Struggle

jasonrohrer · 2020-02-29 07:06:39

How did it take away playing in beginning towns?

DestinyCall · 2020-02-29 07:31:29

jasonrohrer wrote:

How did it take away playing in beginning towns?

Veteran players take the long view. When they look at a shallow well, they are thinking about what they need to do to turn it into a deep well. When they see a deep well, they are thinking about the steps required to turn it into a necomen pump.

And when they see a single-race village, they are thinking of how much work it will take to find blacks, browns, and gingers before the water runs out.

....

That's how race restrictions have ruined the early village experience. As an experienced player, it is hard to relax and enjoy building a young village, far away from the big cities, knowing that there is an almost impossible roadblock looming in the immediate future. It is a lot harder to get invested, when you know that your work is probably wasted in an isolated village or off-shoot town. You might as well /die until you reach a bell-town. That's a lot faster than walking by foot.

Not all experienced players WANT to play in crowded bell towns, but that is the "best" solution to the problem presented by race restrictions in the current meta. It dooms many villages, because people will abandon the town to head to the nearest bell, if it is available. There's no point in staying.

Last edited by DestinyCall (2020-02-29 08:27:52)

Cantface · 2020-02-29 14:50:51

DestinyCall wrote:

It will never happen, Cantface. Jason loves struggle and hates farts.

:'C

https://youtu.be/BvJF0j-RLxk

I won't give up hope.

AmberA · 2020-02-29 18:57:28

DestinyCall wrote:

jasonrohrer wrote:
How did it take away playing in beginning towns?
Veteran players take the long view. When they look at a shallow well, they are thinking about what they need to do to turn it into a deep well. When they see a deep well, they are thinking about the steps required to turn it into a necomen pump.
And when they see a single-race village, they are thinking of how much work it will take to find blacks, browns, and gingers before the water runs out.
....
That's how race restrictions have ruined the early village experience. As an experienced player, it is hard to relax and enjoy building a young village, far away from the big cities, knowing that there is an almost impossible roadblock looming in the immediate future. It is a lot harder to get invested, when you know that your work is probably wasted in an isolated village or off-shoot town. You might as well /die until you reach a bell-town. That's a lot faster than walking by foot.
Not all experienced players WANT to play in crowded bell towns, but that is the "best" solution to the problem presented by race restrictions in the current meta. It dooms many villages, because people will abandon the town to head to the nearest bell, if it is available. There's no point in staying.

+1, well said! IMO this all comes down to the bell. Bell = town survival. Having a bell means that all races will find you eventually and that town can work together to solve any water problem. The problem with bells is that only gingers can get gold. Gingers become the town creators, then blacks are likely to show up next because they have horses. Browns and whites have to abandon their towns in favor of the gingermade bell towns because no one will find them.

Some solutions could be for Gold veins to spawn in mountain biome for everyone to get. Or maybe create a new item that doesn't use gold, maybe a shorter bell tower that uses iron but the sound doesn't travel as far. Something that allows races to find each other easier, especially for brown families.

DestinyCall · 2020-03-01 05:10:12

Fun Fact - Electrum is a naturally-occuring alloy of gold and silver. The two metals can be separated by chemical methods. In OHOL, you use niter and sulfuric acid to make nitric acid then add a bar of electrum ore to make silver nitrate solution with gold flakes. The gold flakes can then be melted into gold bars and used to make a bell.

Of course, all that stuff is only found in the desert, so brown people and white people are still screwed.

Spoonwood · 2020-03-01 05:31:57

DestinyCall wrote:

Of course, all that stuff is only found in the desert, so brown people and white people are still screwed.

But don't Gingers have white skin and thus are white people?

Is the following completely accurate?

Between the ages of 4 and 40, universal translators have either brown or blonde hair, jungle types have brunette hair, desert types have black hair, and tundra types have red hair. Or do universal translators have another hair color also?

DestinyCall · 2020-03-01 05:40:22

Spoonwood wrote:

DestinyCall wrote:
Of course, all that stuff is only found in the desert, so brown people and white people are still screwed.
But don't Gingers have white skin and thus are white people?
Is the following completely accurate?
Between the ages of 4 and 40, universal translators have either brown or blonde hair, jungle types have brunette hair, desert types have black hair, and tundra types have red hair. Or do universal translators have another hair color also?

Sorry for the confusion, Spoonwood. I was talking about chocolates and vanillas. Only coffees and gingers have access to gold, since it can be found in tundra or desert.

I should have used the correct terminology so my meaning was clear.

petaldancing · 2020-03-03 06:08:17

jasonrohrer wrote:

The family specialty biomes are pretty much perfect and exactly what the game needs.

