3 Suggestions and my experience with the game so far

Asgarnian · 2018-11-15 11:29:12

Hi i'm a new one hour one life owner with 10 hours of gameplay and I really love this idea of being born to another player and living such a short life. Great idea there.
However as much as this is a cool idea I feel that the game it's been implemented into is not such a good experience WHILE there is huge potential to improve this game into a more enjoyable experience.
Here are a few suggestions that would fix much of the frustrations i'm having with this game. I am also a one-man-army gamedev just like Jason, developing a browser mmo and I feel like taking care of the frustating parts of your game is something really important that makes your players stay and actually play the game. Bare with me because this will be a long post I think...

1. Birth control

Suggestion: fertile women should have an on/off switch option when they are ready to give birth to babies.

(maybe a little unnatural but easy to implement imo)(a better fix but harder to implement and with much larger game-wide consequences imo would be to have mating (this could be a simple kiss or hearts animation when a fertile man and woman stand on the same spot and press letter L or click some love button in the interface -> and eves would need to spawn as a couple with their man (would make starter villages much more survivable as woman would care of the children and man would provide for her(if we're going for historical accuracy then this is the way to go also lol) and it would also make men more important and actually required in this game's society)

Reasons: I think it's utterly ridiculous and frustrating that 50% of the time you are born to an eve or a foraging mother in the middle of nowhere and they just leave you there to die... and then another 20% of time you're born in a village where they dislike boys and/or have too many babies and they take you away to die. If we're trying to play the "I was this kid born in this situation, but I eventually grew up." - according to game description then every kid should be wanted instead of 70% of kids being discarded.
Not only does this just waste our time as we cycle through games where we're being discarded and make babies and mothers feel bad (the moral part of it(which this game kinda wants to simulate I guess?). At least when you're first playing the game lol - goddamnit Jason why are you teaching people to murder innocent babies?!? ).

I'm not sure if Jason really said this but according to one player on discord one of Jason's reasons to not agree on some birth control fix like that is "blocking births during breastfeeding was true-to-life, but the "oh shit" factor that it gives a mom was too priceless to just remove". Yeah I don't think 70% of newborns were discarded in any time or culture of human history lol (maybe I could have been unlucky to be given birth to so many running-away-eves and child-killing villages but it's probably still 50% of the time you don't survive as a baby due to this). And the oh shit factor, well there would still be that, just in a little bit more controlled way.

Consequences and potential troubles:
-The good: Villages could control over-population and freshly spawned eves could play to the point where they create some tools and perhaps even farms before they decide to start popping children out. This would make for much bigger fresh-village survivability so there would probably be less eves being spawned because you'd be much more likely to spawn to someone in a village (because there would be more of them).
-potential troubles: if a lot of women on the server are blocking their birth, there would be more eve spawns? This would actually cancel out with the point I just wrote above that there would be more surviving villages and therefore more spawns as a kid. But potentially you could give players an option to select if they prefer to spawn as eve or as a kid and if they wanted to spawn as a kid and there would be no mothers needing kids, wait up to 5 seconds if any mothers will want to have babies and then spawn them in, if not spawn them as eves (This really wouldn't be a problem, there's millions of people playing competitive games these days where they have to wait for matchmaking to find suitable opponents and they don't mind it because they know that they will be having a better game if they have to wait a little)

2.problem: items all over the floor / inventory craze!

