Apocalypse #3 and #4

Thorware · 2018-04-06 14:29:15

Hi,

I caused Apocalypse #3 and #4. I'd like to share my thoughts.

First of all, my motivation was not to grief or ruin anybody's game. I'm sorry if I interrupted something fun that you were doing.

All of the servers had already just been wiped, so I figured that now was the best time to explore the new apocalypse mechanic without being too disruptive. It was also the middle of the night in the USA so it's not a peak time for players.

I wanted to test the limits of just how easy it was to cause this absurd event that erases everything done by everyone.

Once I had the basic idea of what was needed and a monolith located, I joined an empty server and started from scratch. It took me about two and a half Eve lives to build all the tech and trigger apocalypse. (I am very familiar with the entire crafting tree.)

I made plenty of mistakes, so I decided to try again and run it as quickly as I could. The second time still wasn't perfect but went much more smoothly. I managed to trigger apocalypse in my second Eve life. I'd estimate it took about 1:15 total.

Every server has the same map. If you look at coordinates it becomes very predictable where everything is and it is easy to get back to where you were after you die. It's much easier for an experienced player to make progress alone on an empty server than with random players spawning in and messing with your setup, stealing tools, etc.

Triggering apocalypse only has two "hard" parts. The first is crafting the three necessary tools: Adze, Shovel, and Pickaxe. (Adze and shovel are needed for the fence to hitch the horse where you give him his crown.) The second is locating, mining, and fetching the four total gold flake bowls (three for the monolith, one for the crown). Apocalypse should require many more "hard" parts than this.

It's absurd that a lone player working from scratch can destroy the work of every other player in about an hour. I understand that Jason wants this to be a sort of "final boss" mechanic for the player base to work toward when they've exhausted everything else to do. But it currently does not function like that AT ALL. It can be done on a whim by a lone experienced player. It has nothing to do with the community. There is no cooperation involved with the mechanic at all. It's easier to delete everything from all servers than it is to remove an adobe wall, for crying out loud.

Even ignoring the "lone wolf" aspect, the current recipe ignores vast sections of the tech tree. You certainly don't need to craft the entire tree to trigger apocalypse. Here is a list of things that you can completely ignore in the tech tree while triggering apocalypse:
-All clothes (except crown)
-All buildings (walls, floors, doors)
-Sustainable carrot farms (domestic gooseberry, compost)
-Wheat and Pies
-Bow and arrow and all related hunting
-Axe, Chisel, File, Knife, Saw, Froe
-Boxes and Carts
-Mouflon, Sheep, Wool, Shears, Spindle, Dye
-Ridable horses (saddle)
-Wells and Cisterns

For the "end-game" apocalypse crafting concept to be meaningful at all, it ought to require components from ALL of these sections of the tech tree, demonstrating exhaustive knowledge of the game. It should also require coordinated group effort, just like the mechanic for taking down adobe walls. This would likely slow down the apocalypse rate to every few days instead of every few hours.

Although, even that optimistic rate of every few days is ridiculous. Many players are new and learning the game. They must be carefully taught about sustainability and feel the slow and steady progress of gaining mastery of different pieces of the game, being randomly born into a variety of situations. But now they will just be spawning to naked Eves most of the time. Where is the appeal of that? This seems like a mechanic for those who have mastered the game like myself to toy with and feel like gods over all of the noobs. Personally I am not interested in that. I want to be part of a massive effort larger than myself.

And why are all servers wiped by the activities of one server? This seems insane to me. Just wipe the server that managed to tech up, not all of the other servers that are still struggling to establish basic camps.

I don't know what to do now. Should I just keep triggering apocalypse to demonstrate to Jason and the community how easy it is? Should I not bother playing because nothing I make will last? Should I just play as Eve for some quick and meaningless games and and try to teach some noobs the basics of survival in the half of a lifetime they are likely to have before the next apocalypse?

Aname · 2018-04-06 14:32:16

Thorware wrote:

