Simplicity vs complexity.

Dantox · 2020-04-28 14:07:36

Do you think that the game was better with more simple mechanics (No hierarchy, race restictions, tool slots and other similar systems) to where is currently now? What do you think is best fit to OHOL?

What do you think are the benefits with the current OHOL vs the past OHOL in terms with the meta. (Please try to take into account the entire playerbase, not just veterans or just newer-players)

Spoonwood · 2020-04-28 14:42:22

Dantox wrote:

Do you think that the game was better with more simple mechanics (No hierarchy, race restictions, tool slots and other similar systems) to where is currently now?

Yes.

MrGold · 2020-04-28 14:55:18

Yes the old ohol was best for everyone

antking:]# · 2020-04-28 15:06:01

yes, Jason added a lot of ideas but never went anywhere with them leaving us with a bunch of crapy mechanics that could have been good

Coconut Fruit · 2020-04-28 15:13:01

I checked 2hol yesterday, and the simplicity there is really lovely, it's just enjoyable to play even tho 2hol is boring, mainly because of lack of players I guess.

I loved no grid system... Tho I don't play vanilla so maybe vanilla users actually prefer to have everything (wells, veins, waystones, tarry spots) in a grid, idk. Dry natural springs also suck I wouldn't mind having natural springs in random positions and just use them whenever needed, I wouldn't mind having more water than we currently have - good thing was that even noobs could get water thought making another well nearby, it was fun to teach newbies how to make a well and get water for the family, I think they loved it even more.

I thought I'm fine with tool slots here on OHOL but it's really lovely not having them and just feel free. I'm not saying they are super bad, they just create a negative feeling. Yeah, it's cool they slow down veterans, they could do too much before, but I still think this game would be much better without them - I mean the feeling of freedom is so lovely in 2hol. Things like tool slots kinda make overall feeling about the game worse.

And ofc biome restrictions... The worst thing that ever happened to this game.

Damn, posse system should be mentioned here too, since it's not a simple thing. I don't like it at all.

I think this game could easily be fixed in one week of development, and be a great game... Greater than ever before

Whatever · 2020-04-28 15:18:49

race restrictions, property fences, tool slots, how wells work, how iron veins work, war swords, war/peace mechanics, pose system, curse system

Often when jason encounters a problem he tries to solve it by creating a weird unintuitive mechanic instead of finding a good solution for it.

A long time ago you could create wells where ever you wanted, now you can only create them at specific spots that are inside a grid and creating a well will unlock iron? wtf is this
If there are too many wells, make it so each tile has a water value that generates slowly over time, a well can draw water from tiles in its range, this makes it so that if there are multiple wells next to each other you wont get more water since they draw water from the same tiles. (also desert tiles could hold less water)

All this weird mechanics are a very bad way to fix problems and they add up, he keeps adding more and making them more complex.
It makes the game much less enjoyable and new players will have a hard time learning them.

Jason believes he is making the most difficult game that has never existed before. He believes other people have no idea how to fix those problems and cannot judge if his mechanics are good or not. This way he justifies all of this.

pein · 2020-04-28 16:15:12

I like complex stuff, OHOL is not complex, not that much
more like complicated in a dumb illogical way

take an example the homelands. gives you nothing just takes away, no reason why an outpost shouldn't be good on it's own, yet it's nerfed cause jason wanted to ruin it

this "invisible' nerfs that not many people realize, make no sense on their own just pure dumb nerfs to make the game tedious
there is a difference between hard and dumb illogical nerfs

DestinyCall · 2020-04-28 17:22:43

I like good complexity. Interesting complexity. Smart complexity.

I want Factorio and Stardew Valley and Oxygen Not Included.

I do not want Nintendo Hard, where the steep difficulty curve is masking a lack of depth.

Léonard · 2020-04-28 17:30:32

I really like this thread title.
Complexity vs simplicity.
The two are linked together in a very interesting and intricate way.

Specifically, through emergence.
Simple rules giving rise to complex behavior.
We see it everywhere.

There was a time when Jason understood and acknowledged this:

jasonrohrer wrote:

Most of this game was motivated by this:
In examining other multiplayer survival games, why do we never see SOCIETY emerge? Laws, trade, property rights, banking, specialization, etc...

This was, I think, the first time Jason replied to me.
I was already fascinated myself by this very concept, but to see it being applied like this in this very game, it made me excited!
It made me want to... re-build civilization! From scratch!

jasonrohrer wrote:

People started with nothing, and came up with those structures and procedures over thousands of years. Under different circumstances (like in this game), different structures and procedures might emerge.