Reasons and possible solutions:
This is another riduclous and frustrating thing of this game and this problem needs to be solved somehow. Villages having items all over the place lol. Yes there is posibility to make baskets and carts and I saw there are even chests and you can also lock them (though of course that's really complicated to make (as is anything else apart from baskets) so looks like it's not viable to make or there would be more of it in villages) though i've never seen one so far. Villages are way too vulnerable of someone stealing their precious items, while it's probably not viable to have someone appointed a guard walking about doing nothing to add to that needed food. I don't really offer a clear cut solution that would work for this game's style but there would be nothing wrong of having something like a minecraft chest inventory system (with less space). Or even simply allow there to be a lot of items on just one floor tile (and as you'd click on it to grab something from that pile a list of things that's on that tile would open up and you'd select what you want to take or simply a grid of things). Or at least divide each tile into 9 grids so there could be 9 different things on one tile (that would still clearly make every individual thing on the floor visible given the size of a tile I think).
The general feel when handling items around is clumsy and frustrating to me and even more so when you're dealing with baskets and backpacks.
Let me share a gameplay story here... yesterday I was given the privilege to be given a knife and backpack and full clothes from one of the village elders as the next inline to "lead" the village. All went well and when I was about 50 years old I decided I'll give my knife and clothes to the next diligant worker that will keep this village in good shape when I'm gone. What followed is me trying to put the knife on the floor for them to pick it up and because there were items everywhere I ended up stabbing the women by accident instead -_-. In my utter disbelief of what i've just done (to make matters worse this was I think one of the only two remaining fertile women in the village as well) I was standing there texting and forgot to eat. My backpack was still full and there was still no place on the floor where I could drop my knife or anything from my backpack so I ended up running to berrybushes to grab a berry to eat but there were nowhere to drop the knife there as well so not only did I stabbed her to death I also starved myself lmao. Of course i'm a new player and still noob but really the underlying problem of this frustrating experience is the ridiculous inventory system of this game.
I'd definitely keep the amount of items you can stash in backpack and one item in your hand mechanic, that's good and somewhat realistic (maybe we could have one item per hand (would also allow for something like shield + sword )) but other storage things should definitely be expanded especialy including expanding the one item per tile.

Reply to seemingly stubborn Jason(that's what I heard and read ):
Here's a quote from one of Jason's forum posts:
"People just can't understand why I won't just give up and make the game that they want to play.
I hope---I really hope---that part of the reason that you're playing this game is that it's so DIFFERENT than other games out there.
I could add a birth location picker, and respawn mechanics, and a damage health bar, and an inventory bar, and all the other things that every other game has.
And some of these things are the kind of thing that would make you play more. Like, if you could easily respawn and keep working on the same project, I might hook you into playing for 8 hours straight. And that would be great! You'd like the game more, and tell more friends about it, and I'd make more money.
But, given that there are loads of games out there that do those things already, what would be the point?"

and then i'm going to quote Bruce Lee: “Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless and add what is specifically your own”

My point for Jason here is that you have one great unique idea that works (being born to other players and living 60 minutes) and that's the one which made most of us buy this game, and another unique thing (the crazy inventory system of this game) that doesn't work and should be discarded for a proven system that works (this is where you look at how other games solved the inventory issue).

You don't have to do everything in your game unique is my point. There's one unique thing that makes this game really stand out from other games and that's enough. Yes there are lots of games out there that do the same inventory like all the other games and it's probably because it just works. Your game won't become like all others just because it has one part of it like other games. You want to make your game different but if it's too different it's not helping anyone and leaves a bunch of frustrating players with a sour taste of a game with wasted potential.

3. allow full chat charachter length when people reach young adult(age 14) and possibly make children have 2 letters per age instead of 1

Reasons:
In order to grow your village more successfully we need more order and to have more order we need to have better communication. 1 letter per age is kind of a brilliant idea at first glance but it's flawed and unrealistic. Anyone over 15 can articulate just as good as an elder can.
I think what kills most of villages is poor communication and the premise of this game to be taught by your elders doesn't work very well right now. Why? Firstly because elders don't normally take care of babies (because old mommas can't breastfeed). So the ones who have time to educate the kids are the nannies as they're not doing anything else. But young nannies can only say a few words at a time... I saw more players on forums, discord and steam opinions say that they would want to educate their kids when they're roleplaying a nanny/mom but they just don't bother because the charachter limit cuts into every sentence they make so they just give up on that.
I saw Jason pondering how to make baby age more interesting and this suggestion improves that -> babies will be busy listening to their nany teachers.

