Myths and facts about why player numbers are dropping over time

Kinrany · 2019-10-14 02:10:05

On Reddit writing so much wouldn't matter because word salad would just get downvoted to hell

jasonrohrer · 2019-10-14 02:17:10

Twisted:

This thread is about declining player numbers.

What I saw, back when I was heaping on the content (both before and after Steam), is that player numbers were declining anyway. Heaping on the content didn't help all that much. Players chewed through the new content in a few hours and then were "bored" for the rest of the week. If new content is the main dish, it goes cold very quickly.

I do plan to heap on the new content again in the future. That's a fundamental premise of the game.

However, I couldn't keep doing that. The game would have died.

Instead, I had to spend some time solving the fundamental problems with the game. WHY do people bounce off of it? Why is it boring long-term? Why is the full potential not realized? Why is being a baby so one-dimensional? Is it the most boring 3 minutes in the history of video games? I often go grab a snack in the other room. "GL Sweety" at age 3? Why does village life stagnate after about 5 hours? Why does nothing that players create really last? Why is there no trade, no laws, no police, no hotels, no restaurants?

This game already has more unique, fully-interactive content than almost any other game. Any game that has more content than OHOL just has a bunch of reskinned stuff that isn't actually unique.

So if the above problems were solved, and the game was DEEPLY interesting long term, and it had as much content as it has, it would be an amazing game.

But heaping more content on top of a broken core isn't going to make the game great.

There are 70,000 people playing Rust right now, and that's not because it has more content than OHOL (because it doesn't). It's because it's a more compelling game.

Twisted, in your videos, which I love, I see the way you interact with new content. "There's shrimp in the game now. Yummy! I can't wait to cook and eat some of those!" You call out the new content, because it's visually interesting. But even in a video, there's really not much to show. You go catch some shrimp one time. What happens for the rest of the hour-long video? You get back to the business of playing the game.

I mean, if I added a whole new biome, that would make for great visual video content. But still, you'd explore that biome for 5-10 minutes, and then go back to actually playing the game.

Whereas, something simple like the through-fence storage box, while visually/thematically not very exciting, has deep gameplay ramifications that can create interesting emergent situations for weeks to come.

In fact, the through-fence storage boxes are the biggest game-changer in a long time. But they barely count as "new content." They're kinda boring looking, and I didn't even draw anything to make them.

My firm belief is that "pizazz" may get players through the door, but it does not hold their attention long term. Delight in novelty is quickly fleeting.

A given week of playing OHOL needs to be a unique experience that simply can't be missed, and different than playing any previous or subsequent week of OHOL. "Holy crap, what happened everyone?"

The answer shouldn't be, "Same as last week. You missed nothing."

Nor should it be, "Jason added beekeeping!"

Kinrany · 2019-10-14 02:45:01

I think when players demand more content, they do imply mechanically unique content like and would quickly start complaining about reskins

Potjeh · 2019-10-14 02:53:56

jasonrohrer wrote:

There are 70,000 people playing Rust right now, and that's not because it has more content than OHOL (because it doesn't). It's because it's a more compelling game.

Not all content is equal, though. Rust's electricity system alone has more potential for player to explore than all of OHOL's content. In general there's a lot more return on investment when you give players building blocks that can interact with eachother, that's what made Minecraft so huge and is the reason behind Factorio's success. You've kinda designed yourself into a corner with prohibiting interactions between objects on different tiles. Yeah, it'd be a huge amount of work to change that now, but the payoff would be that any content you add would stay fresh a lot longer.

Kinrany · 2019-10-14 03:36:31

Potjeh wrote:

Not all content is equal, though. Rust's electricity system alone has more potential for player to explore than all of OHOL's content. In general there's a lot more return on investment when you give players building blocks that can interact with eachother, that's what made Minecraft so huge and is the reason behind Factorio's success. You've kinda designed yourself into a corner with prohibiting interactions between objects on different tiles. Yeah, it'd be a huge amount of work to change that now, but the payoff would be that any content you add would stay fresh a lot longer.

It should be good enough to have complex interactions that only happen on a single tile.

After all, full automation is boring: you win by not doing anything at all. Semi-automation is fine though: you still have to do something, and you can automate the parts that are boring anyway. So all the parts that involve multiple tiles can be done by a player.

Last edited by Kinrany (2019-10-14 03:37:39)

Twisted · 2019-10-14 09:12:42

Jason, I fully agree with everything you said! OHOL has a very high new player churn rate and that's a massive problem. But I think the Rift doesn't make the game more interesting or compelling yet (it might some day), I think it does the opposite. And that's why I think the last three months being almost entirely about the Rift is not a great thing for player retenion.