This was when we discussed slavery and prisoners in the old /die thread.
At least then, the only magic thing in the game, cursing, was made to deal with its only anomaly, griefing.

By now its even gotten to that part, with no solo killing, murder face, impossible to miss kills, posse rules, you name it...

Pre-fences Jason:

jasonrohrer wrote:

I'm not planning to add anything to make prisons happen. You currently have all the tools you need with walls, doors, and locks.
[...]
One thing that I might add, that would at least make prisons more likely, is some form of non-lethal force. Clubbing or something like that.

Post-fences Jason:

Did you try building property fences around the griefer while forming a posse of 5^9-6 non-suicide people?

That was Jason pre-property fences though.
That was before the turning point.
Before that cursed night when he decided to go with his magic fence idea.

At first they were still sold under this emergence idea, "the fences are just atoms that people can play and build molecules with".
But let's be honest here, humanity didn't come up with private property because suddenly building magic, unbreachable fences was made easy.
Nevermind the idea that it emerged when villages started growing larger and denser due to the ease of survival brought by evolving technology, just privatize everything in a village of at most 20 people!

And even then, you can't really call them "building blocks in a sandbox" when you try to force their usage at every opportunity you get.
I'm more inclined to call them "contrived fences".
Find any excuse to use them even if it doesn't make sense and use them at all costs!

Fast-forward to today and we have all of this convoluted bullshit where even veterans themselves are confused about the magic rules sometimes.

-------------------------------------------------------

Whatever wrote:

Jason believes he is making the most difficult game that has never existed before. He believes other people have no idea how to fix those problems and cannot judge if his mechanics are good or not. This way he justifies all of this.

I think it's more than just this.
I think not only does he believe that, but he also believes he hasn't succeeded because his playerbase is unwilling or somehow against him.

I witnessed this personally everytime some issue popped up.
There was always a point where he would say he believed we were motivated in complaining because of x and y rather than z mechanic being actually unfun.

People opposing the temperature update? "you guys just want easy lives"
His initial area ban being too wide? "you guys just want to go back to the villages you were playing in which is what I'm trying to fix!"
People opposing fences? "you guys just want communism"

Don't believe me on this one? Sounds too exaggerated?

jasonrohrer wrote:

I worry that many of the objections to family specialization are politically motivated, more than mechanically motivated.
Just like many of the objections to property fences are politically motivated (for those who want to live out their collectivist fantasies in a game).

There was a time when Jason understood not to assume people's "true motivations" when they complained and instead knew he just had to dig to find out the culprit.

jasonrohrer wrote:

I've even been on the other end of that, when testing a game made by a friend's company. He and I are peers as designers, and he obviously respects my design instincts, but when I was playtesting his game, he basically wanted me to shut up and play (they were videotaping both the screen and my face while I was playing).

I think this time is long gone.
I think you can't really say you're looking for a solution to a problem when you literally go in person ingame and install fences yourself.
I think you can't really say you're looking for a solution to a problem when you literally think the problem is that the people who are playing your games are politically motivated and suggest they use fences at any opportunity (excuse) you get.
I think you can't even really say you're thinking rationally when you do things like that..

Whatever · 2020-04-28 17:48:35

i agree with nearly everything said in this thread, especially Léonard's post, very nice post.

ahead · 2020-04-28 19:20:21

Complexity of mechanics, simple and easy to understand systems and solutions are just the the better thing to use in most situations.
Those are simple to understand, but not necessarily limit things.

You could add a second parent requirement or make it desirable, but why?

You could add a set of magical walls that protect things perfectly and only for you, but why?

Or you can just have a single parent, with males still being different and because of their inability to have kids, allowing for more exploring, and making them just a bit different while not limiting females from doing so fully.
Oh, he added homeland that limit females having babies outside of a zone near a camp so they don't have to do anything about them and just dump them to other people to be taken care of?
Right, might as well have the whole population be females? Oh, he tweaked the code that handles that and we now can't have villages bigger than 20 people with most of them being female?
Absolutely fantastic.
Or you can just have players be able to do that in game with stone walls and doors with locks.
Oh, he added confusing property fences and instead of giving people an actual key from a lock on a door you just tell them that they own this?
Right, not confusing at all.

Last edited by ahead (2020-04-28 19:22:30)

testo · 2020-04-28 19:22:58

I disagree with the opener, restrictions aren´t always complex.

Toolslots, race restrictions, posse... those are very simple restrictions.

If you think toolslots and posse meant more complex interactions inside a village... I´ve seen people asking for help because they used all their toolslots. And I´ve seen 4+ people chasing an obvious griefer while he keeps breaking stuff.