OTHER IMPRESSIONS:

I love this game and this idea but at the same time it leaves a lot to be desired and is also very frustrating at times and I think the above fixes would improve the game greatly while leaving the original idea and playability the same. Maybe the game is also almost too hard to survive but I won't be judging that just yet as i'm still very new and will continue to try to learn more of crafting. But as other players have said the constant battle for survival leaves too little room for roleplaying and being creative. There's things like dogs and cards in this game that I will probably never see and it's because no village gets to the point where some people can get dependant on others to be creative and play around I guess? After all this is how big achievements of civilizations are made -> when people's needs are satisfied and they have enough time to think of other things than survival. (but anyways this is a survival game lol)
If I had to describe this game in two words: starvation fest

Don't forget to upvote on reddit if you agree with these suggestions: https://www.reddit.com/r/OneLifeSuggest … pand_chat/

Tramax · 2018-11-15 12:36:42

Everything listed is sadly by design, and time and time again Jason has not budged on those topics.
Which is fair and I both respect and agree with them to a decent extent. A fair few players want what you are talking about - but this is why the game's open source! So you can get together and make a private server with those improvements!

Last edited by Tramax (2018-11-15 12:37:12)

Korilian · 2018-11-15 12:54:00

I think we should get birth control once societies become more advanced and I mean way more advanced. Until quite recently (and in parts of the world still!), it was common for a mom to have a dozen kids with maybe two making it to adulthood. Effective birthcontrol became a thing when most babies started surviving.

Honestly a lot of the issues you mention are amplified by the current chaos caused by an influx of new players who don’t know what they’re doing. Once people get the hang of things you’ll start seeing organized towns with nurseries and stirage again. Just give it more time.

Last edited by Korilian (2018-11-15 12:54:32)

rhiser · 2018-11-15 13:26:00

Tramax wrote:

Everything listed is sadly by design, and time and time again Jason has not budged on those topics.
Which is fair and I both respect and agree with them to a decent extent. A fair few players want what you are talking about - but this is why the game's open source! So you can get together and make a private server with those improvements!

Indeed, the whole nature of the game is based on small improvements for colonies and optimized techniques for players learned from each passing life, I believe some curators have described the game as a "human evolution simulation" which I agree with to some extent, as the life of one particular person doesn't often carry much value to society as whole.
Cumulative efforts are needed, thus emphasizing the ridiculous harshness of the survival aspect of the game, and hence the pleasure derived from succeeding.

Asgarnian · 2018-11-15 13:38:48

Well sadly the game like this needs a critical mass of people to play before it get's interesting so modding the game and trying to gather enough players to play on such a server doesn't seem very viable. Would be better of making a similar game from scratch probably lol

gabal · 2018-11-15 16:00:08

There is already a heavily modded version of the game called 2 hours one life where some of your suggestions are implemented. Or so I heard, I haven't played it myself but there is definitely a male parent needed in vicinity for a baby spawning to happen.

birth control I don't agree with your views as it will needlessly complicate things but I see where you are coming from. Abandoning babies is already a method of family planing (cruel one I admit) and it makes you appreciate those lives where you get capable parent and a thriving village where you don't have to focus solely on eating.

inventory with aprons and backpacks you already have a personal inventory system. If you put 3 things in a basket and fill a chest with four such baskets you can get 12 items on a single square. Maybe I'm a bit biased as I remember the times when items didn't stack at all and the fact that we can now stack plates still makes me happy when I see it. Items stacking is the way forward and I hope we'll get more such options in the future. I really hope we'll get ability to stack mutton next or at least place it into basket.

typing capacity I don't think present system prevents communication. Actually, I find it great how game system made teenagers have to use abbreviations to express themselves and elders can drone on and on.

denriguez · 2018-11-15 18:42:54

gabal wrote:

Maybe I'm a bit biased as I remember the times when items didn't stack at all and the fact that we can now stack plates still makes me happy when I see it. Items stacking is the way forward and I hope we'll get more such options in the future. I really hope we'll get ability to stack mutton next or at least place it into basket.

This is unrelated but I'm imagining a group of prehistoric scientists diligently studying item stacking technology.

Starknight_One · 2018-11-15 18:49:34

denriguez wrote:

gabal wrote:
Maybe I'm a bit biased as I remember the times when items didn't stack at all and the fact that we can now stack plates still makes me happy when I see it. Items stacking is the way forward and I hope we'll get more such options in the future. I really hope we'll get ability to stack mutton next or at least place it into basket.
This is unrelated but I'm imagining a group of prehistoric scientists diligently studying item stacking technology.

