New thoughts on baby suicide

jasonrohrer · 2018-10-28 04:57:04

First of all, this is a veteran player's problem. I think most new players are happy playing whatever hand they are dealt as a baby, and just go along for the ride. So I don't want to spoil the magic/mystery for new players with some kind of birth choice screen.

However, for veteran players, if you really want to leave your birth situation, there's no way that I can stop you. I get that you've played the game a lot, and you don't want to waste time in boring lives or whatever. The game has become something of a different beast for you than it is for a new player. The mystery is obviously gone. You know how it works.

Still, for the veteran player, the UI for this "birth selection" is horrible. The new disconnect-protection logic means that you have to run away from your mom and then wait out the hunger timer to die. Over and over. Really, you just want to friggin' die already. And you've made up your mind, you don't want to be born into this family line again.

So, I think I need a better UI for that case, but one that is mostly hidden for new players.

Thematically, this can be grouped under infant mortality. Young babies die suddenly and for no apparent reason. It just happens. It happens to some mothers more than others (mothers in collectively less desirable situations have higher infant mortality, on average). Might as well give the power of infant mortality to the baby players.

Right now, this is happening already, but in a thematically idiotic way: babies run away. This makes no sense, and is a horrible UI for the baby and the mother.

So, I'm proposing the following changes:

1. The forced-hold time for new babies is reduced down to 1 minute instead of 3. When you're an infant, you can't get away. It's just the way it is. After you're a toddler, you can get away. But you don't need to, because:

2. During the first year of life (first minute), only while held, you can say "/die" to insta-die. Your cause of death will be Sudden Infant Death. You will also be lineage banned from that family when you do this. Your mother will see an instant pile of bones appear at her feet. Or maybe be left holding a pile of baby bones. Her birth cooldown will be reset instantly when this happens.

The logic behind this:

--A /-command like /die is mostly accessible to veteran players

--It only works when held, because I still want you to have to face and live through abandonment as a baby. I don't want you to have an easy way out of that. Your mother should be able to feed you to a bear or snake, etc., and you have to live it out. Or if you're trying to follow your mother and get lost.

--Lineage ban, because that's what veteran players want in this situation. It also might give veteran players a bit of hesitation---maybe they want to see this mother through for 45 seconds, before committing to a full lineage ban.

--You are then able to quickly get born into a different family line, without wandering around waiting to die as a baby, or without quitting the client (the old way, before disconnect was fixed).

--Veteran players will be hesitant to do this too much, because they will quickly get lineage-banned from every family, and end up as Eve (unless they want that---maybe they do).

VioletLily · 2018-10-28 05:28:14

I love this idea! Not only does it prevent towns from being littered with bones, it also gives players a way to ban themselves from a lineage rather than having to ask someone else. It is a great compromise. Good job Jason!

Last edited by VioletLily (2018-10-28 05:29:10)

Randomname · 2018-10-28 05:32:53

No more baby stabbings (well less anyways)

boggers · 2018-10-28 05:37:16

Overall I think this is pretty good, although I still think long survival times should be incentivised in some way.

One way to make the /die command a little less appealing: Don't make it instant. Instead, /die can be typed at any time, but it just puts you in a state where you do not feed when picked up, and cannot be force fed.

This would prevent another issue too, where a savvy mother may forgo naming a child so that she can double-tap feed them in such a way that they can't execute the /die command because they are never held long enough.

The thing that stands out to me in this idea, maybe unintentional in the post but... baby bones!

Could you make baby bones different to regular bones, in that they are visually smaller and decay in a couple of minutes instead of an hour?

Tarr · 2018-10-28 06:46:23

I think it's a move in the right direction for sure. Though does it matter how long your mother force holds you with the ability to just suicide in her arms? I guess lowering the age to 1 allows a safety net for babies who are born to rather old mothers who gray soon after the child is born.

This obviously doesn't cure why people are always suiciding but it certainly stops punishing the players who get stuck with all the suicidal babies. I know personally I've hit the same woman upwards of four times and it didn't seem fair she got stuck with a person who never wanted to be with her anyways.

