Constantly Starving is Bad Game Design

Spoonwood · 2020-04-14 18:15:51

Ilka wrote:

Testo- THIS IS A PARENTING GAME.
Parenting is not about throwing 3/4 of your children in the trash.
And you never take anything that you have given, because the person you are taking something will feel aggrieved.

Testo described reasons not to feed all children. The game has had that problem many times before. That it has happened over and over and over again that veteran players have found it prudent to not feed all children signals massive problems in the game's design. Even more so since the awful life token idea got put into the game.

After all, if you play a game the first time, and literally can't do anything at all in the game, what did you get out of the game? People don't play games to just watch something. People play games to feel like they've done something; to do something in the game.

Legs · 2020-04-14 19:04:54

The typical 3x3 four-square layout for berries is already 36 bushes. Add another two plots and it's 54 bushes. They really add up fast, 50 sounds like a lot but there are a lot of towns that have had that many. My last life the town had 54, and people panicked when I dug some up. Berries are bad food I told them, it wastes a lot of water. "It's still food," said the muncher to an empty bakery in a town where nobody's working. They're sort of right. It's like gooseberry life support for times when there aren't enough productive people around to keep everything going at once.

Morti · 2020-04-14 19:39:25

Water, the friggin, wild berries, people!
Save the soil for everything else.
Making that soil, for all those domestic berry bushes, is a big part of the iron problem, and itself, a part of the water problem.
It'll cut down on iron used for hoes and shovels, for carrots and wheat, as well as cut down on water used for those crops, as well as the dry compost itself.

Morti · 2020-04-14 19:47:43

I'm tired of these farmers.

FishRfriendsnotfood · 2020-04-14 20:16:55

sigmen4020 wrote:

FishRfriendsnotfood wrote:
sigmen4020 wrote:
People adapted by actually making clothing, which was practically unheard of before the change. Not defending the food nerf btw, that change is just bad all around.

Um...yes thank you for repeating what I said. you adapt...sorry I wasn't specific and stated exactly how we adapted. didn't know spoon was here.
You literally said that we adapted by getting used to freezing, which we didn't. We adapted by finding new ways of getting warm. If you meant that we adapted by making clothing (like I said) you didn't formulate that especially well. Also it's funny you mention spoon, who would never defend the temp update.

oh I forgot to continue to argue with you. here is a quoted thing so we can keep arguing.

Crumpaloo · 2020-04-14 23:39:07

jasonrohrer wrote:

Being almost out of food is way more interesting than having way too much food.
Milk is currently totally broken, and could feed the whole village easily, but no one is drinking it. Instead, I see 50+ berry bushes in every village still used for direct eating (instead of being used to feed animals and thus make more water-efficient foods).
Anyway, I've lived a few lives myself where we were ALMOST out of water in an advanced village. It was tense and exciting, and a few of us banded together to save the day at the last minute by fetching a cart of buckets from a distant pond, to buy us more time for making the next rubber gasket.

That pretty much never happened before...

The point is this: what I did in that life, and the choices that I made, actually mattered to the fate of my village.
I was not bored.

Sometimes the only choice is create food or die, which gets tedious. I did it for my entire life to sustain a village on the brink of collapse. It was tense for sure, but not exciting. I will admit though towards the end the food started balancing out but after more then half my life was devoted to just making food, i was pretty disappointing with the lack of progress made. everyone was so focused on staying alive that there was no time to do other things, it was just one food source to the next non-stop. Didnt feel satisfying or interesting, just manditory and chore-some.

DestinyCall · 2020-04-15 00:13:04

I find it fascinating that even under extreme pressure, we still do not see villages living off milk as a primary diet. I see it made in a few villages, here or there, but never see villages that do a "milk only" or even "milk mostly" diet.

It suggests to me that milk is broken, but NOT in the way Jason thinks. I have tried to establish milk in villages over and over, with limited success. Even when it looks so much better on paper, it just doesn't seem to perform very well in the game.

Last edited by DestinyCall (2020-04-15 00:17:06)

sigmen4020 · 2020-04-15 00:22:14

FishRfriendsnotfood wrote:

sigmen4020 wrote:
FishRfriendsnotfood wrote:

Um...yes thank you for repeating what I said. you adapt...sorry I wasn't specific and stated exactly how we adapted. didn't know spoon was here.
You literally said that we adapted by getting used to freezing, which we didn't. We adapted by finding new ways of getting warm. If you meant that we adapted by making clothing (like I said) you didn't formulate that especially well. Also it's funny you mention spoon, who would never defend the temp update.
oh I forgot to continue to argue with you. here is a quoted thing so we can keep arguing.

Lmao. Here's my counter-argument:

no u

sigmen4020 · 2020-04-15 00:24:32

DestinyCall wrote:

I find it fascinating that even under extreme pressure, we still do not see villages living off milk as a primary diet. I see it made in a few villages, here or there, but never see villages that do a "milk only" or even "milk mostly" diet.
It suggests to me that milk is broken, but NOT in the way Jason thinks. I have tried to establish milk in villages over and over, with limited success. Even when it looks so much better on paper, it just doesn't seem to perform very well in the game.

I think the major reason it's not as widely adapted as it should is the bucket requirement, and many seem to think that buckets should be reserved for water.

fug · 2020-04-15 00:35:14

sigmen4020 wrote:

DestinyCall wrote:
I find it fascinating that even under extreme pressure, we still do not see villages living off milk as a primary diet. I see it made in a few villages, here or there, but never see villages that do a "milk only" or even "milk mostly" diet.
It suggests to me that milk is broken, but NOT in the way Jason thinks. I have tried to establish milk in villages over and over, with limited success. Even when it looks so much better on paper, it just doesn't seem to perform very well in the game.
I think the major reason it's not as widely adapted as it should is the bucket requirement, and many seem to think that buckets should be reserved for water.