Test number 1: flat rock does not stack on top of stone
Test number 11: flat rock does not stack on top of berry bush
Test number 111: flat rock does not stack on top of rattlesnake, lab assistant dead

--- text of a stone tablet found in Mesopotamia

Last edited by Starknight_One (2018-11-15 18:50:12)

CrazyEddie · 2018-11-15 19:05:44

I think it's utterly ridiculous and frustrating that 50% of the time you are born to an eve or a foraging mother in the middle of nowhere and they just leave you there to die... and then another 20% of time you're born in a village where they dislike boys and/or have too many babies and they take you away to die. If we're trying to play the "I was this kid born in this situation, but I eventually grew up." - according to game description then every kid should be wanted instead of 70% of kids being discarded.

Jason has said several times that he wants babies to be seen as precious.

This is NOT happening, and it's become even worse with the influx of newbies. Babies are seen as a burden - which they are - so much so that most of your spawns are simply a waste of everyone's time as your mother throws you away and you sit there waiting to die. This is monumentally frustrating for the players, and runs directly counter to one of Jason's design goals ("babies are precious").

Increase the baby cooldown. Make babies less of a burden by having fewer of them at once. Make babies more precious by having fewer of them in each generation. Make spawning less frustrating and wasteful by increasing the chances of being born into a family that doesn't have too many babies already.

When the playerbase is more experienced and can better handle a baby boom, start shortening the cooldown again.

CrazyEddie · 2018-11-15 19:14:38

Note that having fewer baby spawns necessarily means that there will be more Eve spawns.

Jason once pointed out that having too many Eve spawns is a problem. He used an example like: if there are 30 players on a server and three Eves, each town will have ten players. But if there are ten Eves, then each camp will have three players, and that's not enough to sustain a town so the towns will all die. But boy, let me tell you, right now that is NOT an issue. The servers are littered with failed Eve camps and it's not because they didn't have enough people to sustain a town. It's because they had TOO MANY BABIES for the skill level of the current playerbase. Fewer babies and more Eves is exactly what the game needs right now - specifically, more Eves who have fewer babies and therefore have more of a chance to explore and discover and learn and practice.

PeaGirl · 2018-11-15 21:10:50

Starknight_One wrote:

denriguez wrote:
gabal wrote:
Maybe I'm a bit biased as I remember the times when items didn't stack at all and the fact that we can now stack plates still makes me happy when I see it. Items stacking is the way forward and I hope we'll get more such options in the future. I really hope we'll get ability to stack mutton next or at least place it into basket.
This is unrelated but I'm imagining a group of prehistoric scientists diligently studying item stacking technology.
Test number 1: flat rock does not stack on top of stone
Test number 11: flat rock does not stack on top of berry bush
Test number 111: flat rock does not stack on top of rattlesnake, lab assistant dead
--- text of a stone tablet found in Mesopotamia

Oh my god, this is so rich! XD

But yeah, I think your thought is cool, but after 10 hours you can't yet call yourself "experienced". It will take you some time and getting used to before you can say what you wish. Personally, things go much more smoother the more you adapt to things, items, tricks and guides, and follow them and do your own testing and item management and improve your efficiency to the point you do more than at least 3 other players. Farms tend to be very messy at beginning because there are players everywhere dropping and picking up stuff and forgetting to stack their bowls for others.
Also, females have sort of birth control going on by "/die" function, this allows them to block the player from their birthlist, and after at least 2-3 /die commands female will likely only give birth to 3-4 babies at time, though their decision is if they will let them stay or not.
Not to mention, we are in state when new people from steam are playing this alongside you. This community we had before steam was at least 40-100 at min max, now it is almost 300 in peak hours, and you can tell what that does to villages. Lot of items, either lost or found, lot of commotion and of course, lot of drama. Perhaps for my own experience, this will cause me headache when every female is little guilty for being either baby cannon or too efficient for their own good in generation continuing, but overtime, you all, also will end up advancing in your own time.

