Other games solve a lot of these long-term problems with regular wipes

jasonrohrer · 2019-05-25 03:45:13

Stuff gets used up around towns over time, but we still want towns close together, and don't want to endlessly walk with the spawning algorithm into greener pastures (because that makes things get farther apart.

But still, there you have it: the natural resources get stripped bare over time. And making them respawn would undercut the long-term challenge.

I've been trying to solve these problems for a long time.

Other games that have a similar setup (like Rust) just kinda shrugged and settled on regular map wipes. It also gave a kind of rhythm to the game. Playing right after the wipe always felt way different than playing two days after the wipe.

So... one idea is to just shrug also and run weekly wipes. (This would only apply to Bigserver2, of course).

Downside is that life is really meaningless the closer we get to the wipe. But life in most towns is meaningless right before the server restarts, because only one town is picked for the post-startup Eve spawn.

Tarr · 2019-05-25 04:11:50

Yeah I think weekly wipes = meaninglessness to anything you do which is unfortunate. I think we should be aiming to get families to last as long as possible and have the players to decide when a server wipe is needed (multiple groups working towards the apocalypse like when the water update came together.)

Towns need a reason to grow, but need to not be constantly threatened by Thursday/Friday rolling around. When we cannot even get a family to last three days that's problematic in my opinion

Dodge · 2019-05-25 04:12:08

Are you talking about a finite map where you could go around the world?

If yes, that would be really nice.

Dodge · 2019-05-25 04:17:14

Tarr wrote:

Yeah I think weekly wipes = meaninglessness to anything you do which is unfortunate. I think we should be aiming to get families to last as long as possible and have the players to decide when a server wipe is needed (multiple groups working towards the apocalypse like when the water update came together.)
Towns need a reason to grow, but need to not be constantly threatened by Thursday/Friday rolling around. When we cannot even get a family to last three days that's problematic in my opinion

I agree on the wipe, it should be done by players, when they run out of ressources and have no other choice.

Only issue is there could be a possibility albeit very low to actually get soft locked, since the apocalypse requires a knife.

Whatever · 2019-05-25 04:40:00

Let stuff regrow after a long time. Like milkweed, burdock, wild berry bushes, iron, trees?
Animals could spawn again if there arent many in a region.
Revert the bug fix revert, that let more stuff grow.

Save the time when someone harvests milkweed, then if someone comes back to the place (loads it again), check the time and see if already X has passed and if so respawn it.

Everything decays, everything regrows.

Need more storage options, towns get filled with garbage,
problems with new foods: https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=6649
Need more recipes for already existing items, so they can be used better and not fill up so much space.

Last edited by Whatever (2019-05-25 04:54:05)

Spoonwood · 2019-05-25 04:54:16

What if we went back to having an Eve Spiral, but once an Eve spawns at something like 6k or 8k... something big, but not too big... then the spiral begins to collapse back on in on itself? Then maybe once it gets back to a certain point, like there's a 1k radius, the Eve spiral starts to expand again? That way towns could still be reachable by horse if you know where they lie in principle, that is towns can be close enough together (hearing a belltower 13k away wasn't something I liked), but also far enough apart to have more resources.

Also, reverting the short object above a tall object spawning bug to its initially intended state would do something.. though, it wouldn't be iron, wild milkweed and other resources are something.

I also agree that wipes should only get done by players.

Last edited by Spoonwood (2019-05-25 04:54:46)

Dodge · 2019-05-25 05:04:54

Whatever wrote:

Let stuff regrow after a long time. Like milkweed, burdock, wild berry bushes, iron?
Animals could spawn again if there arent many in a region.
Revert the the bug fix revert, that let more stuff grow.
Need more storage options, towns get filled with garbage,
problems with new foods: https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=6649
Need more recipes for already existing items, so they can be used better and not fill up so much space.

That's interesting there could be a whole ecosystem, wildlife could grow,die and decay depending on what is around them and their biome, for example if you leave trees, new ones could grow from seed and old trees could die and eventually decay, but if you cut them all then no new trees would grow.

Wolves for example could get born, then grow and multiply but only if they are in sufficient number, maybe they could even need to eat food like mouflon to grow.

