Why have key mechanics been trivialized?

[chemie]

So playing on "hardest difficulty" (not even sure it effects things)

1. Morale.  Only needing 3 morale for mastery (on liked profession).  I mean, this is cycle 2 level.  Even if you don't like it, it is only 6 morale which you get without trying.  A profession + exosuit is 9-12 morale so morale has been effectively removed for everything but astronauts. -->  Ignore

2. Decor: Only needing 9-12 morale early and mid game means you need zero decor. --> Ignore

3. Food quality: Same.  You can run on lice until dirt runs out before needing morale for good food. --> Ignore

3. Research.  Plowing through research way to quickly with 2 dups since I can now get them to Astronomy.    Before you had to stop at the first level to get morale and then likely never progress past second level while researching everything.  Now I have super fast researchers and I am getting through a research in less than half a cycle.  Research should not be a click feast. 

4. Food poisoning.  I managed to mop some pee and had 2 dups get sick.  I only noticed due to the counter in the upper left.  Beyond that, there was no effect.  No point to boosters or cures.  --> Ignore

5. Slime lung: I have slime biome surrounding my base so I decided to dig in there with only a few air cleaners and slime going under water.  Quickly, 6 of 8 dups got slimelung.  Again, mostly noticed from the counter.  I suppose there was a productivity hit but I did not notice.  Good thing since I can't make cures.  Does Klei really think new players can setup a balm lily farm at cycle 30? No point worrying since I will be digging in slime for the next 100 cycles setting up my base (I put industrial equipment outside base) so I will have slime lung for the next 100 cycles I guess?  Nope.  everyone got better and I am freely digging without any implications.  A few buddy plants seems to eliminate all slimelung threat..  --> Ignore but only because you can't realistically do anything early-mid game infections (not that I would?).

Why remove so many things from the game?

What I would do:

1. Increase morale for the first mastery, and then subsequently make each next one cheaper to allow for super dupes if that's your thing.  The way it is now, you can ignore morale which is bad.  Skills/professions are essentially gated by time played as morale will not dictate when you level up.  I have an exosuit engineer after three points sitting at 9 morale with an expectation of 4?  and it was only around 10 cycles to get there.  Seriously?

2. Disease is being debated elsewhere but it needs to be fixed.  Make me care and allow me to actually treat the dups.

 

As it stands now, I will await morale mods and sickness mods as the game is trivial to play as implemented right now.

[bmilohill]

I agree with everything you said - I started a new base last night because I want to test a few things, and the first 100 cycles truly were trivial. All I did was plug in my base layout that I already have preplanned on an excel sheet that I was going to use regardless of the spawn. I don't imagine the next 300 cycles will present any challenge either. 

The thing is - these things are trivial to me because I have 600 hours in game. I imagine you have similar numbers. I can also remember my first 100 hours of the game, where everything constantly died. 

What I cannot quite tell is if the game became trivial because game settings made it easier, whether it got easier simply because you and I got better, or if it wasn't intentionally easier - but QoL improvements made the dupes behave better so things were done more efficiently which means less things go wrong. Obviously it is a combo of at least 2 of these, but it's hard to judge what can be done. 

I guess my point is I would LOVE a hard mode that triples morale expectation for skills. But I am not sure if the game is too easy now for brand new players. Hopefully ONI being on sale this week on steam will give us an influx of brains we can pick on the current new player difficulty level. 

[blash365]

Your assumptions are incorrect. Required morale is now increased for every skill you aquire. It is no longer a tiered system as the job tree in the last version.

 

There are huge benefits in learning more skills than simply "one profession":

• courier, increased carry-capacity
• exosuits, no runspeed penalty
• plumbing, increased carry-capacity
• research, faster stats gain

[bmilohill]

1 minute ago, blash365 said:

Your assumptions are incorrect. Required morale is now increased for every skill you aquire. It is no longer a tiered system as the job tree in the last version.

No, he described it correctly. 
Every skill acquired requires cumulative morale, you are correct here. 
But the amount each new skill requires is on a tier system. Tier 1 skills require 1 more cumulative morale. Tier 2 takes 2, etc. 

So getting to astronomy (3x +2 to learning) takes 6 morale. If your dupe has the research interest, it only takes 3 total morale. 
OP's point is it takes absolute minimal morale to get a dupe to be able to research with insane speed early game. 

[chemie]

4 minutes ago, blash365 said:

Your assumptions are incorrect. Required morale is now increased for every skill you aquire. It is no longer a tiered system as the job tree in the last version.

 

There are huge benefits in learning more skills than simply "one profession":

• courier, increased carry-capacity
• exosuits, no runspeed penalty
• plumbing, increased carry-capacity
• research, faster stats gain

Sure but these can come later....the morale requirements for early and mid game are effectively removed.

