Is it good that rope is rare and hard to get?

futurebird · 2019-03-09 14:55:03

4 milkweed plants for each rope, you must lay the soil, hoe it, plant water, save seeds for the future and go through the stress of knowing what you plant will likely be stolen by someone who will use it for thread when you have shears and sheep and a drop spindle.

Really, the milkweed farms are all about the rope. I think it's good to make them in to rope right away to avoid the string issue. But, rope, after backpacks and knives is one of the most grabbed items in the game. It can be used to make carts and weapons, it can be used to get horses and it's used in construction.

Why is there a bottleneck at the milkweed farm?

How do you manage this issue in your gameplay?

Is the rarity of rope something that you think should be changed? Or is is keeping the game balanced.

My idea:

2 milkweed = 1 thread
and one more milkweed to that and get a rope. add one more for a lasso.
So, only 3 milkweed needed for rope, and 4 for the lasso.

But maybe I'm just asking for the game to be easier in a way that would make it less fun.

Psykout · 2019-03-09 15:03:31

I have always had a problem with rope. It is really damn expensive to make and it gets exhausted naturally fairly quickly. Cultivating it takes a fair bit of soil and water which during food shortages not advised. Often will see people make stone hoes when there is plenty of skewers around which is a real drag.

My idea:
Wild Milkweed
4/per rope as is right now
Harvest is the stalk

Cultivated Milkweed
2/per rope
Harvest is thread

Starting off would be the same, but when you start to grow it gets a little cheaper to use.

breezeknight · 2019-03-09 15:16:33

Is it good that rope is rare and hard to get?

no it isn't at all

that's why i suggested already hemp for rope
if that's too tricky then at least linen or cotton, which can be cultivated in a similar way as berries or at least carrots

But maybe I'm just asking for the game to be easier in a way that would make it less fun.

i am asking the game to be more diversified in options
one way makes it boring

- - -

Last edited by breezeknight (2019-03-09 15:18:23)

Starknight_One · 2019-03-09 15:20:09

Textiles are backwards. You spin fiber into yarn, then continue spinning it to get thread in the real world; you don't make thread and then bundle it into yarn.

A sheep fleece should make a large ball of yarn; cut with shears to get two small balls; use drop spindle again to get a large ball of thread, which can be cut to make two of the current balls of thread. That makes 4 balls of thread from one fleece, which is far more true to reality than only getting a small ball of thread from one fleece and having to use the wool of six sheep to make a sweater!

Regular milkweed should give one stalk, no seeds. Flowering milkweed should give two stalks, no seeds (one in hand, one on the ground). Fruiting works as it currently does, one stalk and seeds. This would give a meaningful gameplay choice - if I have enough seeds, I can plant and pick while flowering to get more rope... but if I need seeds, I'll have to let them fruit.

One stalk, cut with a flint chip, could provide string. Two stalks combined together make a rope, and two ropes for a lasso as normal. That would ease the pressure a bit on milkweed supplies, while not making it too easy. You'd still need to farm milkweed for the tools you need in camp. Like your suggestion, this would result in needing 4 milkweed for a lasso, but only 2 for a rope and 1 for string.

An alternate would be to do the following:
one stalk cut with flint = string (1 milkweed)
string + string = cord* (2 milkweed)
cord + string = rope (3 milkweed)
rope + rope = lasso (6 milkweed)

*Cord would be used in place of rope for the following items: tied long shaft, tied short shaft, bow, bow drill, bucket (possibly others on a case by case basis).

Tarr · 2019-03-09 15:22:10

Best ways to get rope is to get a cart with a few buckets of water, hoe, basket, and a bowl. Go find a big patch of wild soil and grow there instead of trying to grow in a normal area around the city. This allows you to mass grow milkweed without worry of someone coming over to waste it or makes sure you have a rather large supply. Your only other options are to make an airplane for tutorial raids (best choice if you can do) or just make compost for growing milkweed at home (worst choice.)

Last edited by Tarr (2019-03-09 16:33:12)

SirCaio · 2019-03-09 15:30:13

Getting rope is a pain in the back side for me! As you said, if you try to plant it you'll have to sit around WAITING for it to grow (wich is pretty bad for a game where you have limited time) because you KNOW it's going to get stolen. The simplest solution I can think of is milkweed generally giving two stalks (since it literally has two stalks in the sprite) so we can produce rope two times faster and even stockpile it. And if that's too OP milkweed could always yield limited seeds...