Mouflons would need to eat lichen from trees to grow, so if no trees they would eventually die, which would make the wolves die out too at some point.

We could make natural reserves to protect trees, mouflons or other species and their habitat and eventually harvest a part of it.

Same for all wildlife that could grow, die, multiply depending on their numbers and surrounding ressources.

The game Eco is a good example of that.

But it sounds like a complicated system to put in place and also very difficult to balance right so it's not OP or that it doesn't nerf the game too much.

If it's implemented though then having wilderness would depend on the players and their actions, this could be very interesting and change how we do things currently.

Like for example, curently we make stacks of wood because they dont decay, but what if wood did decay and in order to keep a civilisation going you would need to manage ressources and not chop too many trees or else the wood would be gone.

Since trees would need free space to grow (unoccupied tiles), we could organise natural reserves, where we only take a fixed ammount of ressources to let new trees grow.

Last edited by Dodge (2019-05-25 05:16:47)

Whatever · 2019-05-25 05:17:38

@Dodge yes the most amazing way to do regrowing would be to make natrual
Trees spawn next to other trees of the same kind (if there is enough space), old trees die eventually and transform into dead trees.
The same with everything else. (milkweed, burdock, animals...)

Even better biomes could change depending on how you treat them, if you plant a lot of trees in the desert maybe parts of it become the green biome,
in the same way if you cut all plants in the green biome it might become a desert,
empty all ponds and the swamp changes and so on.

But i think all of this is too difficult to implement.

jasonrohrer · 2019-05-25 05:19:42

Eco is a fully simulated small planet:

https://eco.gamepedia.com/Server_Config … World_Size

I'm not sure what the units are here, but the max is 400x400

Certainly not 400 diggable blocks. Well, maybe? Actually it might be that. That's 160,000 surface tiles, and each one has depth/height, so easily millions of blocks in a 400x400 world.

Anyway, teeny tiny.

Dodge · 2019-05-25 05:37:26

Whatever wrote:

@Dodge yes the most amazing way to do regrowing would be to make natrual
Trees spawn next to other trees of the same kind (if there is enough space), old trees die eventually and transform into dead trees.
The same with everything else. (milkweed, burdock, animals...)
Even better biomes could change depending on how you treat them, if you plant a lot of trees in the desert maybe parts of it become the green biome,
in the same way if you cut all plants in the green biome it might become a desert,
empty all ponds and the swamp changes and so on.
But i think all of this is too difficult to implement.

And you could only farm crops in the appropriate biomes, planting berry bushes in the desert would make them die unless you plant them on the desert right next to green then it could have a chance to either die or live and change the biome where it's planted.

New ressources would grow and old ones die out depending on their surroundings, and each cycle could either bring more or less ressources depending if players didn't take too much of it .

jasonrohrer · 2019-05-25 05:39:56

But yeah, I have gone back and forth about this...

The overall experience might be more meaningful if the world was finite (like one pretty large island), and after some amount of time, the whole place was stripped bare, and players collectively decided to trigger the apocalypse. Eves spawns on the shores.... biomes could be in concentric rings (grassland, prarie, swamp jungle, desert, mountain, with polar in the middle).

I'm a big fan of proc-genned maps and such, and I spent a lot of time on that aspect of the game four years ago (well, the island version would still be proc-genned). But there's something really mind-boggling about the "infinite" aspect that I really like. There's a very lonely "lost" feeling that I love.

There are so many conflicting goals here:

1. Want a substantial number natural resources to run out "for real" to maintain long-term challenge of keeping a village alive, and also for realism, and also for permanence of player actions, and so that decisions matter (you can waste certain resources, and not just bide your time until more of it spawns). That feeling of permanently messing up the land...

2. Want new civs to spawn in untouched wilderness, so that part of the game is the knife-edge balancing act that many of us love.

3. Want established civs to be somewhat close to each other, so that they can interact (roads, visitors, trade, resource contention, etc.)