[blash365]

Just now, bmilohill said:

No, he described it correctly. 
Every skill acquired requires cumulative morale, you are correct here. 
But the amount each new skill requires is on a tier system. Tier 1 skills require 1 more cumulative morale. Tier 2 takes 2, etc. 

So getting to astronomy (3x +2 to learning) takes 6 morale. If your dupe has the research interest, it only takes 3 total morale. 
OP's point is it takes absolute minimal morale to get a dupe to be able to research with insane speed early game. 

Which costs you a dupe, who could be a miner, farmer, builder instead and therefore increases your resource-footprint.

It's a valid strategy, but it doesnt come without cost.

1 minute ago, chemie said:

Sure but these can come later....the morale requirements for early and mid game are effectively removed.

As they were when you could spam artworks everywhere. So what is your point?

[chemie]

30 minutes ago, bmilohill said:

I agree with everything you said - I started a new base last night because I want to test a few things, and the first 100 cycles truly were trivial. All I did was plug in my base layout that I already have preplanned on an excel sheet that I was going to use regardless of the spawn. I don't imagine the next 300 cycles will present any challenge either. 

The thing is - these things are trivial to me because I have 600 hours in game. I imagine you have similar numbers. I can also remember my first 100 hours of the game, where everything constantly died. 

What I cannot quite tell is if the game became trivial because game settings made it easier, whether it got easier simply because you and I got better, or if it wasn't intentionally easier - but QoL improvements made the dupes behave better so things were done more efficiently which means less things go wrong. Obviously it is a combo of at least 2 of these, but it's hard to judge what can be done. 

I guess my point is I would LOVE a hard mode that triples morale expectation for skills. But I am not sure if the game is too easy now for brand new players. Hopefully ONI being on sale this week on steam will give us an influx of brains we can pick on the current new player difficulty level. 

So 1500 hours.  I do believe some of these changes are to be newb friendly.  I know lots of people were losing bases over and over which surprised me since I found the game easy to learn the few key things to make life easy.  But still, if this is the design consideration to trivialize everything, then they need to spend some time on the difficulty settings to enable a bigger challenge (which would help the newbs on replay anyway).  But if newb is the design reason, why make slimelung cure take a balm lily farm?  Seems to not line up so newbs won't be curing their slimelung but wont lose their base?  Seems off.

24 minutes ago, blash365 said:

Which costs you a dupe, who could be a miner, farmer, builder instead and therefore increases your resource-footprint.

It's a valid strategy, but it doesnt come without cost.

As they were when you could spam artworks everywhere. So what is your point?

Not true.  I had to wait for exosuit engineer before because 20 morale actually took some work.

[blash365]

2 minutes ago, chemie said:

Not true.  I had to wait for exosuit engineer before because 20 morale actually took some work.

Or simply build a massage table.

[chemie]

1 minute ago, blash365 said:

Or simply build a massage table.

On hardest setting that would have a very large impact on power and productivity.  The stress hit was pretty large.  But not sure what you are arguing here.  It was always trivial I guess?

[blash365]

Just now, chemie said:

On hardest setting that would have a very large impact on power and productivity.  The stress hit was pretty large.

Anyway, the current system serves lategame slightly better, because now it is not as easy to have "superdupes" as before.

My dupes are running at around ~30-35 morale, so i can comfortably pick most of the skills that i want, but when it comes to astronauts, mechatronic-engineers, ranchers or doctors, i actually have to make a choice. Which is good.

Maybe a logarithmic progression in morale requirements will make choices a bit harder in early game as well, making both of us happy. But i wouldnt go as far as labeling the new system as a step backwards.

Regarding illness, there still are some severe illnesses to arrive, so i am fine with the frequent, minor illnesses having only minor effects on productivity.

[Lacost]

I would rather say that the skill system morale gain is fine. Instead the morale you get from rooms is unbalanced. Especially the Great Hall bonus of +6 morale is completely overpowered. Mess tables + water cooler + 1 Briar plant = +6 morale. If you compare this to the barracks into bedrooms progression you go up from +1 morale to +2 morale but need plastic for the bedroom. There is simply no balance here.

 

Early game morale should look like this:

Barracks = +1 morale

Latrine = +1 morale / Washroom = +2 morale and requires at least one shower

Showered = +1 morale

Mess Hall = +1 morale / Great Hall = +2 morale

Recreational = +1 morale

 

This would give you +6 morale from rooms, +1 from showers, +1 from socializing and +1 from breaks in the first 20 or so cycles which is more than enough for a non interested Dupe to get to tier 3 in one profession. If you want to get more skills you either have to invest into decor, food or recreational buildings. With tier 5 food and high decor you can get additional +28 morale, +4 morale for recreational buildings and +4 morale for coffee, which is enough for highly skilled late game Dupes.

