Constraints and Resource Scarcity

Cogito · 2020-03-18 10:55:20

Reading a few threads, a few people talk about the 'sameness' in the game.

It's possible to have different roles in life, but as a town or civilisation it seems that the ways of doing things have mostly been solved.

The meta is stagnant.

The pressures on a town seem to be similar in every town - establish toolmaking, sheep, farms, maybe make a belltower. Keep the water going. Find rubber and kerosene, eventually.

There is never a reason to do anything in a different way. It's not possible to set a town up in a place with abundant water, or iron, or some other resource. The only thing that seems to matter geographically is how to connect with other experts.

What I wonder is what resources *could* be constrained, or distributed in an uneven manner?

Water used to be like that, but I don't mind the current system too much - it makes finding things easier which is good.

For animals, you always go and get the animals and put them in a pen you built - no constraints there.

Farms are similar, but that's probably just because you can farm almost anywhere and it makes no difference.

I enjoy all of the individual aspects of the gameplay but a lot of the overarching progress seems locked on rails, racing to recreate the same thing over and over again.

I want each town I'm born in to feel different, and to feel different for meaningful reasons and due to problems being solved in unique and interesting ways.

For the moment, the problems seem to always be the same.

Coconut Fruit · 2020-03-18 11:15:23

So what do you suggest, Cogito?

Cogito · 2020-03-18 11:37:56

Coconut Fruit wrote:

So what do you suggest, Cogito?

No well formed ideas! The problem is that I really enjoy the game as it is, and it's hard to think of different ways of playing it.

In Factorio there are geographic features that you either can't remove or take a lot of work to change, and force you to work around them. We sort of have that with different biomes, but the impact seems low, it's not a very hard constraint.

Again in Factorio, there are resource 'patches' that you have to go explore and mine. Closest we have is oil and water spots, but the only infrastructure that is built is the well and maybe a road. For many resources, like sulphur and latex, a single person can go collect them and bring them back to the town.

Other ideas:

- Land that is better for farming, or farming some kinds of crops.

- Lakes/rivers/canals and boats.

- Grazing sheep that need to be herded from grass to grass.

- Blights/diseases destroying crops

- Ability to hunt and cook as a nomad

- Aqueduct system to bring water into the town

- Automation systems of any kind

Constraints and resource scarcity doesn't have to be purely environmental, and I think this plays out in many towns. The way you build today changes what and how you build in the future. I think that should be explored more, give us more ways of building roads, more uses for buildings, etc.

Dodge · 2020-03-18 14:00:35

Biomes could be bigger and crops only grown in their original biome, so there would be area farming and exchange between the different biomes (carrot,berries etc), biome generation could be so you cant just settle at the crossing of every biome.

Regarding scarcity since the map is infinite you can just move out or get ressources from a little further so you cant really run out, so having an economy even between the different families is pointless, it's more a "giving/stealing economy" right now, and since there is no risk of running out no point in protecting ressources or truly exchanging them.

If you had some limit on the long term ressources you can get then over time an economy between villages could take place.

Having limited ressources but also some way to have long term sustainability, like for example having oil not running out but a fixed limit per hour would be much more interesting.

Then it would be up to the players to manage the limited ressources they have in order to survive, but it would be possible to go indefinitly IF the players make the right choices in how they use their ressources.

Oceans and continents would make this possible, while still having fresh wilderness for new Eves

pein · 2020-03-18 14:20:58

yeah, Jason isn't really shaking things up lately
seems like laziness mostly, and a bit of childish refusal since he implemented shit updates and nobody likes it, he tries to force it even more

adapting means nothing when only water matters and every action you take is either preserving or upgrading water

so there should be another resource or resources that are just as important as water or a way to convert other resources into water

also to make adaptation more important, things should have more value, like other reason to stay in a particular town other than sentimental reasons

and since there are no parallel tech tree elements where you could achieve the same goal in different ways and no choices that set apart cities, everything is just a repeating mess

I guess some unique resources per city that could be transformed into higher tier elements would help
like the citizens can choose one resource to upgrade upon or maybe 2-3 of 12 different industries, that would be good

since it's a multiplayer game, it's hard to define a good system where the smarter and better players get to choose and the others follow their lead, especially how little skill means nowadays

I guess it would need to be a lot more resources than now so work is always needed, and processing them would take more time, so focusing on one on other would matter more, and progressing would also make cities more unique

pein · 2020-03-18 14:47:42

Dodge wrote:

Biomes could be bigger and crops only grown in their original biome, so there would be area farming and exchange between the different biomes (carrot,berries etc), biome generation could be so you cant just settle at the crossing of every biome.
Regarding scarcity since the map is infinite you can just move out or get ressources from a little further so you cant really run out, so having an economy even between the different families is pointless, it's more a "giving/stealing economy" right now, and since there is no risk of running out no point in protecting ressources or truly exchanging them.
If you had some limit on the long term ressources you can get then over time an economy between villages could take place.
Having limited ressources but also some way to have long term sustainability, like for example having oil not running out but a fixed limit per hour would be much more interesting.
Then it would be up to the players to manage the limited ressources they have in order to survive, but it would be possible to go indefinitly IF the players make the right choices in how they use their ressources.
Oceans and continents would make this possible, while still having fresh wilderness for new Eves