Well at least it's good to know the game is officially hopeless. This way anyone hoping for this game to be fun at any point in the future can rest easy knowing you'll never make that happen. Thanks I guess?

I have to say I find it pretty funny that you think this is "exactly what the game needs". Why not just say it's what YOU want for the game? Cut the bull.

jasonrohrer wrote:

I worry that many of the objections to family specialization are politically motivated, more than mechanically motivated.

Is this you admitting that you don't actually read the opinions of the playerbase? Cause one simple glance through the forum would tell you that this isn't in anyway true... At all. For every person mentioning political reasons for hating this trash update, there are 100 more who have legitimate reasons.

Mekkie · 2020-03-03 17:01:10

jasonrohrer wrote:

By the way, from my perspective, the tool slots are the bit of the design that I'm lukewarm about and not totally satisfied with. The family specialty biomes are pretty much perfect and exactly what the game needs.

I worry that many of the objections to family specialization are politically motivated, more than mechanically motivated.

Thank you for explaining just how out of touch you are.

By reading this i gather that jason has no intention of ever rolling back the racial restrictions.. which for me is a deal breaker. I've been waiting around for months hoping they would be removed.. but with this hard stance on them. Yea no. Time to uninstall.

Peace everyone, it was fun while it lasted. <3

Booklat1 · 2020-03-08 05:39:58

thanks for the response Jason

I might try and elaborate how said political views influence in player perception of the object of your mechanics, families in this case

Bowser · 2020-03-10 04:54:12

DestinyCall wrote:

jasonrohrer wrote:
How did it take away playing in beginning towns?
Veteran players take the long view. When they look at a shallow well, they are thinking about what they need to do to turn it into a deep well. When they see a deep well, they are thinking about the steps required to turn it into a necomen pump.
And when they see a single-race village, they are thinking of how much work it will take to find blacks, browns, and gingers before the water runs out.
....
That's how race restrictions have ruined the early village experience. As an experienced player, it is hard to relax and enjoy building a young village, far away from the big cities, knowing that there is an almost impossible roadblock looming in the immediate future. It is a lot harder to get invested, when you know that your work is probably wasted in an isolated village or off-shoot town. You might as well /die until you reach a bell-town. That's a lot faster than walking by foot.
Not all experienced players WANT to play in crowded bell towns, but that is the "best" solution to the problem presented by race restrictions in the current meta. It dooms many villages, because people will abandon the town to head to the nearest bell, if it is available. There's no point in staying.

Just want to add that this guy hit the nail on the head. This is why race restrictions are bad.

I like the idea of different families having specialties. that's kind of cool. But the hard restrictions force certain playstyles. You have to make a bell town or die, and bell towns tend to be pretty terrible and/or boring.

It's no surprise to me that the game is having a rough time keeping a population active right now. And as the population drops the problems only get worse. Not to mention the constant racial griefing that occurs because of it--what better way to screw over a town than to kill off the only chance they have for x resource? And you can pretend to be a genocidal maniac--trolls and griefers eat this crap up and ask for seconds.

I don't think racial restrictions are bad. I just think that hard restrictions make the game unplayable unless you play an exact and specific way, and this just isn't fun. It's a big part of why I quit playing previously, and a big part why I don't come rushing back. I really like this game, but this flaw ruins it for me. The best I can hope for is to get into a new town and enjoy it for a brief period of time until it inevitably blows up--figuratively and possibly literally.

If it were up to me--and it obviously isn't--I would keep racial restrictions but not make them hard restrictions. Make it so any race can work on any biome, but that they will struggle to do so if they are not the correct race. How? Well that's up to Jason. I just ask that it would be possible, even if it's impractical, to get a small amount of what you need to simply survive without living off of goose eggs and swamp water and constantly migrating. Or, going into the hell that are super bell cities.

But it's just my opinion. Perhaps not an entirely uncommon one, but these aren't my choices to make. I can only hope that future updates will expand what people can do instead of further restrict what is possible. I just want to be able to play the game and have fun.

