Do we need more balancing?

Booklat1 · 2018-11-23 16:49:10

Iron is currently quite rare (specially as mines are concerned), food too easy to obtain and water finally has reached a point where it might run out even with somewhat efficient management. I also haven't seem bells for a while, which of course makes it much harder for big towns ro be repopulated after dying.

The new map has obviously changed a lot of stuff about the base economy of the game while easing the food pressure in many stages of civilization. I'm worried we're again in a time without worries, without a reason to rush. Iron nerfing has been utterly countered by the additions of jungles, turkeys, fishing. Is it time for a nerf to the invisible food bonus? For those that don't know, all foods have a base value and an additional bonus of two, given by the server. Berries, for example would give a mere 3 without the bonus.

I don't think we should get rid of the bonus entirely, as it would murder most eves and completely overhaul food economy, but we might be ready for making the +2 a +1. Of course, it might give us need for some extra ballancing, specially in more wild food that are either ready or easy to consume, stuff like burdock and carrots, maybe like eggs too, would be the most optimal, I think. This way when the easy wild food runs out you wont be able to rely on berry farms unless you want to grab/make a lot of soil and spend a bunch of water.

This opens space for:
Actual consumption of iron reserves without needing to nerf tools (through higher soil and shovel demand)
More water suppy upgrades, as we'll get less food per water
An actual need to search for iron after the tenth or something ore/after finding a mine.
A push for eating wild food like eggs, turkeys, fish and rabbits, all better designed than bananas.

Of course, nothing of this works if bananas are so common and renewable to the point its better to be naked in the jungle with mosquitoes than clothed and hunting some neat mouflon. Jungles have changed the map for much better, but bananas are just too much.

lionon · 2018-11-23 17:19:58

I've been a last (male) person of a village only once. But IMO it was simply a generation of stupid babies / girls that all killed themselves. I suppose this is still the major stopper of most civs.

Floofy · 2018-11-23 17:24:32

lionon wrote:

I've been a last (male) person of a village only once. But IMO it was simply a generation of stupid babies / girls that all killed themselves. I suppose this is still the major stopper of most civs.

You are 110% right. People literally die NEXT TO FOOD.
That or, competent mothers get bad rng and gets no daughters (or only stupid ones).

Morti · 2018-11-23 18:10:30

Floofy wrote:

People literally die NEXT TO FOOD.

I almost always die next to food, well, except now with the yellow fever to mentally calculate, but in the last week, it's mostly been, about, 40% Yellow fever and 40% starvation, with maybe 20% being a combination of both along with other factors.

I'm always trying to be as efficient as possible.

I am always calculating temperature vs food.

As much as I want 100% food from every bite, to reduce the amount of food wasted, in turn reducing soil, water and iron wasted, I don't always calculate temp and the food meter's drop rate right.

Almost every time I starve, it comes down to split second timing, and I'm just on the wrong side of the split.

CrazyEddie · 2018-11-23 19:38:38

Everyone's entitled to play the way they want to, but IMHO that's a pretty crazy way to play. Reserves - which in one sense are "wasted" capacity - are valuable for a reason. Dying due to lack of reserves is also wasteful.

arkajalka · 2018-11-23 19:45:34

Morti wrote:

Floofy wrote:
People literally die NEXT TO FOOD.
I almost always die next to food, well, except now with the yellow fever to mentally calculate, but in the last week, it's mostly been, about, 40% Yellow fever and 40% starvation, with maybe 20% being a combination of both along with other factors.
I'm always trying to be as efficient as possible.
I am always calculating temperature vs food.
As much as I want 100% food from every bite, to reduce the amount of food wasted, in turn reducing soil, water and iron wasted, I don't always calculate temp and the food meter's drop rate right.
Almost every time I starve, it comes down to split second timing, and I'm just on the wrong side of the split.

you can dodge the yellow fever deaths by being naked. Wearing clothes kills you solo if you get the fever. Naked nomad is the new meta.

Booklat1 · 2018-11-23 19:47:58

CrazyEddie wrote:

Everyone's entitled to play the way they want to, but IMHO that's a pretty crazy way to play. Reserves - which in one sense are "wasted" capacity - are valuable for a reason. Dying due to lack of reserves is also wasteful.

it's not just reserves if does replenish. Currently we simply can't run out of food. it's not like the 60/70 players in each server are all in the same place.

MultiLife · 2018-11-24 16:08:50

This game desperately needs balancing for sure. I haven't had much motivation to play now that it's just banana eating simulator. Was it nerfed yet?
But yeah if one thinks about it, the amount of things to balance is huge. I felt that there was a really nice balance before the 2nd iron nerf (yes iron veins needed a nerf those times tho') and survival was demanding but rewarding.

I still have hard time trying to understand what exactly is this game aiming to be. It feels like it shifts around without any true goals, just adding random things that flip the difficulty of the game on its head. I guess this is what happens without a designer behind a game. It's interesting nonetheless.

Anyways, most balancing problems stem from issues regarding RNG. Randomness of numbers affect resources that are needed but can't be manipulated by players. I can't drill for oil or water to make watering systems or keep torches going. I can't plant all trees, just some. I can't dig a mine unless RNG allows me to by spawning a vein. I can't affect how much faster or better a farm produces, there is no developing existing produce. I can't make "steroid" milkweed or find alternative ways to make ropes. It's perhaps somewhere in the future but I dunno if that happens due to the vision of the game being so blurry and confusing.
At times Jason says this is what we get and modern days we just have entertainment (thus we got cards for gambling), how there won't be farm bots etc... he doesn't seem to want anything regarding attracting a mate... so what is there going to be is beyond me.