Edit: Oh yeah, talk about harsh cruelty of child abandonement and whole evolution process. At least you know you are doing good for town when you run away from towns that are overpopulated for a small camp, or willingly do your very best to save a family from exctinction by being their last fertile girl available. It's harsh survival because it will test our instincts to the whole limit, our memory in remembering where everything is (and remembering your bag space or apron space, giving dangerous units like knifes or arrows to younger generation inside them, not barely in your hand, god's sake!), and of course, coordinative teamplay with total strangers. You don't seem to like it, but that is like one hour of brain exercise to me (as long as there is food for character, ofc)!

I have been that "Hope" girl way too often, but with hard working member aside you do miracles for big town, but it would be slow without sidekicks.

Last edited by PeaGirl (2018-11-15 21:17:58)

MultiLife · 2018-11-15 21:17:57

CrazyEddie wrote:

I think it's utterly ridiculous and frustrating that 50% of the time you are born to an eve or a foraging mother in the middle of nowhere and they just leave you there to die... and then another 20% of time you're born in a village where they dislike boys and/or have too many babies and they take you away to die. If we're trying to play the "I was this kid born in this situation, but I eventually grew up." - according to game description then every kid should be wanted instead of 70% of kids being discarded.
Jason has said several times that he wants babies to be seen as precious.
This is NOT happening, and it's become even worse with the influx of newbies. Babies are seen as a burden - which they are - so much so that most of your spawns are simply a waste of everyone's time as your mother throws you away and you sit there waiting to die. This is monumentally frustrating for the players, and runs directly counter to one of Jason's design goals ("babies are precious").

Wow, I didn't even know/realize he is after that. In one thread, he said having a child should make you do sacrifices, like really work hard on the child, and that's why we don't get baby slings. But when I, the player, am not making the conscious choice of getting a child, I see no interest in making sacrifices for one. Yeah, babies are plentiful and I feel no sadness when abandoning them. It's an adult on the other side, it's a game. It will never feel like real life; I will never see an in-game baby as something precious or love them like I would love my real child in real life.
I barely even get to build relationships with people in-game due to the whole speech limitation. Nobody has the energy to converse when their sentences cut so short, so we rather not do that, which is a shame. I have mentioned it before but if you make communication hinder your survival (in-game seconds matter, you lose food when conversing so it must be kept to minimum), it won't have room to develop relationships in the game.

Back to babies. Babies in real life are precious as they are your own and you made them with a loved one, deciding to take upon this challenge. They are innocent, blank canvas which is eager to be with you and learn from you. I always hear about the amazing emotion you feel when you get your child. But.
Very different thing in the game. In the game, they are adults. They are not innocent, they are not yours, you did not try to get them to happen. As long as mothers pop children out without the player's consent, they will most certainly be seen as burdens, at least most of the time. Also, it's just the mother who is making sacrifices here, not being able to work or run to the wilderness due to babies (well, I still do, rebelling against these sacrifices forced upon me). Meanwhile men shrug, enjoying their childless lives, doing whatever without having to glance at a baby.

Huh, now that I think about it... I haven't been a woman yet since the Steam release.

Last edited by MultiLife (2018-11-15 21:23:12)

West · 2018-11-15 21:20:02

Isnt the /die command only for babies?
I never tried using it as a mother, so idk.

PeaGirl · 2018-11-15 21:32:32

West wrote:

Isnt the /die command only for babies?
I never tried using it as a mother, so idk.

I was just referring it to those smart babies who use /die command. I wish mothers could just do that and make baby bones just -pop- dissapear.

CrazyEddie · 2018-11-15 23:32:06

MultiLife wrote:

Yeah, babies are plentiful and I feel no sadness when abandoning them. It's an adult on the other side, it's a game. It will never feel like real life; I will never see an in-game baby as something precious or love them like I would love my real child in real life.
I barely even get to build relationships with people in-game due to the whole speech limitation.

When I play, I have a sense of internal role-playing, like I really am an abandoned baby, like I really am having a baby and trying to keep something precious alive. Even the tiny bit of verbal interactions between players that we get ("I love you, mom" etc) reinforces those feelings. It's minimalist, but it fits with what I think Jason is trying to do with this game - make it feel like you are a small part in a big picture, with a limited view of the past or the future, knowing only what you know and doing only what you can in a single short life. Not everyone is going to feel that way, and that's fine, nobody has to. But it's working for me.