Also, the through-fence storage boxes are not a game changer at all. One day, if and when Property Fences are used for actual property, they will be crucial and super important and we will love them. But as things currently stand, Property Fences are used almost exclusively for animal pens and town walls, and that's a fact that no one can deny. Through-fence storage boxes are nice to have extre mutton storage in the pen, but they don't have much use besides that.

Just to be clear I would love for personal property to be in the game, to be born in my family's house and to trade with my neighbors. The through-fence storage box will be incredible then, but the game is not yet at that point.

miskas · 2019-10-14 10:03:25

twisted have you ever try zoom mode?
Zoom mode enable you to do a lot more interesting staff than vanila.

Twisted · 2019-10-14 10:40:57

miskas wrote:

twisted have you ever try zoom mode?
Zoom mode enable you to do a lot more interesting staff than vanila.

Yes, a bunch of times. I think it makes the game easier and more manageable, and it's basically needed if you want to play the game at a higher skill level, but I wouldn't say it makes it more (or less) interesting.

JackTreehorn · 2019-10-14 12:25:13

I think a big part of what gives a life meaning to me is the social structures. Jobs, businesses, guilds, marriage, rites of passage, laws, economy.
For the most part Jason can't fix the lack of these structures, only we the players can.
The worst is when you get given the best clothes without earning them.
Then being told GLHF only to be left in a fully developed city with few people who are happy enough working alone.
I've tried to implement some social structures but they never seem to last past my generation.

My favourite social structures I've been a part of have been:
-OHOL news team (Covering stories from around town and some war reporting)
-Keystone builders guild (I made this guild in my mentor Fords honour, at my time of passing i made Gio the guild master)
-Yum shop (trading Yum food for cards and cards for Yum food.)

If I could add one thing it would be a town notice board, So I could add a note inviting people to join or interact with my guild, business ect.
my 2 cents.

Last edited by JackTreehorn (2019-10-14 12:30:41)

Dodge · 2019-10-14 12:40:50

JackTreehorn wrote:

...

Social structures dont work long term because they are not needed.

IRL these structures are needed and impove quality of life that's why they exist.

The only way for these structures to really exist in game is if there are reasons for it.

That's what the current updates are trying to achieve, make the game much more interesting on a deeper level.

Currently you can have mariages, guilds, jobs etc if you want but they are purely roleplay and have no meaning from a gameplay perspective.

Why would i choose a specific job if i can do everything?

Why would i trade basic items like clothes if i can do them myself?

Why would i make a private property if i can live in a hippy/communism civilisation and not go trough the effort of building a house?

Etc...

These issues cant be resolved by players at least not on a real level and not superficial roleplay level these must be solved by the game.

Last edited by Dodge (2019-10-14 12:45:26)

JackTreehorn · 2019-10-14 13:17:17

I agree with you for the most part, However I would say these structures are more important than you would think.

They give the player a story to play out, people to work and interact with and meaning to a meaningless life

beyond just superficial role play these structures can get serious work done.

My Keystone builders guild made a stone bakery with floorboards in two generations.

My Yum store was making lots of Yumfood for the women of the town.

Part of the challenge at the moment is figuring out how to make these structures work.

I would say the two examples I gave are successes of social structures not failures.

The guild gave me two great people to interact and work with Ford and Gio.

Many people had fun interacting with the Yum shop.

Women would bring their kids to meet the friendly owner and trade goods.

You are right in saying the game needs to change in order to better facilitate these structures. (economy, Clothes deterioration)
But I do think we the players have our part to play aswell.

Last edited by JackTreehorn (2019-10-14 13:20:05)

Potjeh · 2019-10-14 13:59:17

But we'd need to talk to do these things, and talking is a huge waste of our extremely limited time. Just try making a diesel engine while chatting with other people.

MultiLife · 2019-10-14 15:40:02

Potjeh wrote:

But we'd need to talk to do these things, and talking is a huge waste of our extremely limited time. Just try making a diesel engine while chatting with other people.

Yeah, I’m not a chatter. You’d need to have something really important (knowledge/item) for me to stop to talk. But everyone has everything and it’s hard to get people to talk when wells are drying out, last shovel breaks, gate owner has gone missing, someone is being murdered and fire is going out.

No perks, boosts or any reason to talk except when you feel like work is not fulfilling you.

I do adore random praises, little friendships and gifts in-game. Those are always worth words and emotes.