Dodge · 2019-05-25 05:40:42

jasonrohrer wrote:

Eco is a fully simulated small planet:
https://eco.gamepedia.com/Server_Config … World_Size
I'm not sure what the units are here, but the max is 400x400
Certainly not 400 diggable blocks. Well, maybe? Actually it might be that. That's 160,000 surface tiles, and each one has depth/height, so easily millions of blocks in a 400x400 world.
Anyway, teeny tiny.

I dont understand, millions of blocks is teeny tiny?

wio · 2019-05-25 05:43:09

Rather than having iron respawn, it would make more sense to require higher tech to access it from other sources. That higher tech should be a challenge to reach. Thus non-living resources (e.g. metals, stones) should simply have higher tech requirements to get to more of it. Living resources should be farmable through domestication.

jasonrohrer · 2019-05-25 05:47:00

What about a gradual "reclamation" of areas where no one has been for a while? Not wiping whole chunks in one go, which is expensive, but just one tile at a time. Like, if an area hasn't been seen by human eyes in 24 hours or something, the human-touched tiles there start going back to their natural state, one-by-one. Updating a few tiles every server step is cheap.

This means that an area right around a town won't spawn new resources, because it will be seen...

Possible exploit: "Don't anyone walk into the mountains to the north of here. We're waiting for the iron to respawn up there, and it will only respawn if no one is looking."

Anyway, gradual reclamation would make room for Eve in-fill. Also, partially-reclaimed ruins would be interesting....

Dodge · 2019-05-25 05:49:05

jasonrohrer wrote:

...

It is conflicting, having infinite wilderness and limited ressources doesn't sound to go hand in hand.

Why an island and not a round planet where we could go around it and end up at the opposite side?

I had a possible solution in that post: https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=6647

But a finite map would be better imo.

Dodge wrote:

"@jasonrohrer and everyone:
Should eve's always spawn in untouched wilderness or after a certain point (1 month?) it would be ok if they didn't?"
Imo the easiest and my favorite solution would be to have a finite map with finite ressources, big enough for maybe a month and limit eve spawns.
Managing well ressources = map lasting longer
Otherwise an apocalypse is needed
And maybe at some point it could be self sustainable (new iron mine etc)
Also having a finite map would be practical to have tracking data of ressources usage over time and maybe generate and load the entire map on server start.
BUT
if eve's should always start in untouched wilderness no matter what, then maybe having a finite map at first that extends each time an eve spawns could be doable?
Villages are still too far right now.
At server start there could be a 3k map (or more/less) that has to be shared amongst a certain number of eve's.
After a certain point every new eve would also create a chunk of map.
That new map chunk is added to the "finite map", and the new eve can have untouched wilderness not too far from other civilisations.

The interesting part is when reaching the "border" you would get to the other point of the map effectively making the map "round", so heading in one direction you would have a much greater chance to find civilisation (but it could take years), unless there is none at all in that direction.
Unlike now where heading in a direction is a coin flip (sure it was true for human civilisations too but only after a certain point, now if you have a car or plane heading in any direction you will find civilisation given enough time).
There would have to be limits on the number of eve's per day and maybe re-use spots where eve's died quickly to limit how much the map grows per day but it could be doable.
But it seems much more complicated than roughly calculating how big the map should be to last a month (or other time) and having a finite map that could be reset with apocalypse anyway or a wipe at worst.

Tarr · 2019-05-25 05:49:54

Maybe only one source of iron is respawnable? This puts a limit on iron while having a source to fight over? Maybe the best iron source has a homemarker which all big cities can see and fight over? As long as we cannot get a single lineage to last 3+ days I cannot see the use in instant resets or anything being limited.

Dodge · 2019-05-25 06:05:43

jasonrohrer wrote:

What about a gradual "reclamation" of areas where no one has been for a while? Not wiping whole chunks in one go, which is expensive, but just one tile at a time. Like, if an area hasn't been seen by human eyes in 24 hours or something, the human-touched tiles there start going back to their natural state, one-by-one. Updating a few tiles every server step is cheap.
This means that an area right around a town won't spawn new resources, because it will be seen...
Possible exploit: "Don't anyone walk into the mountains to the north of here. We're waiting for the iron to respawn up there, and it will only respawn if no one is looking."