I think it would work even better if there was a way to make babies more practically valued and not just sentimentally valued.

pein · 2018-11-16 06:51:10

well, part of the charm is that you never know

i generally leave kids if i run with one, as i would need maneuvers with two and if they don't understand without saying i waste a lot of time, food and i pissmyself off, sometimes i even leave the bigger one if makes mistakes and choose the smaller one
i warn them once not to move, but every time a kid is pissing me off during early ages, turns out to be a moron (combining everything with no question) , a griefer (searching for weapons and killing others, doing dumb stuff intentionally), runs into swamp with no food and i spent 3 min so she can die in 1.
eventually people learn it, survive, or similar level people adopt them, and tat totally fine, slow perception, nobody know who made the errors, etc.

he even told that wants to make it harder, not easier, a child should be a sacrifice
now people see that tiny cute helpless thing, and they cant let it die, even if they are told not to
so choosing not to have or not to have so many would be good, not toal control, but some form of enhance or disabling, a plant with minimal nutrition but special effect like shrooms, this wouldn't suely work but would push into right direction and it would need skill and time to affect it

milkweed nerf, destroyable boxes, decaying baskets
lot of people still wont make stuff cause it decays also others just steal ropes and thread to make useless stuff with it
and lot of people cant just comprehend the things around them and until they don't starve a few times by not finding empty tiles wont realize their importance
we need a buff, but this is also a skill question

speech is kinda hard, i reckon, with zoomout mod i catch the big texts from afar but generally is just annoying to move to see what the others say, notes need no skill and a lot of dumb messages, letters ae way to expensive cause jason tried to make them more realistically made, but they are inferior to notes if its about content, the visibility and the collective power to maintain, defend and correct a sign still makes it more useful generally but its just so much time to make it

Starknight_One · 2018-11-16 07:58:46

pein wrote:

he even told that wants to make it harder, not easier, a child should be a sacrifice
now people see that tiny cute helpless thing, and they cant let it die, even if they are told not to
so choosing not to have or not to have so many would be good, not toal control, but some form of enhance or disabling, a plant with minimal nutrition but special effect like shrooms, this wouldn't suely work but would push into right direction and it would need skill and time to affect it

Something like pennyroyal, then. (It's a natural abortifacient/menstrual flow starter.) In RL, it can cause miscarriages (but seems to be too toxic to reliably induce abortion without damage to the mother). In OHOL, it could give you a guaranteed 5 minutes of birth cooldown, perhaps? In order to make it not simple (because simple birth control would make things too easy), let's say it needs to be picked... dried... crushed in a bowl... water added... boiled to make tea. A female who drinks it gets her birth cooldown activated (if it wasn't before), and the duration set to maximum. If this means you miss out on the child that could have saved your line, well, it was your choice.

CrazyEddie · 2018-11-16 08:31:47

No one is going to use birth control even if Jason adds it, because it will always be easier to simply not feed your children.

pein · 2018-11-16 11:32:40

CrazyEddie wrote:

No one is going to use birth control even if Jason adds it, because it will always be easier to simply not feed your children.

all those moms who could choose not to have, keep them cause they already there
if i could block babies i would most of times, either after having one or at all

lets start from the point that most good moms who can sustain a family are working
there is no choice having a baby or not, and no punishment losing one
should reward certain actions and punish the ones who don't know this actions

the babies could be malnourished, meaning they are smaller and weaker for longer
a good mom would be the one who keeps the baby ward, has good yum bonus and is full
i think overeating should be punished by having more babies, this is understandable action if you want a baby, a yum chain could further increase this behavior but would need a certain item/food which activates it

you should feed the baby often, keep it warm
not doing so the baby would have certain problems after birth, walking very slow, cant speak properly, his food bars disabled for a few minutes, but if you would keep it warm, and you got good yum, the kid would get a part of your yum bonus
so if a female would stand in fire, waiting a baby, surrounded by many types of food, could have a chance to raise a baby faster than one who cant control temperature and has no yum bonus

yum is only necessary on low end i think where you got no high filling foods, and totally irrelevant for a fully clothed person with pies, sure is nice but mostly rp from the point where you work 10 minutes for 1 extra yum
but to not punish yummers, add a deactivator if they don't want kids yet

the activator should be something expensive
the city just had a famine , you fixed some stuff, but you need new baby. some sort of not too high tech but long process

the deactivator should be a type of food which is cheap, fast growing, needs no soil or water so by making it, you could stop a famine for the cost of blocking babies for a while, no force feeding, the female could decide it if wants less or more