JonySky · 2019-10-14 16:44:28

What is failing ..?

the tasks are repetitive (any task)
For example, if you specialize in making fertilizer, the third lot of fertilizer you finish is tired of continuing to make fertilizer...

Cities are repetitions of each other
the tasks in ALL cities are exactly the same, construction and distribution is exactly the same, cities are copies of each other ... when you have lived in a
Great city, you have lived them all.

lives are repetitive
If you do not build or perform any task in any city, you are out of the game ... it is no use exploring the map for example ... or training to be a soldier, not even
trading is possible in OHOL ... just work in a big city or kill until you get caught and killed / sent to DT

the characters are repetitive
we don't have identifying features, nothing that sets us apart, not even clothes distinguish you enough to differentiate your brother from your cousin
we have no necklaces, no facial paints or even scars (didn't you think about this with the implementation of the war Mr. Jason? I get the feeling that I only implement the "simple" part)

Relationships between characters are repetitive (mostly non-existent)
The conversations with my mother are usually: HI BB, your name is ... bye mom, I could create a macro for all the conversations with my family and I would have left over buttons on a 3-button mouse ... there is nothing to explain, no family history that serves the future, no adventure that we can share in the same 60-minute play ... there is no time, no conversation, after all in a week everything will be erased, nothing matters ..

The mechanics are repetitive ...
There are no new mechanics, nor new dynamic events, the world is static ...
There are no natural disasters, there is no day night, there is no spring, summer, autumn winter, there are no oceans or rivers (navigable), there are no variable temperatures, droughts, snowfall, rain ... we cannot transport other people in vehicles , or perform collaborative tasks between several people at once

The line of inventions is messy and without logic
I won't get tired of saying that we are cooking food in a fireplace with a clay pot, but we can fly with a plane and drive a car ... it makes no sense
many objects are useless

There are many more things I could say but honestly I don't have much more time to devote to this post

You can look the other way Jason, but the problem will still be present
Spoonwood is right in many things he says.

little story:
Yesterday I played my first game after several weeks of not playing and after 10 minutes I was bored of doing exactly the same
I dedicated myself to raising wild pigs and dropping them around the city ... many people died ... the funny thing is that nobody ever told me anything, they considered me a good citizen, I never hid, I did everything in the city, in front of everything the world ... and nobody told me anything, they did not point me out, nor did they notice me, my family surrounded me to say goodbye to me when I died ...
I even won 4 points in my genetic score !! This cannot be a good sign ... something is failing.

Last edited by JonySky (2019-10-14 16:54:17)

jasonrohrer · 2019-10-14 19:58:27

Potjeh, I don't think Rust had an electricity system back when I played it, and I still sunk 300 hours into it, which is highly unusual for me.

I made another game with a deep electrical system (TCD), and it was really cool, and players did all kinds of amazing things with it. BUT.... it was hard enough to get it working properly on a 32x32 grid (where the entire thing could be simulated each time step). Trying to make that work on a map of unlimited size seemed like a really complex engineering problem (for me), and a distraction from the core mission of the game (people working together to build civilization).

Yes, players could go crazy with Turing-complete electrical systems..... but that's not really the point of this game. There are already games that are about building networks (Minecraft, Factorio, etc.) This game is about something else.

About HUMAN NETWORKS, hopefully. Eventually. If I can get that to work, I think it will be more interesting.

Regarding those who say "Who has time to talk in the game?" Or if you think talk is unnecessary.... I agree that it is NOT necessary or optimal currently to communicate with others. My goal is to change that. My goal is to make group survival a real thing, and cooperation necessary to achieve that.

The inefficiencies that come along with lack of communication, lack of leadership, and lack of organization should be sub-optimal to the point of killing your village.

I acknowledge that there is a real danger here:

I started with a "pretty fun", "almost great" game that a lot of people love.

I'm trying to make a "insanely fun", "indisputably greatest game of all time" type game based on OHOL's premise. There is a pretty good chance that it won't work. That it's impossible. That making a truly great game based on this premise can't be done, or at least can't be done by me, at this time.

And, in my quest to realize this likely-impossible goal, I will destroy the "pretty fun" game that used to be. That's a risk I'm willing to take, though, in pursuit of excellence.

jasonrohrer · 2019-10-14 20:00:29

JonySky wrote:

little story:
Yesterday I played my first game after several weeks of not playing and after 10 minutes I was bored of doing exactly the same
I dedicated myself to raising wild pigs and dropping them around the city ... many people died ... the funny thing is that nobody ever told me anything, they considered me a good citizen, I never hid, I did everything in the city, in front of everything the world ... and nobody told me anything, they did not point me out, nor did they notice me, my family surrounded me to say goodbye to me when I died ...
I even won 4 points in my genetic score !! This cannot be a good sign ... something is failing.

