributed decision-making that PREVENTs some of those preferred playstyles from being viable!

Them wanting to be with you can be a result of them wanting to live longer in their next life, so this improve the chances you'll get what you want.

ksaturn · 2018-10-20 21:53:43

voy178 wrote:

As annoying as suiciding babies are, is it just the high child mortality humanity has suffered through up until the 20th century, and still have in some areas? It can be explained like that, but I certainly agree that not having girls to bring the lines forward is a bad idea. Maybe there could be a situational mechanic that counts the number of fertile females and if there is only one left the chance for having girls would be bigger if not guaranteed? It's a bit gamey and unnatural maybe, but honestly playability over realism any day.

I thought about that too, but I'd rather have random in-game diseases that only in-game technology could fix then biased player opt out.

P.S. - Sorry everyone. It started here.

VioletLily · 2018-10-20 21:57:42

What if your text changed color as a reward for long lives? You could take the average of the length of your lives lived and color the text accordingly.

Maybe normal black and white for under 4

A very faded color background (like red, blue, green, etc) for ages 4-14

And then the background becomes more and more vibrant for each age category

14-30

30-40

40-50

50-60 would be the most vibrant

Maybe lives lived could stop contributing to the average after a certain number of days, to prevent new players from being put at an unfair disadvantage. Maybe a week?

Last edited by VioletLily (2018-10-20 22:00:45)

Tarr · 2018-10-20 21:58:19

boggers wrote:

Here is an idea to discourage baby suicides... What if players had a longevity score that accumulates across games which could add or remove minutes from their life expectancy?
The score is limited to a range, lets say -10 to +20 for example and you get a score each life based on the age you died.
Eg:
Under 1 = -2
1 to 20 = -1
21 to 40 = 0
41 and over = +1
Dying of old age = +2

The thing is you're going to be punishing new people a lot of the time by having this sort of system. You also punish people who get neglectful mothers by luck of the draw. As interesting as I think it is to have some sort of little reward to hitting max age living much longer with four bars probably makes you a hell of a resource drain. You'll be eating something every thirty seconds in a desert, fifteen seconds in a non desert biome, or every minute if on a perfect tile.

What do you even use a person this old for? Writing long winded papers? I mean at least on the plus side popcorn is worth exactly three pips so you can eat without wasting food at that amount of pips.

I'm just not sure removing time off life expectancy is a good idea. Hitting old age your first time is a great feeling and to have to die a bunch of times at preset numbers for being bad at the game early feels bad.

ksaturn · 2018-10-20 22:18:26

Tarr wrote:

The thing is you're going to be punishing new people a lot of the time by having this sort of system.

This can be alleviated with things like a grace period and playtime bufefr for new people.

Maybe 'very old deaths' or 'deaths so many lives back' stop contributing.

Tarr wrote:

You also punish people who get neglectful mothers by luck of the draw.

It happens. Makes the lives you get a shot at surviving even more important.

Tarr wrote:

As interesting as I think it is to have some sort of little reward to hitting max age living much longer with four bars probably makes you a hell of a resource drain. You'll be eating something every thirty seconds in a desert, fifteen seconds in a non desert biome, or every minute if on a perfect tile.

Yup. What are you going to do? Banish them? Murder them? Old people are a burden. Just die already, old man!

Plenty wander off into the woods to avoid leaving a mess as it is.

In terms of griefing, it would be surprising to see as relevant. A teenager can eat ALL the pies if they try really hard, so it's not like this is anything new.

Tarr wrote:

What do you even use a person this old for? Writing long winded papers? I mean at least on the plus side popcorn is worth exactly three pips so you can eat without wasting food at that amount of pips.

They are good for tending berry farms if others haul the dirt and water in. Decent caretakers (with irl precedent), given said berry farm. Any non-essential cultural role. Any non-hauling role with close access to berries really. They are often a valuable reservoir of knowledge about the town and surrounding terrain, and get asked more frequently.

There is a concept in biology called 'the grandma effect' that postulates we live so long because of these caretaker / knowledge transfer benefits to society, villages with shorter lifespans dying out irl from institutional amnesia.

"Grandma we are starving!" ... "More berry bushes to the East."

Last edited by ksaturn (2018-10-20 22:36:49)

jasonrohrer · 2018-10-20 22:21:07

Okay, babies won't be any slower than they are now.

But they won't be able to jump out of arms at such a young age. Maybe you even need hair to jump out?

And everyone will continue living until starvation, even after disconnect.

Randomname · 2018-10-20 23:30:18

jasonrohrer wrote:

But they won't be able to jump out of arms at such a young age. Maybe you even need hair to jump out?

What about baby kidnappers? The only way to save your life is to jump out of their arms to get back to your mother.

Tarr · 2018-10-20 23:35:44

Randomname wrote:

What about baby kidnappers? The only way to save your life is to jump out of their arms to get back to your mother.

Yeah babies probably have to be able to jump out of the arms of people who cannot properly feed them (males, old women) to prevent them from starving children to death in their arms.

Maybe 1-2 year olds can jump from any arms? If you don't give them the ability to run soon enough anyone kidnapping is going to always get away with baby killing.

Xan · 2018-10-20 23:39:37

jasonrohrer wrote:

2. On disconnect, server keeps your record alive, as long as you haven't starved to death yet. On reconnect, you re-enter that same living body, and resume play. This is going to be needed anyway to deal with disconnects (a robustness measure). This will also make disconnecting to suicide ineffective. As long as the mother keeps caring for the zombie baby, the baby will stay alive, waiting for the reconnect.