Anyway, gradual reclamation would make room for Eve in-fill. Also, partially-reclaimed ruins would be interesting....

Sounds good and much better than a constantly growing map.

About the exploit, maybe some ressources like iron veins wouldnt be able to respawn.

And the depleted mines would stay in place (in case it's repurposed at some point in the game).

Maybe some ground iron could be ok? Erosion after time that brings out iron from soil? With a lower chance of spawn than the original time it was generated?

But not whole iron veins/mines.

Dodge · 2019-05-25 06:08:08

Tarr wrote:

Maybe only one source of iron is respawnable? This puts a limit on iron while having a source to fight over? Maybe the best iron source has a homemarker which all big cities can see and fight over? As long as we cannot get a single lineage to last 3+ days I cannot see the use in instant resets or anything being limited.

Limiting eve's would probably solve that issue, since there is about 100 players on server at all times, lineages should last more than 3 days, if they dont have to compete with 20+ eve's.

Whatever · 2019-05-25 06:16:31

This is how this feels to me:

First you make property fences, but not many people use them and some dont like them.
So you move everyone close together (war update) so people "have to" use them,
and now we are at constant map resets to solve the issue of everyone living close together.

To fix a bad feature another bad feature will be implemented that than again needs to be fixed by another bad feature and the problems get worse and worse.

But this is just the way i see it, ofcourse other people might see this differently.

Dodge · 2019-05-25 06:24:30

Whatever wrote:

This is how this feels to me:
First you make property fences, but not many people use them and some dont like them.
So you move everyone close together (war update) so people "have to" use them,
and now we are at constant map resets to solve the issue of everyone living close together.
To fix a bad feature another bad feature will be implemented that than again needs to be fixed by another bad feature and the problems get worse and worse.
But this is just the way i see it, ofcourse other people might see this differently.

Tbf only parts of the map that nobody goes to, would revert back to untouched wilderness so it's similar to real life, where if there is no human activity nature claims it back.

24 hours is 1440 years so that sounds ok, maybe it could be 48 hours (2880 years), all the living towns and places wouldnt be affected by this.

Maybe roads could stay and not decay?

Whatever · 2019-05-25 06:40:09

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDgDWbQtlKI

Potjeh · 2019-05-25 08:59:23

Ye I think you should just roll back the Come Together update. It's basically removed early and mid game. Even with weekly wipes we'd just have the first day of the wipe where we can do exciting civ advancing stuff, and then the rest of the week we'll just be stagnating like we are now.

FeignedSanity · 2019-05-25 09:01:52

Whatever wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDgDWbQtlKI

I appreciated that video. Thank you for sharing.

Amon · 2019-05-25 10:20:07

jasonrohrer wrote:

What about a gradual "reclamation" of areas where no one has been for a while? Not wiping whole chunks in one go, which is expensive, but just one tile at a time. Like, if an area hasn't been seen by human eyes in 24 hours or something, the human-touched tiles there start going back to their natural state, one-by-one. Updating a few tiles every server step is cheap.
This means that an area right around a town won't spawn new resources, because it will be seen...
Possible exploit: "Don't anyone walk into the mountains to the north of here. We're waiting for the iron to respawn up there, and it will only respawn if no one is looking."

Anyway, gradual reclamation would make room for Eve in-fill. Also, partially-reclaimed ruins would be interesting....

Yeah ancient walls could also degrade over time into ruins and finally stone rubble, as how things do when untouched. 24 hours/ would be something like 1440 years or so.

I also very love the island world idea, but it could be of various different shapes with different biomes blotched around uniquely and sufficiently large to not be covered by people 24/7. Also offshore island biomes and lakes and islands in the islands might be interesting locations which people could contest for. The randomness of everything sure is great, i might miss it as well.

It would be interesting to see a Biome have a max and min capacity of natural resources in an area, and some resources are co-dependant on other resources in a biome.

New wolves won't spawn when there is not a single wolf in an area, making biome 'reclamation impossible for wolves,
or if there are no mouflons in an area, of it there are not enough of a high population of mouflon to support a high population of wolves. And perhaps the population growth could be showed with the baby animal running away from the mother instead of simply staying besides her untill she changes states.