Last edited by Bowser (2020-03-10 04:56:43)

Psykout · 2020-03-11 05:19:22

Tipy wrote:

On top of that a race's special biom should be hospitable to them and they should be incouraged to settle in this bioms. Like brownies have perfect temperature in jungles (or have a better temperature than the other and can do stuff to get an even better temperature vale as the wheel of progres spins) Are immune/can kill musquittos and have cheap building matterial like gingers have for snow.
Heck this way families have a reason to NOT merge together! A dark chocolate person cannot live with the brownies in the jungle but a brownie and a dark choco could settle together in a green biom if they wish but as a drawback they won't enjoy the bonuses of their home envirorment.
Also a cool thing it would be if the different families could make different style clothing, structures, gadges etc. Like Brownies make more tropical styled stuff, black choco more tribal african, gingers more Siberian or Nordic and whites (if they get a special biom)
This all sounds like fun. Yes I understand that it would require a lot of work and content added but wouldn't it be worth it? Everybody is whining about family specialization and begging for new content. If you ask me this would be a better adittion than yet another shohorned change nobody asked for that takes fun away and trying to bandage it over would take away your concentration from adding content and so on

I have pondered this extensively over the past 6-8 months or more, ever since the spring update, when you could build wells in mountains and savanna. The idea of seeing mountain villages that built with stone and focused on sheep, swamp towns that built with adobe and raised pigs/geese, and grasslanders that built with pine and heavily farmed etc sounded amazing. The huge problem with that is where does the failure element come in, and now you have to balance that on a per biome basis.

Perhaps the problem lies with the failure condition? At the moment it feels like burning a candle at both ends. If you do not succeed in getting a pump running, everything comes to grinding halt and everyone's flame is snuffed out very quickly. Its a race between extinction and immortality. There is never a time when you can look at a town and say, if they do not advance they will stop growing, only being able to support a handful of people, or will die out. It's purely, advance or disappear, which leads to the problem Destiny pointed out so well. Everything that is unattended should eventually have to decay, but at which rate should it do so is the head scratcher. Maybe small villages, in whatever biome they are in, can get by a bit longer before burning out. Loosen up on the severe necessity of growing into a town that has it all going on. Give the smaller villages a little more value, because they often just feel like a sinking ship and your best tool to bail it out is a water glass.

It's so complex though, and even now I waver between what could work and what does. Maybe it comes down to the fact that the restrictions are put onto the players rather than the biomes themselves. A crop you pull from a savanna can just be planted and grown in the snow. An animal taken from a mountain can be domesticated in the desert. If that ease of access was limited, say sheep are slower to produce young and wool outside of home biome, crops take longer to grow or yield less, maybe it would feel better. Make the races just have perks to being in their home biome such as temperature or rate of food loss. Heck maybe it would lead to inter village sharing/trade. Savanna would have excess clothes to give away, mountaineers would have excess mutton and iron, farmers would have ample branches and rope.

Elsayal · 2020-03-11 13:10:33

Psykout wrote:

the restrictions are put onto the players rather than the biomes themselves. [...] sheep are slower to produce young and wool outside of home biome, crops take longer to grow or yield less, maybe it would feel better. Make the races just have perks to being in their home biome such as temperature or rate of food loss.
[...] Savanna would have excess clothes to give away, mountaineers would have excess mutton and iron, farmers would have ample branches and rope.

Yay !

pein · 2020-03-11 14:44:16

mechanically motivated?
you mean you think it's good game mechanics? pearl of designers

the tech tree is straightforward
make tools to do jobs, that's a sub tech tree
there is one cycle for the compost to swap resources
there is one deep tech water tech where is a challenge and different level of difficulties with decent rewards
with the nerfs to water, compost is just convenience for the plebs
same for iron tech, it's not a worthwhile tech, it's just convenience addon
gathering wild resources seems to be better than advancing in the tech

advancement in tech depletes resources, as you call "everything runs out" so early towns look and feel better than old towns
too much focus on resources, peoples time is not really something you can rely on
generally, people should be happy about growing, but in this game, it feels like just getting closer to doom
generally, it should feel like advancing in tech makes your life easier, it's nothing wrong with introducing different challenges but the challenge is the same all eras and the game is not harder but more tedious

the tool slots just slowed down people, generally the veterans
instead of adding content, you nerf things, slow things down, so veterans skill is less obvious, their contribution is limited
the meme score linked to tool slots removes liberty, it's an enforced playstyle and dumb luck linked to advantages to game mechanics

the nerfs toward veterans are just artificial slowdown, newbies are completely useless since their time is useless, resource-based advancement means only a few activities are useful to the town, the rest is quite optional or wasteful. water and soil is the base level tech and without it, there is nothing to do for the players, it's a high difficulty problem for them, and generally a very boring choice for the veterans. do you sacrifice your life to fix a problem or do you dilly-dally around? there are no steps of progression just big jumps which leaves the players without anything to do or full life of a tedious job. there should be small steps of improvement over time and goals to achieve for everyone. there should be always a job to do, if you got kids, you should be able to give them a job and be happy that they can contribute.