DestinyCall · 2019-03-09 16:30:25

Tarr wrote:

Best ways to get rope is to get a cart with a few buckets of water, hoe, baskey, and a bowl. Go find a big patch of wild soil and grow there instead of trying to grow in a normal area around the city. This allows you to mass grow milkweed without worry of someone coming over to waste it or makes sure you have a rather large supply. Your only other options are to make an airplane for tutorial raids (best choice if you can do) or just make compost for growing milkweed at home (worst choice.)

That is a brilliant idea.

I've often made milkweed farms on the edge of town near unused ponds, but I never thought of the idea that I could just go WAY outside of town and find an untouched spot with dirt/water together. That would work so much better and not require any more effort to get started than a farm on the edge of town. Less incidental loss during my lifetime and the farm will still be there for other people to find after I die of old age. Depending on the resources available in the nearby grassland, you might not even need to bring a hoe. Skewers work quite well for tilling and you could even make a dual milkweed/sapling farm for future generations to profit from, if you were feeling really generous.

ryanb · 2019-03-09 16:52:13

I don’t think the thread or rope recipes should change because it is such a fundamental recipe that everyone knows.

I like the idea of planted milkweed growing more than one plant, just like one carrot seed grows multiple. This could grow two or three milkweed depending on how it should be balanced.

Alternatively we could craft a tool to convert milkweed into string/rope more efficiently. This would make interesting decisions about picking milkweed and converting it instantly or taking it back to base to be more efficient.

Last edited by ryanb (2019-03-09 16:53:52)

fragilityh14 · 2019-03-09 17:03:24

Usually, if you're willing to leave town and go gathering it isn't that picked out even a biome over. But as Tarr said, if you run over somewhere with a bowl, it's pretty easy to make a small milkweed farm.

Besides the stone hoe and stone axe most things that use rope don't get consumed/decay, i mean untipping your horsecart does, but you're generally in the wilds at that point. I think you get it back from most other uses, or its something permanent. Getting enough milkweed is rarely a major challenge. Though it is some work for sure.

i've definitely also been guilty of accidentally wasting it for string when there is a ball of thread around. I've just started camps so many times I'm used to it being the first thread. [also, if i bring an axe head with me to start a camp, i inevitably forget about it and make a stone hatchet anyway, just because i'm so in the habit of rushing to get fire.]

This doesn't relate to game play balance, but using milkweed as fiber was a weird decision in the first place.

futurebird · 2019-03-09 17:26:02

DestinyCall wrote:

Tarr wrote:
Best ways to get rope is to get a cart with a few buckets of water, hoe, baskey, and a bowl. Go find a big patch of wild soil and grow there instead of trying to grow in a normal area around the city. This allows you to mass grow milkweed without worry of someone coming over to waste it or makes sure you have a rather large supply. Your only other options are to make an airplane for tutorial raids (best choice if you can do) or just make compost for growing milkweed at home (worst choice.)
That is a brilliant idea.
I've often made milkweed farms on the edge of town near unused ponds, but I never thought of the idea that I could just go WAY outside of town and find an untouched spot with dirt/water together. That would work so much better and not require any more effort to get started than a farm on the edge of town. Less incidental loss during my lifetime and the farm will still be there for other people to find after I die of old age. Depending on the resources available in the nearby grassland, you might not even need to bring a hoe. Skewers work quite well for tilling and you could even make a dual milkweed/sapling farm for future generations to profit from, if you were feeling really generous.

IDK it's a lot of extra work and most of the stuff you grow isn't "wasted" it's just used for things that you weren't working on. I don't like the idea of hiding resources. If it's being used most of the time it needed to be used. The only real issue is people using milkweed for thread. That can be fixed by putting a ball of thread and needle near the garden and talking to people who are often delighted to learn that sheep give thread.