Elsayal · 2018-11-16 12:26:48

I can't read that much. You could resume it mb.

mx_owl · 2018-11-16 20:16:16

CrazyEddie wrote:

Fewer babies and more Eves is exactly what the game needs right now - specifically, more Eves who have fewer babies and therefore have more of a chance to explore and discover and learn and practice.

As a new player, this is exactly my issue and why I had to set up a private server to practice on my own time. I have had multiple lives where I literally spawned WITH a baby. And all of my Eves have gotten killed by frantically trying to take care of kids, even when I'm disposing 2/3 of them. I hate doing that, since I know how much it sucks on the other end. It also often doesn't work, since the babies will return if I don't take them far enough away (doing so risks me starving or the camp starving while I'm gone) and other kids will feed them, even though I've said not to. It's hard psychologically to abandon a baby, even on a game.

Granted, I've only been playing since the Steam release, but the farthest I've been able to get as an Eve is making the adobe kiln, and that was with all the kids doing their job and fetching me things. We ended up dying anyway because once my daughter grew up, the influx of babies was too much to handle. Even on a private server, the game is designed so you can't advance easily without other player hepl, so I can only practice so much.

This is a really frustrating experience. It makes me feel like I am continually failing, since I literally cannot explore and learn before my feet are held to the fires of taking care of others. Of the few towns I've been born into, in all but one I spent my life fetching dirt and trying to stave off berry collapse.

I really, really like this game, but I'm already feeling like I'm hitting a plateau where I can't amass enough actual game experience to progress past the stoneage. Having to use mods or set up a private server to partially overcome difficulties is not a great path forward. And I know some of this will get better with time, as players themselves get better, but that doesn't take care of the frustration of that steep learning curve or make it easier for the next wave of noobs.

Just my two cents.

Tarr · 2018-11-16 20:33:24

mx_owl wrote:

CrazyEddie wrote:
Fewer babies and more Eves is exactly what the game needs right now - specifically, more Eves who have fewer babies and therefore have more of a chance to explore and discover and learn and practice.
As a new player, this is exactly my issue and why I had to set up a private server to practice on my own time. I have had multiple lives where I literally spawned WITH a baby. And all of my Eves have gotten killed by frantically trying to take care of kids, even when I'm disposing 2/3 of them. I hate doing that, since I know how much it sucks on the other end. It also often doesn't work, since the babies will return if I don't take them far enough away (doing so risks me starving or the camp starving while I'm gone) and other kids will feed them, even though I've said not to. It's hard psychologically to abandon a baby, even on a game.
Granted, I've only been playing since the Steam release, but the farthest I've been able to get as an Eve is making the adobe kiln, and that was with all the kids doing their job and fetching me things. We ended up dying anyway because once my daughter grew up, the influx of babies was too much to handle. Even on a private server, the game is designed so you can't advance easily without other player hepl, so I can only practice so much.
This is a really frustrating experience. It makes me feel like I am continually failing, since I literally cannot explore and learn before my feet are held to the fires of taking care of others. Of the few towns I've been born into, in all but one I spent my life fetching dirt and trying to stave off berry collapse.
I really, really like this game, but I'm already feeling like I'm hitting a plateau where I can't amass enough actual game experience to progress past the stoneage. Having to use mods or set up a private server to partially overcome difficulties is not a great path forward. And I know some of this will get better with time, as players themselves get better, but that doesn't take care of the frustration of that steep learning curve or make it easier for the next wave of noobs.
Just my two cents.

The thing is playing as Eve is one of the harder things you can do in game. Unfortunately due to how spawns and what not work a lot of new players get dumped as Eves and proceed to flop around struggling to survive what so ever. The key to becoming good at Eve lives is knowing the exact things you need each step of the way.