there is no sense of loyalty, belonging, goals, progressing, no motivation for people. there is no personal pressure to do things instead of not doing things. so some people hang around talking and others can feed them for life. thee is no personal pressure that I need to do this in order to survive. there are no taxes, rents or upkeep costs, there is no value of things, no difference in a low or high tech city. that you would need more resources to upkeep but more profit out of it. no building levels or new techniques that yield more resources. should be a high-risk high reward game when advancing in tech and a few new difficulties along the way which would require higher population, more need for workforce, more teamwork needed, more requirements

the problem with race restriction is not political (although is kinda dumb that only creol skin people can pick bananas)
non-essential tech is okay to be limited, hat adds to the gameplay
you made an interlocked tech tree instead of a parallel one which includes the main tech tree, instead of skill and work, people need to rely on luck and randomness

travel to other families and trade? there is no worth in working and no rewards for it, no point system or motivation to do things
no content locked behind a currency
you even removed a high tech option from the main game, the horses and the ability to travel faster
distance should be an early game issue and fast travel a late-game feature

all you did is removing content and setting them behind luck-based race restrictions, sure people want to overcome it by teamwork but then you remove even more liberty, even more replayability and enforce a certain playstile over others limiting choices, replayability

people need to specialize cause they want to adapt to surroundings and get rewarded if they do and punished if they cant
parralell equal value techs are needed, more ways to do the same thing, solve the same problems

for example in oxygen not included there are more ways to produce oxygen: use algae, recycle co2, gain it from rust, clean dirty air
more ways to gain water: clean dirty water, get it as a side product from burning hydrogen, clean salty water, melt ice, cool down the steam

these are choices, options to archieve a goal and some are better than the others based on what is closer, what can you pair up

combining resources and using up waste products, recycling and converting resources in order to produce something else

same way ohol water tech. you said that people do multiple wells instead of advancing one. I said you need buckets that are required to advance in tech and requirement for other techs. that creates a need and a motivation to advance in tech.

you said you want to make a "random situation generator"
the main thing for that would be replayability
you got a lot of bored veterans and few enthusiast newbies
those players learn the ropes and will become same bored veterans then quit
it's a multiplayer game where people teach others
don't just throw out the player base

so it's not a political issue, it's a mechanical issue
good design would mean everybody can enjoy the main game, but optional content is locked behind races
those optional parts of the game should be available through different means, like trading
it should be expensive and slower for others, but not unreachable and luck-based or intention based
there is no trade, there are thievery and some charity

a good design would be: work hard to earn a currency then exchange trough a simplified system, sell your special items for their special items

you just removed content from the game, made things more generic, removed liberty, removed skill, removed challenges, removed motivation cause people are unable to reach higher-tech even if they try it's outside their reach
meme score, race restrictions and intention-based combat, mob mentality made things worse

Last edited by pein (2020-03-11 14:46:42)

JonySky · 2020-03-11 17:53:58

I am currently playing "Dont starve"
when I started playing OHOL I always imagined a game like "Dont starve" with the addition of generations, family relationships and conflicts between families ...

But this obsession (nonsense) to frustrate the player to prevent the advance of the players and prevent the natural growth of cities have ruined OHOL (rift, skill boxes and races)

In "Dont Starve" I can create EVERYTHING, without absurd limitations
The real challenge is to survive in anticipation of the disaster ..
You must anticipate the winter, you must place fences to ensure your safety, you must be a forecaster to the challenges of the game ... etc.
These needs and challenges create a brake to avoid advancing very quickly in the game, but it is a "natural" brake that does not prevent control of the game and rewards experienced players (normal in a game)

It's funny because the early camps in OHOL look a bit like dont starved ... but since there are no external challenges ... as soon as we have a constant source of food (pies) ... boredom begins

There are also various characters and each has its advantages and disadvantages, but they can do EVERYTHING ... in OHOL we have race limitations, limitations that only frustrate the player
The map is dynamic and full of new things, in OHOL it is a continuous repetition that offers nothing new ...

I think Jason should look more at games like Dont Starve to evolve

Ahh by the way Jason, Don't Starve Together has augmented its player base since it went on sale:
https://steamcharts.com/app/322330#All

And Dont Starve original has remained the same since the beginning:
https://steamcharts.com/app/219740#All

And it's a game similar to OHOL ...

Last edited by JonySky (2020-03-11 17:59:47)

Dodge · 2020-03-11 18:23:56

JonySky wrote:

...

Sooo add a bunch of mobs that try to kill you?

That would be weird in OHOL

What external challenges are you talking about?

Night?

But without having weird mobs that can kill you it would just be an annoyance to be in the dark.

Not sure what you are proposing here, it's two very different games even if they have similarities.