When I start feeling like I need to hide the stuff I'm making I start to wonder what the point is. You know? That could just be me though.

pein · 2019-03-10 06:28:11

if you feed lambs, compost, like 1 sheep, one compost, use up all the dung right away, you get a lot of soil
technically 4x more than started with, 25% of that compost goes back into compost making
then there is loss on carrots, overeating, baskets, hats (which need bread to be made cause its not part of the process)

i think is a bug that mashed berry-carrot doesn't give dung, or was it cause the pen was 2*4? not sure
stopping poop is ok

right now, especially if you got soil piles left, milkweed farming should be a full time job
but just as composting, charcoal making or plate collecting, is kinda boring to do, so people avoid it

not sure what it could change, i like the longer processes with higher rewards, stew was good, basically you just use a few resources, and put it left and right, and is satisfying end product

what people do: baking without gathering
using resources without scavenging
what newbies have: time
i don't see their time as a good resource most cases
even if they want to help, they are kinda useless
board cutting and egg cookign seems fine, but we kidna need more static jobs which generate profit in some way and not totally boring to do

to be fiar, milkweed was regrowing and pine walls and doors were adjusted to that
player skill was lower and people were amazed seeing 20 milkweed planted
if you harvested it with care, the profit was huge

not sure what could work, i think some potted plant with temporary milkweed stalks would be time consuming to watch it for a veteran but newbees near fire could do it

and some high end, high investment plant which makes rope making easier

my best way is to find a pond, possibly with a soil pile
further from camp but not too far
bucket is fine too but im ok with few ponds
then just make compost, and keep all things needed for that
actually i make lassos and cut it back to ropes, as people still making 10 bows, 10 snares without asking

arkajalka · 2019-03-10 07:28:09

As a nomad this "lack of milkweed" "hard to get" "huge soil sink" just sounds ridiculous to me. Honestly try roam few screens of the town centre and youll hit bag and basket full of ropes in no time.

Psykout · 2019-03-10 08:27:00

arkajalka wrote:

As a nomad this "lack of milkweed" "hard to get" "huge soil sink" just sounds ridiculous to me. Honestly try roam few screens of the town centre and youll hit bag and basket full of ropes in no time.

Not if you are in a town that has been hovering at poverty for awhile. It sometimes can take 3-5 minutes to find some milkweed if people have been already scavenging out farther. I have seen HUGE savannas without a single carrot in them because the town has been around too long without teching up. If cultivation does not occur they disappear at an alarming rate. I am not saying it's not possibly to find, but that it can start to take longer as time goes on. Especially if a lot of early rope waste like stone hoes happens in the camp, 5 snares etc. Yeah you can 99% of the time go out and find some, but that could take three to eight minutes. Five minutes late on catching a sheep to get compost going and a lot of people could potentially starve. Its not a game breaking thing, just a pretty hefty speed bump that has no late game tech work around. Rope is 4-12 soil bowls, 4-8 tool uses, 4 bowls of water, no matter what. Rope is pretty expensive, unless found naturally, but that bottoms out especially in a slightly unfavorable spawn.

breezeknight · 2019-03-10 08:51:16

ryanb wrote:

I don’t think the thread or rope recipes should change because it is such a fundamental recipe that everyone knows.
I like the idea of planted milkweed growing more than one plant, just like one carrot seed grows multiple. This could grow two or three milkweed depending on how it should be balanced.
Alternatively we could craft a tool to convert milkweed into string/rope more efficiently. This would make interesting decisions about picking milkweed and converting it instantly or taking it back to base to be more efficient.

plants don't work like that

what i like about OHOL is its reality alignment

therefore milkweed should stay where it is now & how it is now - a feeble, hard to use wild plant, which can be cultivated on a small scale but is hard to use still
cause if milkweed would be an actually good source for fiber, for thread & rope IRL then humans would have cultivated it & use it commercially, but since this is not the case, so there are indeed better alternatives

hemp is being used worldwide since its discovery as a main source for ropes, the more ropes were needed the more popular hemp became
it was replaced only for special usage which required even stronger ropes with steel ropes & then later with synthetic fibers made out of crude oil
but to this day, hemp is the main source for a certain quality needed from ropes, cause synthetic ropes have their disadvantages also

wikipedia wrote:

Common natural fibres for rope are manila hemp, hemp, linen, cotton, coir, jute, straw, and sisal.

so

hemp
linen
cotton
cocos (coir)
jute
straw
sisal

those are the actual plants which should give actual good ropes & which should be cultivated,
not milkweed

also the beauty of reality is there are more ways to obtain something, there are more sources, which give different qualities
this makes life interesting
one way, like now milkweed for rope, is making the game boring

it's already interesting that we can make thread from milkweed & from sheep wool !!!