However perhaps involved with the 24 hour reclamation timer an 'eve wolf' or 'eve mouflon' can be spawned in the biome to begin repopulation, or a stray seedling gets brought back into the biome.

Perhaps it doesen't even need to 'refresh' but new trees and new berry bushes and new burdoc are spawned in different locations, so over time, the landscape your great great great great great great grandmother knew of, is long gone, despite you standing in the very spot that she once was.
This is something we love with towns, it might be interesting with nature.

Round rocks, ground iron, and the like might be more iffy to make it seem more natural to spawn, a small earthquake could 'tumble' everything up and maybe cause some minor chaos in villages as well.
(lets put a volcano in the middle of the island for good measure )

Having quarries that prouce different stone and boulders and upgradable/tech locked mines would be good to allow people more resources to build betetr villages without needing to marr nature to oblivion.

Last edited by Amon (2019-05-25 10:24:12)

wondible · 2019-05-25 12:08:33

I have a certain sympathy for the ecosystem model, which is less "everything runs out" and more the land has a certain carrying capacity for population, which can be raised by technology and careful management.

Reclamation wise, my thought would be slowly process distant tiles, processing decay timers. Eventually everything should decay, then empty tiles have a chance to return their natural state. Or perhaps only certain tiles (plants, animals) have a chance to respawn, or have a much higher chance to respawn. Then collapsed iron mines could be controlled by their decay timer - week? month?

(Though for my private server I'd prefer if time stopped when noone was around)

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2019-05-25 03:45:13

Other games solve a lot of these long-term problems with regular wipes

#2 2019-05-25 04:11:50

Re: Other games solve a lot of these long-term problems with regular wipes

#3 2019-05-25 04:12:08

Re: Other games solve a lot of these long-term problems with regular wipes

#4 2019-05-25 04:17:14

Re: Other games solve a lot of these long-term problems with regular wipes

#5 2019-05-25 04:40:00

Re: Other games solve a lot of these long-term problems with regular wipes

#6 2019-05-25 04:54:16

Re: Other games solve a lot of these long-term problems with regular wipes

#7 2019-05-25 05:04:54

Re: Other games solve a lot of these long-term problems with regular wipes

#8 2019-05-25 05:17:38

Re: Other games solve a lot of these long-term problems with regular wipes

#9 2019-05-25 05:19:42

Re: Other games solve a lot of these long-term problems with regular wipes

#10 2019-05-25 05:37:26

Re: Other games solve a lot of these long-term problems with regular wipes

#11 2019-05-25 05:39:56

Re: Other games solve a lot of these long-term problems with regular wipes

#12 2019-05-25 05:40:42

Re: Other games solve a lot of these long-term problems with regular wipes

#13 2019-05-25 05:43:09

Re: Other games solve a lot of these long-term problems with regular wipes

#14 2019-05-25 05:47:00

Re: Other games solve a lot of these long-term problems with regular wipes

#15 2019-05-25 05:49:05

Re: Other games solve a lot of these long-term problems with regular wipes

#16 2019-05-25 05:49:54

Re: Other games solve a lot of these long-term problems with regular wipes

#17 2019-05-25 06:05:43

Re: Other games solve a lot of these long-term problems with regular wipes

#18 2019-05-25 06:08:08

Re: Other games solve a lot of these long-term problems with regular wipes

#19 2019-05-25 06:16:31

Re: Other games solve a lot of these long-term problems with regular wipes

#20 2019-05-25 06:24:30

Re: Other games solve a lot of these long-term problems with regular wipes

#21 2019-05-25 06:40:09

Re: Other games solve a lot of these long-term problems with regular wipes

#22 2019-05-25 08:59:23

Re: Other games solve a lot of these long-term problems with regular wipes

#23 2019-05-25 09:01:52

Re: Other games solve a lot of these long-term problems with regular wipes

#24 2019-05-25 10:20:07

Re: Other games solve a lot of these long-term problems with regular wipes

#25 2019-05-25 12:08:33

Re: Other games solve a lot of these long-term problems with regular wipes

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