Yes, that is a terrifying story. I agree that it is a bad sign.

StrongForce · 2019-10-14 21:01:03

Skills would be a great way to make social interactions beneficial.
If you talk with a skilled Smith or hunter you learn from them. And with that time saved you can get even more skilled than your teacher. And if only a master Smith can make a crown the crown is valuable therefore trade is encouraged too.

jasonrohrer · 2019-10-14 21:21:38

I agree, StrongForce.

The challenge is how to make skills work in the game without it being frustrating for players.

All of the crafting actions in the game are binary. They either complete 100% or do not complete at all. There is no quality variation. A knife is a knife.

Can the unskilled person not make a knife? Or do they need to try multiple times before knife success? Or do they take longer to make the knife? All of these options are frustrating for a skilled player who learned how to make a knife in previous lives.

If there's some way to learn how to make a knife, what is that process? Do you make a bunch of other stuff along the way as part of your "training"? Stuff you don't really need, but just make for the sake of training? Busy work? Does someone else need to teach you how to make the knife? So they are burdened with demonstrating something to you? Something that you already know? So you're going through the motions of "learning" and "teaching", but it's all tedious busywork. And next life, you need to do the same thing to learn how to make a knife again. Repeat. Life after life.

These are solved problems in other games, of course, but those solutions cannot be imported here. In other games, you don't die and get reborn every hour. In other games, you have player skill progression that matches your character's "skill" progression over the course of your entire play session. If you can start another character from scratch (like in an MMO), that's very grindy, but it's optional.

There has never been another game like this, which is why these problems have no ready solutions.

Kinrany · 2019-10-14 21:42:01

Crafting could be a puzzle: suppose there are ten different shapes that can be made of wood, and each tool takes five of them combined in the correct order. All the other combinations are craftable, but result in useless pieces of art instead of useful tools. And the correct recipes are randomized each ark. This way people would have to record and teach successful recipes, and also record the artwork to make sure they don't try the same combination again.

Edit: the names and sprites of the wooden shapes could be randomized every life and be different for every character. Just like coordinates are relative to the birth location, not absolute. This way you wouldn't even preserve the knowledge between lives.

Last edited by Kinrany (2019-10-14 21:46:46)

Dantox · 2019-10-15 01:16:10

I would rather make it expl-based, the more you hunt the better you get at hunting and therefore the better the rewards and the tools that you can use. An example of this could be Oxygen Not Included, every duplicant can make basic chores for every branch of the tech-tree but if you want to get more efficient or having access to certain recipes or materials you need to start selecting what duplicant will be the one to perform certain activity

Say theres a level 5 chef in the kitchen that is getting old and he picks one kid to become his assistant and then after the main chef when he is dead. On becoming his assistant and gains bonus exp when cooking.

Kinrany · 2019-10-15 08:02:59

Dantox, how would it fit into the current crafting system?

fug · 2019-10-15 08:50:31

Dantox wrote:

I would rather make it expl-based, the more you hunt the better you get at hunting and therefore the better the rewards and the tools that you can use. An example of this could be Oxygen Not Included, every duplicant can make basic chores for every branch of the tech-tree but if you want to get more efficient or having access to certain recipes or materials you need to start selecting what duplicant will be the one to perform certain activity
Say theres a level 5 chef in the kitchen that is getting old and he picks one kid to become his assistant and then after the main chef when he is dead. On becoming his assistant and gains bonus exp when cooking.

I really dislike the idea of having to do random busy work grinding to be able to function in a village. I think his idea of boons were a much better idea rather than all this skill nonsense people are bringing up.

Instead let an Eve or family/town pick some sort of item that gives the area/lineage some sort of bonus so each family is slightly different. Maybe one family has clothing crafts that last double the length of time (even if you can get too many rabbits imo) or maybe you have one that is better at recycling and produces extra steel during the smithing process, or perhaps one group are better with technology so their newcomens are less likely to break down. Towards the end of the arc you're only going to have 4 or so families so you don't need too many unique buff ideas.

Make the families unique instead of adding a goofy ass skill system.