- - -

Last edited by breezeknight (2019-03-10 08:52:04)

Amon · 2019-03-10 14:53:18

arkajalka wrote:

As a nomad this "lack of milkweed" "hard to get" "huge soil sink" just sounds ridiculous to me. Honestly try roam few screens of the town centre and youll hit bag and basket full of ropes in no time.

Towns already deplete natural resources around them, same for eve camps, and the path of destruction spreads outward and outward, beginner camps have the least destruction...obviously, but the older the location...further away and further away destruction spreads until simply going out to get more is not a solution and a waste of time and effort when simply making a farm is a good enough deal.

breezeknight · 2019-03-10 16:47:40

milkweed is the current most annoying thing in OHOL

next after that are sheep pens

- - -

Strilar · 2019-03-10 18:47:15

breezeknight wrote:

milkweed is the current most annoying thing in OHOL

next after that are sheep pens
- - -

I agree here... i love to be a gatherer in this game and bring lot's of stuff back to village, yet almost every of my lives, i hit a roadblock every
time for the same reason: lack of ropes!

So for the past month or so, whenever i have kids, i tell them: "every single life, we always lack ropes" and been spending all my time in game just trying to either get clothes or to make milkweed farms which are pretty time and resource consuming.

I usually make a batch of 12 milkweed plots (4x3) so in the end i can make THREE ropes... then while they are growing i leave to get food, more soil, water, or some other reason and when i'm back it's all been picked already due to it's high demand.

So... i want to make a cart? Need rope! No rope in town, back to milkweed farming.
I want to help with the buildings, let's make a door... Need rope! No rope in town, back to milkweed farming.
We need more water from the deep well, or i want to try to finally make rubber for once... so i try to craft a bucket! Need rope! No rope in town, back to milkweed farming.
Town is naked and i love getting bunnies, can't find snare so i'll make one for myself...Need rope! No rope in town, back to milkweed farming.

See a pattern here? And as a gatherer i confirm what people say above, once i'm old enough to grab a cart, i go into the wilds and bring everything i find back to town, seals, rabbits, iron, branches, etc... no milkweed in sight despite exploring all the green biomes i find, at most i found two and brought a tread back. All wild milkweed was taken already.

So... my question is...why milkweed only wields ONE item, when you need FOUR to make a single rope?

Here's a sugestion:
Why not 3 or 5 milkweed stalks from a single plant?

A single soil pile is enough for plenty of farms, a single pond has ton of water.
Almost all other farms (gooseberry, corn, carrots, etc) wield 5. Heck, even after you get 5 carrots from a farm you can replant them right away.
With milkweed, you have to make a new farm next to it every time you pick a single milkweed stalk or wait for it to despawn (if there's a trick to do it quicker, i'm sure it requires tools which is even more time and resource intensive.)

A single wheat farm wields TWO items (Threshed wheat that can be turned into flour that gives up to FOUR pies AND Straw for compost that gives SEVEN piles of soil) and all that for a single bowl of water and either 1 bowl of soil/2 uses of hoe or 2 bowl of soil/1 use of hoe... you need that amount for 1/4 of a rope, and there's no other use for a single milkweed stalk, you can replace 2 milkweed with wool if you need thread, so you'll ALWAYS need a batch of 4x milkweed farms to make a SINGLE item that everyone has need for! It's insane!

I really really love this game, but spending 4 hours, 4 lives where i was unable to make crates/cart/door/bucket/snare/rubber, etc because we always needed a milkweed farm wasn't very fun, and neither was scouting for 15 minutes (25% of my life) only to find two wild milkweed stalks was not enjoyable either.

I'll end my rant here, so i'll say: Rope and Sheep Pen hate aside... keep up with the great work Jason, you really have something special here.

olooopo · 2019-03-10 19:19:57

How about adding resources like nails, staves and glue for crates, buckets and doors so that rope is only needed for snares, hatchets and bows? Then milkweed would be fine as it is now.