If you think race restrictions meant more complex types of societies and diverse cultural cities... I´ve seen tarrs huts in the snow and a few tattoo shops.

Dantox · 2020-04-28 19:23:15

ahead wrote:

Oh, he added confusing property fences and instead of giving people an actual key from a lock on a door you just tell them that they own this?
Right, not confusing at all.

I have always thought that these new systems added more confusion than depth to the player.

Poor, poor new players.

DestinyCall · 2020-04-28 19:31:05

Dantox wrote:

ahead wrote:
Oh, he added confusing property fences and instead of giving people an actual key from a lock on a door you just tell them that they own this?
Right, not confusing at all.
I have always thought that these new systems added more confusion than depth to the player.
Poor, poor new players.

Technically, you CAN make lock out of iron and put it on a door to lock it. It is the original non-magic way of making your own private property, before Jason got mad at us for not living in houses and trading with the baker for our pies.

Traditional locked doors were never that common (except as a way to grief), but you almost NEVER see them now. Too much risk of locking a door forever because your great great grandfather lost the key.

ahead · 2020-04-28 19:52:56

testo wrote:

I disagree with the opener, restrictions aren´t always complex.
Toolslots, race restrictions, posse... those are very simple restrictions.
If you think toolslots and posse meant more complex interactions inside a village... I´ve seen people asking for help because they used all their toolslots. And I´ve seen 4+ people chasing an obvious griefer while he keeps breaking stuff.
If you think race restrictions meant more complex types of societies and diverse cultural cities... I´ve seen tarrs huts in the snow and a few tattoo shops.

I do have to agree with you on the tool slots, at least on some part of it, by itself they are very simple, most new people didn't have trouble understanding them.
The systems related to them are complex, gene score being directly tied to it, i've seen some new people with very few of them because they don't understand genetic fitness.
Just being unable to use a hoe to make more soil because they made themselves a pair of shoes with an adze
And the rest you've pointed out as exaples i'd like to think of as still being complex, or maybe backwards is the word.
Only regarding race restrictions that is .
You can't force people do behave in a manner that the game doesn't support, they're going to steal instead of trading.
Posse is not something that is simple.
Having three people say "i join you" is not simple for something like fighting.
Dying as a baby to a griefer and then being born and unable to fight back is not simple and easy to understand too, five or more groups of people chasing the same darn griefer are the proof to that.

Last edited by ahead (2020-04-28 19:54:22)

testo · 2020-04-28 20:32:03

You missed the point where I call them all restrictions instead of mechanics.

Simple mechanics can add complexity to the game. Restrictions just make it harded with no tradeoff.

Lava · 2020-04-28 21:18:03

He’s adding restrictions so we can’t progress through the tech tree. Amazing gameplay we have. It’s not like you can add new and interesting mechanics and content to the game, no no we need more restrictions.

DestinyCall · 2020-04-28 22:16:34

Lava wrote:

He’s adding restrictions so we can’t progress through the tech tree. Amazing gameplay we have. It’s not like you can add new and interesting mechanics and content to the game, no no we need more restrictions.

It is clever game design, Lava. If you want to stay one step ahead of your players, why run faster to keep in front, when you can just hobble them with a bunch of restrictions, so they struggle to move forward at all? Then it takes ten times as long for new players to realize there is no end-game content worth building.

At this point, I can't even tell if half of these changes are working "as intended", because any design flaws would probably make the game better - like when wild gooseberries had a missing transition that allowed them to regen a single berry. Jason was so quick to fix that, yet still sees nothing wrong with race restrictions, tool slot, gene score, etc.

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2020-04-28 14:07:36

Simplicity vs complexity.

#2 2020-04-28 14:42:22

Re: Simplicity vs complexity.

#3 2020-04-28 14:55:18

Re: Simplicity vs complexity.

#4 2020-04-28 15:06:01

Re: Simplicity vs complexity.

#5 2020-04-28 15:13:01

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#6 2020-04-28 15:18:49

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#7 2020-04-28 16:15:12

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#8 2020-04-28 17:22:43

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#9 2020-04-28 17:30:32

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#10 2020-04-28 17:48:35

Re: Simplicity vs complexity.

#11 2020-04-28 19:20:21

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#12 2020-04-28 19:22:58

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#13 2020-04-28 19:23:15

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#14 2020-04-28 19:31:05

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#15 2020-04-28 19:52:56

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#16 2020-04-28 20:32:03

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#17 2020-04-28 21:18:03

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#18 2020-04-28 22:16:34

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