I mean I personally find that making milk just doesn't have the same satisfaction as doing anything else.

Pies have a reasonable amount of steps
Stew takes a bit of work and still feels good
Fishing obviously takes setup and execution

Milk requires you to either farm or gather the worst crop (milkweed) and the actual action of milking doesn't really have the wow factor like other foods. It's just a quick ten second window to milk a cow three times then rinse and repeat.

Milk has been boring since its release for me personally, I only ever use the stuff when others make it and for hungry work since it's one of the best foods in game.

Legs · 2020-04-15 00:38:36

This afternoon my family was living mostly on milk. At the very least it was being spammed and preached. If the town had a dozen buckets ten were full of milk, one water bucket for farming and one for cows to drink and produce more milk. I produced a dozen buckets myself in between other work like emptying the well into cisterns.

People were still being wasteful, still using tons of water for other stuff. An ideal society of milk drinkers is not here yet. It's rapidly entering the meta though. The staple foods of that town were milk first, then buttered bread as a byproduct. We're literally reaching the bread and butter of ohol.

AmberA · 2020-04-15 00:50:30

DestinyCall wrote:

I find it fascinating that even under extreme pressure, we still do not see villages living off milk as a primary diet. I see it made in a few villages, here or there, but never see villages that do a "milk only" or even "milk mostly" diet.
It suggests to me that milk is broken, but NOT in the way Jason thinks. I have tried to establish milk in villages over and over, with limited success. Even when it looks so much better on paper, it just doesn't seem to perform very well in the game.

Because it's not fun and you cant store it in a backpack

DestinyCall · 2020-04-15 01:26:38

So you are saying we need milk bottles?

Gogo · 2020-04-15 03:00:06

I just starved in two lifes, no food at all, no berries, carrots, pies, I saw some soups, but soon ppl drank them, I only managed to send my boy for calf (he will succeed if villagers won't turn last dry corn into popcorn, lol) and farm a couple of carrots. Lol wtf?

Last edited by Gogo (2020-04-15 03:14:11)

mensrea · 2020-04-15 15:26:45

jasonrohrer wrote:

Being almost out of food is way more interesting than having way too much food.
The point is this: what I did in that life, and the choices that I made, actually mattered to the fate of my village.
I was not bored.

I am quite enjoying the difficulty of living to sixty while being productive. I also enjoy being angry at people doing stupid stuff which can kill me - burning food, chucking a flat rock on hot coals, etc.

I had a life where my mother starved holding me as a bb. Then the fire went out and I aged up and cooked a bowl of beans on the hot coals. I ended up saving the lineage, at least temporarily.

The feeling takes me back quite a bit in the game's history and I am happy about it. A measure of your ability to play can be, how old was I when I died.

DestinyCall · 2020-04-15 15:54:54

Yep, so as a new player, you can expect to repeatedly die at age six or seven until you get good. Sounds about right.

The difficulty curve on this game is completely broken right now, but at least experienced players get to enjoy the thrill of potential starvation again.

tobiasisahawk · 2020-04-15 20:19:44

DestinyCall wrote:

So you are saying we need milk bottles?

Water pouches fit in backpacks. It would be great if we could fill them with edible liquids too. Milk pouch, broth pouch, stew pouch. It'd extend the usefulness of rabbit furs after your town has enough backpacks.

Karrots · 2020-04-16 23:53:00

Naw, this is part of Jason's intelligent master plan to make everyone rage quit so nobody is left to disagree with his awesome unflawed game design.

Spoonwood · 2020-04-17 00:19:06

Karrots wrote:

Naw, this is part of Jason's intelligent master plan to make everyone rage quit so nobody is left to disagree with his awesome unflawed game design.

His game has massive flaws and has had many massive flaws for a very long time. One of the bigger ones is rejection of players having choice over their initial starting conditions. The lack of a choice screen signals not only a disrespect to players from the start, but an unwillingness to hear that they enjoy making their own choices. Such an unwillingness to hear such becomes even more clear as indicated by this thread, as someone says that the starvation rates are bad design. But, the immediate response comes as follows:

jasonrohrer wrote:

Being almost out of food is way more interesting than having way too much food.

That comes as the game designer telling people what they find interesting, instead of accepting what they say about what they find interesting.

And to top such off, there's an outright lie:

jasonrohrer wrote:

The point is this: what I did in that life, and the choices that I made, actually mattered to the fate of my village.

As if the village wasn't dead within a few days *at most* after that.

Here's anothing thing about this game: CONSIDERED OBJECTIVELY NOTHING YOU DO MATTERS IN IT. Your actions don't ultimately have consequences, because in the end it's pre-scripted that you will die, that your lineage will die since updates guarantee it, your offspring will die, and your village will cease to exist also. And there is no in game goal.

If someone wants to argue that personal meaning can exist in the game, well, you should acknowledge that that game designer doesn't have a consistent philosophy with that, since like before he came in here arguing with people's preferences, and he doesn't respect players choosing their own initial conditions. Nor does he respect players trying to get more control.

Starknight_One · 2020-04-18 17:47:49

Caprys wrote:

It gets even better when you spawn in as an eve and your whole surrounding is already wiped clean of any food.

Did that once, long before any of these updates. Spent 3ish minutes running along the edge of a desert, looking for food of *any* kind. Didn't see so much as a cactus. I probably shouldn't have touched that monument.

Sorry for the diversion... now back to your regularly scheduled discussion.

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