Tarr · 2018-11-24 16:56:43

MultiLife wrote:

This game desperately needs balancing for sure. I haven't had much motivation to play now that it's just banana eating simulator. Was it nerfed yet?
But yeah if one thinks about it, the amount of things to balance is huge. I felt that there was a really nice balance before the 2nd iron nerf (yes iron veins needed a nerf those times tho') and survival was demanding but rewarding.

I personally feel like the game is at its weakest points when we have food issues like these. What is the point of doing anything when food is so bountiful with zero effort? There are so many jobs related to making different kids of foods and using food to continue making more food but bananas make all this stuff meaningless.

Why should I make pies when the village can survive off our rng bananas? Why compost? Why make yum foods? Why anything? Iron + bananas both really need to be balanced I understand Jason is trying to make the "perfect" biome but does the jungle add anything to this game? If anything the jungle has made the game worse (except cart upgrades, those are pretty cool.)

MultiLife wrote:

I still have hard time trying to understand what exactly is this game aiming to be. It feels like it shifts around without any true goals, just adding random things that flip the difficulty of the game on its head. I guess this is what happens without a designer behind a game. It's interesting nonetheless.

Yeah he seemingly doesn't stick to boiling the frog. We're either boiling the frog, boiling a cat (changes something randomly), or we're putting the pot into the freezer (making things easier).

MultiLife wrote:

Anyways, most balancing problems stem from issues regarding RNG. Randomness of numbers affect resources that are needed but can't be manipulated by players. I can't drill for oil or water to make watering systems or keep torches going. I can't plant all trees, just some. I can't dig a mine unless RNG allows me to by spawning a vein. I can't affect how much faster or better a farm produces, there is no developing existing produce. I can't make "steroid" milkweed or find alternative ways to make ropes. It's perhaps somewhere in the future but I dunno if that happens due to the vision of the game being so blurry and confusing.
At times Jason says this is what we get and modern days we just have entertainment (thus we got cards for gambling), how there won't be farm bots etc... he doesn't seem to want anything regarding attracting a mate... so what is there going to be is beyond me.

Yeah the RNG can be a real nightmare at times. Giant badlands around? Prepare for either no iron, one or two, or a lot of iron. It's nice that some of the rng can be fixed late game with tree planting but if you didn't have enough ponds at the start you're doomed anyways.

Buff mosquitoes (again)
Buff iron
Nerf bananas
Nerf jungles.

Make OHOL Fun Again.

Anshin · 2018-11-24 19:25:52

The game is currently a banana eating simulator because there's not enough iron to craft anything else and water now is too scarce.

Return iron to previous levels. Replace some of the banana trees with ponds.
Simple as that.

It's been said many many times before in many many threads.

Last edited by Anshin (2018-11-24 19:26:28)

MultiLife · 2018-11-24 20:40:17

Yeah.

Well, the best thing for a balance would be that Jason explains what his end vision is for this game. With that, we would know how the game should unfold and where the difficulties lie. Then we could make suggestions how to make the challenges demanding but rewarding and fun, while lessening the bad part of RNG.

Let's say Jason wants that Eves struggle with kids and fail 50% of the time. More harsh environments will do that. Then we could focus on environments that are harsh until the players have developed tools to make it more suitable for living (like ponds are plentiful but dry out fast, tech pressures to get a drill to be able to survive. Or ground is hard and low in nutrients so digging and tilling with larger tools is the biggest hurdle).
Let's say Jason also wants that there is a bottleneck in big towns to cities phase. Disease would be great with that. Medicine must be developed in time before the big town falls over - make it or break it for the "city stage".
Let's say Jason wants cities to die due to bad organization or poor upkeep. Corpses add to disease, decay turns hazarduous, people get into accidents more, farmlands kill land unless moved around. Food processing becomes a must with more than xx people. Breakthroughs for super soil needed, plant diseases spread... lots of stuff could happen. Maybe a well producing crop turns weaker with time (selective breeding/farming), so people need pesticides or the town/city loses it.

This would already help defining the challenges and being aware what stages of development would be affected.

I think what was learnt with iron nerf is that a hasty RNG tweak can cause a bottleneck in the wrong place. Jason wanted to pressure the players with iron, but the pressure dropped onto Gen 1-10 area which is already a tough place (well, was, I guess. Now we have bananas). Meanwhile gen 11-35 have no more pressure than before as they got mines and horses already for finding more veins and making more mines.

Last edited by MultiLife (2018-11-25 10:32:46)

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#1 2018-11-23 16:49:10

Do we need more balancing?

#2 2018-11-23 17:19:58

Re: Do we need more balancing?

#3 2018-11-23 17:24:32

Re: Do we need more balancing?

#4 2018-11-23 18:10:30

Re: Do we need more balancing?

#5 2018-11-23 19:38:38

Re: Do we need more balancing?

#6 2018-11-23 19:45:34

Re: Do we need more balancing?

#7 2018-11-23 19:47:58

Re: Do we need more balancing?

#8 2018-11-24 16:08:50

Re: Do we need more balancing?

#9 2018-11-24 16:56:43

Re: Do we need more balancing?

#10 2018-11-24 19:25:52

Re: Do we need more balancing?

#11 2018-11-24 20:40:17

Re: Do we need more balancing?

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