Jk Howling · 2018-10-28 06:50:51

Tbh I think, if you gave the recently updated system some time, people would get used to it. We're expecting a lot of new players from Steam who won't know any different, of course, and I think the veteran players could adjust to this new change [for example, I've already noticed a major increase in mothers asking whether their baby wants to live or not. This would likely become common meta over time.]

But at the same time, I do really like the idea of being able to give ourselves a lineage ban from situations we're not fond of. I think it might give a slight boost to the success rate of eve runs- we'd no longer have to deal with that one annoying child who's reborn to us multiple times and just keeps suiciding.

This also gives players a way to work towards an eve spawn a bit faster as well, which is a feature that veterans have been wanting for quite some time. It's not as simple as an "Eve" button, but it does make things a little bit easier.

I do worry it might have bad side-effects on some situations though, especially if spammed or abused.. I'm concerned it might end up causing failed eve camps, and even established towns. If enough people within an hour /die's, between the other lineages taking up spawns and your line's bans, you might end up doomed altogether.

I think it might be a good idea to lower the lineage ban timer, at the very least for the /die command. Veterans only need so much time to /die their way through to the scenario they want- they definitely don't need a full hour, do they? 20-30 minutes might be a bit better for these lineage bans, at the same time making it slightly less appealing in that they'll have to cycle through the same lineages again once they finish their preferred life.

Last edited by Jk Howling (2018-10-28 06:53:41)

gabal · 2018-10-28 07:00:20

I like this idea. Players will suicide anyway and the lineage ban command is a good idea. You don't have to execute babies and they get what they want. Which they would get anyway but it would take them more time and frustration.

A few weeks ago I had same player being born to me 4 times and 3 times to my sister until somebody told us about stabbing him/her would ban him from our lineage.

Aurora Aurora · 2018-10-28 07:14:41

I love it! Now eve players can finally fuck off from my town roleplay by getting lineage banned. And a new cause of death is always cool

Baker · 2018-10-28 07:35:17

This is a lot cleaner than the current solution. No more repeat suiciders, no more having to murder every kid that doesn't want to live, no more having to ask every child if they want to stay. Having baby bones decay much faster would also be welcome.

I don't have a problem with it being instant, With the lineage, ban applied we won't have to experience this nearly as much. Less hassle overall.

MultiLife · 2018-10-28 09:08:29

Very nice, I like it! And yes I also think instant death is good for infant death.

Yeah, the thing is that players will always choose their lives, whether they are punished or rewarded or not. It's good that we can make it so that others don't suffer from it.

I'm glad we don't have to make the game "baby stabbing game" or "bear apocalypse" game.

Now a story concerning the death grip:
I was once born to a cursed woman (no D town yet) and she "welcomed" me to life as a sex slave (boy baby). I knew what I can expect from a player like this.. Repulsed, I hopped off the moment she started to talk like that and ran off to die. I knew that player is not someone I will give any of my time to. I hope the 1 min timer of hold lock will never put me through stuff like that when I can't escape.. but that's a player thing.

Anyways I will still play every life I get and I will be glad that people who don't want me can leave me, if they pop back in after 5 minutes or so, they might have realized this may be the best they can get for now and then stay. Who knows.

PeaGirl · 2018-10-28 10:52:18

/die command? Boy, that escalated quickly.

Anyway, this is exactly what I hoped for. This would help those few players who keep ruining towns by constantly spawning in their town only to leave and die, this in face of all the troubles is the most concerned and fixed with a good solution. I just hope people won't abuse this though and try to at least look at how good towns there are.

673751 · 2018-10-28 11:12:51

Love the idea. ^^

hmrka · 2018-10-28 12:30:35

FINALLY I WONT BE HELD FOR THREE MINUTES JUST TO BE STABBED LATER THANK YOU JASON!!!!!!!

xclame · 2018-10-28 12:55:56

This is a much better way to handle it, especially allowing babies to ban themself from that lineage, since that in my opinion is what causes mass suicides and putting all the mothers in one town on cooldown, thus potentially dooming that town. This way you only put one mother on cooldown (and not even that since you seem to have thought about that) and the baby player gets to opt out of that family that no matter what they were not going to play anyways. Forcing them to stay or as it was before having them suicide over and over and over again was just annoying for both sides. Forcing them to stay annoys the player that would rather opt out of that family/town and having them have to suicide over and over again would annoy the people in the town by littering bones everywhere.

