Problem Description about Leaderboard Score and Tool Slots

Flachzang · 2020-01-22 20:33:40

Hello Community,

I just signed up because I would like to share and describe a troublesome gameplay experience, regarding the leaderboard score system and the connected tool slot system.

I like the game. So I play it quite often. Consequently, due to plenty of playtime and experiences, I climbed the steep learning curve and became quite good in surviving and contributing to civilization. Accordingly, I also climbed the leaderboard steadily. That was the case before and after the recent score reset. Everything was good so far. Up until today when I dropped from a score of 50+ to around 40 in one single instance.

Personally, I don't really care what rank I am on the leaderboard. For the same reasons why I bought and play the game. After all in my opinion, the game in its core is not about competition but about cooperation. It is about the mutual creation of something bigger, so boasting or comparing individual performances is not of interest to me. But okay, everyone has a different taste and reasons to play the game differ, so I'm sure there are a lot of players who want to express something or themselves with that, so why not let them have it. Moreover, such implementations make personal progression transparent in numbers and I can imagine it also allows an identification of player groups to react accordingly in terms of development choices and so on. So it's a good system in many ways, I guess.

Anyway, while I don't care about my rank and respectively don't care about my score in the first place, I do care about my tool slots. The tool slot system and the connection to some sort of progress tracking systematic such as the leaderboard score is actually quite a good idea for players like me in my opinion, because it is a mechanic besides the score competition aspect that rewards the player and gives incentives to game on. At least, it felt very rewarding to me, to see that I was able to contribute better and have more freedom in designating my lifetimes. I also get the bigger picture that it supports communication, co-work, and the feel of being one part in a bigger chain. I think the tool slot system is a nice design decision.

However, the tool slot system in connection with the current score system is very susceptible by the influence of players with harmful intentions towards other players progressions. I just dropped down by many points as a result of one single griefer/troll/murderer in the town. You can check my progress on the leaderboard by checking the name "Maeli Mauseth". It is a hard work to incrementally climb for more slots, mostly by +0.20 steps from elder deaths at 60. You feel better and better as tool slots increase but then you get crushed by a sudden drop of -10.0 just by having one or two lives with a troll in town. It's simply frustrating, because it is not even one's own fault.

Sure, I could go after such players, trying to curse, counterkill, exile or whatever. But often it is just easier said than done for various reasons (e.g., players being afk in wilderness neglecting babies, kidnapping babies, luring bears to fresh towns, taking items away etc.). Also, such players live of the attention that you give them so by going after them, they will have even more "fun" to play the game their way. I guess they have a right to play the game their way but then it shouldn't have so much deconstructive impact on other playstyles, such as the I guess "normal" initial intended playstyle by most players, including me. In the end, the tool slot system has a big impact, I guess especially for veterans, as they know more stuff that you can do with the variety of different tools.

I hope that I was able to describe my problem with the game I'm having at the moment. It's quite substantial for me. If further details are needed or inspiration for solutions is appreciated, let me know.

Now I'm curious what you guys think.

Edit: I forgot one more thing to say: Those setbacks, that you receive by trolls, feel even more impactful now than before the score reset and its update, because the leaderboard scores have a much smaller range now. I was in the 140s before the patch so it didn't feel that bad because I still had a big buffer.

Last edited by Flachzang (2020-01-22 21:28:07)

Punkypal · 2020-01-22 21:13:14

The new system seems too harsh. For a while I was #1 even at 48.xx points and that only got me two extra slots and a measly amount of food pips. Getting above 50 is virtually impossible and right now out of hundreds of players, only two have managed to do it.

So may things that shouldn't impact you in a negative way do. Such as:
1) Mother leaves you to starve.
2) Baby runs away (into biome you cant pick up from usually) and intentionally starves.
3) Baby does /DIE causing you to crash, leading to animal mauling or starvation before can re-log in.
4) Mother does not realize she's over forty and you starve because no milk and she doesn't get to put a berry in your face.

All these things you have almost no control over and yet they ding you so hard. You also seem to lose a lot more from other players than you should. Even a player that lives to 60 every single life will find it very hard to get score over 60 because every other bad player drags you down too much. I hate being a female now, because no matter how much I do to keep my kids alive, I still lose score from every female life more than gain. Usually at least two kids will suicide and that's usually enough to put you into negative.

I thought this system might make people want to not kill themselves but it's actually made it worse. So many people have such low scores now that there is no more reason to NOT kill themselves, because they don't have any slots to lose. It's like what incentive is there for a prisoner already with a death sentence not to murder another inmate or a guard? That's why death row prisoners are all in their own cell on lockdown 23 hours a day. But in OHOL there is no death row and no way to prevent those bad players from murdering your score too.

Jason needs to tweak the numbers on this. It's all punishment and hardly any reward for good play.

Flachzang · 2020-01-23 09:03:04

Ya, maybe the numbers need to be adjusted. Young death penalties weigh too much compared to bonuses from elder deaths.

I can't raise my score anymore, even though I try my best to contribute and teach others.

Lum · 2020-01-23 09:43:00

Nothing that hasn't been complained about before.

fug · 2020-01-23 10:07:37

Probably does need a little adjustment considering any time an apocalypse happens/restart you're going to basically nosedive your score into the ground.

http://onehouronelife.com/fitnessServer … ail&id=436

Linking to Sigmen's score we see this massive negative occur (around the time of the server apocalypse and they drop 14+ points in a single life due to how harsh conditions can be on new players. We're again going to have to talk this over with Jason as that's not the least bit reasonable nor was their 75 something grandchildren one daughter ended up producing.

It should never be the right choice to kill yourself to prevent loss and the game shouldn't be deterring you from playing on server restart/apocalypse.

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2020-01-22 20:33:40

Problem Description about Leaderboard Score and Tool Slots

#2 2020-01-22 21:13:14

Re: Problem Description about Leaderboard Score and Tool Slots

#3 2020-01-23 09:03:04

Re: Problem Description about Leaderboard Score and Tool Slots

#4 2020-01-23 09:43:00

Re: Problem Description about Leaderboard Score and Tool Slots

#5 2020-01-23 10:07:37

Re: Problem Description about Leaderboard Score and Tool Slots

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