Oh yes, finally, I always wanted this change. This will help both with suicide and accidental loss of connection. This change alone I think will be enough to help with the suicide problem.

Just needs a special emote facial expression so that other player's know that that person is disconnected.

VioletLily · 2018-10-21 00:08:53

jasonrohrer wrote:

2. On disconnect, server keeps your record alive, as long as you haven't starved to death yet. On reconnect, you re-enter that same living body, and resume play. This is going to be needed anyway to deal with disconnects (a robustness measure). This will also make disconnecting to suicide ineffective. As long as the mother keeps caring for the zombie baby, the baby will stay alive, waiting for the reconnect

This makes me so happy! Now I can keep playing if I disconnect for some reason. It was awful to be the last girl and to suddenly get the disconnect screen. I felt so bad, but it was out of my control.

Randomname · 2018-10-21 00:12:14

Tarr wrote:

Yeah babies probably have to be able to jump out of the arms of people who cannot properly feed them (males, old women) to prevent them from starving children to death in their arms.

Not just males and old women but all adults. When I was new to this game my grandma picked me up and told me she'd give me a tour. She was still young enough to feed me and she was my Grandmother, you've got to trust Granny right? She took me to the savannah far away from anyone and dumped me there to starve finally saying "sry".

Had another instance just a few days ago where my early camp mum told me to stay, it was a good spot temperature wise and my Aunty picked me up and tried to run off with me into the swamp. I told my mum when she came back but she didn't believe me as Aunty said she was worried about me and was taking me to the berries to feed, there wasn't any berries in that swamp. I don't know if she killed any of the other boys.

Kids need to jump, it's a life saving tool. Ok most of the time it's not needed but once the griefers know babies are trapped, kidnapping will increase.

The living after disconnect sounds great though.

ksaturn · 2018-10-21 01:10:34

Xan wrote:

jasonrohrer wrote:
2. On disconnect, server keeps your record alive...
Oh yes, finally, ... This change alone I think will be enough to help with the suicide problem.

I disagree entirely. It will help, and slow down the process, but I highly doubt it would be 'enough' by itself.

Xan wrote:

Just needs a special emote facial expression so that other player's know that that person is disconnected.

like /dazed or something. Good idea.

Randomname wrote:

Kids need to jump, it's a life saving tool. Ok most of the time it's not needed but once the griefers know babies are trapped, kidnapping will increase.

Then perhaps only the mother should get the baby-lockdown effect, and lose it when she gets too old to feed.

Last edited by ksaturn (2018-10-21 01:10:57)

Baker · 2018-10-21 01:17:34

This game always makes me think of another game called "Whos your daddy". One player is the parent tasked with stopping the Baby player from committing suicide.

UnnoticedShadow · 2018-10-21 02:40:41

I love this life expectancy idea, but the game has to stay true to its name. Perhaps the maximum time you stay alive is 60 for the first 5 or so times you get to age 50 and above, and increased life expectancy does not mean that we will have too many old people, as with higher life expectancy it could take longer for them to lose their hunger pips, however if this is added, whatever formula that calculated this would need to keep sure that the average old age point is 60, because playtime should never go above one hour average per old age.

jasonrohrer · 2018-10-21 03:51:42

Well, for now, I'm tabling the idea of life expectancy bonus/punishment, and trying to focus on the other issues.

So, the disconnect thing is an obvious improvement all-around. Not sure about the facial expression. People can also just walk AFK. I want mothers to keep you alive during that time and not "know" you are disconnected and dump you. They can try talking to you if they want, to test you. That should be enough.

Regarding baby-jump-out, yeah, I guess the jump-block could just be for your own mother, if she's still feeding you. That makes some sense thematically. You wouldn't WANT to jump out of her arms, but other people are a bit scary, so you can jump. Maybe I'll play around with having the baby face her when holding, but face out when held by others. Not sure if it will look okay. Will test it.

Now, if your mother wants to grief you by holding you, that's her business. The privilege of motherhood.

These changes will dramatically slow down the process of suiciding from a mother who really wants to keep you and love you. In a case where babies are rare, it could also give her some time to talk to you and convince you to stay. Cooing sweet nothings to you, etc.

I'll let attachment theory do the rest for now.

Good video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63fBJPFPCbs

Baker · 2018-10-21 05:41:49

jasonrohrer wrote:

Well, for now, I'm tabling the idea of life expectancy bonus/punishment, and trying to focus on the other issues.
So, the disconnect thing is an obvious improvement all-around. Not sure about the facial expression. People can also just walk AFK. I want mothers to keep you alive during that time and not "know" you are disconnected and dump you. They can try talking to you if they want, to test you. That should be enough.

Regarding baby-jump-out, yeah, I guess the jump-block could just be for your own mother, if she's still feeding you. That makes some sense thematically. You wouldn't WANT to jump out of her arms, but other people are a bit scary, so you can jump. Maybe I'll play around with having the baby face her when holding, but face out when held by others. Not sure if it will look okay. Will test it.

Now, if your mother wants to grief you by holding you, that's her business. The privilege of motherhood.

These changes will dramatically slow down the process of suiciding from a mother who really wants to keep you and love you. In a case where babies are rare, it could also give her some time to talk to you and convince you to stay. Cooing sweet nothings to you, etc.

I'll let attachment theory do the rest for now.

Good video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63fBJPFPCbs

Sounds good, Theirs still the possibility of suiciding once they grow hair or sneaking off when you put them down. If somebody wants it to die that bad, It's probably not worth trying to make them stay unless it's an only girl situation. Least suiciding won't be so easy so maybe it'll stop people doing it so frequently.

I think people should have closed eyes when they DC.

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