[chemie]

3 minutes ago, Lacost said:

I would rather say that the skill system morale gain is fine. Instead the morale you get from rooms is unbalanced. Especially the Great Hall bonus of +6 morale is completely overpowered. Mess tables + water cooler + 1 Briar plant = +6 morale. If you compare this to the barracks into bedrooms progression you go up from +1 morale to +2 morale but need plastic for the bedroom. There is simply no balance here.

 

Early game morale should look like this:

Barracks = +1 morale

Latrine = +1 morale / Washroom = +2 morale and requires at least one shower

Showered = +1 morale

Mess Hall = +1 morale / Great Hall = +2 morale

Recreational = +1 morale

 

This would give you +6 morale from rooms, +1 from showers, +1 from socializing and +1 from breaks in the first 20 or so cycles which is more than enough for a non interested Dupe to get to tier 3 in one profession. If you want to get more skills you either have to invest into decor, food or recreational buildings. With tier 5 food and high decor you can get additional +28 morale, +4 morale for recreational buildings and +4 morale for coffee, which is enough for highly skilled late game Dupes.

You can re-work it either way; perhaps making a way to get much higher morale bonuses later game as you want to add more skills to dups?

[Sasza22]

I agree that the morale is a bit out of balance atm. Great hall was too good since it was added (srsly +6 morale for 1 plant and a watercooler in a huge room). The higher tier jobs are pretty easy to get now. But the thing is you don`t really need those early anyway. Why would you need an astronomer before you breach to space. The one i don`t like is the artist. You can get a master artist for miniscule morale and get the best artwork right off the bat. You`ll never see the lower tier art ever again.

The early diseases could be alittle more... noticable. It`s just a stats debuff for now. I think it`s fine that they no longer vomit from food poisoning given how easy they can get it and how much work fixing it would cause but they might bump up the bladder stats a bit so they have to visit the outhouse 3 times per cycle so it gets annoying. Slimelung slows dupes down only a bit for the coughing and catching breath. I think it`s mostly fine as it can spread to other dupes if not dealt with. An entire colony with slimelung should work considerably slower (maybe an athletics debuff?)

[Alfons100]

43 minutes ago, Lacost said:

I would rather say that the skill system morale gain is fine. Instead the morale you get from rooms is unbalanced. Especially the Great Hall bonus of +6 morale is completely overpowered. Mess tables + water cooler + 1 Briar plant = +6 morale. If you compare this to the barracks into bedrooms progression you go up from +1 morale to +2 morale but need plastic for the bedroom. There is simply no balance here.

 

Early game morale should look like this:

Barracks = +1 morale

Latrine = +1 morale / Washroom = +2 morale and requires at least one shower

Showered = +1 morale

Mess Hall = +1 morale / Great Hall = +2 morale

Recreational = +1 morale

 

This would give you +6 morale from rooms, +1 from showers, +1 from socializing and +1 from breaks in the first 20 or so cycles which is more than enough for a non interested Dupe to get to tier 3 in one profession. If you want to get more skills you either have to invest into decor, food or recreational buildings. With tier 5 food and high decor you can get additional +28 morale, +4 morale for recreational buildings and +4 morale for coffee, which is enough for highly skilled late game Dupes.

I think some room designs should be changed that like so that there isnt always a flat upgrade to a room, and instead depends on how much space you're willing to sacrifice:

Barracks is how it is, except it also accepts Plastic Beds, and instead do that Bedroom desires only one bed, any more than that results in a Barrack. It still needs a small bit of room. Latrine and Washroom is the same, a latrine accepts both Outhouses and Lavatories, but it becomes a nicer "Bathroom" if it only has one Lavatory or Outhouse in it.

This way you can cram some more Morale by sacrificing space

[Gurgel]

Setting up a Balm Lily farm early on is actually pretty easy. I have done it two times in two games now. Also you are complaining that game is to easy, why are you complaining something easy is too hard? I don't get it.

[chemie]

18 minutes ago, Gurgel said:

Setting up a Balm Lily farm early on is actually pretty easy. I have done it two times in two games now. Also you are complaining that game is to easy, why are you complaining something easy is too hard? I don't get it.

Balm lily farms are easy....if you have a caustic biome near.  My points were: Certain bases, like mine with 100% slime coverage, make that cure not worth the effort. A second, that newer players would certainly not set out on a balm lily farm as a top priority at 30 cycles.  So if they are trying to make this newb friendly, it is not.  So it bores experienced players and new players will still also ignore slimelung since the cure is not within reach.