Hi,
I caused Apocalypse #3 and #4. I'd like to share my thoughts.
First of all, my motivation was not to grief or ruin anybody's game. I'm sorry if I interrupted something fun that you were doing.
All of the servers had already just been wiped, so I figured that now was the best time to explore the new apocalypse mechanic without being too disruptive. It was also the middle of the night in the USA so it's not a peak time for players.
I wanted to test the limits of just how easy it was to cause this absurd event that erases everything done by everyone.
Once I had the basic idea of what was needed and a monolith located, I joined an empty server and started from scratch. It took me about two and a half Eve lives to build all the tech and trigger apocalypse. (I am very familiar with the entire crafting tree.)
I made plenty of mistakes, so I decided to try again and run it as quickly as I could. The second time still wasn't perfect but went much more smoothly. I managed to trigger apocalypse in my second Eve life. I'd estimate it took about 1:15 total.
Every server has the same map. If you look at coordinates it becomes very predictable where everything is and it is easy to get back to where you were after you die. It's much easier for an experienced player to make progress alone on an empty server than with random players spawning in and messing with your setup, stealing tools, etc.
Triggering apocalypse only has two "hard" parts. The first is crafting the three necessary tools: Adze, Shovel, and Pickaxe. (Adze and shovel are needed for the fence to hitch the horse where you give him his crown.) The second is locating, mining, and fetching the four total gold flake bowls (three for the monolith, one for the crown). Apocalypse should require many more "hard" parts than this.
It's absurd that a lone player working from scratch can destroy the work of every other player in about an hour. I understand that Jason wants this to be a sort of "final boss" mechanic for the player base to work toward when they've exhausted everything else to do. But it currently does not function like that AT ALL. It can be done on a whim by a lone experienced player. It has nothing to do with the community. There is no cooperation involved with the mechanic at all. It's easier to delete everything from all servers than it is to remove an adobe wall, for crying out loud.
Even ignoring the "lone wolf" aspect, the current recipe ignores vast sections of the tech tree. You certainly don't need to craft the entire tree to trigger apocalypse. Here is a list of things that you can completely ignore in the tech tree while triggering apocalypse:
-All clothes (except crown)
-All buildings (walls, floors, doors)
-Sustainable carrot farms (domestic gooseberry, compost)
-Wheat and Pies
-Bow and arrow and all related hunting
-Axe, Chisel, File, Knife, Saw, Froe
-Boxes and Carts
-Mouflon, Sheep, Wool, Shears, Spindle, Dye
-Ridable horses (saddle)
-Wells and Cisterns
For the "end-game" apocalypse crafting concept to be meaningful at all, it ought to require components from ALL of these sections of the tech tree, demonstrating exhaustive knowledge of the game. It should also require coordinated group effort, just like the mechanic for taking down adobe walls. This would likely slow down the apocalypse rate to every few days instead of every few hours.
Although, even that optimistic rate of every few days is ridiculous. Many players are new and learning the game. They must be carefully taught about sustainability and feel the slow and steady progress of gaining mastery of different pieces of the game, being randomly born into a variety of situations. But now they will just be spawning to naked Eves most of the time. Where is the appeal of that? This seems like a mechanic for those who have mastered the game like myself to toy with and feel like gods over all of the noobs. Personally I am not interested in that. I want to be part of a massive effort larger than myself.
And why are all servers wiped by the activities of one server? This seems insane to me. Just wipe the server that managed to tech up, not all of the other servers that are still struggling to establish basic camps.
I don't know what to do now. Should I just keep triggering apocalypse to demonstrate to Jason and the community how easy it is? Should I not bother playing because nothing I make will last? Should I just play as Eve for some quick and meaningless games and and try to teach some noobs the basics of survival in the half of a lifetime they are likely to have before the next apocalypse?

Go on with apocalypses maybe jason will look at how easy it is to activate them.

and maybe get a nice speedrun in the progress.

Zwilnik · 2018-04-06 14:38:11

I think the apocalypse has nerfed the game entirely at the moment. Basically you've done the WOPPR bit at the end of WarGames and come up with the "The only way to win is not to play" result

I do have 2 different radical ideas for how to make the Apocalypse more interesting.

1) Seeing as it's effectively a game ending win scenario for nihilists why not add in the extra requirements like you suggested but also make it so that triggering an apocalypse *permanently* deletes your game key. That way you get to feel the destruction personally. Think of it as the ultimate rage quit

2) The really traditional option. When you trigger the apocalypse it emails Jason personally but otherwise doesn't do anything immediately. When Jason gets your email, he emails you back with a riddle. *if* you answer the riddle correctly, the apocalypse triggers. (and if you get it wrong your account is deleted and nothing else happens )

Nikko71 · 2018-04-06 14:49:37

Hi.

I really appreciate this initiative. I bough the game yesterday and encountered one of your 2 apocalypse today around lunch time (Europe rpz). I'm barely figuring out the basics of essential survival.
But following this event I browsed the forum to see ppl though on apo. I discovered all the things about murder, trolls on big cities, greifers... I bought the game on the initial promise of surviving together and see how this virtual world would grow and evolve.

As much I was kinda sad to see this fake world had already shown the worst in people, the whole Apo thing is just a terrible idea. If i wanted to have this experience I'd just play rust I just feel I got robbed of 20$!