OHOL is more about survival in a society/civilization setting rather than survival against wild fictionnal monsters

Last edited by Dodge (2020-03-11 18:28:19)

Spoonwood · 2020-03-11 18:46:00

Dodge wrote:

OHOL is more about survival in a society/civilization setting rather than survival against wild fictionnal monsters

Every player dies. All families die out. No, this thing is not about survival.

Last edited by Spoonwood (2020-03-11 18:46:11)

sigmen4020 · 2020-03-11 18:50:36

Spoonwood wrote:

Dodge wrote:
OHOL is more about survival in a society/civilization setting rather than survival against wild fictionnal monsters
Every player dies. All families die out. No, this thing is not about survival.

So like exactly what happens in every other survival game?

Here's the first paragraph on the wiki page on "Survival games"

"Survival games are a subgenre of action video games set in a hostile, intense, open-world environment, where players generally begin with minimal equipment and are required to collect resources, craft tools, weapons, and shelter, and survive as long as possible."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_game

Note the bold. Eternal survival is not expected in survival games.

Last edited by sigmen4020 (2020-03-11 19:02:47)

Spoonwood · 2020-03-11 19:03:01

sigmen4020 wrote:

So like exactly what happens in every other survival game?

No. I still have Oxygen Not Included saves with duplicants alive from September if not August I think. I still have Rimworld saves with pawns alive since 2018 if not 2017 I think. I'm pretty sure that the game designers intend old saves to get kept alive, and I would think that they come as smart enough to know that someone somewhere can keep game characters alive somehow, and they don't object to players doing such. So, I do think that long-lasting survival is expected in survival games, at least until all of the computers stop running or no one has an interest in the game anymore.

Last edited by Spoonwood (2020-03-11 19:07:31)

sigmen4020 · 2020-03-11 19:12:42

Spoonwood wrote:

sigmen4020 wrote:
So like exactly what happens in every other survival game?
No. I still have Oxygen Not Included saves with duplicants alive. I still have Rimworld saves with pawns alive. I'm pretty sure that the game designers intend old saves to get kept alive, and I would think that they come as smart enough to know that someone somewhere can keep game characters alive somehow, and they don't object to players doing such. So, I do think that long-lasting survival is expected in survival games, at least until all of the computers stop running or no one has an interest in the game anymore.

How about you give a sourced definition of the word "survival game" that would exclude One Hour One Life from the genre. Being able to save a single player games does not have anything to do with them being in the survival genre. They're single player survival games, being able to save and recall your progress is expected in most single player games (survival game or no), it's by no means a must for the genre.

Survival games are about surviving "as long as possible". "As long as possible" in One Hour One Life just happens to be an hour for every player character and however long families and towns can survive before being killed or destroyed.

Last edited by sigmen4020 (2020-03-11 19:31:48)

Elsayal · 2020-03-11 19:22:22

Spoonwood wrote:

No. I still have Oxygen Not Included saves with duplicants alive from September if not August I think. I still have Rimworld saves with pawns alive since 2018 if not 2017 I think.

You can't can't compare solo survival game and multiplayer survival game with persitent world.
I mean you can compare it, but the base difference means a lot, right ?

Elsayal · 2020-03-11 19:25:39

JonySky wrote:

I am currently playing "Dont starve"
In "Dont Starve" I can create EVERYTHING, without absurd limitations
And it's a game similar to OHOL ...

Hi,
I disagree : it's not a game similar, since you have not only 4 or 6 guys in the same area. But you're right : if you play on a server with only 4 or less than 15 ppl, then hell yeah : no limitations.

But then, on a 40 players server, limitations mean something : you have to meet other ppl in order to achieve the techtree if you like that. But you can still play without if you don't enjoy it !

pein · 2020-03-11 21:56:19

Survival is intended to be hard, yes the goal is to survive as long as possible, except if you suck at it. Ohol is kinda the same, you would need to want to survive for 60 minutes and should be fun to do so. Right now a toddler can do same jobs as an elder, except from some heavy things and hungry works. In addition to your survival, you need to help others survive, but it's kinda created the leeches who survive by stealing the food they eat, basically pretending to be newbies.

Dunno, personally I could imagine AI attackers in OHOL, a tower defence style setup where you would make walls and fight monsters from time to time.

The 2d map in games means more strategic gameplay, most 4x games are 2d or pseudo 3d. The function of winter or the night time is to challenge the player if he can create excess resources to last trough a time where is harder to survive. Same could be said for wheater changes.
It could be other things like drought, hurricanes, tsunamis, fires, loss of food, dust storms, electrical outage. It meant to increase chaos and work around temporary issues. Just because the setting is different, wild animals and clearing obstacles could exist.

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