StrongForce · 2019-10-15 10:21:42

What if you are born with a gift.
Like a 1:50 chance for engeneer
If you have that gift you are able to craft engine
Or a 1:10 for stonemason which allows you to make stone blocks

This should only apply to high tech stuff
Most stuff should be doable by anyone but some stuff should be spezialised to make them have value in trading

Or Mabye this gift is selected by the player. But as long as one person can do everything noone has to cooperate

Psykout · 2019-10-15 12:18:14

It's really hard to avoid every town being the same with the new map generation on top of the rift. When springs were introduced I was hopeful for seeing more biomes become places to start, because that could have added some huge variance to the game. Prairie towns would rely on hunting rabbits and turkeys early on for food rather than doing the same berry farms over and over. Badlands towns would more likely rush to sheep (or hunt wolves and bears if they gave food). If tweaks were made, fishing towns and seal/penguin hunter clans in arctic could pop up. The catch would be though, that they would all end up the same at the end game because you need a little bit of everything.

They might look different though because they didn't all start off the same way, centered around a berry patch. If walls were balanced better, each biome/town would use much different building materials. Stone would be dominant wall/floor material in bad land towns, Wood in grassland and adobe in wetlands. If you made desert villages a thing, then I would shift adobe to there, as mud brick with adobe plastered walls in arid climates is what humans did (https://www.touropia.com/amazing-mud-brick-buildings/) To really nail this, I believe you would need to blow up the biomes and make them much larger. Some resources like soil pits, would need to be in multiple biomes, but the rarity or amount of said resource would be much less than their natural biome. If the town did not start to cultivate or setup a process such as roads/rails/horsecarts etc to link a needed resource soon, they would perish.

As to skills and such use genetics and instead of gating items, just tie them to how much resource you gain when doing an action. Anyone can cut down a tree, but if you are part of town from grasslands and have a genetic perk, you get two logs instead of one. Butchering a sheep without a badlands genetic only gives a few mutton, compared to 5 from a hunter. Trapping a rabbit with a savanna genetic refreshes the rabbit hole in 1/2 the time as anyone else. Grassland farmers use less soil when farming and/or can water more efficiently, you get my drift. This would give the feeling of having specializations and tie towns in certain locations to certain tasks, rather than every single town just always eating pies and stew until people start making tons of different yum foods because they are bored. Natural resources to one town would be worth less to them as they would be to another town, giving us a reason to actually trade. A cart full of rabbits to a savanna town, meh. A cart full of rabbits to a badlands town, definitely worth some iron.

This would also lead us to a possible positive end situation for an arc. These different spread out specialized communities with their genetic perks would have to merge and coexist together before they all collapse and the arc resets. This merged town with different families at peace together for many generations would aim to create something, some sort of monument that would be crazy hard to complete and resets the arc. To differentiate a fail condition and a win condition, the next following arc gets a little boon to it for the first few hours/day or something.

This is a really ambitious idea, and a radical change of direction, but honestly I really think that level of change is the only way you will reach your dream of unique, amazing game. As so many have said before, making each town always need all the same things, and start off all the same way, makes everything the same. That boredom compiled with tedious repetitive actions lead some to acting out and trying to burn the world down. Adding specializations seems like a great way to flavor game, but gating items even though you know how to make them is frustrating. You still will want people to be able to do whatever they want if they so choose.

If there was a slight incentive to be one of the rabbit hunters this life/hour because you are a savanna child, that could be neat and fun to do. Next life you are a badlands miner and stone cutter, then a desert horse tamer and cactus farmer. Few days later in the rift, the families you helped survive in those rougher areas have come together and built a grand city around the Tarr monument. Roads stretch out in all directions linking these far out settlements and biomes, bringing back valuable resources. There are wooden cranes powered by engines that erect a great obelisk that pierces the sky, that only could be done if everyone chipped in and did their part. When the final stone is laid, everyone in the world gets a message it has been done and the arc will reset in one hour. The far out settlements and outposts all come together to celebrate at the monument. Elders don't die from old age, language barriers are removed, food drain is heavily reduced. Everyone can just relax and talk to each other. Take pictures, play dice, get in snowball fights and goof off with no worries.

That sounds like something to work for! A sense of real accomplishment rather than stalling inevitable demise for as long as you can. A reason to actually come together, make peace and learn each other's languages and trade.

Booklat1 · 2019-10-15 14:28:23

I'll leave this comment here to quote myself in the future

Ohol has good and bad updates, and usually it's as following

Good updates: bugfixes, base mechanic tweaks, survival related content/rebalances, aesthetic content

Bad updates: novelty content, new-quickly designed mechanics, old mechanic overhaul.

The rift started out as a pain in the ass but will slowly get more interesting, we're constantly around 70 active players this past week, it's a good season.

Just wait till the next big unorthodox mechanical addition and the player pop drop. Then you can also quote me.

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