So please keep spamming this feature until it gets removed. And then we should maybe see what this game is truly about.

Last edited by Nikko71 (2018-04-06 14:50:49)

Joriom · 2018-04-06 14:52:34

Cogratulations on your current record Thorware. Both times you beat me up by simple minutes, although I might agree you started your runs a bit later then I did so I was even slower (taking 1:25 before you still beat me with in 1:15 of your time).
We need to admit your record with 1:15 ingame time and 1:30 between apocalypses.

Looking at times presented and points you already rasied about apocalypse skipping most of the tech tree - we can all agree thats way to easy to doom everyone. Thats exactly why some of us speedrun it - to prove the point by sheer number of apocalypses we grind in one day right after update.

FounderOne · 2018-04-06 15:10:12

I liked the game, because the things you craftet/did had a impact - forever. We build the wall at trumptown for example. I was born there later again and it was still there. It was nice to see, to think about the building process with all that people, to see the impact in the world.
Someone started to build doors and I continoued his work.

Every city was special and always a little bit growing and changing. Sure there was no so much new tech added to craft allday new things. But there was still plenty of more stuff to do, maybe add some roads, add some houses. Hunt bears to get some nice floor, make some red/Blue clothes like someone suggested on the forum, .... There was still so much to do. It was already slow to advance because of the murdering and griefing problem. Still you could accomplish a few things. And still there was more to do.

In a good enviroment there could also happen roleplay. There was this story about a mother, going to another town to trade something. She got killed in that town. Her children then went on war with the other city.

Just because the tech tree ended, didnt the game end for me.

Now the game ended for me, because this just takes all the sence out of the game.
Why should I even bother to build/craft something? Even when the apocalypse would happen less frequently. Like 1 day, 1 week. For me that would be still to fast. Maybe every half year...

I will stop playing and see what happens.

And please continou with the speed runs!

Last edited by FounderOne (2018-04-06 15:11:08)

fragilityh14 · 2018-04-06 15:14:56

on top of it being too easy the fact that it wipes out all servers is just absurd, they're supposed to be different worlds!

sliderule · 2018-04-06 16:06:38

IMO this change furthers the existential nature of the game. Hopefully people will draw parallels to the real world and face the fight or flight reaction to the true risk of apocalypse.

Also lmao at all the hand-wringing about the loss of virtual assets. Boo hoo, your virtual life's work disappeared. How can you grow up in a digital era and not make peace with data loss? LOL.

rhitmojo · 2018-04-06 16:15:00

Joriom wrote:

Cogratulations on your current record Thorware. Both times you beat me up by simple minutes, although I might agree you started your runs a bit later then I did so I was even slower (taking 1:25 before you still beat me with in 1:15 of your time).
We need to admit your record with 1:15 ingame time and 1:30 between apocalypses.
Looking at times presented and points you already rasied about apocalypse skipping most of the tech tree - we can all agree thats way to easy to doom everyone. Thats exactly why some of us speedrun it - to prove the point by sheer number of apocalypses we grind in one day right after update.

On a side note, I would really enjoy to speed run exactly this. Please give me a way to do so that doesn't troll every player in the game in the process.

Maarek · 2018-04-07 00:30:36

sliderule wrote:

IMO this change furthers the existential nature of the game. Hopefully people will draw parallels to the real world and face the fight or flight reaction to the true risk of apocalypse.

Also lmao at all the hand-wringing about the loss of virtual assets. Boo hoo, your virtual life's work disappeared. How can you grow up in a digital era and not make peace with data loss? LOL.

In the first sentence you are putting on a beret and stroking your goatee while saying that this indy game's new bad design decision is a metaphor for how ephemeral everything is in life and then in the last one you are making fun of people for taking the game too seriously. You might want to declare a major here, buddy.

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2018-04-06 14:29:15

Apocalypse #3 and #4

#2 2018-04-06 14:32:16

Re: Apocalypse #3 and #4

#3 2018-04-06 14:38:11

Re: Apocalypse #3 and #4

#4 2018-04-06 14:49:37

Re: Apocalypse #3 and #4

#5 2018-04-06 14:52:34

Re: Apocalypse #3 and #4

#6 2018-04-06 15:10:12

Re: Apocalypse #3 and #4

#7 2018-04-06 15:14:56

Re: Apocalypse #3 and #4

#8 2018-04-06 16:06:38

Re: Apocalypse #3 and #4

#9 2018-04-06 16:15:00

Re: Apocalypse #3 and #4

#10 2018-04-07 00:30:36

Re: Apocalypse #3 and #4

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