8 straight branches (three for the basic tools of hatchet, snare, fire bowdrill) two for tongs, one for making fire and moving fire, then lastly one for the hammer and the last one for axe.
5+ curved branches or other branches for kindling. One of these are needed for fire bow.
2+ iron. You want to be able to smith your hammer + axe as early as possible.
1 rabbit. Used for bone needle and bellows.
6-7 clay. Make three plates, four bowls (and a clay nozzle) extra clay bowl is for someone to farm with.
1+ skewers. Original skewer is needed for skewering the bunny and making the nozzle. Other skewers are for farming.
4 adobe. Used to make the forge + the cover for forge.
3 flat rocks. Used for smithing on top of. Add a fourth for cooking eggs if you'd like.
14 milkweed. 12 for rope, one for thread.
3 rope. These are used for the basic tools (hatchet/snare/drill)
1 thread. Used in making the bellows.

Once you have the mental checklist altered to your personal preference it comes down to practice. A good way to practice is to see how quickly you can get yourself out of the bonus area in the tutorial. I've personally had to do it plenty as my Eve spawn frequently gets trapped inside so I've had plenty of practice with this sort of thing.

Just keep trying and eventually you'll be an Eve pro in no time.

Edit: forgot to include the milkweed/thread/rope part.

Last edited by Tarr (2018-11-16 20:57:02)

mx_owl · 2018-11-16 20:54:05

Tarr wrote:

The key to becoming good at Eve lives is knowing the exact things you need each step of the way.
...

Thanks for the list -- that's really helpful! I find I spend most of my time as an Eve, because of the baby boom making excess kids an issue, so my focus is on trying to make stable Eve camps. And I'm definitely going to keep at it. This is a really fun game, despite the steep learning curve. I generally dislike multiplayer games, but this one makes it genuinely worthwhile.

Lily · 2018-11-16 21:53:52

A long time ago I made the suggestion that an Eve should start two or three years younger so they can't have children right away, and it was like the most upvoted thread on the reddit page but the idea still got ignored. I think that would really help Eve, it is only two or three minutes without having a child but that is a huge impact. Having children before your screen even finish loading is crazy.

I also agree children come way too quickly later on as well. People abandon children so quickly because they know it is typically to have 5-8 children, so losing the first 4 isn't even a big deal. I think if you had slightly fewer children, people would focus more on taking care and teacher each one. Which they also would have more time to focus on that as well.

I was playing earlier and I was trying to teach my kids stuff, but I kept popping out new ones so I couldn't teach anyone more than basic things, before having to start over to teach the new kid.

Starknight_One · 2018-11-16 23:17:26

Lily wrote:

A long time ago I made the suggestion that an Eve should start two or three years younger so they can't have children right away, and it was like the most upvoted thread on the reddit page but the idea still got ignored. I think that would really help Eve, it is only two or three minutes without having a child but that is a huge impact. Having children before your screen even finish loading is crazy.
I also agree children come way too quickly later on as well. People abandon children so quickly because they know it is typically to have 5-8 children, so losing the first 4 isn't even a big deal. I think if you had slightly fewer children, people would focus more on taking care and teacher each one. Which they also would have more time to focus on that as well.
I was playing earlier and I was trying to teach my kids stuff, but I kept popping out new ones so I couldn't teach anyone more than basic things, before having to start over to teach the new kid.

Again... this is a bubble.

It wasn't that bad before Steam launch... mainly because the players were experienced. (Well, most of them. And they put up with my noobish behind.) As the current players get better at surviving, they'll start figuring out things they were doing that were wrong, and correcting themselves. Or they won't, and we'll have a war over it (which is what some of them seem to want... this isn't Crusader Kings, people)!

Having Eve start at 12 instead of 15 might not be a bad plan, actually... it would give you a couple of minutes to get your feet under you before you had to worry about a child coming along. Of course, given some of my recent Eve runs, it wouldn't matter... it's not like I found any food in the first few minutes anyway! You'd have to deal with a smaller food bar to start with, naturally, but I think that's an acceptable trade-off.

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