I think that travel and transport is very boring right now like most players don't even go further than 60 tiles from the camp
so might as well just break the cities into small maps that are overall challenging and provide artificial transportation in between which would be more price based than time and distance-based
that could be islands or small individual maps, my idea was recentering map around the eve spot but having transport to a mini-map to go to other places. if his intention is that families stay home and get the resources back home instead of moving out, then that could also limit exchange

he finds social interaction of giving or stealing fun, I think it's limiting the actual trade where people could produce things knowing they get counter value for them, but also no point of creating excess materials where there is no way to get any value out of it. why make 40 pies when others can make 2x20? the city has food and the newbies are busy
I guess it's because he himself doesn't play and doesn't see how resources limit the work, and people don't do shit cause they are not forced to do anything, and there is nothing to do anyway

it's a complete mess when low tech jobs depend on high tech jobs. the best example is that you can't give a job to a toddler, not even farming cause you don't have water so you would need to solve a high difficulty problem within your lifetime but even with 1 or 10 workers the issue is not that you can't do shit, it's cause you depend on others cause you born with the wrong skin tone

yeah I also think that we would need renewable resource management, and depend on the optimal usage of it, not the total amount of it
you got 10 water per 10 minutes, you got several uses for it, if you use it for farming, then you can't use it for higher-tech production but it's enough to cover the basic needs, also not using it would mean that you waste it, that would put a bit more focus on work
that might also need upkeep based economy where you need to repair machines so upgrading and maintaining them would matter and it would limit your maximum amount

the currency would be nice as a limiting factor, you can get the currency by basic jobs, you could buy higher tier resources with it and process it further to gain more profit, also those resources would be needed to upgrade buildings and machines

also it's quite bad that there is no skill-based combat anymore, so some sort of challenge of that kind would make sense, even a sport. where the chosen teams would enter an arena with other combat rules, and battle to beat the other family and can wager some resources.

as for the map, I think it would be more fun to unlock new parts of the map by buying or unlocking it somehow, also would give a reason why people work harder than usual
rift was bad for all families, but small boxes for families would be good if there would be a way to get out, like reaching tech levels and sending some youngsters in a boat to conquer new lands

Karrots · 2020-03-20 16:17:58

Cogito wrote:

- Ability to hunt and cook as a nomad

I remember when I used to nomad. Man, good times. I'd grab some snares, a bowdrill, a sharp stone, and a flint chip and brave the unknown. It was a fun way to survive, even more so with a horse for company. Sometimes I'd have a kid or two and deck them out in rabbit furs.

Sad that that play style is no longer viable, now that rabbit hunting is more complicated and you can't have kids away from home. Jason murdered the nomad lifestyle with good intentions. Maybe it's a necessary shift in the game but I'm going to miss it for sure!

voy178 · 2020-03-20 17:00:34

Karrots wrote:

Cogito wrote:
- Ability to hunt and cook as a nomad
I remember when I used to nomad. Man, good times. I'd grab some snares, a bowdrill, a sharp stone, and a flint chip and brave the unknown. It was a fun way to survive, even more so with a horse for company. Sometimes I'd have a kid or two and deck them out in rabbit furs.
Sad that that play style is no longer viable, now that rabbit hunting is more complicated and you can't have kids away from home. Jason murdered the nomad lifestyle with good intentions. Maybe it's a necessary shift in the game but I'm going to miss it for sure!

You still can. It's even easier than ever given that starter tools can be dismantled over and over again as you traverse the world. The problem is that your Eve or any other family member may not create or use an unoccupied well. Until then you're a nomad and will have children as normal.

There is enough pre-well tech to be used for the nomad life. Especially if you "exchange" goods for QoL items in the towns. Small cheap huts out of pines can be made really quickly, each camp you create could be seasonal. Livestock can now be brought along the world, even if slow. If you have a black family, you could be proper horse lords with a little help from the established towns.

The only thing really in your way is your family that has to be onboard the idea.

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2020-03-18 10:55:20

Constraints and Resource Scarcity

#2 2020-03-18 11:15:23

Re: Constraints and Resource Scarcity

#3 2020-03-18 11:37:56

Re: Constraints and Resource Scarcity

#4 2020-03-18 14:00:35

Re: Constraints and Resource Scarcity

#5 2020-03-18 14:20:58

Re: Constraints and Resource Scarcity

#6 2020-03-18 14:47:42

Re: Constraints and Resource Scarcity

#7 2020-03-20 16:17:58

Re: Constraints and Resource Scarcity

#8 2020-03-20 17:00:34

Re: Constraints and Resource Scarcity

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