Strilar · 2019-03-11 13:12:29

breezeknight wrote:

also the beauty of reality is there are more ways to obtain something, there are more sources, which give different qualities
this makes life interesting
one way, like now milkweed for rope, is making the game boring
it's already interesting that we can make thread from milkweed & from sheep wool !!!

olooopo wrote:

How about adding resources like nails, staves and glue for crates, buckets and doors so that rope is only needed for snares, hatchets and bows? Then milkweed would be fine as it is now.

I love both these solutions, more different ways to make rope and/or different ways to make stuff with or without rope (nails, yeah!). We can make baskets with either Reeds or Straw, thread from wool or water with bowl/pouch, etc.

Still these require a lot more development, sprites, transitions, etc and Jason would probably
I think it's way easier and faster to increase "number of uses" in Milkweed from 1 to either 3 or 5 since you also get 3 items from a basket of soil/coal or 5 carrots/corn from a farm, etc

It's the most boring farm in the game since it takes so much space, time and resources only to produce an item that has 0 uses by itself, or 4x farm plots just to make a single rope. No wonder so few people do it.
Gameplay should be interesting and engaging so every life is a different story and experience.
Spending at least 1/4 of every life stuck in a place just to get a rope as a result (if no one else takes it first) doesn't make a good story or engaging gameplay.

Psykout · 2019-03-12 05:40:13

It's also not just making what we do harder, it makes certain things not viable at all and they will never be done. Pine walls are an example, 5 rope per wall is absolutely insane, and pine doors are only ever thought about because they can't lock. Even a 2x2 room would take 60 rope which would be a staggering 240-480 bowls of soil, 240 water and about 5 steel hoe. For a 2x2 room... Yeah i'd rather use 24 adobe and call it a day, Granted 4 long shafts per pine wall is also not very good, but definitely think rope is holding that back.

arkajalka · 2019-03-13 19:14:18

Psykout wrote:

arkajalka wrote:
As a nomad this "lack of milkweed" "hard to get" "huge soil sink" just sounds ridiculous to me. Honestly try roam few screens of the town centre and youll hit bag and basket full of ropes in no time.

Not if you are in a town that has been hovering at poverty for awhile. It sometimes can take 3-5 minutes to find some milkweed if people have been already scavenging out farther. I have seen HUGE savannas without a single carrot in them because the town has been around too long without teching up. If cultivation does not occur they disappear at an alarming rate. I am not saying it's not possibly to find, but that it can start to take longer as time goes on. Especially if a lot of early rope waste like stone hoes happens in the camp, 5 snares etc. Yeah you can 99% of the time go out and find some, but that could take three to eight minutes. Five minutes late on catching a sheep to get compost going and a lot of people could potentially starve. Its not a game breaking thing, just a pretty hefty speed bump that has no late game tech work around. Rope is 4-12 soil bowls, 4-8 tool uses, 4 bowls of water, no matter what. Rope is pretty expensive, unless found naturally, but that bottoms out especially in a slightly unfavorable spawn.

If things get this far that town deserves to wither and rot.

futurebird · 2019-03-13 19:20:07

Psykout wrote:

It's also not just making what we do harder, it makes certain things not viable at all and they will never be done. Pine walls are an example, 5 rope per wall is absolutely insane, and pine doors are only ever thought about because they can't lock. Even a 2x2 room would take 60 rope which would be a staggering 240-480 bowls of soil, 240 water and about 5 steel hoe. For a 2x2 room... Yeah i'd rather use 24 adobe and call it a day, Granted 4 long shafts per pine wall is also not very good, but definitely think rope is holding that back.

And that's why we almost never see pine used for walls, that and the fact it can be greifed instantly with an ax if I'm reading the wiki correctly.

arkajalka · 2019-03-13 19:24:58

Solution to many problems add vines to jungle which can be turned into rope with a tedious procedure.

For example flint em, get shreads, cook em in boiling water and weave em with the wing making thingy. This would narrow the rope to high tech and not make it too easy to eve tools.

Also add some mosquito poison to the vines.

Booklat1 · 2019-03-13 19:47:21

rope being very valuable is a good counterpoint to an iron-driven game economy

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Is it good that rope is rare and hard to get?

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