For my game, I could just set up some buddy plants and then ignore slimelung.  No more infections without any boosters or cures.  This was with full naked slime biome digging.

[pacovf]

I wouldn’t mind a partial reintroduction of the tier system, where for example your highest tier determines your food quality, decor, and entertainment requirements. So, for example, a dupe with a tier 2 job would need tier 2 food, an average decor of 30 (or whatever) and 2 sources of entertainment, or suffer stress penalties.

I don’t think it’s going to happen though.

[Hellshound38]

I think they should increase the morale req increases per difficulty, then also add a late game way to modify dupes. Example - Make nuero vacilitator chargers infinite - and let nuero vacilators add interests as well. This would let for end game super dupe creation, while also making difficulty mean something for early/mid/late game. It would also add interesting ways to use your available vacilators early.

[Daxterr]

Just increase the morale penalties on all jobs if you ask me.

[Coolthulhu]

Food poisoning and decor were never an issue, nothing changed here.

Slumelung is now more of an issue than it ever was.

[Lilalaunekuh]

10 hours ago, blash365 said:

10 hours ago, chemie said:

On hardest setting that would have a very large impact on power and productivity.  The stress hit was pretty large.

Anyway, the current system serves lategame slightly better, because now it is not as easy to have "superdupes" as before.

Wait, I think you have an other interpretation of easy here:

If I want the new system allows me to never build a job board till I go for "super-duplicants" with every skill allocated.

=> I would call it "easy" in the way that it requires little to no effort instead of a long and tedious job rotation every now and then ...

 

 

But for me the new system is mostly lacking the "learning a job" part:

I liked the idea of my miner (or pick an other job) having to work a certain time in a specific job before he would be able to progress.

 

I think the biggest impact here is the artist:

When I am going for a quick start and research decor very early, I will most likely be able to instantly have a master artist.

=> If I can train a master artist early without a time investment or morale issue, it´s trivial to increase your average morale to a point where you can ignore it.

Spoiler

Not talking about real engame optimization here, but if I just place some master work artwork in my barracks I am able to at least have duplicants able to perform any "unique" ability. (Without stress gain or the need for high quality food.)

 

[blash365]

14 minutes ago, Lilalaunekuh said:

But for me the new system is mostly lacking the "learning a job" part:

I liked the idea of my miner (or pick an other job) having to work a certain time in a specific job before he would be able to progress.

We all liked that idea (the devs said it on their livestream as well). But the problem is that it never worked that way.

When i was training a miner, he would immediately gain the benefits of being a miner. No learning required. As soon as my courier perfected his courier job, he could immediately benefit from the exosuit trait even though he just had put his helmet on.

This is one of the reasons why it was changed to a skill system, because it actually was a skill system before. The representation just gave you the idea that it worked differently.

And even in the skill system you will have the "learning on the job" part, since you need to gather experience to aquire another profession. This part is almost exactly the same as in the old system. The only difference is that you receive experience over time instead of experience for certain tasks of your current "job" (assuming that's how it worked before).

The only part where it gets a bit weird is the respecing, because you can morph a master artist into a master cook or a master researched into a master miner. But respecing takes alot of time and given the (allegedly low) morale penalty it might not be used too often.

[Lilalaunekuh]

8 minutes ago, blash365 said:

When i was training a miner, he would immediately gain the benefits of being a miner. No learning required.

Yeah, if you just consider a single job it wasn´t better in any way.

I should have called it "learning a job tree" not a job. Sure the benefit when acquiring the hat feeled "wrong", but at least is prevent us from having a seasoned miner or master artist right away.

 

8 minutes ago, blash365 said:

And even in the skill system you will have the "learning on the job" part, since you need to gather experience to aquire another profession.

Yeah, but the new system got no "learning a job tree" part.

If we not talk about the very early game where you are limited by skill points, you will always go for a 2./3. tier job right away.

The learning part in the old system wasn´t perfect, but I couldn´t have a master artist right away.

=> They new system renders most intermediate jobs pointless besides an indirect increase in the morale requirement.

[Sasza22]

11 minutes ago, Lilalaunekuh said:

=> They new system renders most intermediate jobs pointless besides an indirect increase in the morale requirement.

I think they should tackle it by increasing the morale requirements for the highest tiers. This way you would have to think about morale before hitting those but the intermediate would be gated by skill points.

[BaloneyOs]

Guessing this is intended to be balanced with the full release contents. Chances are with just over a month till release they won't do crazy overhauls unless they get a large volume of complaints.

Having 3 extra biomes should also greatly reduce the chances of your base being surrounded by monotony.