I'd prefer if you had it that the mother kept the baby bones in her hands, make it like dead baby sheep, dead baby sheep can be carried by hand but grown sheep bones can only be carried by basket.

With this option I would even be okay with the timer staying at 3 minutes to be honest, I don't mind a mother trying to convince me to stay even though I didn't have intentions to stay initially. Also I think if possible having a limit or cooldown on this command should be considered , say maybe only able to use it 3 times withing 10 minutes, just so people can't use the system to guarantee they will spawn where they want. Put it on cooldown after 3 uses, on the fourth life the baby might stick around for a little bit to try to wait out the cooldown AND who knows during that 10 minutes they might consider staying after all. Also I think you should allow the command to be used AFTER the initial one minute/year, again with the intention of convinces SOME people to stick around anyways.

In essence, give players this ability BUT don't make it TOO easy (players shouldn't be able to instantly type "/die" the moment they spawn), balance it with the ability of the mother to be able to convince the child to stay (This could even add more emotions to the game, you try your hardest as a mother to try convince the child to stay, but they still choose to skip out. At least it's much better than *Pop* baby *Crush* baby bones) and don't allow the players to skip out of every life except the ONE life they want.

happynova · 2018-10-28 17:57:53

I like this solution. I like this solution a lot. Not only will instituting a lineage ban in a case like this prevent the same players from spawning in and suiciding over and over -- an annoying experience for all concerned -- it seems likely to actually encourage people to stop and think about whether it's what they really want to do before suiciding, knowing they won't be able to change their mind and come back there next life.

jasonrohrer · 2018-10-28 18:51:10

Thanks, everyone.

It's moments like these when I start to feel like I actually know what I'm doing as a game designer.... for a moment.

Game design is hard. These things take time to percolate up to the surface.

What I'm always trying to do in situations like these is reconcile my vision for the game against how players actually play the game, and find a solution that feels like it "fits," to me, with how the game is supposed to be.

ksaturn · 2018-10-28 20:50:16

I think this is a move in a good direction.

Another thing to consider is closing some of the gap that this causes for players. So if babies opt out maybe cause that to reduce their net birth timer. The damage is not just in them not staying and coming back, but also in not getting others.

Kinrany · 2018-10-28 21:17:17

How will veteran players learn about this command?

UnnoticedShadow · 2018-10-28 21:42:38

By browsing the web, so only vets will really know about it. Noobs will luckily not though (Who are the most prone to suicide) and thus keep the confused noobs from suiciding while the vets can go as they please.

Booklat1 · 2018-10-29 00:25:24

boggers wrote:

The thing that stands out to me in this idea, maybe unintentional in the post but... baby bones!
Could you make baby bones different to regular bones, in that they are visually smaller and decay in a couple of minutes instead of an hour?

Yes, this idea is wonderful and for a bunch of reasons.

Sovietico21 · 2018-10-29 05:00:05

I think this is a nice solution! Now you need another great idea for donkey town replacement.

Luka · 2018-10-29 06:19:10

Though the suiciders i hate are the bots.
):

FeverDog · 2018-10-29 10:31:16

Should be able to make a fiddle from baby bones but the only tune it can play is "Wind and Rain."

jasonrohrer · 2018-10-29 15:22:40

Yes, I'm not 100% satisfied with Donkey Town.

But something had to be done to give people the power to dispatch repeat griefers.

Hopefully a better idea will emerge at some point.

Also, once the population is larger, donkey town will have more people in it, so it won't be such a boring place.

WomanWizard · 2018-10-29 18:24:36

I absolutely love this idea! Giving the babies the option to lineage ban themselves saves everyone time and frustration. Thanks!

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2018-10-28 04:57:04

New thoughts on baby suicide

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Re: New thoughts on baby suicide

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